Tiny Desk Crashers puts southern Illinois music on the map

For the past 12 years, Tiny Desk Contest has given indie artists a chance to vie for a chance to perform in NPR Music’s newsroom at the Tiny Desk — and go on a national tour. Thousands across the country eagerly set up their cameras or smartphones to capture a video that may change the trajectory of their artistic careers. The task of creating a live music video can be especially daunting for emerging musicians.

In Carbondale, lifelong friends Maxwell Senteney and Nathan Colombo combined their love of music and video production to demystify the entry process. They call their effort Tiny Desk Crashers.

“The ‘crashers’ concept is that we are here to show up in force with a critical mass of talent across a wide spectrum of genres and make a statement that southern Illinois has a level of talent that cannot, and should not, be ignored,” Colombo told St. Louis on the Air. “I know that we’re making an impact in terms of the quantity of submissions. You pair that in tandem with the quality, both of the performance and the production, and I think it’s something worth taking note of.”

Senteney said the southern Illinois music scene includes musicians in a broad range of genres who are connected through mutual support. He’s seen it firsthand in his work founding River to River Community Records — a project Senteney started in 2020 that has resulted in 10 vinyl records.

“It’s a community-funded and volunteer-operated record label, so all of our funding comes from donations, and nobody’s getting paid to do it,” he said. “It’s a thing that I want to do to lift up our vibrant and thriving music community … just doing everything I can to keep everybody connected and interacting with one another.”

Tiny Desk Crashers is now three years in. By the 2026 Tiny Desk Contest deadline, Colombo said they will have produced 116 videos. He said that his and Senteney’s skills and approach to Tiny Desk Crashers have evolved over time.

“[Tiny Desk Crashers] feels like a professional festival ran out of a 600-square-foot studio space. … It’s been phenomenal to see how it’s come together,” he said. “We focused on the things that we think are most important. Year one, we had a desk that had a lot of artifacts, and we encompassed that component of Tiny Desk, but our sound wasn’t right. This year, we made more room for acts to actually move about, and we refined the sound to have a much more Tiny Desk-esque sound to it.”

While the initial goal of Tiny Desk Crashers was to introduce fans of music and Tiny Desk Concerts to Illinois musicians, Senteney said that the inverse has been true, too.

“A lot of people are very excited to be able to submit something to NPR. I will say there are quite a few who didn’t have any idea about [Tiny Desk Contest] before we reached out, which I’m always kind of surprised [about], as an avid music listener and lover,” he said. “In a way, we’re helping spread the word about the Tiny Desk in general by doing this project.”

For more with Tiny Desk Crashers co-producers Maxwell Senteney and Nathan Colombo, including the unique blend of country and punk music born out of southern Illinois, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.

“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Layla Halilbasic is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.