Records & Real Estate Podcast
From Teen Bands to TV Scores: The Evolution of Johnny Iguana
Ever wondered how an unexpected live tryout in New York City could change the course of a music career? Join us as Johnny Iguana, the dynamic keyboardist from The Claudettes, recounts his serendipitous journey from playing in teenage blues bands to landing a gig with the legendary Junior Wells in 1994. Johnny shares his humorous stage name origin, the vibrant punk and blues blend in his music, and offers a candid reflection on the cultural adjustments of being a young man playing in Chicago blues bands.
Experience the emotional and creative complexities of Johnny's musical journey. We explore his passion for music and storytelling, from the inspiration behind songs like "Park Bench" to the thrill of reading audiences during live performances. Johnny also opens up about his role in creating music for the TV show "The Bear," discussing the collaborative process and technological advancements that have shaped his work. Dive into the intricacies of album production and the challenges of releasing music during the pandemic, featuring collaborations with Chicago legends and the excitement of seeing projects come to life.
Finally, Johnny reminisces about his 30 years in Chicago, reflecting on the city's evolving neighborhoods, iconic music venues, and his personal growth along the way. Learn about his favorite Chicago spots, the practicalities of band life, and the unexpected adventures, from laundry mishaps to humorous gig offers. Whether you're a music enthusiast or a fan of compelling life stories, this episode promises a rich tapestry of insights, anecdotes, and inspiration straight from the heart of a seasoned musician.
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: Johnny Iguana of The Claudettes
Link: Johnny Igunana Chicago Spectacular
Link: Delmark Records
Link: Oh My God
Link: The Bear
Ever wondered how an unexpected live tryout in New York City could change the course of a music career? Join us as Johnny Iguana, the dynamic keyboardist from The Claudettes, recounts his serendipitous journey from playing in teenage blues bands to landing a gig with the legendary Junior Wells in 1994. Johnny shares his humorous stage name origin, the vibrant punk and blues blend in his music, and offers a candid reflection on the cultural adjustments of being a young man playing in Chicago blues bands.
Experience the emotional and creative complexities of Johnny's musical journey. We explore his passion for music and storytelling, from the inspiration behind songs like "Park Bench" to the thrill of reading audiences during live performances. Johnny also opens up about his role in creating music for the TV show "The Bear," discussing the collaborative process and technological advancements that have shaped his work. Dive into the intricacies of album production and the challenges of releasing music during the pandemic, featuring collaborations with Chicago legends and the excitement of seeing projects come to life.
Finally, Johnny reminisces about his 30 years in Chicago, reflecting on the city's evolving neighborhoods, iconic music venues, and his personal growth along the way. Learn about his favorite Chicago spots, the practicalities of band life, and the unexpected adventures, from laundry mishaps to humorous gig offers. Whether you're a music enthusiast or a fan of compelling life stories, this episode promises a rich tapestry of insights, anecdotes, and inspiration straight from the heart of a seasoned musician.
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: Johnny Iguana of The Claudettes
Link: Johnny Igunana Chicago Spectacular
Link: Delmark Records
Link: Oh My God
Link: The Bear
Welcome to Records and Real Estate, a podcast about well, records and 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 Sanvas. We are Chicago real estate brokers, property managers, avid music lovers and your hosts of Records and Real Estate. Andrew yes, karen, we just interviewed Johnny Iguana.
Speaker 1:Johnny Iguana From the Claudettes, from the Claudettes.
Speaker 2:A very fabulous band in Chicago chicago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to see them um at old town school of folk music yes, we did that was a fun show. Yeah, last week you played martyrs. On thursday they played martyrs yes, they did.
Speaker 2:I tried to go, but I was so tired me too. Yeah, yeah but yeah, he plays all over town. He's's in several groups. He's a prolific writer, writes for the TV show the Bear.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is astounding and so cool. Yeah, yeah, really fun conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he's, you know he went to an Ivy League school, he's an English major and loves to write, very thoughtful, and you know, know, it's funny. He, uh he sort of laments about, um, uh, like a show that he that he would go to, or you know concert that he goes to, and somebody asked him how it is and he's like, oh it was, you know, musicians, music yeah what's?
Speaker 1:what's funny is? I had a question that I did not ask him. I'm like you seem like a musician's musician, but to me, you know, I mean, obviously he kind of used that in a negative context to me, you know, there, there's there's such a things that I think I've talked about it on another episode like, well, there's a comics comic and that's oftentimes, you know, the comics comic is revered because they can make the comedians laugh, right, right, you know, uh, who have a high standard of what comedy is, and, um, yeah, we talk about this in the interview, but he's, um, he's revered by uh, uh, you know yeah, the musician that other musicians look up to.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, yeah, I, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, let's listen to Johnny Iguana and hear his thoughts about Chicago beef. Well, Johnny Iguana, thank you for being here today.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you for inviting me up. What should we call you on this podcast Friend?
Speaker 3:Call me a friend, so friend, buddy.
Speaker 1:Hey buddy, hey pal, hey, let's just start at the beginning of this interview. Where did Johnny Iguana come from? Where did the name come from?
Speaker 3:So I was into like all the cool cool kids, into punk and new wave and indie rock and stuff, and then my uncle sent me a bunch of really great blues records and jazz records and I got obsessed and started playing piano a lot in that vein and then I joined a blues band when I was 15.
Speaker 3:And you know meaning mom had to drive me to some things at first, but then when we were 17 we were really up and running and playing a lot of clubs and and that was what they were, they already kind of existed and I joined and they were called stevie lizard and his all reptile orchestra, okay, um, and I became johnny iguana, who was ostensibly the brother of bobby igana, the bass player, and I always thought growing up watching Grady Bunch that it was sort of like when Vincent Price, like they're all in Hawaii and they all like anoint them, like a different name you are, and I thought like I just was sort of named a name that I've now had for decades, there was something that was chosen as a stupid joke, arbitrarily in one second you know, but that.
Speaker 3:So that was dating back to the Philadelphia suburbs. But it was a very cool beginning of my musical awakening where we were 17, obviously in high school, and playing in an area of Chestnut Hill that was called Germantown. That was more of a African-American area and this club was owned and run and populated by African-American people and they recognized that we love blues and they let us be the Monday night band. In there we were like I don't know how they didn't know we were under 21, but we, um, some of us weren't under 21, but I was, and everyone had fake IDs around them. My friend actually in the band made them. He has a business. He would have you come over and take a photo next to a poster board and then another poster board and you splice them together.
Speaker 3:In the age of the hologram it's no good, but back then it was doable, right and um. So we were kind of heroic in high school where not only were we the monday night band but 30 classmates would come there and drink beers and watch us play every single one of of them lying and I started it all about their whereabouts. But you know, we would play three sets at warp speed. I feel like we were sort of like the Yardbirds or something, you know, like white kids, super excited about blues and R&B playing. Like you know, mustang Sally, that everybody plays, you know the tempo is like Ours was One, two, three, four, I'm not kidding, and we did Land of a Thousand Dances, but yeah, and we were so excited and we played way too many notes. I have recordings of it and it's sort of like a complete assault you know, because I was listening to punk like Minuteman and stuff too.
Speaker 3:So it was sort of from that point of view, but it was from such a place of love and discovery and excitement. But what it did do was it prepared me for my future of meeting Junior Wells, because a lot of the songs we played were Junior Wells songs, because those are the blues albums we happen to have. And when I met him, like when I was 23, I I knew I had played his songs hundreds of times, you know. So I had to learn how to play them correctly and slower did he school you?
Speaker 3:yes, I mean not with words yeah you know.
Speaker 3:But uh, also, all of the players in that band had been in the bands of screaming jay hawkins and magic sam and james cotton and junior wells and James Cotton and Junior Wells and Buddy Guy and stuff. So I was schooled by just example. How did you hook up with Junior Wells? This is why I've ever since then said when in doubt go out. Because I was living in New York City with my first job after college, writing the back covers of books they call it cover copy.
Speaker 3:I was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania. I wasn't sure I was going to be a musician other than for fun, but I had a little keyboard set up in my tiny apartment in Manhattan and was working in the Time Life building in New York at a bar and he was going to take the train down visit me. I almost didn't go because it was raining and but I couldn't reach him. We didn't have cell phones. I knew he was on the train so we went out to our usual place which was called coyote kate's in midtown manhattan, which was a country western bar where the entire jukebox was country records plus like one or two elvis records that was, and he drank beer out of a glass boot, you know, but it was.
Speaker 3:It was. It was like the only the only kind of affordable place in my neighborhood. It was a, you know, probably get a pitcher of beer still, or something you know, for something reasonable. And so we went there to shoot pool and we were, we were disappointed to find out that that particular night was a very short-lived blues jam hosted by this guy. So I didn't get to play pool but I did get to sit in on this piano because he was a keyboard player and he took a liking to me and my playing.
Speaker 3:We got to talking and realized that the host of this Blues Jam and I had met two years earlier outside Philadelphia at a Junior Wells show because I tried to go sit in with Junior Wells. When he came to my area near Philadelphia, keyboard player was going to orchestrate it for me, but then he skipped the whole second set. He went across the street and was trying to pick up some woman and he missed the whole second set, and so I couldn't wave at Junior on stage and go hi. I met the keyboard player in the bathroom and he said maybe I could sit in. I just was too bashful to do that, so I never got to play with him, but he ended up getting fired because of that maneuver that night, and so when I met him hosting that blues jam in New York City I know I'm muddling the story a little bit, but consider this some sort of really, really clever movie where you don't know what part of the story you're in right now.
Speaker 2:It's a time-lapse problem.
Speaker 3:But in New York City there, having previously met this host at that Junior Wells debacle, he liked my playing. He said you know Junior's coming to town like the day after tomorrow to New York City. I was like oh, and he took me to go see him and I ended up getting a live tryout. He talked them into. He knew he had burned his bridge with them but he said this kid really loves Junior and really plays his stuff really well. And so they had me come up and try out live in Boston and Providence, rhode Island, and I ended up getting that gig, which is quite exciting. And so my first job after college lasted 11 months and I've basically been a musician most of the time since. That's incredible. So that moved me out here for what I thought was going to be two or three years, but that was 1994.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I was about to ask, so that moved you. That's how you got hooked up with Chicago. Yeah, I was about to ask, so that moved you. That's how you got hooked up with Chicago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I was in high school I watched Cheers and I thought that Woody was like what I thought of of the Midwest.
Speaker 3:You know, like shopping at the Piggly Wiggly and it's still amazing to me. I live in the Midwest Kalamazoo sounded like where the leprechaun from Lucky Charms was from, you know, when I started hearing about it. But over time I lost my. I lost my, my superciliousness, you know, with coming from New York city. It's hard to move from New York city to anywhere, or, as my friend would say, my hubris moving from, you know, ivy league school in New York city to Chicago playing music, and I was the one white kid in this nine-person band. Everyone else was like 40-some-year-old African-American players mostly and they all had tons of experience. But I loved it, of course, and I kept a journal.
Speaker 3:The drummer in the band who just died, actually Willie Hayes, used to turn and point at me in the morning when I was filling out my journal. He'd point at me and say, mr Belvedere, going back to old sitcoms, you know, remember he would end every episode with like right, you know, maybe dipping his pen in the ink and writing it, you know, but I think they were also sort of like, hey, what you writing in there? Right, not everybody was up to good at all times. Just, you know, maybe a future bribe or blackmail tool, I don't know we were talking off air.
Speaker 2:How you know, back then you don't have a record of everything, but maybe you do well, yeah, you know the problem.
Speaker 3:One problem I've encountered is I was a recent english major graduate and I was so proud of my writing that I read my writing now and it is intolerable and it's so annoying you know how you're so excited to like to write when you, I was a writing major within an English major. But I find it like if I ever were to publish it in any way, it would be a complete rewrite. I would write it from a completely different style.
Speaker 2:Why was it so annoying? What about it?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, my worldview was wrong. I was 23. I was like a fish out of water and I just, I don't know, I find my outlook ugly and I find my writing style like proud and bad I think fatuous is the word that I can say Stupid, with an air of pride. You know, I'm sure a lot of people keep diaries and such and maybe we all, you know, I don't know, maybe we all look back and just't, maybe I'm, maybe we all look back and just marvel at like the different time and the different stage in life we were, but I just, I just find myself like I wouldn't like this guy you know like that I wrote um, but I did write down the facts of the matter and the events that happened.
Speaker 3:So there's value in that. I started digitizing them a while ago because, like right now, if my house burns down, burns down, it's gone. They're just in like paper, you know, like journals. But I have six of them. I have like 600 pages.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really cool. What time period.
Speaker 3:Yeah 94 to 96. Nice, actually, I continued a little after when I did one tour of Otis Rush, very famous, incredible blues player, and I've told a few people told me on that short tour if you're ever in Chicago and you get chased by a lion, what you do is you look for a swimming pool and jump in it. Also, the lion is not the king of the jungle.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:I don't remember. I think he thought maybe the gorilla, I don't know, but but he just started talking about kings of the jungle and Chicago he was a junior, was like a little kid where, like at one point, like he told me to get something out of the glove compartment and I open it up and there's a dildo. And then when I looked up and he's just smiling at me, he's just like he's like a child, total, like like dirty, silly, young, fun, but like so smart and brilliant, but kind of like a smiling, like laughing, laughing teenage boy or something like that.
Speaker 3:And Otis was very just kind of dark and troubled. It was really night and day. It was very interesting how two people I grew up listening to could not have been more different. And now that I think about it, if I listen to them I can kind of hear it in the twinkle or lack thereof in their voices.
Speaker 2:Do you ever think about writing a book with the diaries that you have?
Speaker 3:Journalists. I foolishly well. You know, I've worked in publishing quite a bit, on and off, freelance and otherwise and I submitted at one point, like to an agent or something kind of a suggestion of that, like a partial I think you'd call it a partial manuscript, you know, and they said, maybe for like a serialized magazine piece. But I don't see this as a book. I think when I submitted it I was still in my 20s and and I still didn't, probably, I think I could gain some perspective and probably make a better piece out of it now, you know, or later. Yeah, but I have, yeah, I I feel like that story is unfolding and I'm not ready to write something like that yet. I'm also just, I'm not really like in the do you ever see the chevy chase movie, funny farm, uh-huh, do you remember? He like he relocates to like the countryside to write a book and and then his wife is successful writing a children's book about a squirrel and he just has one, like you know, foible after another.
Speaker 3:You know, I feel like I'm not ready to like move to the countryside and write right not yet, very, I have like so many things I want to do in a day, in a month, in a year that I'm not really writing other than just lyrics.
Speaker 1:Do any of those stories make it into your music, into your lyrics?
Speaker 3:No, not really, I think. Overall I do still very much keep a journal and I just write down phrases or ideas that I hear or come across that I, for example, we have a new song the Claudettes do that I really like, called Winter Came While you Were Gone. And it's because we had John Primer, who's a great, great blues artist in Chicago, come and sing a part on a new Claudette song, because I think he's one of the world's greatest living soul singers, in addition to blues guitarist, and I had this idea for him duetting. And he came to pick me up to go to the studio and it was like he had gone on a tour and when he came back to Chicago Winter had arrived. Like he left when it was 70. When he picked me up it was like 33. And I got into the car, his van, and I closed the door. I said John, I said winter came while you were gone and then I said that's a good chorus line.
Speaker 3:It has a really good rhythm to it and all of a sudden I thought, okay, this song's about somebody who is in a relationship and their partner basically bails on them, disappears and then comes back later wanting to resume things. And it's like you have some nerve, Like I went through really dark times and you've had a great time, and now you're back and you'd like to rekindle, Like I went through really dark times and you've had a great time, and now you're back and you'd like to rekindle. It just seemed like it wrote itself very quickly, so I'm generally on the lookout for a single phrase. A lot of them come from just radio.
Speaker 3:I was driving and I heard the expression influential farmers on NPR radio and I wrote this song called Influential Farmers. That's kind of cramps-y, I think, Kind of like punkabilly, you know psychabilly, and it's just influential butlers, influential cobblers. I just have all this whole song. It's just sort of a series of bursts of words and just, and then there's a lot of I say so, passe in that over and over again. But that's what my journal has now, just little phrases that I can flower into something else more so, more so than like stories.
Speaker 2:I know something that happened to me or something well, you do a really nice job in your live shows of introducing your songs and they always have just it's. It's a very compact thing, you know intro, but it just, you know, gives people a sense of you know how how this came to, do you? Find that's like that doesn't happen very often in the live shows that I see. Where does that come from, that idea of introing a song and telling the story behind it?
Speaker 3:Well, you know Billy in the band oh my God that you know, karen. He used to say that I want to make sure the lyrics are getting heard. Like, in this mix up here the drums aren't too loud, nothing's too loud, because otherwise we're a bunch of trained monkeys up here. You know, it's just like you know slapping cymbals together, just a bunch of noise. And I do still feel that that, like, even if the mix is pretty good and you can hear the, the words and the singing, if a little bit of context sure helps you, like right away, understand where this song is coming from, and if the song wants to break your heart or make you laugh or understand that the narrator is, as an ironic narrator, that it's like the. This narrator is someone that we strongly condemn. Maybe you'll understand that hearing us do the song.
Speaker 3:You know we have a couple songs that are the song irregulars and a song called grandkids way by by. That got influenced by American politics and congressional show voting. That that really upset me. You some years back, by American politics and congressional showboating that really upset me Some years back. Paul Ryan banging a gavel and Ted Cruz smiling that smile and stuff like that when they sentenced millions of people to poverty with tax cuts, you know things like this. That just enraged me, especially just the sort of chipper delivery of this victimless crime. It would seem. I just have the songs from the perspective and Rachel does this so well just kind of crimping her hair and just kind of complaining Irregulars was inspired by. I used to shop at Marshall's. Did you guys ever shop at Marshall's?
Speaker 3:That's where all my clothes came from, because you get a shirt that you quite like and I'm like why is this shirt only 14 bucks? Because it's missing a button or the, and it was labeled irregular? Yep, and had me thinking about, especially in America, I think, how much we like regulars at coffee shop or local people in small towns who just know everybody and they're all like you and like that. But this song isn't for those people. This song is for irregulars, and so it really sprung from my complete acidic distaste for the word illegals, which doesn't exist.
Speaker 3:You know illegals, you know, but we call them irregulars instead. And will you fill out this questionnaire Do you want irregulars here? But I wanted to make sure that people know that we're not asking that question. The narrator in our little story here is asking that question. So I think it's good to, and I do try to condense, because I can go on and on and I want 90% of our show or more to be music. I don't want there to be a whole. It's not like a spoken word act, you know. But I do like to set up and I'll look. I'll look through the whole show and space out the song. So I'll say like maybe if we're doing 20 songs, there'll be four songs that have sizable intros or something like that.
Speaker 3:Other ones may be a very short one, but yeah, I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I think it's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have this idea, or I've had it lately, that, maybe more so now than ever music can be anything, and I think kind of along the lines of what you just talked about, where you take a phrase and you kind of create a song around it. I was listening to some of your music earlier today and, for example, park Bench just seemed like and the song isn't necessarily about a park bench journey and you know, kind of finding that perfect spot, but the song is called park bench. Did you do you ascribe to that that, like you know, music or inspiration can come from anywhere and well, yeah, I mean that one in particular came about at the height of that period.
Speaker 3:I was describing to you in the kitchen about, about feeling wow, like there's this creeping massive darkness coming over us and me. I had people checking on me in like April 2020 because they realized, oh my god, of all the people I know, this person's going to get really hit by this, because everything I was doing was about gathering people. You know, with two record releases and all these videos, I had a video that got accepted. Did you ever see the Some Will Fool you illustrated video that Dan Bigelow did. He's the same one that did the Bring Yourself, oh my God. Video. That illustrated video he used to illustrate for like a metalocalypse. He's a great. He does a lot of great work. He lives in California and you know, six month project of hand-drawn illustration kind of thing. He did this Samba Fuyu video for us that you should see from the Claudette. It's so beautiful and heavy. And it got entered into film festivals all around the world in many countries, including really good ones in California and stuff, all of which became either virtual or canceled because they were all 2020. That was just one of the many things that would make you grown like that.
Speaker 3:Park Bench was written at a time where I felt like I've got plenty going for me and I've got a house full of people that love me, and yet like happiness seems very far out of reach for me right now. So it was really just about having it all and feeling like you want none of that. You want other things, you know, and just kind of darkness. But as is often the case, you know, the music is quite bouncy. You know I don't really like a sad song with minor violin passages, you know I mean, of course I do too, but I tend to, you know. I'm sure we all like songs where it goes against type. You know the music and the lyrics are seem to point different directions. Yeah, so I like.
Speaker 2:LCD sound system. They do that as a song about the guy's therapist dies and it's this great dancey song.
Speaker 3:But the lyrics are really touchingly sad. Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2:You do a really nice job, like your. Your shows are so I use the word ferocious to describe you guys, cause it's just, it's like hard driving, amazingly rich music. But then there's these moments in the show that you just hit the audience with this beautiful, delicate quiet, like love song or just so how do you?
Speaker 3:I don't know where do those things come from, as opposed to Well it's. I mean, I'm disappointed at that. So I have a term for when I come home from a show and someone says, how was that show? I go oh, it was musicians. Music, you know.
Speaker 3:If it's people up there displaying their skills and their instruments, I'm so bored Like I don't want to see that, I want to get, I want them to be moved, to move me. You know, I mean, you know that's the magic spot is, if you can move yourself with your own songs, then it's going to be easy to have a good show with impact and songs you've played over and over again. So how do you make them fresh? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if you have to try to play a trick on yourself and inhabit the place of origin of the song, and I I'm disappointed to play shows where another another thing if I see a band that's basically just playing a good snappy beat and people are tapping their toe and it's good the whole time, I'll say a funky good times. How about it for the funky good times?
Speaker 3:You know like that and I'm like if we have to play a show, the band will know what I mean. If, like, okay, we're doing this show, I'm making the set list this way because we're going to be the funky good times at that show. It's outdoors, people are going to be walking by, people are going to be drinking and talking and we just have to, like, keep them entertained with bouncy beats. So there will be no ballads. I'm not putting our singer out there to like break her own heart and break their heart and have people go. Oh good, we can hear each other and just talk over it, right, you know.
Speaker 3:So I like to play listening rooms with energy. That's what I a look, a little crowd expecting a little chamber orchestra. It's, you know, it's there. They're ready to see a good blues band or anything. But if you break it down, that they're not gonna chitchat thing, it's understood. The culture of this room is that we're here to listen, have a good time, you know. But don't like, because even the other night when we played, as we broke it down, there were, you know, all it takes is a handful If you have 120 people in there. If there's like two tables with four people, that are like oh good, now we can hear ourselves. Of course, it makes me want to get combative and say why did you pay $20 to get in here? Just, you can talk anywhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Or like by the bathrooms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or just a different building, their own neighborhood. But I always crave and I look forward to on the calendar shows and I can make a set list where we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna um, bring it up and we're gonna bring it down. Yeah, I think it's so much more, you know, an honest depiction of what our lives are like, where our moods are so many different places and you feel like you want to laugh and cry in sequence and that's what we try to do, it with the sets too.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, that's amazing that you know. I mean not a lot of bands, I don't think could do that. Or maybe there are plenty of bands, but not all of them could sort of tailor their set list or tailor their songs to the specific audience and you know venue in a way that it's sort of I mean we get, it's sort of I mean we have debates about that within the band.
Speaker 3:Because if you really you know, if your band is in a really great place and you're calling the shots on where you're playing and how long the set list is, you know, I feel like you're rising up.
Speaker 3:When you're a group and you're playing good venues and they're telling you how long you're supposed to play and when you're supposed to start and stop, then if you're really successful, you're going to get to a point where you're telling them like no, no, no, our set starts at this time.
Speaker 3:We're doing this amount of time and you're going to bend to our will. But I think of us as a theater band like Nick Cave, because Nick Cave can get 3,000, 4,000 people to be quiet, but then you don't see him on a lot of bills that are outdoor, where there's more like the Derek Trucks, you know Trotsky Trucks or something like that, where they want something that you know Trombone Shorty or something where you're going to get like, okay, this is for like it's not just all the funky good times. There's a lot of good artists here, but you know there's, but you know, in a way it would be better if we did have a set that was impervious. I feel like, in a way, we're not impervious yet. We're still playing in venues where we're not calling the shots.
Speaker 3:And the better we write, the better we play, then our imperviousness will rise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. Yeah, Did you have that with? Oh my God, did you get there, oh my?
Speaker 3:God, we had very little that was quiet, and if they were, it wasn't as pin drop quiet as this.
Speaker 2:February 14th though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it still has a solid beat all the way through it pretty much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess you're right and the places that we were playing. That was a different time in a way, where many towns we played to 10 people and then 60, and then 120, 120 and then 300, where it's like those people in those rooms were there to see us. So it was kind of rare that we felt, and when we did find ourselves in a situation where there were just people there and we were playing also and people were talking, billy would moon them.
Speaker 2:Billy was amazing.
Speaker 3:He'd pull his pants down for their viewing pleasure. Yeah, he'd pull his pants down for their viewing pleasure. Yeah, he'd get into it. Also, did you ever see him walk around the room and stand on the bar to shut off all the TVs?
Speaker 3:No, that's a good one he would not tolerate a room where there's also TVs on. That's where the song Fools Want Noise comes from, just like no, let's do one thing at once. But that's also how the Claudette started our mise-en-scene. When we first started playing, I had just gotten back from playing like Montreux Jazz Festival and you know top stages in the world. And then here I am again with my new band playing at like a tavern and there's a hockey game on. You know so what we did in that band.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you saw the early, early claudettes or I've seen footage. You can find footage of us playing in blockbuster video and staples. I somehow could wink these people into letting us play, but what we did was we brought our own little stage set where we brought scrolling drink specials on an led thing that I had a lot of fun with the comedy of it. So they're scrolling drink specials on our stage. And we hired a couple different women, starting with this one that was my local bartender at the Intertown Pub, because I just thought she was sort of fun to look at and just would be pleasant as a visual part of the show. We would have her interrupt us while we were playing and take phone calls and also sell beers from the stage and encourage people to come up to the stage. We basically made the stage into our own shitty little tavern yeah, you know, with scrolling drink specials. So basically the place couldn't do that to us. We did it already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were playing in our own. So we'd say welcome to Claudette's Bar and this is Claudette up here and she would sometimes interrupt us to take a call and then tell us to start playing again. Just sort of just the like total deletion of dignity, that sometimes it feels like playing a place where, again, you're one of a number of things going on, including a hockey game and talking and stuff, and you're also playing Once you get to a certain age. That's just sort of like.
Speaker 2:I am a failure. You know, I'm like one of a number.
Speaker 3:I want to be the cause of the traffic jam. I don't want to be late to think I want to be. Oh, this claudette show is in town. That's why there's a traffic jam. I don't want to, like once again, fall victim to all. The bills are in the playoffs. No one's going to come tonight. You know like. You know like I want. I want to be the bigger thing, not the smaller thing you turn the tide on yourself and made the whole thing a joke.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At a Blockbuster video that was inside the store.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on Google, I mean on YouTube you can Google Claudette's Blockbuster. It was at a Blockbuster video and we pretended that Claudette, our overlord, wanted us to play. She's like don't play at these loser sort of almost like shithole places, you know like the Hideout or something like that. You know like that Play at aous Place like Blockbuster and the one that's on YouTube from us playing at Staples back when there were Staples, it says the Claudette's live at Staples Center, parentheses, center of Staples store and there are customers walking around looking at us like and it's real footage of us, like just Michael and me playing piano and drums with there was this woman named Lizbeth who went with us for a while, who just stood at the at the bar and kind of you know, was supposed to be sort of the hostess, you know, at our tavern. Yeah, you can find both those on, on, on on YouTube.
Speaker 2:We'll link it. That's so fun In our show notes.
Speaker 1:Karen used the word ferocious to describe you guys earlier. Not songs, I mean. We write nothing but like scoring you know, just instrumental pieces.
Speaker 3:They have songs on there. That's like what you'd call the soundtrack, where they have, like Genesis and ACDC and stuff, a lot of Wilco, nine Inch Nails, trent Reznor music. But JQ and I, who had a band called them Versus them, we've been writing together a long time, playing and recording together and that opportunity came his way and we had to deliver on the goods Like there was. You know, they have no obligation to use the pieces.
Speaker 1:It was an opportunity.
Speaker 3:And now we're. You know, we're working on season three now, so we've made good on it and we're very good at it, we're just together. We have a great complimentary skill set where he sets up the sessions. He's very good with compression and all this. He's like a studio guy. He has all the equipment and he's makes. He's a beat master with like beats and just like you know, swells and kind of the sort of the production elements you know he's great with and and yet he's not really like a chord and melody guy.
Speaker 3:You know, that's like that's my thing.
Speaker 3:So we're able to do everything from kind of like they sent us a Hans Zimmer piece as like an example, really, like you know, symphony, because he has logic with all the updated sound banks and I'm telling you, like the strings, the pizzicato strings, all the percussive elements, the quality of these sounds has gone through the roof.
Speaker 3:Like it's sad news for a cellist, you know, in a way Like if you just want one cello drone, this is like it's a little silly to like hire someone to come in there and play that. If you want to have a whole piece played by like an orchestra with, like you know, because we don't write like real full-on string quartet type stuff but if the piece is going to have like a little digital, like a little pulse to it and a little almost synth breeze to it, something icy and then like a cello drone and that kind of thing, these sounds are beautiful and rich and so we did that. But also, if they want something kind of punky or something kind of bluesy or like so many different things, we and everything we we compose for them is, like you know, 30 or 50 seconds or something kind of bluesy or like so many different things, and everything we composed for them is, like you know, 30 or 50 seconds or something like that?
Speaker 2:How does it work? Do they send you the footage and say, you know, here's the scene and here's the backstory?
Speaker 3:That's how it was at first, for the first season, we didn't even know if the show was going to be a going concern. You know, maybe it was just going to be a pilot or who knows. But going to be a pilot, or who knows. But they sent us some scenes and we and we wrote for that, and then since then we've started kind of turning the tables and and as the season is about to get underway for production, we just loaded them up full of themes of different uh moods and energies uh and and kind of styles and in fact some of the stuff that we just practically improvised and made, that we thought were really cool little things became kind of like the season two theme, like there's this one pizzicato string thing I did.
Speaker 3:That's very we. What we do know is the story arc and the kind of emotional tenor of the season and and somewhat of the plot line. So we say, okay, we need to have some things that are very prickly, that are very on edge, and then there's going to be moments of you know, more placid moments, and so we sent them a bunch of stuff and put them in folders and in fact they used a whole bunch. And one thing yeah, it's like four different episodes, including like the first several minutes of the finale of this piece that like like I remember just standing there coming up with this while he was getting a coffee upstairs and then we finished it and then it's just all over the season.
Speaker 2:That became like the theme that's really cool as the show blew up yeah, so if I wanted to go back to see season one, the finale no season two season two finale. What is the scene where, like I, a really good example of this.
Speaker 3:Well, one thing I can send you is I have a 15 minute compilation of scenes that have our music in it on a Google. Drive, but also just the season two finale. As it opens, they're in the kitchen and then it opens up into the dining room and it goes back into the kitchen alternately. Yeah, whenever they're in the dining room it might as well be like Jerry Vale singing or something like that, but in the kitchen it's our music there for the first four minutes of the episode or something.
Speaker 2:Okay, season two finale. That's the one where the mom is just Jimmy Lee Curtis. Oh my, gosh.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, they didn't have any original scoring in that episode, they just had Christmas songs and things. But scattered through that season there's a bunch that we did, and that one that's in the season two finale is also in earlier episodes and introduced earlier, and then it's like kind of dominates the beginning of the film.
Speaker 2:Oh, now I definitely want to watch the whole thing again, knowing that it's you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll send you. I'll send you that link with the compilation so you'll know which Cool. And and for season three and I guess four, we we've. We're doing our best stuff. Now we just listen back to these things. We just get in really good zones. He and I have always had this practice of getting together. We're not going to belabor this. When we have this band, them versus them, we're going to come up with a with like a drum machine part, a baseline, some chords, what does the song sound like? It wants to be about? Okay, it's going to be write all the lyrics and make the complete demo all in one like four hour period or something like that. Like start musically, come up with what it's about, write all the lyrics and then by the time we're done today, the song's ready to show the band. You know, like that sort of stuff. So we're really we got. We kind of did that as a, as our MO for years.
Speaker 2:So if they're like we need this, you can crank it we can do it, yeah, and now he's got like.
Speaker 3:The sounds we had back then were kind of hilarious, like this very old drum machine that some of the buttons still stuck from all the dust in it you know, and now, like these Logic sound banks that he's got are just out of this world. They're so good so I do everything on the MIDI keyboard and even just the piano that he's got it sounds like a $400 dollar piano in in the perfect room. Yeah, you know, you just hit one chord and you go.
Speaker 1:life is beautiful I don't need anything more yeah, are those you know, forgive me, uh, karen, is the uh, the sort of the music engineer of the two of us? Are those like recorded sounds, are they?
Speaker 3:engineered sounds, I think. I think these days aren't a lot of them algorithmic, like they're not even really sampled anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they used to be. But yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:I think, like you know, for example, plug-ins that are supposed to mimic a rat pedal or any of a number of pedals are now algorithmic, where it's almost like breaking something down to its DNA rather than just like saying, shh, I'm going to record this. I think it's actually like science, you know, it's like. You know it's like it is it? You know? So it's like. I think it's extraordinary. Yeah, I don't. I'm sure, jake, you would answer that better than I could, but all of the sounds that he brings, and also the synths, like the analog synths and with the portamento on them, they're just like. I have the synths around my house and these sounds are just better but you love the end product, right?
Speaker 1:I mean like you appreciate that that even even if it's algorithmic, it's part of oh yeah, no, the sounds make it, make the whole thing really, you know, easier.
Speaker 3:We're not battling sounds at all those are just.
Speaker 2:But that purest idea of, oh, it has to be a real cello like you, don't buy into that. If it's beautiful, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's also again, it's like heartbreak territory for some people that, like you know up until recently, now they're having to teach you know rather than perform, because there's you know. I mean, I still think when it comes to like a CSO concert that's not being replaced by Logic you know and MIDI, right Again, it goes back to being in person, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean. My dad on the phone last night told me he was very excited about reading the new CSO director, who's 31 years old and supposed to be a real dynamo. I hadn't read the piece. I said Moody's not still in there. He said no, moody's like emeritus now or something.
Speaker 3:I think, but yeah, I don't think already live music of all kinds has taken a hit where just people got used to staying home over COVID and it's cheaper to stay home when the economy is bad and I'm not going to catch anything if I go out. And also like a golden age of television where everyone's talking about binge watching, which is I'm always like why don't you actually binge, like drink a bunch and go out?
Speaker 1:Don't binge watch.
Speaker 3:You know, binge live, binge watching Whenever. When anyone says I take a very quietly combative tone on things like Facebook with some of those I really want to look not something new to binge watch. Is there anything you recommend? I'll just post no Completely unhelpful waste of their feed. But I don't. There's nothing, Not even. I mean, there are good shows, not even the Bear.
Speaker 2:Not even the Bear.
Speaker 3:yeah, no, I mean yeah, but my point is just like watch something sometime, but don't have that dominate your life, please. Then you're going to die after just sitting around watching all that TV.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. So, yeah, good, gravestone Completed all nine episodes of the Sopranos. Two weekends Twice yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, you talk about loving blues, you know, and moving to Chicago. I mean, obviously at this point you're Chicago-ing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, reluctantly, it sounds like no, you know the way I've put it over the years is it ticks a lot of boxes. You know it's affordable, there's great arts and music, it's a great culture city. I mean, I go to visit my folks in Florida and it is none of the things I just said.
Speaker 2:I can't stand it down there.
Speaker 3:I only go to visit them and I still grumble my ass off all down there. But Chicago's, you know, it's just. You know. Moving from Philly to New York and having gotten the blessing of traveling a lot Like I just have never, I felt like when I was young I'd get out of the subway in New York. I'd be like, oh, I'm in New York. I've never felt like that. When I like arrive out of the subway in Chicago, I just kind of go where I'm going.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but there's so much history and culture and great stuff here, I feel like it makes very good, solid sense to live here. I'm just never going to be very, very excited about it, but one of your albums has the word Chicago in it Johnny Iguana's Chicago Spectacular Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Well, that was a definite milestone for me in that, as I said, when I grew up I listened to tons of Junior Wells, I listened to Otis Rush and Magic Sam, and that was all on Chicago's Delmarc Records, the longest continually running jazz and blues label maybe in the world.
Speaker 3:And then I recorded that album and Delmarc decided to put it out, which was quite a thrill to see that Delmarc logo on a recording that I conceived and recorded and had a bunch of compositions on and recorded with Lil Ed and John Primer and recorded with little ed and john primer and billy boy arnold, who's now I think 87 I think he is. It's just got really like really great, great, great artists on it who all I feel very proud that, like it all came together in a way where everybody in it was very involved and had a lot of fun and everything you hear on there, nothing is cobbled together like done in the mix. It's just really like what you hear is just us in a room and everybody was so good on it. I think it's a really great blues record. It got good attention. Again, it came out in 2020.
Speaker 3:So a little doomed in a way, and there couldn't be any touring behind it. You know that kind of thing. I mean I remember be any touring behind it. You know that kind of thing. I mean I remember having phone calls on who the band is going to be and all that. And then I mean it was finished before march of 2020 and then it came out in august. But there was the same conversations there were with the claudette's record is like, should we put this out? You know, and my feeling always is yes, we're going to put it out like I'm not delaying this who knows how long, like by the time it comes out later. I'm gonna be on to something else yeah, exactly, you lose momentum, yeah it's just like it's not gonna be my moment, it's already.
Speaker 3:It already takes forever from the moment you write everything, get the songs perfected and then you make the tracks and then an album comes out. If you've got a schedule with radio and press and stuff like that, it's generally like a year later than you really wanted it to. It's all right. I I write for this music catalog and I'm always struck by there are all these jazz records that were on Blue Note and Verve and Impulse and stuff and it'll say it's recorded and it'll say March 1953, released May 1953.
Speaker 2:I'm like that's what I want, you know like I want to just finish it and put it out, not be so precious with everything. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean you think about, I write about, guided by voices. I cannot believe how prolific is down here and it's almost obnoxious.
Speaker 2:Is he still doing a lot?
Speaker 3:Still, I think he's at his most prolnoxious. Is he still going? Is he still doing a lot?
Speaker 3:still, he, I think he's at his most prolific and quite acclaimed right now oh my god, okay, guided by voices is putting out an album or double album every 10 months for the last bunch of years, seriously, yeah, and like a lot of them are getting a lot of very good reviews, like like he's just on some sort of war path and I think it's. It must be be some sort of combat against what I'm kind of talking about with the preciousness. Obviously a lot of people are putting out singles only and TikTok only and not albums at all. So he's kind of probably almost a little of both. He's wanting to be very in the moment but also album-oriented.
Speaker 2:Okay, so maybe he's an outlier, but from my perspective, it seems like you're doing a lot and making a lot of things happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but when I get involved with other partners, like a label manager and booking agent, everything is set up so far in the future and everyone wants to line up everything. As I'm talking, I feel like I should learn some lessons from my own endless chatter. But yeah, it just ends up, you've like right now. For example, there was a label at our show the other night and he was interested in what we're doing and he said well, we're all set for 2024 already, but you know, maybe we can look to 2025 and everything is. I feel like everything is looking for, like everything is like we're not gonna have another festival this year, but maybe next year. I was like none of us are going to be alive then.
Speaker 1:What are you even talking about?
Speaker 3:Very, very far-fetched.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you have any favorite places to play in Chicago? I mean, I guess it depends on the band you're with, but I only play Chicago.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess it depends on the band you're with, I only play Chicago, I mean with the Claudettes, twice a year or so, maybe three, I mean if we do a summer outdoor thing, maybe like three. But I've always liked to get around and go and travel and play a whole bunch of places two or three times a year In Chicago. I mean we like the hideout, we like Evanston Space, we like Fitzgerald's, we've played City Winery, we've played Empty Bottle, we've played Buddy Guy's Legends, we've played a lot of different places.
Speaker 3:But most recently it tends to be Evanston Space and Fitzgerald's Nice, and I would like our year-end show to be at Evanston Space. Let's say that's just a really good place to play. To be at Evanston Space, let's say that's just a. It's a really good place to play in a room that has some energy, but you can break it all the way down and I can play their. I play their acoustic piano there. That not only is a big labor savings, and you know every time now. So my piano, my digital Roland piano in its case, weighs 70 pounds. So every time in front of the band when I'm out there, often in the winter, or something I take and I hoist it and I throw it in the van, I say I've got 41 more of those in me, meaning we all got to practice a lot and get someone else doing this soon, because I can't forever be loading that 70-pound piano into that van.
Speaker 3:So all it is is we got to get better fast.
Speaker 2:Full-time roadie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for that budget to have someone, yeah, for that budget to have someone Also even just going out on stage and setting up and doing soundcheck. I'm like, can't someone else do this? When I go overseas and play as a piano player for others, that's what it is. There's a Hammond and there's a piano and I just walk out and play it like I'm a superstar and then afterwards it's your problem. Now I'm going to go to the party.
Speaker 3:But that's not the reality for me and my bands. Like, yes, it never has, oh my God, worked really. I mean, we did 140 shows in a year once, and, and we hit the West coast twice and East coast twice in a year and all around the Midwest and put on all those miles and and and it was, it was, I guess you'd say it's working really hard. But one thing that puzzled me when I moved to Chicago was so I was 23. I to chicago was so I was 23. I joined the junior wells band and the road manager said to me on the way to one of my first gigs here, he said, uh, it was like we were playing on a wednesday. He said, so you're working this weekend and I said, no, I've got a gig. And he said, no, that's what I meant, like they call it working. To me music is playing, right, it's like a kid in the sandbox.
Speaker 3:I was puzzled by this idea about you working. Yeah, it's like. No, it's like. That's why I do music, so it's like that's playing.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like kind of a nice rite of passage of all of a sudden being like oh yeah, I'm working and I'm playing, yeah, I suppose, but it still feels weird to me, but like about, like you know, we've been working, you've been working a lot yeah no, I've been playing musicals so much yeah like my ditch digging days are over.
Speaker 2:It's nice to see somebody that's been so in it for so long still have that passion Because, you know, sometimes you go to see bands and it's musicians that are backing them up and they've been there for a hundred years. They're just doing their thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know, it's like the atrocities in the world, the corruptions and mass murders and smaller, sadder things closer to you, deaths of friends and family. Everything to me leads me back into this one funnel of like it only makes sense to play music and I don't know how people get by without it. I think if every household was mandated to have some kind of piano in it, and from the people that are young and old would just occasionally sit down and feel what it feels like to just I call it Ouija boarding, to just move your hands around. And so if my hands are like this, it's a D minor seven. Then I go like this it's an E minor seven, but then I move it a little more, it's an F, major seven. That's interesting. Then it's a G seven.
Speaker 3:If I go like this, and just you don't even think about that, though it's just a different sound Move your hands around. It's such a soul soothing thing that I think there'd just be so much less like just a. You know grievances and people would be less upset if they could just make those sounds more often. And on a piano is a good one. It's got that landscape that a guitar to me is more like a contraption. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's like and you can't. It doesn't have a landscape.
Speaker 3:I don't you know, cause the black and white keys. It's just sort of like it's natural, it makes sense. I mean, to a guitar player, a guitar makes sense and a piano doesn't. But I'm saying just to have that in the corner everywhere. I really do think that would temperature. The temperature would go down in general. So like yeah, all the things that upset me, unless everyone gets upset, leads me back to like, yeah, just, I don't know how people get by without. If all you did was like work and maybe go to Disney World or something Like you know, it's like being able to just make music of any kind, like it's just such a savior it feels like still, definitely even more so you know, because more things you know, you get older, more things are truly upsetting, because you understand, you have more perspective on the enormity of things.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally. Yeah, I use it as sort of an escape. You know, if I'm at my parents' house and they're driving me crazy, I'm like put on the headphones and just start playing my piano.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that was really lovely. We need to take just a quick break. We'll come back with uh, johnny iguana. Yes, cool hi, karen hi andrew uh, is it time for our record of the week.
Speaker 2:Record of the week. Yes, do you have one?
Speaker 1:uh, I do.
Speaker 2:I don't have a ton to say about it it's okay, people can look it up and listen to.
Speaker 1:Yeah so there's a artist. Her name is Sierra Farrell. She just came out with her sophomore album called Trail of Flowers.
Speaker 2:Is that Sierra with an S or a C?
Speaker 1:S-I-E-R-R-A-F-E-R-R-E-L-L. Okay, double letters. It's a lovely album. She's, you know, sort of one of these Nashvilleian artists. Seems like a lot of good stuff coming out of Nashville these days through way of West Virginia. It definitely you know country undertones, but way more dynamic. I mean, I would say a little rockabilly, a little sort of carnival music mixed in there, but lovely lyrics, great songwriting.
Speaker 2:What would be an ideal scenario where you would put this on yeah. What would you be doing?
Speaker 1:I mean both as sort of background music, but also if you wanted to sit down and listen to a really wonderful start-to-finish album and she's getting a lot of press, wonderful, you know, start to finish album and she's getting a lot of press, um, and and also sort of so I I put the album on at at Easter, uh, when we had uh family over Laura's family and Laura's um younger cousin who's a hip in her late twenties was like oh, is this Sierra Farrell?
Speaker 3:She's like.
Speaker 1:Oh, and there was also my friend who I'm going to show with. He put it on when he was visiting family in Texas and the daughter of a friend who's like in her teens said oh, this is Sierra Farrell. I love her. So you know yeah, check it out.
Speaker 2:Sierra Farrell.
Speaker 1:Trail of Flowers.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:Well, we're back with the iguana. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm happy to be here. And where are we? Belmont.
Speaker 1:Yes, roughly Belmont.
Speaker 3:Wait what? Oh, it's Belmont and Sheffield, so we're not. We're not far. I came from a different way, but we're pretty close to the Vic here. I used to say the two best things about Chicago when I moved here were Brew and View and the Tamale guy. Sure, you know.
Speaker 1:Sometimes on the same night. You probably saw him.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, brew and View in its heyday it was so cheap and drinking there was cheap and they would have like two or three movies and a costume show. It was so fun. Yeah, I remember there was like a Travolta night and it was like Pulp Fiction, get Shorty and Saturday Night Fever and some kind of contest in between and it was like five bucks or something. And there was a Monty Python night. They had Holy Grail and they had people doing a parade or costumes and then it must have gotten very expensive to get those reels or something, because over time it became just a not very good second-run movie theater. Right and not cheap anymore. But that was Vic. I spent a lot of time there, somehow before the smoking ban. I was so obnoxious I guess I would get a chair and I would sit at the front ahead of all the seats there and find a chair and I would smoke a cigar but people were smoking cigarettes like crazy in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this was before they. Everyone was smoking and so I'm like I'm going to smoke a cigar, I'm going to. Also, the sound was so bad in there because they just have the speakers in the front. They don't have speakers like throughout. So I would sit close to the speakers. I'm like, why is no one stopping me? I'm going to do this unless they stop me, take your own chair and sit right in front.
Speaker 3:I didn't block on, like the standing room where, like you, the pit yeah you know, I'd sound like in the pit and people would be like back there further from the speakers. Oh my god, I wasn't blocking it, but no one ever stopped me yeah, they probably thought you owned the theater.
Speaker 1:Yeah, vip section I just brought my own velvet rope only the only the owner would set up a chair and smoke a cigar right in front.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, yeah, churchill too, this guy means something.
Speaker 1:Uh yeah, the vic. So I recently that I do like these short little videos and I did some research on the vic. But the vic was a movie house basically for, like, whatever ethnicity was predominant in in lakeview and that you know, german and I wish I was thinking yeah yeah. So, uh, you know, speaking of the vic, speaking of where we're at, you know, uh, you've been in chicago for a long time. You've you know, any favorite neighborhoods that you've lived at or anything that like comes up in your writing, or apartments.
Speaker 3:I hate moving. So when I moved here I had to suddenly move because I was working at Warner Books in New York when I got this Junior Wells gig and I didn't know anything about Chicago Newell's gig and I didn't know anything about Chicago. But somebody I worked with in New York knew somebody in Chicago who got a job for the Baltimore Sun and had to move out of town quickly. So I subletted their apartment in Lincoln Park, so it was Orchard and Wrightwood, so you probably know where that is roughly, and I lived there 1994 to 2001. And then I was in this band.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, that needed to practice a lot and I was tired of lugging the organ and the Leslie speaker and all this stuff to practice spaces. You know you spent two-thirds of your time breaking up and setting down in such a drag so I was like I need a practice space in my house. So we were going to get a house and we looked around for a while and we found this house where we are now at Damon and Augusta Ukrainian village and the neighborhood had recently been kind of declared safe. You know, at the time, you know I actually was just telling someone yesterday that I read a book by a former Chicago gang member who had kind of changed his life and now was helping kids to avoid that life. But his story, a real cautionary tale of you know initiation killings and all of the brutality and you know sexual assaults and everything that happened with with with gangs. Most of it was set walking distance from where I live right now. It was like around North and Western.
Speaker 3:You know that was like the epicenter in like the maybe like eighties, early nineties, and we moved there 2001. So it wasn't, it wasn, wasn't, didn't seem like that anymore, yeah, but uh, I guess that you know, and I remember some friends in the 90s moving out to like what's now I, I guess I well, I think like humboldt park, and they said, oh yeah, this neighborhood's like up and coming and then, like they moved out a few years later, being like I gotta get out of here, you know, it just felt very dangerous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you used to. You know the old adage used to say and never go west to western except for and I saw that you you got to play there when you went to roses oh, that neighborhood.
Speaker 3:I can't believe that neighborhood around roses. Now I go to sit in or go see someone there and it's like gastropubs galore, yeah. Yeah, it's really nice like we went. We went, we made like a dinner and a show kind of a few months ago and like so many choices of places right near there. You're right, I mean, that's kind of close to where they lived and now it's like it's kind of really built up and it's really quite nice Italian restaurants and these bars and really like hip spots.
Speaker 2:What area is that?
Speaker 3:That's 3400 West. So Armitage and kimball kind of around there, but just you know a few blocks and also what I'm california, you right? I mean, like you know we're, we're on augusta where we live. So just headed west you go to california and there's there's the california clipper and then there there's that uh, italian restaurant you can't get into this right there, and there was a great bakery right there and usually what we like to ride bikes on the 606 and then we'll ride home on a on california a lot, and there's just I see all these really place. I'm like that place looks cute, we gotta go there, like I'm like. I'm like I'm just kind of funny. I'm talking about california here, like the west side, you know, like that. But these places are like really hip looking places over there 606 was a great addition to that side of it.
Speaker 3:We get a lot of use out of it, especially when that stupid pandemic hit. We walked and more often, rode bikes on there all the time, because you just go and beautiful sunshine and then you can get off and go to different coffee shops, restaurants it's so much like Mexican fair and coffee shops and stuff just right off of there when you head west.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised that they didn't close it down. I I'm kind of confused because I live on the walking path along Sheridan road up, you know, north, and the mayor closed all the beaches and all of the walking paths and no one was allowed to use any of them. They had cups all around and so why didn't they close the six of seven?
Speaker 3:I don't want them to, Because that's when they kind of felt like we should have those old-timey gas masks on around us like no one breathing in there.
Speaker 2:No congregating, yeah, no congregating, so you couldn't even take a walk. Did they close the?
Speaker 3:Sixth of Sin. I don't know if they I don't think they did.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. Why did they close and not your thing? Maybe the sheer number of the sheer population of the places or something, I don't know? Yeah, I mean, everybody might have gone to the lake and just you know, enjoyed time on the walking paths or something like that.
Speaker 2:Well, now I'm mad yeah.
Speaker 3:All right you should have and of course, now we know that being outside seems fine, Like that's the idea.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:I could see spot like with no ventilation, but yeah the beach seems advisable. Yeah, that's crazy Crazy times, yeah, but so we, we, we only lived in two places since we've been here. So I've been here, for now it's 30 years. I've been in Chicago Wow, I thought it was going to be three or so but but. But we, but we lived in Lincoln Park, which I never had any particular affection for. I got tired of waking up hearing what sounded like a couple of like just graduated frat brothers drunkenly walking down my alley.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, I hate, it here.
Speaker 3:That's still what I think of when I think of that area, but maybe it's changed. I don't know. I know that it used to be like Alice's Restaurant, I think was in Lincoln Park.
Speaker 3:Like it was like a hippie epicenter for Chicago decades ago. But when I was there it certainly was not. But I love my neighborhood, ukrainian Village. I mean we just had a friend who's a DJ at St Louis come visit us. I've stayed at his house a bunch of times. He's a radio DJ down there and I've always said I've stayed at his house, I'm like no-transcript. And then if you had instead, if you take a left and you head east on Chicago, it's all these like taquerias, mexican, and then you know Puerto Rican and Cuban places, you know, and it's just so cool that like I've got all that within a walk, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I know that Chicago has, like you know, such great neighborhoods with. You know, if you're just going to put it in terms of food or groceries, you know Asian and and and Polish and German. You know our friends in Lincoln square. You know they have the German fest up there and it is. It is pretty great All the different neighborhoods that celebrate that. You know the neighborhood history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and keep it alive too. I mean, you know, as gentrification marches on, sometimes those things get swallowed up.
Speaker 3:And you know there's the fusion restaurants. When I lived in New York, a really popular thing was Cuban Chinese. There were these Cuban Chinese restaurants that would have like rice and black beans but with Asian-type treatments to them, and it was really cheap. That's part of the reason it was really popular. But in my neighborhood, enhacori, it's like burritos, but instead of a flour tortilla it's seaweed on the outside, and then they have tacos that are like that too. That was really good. Some fusions make sense. One fusion that does not make sense for me is the Chicago phenomenon. We just got into this. You know, I grew up in the Philly cheesesteaks. The Chicago beef like sandwich makes no sense to me.
Speaker 3:It's like I described this salty, gray, soggy beef soaking through a lousy roll with like soggy salty green peppers in it.
Speaker 2:Like it's inedible food.
Speaker 3:That's your new york coming yeah, it is, and my philly coming out in particular. But then the thing that really makes no sense is the combo where they bung a sausage in the middle of what I just said. How is this like a recipe?
Speaker 1:you know, it's like a pizza or sundae with too many toppings and it's just like it's like it just becomes mush, you know, like a hodgepodge, you know you better be careful that the producers of the bear don't hear this episode.
Speaker 3:You know what that? That's such a it's even such a minor part of the. As it turns out, that's like fine dining kind of thing. You know, like that is the background. But no, the chicago beef does still. I remember in the junior wells van them said them saying like I don't get the philly cheesesteak. I'm like, well, I don't get the chicago beef. First of all, the rolls are so good on the east coast, like bread is so good. This is not a bread town. This part of the country is not for bread we eat a lot of it, but it's not yeah, bread is not.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you get publican bread for like two to two bucks a slice, it's good, you know, but general like the sandwich bread at places. Don't even start me on subwayway, man Subway, that was an atrocity to me growing up when Subway came out, because it's like you know I'm used to like every corner place has great hoagies, you know, like the rolls are so good and everything, and I thought that was an abomination myself.
Speaker 1:I mean over-engineered, I mean you're talking about spongy like plasticky bread.
Speaker 3:You know, for Nowadays actually plasticky, not reminiscent of plastic, but containing plastic. Not microplastic. I've got an idea.
Speaker 2:Let's make bread with plastic in it, it's cheaper. It's cheaper, good God.
Speaker 3:Yesterday I was watching one of the many Simpsons that I have on VHS tapes and Marge asked Homer to do something and he goes. What's the point? We're all slowly dying, and that's what I feel like it might be. It might be the idea with the plastics.
Speaker 2:Who cares?
Speaker 3:Actually, lex and I have an expression that we use when people, I think, are very fussy about their lifestyle and what's bad for you and what general you know with sort of when we would call crunchy, as likes to call it crunchy sort of hippie ideas about.
Speaker 3:Like you know, it's a good idea in general to watch out for your health and eat and drink the right way and exercise.
Speaker 3:But there was this guy a few years ago maybe you heard this story, I don't remember where he was, but he was a collector of exotic birds and he had something ostrich sized but more dangerous, some sort of large bird. And this, oh this, this older man who had this pet, fell in the yard and the bird takes it like what? You're not supposed to fall and expose your neck to a bird like this, because it slashed his neck and he died. And and it was his own pet because he, because he happened to fall, and it like maybe it was presented as being, maybe it was his own pet because he, because he happened to fall, and it like maybe it was presented as being, maybe it was frightening or just submissive or whatever it was the bird took it and slashed him. And so, lex and I always, when everyone's like, yeah, I've been, I've been taking these tinctures and I've been, uh, eating a lot of garlic and I'll be like we'll say you're gonna get killed by a bird you know or like even her own folks.
Speaker 3:le Lex's own folks are so COVID, paranoid. Still to this day they won't go to a restaurant with a lot of people in it. And it's just to me it's a little arrogant to like to know what you have a fortune cookie for yourself, that you know how you're going to, what's going to get you. It's like it's going to be some kind of syndrome or some kind of accident or something it's like be generally but also take chances, take risks, have adventures, have romance. Like don't just be too careful about things all the time. I always believe you should get up at this hour and go to sleep by this hour and wear these glasses, block out this light and eat this, You're going to get killed by a bird.
Speaker 3:You know that right.
Speaker 2:Did you hear the story about this, camus?
Speaker 3:got run over by a bus. Who did Camus? Who rode like the stranger. You who rode like the stranger, you know, he died getting hit by a city bus.
Speaker 2:It's like he didn't know.
Speaker 3:Maybe he got up that morning, went for a jog and got hit by a bus. You see, so so just do the things you want.
Speaker 2:Did you hear the story about the space station? There was like a panel that came off the space station and landed, sliced through somebody's house and almost killed this yeah, I think I saw that like just recent fucking space station.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was yeah that's in the same column as being killed by your bird right, yeah, like that yeah. So go ahead. Like, basically, what I'm saying is, if you're gonna deny yourself a lot of things because they're bad, if he's like you're gonna, there's just as good of a chance you're gonna something out of the blue is gonna do it for you or, you know, make you say whatever.
Speaker 2:So yeah, live a little. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah moderation, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily binging, brawling, whatever did you, did you ever feel that way like when you were, you know, early days of chicago?
Speaker 3:uh, you know sort of uh, living on the edge going to places, uh, you know, I guess like roses that you were, you know, if you didn't get a cab right away when you were walking out of it, you felt a little unsafe me was, you know like 21 and and just in a very uh, you know famil, you know family kind of a way that the road manager after we played would like walk lex to the car or something like that, just like you're not walking a half a block by yourself down here in this neighborhood, kind of thing. But I grew up in in the suburbs but then I lived in Philadelphia and I lived in New York City. She grew up in the city of Philadelphia. We've been in like diverse, racially, ethnically diverse neighborhoods for a very long time. So nothing. I always felt Chicago was kind of a little dead. I mean, you walk outside in many neighborhoods of New York City at night and it's like being in Japan. There's like hundreds of people around. I was in Chicago. I'm like where is everybody?
Speaker 3:When it's like late at night. I was always like I don't get this. I was kind of dead around here, like even in like the happening parts of town there's just not that many people. So I never I've had, I mean, I know people here that have been mugged. You can have bad luck and I think I have an instinct to you know the lighted side of the street at night, you know, or sometimes if I'm walking I'll walk in the street, not even on the sidewalk, you know, make it a little harder to get pulled into an alley or something. But I'm very used to city life. Woody Allen said I'm two with nature. I'm a little bit like that. I feel like I'm a very much of a city person, you know, and I'm very comfortable and happy in the city and I don't see any future of anything other than maybe a different city. But I'm not moving to the country or the least of all the suburbs.
Speaker 1:I think that would. That would be like a, a, a funny little sitcom Iguana moves to the suburbs, or something.
Speaker 3:It's beyond a fish out of water. It's like a fish very, very far from the water flopping.
Speaker 2:Gasping for breath.
Speaker 1:Well, that's that's where evolution starts. Gasping for breath, well, that's that's where evolution starts. Right, what's next? What's next for you? I mean, you talk about your you know band practicing. So you don't have to, you know, lug your uh piano yeah, you need a roadie oh, just yeah, just just all the time, everything with every time.
Speaker 3:I want to blame management or booking agent or you know the zeitgeist as far as why I'm not succeeding like I want to. All I come back to is just practice more. You know, like one thing was Ray Charles was on this NPR interview once and he said they said what does Ray Charles do with his days? You know, when he was probably 70 years old or something. He said I practice scales, you know, and I don't think it was meant to be like an eyebrow razor, I think that's the truthful answer. It's like there's infinite material there within just the scale. You know to learn. And I got the reason with the Claudettes I went with just acoustic.
Speaker 3:Piano is the last couple of bands I had. I had an organ with two synths and a piano module and all these different speakers and I was like there is so much infinite variety of just harmony within just the music that I'm going to play piano. That's what it's going to be and that's all that I do. So there's just infinite rich mining material there.
Speaker 3:So, as much time as I can get, my emotional balance gets way off if I have too many life things in the way, and I have a couple of weeks where I basically don't play any piano or work on music at all and I'm dealing with household stuff and family stuff and I think I'm pretty not so good to be around. You know, just pretty bitchy I feel it, yeah. So I like to try to balance all that. But the band's you know, we have a really great quartet of people here and since Rachel joined us in 2022, she's just on fire with ideas and talent and especially presence on a stage, and she's texting me music and music, business questions and ideas all the time. In a way, that's great, because it's like she's just feeling this is an opportunity and that this group is special and let's work really hard right now and not just casually go about this.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's nice to have a partner that you know if you're the band leader doing it all yourself yeah, did I ever?
Speaker 3:did I ever tell you the story of the one time that I asked billy to help with anything? So he was living in wicker park, in the heart of wicker park, and you know billy's very talented and we had a lot of great times together. But generally I did so. He was living in Wicker Park, in the heart of Wicker Park, and you know Billy's very talented and we had a lot of great times together. But generally, I did the booking. I had the vehicle and maintained the vehicle. I figured out what our lodging was going to be mostly Hit the radio and press and 94 other things in addition to writing everything with him and everything.
Speaker 3:But so I said, look, billy, I made the stack of posters. I already wrote the name of the venue and the day we're playing and the time and the covers. You live in the heart of Wicker Park. Can I bring you this pile of posters? And here's a tape gun, can you put them up in your neighborhood? And he said, yeah, so the next day I get a call. You better not have liquid in your mouth when I tell you this because you're going to spit it. Hello. And it's Billy on the phone. He goes. I'm like Billy. Yes, what he's like. I just moved my clothes at the laundromat from the washer to the dryer and there were 10,000 little pieces of paper I had to pick out of this thing. He had all of the posters in with his clothes and somehow didn't notice as he dumped it into the giant washer.
Speaker 3:The posters were in there. He was going to do the laundry and then go do the posters but he forgot and they were in there and it tore him into a million shreds. And the reason he called me was to just vent about how annoying it was to pull out all these little pieces of paper out of there it was like delivering an anecdote to me about this annoyance that he just suffered.
Speaker 2:So after that I did all the posturing myself too.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, for Rachel to be on her honeymoon not on her honeymoon, but on a rare vacation with her husband in Italy months ago, when I figured we wouldn't speak for those week or week and a half. She was texting me ideas throughout that time because her wheels were turning, and it is. That's a great, it's really great. And right now she's actually at a photo shoot just herself, because this photographer, who did our last couple albums, the photos on them and last couple of photo shoots, just found her to be a great model, for he just likes occasionally to ask someone hey, I'll give you, I would like to shoot you for a day, and I'd like. It's, everyone wins.
Speaker 3:You know, right now she's doing like this photo shoot with this guy. She'll probably bring all these outfits and you know she's got her Mohawk going and and it's yeah, I'll just get like a text and it's just like a scarf. She's like six bucks. You know, she like found it in a thrift shop and she's like and then she'll work it into a song. You know, in some way you know what I'm saying it's, it's, it's, it's a. It's a very good collaborator that way, let alone the fact that she teaches singing and and she's just. It's a process to get there to have her sing the way I'm hearing it in my head. It's still somewhat new together and I wrote for Barrett for seven years almost, yeah very different, very different.
Speaker 3:So two-thirds of our set is different. Now there was a great piece there's a book you should read called Listen to the Stories by Nat Hentoff, and he was a journalist from Boston, a music writer, and he rode limos and cars with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and Bing Crosby and all those people and he just talked to them and he just related the anecdotes of these great people. And a writer asked Duke Ellington they had access to Duke Ellington, like one of the you know Mount Rushmore figures of American music and asked them the most inane question I could think, Asked them how did you score all?
Speaker 2:those chart hits.
Speaker 3:And leave it to Duke Ellington to give an answer that moved me and kept with me ever since and I've related to every musician I've played with since then which is he said I looked around at the musicians with me at any given time and I said what do these guys do?
Speaker 3:Well, so if you've got a drummer in your band right now, that is really great with like a fast, punky beat, but like could never play something like a rumba. Don't introduce a song that's a rumba. Play to the strengths of the people who you're with and make that part of the parameters. So, ever since then, it's like you can really shine if, as you write, you keep in mind who you've got with you right now. Don't write something like I wrote this thing and like you guys have to learn how to play it and someone is like I can't like struggling with their playing or singing, and then you might likely criticize them too. Are you going to practice more like that, Like totally beating your head against a wall, and it's just not the way to be any good anyway, or compare your old singer to the new singer and have those expectations when they're two different people.
Speaker 3:That's exactly kind of coming back to. Yeah, you're right, I mean that's what it is. It's like there are some songs we did with Barrett that I thought, okay, this is going to really work, but other ones that, like I really wrote for her and were perfect and I think she was one of the best ballad singers I've ever heard in my life. But you know there, but with Rachel, like right away I recognized as I heard her sing other things and as we worked on some covers to sort of just get up to speed, I quickly found to like what range and what's the kind of phrases and stuff really shine with her, you know, and where she'll feel commanding instead of feel sort of like struggling.
Speaker 3:You know, and that goes for all of us. I mean, I had an offer to play. Uh, someone called me and said I got a great gig for you. There's this guy I can't remember. You probably know him, but he's someone who does like lounge lizard versions of like Nirvana rate me, you know, I don't you know, but, but he's quite famous. I don't remember what his name is me, you know, I don't you know but but he's quite famous.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what his name is, but but yeah, right, yeah, well-known person. I got offered that gig as a piano player and I said I can't do that. I'm not a lounge lizard. Jazz piano player, like that's like. I always say like blues is spanish and and jazz is portuguese and I speak spanish, but spanish and portuguese are very different and you think they're. A lot of people think, oh, you play blues and jazz. I'm like no, no, I don't really play jazz. Like I play things with jazz voicings and that sort of harmonic content, but I can't solo and know my way. It's just a different language and I don't really know it yeah, and richard cheese, is that that?
Speaker 3:might. That might have been, that might be that I think thinking of, but if that's anyone from recent years that, like even 10 years ago, that's who it was. I got offered that gig and I wasn't even going to like try to study up for it and trick them into hiring me. I'm like, I'm not the one, it's not your thing, yeah, like it's not even humility, it's just like it's not a good fit. I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. Yeah, even you have your limits, because I saw Meryl Garbus.
Speaker 3:Is that her name? Who's Tune Yards you? Know, Tune Yards Yep, I saw her and the Alabama Shakes singer. What's her?
Speaker 2:name Brittany.
Speaker 3:Brittany Howard. Yeah, I saw them on like what's his name? The late night guy Jimmy, yeah, fallon.
Speaker 1:I've never found funny for one second in my life.
Speaker 3:Now we're officially not going to be on the tune as if, as if, as if we were, as if they were weighing the option right now.
Speaker 3:But I saw them on something where they sang like back up in a doo-wop kind of fashion for something and it was not flattering, like these are two powerhouses, yeah, like I saw tune yards at due division and just mind-blowingly awesome. Like her band was good but she was just like totally next level, two yards but. And britney howard obviously is like a, you know, seismically powerful singer, you know. But but in this context where they were unflattering and I and it made me realize I'm like you could probably put stevie wonder in a situation where it's like the best singer and arranger and player of all time, like connect, you think he, nope, probably can't do everything you put it.
Speaker 3:You can put in a situation where you're like that's unflattering, like it's just people, it's their, their, their brilliance is narrower than you think. Yeah, you know they're and and that's what makes them so, so high and talent, mighty and talented, is like that. They're just the very best at this thing and they're're just going to be out, you know, outdo everyone in that. But and some people might surprise you when they're also like Brian May, an astrophysicist or something like that, you know. But but I mean musically, I think, yeah, you take someone out of their comfort zone.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I've done that where I've asked someone to come into a, but they're like very uncomfortable, it's like it's not really. You're almost like exposing, you're almost like showing behind the curtain of my magic act here, yeah, so work to your strengths. Yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, despite your limited range, you know, which you just admitted to, we've had a couple of guests that were big fans of yours. One is a bandmate of yours, Zach.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I listened to that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other one actually is an astrophysicist, jeff Elbell. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:Did I introduce you to Jeff? No, I met him at a show.
Speaker 1:Randomly yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we sat next to each other.
Speaker 3:Do you know that I can take pride about oh my God that Jeff Elbell is one of two musicians that I know that whose band broke up after being on a bill with oh my God, because they're sort of like that's how it's done, we suck Goodbye. That's how I take it anyway. But it's true. There was a guy in New York and there was Jeff. Jeff played with us in Ann Arbor with his band. Yeah, jeff's very talented multi-instrumentalist, you know, and obviously music writer and on the NASA stuff. But he's great and we've been friends now for quite a few years. But he was a oh my God fan and supporter and has been the same with the Claudettes and has written us up a bunch of times.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so cool. I'll have to talk to him about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's written us up for like Big Takeover and Illinois Entertainer and has done his best with the Sun-Times, but it's he's in there. But uh, yeah, jeff played with us at the blind pig in ann arbor, if you ever been there.
Speaker 2:Oh many times I've played at the blind pig.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I have a funny anecdote about that, but maybe that's for another time we'll have you back, yeah well, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, uh, for being here nope, I'm gonna tell the story real quick I'm gonna condense it real quick.
Speaker 3:I just suddenly realized it's very good because you'll, you'll, you'll, totally be there with me for this story. So my contracts for oh my God were usually just a printed out email of like when someone said 500 bucks and beer or something like that. So I printed it out with me. We were opening for the band that sang I'm going to Disneyland Terrible, terrible, terrible band. And One Hit Wonder is so much so that if you have One Hit you can have a tour bus, as they had. But we opened for them there and they just needed an opener and they only paid us $100. And it was like a $30 ticket. But we knew we'd play in front of a lot of people who didn't know us and we had a lot of Michigan fans. So in fact we had a lot of people out to see us. So the club was lucky for that slot. But I had my piece of paper that said at least free beer. Like it really caught us that Jason.
Speaker 3:Jason, who booked the blind pig, pledged to me by email. And we get there and Billy and I walked up to the bar we said well, I have a beer, and the guy said five bucks or something. I said, nope, I've got my contract. And he said well, I have to go ask Jason. I got to call him. He's not here and he walks to the back. And I said to Billy, we've all been through this a million times and I was going to come back and go, couldn't reach him. Sorry, that's not what happened. He came back and goes. I got a hold of Jason. He told me not to give you guys beer.
Speaker 1:Threw a curveball at you Just like, even worse than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3:I'm like his email, but there's just like what it's all it's kind of like. Sometimes in life I feel like I'm at imagining myself as some villain where I owe someone for a project a thousand and twenty dollars and I pay them a thousand and five dollars and go what are you gonna do? Sue me for fifteen dollars? You could go through life like that if you wanted to people, but that's what I feel like this guy's doing. Yep, he's like are you gonna sue me for the, for the couple cans of beer? Because I wrote in an email I guess you could win if you hire an attorney and they call me Good luck. Yeah, but I figured you with your playing shows that you've seen things of similar nobility as this.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all fun stories from the road. Yep, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, it all goes into the fabric of being a musician.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:Cautionary example yeah, well, well, thank you for coming.
Speaker 2:I've been wanting to have you on for a long time, so yeah so I knew it'd be fun to talk, and it was hey, hey, wait what's my name?
Speaker 1:what's? What's my hi karen?
Speaker 2:hi andrew.
Speaker 1:I'm going to blame the eclipse.
Speaker 2:Yes, there we go. It's like Mercury in retrograde Moon in front of the sun.
Speaker 1:I've been feeling really tired lately and of course you know it's kind of like the Edgar Allen Poe poem. You know, when you ask the raven, that can only answer nevermore poem. You know when you ask the raven, that can only answer nevermore. You know leading questions so that you get answers that sort of fit your mood. The internet has kind of become that, but I saw a Instagram post that stated that the reason why everybody is so tired is because of the eclipse. Like I feel that. Anyway, why is it important to study celestial bodies?
Speaker 2:Like from an astrological kind of thing. However, you want to answer it. Why is it important to study celestial bodies? I think for me I get a lot of comfort when I look out into space or when I think about, you know, the stars. It's weirdly comforting to think like I am just a tiny little speck in the universe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And all of my worries and all the whatevers, they really don't matter. It's like you know when Johnny said well, you're just going to get killed by your bird, your pet bird. But there's also something so amazing about it. I think that's really cool when you hear about you know the Aztecs and how they came up with a calendar, you know, a million years ago're not alone and that everything is all connected, and it makes me feel kind of hopeful for the future, and might not even be our future right you know.
Speaker 2:But we are a step in some greater thing and I don't. I'm not really talking about god or anything, but if you think about it, you know people are like I don't believe in God, Fine. But when you look up to the stars, and it goes on forever. What?
Speaker 1:is that.
Speaker 2:I mean you don't have to believe in a dude on a cloud playing a harp. You know judging everybody. But, there is some. What is that?
Speaker 1:What is that? Yeah, yeah, just infinite, mostly nothingness.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And then occasional somethingness yeah.
Speaker 2:It's mostly empty space. Yeah, and dark matter which? Who the heck knows what that is?
Speaker 1:now, physicists probably do yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, from what I've read, there's still kind of mystery about it. There's still heck knows what that is now Physicists probably do yeah.
Speaker 3:Well from what I've read, there's still kind of mystery about it.
Speaker 2:But anyway I think it. It humbles us, puts everything into perspective, but also gives us tremendous I don't know hope and dreams of bigger things we can't even imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Let's leave it there. This has been an episode of Records and 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 Bye.