Records & Real Estate Podcast
Rocket Scientist, Journalist, Reluctant Optimist, and Music Aficionado, Jeff Elbel Talks About the Power of Creativity
Ever met a music journalist with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and a knack for capturing the vibrancy of the Chicago music scene? Join us as we explore the captivating worlds of music and real estate with our esteemed guest, Jeff Elbel. As an accomplished writer and photographer for the Chicago Sun Times and Illinois Entertainer, Jeff offers a unique perspective on the industry. In our enlightening chat, we traverse through various topics, from the challenges of record manufacturing and vinyl production in the United States to keys to overcoming adversity through creativity.
This episode takes you on a musical journey, offering a backstage pass into the making of the album "Three Finger Opera", an inspiring tale of resilience and artistic expression in the face of personal hardship. What does it take to craft such a musical masterpiece? Jeff shares his wisdom, shedding light on the fascinating interplay between music, creativity, and overcoming life's obstacles. Our conversation then takes a delightful detour as we review the 1999 album "Keep it Like a Secret" by Built to Spill, sharing our love for the classic record and reminiscing about personal memories it evokes.
But there's more. We pivot from the realm of music to explore the symbiotic relationship between tunes and real estate. We stroll down memory lane visiting various iconic Chicago venues and dissect our experiences witnessing stellar performances. Along the way, we tap into the challenges faced by talented bands, the empowering journeys in the music industry, and even Jeff's unique connection to record label giant Seymour Stein. So, don’t just stay tuned—lean in, listen, and join this riveting discussion.
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: Jeff Elbel
Link: Illinois Entertainer
Link: Chicago Suntimes
Link: Three Finger Opera
Link: The Claudettes
Link: Built to Spill
Ever met a music journalist with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and a knack for capturing the vibrancy of the Chicago music scene? Join us as we explore the captivating worlds of music and real estate with our esteemed guest, Jeff Elbel. As an accomplished writer and photographer for the Chicago Sun Times and Illinois Entertainer, Jeff offers a unique perspective on the industry. In our enlightening chat, we traverse through various topics, from the challenges of record manufacturing and vinyl production in the United States to keys to overcoming adversity through creativity.
This episode takes you on a musical journey, offering a backstage pass into the making of the album "Three Finger Opera", an inspiring tale of resilience and artistic expression in the face of personal hardship. What does it take to craft such a musical masterpiece? Jeff shares his wisdom, shedding light on the fascinating interplay between music, creativity, and overcoming life's obstacles. Our conversation then takes a delightful detour as we review the 1999 album "Keep it Like a Secret" by Built to Spill, sharing our love for the classic record and reminiscing about personal memories it evokes.
But there's more. We pivot from the realm of music to explore the symbiotic relationship between tunes and real estate. We stroll down memory lane visiting various iconic Chicago venues and dissect our experiences witnessing stellar performances. Along the way, we tap into the challenges faced by talented bands, the empowering journeys in the music industry, and even Jeff's unique connection to record label giant Seymour Stein. So, don’t just stay tuned—lean in, listen, and join this riveting discussion.
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: Jeff Elbel
Link: Illinois Entertainer
Link: Chicago Suntimes
Link: Three Finger Opera
Link: The Claudettes
Link: Built to Spill
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 3: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.
Speaker 1:Hi Karen Andrew. Well, we just had an incredible conversation with Jeff Elbell.
Speaker 3:Yes, we did An encyclopedic mind. In fact, I got to carpool with him on the way here, yes, and we were. I was talking about something that I would like to see in the world that doesn't. I don't think it exists, Okay. But you know, like 23andMe and you do your genealogy and whatever, I want to see a musical web, a genealogy musical web and he would be a person who could invent this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, this guy was on this album, who also played on this other thing that was produced by this other guy, and create this incredible family tree.
Speaker 1:Well, we talk about it all the time. I mean, I think it's really the way that you get to know jazz artists really well, because they you know. You look at the back of the album and this person played on that album but not only that, but jazz artists.
Speaker 3:Nobody else does this, but every single concert they make a point of telling you who's playing what instrument all the time during the concert. I find it kind of annoying because I'm not a jazz fan. But you know, give it up for Josh Mo on the drums, josh Mo, and then Josh Mo does a little thing.
Speaker 1:But you know what it's. It's actually true of all music, I think, is that you know I mean people whether it doesn't have to be the jazz genre. You know where you can find sounds that you like, based on who played with who, but jazz just doesn't.
Speaker 3:They call it out.
Speaker 1:Really, that's my point, yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, when you look on the back of an album and you know, like this, the three finger opera that's that he brings up, that he created is a who's who of of Chicago connections. So a great jumping off point if you want to dive into some Chicago local music.
Speaker 1:And I don't think we need to belabor the point anymore, we should just get into it.
Speaker 3:Let's meet Jeff.
Speaker 1:We're here with Jeff Elbell. I spoke that. I pronounced that correctly. Yeah very good. Thank you, yeah, and Jeff. I guess I really don't know where to start in terms of an introduction. Well, I'll start with where you guys met. You guys met at a Adrian Belew and Jerry Harrison show, yeah, where they covered Remain and Light, and you were there covering the show for the Sun Times that show I was covering for Illinois Entertainer.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, my two primary outlets in town would be the Chicago Sun Times and Illinois Entertainer. Okay, nice and Entertainer will do a lot more live review Gotcha, and sometimes will. Sometimes is moving back into that territory gradually after COVID, yeah and. But Illinois Entertainer is a reliable study outlet. People can find a lot of good local coverage on their website.
Speaker 1:Well, tell me about the Illinois Entertainer, because you know, before doing a little research for this interview, I didn't really know anything about her.
Speaker 3:Frankly, anything about it I've never heard of it, it predates me. Let's be honest, yeah.
Speaker 2:It seems like the longer I'm around and right around town, I'll run into other people that either used to shoot, photography or write, or even be an editor for the Illinois Entertainer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know they'll ask me.
Speaker 2:It's like oh, do you know somebody that used to work there 20 years ago, because it's been around that long and longer yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I know my editor, john Vernon, who's run the Entertainer since I moved back, or at least since shortly after I moved back, which was late 2004. And then you know other writers and photography staff. Tom Lanham's done cover stories for Entertainer probably since John's day or before that, nice. And yeah, so he's one of my favorite local. He's not even local anymore. I don't know where he lives he lives in a secret location somewhere on the West Coast but he still does most of the cover stories for Illinois Entertainer. So I had my first two covers last year. They were Tears for Fears and Middle Oil.
Speaker 1:Oh great, yeah, that's great, and so I mean I guess it started being having been around for so long. I started as a print magazine.
Speaker 2:And still is. It's still a reliable print magazine and John publishes like clockwork on it. It's always out on the first you know. Any music store, any concert venue around you can go pick up a copy of the Illinois Entertainer on the first of the month, focus primarily on music or yes? Yeah, uh it at least 90% gotcha.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Nice, and so you were there covering the show for Illinois Entertainer and you guys got to meet in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were lucky. We got to sit up in the rattle your jewelry section to see that show.
Speaker 3:And I've never been in a in a like one of those cool opera boxes before Cause Michael in my street got us tickets or got me tickets for jam productions, and so I felt completely like an imposter, because everyone there obviously was, like you know, a mover and a shaker in the industry, and you know. So I am like I'm going to be bold.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I just I walked right up to you and I'm like who are?
Speaker 3:you, I'm Karen. That's amazing, that was a good time. I deserve to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, you're a podcast host, that's right.
Speaker 2:You're 100% legitimate. I still walk into those situations with fake it till you make it attitude.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think most of us in life are in that sort of imposter syndrome. But you know, I still I'm not convinced I should ever represent somebody in a real estate transaction. It just doesn't come naturally to me being a salesman. Wow, you know, here we are here.
Speaker 3:You are 15 years later. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Further along you go, then, like you said, you realize that's everybody, everybody Right, and you realize that that's the person flying the airplane you're sitting on.
Speaker 1:You know, while I'm tightening some bolts on the wing, yep.
Speaker 3:I had my blood drawn the other day from a woman. It was her first time, oh wonderful, and I fainted.
Speaker 1:Why did she? How did she tell you that?
Speaker 2:See, that's a thing that's not helpful.
Speaker 3:And she was great, she actually did it great. And you know, she and the thing that I think got my brain to think, oh God, I'm going down, I'm going down is she was taking her finger and patting my veins to try and find which one was like the right one, and the person who was training her just kind of let her do it and it literally like probably three minutes of like patting my veins and so that time takes, you know, my brain to be like okay, I think you're going to die. This person's obviously new and, yeah, I fainted.
Speaker 1:Well, she was pumping you full of blood as well, like she was doing the work of your heart.
Speaker 2:I guess, so Well, yeah technically, she was draining it out of my body like a vampire, but you know that's the opposite of the Statler and Waldorf experience from the Muppet show, where you start off and go, there's nothing to worry about, it's going to be fine. It's like, hmm, I wonder, should I be worried? It's going to be horrible.
Speaker 3:I'm going to die Along the route takes very delightful and you know I'm glad she got it right. Right, she took her time, yeah, and then she got to see what it's like to revive.
Speaker 1:She goes down and I asked her. I'm like has?
Speaker 3:that ever happened to you before? She's like not to me. I've seen it. I've seen it happen, but this is my first time. Teaching moment for everybody, yeah, exactly, you're my first patient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it can only it can only rise up from here, that's right.
Speaker 3:Now you know. Um so journalism Wait can we talk about me?
Speaker 1:No, this is for. This is amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm just I'm just, I'm just. I'm just happy. I'm just back on the tracks. I can help with the conversation. I have experience in this. You too have experience.
Speaker 1:What did, uh? Where does like did? Did music bring you to journalism or journalism bring you to music? Or how did you sort of start Music?
Speaker 2:brought me to everything. Okay, and as much as I can use music as a conduit to relate to the world, I do. That's, that's where I find common ground, that's that's that's where I can talk to you. You know, you know about real estate and you love music. I respect and appreciate real estate and know nothing about it, but I can talk to you about music, sure, and so it was a way to create a social circle. You know, playing music, recording music that's a favorite, but recording music ends up being a way to teach other people and raise people up to want to do what I wanted to do before them. Yeah, yeah, I can. I can give you long-winded, rambling answers about that question, but yeah, music did bring me to journalism music music brought me, brought me to the world.
Speaker 2:It brings me to other people, it brought me to, to, to you and Karen, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, and journalism did too. Did you always been a writer, or you know?
Speaker 2:I've. There's an honest story. I don't know how to tell this story perfectly, so I'll just tell it badly. When I was in college, I really wanted to see a lot of shows. Okay, I lived in Champaign or I interned in San Diego and that's how I paid my way through school. Okay, and I didn't have spending money and I found out that if you wrote about the show for publication, you might be able to get a pair of tickets to go see the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's when I started writing about shows. Cool, we, that's. My first published piece was. You know, karen and I have been talking about Adrian Blew a lot today. My first published article was a review of the Bears Rise and Shine album in 1988 in the San Diego Tribune. Okay, and so that was Adrian Blew's band back then. Wow, okay, and it's like, oh, they'll send me quote, unquote free records. It really didn't strike me that eventually, you know, it would be like 12 to 14 hours worth of work To cover these shows or, you know, review an album that you could buy for eight bucks at the time, right Time value of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was a little bit skewed. See you later in life.
Speaker 2:It does so, but that's how it started, yeah, and, and, and you know, the value of the musical experience became better, and, and my analytical brain just goes there anyway. So I want to pick everything apart. I will read a record and memorize everybody involved in making it and be able to tell you 40 years from now who who recorded that Bears album and who played what, and who the guests were Cool, and and where they made it and and arcane details about the lyrics and whatever. It's just I'm a nerd that way and that's what I. That's fun, that's so amazing, and so eventually I get to write for the Suntimes and and have a music column for 10, 11, 12 years.
Speaker 1:That's great, so fun and it, but it's. It's not your day job, right, you know, but it is a very passionate hobby, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's yours. It probably takes more time than the actual day job yeah. How do you find the?
Speaker 3:time to go out and, and you know, be out late at these shows and then get up for work in the morning.
Speaker 2:Well, ask me about sports or television and you'll find out pretty rapidly.
Speaker 3:Have you been watching Game of.
Speaker 2:Thrones. Right, I know nothing about TV films or sports I can tell you about, and barely books. So so I can talk to you about rocket science. I can talk to you about music. Rock and roll and rocket science yeah, there's a podcast, except I wouldn't be able to talk about half of it, right, and it would just be another rock and roll podcast, which you know there's plenty of, but it sounds like you are the ones that I like. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it seems like you're an incredibly creative person. I had a question here. I'm just going to read it because I thought it was kind of interesting Are all of these endeavors sort of creatively related, you know, in your mind, or, you know, do you have to just, you know, tap into sort of distinct creative reserves for each of your roles, as like and we haven't even dove into the fact that you're a musician and a producer and you know all of that, yeah.
Speaker 2:To me they do all seem to be part of the same thing. They're branches on the same tree. If the tree's music, and you know, there's writing about music, because that allows me to think about music and analyze it and then there's making music, which you know that's the most fun Performing music and that's relating to other people.
Speaker 2:Performing is another way to have a conversation about music with people, as far as I'm concerned. But yeah, it's all about music. I guess there are times when well, certainly when you're performing or you're writing, you don't want to have the analytical brain turned on as much as when you're making it Right, but yeah, it all seems like the same thing because it's so foreign to the other pursuits you know the day job type of a.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like I can be working on the day job but if I have to go, you know work on a story for the paper or the magazine. I like that. That's taking something. That's no longer drudgery or it's no longer you know, hard mental work. Now it's happy mental work, right. And then you know playing music with people. That's just pure joy, that's bliss.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how did you? Speaking of that? Your album that you introduced me to that came out not too long ago, the Three Finger Opera, yeah, it's the world's longest album release because, you know, digital was available so much more in a more timely fashion than the.
Speaker 2:CD or the album release, because vinyl takes forever to make.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What was the timeline for vinyl? I actually don't know.
Speaker 2:Vinyl just came out in August.
Speaker 3:And when did you put that order in, like what's the lead time on vinyl?
Speaker 2:They told me they suckered me in by telling me it would take 15 weeks. Okay, and then you know it took 25 weeks or something, but that was they lost the record, like lost the record. Nobody knew where it was it went from. I can't get an answer from anybody to somebody finally saying we don't know where your record is in the system. And so then I had to a friend of mine who runs a, a, a a a. A friend of mine who runs a, a, another small label posed as me and called the vice president of the production and chewed them out and made threats or something like that.
Speaker 2:They're like leg breakers and all of a sudden it was back on track. They found it. Yeah, they found it, and I had it in my hands within five weeks. Okay, so you can still make a record in five weeks if you threaten people with grievous, grievous, bodily harm yeah, Totally get yourself a heavy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, when you I'm sorry, but it'll it can take 13 months these days, Wow. So people, yeah, if you've got, if you've got the new Wilco record, they, they can probably get better attention, but if it's the new Claudette's record, that may take 13 months.
Speaker 3:Wow, what is what takes so long? Is it? Is it sourcing vinyl itself, or the materials, or what?
Speaker 2:Well, it's, it's production capacity. So when people start making records in the late 80s, early 90s, people needed the space for other things and they just dismantled the production capacity. It's really common to go to Czech Republic now to produce your records, because they still have the means to to do it and take and take on large jobs. Canada has better production capacity and I can't believe that somebody like Richard Branson, who runs Virgin everything- yeah.
Speaker 2:Didn't put up record manufacturing shops in three different countries and started himself and and make the money that way. But no, the capacity is really slow to return in the in the United States, so you have to farm your record out somewhere else. You can, of course it would now in Chicago we have. I'm really embarrassed myself by being a poor evangelist for Chicago and tapping on the table, but we do have record manufacturing capability right here in Chicago and I should know the name of it and I don't, and that's really bad.
Speaker 3:We've been talking about this before I have it in my notes and find it.
Speaker 2:I've got friends from West West Chicago, which is closer to Wheaton, in a band called Dip and they recorded their album at Electrical Audio with Steve Alvini and you know I had it locally mastered and had it locally manufactured and their record turned out really, really well. So the next time I go to make a record I'm going to be looking here first, as if it takes 13 months At least I know when it's done I can drive down with a truck and take it home and so shipping it from Czech Republic Right.
Speaker 3:When you, from a production side, when you have the album like, are you recording, cause I'm assuming you don't want to record everything digitally and then and then dump it to vinyl. Are you doing two inch tape like old school, or how are you recording?
Speaker 2:No, but that's the dream. That's the dream for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just to work purely on tape. But it's 2023. So my record was made in the box. It never hit tape. But I have experienced, you know, like I said, working with Doug McBride at Gravity Studio in Wicker Park where things were. Things are going to be mostly digital because it's less expensive now, but you know, doug had a great two inch machine for doing multi-track there and those were skills that I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn to cut tape, oh wow. And you know align the machines and all that. You know it's like these are the people, my heroes. When I was a kid that's what they did. I would read about Helen Parsons. You know splicing a tape. Or you know listening to a knack record and you always hear that really bad cut during the guitar solo from my Sharona that you can never unhear once you hear it the first time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I, I haven't. No, I wanted to listen to that.
Speaker 2:And then there, and you know, there are people that can do that just seamlessly, where you could never hear it, and it's like, well, that's because they were making a classic record that they didn't think was a classic at the time. There is a throwaway record when they were making it and that's how so many favorites come along. But anyway, I wanted to learn all the old school analog stuff and Mark Rubel, who ran Pogo Studio in Champaign, illinois, was my guru, my recording guru, and he was one of Doug's mentors as well, and so he, he came from the from the all analog background. And so, yeah, I feel I always feel like in between I'm becoming the older generation pretty rapidly, but I always feel like I'm stuck between the two generations. There's, you know, I'm right in between analog and digital.
Speaker 3:Got it. Well, it's good to know both, but so you did yours in digital. And then, how do you? How do you hear the difference when it gets pressed to vinyl? You know everyone's talking about how warm vinyl is and all that stuff Does it.
Speaker 2:Well, there are limit, there are limitations to vinyl. That if you're, if you're really realistic about it, you just accept them and love them, and I do. The fact is CDs do sound quote, unquote, air quotes better than vinyl because they're true to the original source, they're true to full fidelity, and so I always record at least DVD quality. So CD quality would be 16 bit, 44.1 kilohertz, dvd quality 48, or 24 bit, 48 kilohertz. I can hear the difference between 24 bit and 16 bit. I can't always, I can't often, hear the difference between 48 and 44. It's too close together. But 28, 44 is certainly better than vinyl. So if you master well, full digital and better than CD quality anyway, you can make a perfectly viable, great sounding vinyl record for people to experience and they can experience it just as if it came, if it was only on tape the entire time. Okay, interesting.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic Technology yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, vinyl records inherently involve harmonic distortion. They cannot play to that bit and I should, I should. That's another thing. I should know what is the equivalent bit rate and sample rate that you really kind of get from the vinyl experience? Yeah, what you hear that you like about vinyl records is is harmonic distortion and sonic limitations anyway. And so, yeah, cds and DVDs and high bit rate. You know, super high def sounds truer to the source. But I liked the limited sound.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Our human ears are limited anyway. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 3:That's cool.
Speaker 2:I don't like the sound of MP3s. I don't like listening to music on phones.
Speaker 3:Too tinny or what you have.
Speaker 2:That's where you, that's where I start hearing the compression. Yeah, yeah, you know I use Spotify a lot as a as a music journalist, but I don't like to listen to it. You know I'll listen to it for for facts and note taking and to get up to speed, you know, if I need to hear that song to make a point of comparison, that's. That's where I'm going to go, right, it's easy. So it's a tool only. But if I want to listen to laughing stock by talk, talk, I'm not going to listen to it on Spotify.
Speaker 1:Is there a streaming service that you would listen to, or just not a streaming service? Not at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's that? Well, that would probably be the Neil Young thing. What was that? What was that called? Was he involved in title?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What I remember is the device, the Pono. Is that what it was? P-o-n-o Pono, I think that's the name of the device that Neil Young was championing. I think that was supposed to play 192 bit rate, 96 kilohertz, and so that's distortion beyond the level of human hearing, you know. So that should be perfect, like in a studio. I don't have access to that. So again a nerdy answer to a straightforward question.
Speaker 3:Is Pono like a device or what is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was right At the time. The equivalent everybody would have had an iPod at the time. They would have even had an iPhone when the Pono was out. But he promised with the Pono you wouldn't get the crunchy. No bottom end 128 kilobyte MP3 sound. You'd be getting glorious compact disc sound or something, and I think it would be on that.
Speaker 3:I wonder if it became like the beta max of you know which was technically better, but VHS one out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, format.
Speaker 3:Wars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're always usually coming down to marketing. Yeah, marketing and money. Karen referenced three finger opera.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got actually real vinyl.
Speaker 1:You should hear the crinkle of the Rella fan, I love it. You started to ask a question about that, but then it got sidetracked. Do you remember what you were going to ask?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I was going to ask about. You were talking about connection and music being the kind of connector, connecting force in your life, and this album has a who's who of Chicago musicians Fantastic, so how did that?
Speaker 1:come about. It's a cavalcade of dazzling guest stars there you go A cavalcade.
Speaker 2:Every last one of them, yes.
Speaker 3:So when you were approaching people, did you have the music all done and in your end and said I need you to play this part on this record, or did you? Was it organically built together? How did that work?
Speaker 2:It was a fusion of all of the above, the fact that Ping is a really great band, so the people that I get to play with in this group are I always like to say that well, I'm the least capable player in the group. So we've made all of our other records without having the cavalcade of dazzling guest stars, but it was. It was just the right time to make a record like that, and this record is the most personal. You know. I can.
Speaker 2:I can break it down to things that happened to me, less so or more than I could say. These are things that happen to us and to everybody, like all of the other records, and so but it was a test one of my favorite songwriters is a guy named Steve Hindalong and he plays drums and writes lyrics for a band called the choir, and there are two choirs. There's an old garage rock band from the sixties called the choir and there's an alternative rock band from Los Angeles from the mid eighties called the choir, and that choir still play. But that's so he's. He's one of my songwriting heroes, okay, as a lyricist, and his axiom is well, the more personal the topic, the more universal it becomes, and so I've stress, tested that axiom on this record, because the story through the record the record tells a story is so specific to my own experience.
Speaker 2:But then it became a process of I'll answer the right question. Eventually you tear away details so it becomes relatable and so you want it to relate. You want your specific, detail oriented story to be interpreted however anybody wants and say I see myself in that one, and a way to do that was simply to involve more people. It, seemed like, was to bring people into the intangible side of it, which is the magic of making the song and the arrangement. So, yeah, we called everybody we knew and some of them said yes, and so we would leave room for people to do certain things. But I still I hear the band underneath everything and it still sounds like our record. But it also sounds like a great house party where we were bringing all our creative friends in and letting them have a say, and so I hear their voices too.
Speaker 3:And did you already have relate like musical relationships with these guest stars where you'd played together or you just knew them through your work with music and writing Like the question.
Speaker 2:yes, that's all one thing. So the answer is there was a relationship somehow with everybody, and most of them it would have been yes, we've played together before. The name that more people will know than anybody else on the record is probably going to be Sy Kernan, the singer from the Fix, the guy that sings Saved by Zero Red Skies at Night. One thing leads to another. I've played shows with Sy.
Speaker 3:Have you really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love the fix the one time I played a show opening for him at the Abbey, a Sy solo show, which is a beautiful experience at the Abbey Pub, and so I got to do that and but I've written the bios for his last three solo albums.
Speaker 3:They're away.
Speaker 2:Cool. And you know I've been a guitar tech for Jamie West or Ameth. That fixed shows a few times in the past. So anyways, but Sy is our Sy's on the record. He's, he's our narrator, that. Did you happen to grow up with Disneyland? Read along storybooks with a record stuck in the back, by any chance?
Speaker 3:I know of them.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think this record is set up as if it's one of the Disney read along storybooks. So we have a narrator who introduces the story, then the story unfolds and then the narrator you know bids you farewell.
Speaker 3:That's what it's from so.
Speaker 2:Sy is, sy is our narrator, he's our avuncular, perfect British voice.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing. And what was the you? I mean we talked about this a little bit off the podcast, but kind of what was the impetus for this record? So?
Speaker 2:the personal experience. The name the three finger opera comes from the fact that these two fingers on my left hand are partially paralyzed and I was essentially a full time working musician at the time that that happened.
Speaker 3:Wow, Playing what instrument?
Speaker 2:Primarily. Well, if it's my own project, it's. It's usually stringed instruments, so guitars, and if I'm playing for anybody else, it's usually double bass, fretless upright bass.
Speaker 3:And your left hand is doing a lot of the work.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's hard to be a play stringed instruments with, without a fully functional left hand, so making this record was it's more than one purpose. It was the best rehab that I ever could have come up with.
Speaker 2:So, I had to retrain. You can't see this on the podcast, but this is my right hand. This is your first dorsal interosseous. Everybody is the muscle between your thumb and your index finger and it controls how abduction, which is how far you can stretch your fingers. And then there are other, and then there's a nerve that taps in below your thoracic spine and your cervical spine that controls all of the motion and feeling in your little finger and the vertical half of the motion feeling in your right finger. Wow, and so.
Speaker 3:I didn't know nerves controlled motion. I just thought nerves were only about pain or feeling what they activate the muscles.
Speaker 2:So, and if your muscle is not innervated, the muscle will die. So this is a first dorsal interosseous in my right hand and this is where one belongs in my left hand, where one no longer exists.
Speaker 3:How did that happen?
Speaker 2:Can you? It was a disc ruptured in such a way that it crushed the end of the nerve.
Speaker 3:Wow, was it like a traumatic injury or something?
Speaker 2:Well, maybe it was the consequence of some bad luck and falls off the bicycle, or I was trying to run a lot and it was icy out in the winter and I wasn't going to let ice stop me.
Speaker 3:Unstoppable yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but it did. And then a lifetime of bad habits, long hours at a computer or something like that, bad posture, anything. It was all contributors. Other people have fallen off bikes and fallen on the ice without any of that happening. Yeah, but yeah, it happened in the middle of the night, like it woke me up and it's like the worst blinding pain I've ever experienced when it happened.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then it took me a while because I was so focused on the other thing that happened it didn't occur to me that anything had happened to my hand. But I had a gig two days later and it's like I can't tell anybody what's going on and I played with three fingers. Oh, man.
Speaker 2:There's so Django Reinhart. Sure, he lost the same two fingers on his left hand in a fire. You can see my fingers move now. They don't do everything they're supposed to, but they move, and he invented a new musical language with his three fingers. So I figured get on with it. And this record was a way to teach myself new ways to do what I love to do and what I have to do. It was lovely and so that's what I did. It was a way, and the record is, even though that's kind of the backstory. The record's stupid goofy humor is built into all the song lyrics. That's just me.
Speaker 3:It's a very upbeat record for talking about something that was probably really tough to go through.
Speaker 2:On purpose. Yeah, that was total bootstrapping. It's like I have to keep myself in this frame of mind. So I wrote that way and surrounded myself with other people and this is what came from it and it's still a reminder to me of all those things. It took all to all the people who jumped in and brought joy to it and had fun with it, and the fund that's built into the record. That was a big deal. So, yeah, I probably have two thirds of my hand and that's probably what I get.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's kind of where it's going to stand for.
Speaker 2:Right, and so the things that I do now are, you know, it's like well, how do I retrain, how do I repurpose? And I can get away with most everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what have you found, like work arounds, anything with guitar or upright, that you found that you had to do?
Speaker 2:Yes, there are like. There are songs that I've had records out for now for 31 years and there are parts that I wrote for old songs that I can no longer play the way they were written to be played. So you have to find new ways to play it. Or you have to find a collaborator to work with and say we're going to split the part up, or you take over and I'll invent something else. So it's, it's, it's. You find a way to make something good out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I feel like that happens with musicians, you know, as as they get older they lose the ability to shred like they used to on the guitar, and so, you know, they find ways to reinvent themselves. I mean, you know, my favorite band, fish, is no different. They just continue to play differently, but you know, they adhere to their creative spirit that they've always had. But this is really hopeful, I mean almost to the point where you know you might present this record to people who have had sort of injuries and and go on talks or you know, just kind of bill it out as a really hopeful joyful record?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It has been interesting that way and usually the thing that I expect if I find somebody that relates to that actually latches on to what's going on in the record and they and they say it relates to what their experience. Their experience is usually like really heavy and you know, and they've come out the other side of it, so you know that's all.
Speaker 3:These things are teaching moments and were you writing as the thing was happening, you know as like right when the injury happened? Were you then like okay, I'm going to write my first song, or how did you go through that process?
Speaker 2:It happened in December 19th 2015. So it's been a while since it's not since the record was made and released, but since it was written Right, and I wrote the record in March 2016, like I wrote the whole record in March 2016.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then there were other things going on with the band that were front level for a while.
Speaker 3:And where was your, where was your handability at that time, when you, when the record was?
Speaker 2:When it was being written. It was still yeah, yeah, so are you a guitar player.
Speaker 3:I play guitar, but it's not my main instrument.
Speaker 2:You play a Chuck Berry song. You know you get the root and the five and you reach for the. You reach for the six to play the running.
Speaker 3:It's like can't, couldn't do that Can't do, that right Because you need the pinky?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was always. My test was once I started to develop any strength and it's like where can I, where could I play Johnny be good? And so you know the frets are closer together up at the top of the next, like well, I can play a Johnny be good and the key of D at the 10th fret. That's not very useful. But yeah, when I got back to the point where I could play in the key of A, that's good. But I can't. I can never play, say every breath you take or message in a bottle, and because I can't, I can't do a seven fret stretch, got it.
Speaker 3:Interesting. So what would you if you had you know, on on Andrew's tip of you know, making this as a, as a how to guide to get through something hard, you know what advice would you give somebody else? Do you? Would you say, you know, jump right in and make the creative thing after the after you've passed through the episode that you've been dealing with, or while you're at it.
Speaker 2:For me it was important to do while I was in it, because I wrote the ending of the story before I had reached it. And the ending of the story is perspective and gratitude and peace about the situation.
Speaker 3:Which you hadn't actually come to yet.
Speaker 2:I wasn't in that spot at all. I was in the middle of the record, which is well the so the song that you saw the video for that's that's unstoppable me stands alone as a as a happy, summary, good time song. But in the context of the record it's about pride goes before a fall, it's it's hubris, and then after that is fear, and so I was in between, and then there's fear and then there's sort of madness, which is the part of coming to terms with how ridiculous the situation is. And that's where, you know, some of the funny stuff is. And I was in between fear and madness when I wrote the record and I had to put myself to peace, perspective and gratitude.
Speaker 3:Have you always been a forward thinker like that of you know where you want to be and projecting that in front of you?
Speaker 2:I, my mother would tell me I was a worry ward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And that I was, that I always thought too much about things and and I was too pessimistic and tended toward depression you know, clinical depression. So but being the, the analyst part of my brain says okay, well, you know these things about yourself. Is that where you want to stay, or do you want to do something that might be a little more healthy?
Speaker 2:Good question and so you know it's it's a choice, it's a hard choice for me, but I had to make a hard choice. That I did. You know I was around people I have. I have two daughters. I'm married. I don't want to, I don't want to subject them to my depression, and so I have to work on that, and so this was it was. It was just a way to to for me to put it right in my own face, and yeah, that's hard to do, wow.
Speaker 3:What a good role model to you know to set for your daughter.
Speaker 1:Does that come, you think, from sort of tapping into sort of a sublime creative spirit, or is creativity just sort of compulsory and then something good comes from that's?
Speaker 2:a really good point and I hadn't thought of that well enough to answer it directly. But I can think around. The question you ask is that music is where I find joy and peace and where I can relax and feel good about things. So yeah, you'd have to ask that question again for me to answer it the right way. But it does come that mindset, the ability to make that decision for myself, I don't think would have existed if music wasn't what it is for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was it hard for you not to write sad. Woe is me songs to force yourself to be so.
Speaker 2:Oh, I did write sad, woe is me horrible, it depressing songs. I just threw them all away. Oh, wow, yeah, well, you know what one of our local examples is. Is Jeff Tweedy right, and have you? Have you read his books by any chance? So his first book was kind of about his own experience as a person, as a songwriter, finding himself and Susan, you know his marriage and his family and through his band, kind of becoming his own salvation sort of.
Speaker 2:And then a second book was how to write one song. And but how you write just one song is you make yourself a songwriting machine and you write songs every day, and and so his, his point is anybody can write one song, but it's also, if you can write one song, you can write one song all the time. And so you write a lot of songs and you throw out a lot of stuff. But you can't write the good ones without writing the bad ones. That's really, I think, the point or a point he was trying to make. You don't get, you don't get a great song without throwing stuff out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's tremendous, though, that that sort of process led to this, versus because there's a lot of, you know, wonderful songs that are about really shitty, depressing moments, you know, and those and being published and produced, and yet your process was in. Your then result was was quite different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I love the Smiths and the cure, right, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like a pretty, you know a modeling song, but yeah, I think, for what Ping has tried to represent over the years, it's a it's communication. It's not just let me tell you about myself, it's about let's find common ground. And so I think if I wrote a really personal record about how miserable I was, that wouldn't translate. Somebody would identify with it and it's like, yeah, I've been through that too, but they probably wouldn't want to listen to it more than once. So yeah, I wanted to.
Speaker 2:I wanted to write something that at least became like a Monty Python sketch. If it was talking about things that were ridiculous and awful, it was funny.
Speaker 3:Mm. Hmm. Yeah, there is a lot of humor on the album and in the videos. That yeah.
Speaker 2:And really bad hand puns you had.
Speaker 3:In one of the videos it's being your hands. You had the the Taraway sheets. Yeah as you were doing the lyrics, and that had to be very hard because there is a lot that you were dealing with.
Speaker 2:I had one shot at that. You know, blaine that's Andrew Pickett is the director for that video he did, he did two of the three. He did the one in the called Waiting Room and he did rhyming dictionary.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's and he explained it. He tried to prep me. He said you get one chance at this. We've got one book to tear away yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah so it's very well done, yeah. Yeah, did you have somebody like in the back or like calling out like, okay, pause on that one. Okay, now keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was, he was great, he was the camera operator and he his. His wife was his production director, anyway, I forget. It says a Donnie picket and says what her actual title was. But yeah, she was, she was. They were both walking backwards and she had a stopwatch and we did it at half speed and so you heard your time counting and she would go tear. And she was timing it to the lyrics. So the lyrics were everything was playing back at half speed, wow.
Speaker 2:And she and she had marker when, when there was time for the page to go.
Speaker 3:I would never have thought that. As, yeah, it turned out very natural. I love the kids in the background picking up yeah torturing children.
Speaker 2:He's littering Very bad example for kids who are trying their best to help. Yeah, yeah. So the yeah the video is is walking through fairgrounds and and gathering people as we. You know, we got a crowd of like 10 or 15. But, yeah, we had a bunch of kids and the kids were assigned picking up all the garbage that I was throwing on the ground.
Speaker 3:That's great Super fun.
Speaker 1:Do you get to see much music for fun?
Speaker 2:No, I don't, yeah, hardly at all. Yeah, fortunately, I still find it fun to go see music and then write about it. Sure, there are times when I know there's another deadline. When you work on Monday morning that I know it's like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be up till five writing about this. Yeah, then it seems like work sometimes Right, but I just couldn't stop.
Speaker 2:I don't want to. I have a law, it's called Stevie's law and Stevie's law is always go to the show Because there were. There were three shows in a row. I was a college freshman and I'm old and Peter Gabriel's so tour came to champagne and it was. It was a campus event, so you could have got the best seats for dirt cheap. Ticket price Right and and seeing the biggest tour that Peter Gabriel ever mounted, and I had tickets for that show and I was failing chemistry Because I was. You're supposed to take a 15 hour workload as a freshman. I was taking 21 hours of hard classes, and I was.
Speaker 2:I was failing a class, and you know that wasn't in my background. I was used to, you know, being the goody two shoes best in the class, sure, and so I didn't go to that show and everybody on the dorm floor came back. After wearing t-shirts programs like this was miserable and I failed the test. Oh, no.
Speaker 2:And I dropped the class because I got. I got half a brain and I took it over the summer. And then the kinks there was a radio contest and the kinks are huge for me. I love the kinks and somebody asked a kinks question on the radio and I was like we'll be called on that. Of course I knew the answer was a kinks question. I said you've just won a pair of tickets to see the kinks play it. Wherever they were playing it might have even been in Metro. I think it was the to the bone tours and it was the last tour that the kinks did. Wow, nobody knew that, right, but I had tickets to see the last time the kinks played in Chicago. Oh my gosh, to this day. And I had an exam and I was not doing well and I didn't have a car and you know I could have. I should have been able to find anybody say, hey, who wants to go see the kinks? I got free tickets, right, and I didn't go to the show. The kinks broke up.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, painful, and then the last, the straw, the broth Campbell's back, yeah. And then I had the same, but the same same setup. I had front row balcony tickets at Folinger Auditorium, which would be like front row center at Metro, standing on the rail to see Stevie Ray Vaughn and his brother, jimmy, come out on the family style tour and play a Stevie Ray Vaughn show and Jimmy and they did the whole bit where where Jimmy comes and plays over his brother's shoulders and the encore and all that. And I didn't go to that show. I was in a helicopter flying out of Alpine Valley and perished and I said, in honor of Stevie Ray Vaughn, I am enacting a new law. From now, forever forward, it is Stevie's law which is always, always go to the show, so all my stories are shaggy dog stories.
Speaker 2:They take forever to tell.
Speaker 1:That's. That's a tribute. A tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn. Yeah, I think that's a good lesson for everybody is always go to the show.
Speaker 3:That's right. Should we take a break there? Let's take a break, okay.
Speaker 1:Karen, should we do our?
Speaker 3:record of the week. Record of the week. Record. Record of the week. What do you got? We are dialing that in, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think maybe we need some voice lessons, but oh no, I like it raw. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, I have a record of the week.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:It's a throwback, cause you know me, I am always about the old records that have been out for a long time.
Speaker 1:You always say that, and what do I always tell you? We never really review a new record, that's true, that's what people like Jeff can do. That's right. Review new records Yep.
Speaker 3:I'm going to review an old record.
Speaker 1:All right, what do you?
Speaker 3:got. Um. It's by a band called built to spill Uh-huh. They have a million songs that are fantastic on all sorts of different albums, but this one is particularly a favorite of mine. Keep it like a secret, okay, and came out in 1999. This was the album that my band would listen to on the road trips up and down the West coast.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:And just very solid memories of the Pacific Northwest and my bandmate Mark Manning, just driving the Chevy truck, all the equipment in the back and you know, just listening to built to spill.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And this particular album. I love it. It's very start to finish a journey and this is also a band that it's. The album is beautiful to listen to in the car and then when you go to see them live, it is a great experience.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:You know, sometimes it's one or the other with a band built to spill brings it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And you would actually appreciate it because I know you like the jam bandy kind of thing. I've seen them. Okay, so you know. So they go on epic journeys with their music and you know they fly off that not fly off the handle, but you know they'll take on on a ride and then they flew off the handle.
Speaker 1:One guy, one guy punched. One guy punched me in the face.
Speaker 3:You got punched in the face. I'm just joking, oh my God, that would be a good story of. Some guy from you know, doug, from built to spill, punched you in the face. Yeah, I think his name is Doug isn't it yeah? Yeah, anyway, so highly recommend it. If and they are coming into town, so tell you. Hall May 4th. I have no idea if it's sold out or not, but if not, you should get yourself a ticket or get on a radio station and win a prize.
Speaker 1:Or if this airs after the show, then ask somebody how it was. There you go.
Speaker 3:Which it probably will.
Speaker 1:Probably will.
Speaker 3:Anyway, but there it is next time around.
Speaker 1:Go see them. They are amazing. I'm not proud. Saw them and I didn't. I didn't think they were together anymore, or I mean.
Speaker 3:But it's been a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a while since they played here. They just came out with a new album and it's readily available where most of their albums are not in print anymore, and so If anybody comes across one at a record store, feel free to send it to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we take gifts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can call us at wwwrecordsinrealestatecom and send things that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to that address.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you know this, but we're back with Jeff Elbel oh we are.
Speaker 3:Hey, jeff, I didn't see you sitting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean we could keep talking, and talking, and talking, and I wish we could, but we all have lives, unfortunately, and I need to get home to my two and a half year old and my wife was pregnant eight months. Wow, and really yeah, so we need to move the conversation along, and you know this is, we'll have you back.
Speaker 1:We will have you back for sure. This is records in real estate. And you know, usually we have a guest that's like, oh, I'm gonna go to the real estate. And you know, usually we have a guest that's sort of knows a lot about music, not so much about real estate, or vice versa. Obviously, you know a ton about music, do you know anything about real estate?
Speaker 2:My connection to Chicago real estate would be through the theaters that I love going to or the venues that I love going to, the clubs, yeah, and that's where the interview would be turned around and I'd be asking you about all these theaters that I really should know the history.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't know that I'd be able to answer that, but but like the rooms I find myself in the most often, I'm at the Vic a lot. Yes, because you know a lot of the, the level of band that I like to follow play at the Vic. You know whatever, that is 1800. I think it's 15 to 1800, sounds about right probably, and but you know I love the auditorium. Theater is like that for me is like that's church you know, auditorium theater, like sort of the loop ish.
Speaker 1:I mean, right, that's on Congress, right, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Gorgeous. I've seen a number of shows there. I saw Karen's favorite, bob Dylan, that's been around in that auditorium has been around a long time, yeah, and if you're in the fifth balcony at the auditorium theater, you feel like you are five blocks away from what's happening. I saw it.
Speaker 1:It's just the other side of the block way up in the back I saw speaking of talking heads. I saw David Burns production in that at like, at the very back. Oh yeah, you saw it from from five blocks away, five blocks away, but it was so lovely, yeah, and still very enjoyable that was one of my three favorites Three favorite shows at that venue.
Speaker 2:The other two would have been Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Wilco when I first moved here.
Speaker 1:I saw Wilco there too. Yeah, like in I don't know 2000,.
Speaker 2:like 2010, 2012 or 2013 or something like that, yeah, I should be able to tell you exactly what record that would have been. But that wouldn't be sky blue sky, maybe I don't know, they're probably higher than that.
Speaker 1:Well enough, but yes, I've seen Wilco there two times Nice.
Speaker 2:Nice. But Chicago theater yeah, it was state and lake. Yeah, gorgeous room, not as ornate as the auditorium, or maybe more ornate than the auditorium, but feels a little more used and broken in, maybe Right, and then on in Uptown, the Riviera, sure, which always seems like it could use a little more love.
Speaker 1:Well, they have put some money into it lately.
Speaker 2:It's right, it's. It's just different than my first experience, right yeah?
Speaker 1:So I saw on your Facebook.
Speaker 3:That he likes.
Speaker 1:Hit sitcom from the 80s, different strokes Karen was doing some research for a guest of ours and, you know, just came across something on your Facebook page and you know, like when Facebook first came out, you know you get to like like certain things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what are you into?
Speaker 1:Actually I think it was Michael Levestre and she's, she's kind of just came up pulled out of nowhere, so you're a different strokes fan.
Speaker 2:I think you do some impersonations, do some impressions for me.
Speaker 1:So so I saw on your Facebook page that you noted a producer or record label giant that just died Sydney. Oh, seymour Stein, seymour Stein, yeah, and stick with me for a second here. So we we talked a lot about sort of bigger acts. Oh, we were talking about umbop and how unfortunate it is that that was sort of got all the marketing dollars, which is why you know local bands, local record producers, record labels and chirp radio. I think is really important. I was listening to chirp. Our most recent guest used to DJ for chirp and just became aware of their FM radio station and they were playing a lot of Sydney Stein stuff and mentioned that that he had passed and what a giant he was. And, uh, saw on your Facebook page that you were a fan of his.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a. I have a one degree of separation personal connection to Seymour, One of my very best friends from. California was signed by Seymour. Oh wow, so he was one of his later signings. Nice, who's that? That was a guy named Andrew Wesley, okay, and he was in a band in the late 90s called the Ant Beddies. Okay, and they were a great cross, but somewhere between the Sex Pistols and the Rolling Stones they were in boat with a bunch of Bowie thrown in. So glam, rock, rock and roll Sure.
Speaker 2:Seymour loved them and signed them, but they were a West Coast band. Seymour is an East Coast guy and so they got mbocked out of existence because the West Coast team if you've ever heard of Nottisurf, nottisurf and Ant Beddies signed and put out there at the exact same time, but Nottisurf were in the community that was nurturing them and the Ant Beddies were not, so Nottisurf still tours today.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's crazy. I mean, that's how the industry works and unfortunately, you know you missed out on a lot of good bands just because they don't get the promotion, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but Andy still makes us living in music in other ways. He's a producer, he's an engineer, he plays in bands, you know. So we kind of do some of the same sorts of things in order to keep doing what we love. But yeah, Seymour Stein, everybody knows Seymour Stein by one degree of separation, because they've heard of Madonna.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I've heard of Madonna.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've heard of yeah, yeah, how lucky Sounding familiar. It's a painting, don't go looking.
Speaker 3:Madonna, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:But he also you know the Smiths talking heads. Oh, and for crying out loud, poster children from my adopted hometown of Champaign. So poster children are politically you know. They're an activist math rock band that still plays now. You might like them. They're going to be playing in Chicago this summer. So now they're so far along. We're talking that they started back in the early 90s, but now they still record and play now and then, and so they're college professors at ISU, the singer on the basis, to kind of keep the band thriving.
Speaker 1:What is math rock?
Speaker 2:Oh, anything you can do to avoid four-four time, I guess.
Speaker 3:How would you distinguish math rock from like prog rock? Because they do a lot of weird time signatures and math rock is rooted in punk rock.
Speaker 2:Prog rock is rooted in classic rock and classical music. I guess that's what I'd say. So you know, for my friends and poster children, I know that they, like their musical idols, would be talking heads and gang of four and then hardcore bands that I know nothing about. But yeah, if you, if you had Rick Valentin on the show, he would, he would school you on all the hardcore bands that he loves. But yeah, I connected because he and Rose Marschak, the, the, the basis and the partners in the band are, yeah, they're, they're nerds.
Speaker 2:So I came out of the engineering school college of engineering at U of I and managed to find find their way into music. So they were role models. Rose just wrote a great book called Play Like a man. It's a great book.
Speaker 3:I'm interested in that. Yeah, what's what's the take?
Speaker 2:Well, the take is be your own person, regardless of who you are and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Right, and but it's kind of it's, it's her journey in technology, or poster children were, were early adopters of everything related to the Internet and they kind of invented. You know, it's a, it's a glit thing to say, but they, they were, they, they were podcasting. Before there there was a word called podcast.
Speaker 3:So the radio zero program Nice.
Speaker 2:Was was early on, the was on the early end of that. So her, her take yeah, it was. You know it's, it's about female, or it has the female perspective and her perspective. But I don't, I can't speak for Rose very well.
Speaker 2:Yeah she's, she's, she, she. She could be pointed to as a feminist icon, but I think she's a role model for anybody. She's a role model for my daughters in music and technology and being progressive and forward and confident in in a man's world or any world. And that's the thing I think that makes it different is she's not breaking it down to throw half the population away. She's just, it's sort of don't, don't take it from anybody, right, you know, you know, don't don't agree from anybody. Be be you and then do it. At the same time, she, she, also recognizes that half the population is disadvantaged and what they're trying to do yeah.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if she treads that line a lot better than than I can do it on a behalf, but it's. It's a really interesting book and it's got a lot going on, yeah sounds great.
Speaker 3:Let's hear the last name again.
Speaker 2:Marshak M A R S H A C K Marshak Play like a man. Yeah, play like a man is her book. It's on the University of Illinois Press. She is the director of the creative technologies program at Illinois State University, wow, where my daughter Melody went to interview, and and Rick Valentin, her husband, is the professor in the creative technologies track that my daughter most wanted to go into.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:She found the track at Northern Illinois University, so she's going to go there.
Speaker 1:Congrats, but yeah, are you passionate about Wheaton?
Speaker 2:Sorry, I just trying to throw out something real estate, you know, I mean, I know.
Speaker 1:Wheaton, sort of you know, and it's a lovely community.
Speaker 2:But it is. It's a lovely community. You won't find a lot of people who spend a lot of time in Chicago. Talk about passion for Wheaton I like Wheaton.
Speaker 2:Wheaton's good. Yeah, you'll find people. What do you like about Wheaton? Well, we came from Laundale in Los Angeles County, okay, and which was not. I also mentioned the Sikaran. I don't like I don't like to say this or talk about it, but I'll mention it. It sounds kind of horrible. I didn't think that was a good place for our kids to go to school. Now I'd rather would have been in Laundale and been part of positive change and engaging the community. I knowing the way Megan was going at a very young age, I think that would have been a bad environment and Los Angeles was amazing for me and not for my wife. I was really connected to music in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it was perfect for me to do what I did, but she didn't.
Speaker 2:She was really isolated there, and so we moved here, because we have friends that lived in Wheaton and my best friend from high school lived in Wheaton and my best friend, monica Doyle, from undergrad and graduate school at U of I, also lived in Wheaton, nice, and so we moved there and our girls went from kindergarten all the way through and graduated high school in one school system.
Speaker 2:That was not an experience that either Melinda or I had. Yeah, I was in different schools all the time Nice, so it's a great family community, absolutely, and it's not Naperville Right.
Speaker 1:Right Well, and it seems as though you have certainly found your Chicago music family as well.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I'm in town as often as I can. I'm probably in town every week, yeah, and when things are really haywire I might be in town four times a week yeah. And that's because of it, much Because of Stevie's Law, yes, and you've got to feed the monster, but if the Claudettes are playing, I'm going to be in town.
Speaker 3:Well, we should go see a car. Yeah, they're great and they have a new lead now, rachel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really looking. I mean, everybody in the band is so I stammer, stammer, stammer. I love Barrett Barrett's marvelous talent and former singer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, former singer Barrett Olseth, who made these records that I brought for vision you can see in the pocket, so high times in the dark and the Claudettes go out is the latest Nice. Those were both made with Barrett but Barrett put in, you know, a lengthy tenure with the Claudettes and toured everywhere and she's she's got new priorities in her life and I hope she's a super, super happy doing whatever comes next.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And so now they've got a brand new singer, first name Rachel, right? I don't know. Actually I think her name is Rachel, and if her name isn't Rachel, I'll apologize for using the same person.
Speaker 3:See you in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, eventually I'll. I'll know her name as well as Barrett's. Yeah, but I'm really eager to. I know everybody else in the band is really stoked.
Speaker 3:Just top notch musicians. It's just a fun show, very high energy and but they can also. You know they've got that. They've got the chops to go subtle and play just beautifully.
Speaker 2:They can do the cabaret, the Bert Backer act thing.
Speaker 1:And then they can do the Minutemen thing, and they do the Otis band thing.
Speaker 2:It's, it's the breath in that band is is unmatched.
Speaker 1:Well, you're hoping to get iguana on? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's going to happen.
Speaker 3:All right, yeah, yeah Will it happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, go on and play his on four tracks, but he's featured on Lazy Louis, so I said I wanted to. I was, I wanted an Otis Ban meets, uh, nikki Hopkins. Otis Ban meets Nikki Hopkins piano and he did it. Nice. Yeah, not many can, so I'll go back and listen to that song, just so I can hear him play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when do people who stream can they find the three finger opera?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, they can find it at ping P I N G the other half of Pong pingbandcampcom. And they can find it at Spotify, okay Great.
Speaker 1:Well, Jeff, this has been just an amazing conversation. We're very fortunate to have you on as a guest and, uh, just loved hearing your stories and talking music and a little bit about real estate not asking about Wheaton, but Wheaton was a good place to raise a family I do, love, I do love Wheaton.
Speaker 2:I love Wheaton, but maybe not passionately.
Speaker 3:He's got the. I heart Wheaton. Yeah, I've got the.
Speaker 1:I heart.
Speaker 3:Wheaton On his back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's enough.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. It's been great, all right.
Speaker 2:Thank you both Really really had a good time, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Karen.
Speaker 3:Yes, andrew.
Speaker 1:Why are you back in Chicago?
Speaker 3:Oh, um. Well. So Jeff, our guest is a great guest, said you know, if you want to connect with people, go personal. So I'm going to tell you personally that I came back to Chicago. I was living in the Bay Area for 21 years and then my mom was diagnosed with dementia and my parents you know, they all my brothers are away One in New York and one in Springfield, illinois and I thought I needed to get out of the Bay Area.
Speaker 3:I was ready to leave. I'd been there for a while and it was just time, and the universe always tells me where to go next. I always get a sign and I was waiting for about six years for the sign to happen where to go, where to go. And then I got that call and I was like that's where I need to be. And, um, you know, when I was growing up and and when I left Chicago to go to school in Michigan, I vowed I would never come back. You know it's all the angsty teenage things and I screw this town and, um, now I'm back and I actually really love Chicago. Sounds good.
Speaker 3:I'm very, very happy to be back and it's finally, after three years, it's it's feeling like home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you came back at a rough time.
Speaker 3:I mean, obviously it was rough transition, you know, having to sort of learn how to be caretaker, um, and then yeah, and I literally like the week or maybe two weeks after I landed back here, my mom landed in the hospital, ended up needing a pacemaker and then had a collapsed lung, and my dad broke his foot in five places and was in a wheelchair. Yeah, and so it was, and everyone did. This day is like you came back right at the right time.
Speaker 1:I guess that is true. Did I or could I have just stayed away and avoided that? That's right, Somebody would have figured it out.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, maybe, I guess probably, you probably would.
Speaker 1:But he also came back and there was a pandemic, and then there, was a pandemic.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, there was a little, a bit of a rough start, let's say, um, but I met you, or I re connected with you, yes, and it's been really just lovely. It has been lovely.
Speaker 1:It's been branching out and getting to know people here, Lovely to have you as part of our Be Realty family and lovely to have you as a co-host on records in real estate and go out and have fun and listen to music for dinners, and let's keep doing it. Let's do that, all right. Okay, 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. Be Realty.