Records & Real Estate Podcast
A Finance Guru’s Musical Affair Amidst Edgewater's Architectural Marvels
Come along on a captivating journey through the annals of the iconic Pink Building, the Edgewater Beach Apartments Corporation, as we sit down with John Plamondon, its treasurer, and a finance professor at DePaul. This episode unveils the charm, history, and recent renovations of this architectural marvel, once a grand hotel complex, and now a flourishing co-op community. Whether you're a real estate enthusiast or a history buff, you're bound to find something intriguing as we unfold the transformation of this unique property.
But it doesn't end there! Besides being a finance guru and a real estate connoisseur, John is also a passionate music lover, vinyl collector, and self-proclaimed audiophile. He takes us through his personal musical journey, from his stint as an original member of Fall Out Boy to his exploration of jazz music. With an impressive hi-fi setup at his disposal and a vast collection of vinyl records, John's enthusiasm for music is contagious. His insights into vinyl cleaning and proper care are a treasure trove for any vinyl enthusiast listening.
As we round off this fascinating episode, we also delve into the dynamics and delights of parenting. With a mix of real estate, music, and life's simple joys, this episode is your perfect companion for an engaging and enlightening time. So sit back, relax, and join us for this exciting episode of Records and Real Estate that's sure to keep you hooked till the end.
Have someone you think should be a guest on this podcast? Let us know! Email your suggestions over to: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com, andrew.wendt@berealtygroup.com
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: John Plamondon
Link: Edgewater Beach Apartments, What is a Co-op?
Link: DePaul University
Link: La Pharmacie Chicago
Link: Fall Out Boy
Link: The Benjamin Marshall Society
===================================
Production House: Flint Stone Media
Copyright of Be Realty Group 2023.
Come along on a captivating journey through the annals of the iconic Pink Building, the Edgewater Beach Apartments Corporation, as we sit down with John Plamondon, its treasurer, and a finance professor at DePaul. This episode unveils the charm, history, and recent renovations of this architectural marvel, once a grand hotel complex, and now a flourishing co-op community. Whether you're a real estate enthusiast or a history buff, you're bound to find something intriguing as we unfold the transformation of this unique property.
But it doesn't end there! Besides being a finance guru and a real estate connoisseur, John is also a passionate music lover, vinyl collector, and self-proclaimed audiophile. He takes us through his personal musical journey, from his stint as an original member of Fall Out Boy to his exploration of jazz music. With an impressive hi-fi setup at his disposal and a vast collection of vinyl records, John's enthusiasm for music is contagious. His insights into vinyl cleaning and proper care are a treasure trove for any vinyl enthusiast listening.
As we round off this fascinating episode, we also delve into the dynamics and delights of parenting. With a mix of real estate, music, and life's simple joys, this episode is your perfect companion for an engaging and enlightening time. So sit back, relax, and join us for this exciting episode of Records and Real Estate that's sure to keep you hooked till the end.
Have someone you think should be a guest on this podcast? Let us know! Email your suggestions over to: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com, andrew.wendt@berealtygroup.com
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: John Plamondon
Link: Edgewater Beach Apartments, What is a Co-op?
Link: DePaul University
Link: La Pharmacie Chicago
Link: Fall Out Boy
Link: The Benjamin Marshall Society
===================================
Production House: Flint Stone Media
Copyright of Be Realty Group 2023.
Welcome to Records in Real Estate, a podcast about well records in real estate. You'll be entertained and informed as we explore the intersection of these two worlds through interviews with Chicago's most interesting and successful people from both industries.
Speaker 2:That was Andrew Wendt and I'm Karen Sanvoss. We are Chicago Real Estate Brokers, property Managers, avid Music Lovers and your hosts of Records in Real Estate. Andrew, karen, guess what, what? We have a guest.
Speaker 1:We do. Yeah, wow, is that why we're here?
Speaker 2:That is why we're here.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is.
Speaker 2:John Plemandin, plemandin, plemandin, yeah, yes. He is just a serendipitous guest. Yes, that I met in a bar down the street from my house.
Speaker 1:A virtual stranger.
Speaker 2:A virtual stranger, but not anymore.
Speaker 1:Not anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he is a finance guy. He teaches at DePaul. He teaches finance at DePaul. That's his whole world. He is also the treasurer of a huge co-op building down the street from me, the pink building. The pink building In Edgewater on North Sheridan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, edgewater Beach.
Speaker 2:It used to be like a big hotel.
Speaker 1:It was the apartment building for a big hotel complex.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's now a co-op and it's just this like cool world that I knew nothing about and it was right down the street from me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he was gracious enough to get to talking to you. How did you stumble into Lafarmacy?
Speaker 2:I literally was walking down the beach, took a walk one night and I had an intention. So maybe this is the universe. I said I want a glass of wine and I want to meet somebody. Wow, and so I went to this little place that I'd seen a million times, lafarmacy, which is the bar on the lower level of this beautiful pink building, and sat next to. I sat in between him and another group who I tried to hit up on conversation, and they just weren't realizing that I was as fabulous as I am, that's right.
Speaker 2:So I was like all right, we'll screw you guys.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I will turn to my right to see what this gentleman is about. There's this guy, and he was Joan Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, we had a lovely conversation. He is passionate about his building, is passionate about the co-op structure, the benefits of it, and he's definitely passionate about music and vinyl and jazz and I think you guys are really going to like it. An audio file he definitely is an audio file.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, we learned a lot, so let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:John, welcome to Records in Real Estate. It's really great to have you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Today. This is kind of a first. We're going to have you introduce yourself, even though we're going to do a little intro before this, but go for it.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm John Flamondin. I'm an investment manager and analyst by day and I collect records by night. I'm also a finance professor at DePaul adjunct faculty, at the university, and I'm on the treasure of the Edgewater Beach Apartments Corporation, nice, also known as the Pink Building.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's how people will know it around Chicago, I think.
Speaker 2:And the Pink Building is in Edgewater. That's on the very northeast side of Chicago, right south of Rogers Park.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And yeah, the Pink Building. Tell us the history about this Pink Building. It's quite famous.
Speaker 3:The Pink Building used to be part of a hotel that encompassed much of the high rises there to the south and unfortunately, I can't remember the Cross Street. I should remember the Cross Street, but I can't remember the Cross Street.
Speaker 2:Bryn.
Speaker 3:Mawr. No, bryn Mawr is where we're at. Oh, okay, I can't remember how far they how far, maybe Burwin.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, got it yeah.
Speaker 3:So just north of Foster there's this very large luxury hotel complex. It was built as an apartment building, a high end apartment building that would have sort of all the amenities of the hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some good pictures in the lobby of Rolls Royces and famous people rolling up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they've got some. I don't know if those were staged or Do you know when it was built? It was built in 1929. And I think the other parts, I think the original building for the hotel was like 1914. And it's a Benjamin Marshall building, which he did the Drake and the Blackstone Hotel.
Speaker 2:And there's some other building that people think is your building. That was also a pink building.
Speaker 3:Well, the hotel they think you'll have people who are like, oh, I have my prom or my dorm was in here, because Loyola actually was renting the hotel for several, I think for a year or two in the 60s, before it was torn down and it was dorms. But there's a lot of people like my parents' age and probably younger who had their proms in the hotel and they sort of remember things about the hotel when they think it's our building, although I think the hotel was actually yellow.
Speaker 1:Interesting yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think it was pink, but it could be, it could be. Might have been pink later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it was just very distinctive.
Speaker 1:So a lot of those buildings that were built as the hotel complex are they still? There or are they torn down yeah they've been torn down.
Speaker 3:It starts at the breakers and then there's the I call it the Black building. I believe it's the tallest high-rise building outside of downtown Chicago and Illinois. Interesting.
Speaker 2:The one with the rounded.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's rounded-sized, and then there's two white buildings. So all that was the hotel. The hotel, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think what you know is that Lake Shore Drive well, it used to be your building was right on the beach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there the water come slap up against the building Cool.
Speaker 2:And so they filled it all in and made Lake Shore Drive.
Speaker 3:And they did that in like the late 40s, okay, and what happened was the hotel was seeing a drop in movement or they weren't the hot place to be anymore, right? I think it coincides also with air travel People start flying to destinations instead of kind of coming to this thing in Chicago, right?
Speaker 1:Well, and then I mean, at some point Chicagoans were probably just traveling north up from the city and staying there, and it would be a fancy destination that they would go weekend there. And easier to get to there from then Lake Geneva or something like that.
Speaker 3:But if you fly, yeah, yeah, I think it was probably the combination of the two, right, but what happened was the hotel was having some financial difficulty. They decided to sell off the apartments, the apartment building, and a group of 10 individuals, one of whom was George Alice, who was the founder of the Bears, papa Bear, got together and put in some money and bought it at auction, for I believe it was about $13 million, and was that a large sum of money, like Back then? I think it would have been in 1950.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems like we can look that up and find out. But then they turned around and sold the units off to the people who were living there, to the residents, so, and that's how it became a co-op. So our building's a little bit unique in its governance, and then the governance structure was actually set up by the people who lived in the building. Yeah, so I mean, I'm sure when you're dealing with condo buildings and things like that, most of the time the bylaws aren't written by Right, they're written by lawyers yeah.
Speaker 3:Usually, usually with the developer, with the developer. The developer kind of writes these things Right. With this. There was a lot of thought put into it, so there's a bit different. The governance structure is a bit different and, as someone who had owned a condo before, I was looking for something different. I was looking for a more community focused kind of more interactive. So the condo building I was in before was like 70 units I think. I think the board was like three people, our board is 15. Yeah, and you do a three-year term and we basically roll over five every year. Okay, and then there's a term limit. You have to take a year off the board before you can run again. That's great.
Speaker 2:And what limit are. What year are you in?
Speaker 3:I am in my second year.
Speaker 2:As treasurer.
Speaker 3:No, my second year as director. First year as treasurer Okay, and then next year I'll most likely be treasurer again, okay, and be on board, and I'll be off Nice For a year and if I want to run again, I will.
Speaker 2:Will you Do? You think yeah, I think so yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would do it again, but we'll see where I'm at.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's two years down the road, I think that says a lot because you know most condo boards people do it off, they feel like out of necessity and it's a terrible experience, but it sounds to me like you know your building is.
Speaker 3:It's, a little it's, and I think it's because of the governance structure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Can you explain it? Well, it's larger, 15.
Speaker 3:You've got 15 people on the board, so you've got more people to do things.
Speaker 3:And everybody kind of does their thing Right, right. I mean like it's kind of you figure out where you add value, yeah, like you kind of do that, that's cool Right. And I do feel you know, and things are, things are kept pretty civil. I mean we're also fortunate that at least in my tenure on the board we've had some really really good people who are retired who have come from you know some some pretty, you know come from some pretty. You know good places, yeah, high positions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:High positions and stuff, and they want to stay engaged, they want to do something, but yeah, they don't want to do a full-time job anymore. Right, you know, and we've been fortunate. Yeah, I've been, I've been impressed, I've learned a lot from the experience, for sure, nice.
Speaker 2:What were some of the main things that you've learned? Oh, that surprised you.
Speaker 3:I would say probably just dealing with people. You know, I can get wrapped up. I mean, this is me personally, right. I can kind of get wrapped up in my little, my little world. But I'm also, you know, I'm watching some of these people just how. You know how to, how to, how to be a leader, yeah, and kind of, you know, we've got our board meeting, we have our rules Right, and then you know, how do you, how do you kind of manage?
Speaker 3:You know, people are asking things and things like that and it's a. You know how do you diffuse situations sometimes?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, that's so cool, I mean good, oh, no, good, nope, I don't have anything really so.
Speaker 2:Well, so I live down the street in another sort of high rise apartment on Sheridan or condo and it is it's just a regular HOA. It's not a co-op and you know there's a lot of it's. It's the idea that you know I own my piece of property and I want this and I want that. Whereas a co-op, I would assume that people who are coming into a co-op, first of all they have to be vetted in a different way. Anyone can come into our. If they can buy a property, you know, if they can afford it, they can live in our building Yours. You go through a different process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the board has. In general, the board has more power. I would say. You know we do have an interview process for new shareholders, but really I mean, if you're getting an in-person interview, it's because you pass the criminal background check and you pass the financial requirements, right, because that's really the only reason why we reject anybody. The interview is more to communicate that you are a member of a community, right, and you know we're expected to treat each other civilly and and kind of welcoming you into you know, encouraging you to get involved in the board, either on a committee or on a, you know, in some other way, sort of informing you of some things.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and you find that people are seeking this building out because of that kind of community.
Speaker 3:You don't, incidentally, choose to live here yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Your realtor's not going to. My well, my, I have a condo, and then I have this co-op.
Speaker 3:My, my realtor is no you know my realtor was trying, was talking me out of it like crazy. Yeah, it was like where are you going? And to give you an idea, I put my offer in on April. I think it was April 5th. Okay, when do you think I closed?
Speaker 3:I can't tell if you're leading up to the fact that it took a really long time or they were like September 5th, august 15th, okay, okay, yeah, which my realtor was like that's yeah, he's like I've never had anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah. There's a lot of listings out there that have like even old kind of buildings. I bet your building has like 30 days of you know for board approval, but it never works out that way. In fact, I don't even think you really need to get board approval to purchase in your building.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. It's more you know for me, it's the paperwork. It's trying to get you know. I think this goes for all condos that I've worked with, which haven't been many, but you know it takes a while to just get to the manager and get the paperwork that you need to close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, especially if you have a bad management company.
Speaker 2:Right Takes forever.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have a management?
Speaker 3:company. Oh yeah, we've got an onsite, we have onsite management, but it's not a third party like no, it's Soutler's. Yeah, Soutler's our management company. They've done a good job.
Speaker 2:Their building is immaculate. So the night that John and I met, and in the bar at the bottom of this building is a wonderful little bar called La Pharmacie it's French. It's spelled La Pharmacie with an. Ie. But yeah, and it looks like an old school pharmacy. Yeah, I guess it's just like a conservative.
Speaker 3:It was an old school pharmacy. Yeah, it hasn't been changed.
Speaker 2:You should stop by just to see it.
Speaker 3:It's really really cool.
Speaker 2:And then so we you know, john took me on a little tour and this building is immaculate, it's so well done, and they just redid the pool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we just redid our swimming pool. Okay, you know, brought it, restored it, brought it back. There had been a little bit of what I would call a remodel in the 80s.
Speaker 2:Remodel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a patch job that kept it going, but it had reached its end. Yeah, and then it was time to bring it back to its former glory. It's an outdoor pool.
Speaker 1:No, it's indoor Indoor okay, which is much nicer like indoor pools because you can use them year round.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's. You know it's small but it's so cool, because you were saying that John was saying that it was going to take more money to upgrade it to some sort of fancy new, modern way, as opposed to just restore what was there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, because it's historical, so we're able to keep it. We had a choice we could either update, modernize right, or we could, you know, restore the restoration under and keep things the same. It was actually cheaper to restore it. Nice, yeah, so much cheaper In terms of, like the Because we'd have to bring up the standards Right, got you Modern day standards. It's not like it's not. I wouldn't say it's unsafe or clean or anything, but it's just. Yeah, the water flows differently. We'd have to like they're the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:They, the team that worked on that, did a wonderful job of you know, and we're fortunate. Again, you are building. I have people ask me is it a you know? Is this a retirement community? You have to be like no, it's not. But again, I think there were some things that I think tended to inadvertently skew it the age a bit higher, up until about 2000. You weren't allowed to have a mortgage, oh, so you had to show up and pay cash. Wow, so that automatically makes it Not a lot of 20 year olds but you could also.
Speaker 3:but you know like my unit sold 1994, 1200 square feet, two bed, two bedroom, one bath, for you know, with a great view of the park, you know of the space and stuff like that. You know it's like. I think it's over like $35,000.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:It was cash only.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cash only yeah. So, and what's interesting too is and I've learned this since meeting John is that the HOA dues are all inclusive.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Taxes and insurance and everything.
Speaker 3:That's one of the unique things about a club is, a corporation owns a building and you're given a proprietary lease Right, okay. But then you're a shareholder in the corporation, right, okay, right. So you're still kind of technically a renter, yeah, but we have one pin for the whole building, yeah. We paid one tax bill.
Speaker 1:Or tax bills higher or lower, but like, as compared to a condo, or is this the city? I don't, I don't have a. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not going to comment on that because I'm not sure, I don't know. Yeah, but it's just different. I mean, I think people look at the HOA and freak out, right, but then you know when you, when you're, when you figure your property taxes Right. It's sort of different Totally. Yeah, I think most people are paying $500 a month in property taxes around us for their you know equivalently sized units.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, you have to subtract because you're not paying that through your mortgage. Right, right, yeah, it's. All of our utilities are on their internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They're on their internet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's a little bit more electrical, okay, but it's, it's not. It's less than what you would pay in a, because there's no, it's like one connection charge. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, so we're not paying the fixed charges. Right Like we're just metering you for the electricity use Right. The building pays all, though.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the fixed charges to the comment.
Speaker 1:Have you guys retrofitted the systems Like? I mean, you know when's the last time you revamped the windows or the AC Okay.
Speaker 3:So this is another thing, you know, when you're looking at an old building, yeah, and you're like, oh, what's the conversation to have? Yeah, and her, you know, I think when we were having our conversation, you're like oh, what are the reserves? Like yeah, obviously the person asked about that Sure.
Speaker 3:But. But what I said was like okay, but you have to look at, you can't just look at the number. Yeah Right, and I use this example quite a bit Do you want to live in the building that has $10 million in reserves but $50 million worth of projects? Or the building that's got a million dollars in reserves and $500,000 in products. Right, I mean they hate the other one that then then $5 million.
Speaker 2:The other one has better reserves?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but you know they started about in the late nineties. I mean, I just I wasn't there then, obviously, but I just know they've started on what I view as being a 20, 25 year sort of restoration project. You know product, so they redid all the windows. Back then they redid the facade yeah, Completely redid the facade and they've been steadily going through and updating all the things.
Speaker 3:Our building, you know, it's one of these things where you go and you look at the some of these buildings like, oh yeah, well, they want to redo the lobby, but you know the pipe systems, you know the riser system 70 years old, nobody said, but they're tired, they want to. You know, focus on redoing the lab, Right, We've got the opposite problem. Yeah, yeah, but that's the thing, is that you have to look at those sorts of things, right. It is that there is a, you know, like when I moved in, I moved in in the middle of a riser, an 18 month riser project they literally tore out all the pipes in the building and placed them. So we've got all new pipes. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:And that's, and that's one of those things that you know do you know how I mean that was paid for?
Speaker 3:or yeah. Well, here's another unique thing about a co-op. Yeah, that's why I'm asking. It's a corporation that owns a building that then leases it out to the shareholders. Right, we can pledge the building is collateral on both Right, right and the reason. I'll share something about me. The reason why I moved out of my condo in the early 2000s was because I got hit with a $25,000 special Sure, mm-hmm, you know, on a masonry issue. The building, it was an older building but it had been redone seven years prior.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:We were like just past the you know stage to go back after the developer Gotcha, and I was thinking about moving. That pushed me over. Yeah, you know, if you think about it, you know somebody gets hit with a $25,000, $50,000 special assessment. Yeah, they pay for it, but then whoever they sell to benefits from the, yeah, whereas if you borrow for a project, you like this, right. Yeah, really, if I move, well, I just stop paying that loan, right, you know, whoever takes over the unit, the loan stays with the unit. I see for the infrastructure, right? So you know, and, and our, our mortgage is 30 years on it. We did it at the right time, got a very good rate. Yeah, I mean, we, you know what the way interest rates are going. We're definitely looking like geniuses. So you know, I mean, you sit there and you look at these things, but it's like, you know, we've got a new pipe system and it's phenomenal. Yeah, that's amazing, yeah cuz we're.
Speaker 2:We're dealing with that right now where, you know, big special assessment just happened because we have to redo the roof which is under construction right now. But you know, I think we're gonna lose some people because they, you know, we don't have, we didn't have the reserves built up for it. So it's all a special yeah, see, we don't we?
Speaker 3:we have cash flow and we have. We have good reserve cash flow. You know we've got a decent amount of reserves and you know that we save, but it's also like we're investing in the building as we go. Yeah, you see. So it's like you might just look at that number and go, oh man, that's nothing, but it's again. It's my example of the five million dollar building.
Speaker 1:You know, million dollar building, yeah, or the ten million, yeah and I mean, the big difference is, you know you have more readily Accessible cash via loan. Yeah, condo building that is doesn't have good finances. I mean, it's one thing. If the condo building does have five million reserves, they can say we have five million reserves, we would just prefer to take out a loan for whatever reason you know, and there are some condo buildings that do that. But without that reserve, then what are they gonna collateralize? Right, you know?
Speaker 3:yeah, so you have to do you know, so we haven't had I Can't speak to my knowledge we really haven't had a special like we don't have them. Yeah yeah, I mean because we're able to borrow Right, right who determines the projects? In the. You know Well, we have a, we have a finance committee and we have a infrastructure committee, and infrastructure committee Identifies projects that need to be done.
Speaker 2:They work with. You know, structural engineers we hire you know, we hire engineers.
Speaker 3:We just had a Big I mean I guess you call it a reserve study, but it was really more of a like we actually have engineering firms of record that we work with who come out, they understand the building, like, okay, what you know, what's all the stuff that needs to be done over the next five years, the next ten years? Because what's really neat about that building is that we're getting to a place where I Mean this is, you know my thinking on it where we're doing we're no longer doing restoration projects, we're doing maintenance projects.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what I mean, mm-hmm. Yeah, so you know, and that's because we did all the restoration over the last 20 years. Yeah some of the stuff that we did 20, 25 years ago now needs a maintenance, like it needs it.
Speaker 2:You know the facade needs a 25 year.
Speaker 3:You know we get drops out there to like plug holes and stuff and the problem is is that that may look expensive yeah right, kind of on the front end of it, but it's a lot cheaper than right what it could be ten years from now. Right, if you don't deal with it.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:So so you know. But then again, if you look at our reserves, yeah, it's like, but you know, we're also investing, actively investing in the building. I've been, I've been adamant that I mean this is, you know, my opinion, that and this is what I know from you know, what I teach and serve my financial background is that you know it's Everybody feels good when there's money in the bank. Mm-hmm but cash just sitting there is wasteful right.
Speaker 3:It needs to be put. I mean, this is, you know, our shareholders cash that they're putting into the building, mm-hmm. It needs to be put into projects, mm-hmm. You see, and, and I think when you're looking at an older building like mine that's well run, you know like you need to look at what's coming in and then also see if it's going out to fund things. Yeah, cuz again, it doesn't make sense to have five million dollars in the bank. Yeah, if you've got 50 million dollars worth projects that you need right and you're not doing. Yeah, so you know versus. You know someplace like ours that is doing projects, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what's the unit or the bedroom? Count makeup, I mean we're.
Speaker 3:I think we're at like 309 units. Okay, I believe they estimate there's about 600 people in the building.
Speaker 1:Okay, like one bedrooms, two bedrooms, three bedrooms, yeah three bedrooms We've got some.
Speaker 3:We've got a couple duplexes We've got some. The we've got units have been combined. Yeah, yeah, I mean there's people there's generations of families that have lived in that building. Yeah, I mean literally. I mean I have friends of mine who whose grandparents bought that unit was like their, their dream retirement home, in like 1980. Yeah, and they bought their unit and then they you know my friend and his wife have moved in. They plan to raise their family there. I mean grandparents passed away several years ago.
Speaker 2:So they just moved in and took over the unit and that's a lot.
Speaker 1:A lot of personality, a lot of different.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's a lot of characters in there, a lot of characters.
Speaker 1:Made the units how they want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, I mean mine looks mine. Mine had a some kind of like rehab gut thing happened in like the 60s, so it's almost like mid-century modern. That's cool. I got all this like wood paneling and stuff like that and what are you allowed to do?
Speaker 2:because you know you're technically, you own shares in this company and so what are you allowed to do in your unit?
Speaker 3:You can I mean you can do a lot of things. You do have to go through the management office. I mean we've got like a I know we're on a podcast, I can show my but you know an inch thick right sort of Set of rules. You know construction guidelines and things like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, but they also want the man. They want. Oh yeah, painting is fine, okay, painting is carpeted, but anything Carpeting that kind of stuff structural, if you're knocking down wall, especially if you're doing stuff with pipes.
Speaker 3:That's like you need to have. I mean, we have an engineering staff of like five or six people who are, you know, in there Working and know the building inside it out. You know, and you know you need to keep them in the loop as far as what's going on. Yeah yeah, if you're trying to move pipes around and do things like that, yeah it makes sense. Yeah, so, but the building is crazy overbuilt. I could tell you that like in a good way.
Speaker 2:You're like, yeah, I mean, nobody would make a building like this right, right, it's like, it's like.
Speaker 3:You know there's concrete, everything is concrete, right. Yeah right, yeah, everything is like you can't hear I love, that yeah, can't hear anybody or anything. I mean, I Sometimes, if my wonderful neighbor upstairs is wearing heels, right, I'll hear it back quick, right, but other but it's not like she wears heels right. Yeah, yeah, I'll hear. I'll hear like hard shoes, but other than that. Yeah you know here that's awesome. It's dead. I mean, the place is crazy over, but we have 11 elevators, wow. Yeah which and we're 20s, you know 1920s story building.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean like 11 elevators. It's crazy, are the?
Speaker 1:elevators. Are they like retro or they, so we have what I call the back eight.
Speaker 3:Okay, because the there used to be a restaurant. It's actually where our gym is, is where the kitchen was. There used to be a restaurant on that terrace on our pool terrace. There was a restaurant there, and when our gym is is where the the like restaurant or the kitchen was. Okay, they have elevators because you used to be able to order food, oh, and they would like bring it up to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, cool, yeah, from from dining it was like, for the entire building, yeah, yeah doing you know all this stuff.
Speaker 3:So we've got, like this, back eight elevators which are like staff elevators. Interesting that basically every two units has access to one staff elevator.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow.
Speaker 3:And then we have what I call the front three, yeah, which are like the three, like elevators. If your guests are coming, like those are in the front. You know right. Yeah and with the back eight elevators, I were redone like 10 15 years ago. Okay, the front three elevators were redoing the mechanics right now. I think the cars were redone about 10 years ago, but the mechanics up on the road for being redone this year, yes, yeah, so it's a you're not gonna be stranded waiting for another.
Speaker 3:That. It's weird. I have I've had people come and say that's the other thing. We have guest rooms. Oh, yeah, so if you want your family to come and stay with you, you can go put them. So my mother comes and stays for a couple weeks month and you put her in a separate room.
Speaker 2:She has her own little. It's almost like a little hotel room.
Speaker 3:Yeah we've got ten of these and wow, yeah, you can put people up there and as a part of your assessments, or does it you have? Well, no, they charge, they charge us for yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the price range in the building, relatively speaking?
Speaker 3:Honestly well, things of here's. The thing is that when I was looking five years ago, there was routinely about ten units available at any time. Okay, and you know the units were going in the. The George Hallis unit was up for sale and that's actually three units from up, from my understanding, three units combined.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Because he lived, there, you said yeah, he lay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know if he died in there, but he was living he lived that. He lived in that. He lived in the building from the 40s, I think, up until wow 1982 yeah yeah, well, and you know, when he passed away and um, but they had a his unit. I believe it come up for sale and I I Actually think the family still owned it. Okay, I think they just finally decided to sell it. I'm not sure, I don't. I don't think anybody, I think I don't think anybody else owned it.
Speaker 1:Well, they needed to raise money to buy the Ireland's and racetrack.
Speaker 3:There's this time to deal with, but I'm not 100% sure about that, but I think that's. I think there are units that sit there for like 10. I looked at units when I was looking in there and it was like somebody would leave. Yeah, and they just pay the assessment Right, and you know they're in, you know system living or something like that. They just don't get. They don't get around to selling the unit.
Speaker 3:Yeah and then all of a sudden family comes in or they pass away or something, right, so you can find some good deals. Yeah, yeah, I mean mine was in a state, yeah, that I bought from that. Yeah, I, I would say they that prices. Now probably I couldn't see stuff getting below a hundred thousand, you know, I just don't. I think prior to that there was some stuff I was like it would come up that you would have to get rehab though. Right, yeah, I mean it's sitting there for 20 years. Yeah, yeah, so you know you got that level. But then all all the way up, yeah, I think the Hollis unit went for about 800,000. Okay, so nice, yeah, somewhere in there, not 100%, I mean you guys were probably looking up, yeah, but but I don't, I don't think anything's gone. I don't think anything's sold in there for over a million. Okay, I just don't, I don't think that's happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm also not necessarily seeing you're not looking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know you. Usually we kind of break out and do a segment about the neighborhood you know that we're speaking with our guests about, but we might as well just jump into it. You know your guys's opinion on Edgewater. Oh yeah, I do well.
Speaker 2:I'm much more new to Edgewater than you are. You've been here for how long? Since 2018?
Speaker 3:2018. Okay and I moved in Halloween weekend.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, nice. And what's your feelings in general about Edgewater?
Speaker 3:Oh, I, I think it's the right. It's the right place for me. I have been in Lincoln Square, yeah, and I moved into Lincoln Square in 02 after college and you know Lincoln, lincoln Square is a wonderful area, but kind of what happened for me anyway, it was like I don't, you know, I'm not a stroller roller, mm-hmm right, lincoln Square went from being like 20% stroller rollers, which is completely fine. I'm being like 80% stroller.
Speaker 2:I would go into neighborhoods like this and say oops, I forgot my baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's mostly houses, not a lot apartments over in Lincoln Square. But I was kind of in there towards the end like the kind of the European, the Eastern European, not a lot of Germans, but some Germans were still there, yeah, but they were getting older. Yeah, those, those two flats, that those you know that's what you do when you move here from Former Yugoslavia or sure, yeah, from you know, eastern Europe. In the 80s would you bought property? Yeah, yeah, those were. You know there are those people were selling them off and you know they're that family wealth was moving on. Yes, but you know those are now, you know, turned into a single family homes and so it's just, it just kind of change that I saw happen. That's fine, you know neighborhoods change, right, yeah, it's, it's good for if I just ain't feel like a lot, my friends were moving. Yeah, I had a lot of neighborhood friends and stuff and they were kind of moving away.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I wanted to own. Yeah, yeah, through through a family situation, I was subletting an apartment for About six months and I was on a on the fence about I had, I had, like my core apartment but my brother was living in it and I had moved out and it taken, sublet from a friend, okay, and I was like, gosh, I renew this. I really don't like it. But it was like a block away yeah, hang out with my brother. Worked out, yeah, it was working out. But then all of a sudden, the management company changed. I'm like, oh, what's going on? What happened to you know, tony, my landlord. What happened? Well, then I got 30 day notice. I was like, yeah, so, yeah, I had only been there six months, I hadn't nested yet. Yeah, that's the thing when you're renting yeah, you nest, right, you can start to nest. I didn't think I was gonna be in that apartment right in Lincoln Square, for I Think it was there 19 years, okay.
Speaker 3:Oh well, no, not that long. Yeah, I had a lease on there up until 2019. Wow, from 2002, so 17 year. I had thought I'd be there for a year or two.
Speaker 2:Yeah wow, and what made you choose Edgewater then it?
Speaker 3:just seemed, it seemed to be I want. I had never lived on the lake before. I think I want to be like close to that. You know, it Reminded me. Our retail strip, reminded me of what Lincoln Square was when I moved in and no to right seemed kind of the right mix of people. I like being a pee in a pod in a in a neighborhood you know what I mean like you know where there's just lots of different people. Yeah, you know lots of characters and yeah, things like that and that's. You know I was like, yeah, this is, this is what I'm looking at. And a friend of mine had bought I can do a co-op. Okay, yeah, and you know she was telling me about the process and all that and kind of we were talking about it. I like, oh, that sounds kind of interesting. Well, maybe I should look at co-ops, because I had somewhat bad experience my condo and you know just the whole going through it and you know it's more more of a community. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I knew I wanted to be over here, I wanted to be in a more full service building, mm-hmm. And and then I found out you know it was a co-op, yeah nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1:What do you like about edgewater?
Speaker 2:I like edgewater. It is, I mean, my building is right on the beach, literally. I walk out my back door and I'm in the sand which is amazing and you know there's good restaurants around.
Speaker 2:There's, you know, walking distance to a ton of like Asian places which I'm a big fan of. There's a ton of Ethiopian restaurants. So if you like ethnic food, I think you know there's so much around and I don't know, it does seem to have that community vibe, yeah, like people kind of look out for each other and I don't know. I just it's it's near like equidistance between Two L stops so I can walk for you know eight minutes and be on the L, get downtown. I can literally hop on the bus right outside of my building and I'm in downtown.
Speaker 2:There's an express bus 147, the 147 or the 151, with the 147's better, but you know it's so, it's. It's accessible. But yet you're out enough that you're away from the fray. And I'm older, I don't need to go bar hopping right, yeah, there's some great community pubs and stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, let's take a break here and then, when we get back with John, we'll talk about some vinyl music.
Speaker 2:Yeah yes, andrew.
Speaker 1:Should we talk about our?
Speaker 2:record of the week. Do you have one?
Speaker 1:I do great. We've mentioned this before but I'm gonna mention it again. I really enjoy, you know, expanding my musical horizons, mostly by sort of listening to what our guests suggests and then going down rabbit holes. And there's a band that started, I think, in 1980. They came out with their first record. It's a band whose name I certainly have heard many times before. It's kind of a band that, like I think you know, when I was growing up, my friends or my contemporaries, like if they had older siblings, they would talk about this band. It's the psychedelic furs Love them and I think I have heard their stuff. You know there's a couple of tracks that I listened to this weekend that you know probably were released as pop music and played on the radio a lot, Maybe some of their older, you know, starting with what is mirrors, what is it? Mirror moves, Mirror moves. Some of those, at least one of those songs I had heard, Ghost in you, Ghost in you.
Speaker 2:Love my way.
Speaker 1:Anyway, my point is is that I never really gravitated towards them because it, you know, up until recently just was not interested in punk or any of its derivatives. And I played their first album and I was just blown away. They have a horn. The singer is just very is a very unique sound.
Speaker 1:It's very driving, it's kind of industrial and man oh man. It just blew me away and I think this often happens with bands as they get some notoriety and, you know, move on through their careers. The subsequent albums were not as raw and so, you know, probably they're more commercially viable. But I liked the first album quite a bit and to plan on making it part of my regular rotation and it's self-titled, I think.
Speaker 2:It is. I love that. I was very excited to hear you say psychedelic furs because I grew up, you know, my formative years were the 80s, when John Hughes was making all his movies, which you know some of them don't hold up so well with the Me Too movement now, but they did the soundtrack or they did the theme song to get pretty in pink. So that's what some a lot of people know them by. But yeah, one of my favorite singers. He's got that raspy, sexy voice.
Speaker 1:Do you know the name of the singer? I can't remember.
Speaker 2:You know I should, but I don't All right, fuck it, we'll just keep going.
Speaker 1:What is your-?
Speaker 2:But I did see them live not too long ago and they held up really well oh wow, nice, I saw that they were still together and touring. Yeah, it was the fix. And psychedelic furs. I'm gonna have to check out the fix oh yeah, look at, yeah, check out the fix, the fix. One thing leads to another.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, sure that one saved by zero.
Speaker 2:Just anyway, it's right up the alley of the psychedelic furs. So we should, yeah, check it out, check it out.
Speaker 1:Well, it's your record of the week.
Speaker 2:I don't have one, okay, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:We're back with John.
Speaker 2:Hello John.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 3:Round two Hello round two Speed round Speed.
Speaker 1:The music round. The music round. This is the music round.
Speaker 3:This is where it gets. This is, this is where it gets deep. There we go.
Speaker 1:This is where the podcast really starts. So this is records. We talked about real estate already on records in real estate, and part of the reason why you're here is because you know when you guys met, you guys talked music and it turns out you have a huge vinyl collection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wouldn't say it's huge, because I met people at much larger. Well, you know.
Speaker 1:But it's still impressive. It's a big part of your life?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think so. So I was a musician and came here from Omaha in the late nineties to go to college and was playing in bands, did some light touring and had some other things and never made a living playing music. I made money playing music, yeah, good.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense so?
Speaker 3:it wasn't. I was in some things that kind of, and in with some people who went on to go do some fairly large things.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on, Come on name some names. No, no, I mean, come on, you don't have to if I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 3:I was an original member of Fall Out Boy. Okay, wow, I played their first show with them. Wow.
Speaker 2:Hey, all right there you go.
Speaker 3:That's big Down at the Quarterloo Commons and the big church looking building in the Falls Campus.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, cool. And you were playing guitar. That's amazing, all right. And then you also did some composition in school as far as music, yeah, I was you know kind of what was different about me.
Speaker 3:I think why Pete? You know I met Pete in Evanston, pete Wentz in Evanston in the summer of 97. Okay, and you know I was in.
Speaker 2:Ah, the summer of 97. Oh, yes, I was doing.
Speaker 3:I was at Northwestern doing the music program thing, right. And then I moved here the next year and I started a band and we ended up like it was really kind of an instrumental band. We didn't have a singer, we had a couple of people kind of come through and they weren't working out, sure. And then there was this band called Baxter that had broken up. That I had seen before. The singer was very good, his name was Tim and you know we sent him a tape and he was interested. So he came over and you know, and literally we gave him the mic and he just like nailed it. We went on for probably about five or six months and I wasn't exactly getting along. It was again. Being in bands taught me how to be a professional, quite frankly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you have to deal with other people. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:And I was the creative one and you know I could write. I had some music theory so I could like write, you know, sort of bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar kind of thing. You know I could kind of do these like funky things. The music was interesting, you know. It was like people like could kind of. It was like kind of hip at the time, yeah. But I remember Tim came comes over, he was talking to me one day when we were driving to practice. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna go try out for this band. You know, 88 Fingers Louis is looking for a new singer and they were a larger band, like they had toured and stuff and had some records out and stuff and we were talking about some more. He's like, yeah, I mean, they want to do something with me, but I don't want to do 88 Fingers Louis. And that became Rise Against, which is you know so.
Speaker 3:And then so we broke up. He left to go do that which he should have. Yeah, that was, yeah. I think he would have kept doing our thing if we had all been getting along, but I was like that was kind of a dictator, yeah.
Speaker 2:You were kind of a dictator.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, which I'm not anymore.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's kind of what I you know you have to.
Speaker 2:You grow up, you have to culture.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was like 19.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like you know, and I was smarter than everybody.
Speaker 2:Especially like the songwriter you were.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, yeah, well, and I was just really writing parts, Like I knew harmonies and stuff like that. I wouldn't say I was writing songs, I was like writing parts, kind of putting things to you, but this was what was hot. Like the bands that were hot at that time were, like you know, converge, coles, like this, like this metal core stuff was like super hot at the time, but it was like very nice and like botch. Botch was huge, yeah, and I don't know if you guys know this band. No, but keep going.
Speaker 1:But I mean honestly, like I mean, I just adore this role that we're in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we learn so much yeah absolutely but you know, I had classical training you
Speaker 3:know, and I had some, you know I could sort of put things together. My mother I meant my mother was a church organist. I grew up with a oh lovely, With what I thought was a Hammond B3. But then later on I learned was a C2. With a Leslie in the house. So I started playing when I was five, you know. So I could, I could play some keyboards and things like that. But like, but you know, I mean, you know, kind of back to the band thing. Like I was kind of doing this band thing for a while and I just I hit a point with it when I realized I wasn't listening to music anymore. Yeah yeah, I just was like, well, that's what I do, yeah yeah, that's kind of what I was doing for my full living. I wasn't really making money doing it, but I stopped listening to music.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had no desire, I had no desire to yeah like live music and vinyl or just just had no desire to do any of that stuff right and I had started collecting vinyl in probably the mid 90s, you know, because I was in, I was into that hardcore, the metal core, like punk rock scene and there would be things. To me everything was going on a tape Right and getting thrown in the caravan Right. So you know, in the Dodge Caravan tape.
Speaker 3:So, it didn't matter if it was a CD or it was a vinyl. Whichever was cheaper is what I got. So I started a massing vinyl and there were some good record stores in Omaha, nebraska, I bet you know. There was this one really cool place called the Yankee aquarium where I think the guy lived on the top floor and then it was an art gallery and then it was a massive bookstore and then the basement was a record store run by this guy named Dave. His name was Dave Singh and he was like a very kind of pretentious. I think he kind of had like a faux British accent.
Speaker 1:No, you don't.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing is like if you met him once you think he was a total prick, but he was cool Like you just kind of had to like realize that like he was not yeah, and he had some, you know, and he was super into vinyl, super into it and, like you know, and that kind of got me interested.
Speaker 3:You know, kind of talking to him and stuff got me interested in things as well. And then you know, when I moved here, you know, so I had a vinyl collection that I started like in the 90s and then I kind of got to a place where I was just like sick of music.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I was like I need to go do something else and honestly, like I was doing I was doing some touring I realized what touring realized, made me realize is I enjoyed like developing product, you know, figuring something out, you know, especially the musical part of it, and then like kind of like launching that what I didn't like, what I didn't enjoy, was sitting in a van for eight hours. Yeah, totally, totally, insane, right, yeah, and it's not. There's a lot of people who you know, like you can tell, like they kind of go that they have to know this sucks and it's. I think it is different when you're, you know you're building your audience and it's like every time you show up something's getting bigger.
Speaker 1:But that's not happening.
Speaker 3:It's even worse.
Speaker 1:What am I?
Speaker 2:doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my.
Speaker 2:God yeah so.
Speaker 3:I kind of came to that conclusion around like, oh, three or four, okay, so I was kind of doing bands up until that and I was done with music and it was weird. It's like I started listening, like around that time I would listen to music, but I started listening to a lot of like very contemporary jazz music. Okay, yeah, like, and I got way into Pat Matheny group Sure, yeah, which is not you know, screamo yeah, no, no, no, yeah, and, and, and and. It was funny because I'd be driving the van and my bandmates would be like because I'd pop that stuff on late at night while I was driving, I'd be like man, this stuff's just like you know, it's like you get into the groove with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. But but yeah, I mean like what really, you know, I've been playing jazz and in high school and stuff, but so I could recharge some things like that. But like, really, where it clicked was there was one patent that they need to own a story within a story, which is not what the he is like. It was on an album you probably pay on tour and there's probably never played it, right.
Speaker 3:But for some reason that tune, just like I started like soloing over that, like improvising over it, they like really got my head. It kind of changed how I think about music. And then my head got turned on to that stuff and then I feel like I've never gone back.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean Like so so is that what you collect, or is that what you gravitate towards?
Speaker 3:So yeah, I start collecting ECM. So I don't know if you know ECM records or not, but it was the label that Mathini was on and kind of what happened was, you know, my father always had a record player, I had his turntable and you know, back in the Kind of the late 2000s, you know, you could show you could go to some place like Lori's Planet Assound, which was around the corner for mine, and find meant Mathini records for like two dollars, you know what I mean, and I would see one and I popped one and I started realizing, because I tried to get into his earlier catalog, like what I was talking about is like late 90s or like 2000s, like that was. I was into that, ok, but he has a whole catalog where he was on this label called ECM. Ok, in the 70s that, like I, just everybody said, oh, this is like the best stuff, this is best stuff. I would get the CDs at reckless and not be interested. Yeah, yeah, just, I didn't see it. But then, like you know, I pick up a vinyl copy.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it was that different.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, you could hear like OK, I see why this is like I started noticing that like some of the music I was listening to Sounded better on vinyl. Sure, especially from that era, especially from the 70s Interesting.
Speaker 2:What was better about it? What did you notice? It was a fuller sound, uh huh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just a fuller, more complete, resonant sound. I think the mastering is you don't have the they call it the loudness wars, but you don't have this like scrunching of it, the compression, just a compression on it. Yeah, you know, it's just a fuller sound, you know, and that kind of led me down the audiophile road.
Speaker 2:Final rabbit hole.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the vinyl rabbit hole of no return, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where do you, where do you shop for vinyl these days? Do you have a go to or?
Speaker 3:so so sort of the thing is I start collecting ECM and ECM has started in 1969. It's still going. They've got, I think, around 2000 releases and I think they put about 800 of them out on vinyl and I've hit about 400 of them. Wow, wow, I've got about 400. So I start collecting ECM pretty aggressively.
Speaker 1:Really Artists.
Speaker 3:Well, ok, so that's the other thing. I started discovering other artists that were on this label, and this label is very, you know, it's run by this guy named Manfred Eicher. He's German and he was an upright. He was a bass player who started this label when he was like 25. He's still going, you know and you know. But. But I started discovering other artists on the label. I was just like you know, I just get the sound. His whole thing was and it kind of still is is that you got two days to record. You got one day to mix Done.
Speaker 3:That's it, yeah, yeah, if it sucks he doesn't release it, obviously, but like he doesn't work with people who suck, so yeah, I mean you show up and you get, but there's something immediate about that, yeah, and he produces all the records and I've had people, well, what's his? I've had somebody ask me who don't know, and well, what is his sound? You know, like, what is it that he does? And I, you know what I kind of think it is.
Speaker 3:I was listening to a record, new and old dreams, which is basically Ornate Coleman's backing band, the saxophone player, or Nick Coleman's backing band with John, or sorry, dewey Redmond on saxophone, so it's Charlie Hayden and Ed Blackwell on drums, charlie Hayden on bass and then Don Cherry on trumpet. Ok, and there are three of the four of these people recorded the original track on the shape of jazz to come 20 years earlier with Ornate Right. I never I'd like the tune, but what it is is Manfred, he brings out the bass, he brings up the bass, he brings up the drums and he flattens out the signal like it's very. You know, if you're listening on a full hi-fi system, it sounds amazing, it sounds so much better whereas you listen to the original one. To me it's like the horns are too high in the next mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have one of those systems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, yeah, oh. What do you have?
Speaker 2:like what is? What is it consist of?
Speaker 3:Oh, I have to go through the yeah.
Speaker 1:This is like the financial background to get into your co-op? Definitely not audio files.
Speaker 2:This you, you can you can you can Dumb it down. Yeah, I was talking surround sound you know?
Speaker 3:no, it's not surround.
Speaker 2:I have, like you, know one of those bluetooth speakers.
Speaker 1:We're gonna lose listeners if you keep talking.
Speaker 3:No, but I you know, here's the thing I enjoyed bluetooth. I you know it's. There is something to that it comes in handy. Yeah, it's you know, and I listen. I say the bulk of it, I. The bulk of music I listen to is through my Bose QC 35, sure nice. Yeah, on my phone yeah, but it's like if I want to listen like like when I'm listening vinyl I don't do other things, I don't passively listen to right a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like I'm in the game, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're kind of what kind of ends?
Speaker 3:it. I have a VPI, cliffwood, okay. So I've got a VP I Cliffwood. The stylus I just got new stylus. It's a HANA M, okay, from Japan. Okay, it's a moving coil, low output, and then that goes into a Transformer, which I can't remember the name. I just kind of changed my setup, like literally like two weeks ago, okay, and then I have a shit Manny, which is this company called shit audio, uh-huh, and then that goes into a tube amp that's 25 watt. It's a 25 watt to amp from. It's a boutique builder out of Hong Kong. This is amazing.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, we're.
Speaker 3:and then that's all plugged into Clip cornwalls Okay, which I know, if you're. I know clips, I know the name clips. Yeah, the cornwalls are like yeah towers of power, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they fell over.
Speaker 1:It's well, you, you probably a specifically chose a Building, that that was okay, so not just the building all concrete.
Speaker 3:I'm not just a building. But I chose the third floor, right, because guess what's underneath me? The restaurant.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No plumbing.
Speaker 3:Oh. There's a there's like a four-foot plumbing floor yeah you're not bothering, all concrete.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I've never gotten a complaint from upstairs. But, um, yeah, I, I could do a drop ceiling. Yeah, you know, just drop it a little, and I might do that in a future renovation. That's fantastic. So, but I also don't. I also don't like to listen to it loud. Yeah, it's not so. Yeah, I mean there needs to be a certain level of volume, right, to kind of make it work, but I don't, I'm not like beyond that pound in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean Diminishing returns. Yeah, yeah so is it? I mean, are you mostly only listening, to you know?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I got a ECM label or I've got a lot of other, but that's kind of. That's kind of been my go-through, my go-to, but I think I've kind of capped out, yeah, on what I can get from them, because I bought so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know sort of the geocaching of the vinyl world. You have 400 out of 800. Yeah, yeah, so well, and then?
Speaker 3:and then the problem is as you start getting into the 80s and I'm not even sure about that 800 number, I'm actually not sure because they they got into the 80s and CDs became a thing and they were still pressing vinyl. I think they were pressing vinyl up until 92 and Then they stopped and then they started up again in like oh nine.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah and so and then, like I've got a chunk of the ones for now, but like I don't buy everything now because I mean mostly jazz. Well, it's jazz, classical and then everything in between. Oh, wow, that's the thing, is it? What I like about is it is album centered. Okay so, like it's, it's. You know it's intended. It's a flow Mm-hmm. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's a complete.
Speaker 3:You know you listen to an album. I'm not listening like individual songs. There's not singles or anything like that. Yeah, right, and, and they're trying to communicate something, or you know it takes you on a journey.
Speaker 2:The album is a journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and it's intended for this. You know format Right.
Speaker 1:Is it something that you would pick up at? You know a store that you know that we've talked about? On that, oh yeah or is it mostly? I mean, are you buying it from? No, you can buy it.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, Um tone-dead has that bought things from them. Okay, nice, that's Not so much. I don't think bucket of blood really. Yeah, you know I mean does this kind of stuff, but then also, you know, record breakers has had some things to. But mostly where I'm going is probably dusty groove.
Speaker 1:I just yeah, I just I just went there, yes, on Saturday. Yeah, the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does it dusty, groove and the M and reckless Okay where's dusty groove? Dusty groove is down at like Division in Ashland. Yeah, it's just south. It's like Cortez or something. I can't remember the exact Cross street there, but it's just south, it's on Ashland. Oh, cool, and they were one of the original online record retailers. Okay, if you knew that, or? Not but they like were. They start doing it in the 90s and they started as an online only story, believe, oh, and then they did a storefront.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had a story about a bucket of blood when we were talking offline that they are gonna blood the original. Well, the original founder yeah, he and I used to go to shows together because the guy who founded you Johan's face?
Speaker 3:Uh-huh, he said it was like oh yeah, he founded this thing called Johan's face records and I remember that dude like we used to, because I Think Johan's face was more like kind of pop. It was like, you know, kind of pop, punk Okay, or emo kind of stuff, but that dude was like way into metal core. Yeah, remember, I remember like hanging out with him at shows, we were like show buddies, for that's like probably a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then his story became bucket of blood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think I think he started bucket of blood, yeah and he sold it to the people you interviewed.
Speaker 1:I think it was called bucket of blood, but he started it right right, which I'll go.
Speaker 3:I'll go there for my, for my opeth, and yeah, I've got some like punk rock records there too. Yeah, if I'm randomly looking for that, mostly what I'm collecting is, you know it's, it's been ecm. Another great series is blue. Is the blue note tone poet. I know blue note, but they bet they they've blue note is up their game. Okay, um, they're going deep into their catalog, remastering their stuff, pressing it on really like doing really good pressings. Really cool packaging I just picked up an album at.
Speaker 1:One of the albums I picked up at dusty grooves was I'm a big fan of lee Morgan yeah.
Speaker 3:Lee Morgan was on it. They've done several like that might have been a ton. Scratch them. Mortand the third Like that oh yeah, no, he's, uh, he's, yeah, I know what album you're talking about. Yeah, is it pink? Yeah, it's kind of pinkish, yeah, yeah reddish pink, yeah, yeah it is an egregion album or is it a? Retina. That album is amazing. Yeah, and that's one of the. That's the classic series. I believe it's not the tone series.
Speaker 1:But what is? What is the tone? Poet like the tall.
Speaker 3:So tone poet is like they got Kevin Gray who's like one of the mastering gurus and and then I think somebody else is overseeing. I can't remember the person who's like overseeing the whole thing, but the whole thing with tone poet was going back another catalog and finding albums that they hadn't re-released. Sure, they were sitting back there. That are gems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean, I went through a whole thing with McCoy tiner. Yeah, like, like a serious, like D. I mean, some of the stuff they put out by him is just like. There's an album called expansions that like blew my mind. And then there was another one. I can't remember the name of it, but I can see the cover of it. He's like on it Fun. I mean both those albums, like I. Basically I became a McCoy tiner fan because of that series. Okay, I mean like you, I was like dude, why is this guy not like you know we talk about, you know? Or an age giants? Yeah, yeah, we talked about Coltrane, miles and, yeah, you know, mingus and I was like to me tiner should be up there as well. That's his. His stuff is Amazing.
Speaker 1:What is he like?
Speaker 3:Which is a penis he was he was Coltrane's penis, okay, like kind of his more, and then he went off on his own. His stuff is phenomenal. Nice, yeah, the expansions records great. They did a really nice version of a Wayne shorter album, who unfortunately just passed away recently, called all seeing I mm-hmm. Okay, this album is. I mean it's it's a larger horn section and it's almost like it's almost like orchestrated Mm-hmm. Yeah, and and it is funny because I have people over to listen we started, we're listening. I was like, oh yeah, I'll play some jazz for you to go and and like people who aren't into jazz, like they're like well, this isn't really jazz. Yeah, because it doesn't sound like you know, there's no.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, but it's funny.
Speaker 3:All my jazz musician friends you know from the building and other places like they play jazz but they don't play that. Yeah, but it's uh, you know these people? I mean they were doing some really it's just under the radar stuff. They're going back through the catalog finding it's recorded really well. I mean most of stuff is recorded. They're doing the mastering really well. That's fantastic and it sounds phenomenal on my system.
Speaker 3:Yeah but you know the the most important thing. You know, kind of talking about this and people have said this and I I can testify to it you know the number one things you have to have clean vinyl. So I also I should say the first level is my, my oki-noki record cleaning machine. Oh my gosh, I need one.
Speaker 1:You need to come over you're gonna cringe, you're gonna cringe.
Speaker 3:I mean, I love this, but I think I think I heard an episode when you were talking about like baby wipes or something like that.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe I mean I did get some vinyl from this Providence that I was selling and like I was using sort of like yeah, I think I alcohol cleaner.
Speaker 2:Yeah that, maybe that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Obviously I'm sort of new to this game, but but what the story I was gonna tell is I love the, that my son loves records, but he's two and a half, yeah, he, he definitely, uh, you know, handles them inappropriately, ah, yes and uh. So you know, I need to be strategic about which records I have out that he's just gonna gravitate towards, and usually they're like colored vinyl, like I have this, uh, whitney Houston live album which I love to play, and you know it's beautiful, but uh, you know, not not so Important that that remain, you know, free of like little little man fingerprints, you know, but uh, but yeah, I definitely need to uh invest in a good vinyl cleaner.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a. You know, mine is a. It's a. It's basically a vacuum cleaner. It's a vpi it's. It's it's a vpi style cleaner. I think vpi were the first ones to make it Okay, the style, and then I don't know if they lost the pattern or but this is like a copy that comes from europe, okay so what is it like?
Speaker 3:you actually just take a little thing and you you a watch, looks like a record player, okay and you basically get something like wrecks, like a tech, it like Attaches, like you locks it down, that's a screw thing locks it down and the bottom it's a rubber Thing. You have a brush and you put the cleaner on and you basically use the brush and get really deep in there and you know it spins around and then you stop. What I do is I use this stuff from uh, um, it's a mo-fi enzyme cleaner, okay, and so you need to leave it on there for about like two, three minutes or something like that, and then basically, this wand comes out and it's pretty much like what the machine is is a vacuum cleaner. It just sucks all the water.
Speaker 3:Wow like it just turns around, sucks it all up, okay, and then I rinse with distilled water afterwards, because there's stuff in the Um, in the cleaner, that you might get out of there, supposedly, but I this is what I found has been the best.
Speaker 2:And then, how do you dry it?
Speaker 3:Oh, it dries itself. It's a vacuum cleaner dries it.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, but when you rinse it off with water, then you know no, and then I just run the vacuum. Oh, okay, got it. Yeah, so wow, that's because they do to both sides or is yeah?
Speaker 3:yeah, and you got flip it over into the other side. So it is a little bit labor-intensive, but it's, you got nasty. If you got nasty, I mean I've it, it, it, yeah, if you, if you clean it, I usually give a new. You know, I don't use paper sleeves like go out and get the, I use the mo-fi On like anti-static sleeves. Okay, I mean, if I, if I spend time cleaning it, that'll keep it clean, yeah, yeah, so you know, and then, and then you know, and then I've also got a milty zero stat which is like this little blue gun thing that does work. It does work, but it's apps. It'll pull all the static out of it. Wow, you got up your game, andrew. This is where I have a bluetooth speaker.
Speaker 1:Kern marvels at my setup and it's uh, it's nice, but it definitely pales in comparison.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, well, it's, you know, it's one of those things it's like I enjoy going out finding a record. That's like super nasty yeah, you know. And it's like five bucks yeah, obviously I can tell if it's scratched or not.
Speaker 3:Yeah but I think some of the stores are starting getting clean, keen to this. That, like you know, just because it's dirty doesn't mean it can't yeah, it used to be. It's like, oh, this is just dirty, I can right clean this up, dropping the cleaner and yeah, it'll do it. Yeah, that's awesome, um, but but yeah, so I do that, that, it. It does sound. I bet you'd be surprised, but but kind of. You know what I was. What I was going on is like the stylus Makes a huge difference. The stylus and then the phone or stage, okay, are huge, all right, yeah, and then obviously the speaker's, probably. But, like To me, it's like I've noticed big differences. I got these big speakers probably about a year and a half ago, yeah, and I always thought they sounded good, but I knew they could sound better. And then I went and got this new stylus, I upgraded my stylus considerably and then I got a better phono stage for it and what's a phono stage, like a preamp or yeah, it's a preamp, phono preamp, so you typically they they were in like old, you know, like if you have an older receiver right, they're like there, it's there, they're
Speaker 3:just built in. But this one, like, if you get separate and they, it does make a difference. Yeah, yeah, in the system I had, you know, the preamp I had was but the I got the step up transformer. I might, I might trade the step of a transformer for a proper preamp and you know, kind of getting rid of the transformer in the, because when I moved to moving coil you need a different preamp for that.
Speaker 2:So and the list goes on and on.
Speaker 3:But hey, I you can hear the difference. Yeah, absolutely, like I can, I can. If I couldn't hear it, I wouldn't be well, I can't wait to come have a drink at.
Speaker 3:I know, Come up and listen to some tunes, but, but where I get most of my stuff is that this place called music direct. Okay, um, their warehouse is over on it's like Ravenswood. It's Ravenswood and Brydmer. Okay, it's like a block away from our house, or not block about a mile away from my house. That works too, and they're probably the largest hi-fi Online catalog.
Speaker 3:Is it new equipment or is it, yeah, new, but they got scratching. That, yeah, I mean, it's how I got my turntable. Yeah, yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, this was used to a photo shoot and we lost the box. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm there. I, yeah, yeah, but they also on. You know, give a. Give a plug to Rob. He's one of the guys I work with there. He runs like this thing called record warehouse. It's open from 10 to 3 on Saturday afternoons and it's a lot of it'll be, you know, last like like they buy collections but they've also got like scratching and stuff from. You have Like box gets dropped a vinyl, like they can't sell it online, right, but they'll sell it in person, so you get some good, good prices there Is it.
Speaker 1:I mean it doesn't. It doesn't affect the quality or no.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm, and that's the other thing. Maybe I'm a little bit different. I'm buying records to listen to them. I'm less concerned about what they look like.
Speaker 2:As long as the vinyl's fine, out there Is record. Is record warehouse related to music director? Yeah, it's run out of there.
Speaker 3:They just call it right, they just call it record warehouse.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he's. He usually does them. I'll usually have to call and like to let him have him. Let you let you in. Yeah, him and Dave. Um, dave Friedman used to be the booking agent for green dolphin. Oh, um, he's helped me out quite a bit too over there, both with my system, recommending things and try that's awesome, they you know it's nice having that there because, like I, just kind of go over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, try things out. So let's say there it's, it's, it's a big, big place, but it's, uh, it's also they've got. They've got good service, or at least I've had a good service experience, that's great but most people want to know about it because it's literally a warehouse right, it's not set up for like a retail right.
Speaker 2:And what do you do? Just go up and knock on the door.
Speaker 3:Well, there's usually a sign, that's that they gives you a phone number You're supposed to call. They come and let you in. Good, but I know they might just be leaving it open now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, huh.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. It's an adventure.
Speaker 1:Check that out. Yeah, I don't really remember what my setup is. I do. I do know that I have like little keef or kef, kef, yeah they make the stuff.
Speaker 3:I've heard some great kef.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just little bookshelf speakers, but they're fantastic. Um, I, I think most of my stuff is British because I went to there's a shop on Milwaukee where I got the kefs which I believe are British decibel, decibel, yeah, yeah, yeah, they've been around for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's where that's a cool shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is cool. That's where I got everything. I didn't really research anything, I just kind of took the word for it. So, um, I have a Used receiver and uh, gosh, I can't remember the deck that I have. But, um, how old is it? It's blue. Uh, it's blue, the project project yeah. Yeah, uh, debut carpet.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I, that's what I had before I had my vpi. Yeah yeah, that's a great for for the money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that and and that comes with an order phone red. Order phone red.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the red, the red stylus on it that that was one of those things.
Speaker 3:Like I had my tech, my followers techniques, like not not the 1200, nothing that cool, my dad, anything that cool, but like a techniques. It was like a techniques kind of retail turntable, okay, and um, it died, yeah. And I went over to music direct and they had a debut carbon that they'd used in photo shoot that they gave me. I keep on buying photo shoot turntables but you know, I mean they lose the box, right, right and yeah, and so I got a good price on it. I was in grad school, I think, when I got. I remember bringing it back and like, and that was another one of those like eye opening moments where I was like, oh my God, this sounds so much better. It was cause the stylus I had on this thing was probably 30 years old and this brand new order phone stylus and you know, the debut for the money is a great, it's a good, it's a great turntable for what it is. Yeah, you're going to get a good sound out of it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it works for me. I mean I, you know, I love to sit down and listen to records. I mean, you know, with the family and a two and a half year old. You know you might cringe at this, but I mean I have a sonos system.
Speaker 1:So most of I play, I play it throughout the house and I'm not sitting in front of the kefs that often unless I have friends over, which is rare. But yeah, it sounds great when I am able to sit down and play it. So but yeah, we'll take a field trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great, so you're invited yourself over? Yeah, but I know that's.
Speaker 3:That's part of the reason why I have this system is because I want to bring people over here.
Speaker 2:The collection to be. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, check it out and like listen and discover music and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not just for me. Yeah, yeah, but but so can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'll ask you a question too, yeah.
Speaker 3:But what's your test record?
Speaker 2:Oh, that would be. I don't even have a record player.
Speaker 3:So that's a problem that we need to fix here. That's a problem that needs to be fixed. What's that test record? Well that you put on the like that you, you know, think your system sounds really good.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean that like you know and here's the thing is, it might not be what you think it's going to be. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like it might be something that's like yeah, kind of like oh, this sounds really good in my car, but it doesn't sound good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a good question, I think, when I well, I don't know what I first play when I got up, I mean, this has really been my only record player.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and so like I don't.
Speaker 1:You know it. You know, I don't. I can't compare this system to the other system, but I think it is Lee Morgan the Sidewinder's is put on and I think, yeah, and I think that is it.
Speaker 3:I think that if it's Sidewinder, it's a tone poet. Ok, yeah, I think that's a tone poet edition. Nice, yeah, it does it full.
Speaker 1:No this is.
Speaker 3:this is probably like a might be a classic, yeah.
Speaker 1:Classic.
Speaker 3:The classic edition they. That's another series they started. That is very good.
Speaker 1:I think this is like an old record, like it's old.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you know original like yeah, here's the thing. I mean those those blue note.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Recordings I mean I've got. I had somebody who gave me some like they. They just gave me a bunch of records of family friend and there were a bunch of original tone or original blue notes in there, yeah, and I was kind of shocked. I was shocked. I was shocked how good they sound. Yeah, after I clean them they sound yeah, and they look like they would not sound good. Right, like they were all scratched up, right, stuff like that. But, they sound like you would not believe. Yeah, it was so amazing.
Speaker 2:What's your? What's your test record? Oh, it's only fair, I know right. I will tell you what my test record will be yeah, let's do that, let's do that. Yeah, I find that whoever engineer or produced the Muse records and we're talking non jazz, whatever but Muse yeah. You can play that shit at any volume, even the lowest volume, and it just fucking just is big and it's powerful, and that, to me, is like I would love to hear that A great big system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, contemporary stuff. Like who's putting on music that like I. Really it always shocks me. Yeah, I've got a friend of mine who was a record producer and we completely agree on this. Like the person who's putting on music today, that sounds good wherever you play it, whether you listen to Vine or listen to your car, listening crappy headphones, whatever it is. The weekends last like few releases have just been like kind of insane.
Speaker 2:Really Okay, they sound good everywhere, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the, the Don FM, the. I think it's like after life. And then the, the EP that he did. Okay, I call it the the. No, he wasn't. Who was he dating? No idea, it was Selena Gomez breakup out. Okay.
Speaker 1:I was gonna break it back.
Speaker 3:It's only six songs. It's an EP.
Speaker 2:He got over it by the six songs.
Speaker 3:It's like all right, I'm out of material, but like those, those three records just sound phenomenal Interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Like, like just as far as like somebody was putting out stuff that especially the new one, the Don FM, I put that Nice Sounds insane, wow, yeah. But for me my test record is off of the Billy Copham album called Spectrum came out 1973. And the tune is Stratus and it's kind of a famous tune. I mean, it's like people are in diffusion stuff like this song.
Speaker 3:You'll hear a cover like jetback used to play it Okay and like but it's a, I put that on like that Because the drums are so well recorded. Billy, I don't know if you know Billy Copham, he's a. He was in Montvish, newark or Stroud. Okay, you know him. Yeah, no Phenomenal drummer like one of these. So you've heard him, you haven't. You don't right now know him, but you've heard him play on stuff. I mean he played on a bunch of Peter Gabriel stuff, right, he's still?
Speaker 2:my heart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but just the second side of that LP yeah.
Speaker 2:Are you going to hear?
Speaker 3:Gabriel's show. Um, here's the thing with me and Peter, a huge Peter Gabriel fan, I can't get into the newer stuff and honestly I was all excited because I love that live album that he did in the 90s for the. What was the name of that album? The us tour, the us tour Love, that DVD. The album was like a big thing for me but honestly, I went to see him and I loved, I loved um, I think it was. The album was up. I actually liked that album quite a bit. I wasn't impressed with him live. Really I saw him like three times on that tour and I was kind of like looking back at it, I just didn't.
Speaker 2:In what way? Because I've seen. I've. I have never seen him live, but I've seen videos of him live and I'm like that looks so fucking great.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's how I thought about that His backup band is always. Well. That was also part of the problem he took. He took his daughter out as his second, his vocalist, and she couldn't sing.
Speaker 1:No, I mean it was like that, Like I can.
Speaker 3:I have a CD of the one of the concerts I saw I could play for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, she was no.
Speaker 3:Paula Cole Right.
Speaker 1:Right or or um.
Speaker 2:Kate.
Speaker 3:Bush or Kate Bush no like I mean it was like his daughter and I after that was just kind of I mean I wouldn't have done that. And I'm sitting there looking at Tony Levin and David Rhodes and I'm like how are you putting up? Right, right, right. Yeah. I remember sitting down at Tinley Park going like yeah, and I wanted it to be different, but like I just I couldn't. After he did that.
Speaker 3:And I think he's just kind of. You know, I listened to Op and I tried to get into his other stuff. For me it's the last temptation of Christ soundtrack, Massive album for me, mm hmm, and that thing is, you know, it's called passion, yeah, if you're familiar with it, yeah, I love that album. I listened to it like nine day and then, you know, us was actually a big out for me and that's the live, the live. A lot. Us too, mm hmm, you know, because I think Paula Cole was a better, um was an excellent sort of singer for him versus.
Speaker 2:Live Kate Bush yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think her timbre is like is better. I think that live album is just phenomenal. Yeah, so for me, for me that. And then I like Op. I think Op is like a 12 song album that has like eight. Really good, that has eight amazing songs on it and four of them.
Speaker 2:Well, that's interesting because I've been debating on whether or not, to you know, spend the money on that kind of ticket.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, but I don't, I don't go to big concerts anymore. Yeah, what's all, what's coming up for you? Um, so, so, just in general, the concert experience has to be a um. For me, it has to be a. It has to be an easy experience, Mm, hmm, I can't. I can't deal with lines, I can't deal with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to be in and out, yeah.
Speaker 3:I buy, um, I buy uh season tickets to the symphonies, uh, to the symphony center Jazz Series. Okay, which usually has I buy out the season, I get my seat. I'm literally front row center.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Um and and if there's somebody I don't want to see, I can go see Parmena, brana or some symphony, but they're very they're very oh, that's cool, it's also it's nice. What's nice about, too, is I just drive down there. I literally walk up. There's no lines, no, no, I think there's a good restaurant next door.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go in there and eat, come, you know, come over to come over to you know, go see some jazz. And I'm in front row so I have to deal with people on their phones, right, right, yeah, what I mean it's a, it's a, it's a good chill vibe, so, but, like for me it's, it's that. It's um Revenia, yeah, and you know, matheny is playing at Revenia this summer. I'll go see that.
Speaker 3:Okay, um, and I'll do lawn this time, because I've seen kind of this group before. Yeah, you know, or this makeup, I enjoy that Just sitting out, hanging out, you know, with friends or whatever.
Speaker 2:Great experience yeah. Nice weather, love Revenia yeah.
Speaker 3:But also, you know, as far as clubs go, you know it's, it's a lot of the ECM artists that are coming through are going to Constellation. So I go to Constellation and do some, um, hungry brain. You know the, the, um, uh, the places you know those are kind of is, I believe, his two clubs elastic arts yeah, it's a good place. I love space. Space is great. Yeah, um, you know, so it's kind of those. Yeah, I bet you know. I mean, you've had guests on before, yeah, Same.
Speaker 2:Thing.
Speaker 3:But to me that's where the most interesting stuff is happening is that, like one of those places I love the green mills here and grim mills Yo great, but it's it's a different thing.
Speaker 1:You know that's a deal with people usually there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's just, I'm just, yeah, exactly, I'm not in. I want to come in. I want to show you know I'm willing to pay up for a seat someplace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I don't have to deal with stuff you know.
Speaker 3:but um, but I had a good concert experience last year at the year oh yeah, and what it was was. I walked in. I walked in and they were. They were like, oh, we're doing VIP, uh, seats up front, right. I was like how much? Oh yeah, here you go, right. The Mars, yeah, interesting. Uh-huh. Put off the. Oh yeah, he's the best rock singer the last 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on, I don't know if you're familiar with them. I know, I know them I. What I've heard is is not my style, but it's been a while. It's an acquired when it first came out.
Speaker 3:You have to you. It's an acquired it's, it's they make you work for it yeah, they really do I'm lazy. They make you, they, they, they, they hide things in 10 minute long songs.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So, who's your as as we conclude the this lovely conversation and we could talk for hours and, yeah, have to have you back Totally, uh, and go even deeper into what is the second test album that you mentioned?
Speaker 3:Oh, geez, what am I throwing on after that?
Speaker 1:Well, you mentioned to.
Speaker 3:I thought Well, here's the thing here's the thing is that the um, I will say that what I'll tell you as the album that got me like where, where I really it's not recorded well.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say it's exactly the best recorded album. That's live. But it just. To me it's an amazing album that it's a Keith Jirrett nude ants with his European quartet Okay, live at the Village Vanguard 1979. Okay, and it is probably just a stereo mic in the room but you would think this was like a massive, you know band, right, but it's just. It's Keith Jirrett on piano, pal Danielson on bass, john Christensen on drums and then young Gaborik on reads, you know saxophone, nice. And that album is insane. Yeah, and I wouldn't say it's exactly like a, because not exactly recorded the bus, but the performance is insane and it will resonate with people. You know like I'll play it for somebody and I don't necessarily know it's the best way to demonstrate my system, but it's.
Speaker 3:There's a reason why it got released in 79. And you know, manfred Eicher has been releasing other Keith Jirrett things over the years that were recorded back then and you can kind of tell why he put that on instead of some of the others. You know what I mean, because that night they were just on it. Yeah, I mean it's like it's like almost like a religious experience listening through the whole thing. It kind of takes you through a. You have to listen to a whole album. Yeah, like it, just you know, and Keith is on it. This is like Keith at his height, I don't know. Yeah, I don't even know if you'd, I didn't know Keith Jirrett was until like six years ago, because he hasn't promote himself as well as people who just play his piano.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:But it's probably one of the most important musicians of the last 100 years Nice.
Speaker 1:I have a thought of another one that I played for Karen the other night Friday nights in San Francisco.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that would be, I think, a good album. Yeah, the first song on it at least. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like Guardian Angel, which is the last track on it. Okay, that's a John McLaughlin tune. Yeah, and that's a good, that's, it's a. It's a live album. I don't know that I personally would test on it, but it's a good, that's a good record yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we've learned a ton yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been writing furiously.
Speaker 1:Karen's been taking notes. I got some, a lot, lots of good notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so look for the show notes when this podcast comes out, because there'll be some good links to some of this info that he's dropped.
Speaker 1:And we'll add a lot of his artists to our spot if I playlist yeah that's right Records and real estate.
Speaker 2:Look it up on Spotify. Yep, All our past guests have put on music. Put music on there. I can talk.
Speaker 1:It's getting late. Yeah, oh, I should give you some tracks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, please. Oh yeah, I'll ask you to cool stuff.
Speaker 3:I've been listening to it over and share it with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool Thanks, john.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Andrew.
Speaker 1:Yes, Karen.
Speaker 2:You have one son.
Speaker 1:I do have one son, axel, axel, yes, Adorable two and a half year old. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Andrew, why have a second child?
Speaker 1:Why have a second child? That's a good question. There's a lot of answers to that.
Speaker 2:It seems like you're tempting fate because Axel is so amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, we've talked about that and, yes, Axel is an exceptional child and my daughter has big shoes to fill. So we have my wife and Laura and I have definitely talked about that quite a bit and, yeah, we might be tempting fate, but we're going to believe that she's going to fill those shoes admirably and that Axel is going to be a lovely big brother.
Speaker 2:But that's not really the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, am I avoiding the question? Yep, why have a second child? Why have a second child? I don't know. Because we wanted a second child, I guess is the short answer to that, because that's the makeup of the family that we were hoping for. And yeah, so we put a lot of effort into having a second child. I think that ultimately, as a parent, you want to bring your children into the world because a little bit of hubris, you feel like they can make it a better place, but you also feel like you have a lot of love to give them and one sort of begets another.
Speaker 2:So but after I know that, the toil that I've seen my friends go through with their first child, you can't prepare yourself for that you think you can, but whatever. And it's exhausting. You sleep, it's all consuming. And then you get to a point where you're like, yeah, let's do that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I've said this before and I think it's totally true. You completely forget how awful it was, and I think ultimately that's some sort of biological mechanism, because if you remembered how awful it was, you wouldn't do it again. And so you do forget a bit about what it's like to have a newborn and the relative hell that you go through. But here we are signing up for again and I couldn't be more thrilled, or we're very excited. We are ready in terms of our household and, yeah, ready to meet our little girls. So I don't know if that really answered your question.
Speaker 2:It does. That was a better answer. Yeah, yeah, I got it out of here.
Speaker 1:Then my long, rambling non-answer that I just provided prior to this sort of decent answer.
Speaker 2:And, to be fair, I was not drilling you because I was like, oh my God, why are you having a second child? I think you and Laura are fantastic parents.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I think that, yes, please keep doing more of that, because we need more good people in the world.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And if Axel has any indication of what's to come, then we're all going to be better for it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So I wish you the best of luck.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, we'll see.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll see. You never know what the universe is going to bring. That's right. That's the fun of it.
Speaker 1:She might be a little hellion, and if she is, then we're going to find the good in her, just like we find the good in everybody else.
Speaker 2:That's right, we're going to love her anyway.
Speaker 1:This has been an episode of Records in Real Estate. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed it. Today's episode was brought to you by Be Realty. Be where you want to be and Be Realty.