Navigating the Highs and Lows of Professional Musicianship with Terry Nigrelli

Ready to step into the life of a professional musician? This episode with Terry Nigrelli , a trombone player with Broadway experience, brings you right into the heart of the music world. We journey through Terry's musical upbringing and his dedication to the trombone, a passion that took him from private lessons and music summer camps to eventual professional gigs in diverse musical styles.

But, it's not all standing ovations and curtain calls. We address the challenging side of being a musician - finding gigs, negotiating payment, and making sure you're not being taken for a ride. We even delve into the delicate art of not selling yourself short, and the all-too-common tendency of becoming your own worst critic. We also dive into Terry's career in music education, reflecting on his experiences in different schools and the joys (and sometimes, hilarious mishaps) of club gigs.

Lastly, we turn up the tempo and explore the changing landscape of the music industry, how it influences our performances, and how we adapt. From tempo adjustments and sampling in live performances to understanding the nuances of the tunes we play, every aspect is dissected in detail. We even share our perspectives on non-musicians, peppering in a few interesting anecdotes for good measure. To wrap up, we discuss the role of education in the music industry and reflect on the importance of gratitude and continuous learning. In this episode, Terry and I serve up a symphony of insights, laughter, and shared experiences in the world of music. You won't want to miss it!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:08

Okay, welcome to On Drums with John Simeone. This is Episode 11. I guess today is Terry Negrilly. Terry is going to tell you about himself, but I'll tell you this Terry is a trombone player. He's an excellent musician. He plays bass, clef and low notes and tenor, clef and alto and tenor and alto clef, mostly bass, and only one note at a time. So that's Terry. So I just started working with Terry recently in a band, but I know you through your teaching most of it, right yeah.

Speaker 1 0:39

Yeah. So why don't you give me a little breakdown of your history, like how all this, your shit happened?

Speaker 2 0:48

Well, thank you for having me on and I love the podcast.

Speaker 1 0:51

Oh good, that's because now you're on it partner.

Speaker 2 0:54

Well no, you've had some great people on, you've had some top musicians A couple of good yeah, so yeah for me, you know, the funny thing about it was that I had a really unfair advantage growing up because my mom was a musician and a music teacher.

Speaker 1 1:09

Just your mom, not your dad.

Speaker 2 1:11

So piano lessons at five. You know violin third grade. Yep, so it was like a spoiled kid, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19

Kind of.

Speaker 2 1:22

And my mom was dragging me to every concert and every Scamia and Lisva, and you know almost like you didn't have a choice, right. Well, you know, I kind of grew up in that, in that environment, and then I always wanted to play the trombone, and then in sixth grade I switched over and switch, switch, switch, or what to from violin?

Speaker 1 1:39

Oh, you played violin?

Speaker 2 1:40

Yeah, I played third, fourth, third, fourth, fifth and into sixth. I was first, chair First and you still went to trombone. No, I really wanted to play trombone and of course my mom got me private lessons right away with Michael. Kanaip, who was my, you know, my greatest influence and he ended up being director of music in have Hollow. By the way, you know, I didn't mean as criticism when I said to you you got to tell people where we are, oh right, no, no, I didn't.

Speaker 1 2:08

I don't take any as criticism. We're on Long Island. No, we're on Long.

Speaker 2 2:10

Island. You know the Jerry Seinfeld bit on that.

Speaker 1 2:13

He says you don't live in Long Island.

Speaker 2 2:16

You live in the city.

Speaker 1 2:17

It's true, you don't live on.

Speaker 2 2:20

And the first thing when you tell people you say I live on Long Island, they say what exit?

Speaker 1 2:24

Right, that's like Jersey and that's kind of my gripe Because there's a whole. The reason I started this podcast is like there's a whole line and musician culture that's kind of like removed from reality, you know.

Speaker 2 2:38

I mean in a way it's it's its own world, you know.

Speaker 1 2:41

I'm my friend. I'm going to get to you. I just I just thought of something my friend Joel, who I went to school with, who I know forever, who's traveled the world, you know, doing gigs with a million. Whatever His stock line to me is, you know, I'll gripe to him this, this, this, and he always goes Long Island. Even when it comes to like whatever does it matter, like you know, traffic or women, or it's a long long island.

Speaker 2 3:06

That's the explanation.

Speaker 1 3:06

That's right, and that ends the conversation, but anyway so so go ahead Trombone.

Speaker 2 3:12

So you know summer music camps and private lessons, and by the time I was in high school I was studying with guys in the city and ended up going to Manhattan School of Music. I did my bachelor's there and then I did my master's at Juilliard and at the time I was doing a lot of classical music. I was doing like I really had my sights set on becoming a symphony.

Speaker 1 3:34

In an orchestra.

Speaker 2 3:35

Yeah, but you know, as soon as I graduated all my friends were getting gigs all over the world I mean Korea and right, singapore and Canada, and but my family was here. So right away I started doing more commercial music. You know, started doing, and we had a brass quintet with my best friend, jack Shatz, and we were booking that a lot. So that was, you know, we were doing weddings and openings of buildings and recitals and that was a lot of fun. But it was about that time I started doing club dates and you know I was doing Latin gigs and big bands and just whatever any gig to to to, you know, make, make money to to Wait, isn't there a joke about trombone players with like it?

Speaker 2 4:19

There's a ton of them. How do you tell the trombone players cars is it's dominant pizza. No, no, it's like what's the difference between a pizza and a trombone player? Pizza can feed a family of four. Wait, there was a different one.

Speaker 1 4:30

Like there's a, there's a. Like there's a dead trombone player on the road there's no skid marks. No, there's a dead trombone player, it's a dead chicken. What's the difference between the two differences? The chicken was on the way to a gig. The trombone player was definitely not on his way to a gig.

Speaker 2 4:47

But yeah, it was, you know, during, even during school, I started doing gigs around the city, and so that's why I'm part of both worlds.

Speaker 1 4:55

Yeah, me too. You put, you were doing both worlds, so you did education and your gig.

Speaker 2 5:01

I freelance for four years, but I was teaching part time at private schools.

Speaker 1 5:05

Again, just anything to to make a buck, and I started Also when you graduated college. You didn't go right into no.

Speaker 2 5:12

I started subbing on Broadway shows and you know. But what happened was my wife at the time was teaching on Long Island and I went to one of her concerts and I met the band director and he said, hey, you have a bachelor's degree. I said, yeah, he could say you can sub for me.

Speaker 2 5:27

So I started subbing, please sub for me and one and one thing led to another and guys started to figure out that I would do the rehearsals and the lessons and the kids wouldn't lose a day. So I started subbing every day and finally my wife was like just just get your degree and teach for a while, so your bachelor's was just bachelor's and master's in performance.

Speaker 2 5:46

I had to go back to Dowling College for one semester. I just took the credits. I don't think you can do it that way now. I just took the credits. I needed to get the certificate. I did a similar thing. I did I student taught in.

Speaker 1 5:56

West I that's what's going to bring up. But I got a bachelor's in performance and then stayed the extra year and guy, oh yeah, my education.

Speaker 2 6:04

But that's not because I wanted to go to become a teacher. No, I never wanted to be a teacher.

Speaker 1 6:07

No, I did it because I loved school.

Speaker 2 6:08

Yeah, I, the last thing I wanted to be was a teacher, and then I started subbing Yup, but I kind of discovered that you know I, because I grew up in that environment, I knew how to do it. I was, and I was, you know, kind of not good at it at the beginning, but I eventually I got good at it.

Speaker 2 6:25

But you know, and then I, but I just kept doing it at that time and then at the time really the only thing that fit into the family schedule was doing club dates on weekends. You know you can't teach a whole day of school. And then I mean, people do it, but it's difficult Teach a whole day of school and then get on the train and go in and play a Broadway show.

Speaker 1 6:40

Yup, you know a challenge.

Speaker 2 6:43

So the funny thing about how I started doing club dates was my fiance at the time and I. I had a friend, mark Feinberg, who's a phenomenal saxophone, woodwind Doubler, who I went to Manhattan with, and I asked him because I knew he did a lot of weddings, and I said you know, can you put a band together for our wedding? He said no, but call these guys and we went to the office.

Speaker 1 7:04

What year? What year is this?

Speaker 2 7:05

81.

Speaker 1 7:07

No no 83. 83. 1983. 1983., 1983. 1983.

Speaker 2 7:14

So they gave us the whole spiel with the VHS tape.

Speaker 1 7:16

Yeah, that's what it was like, and then like peeking out, I think that's when club dates were going nuts, and then the guy said so how do you know Mark?

Speaker 2 7:22

I said we went to school. He says, oh, you're a musician. I said yeah, I'm just. What do you play? I said trombone. He says you know tunes. I said yeah, I know some jazz tunes I mean, you know, I've played them in rock bands and stuff like that. He goes are you open Saturday? And that was the end of it.

Speaker 1 7:41

So I played for them. How many phone calls I'm a million of those. Hey, are you open Saturday?

Speaker 2 7:49

So then I went with, you know, one of some of the bigger offices. I started with Hank Lane and then I ended up with Steven Scott for many years, and Joel Rosenblatt used to sub Joel, Joel, I'm sure he did. That was in the 80s it was the Lou Davis band he used to sub. Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:04

Joel sub with the D. Wow, See this is the thing. He didn't get his first real gig. I think to ladies.

Speaker 2 8:12

Well, here's the thing the bands I played with always had I mean, for the most part had really good musicians, I mean hi, you know the guys who played and the guys who came off the road Tony Garuso and Todd Schwartz, trumpet players, played with Buddy, michael played with Buddy and Woody.

Speaker 1 8:29

You know? I mean, you know what's funny? You just reminded me of something, because I think in the 80s, when I was doing a million, I was doing a million club dates in teaching school and Joel, I think, yes, joel was doing that too and he told me his story. I said, joel, how are you doing, you know? Because he was a phenomenal drummer. I said what are you doing? Club dates, man? He said oh no, these bands are like all guys off the road, they really be players. I said, joel, at one point, you're still going to do cut the cake. He goes no, no, we do cut the cake, cut the cake. I said okay, I'm going to have to do that. I'm going to have to do that, all right.

Speaker 2 8:59

That was the Lou Davis band.

Speaker 1 9:00

That was probably Lou Davis.

Speaker 2 9:01

I'm going to ask him and Greg Slick played in that for a while too.

Speaker 1 9:04

Oh, I remember Greg mentioned that. That's right. That's right. Yeah, some top players.

Speaker 2 9:10

I mean so we always, and like John Scarpeau said, you play for each other and you play for the leader, because you want to get high and you want to keep getting hired. So it wasn't you know, and look, there's a certain. It's really a service that you're providing for dance music at an affair.

Speaker 1 9:24

People are not to hear Johnson Meone.

Speaker 2 9:26

They're not hit there to see Terry.

Speaker 1 9:28

Negreli, All right, and in fact I think I'm always. I always talk about this. I'm so used to club dates where you start playing and you were ignored for five hours. And then when I started playing with Epricot, people actually stand there and watch the band and say what's wrong with these people. And then people would talk to me on the break Like what, why are you talking to me? It's like a whole different thing when, well, there's like a fan base.

Speaker 2 9:49

There's like a big, it's like followers.

Speaker 1 9:51

I guess that's part of the attraction of doing those gigs is that you have people.

Speaker 2 9:54

What you do in playing music that people are there to hear that music.

Speaker 1 9:58

We did a gig at sunset grill and I was. I was playing, which is no longer I heard that. Yeah, and there was some guy there, it was a crowd, one of those crowded nights like two years ago, whatever it was, I don't know, and it was some guy staring at me the whole night. I just remember looking at him.

Speaker 1 10:17

He was like looking at me and he had a very distinct look. I remember his, his face and everything. And then that night I was, you know, we packed up, I got in the car just before I went home and I never do this. I just like was my car was warm and up or what was going on. I go on Facebook and there's a friend request from that guy. Yeah, they like freaked me out. Like what.

Speaker 2 10:36

That's so weird that there are people who are really into that music, you know. And the other thing is, when you're playing a gig any gig you can always spot a musician standing there looking at you.

Speaker 2 10:44

Of course, you can tell by the way they're looking yeah, you just you know it's so so so you, I actually had fun doing club dates, and you know club dates I mean every once in a while. You know, my litmus test, especially now, is if I'm sitting there looking at my watch waiting for this to end, then I shouldn't be there.

Speaker 1 11:04

Right, well, see, I feel the same way, except if you're desperate for the money.

Speaker 2 11:10

that's one thing there's compensation either way.

Speaker 1 11:12

So if there's musical compensation, then I'll deal with less money, but if there's monetary competition, I'll deal with less music.

Speaker 2 11:20

We played in Leon Padruzzi's band. It's his best big band I've ever played in and we get nothing Right. So I'm saying we don't even get to have a prize on beer.

Speaker 1 11:28

So you spent money to play. That's right, I think I would do that.

Speaker 2 11:31

I think if, if the players were like great players and if you send us up and that doesn't measure up, they're like listen, man, I'm like. You know, this is a free game.

Speaker 1 11:40

Right, that's crazy. What are the business?

Speaker 2 11:43

Well, because the more the higher quality of the music, the less popular it is, and the less valuable, it is commercially, yeah, so I guess that's kind of a sad comment.

Speaker 2 11:56

You know. The other thing is you've been talking a while for about amateurs who go and take gigs. Right Now my feeling on that is you know, if you got a guy who plays acoustic guitar and sings and he goes into a restaurant and he says, hey man, can I just play? You know all the people eat, I'll just put a tip jar out. You know he's not really taking a gig away from professional.

Speaker 1 12:18

I'm referring to guys who are doing the same circuit of bars or clubs or whatever. And the guys who would normally do, who could, like you know, like you know, like George Sintron, who's a great guitar player, who could do a crazy good job at that, can be bumped because some guy who is a dentist does it on weekends for $30. You know and that, and they lower the prices and all these bands, right. So the bands can't demand much at all because I'm not going to pay you. Let's get these guys.

Speaker 2 12:47

Yeah, you know, I think there's a saying there's a very fine line between being discovered and being found out, Right? I love these quotes, these quotes. I live by these quotes. Okay, so that's you know. If that band is really a bunch of hacks, it's not going to, it's not going to last. I don't know and I'm not playing those guys and the other thing is they're not taking a gig away from a 14 piece band that's doing a big wedding or a dinner dance at. Oh he could cancel.

Speaker 1 13:22

I think the the sheer volume of people who do it on the side has caught into what legitimate guys make at these places.

Speaker 2 13:31

I have a bigger problem with legitimate bands who are really high quality. You know musicians and provide a good product and they should know better, but they give it away.

Speaker 1 13:41

That's the problem.

Speaker 2 13:42

Never give away what you're trying to sell.

Speaker 1 13:44

Never give away what you're trying to sell Right, but I think some guys give it away because they'll just get undercut. You know, I mean this is, this is one of the things I've always said also like what are the businesses there? Where you like, you and I went to school, I get a master's plus 75 or whatever it is, and some guy who lays a brick during the week can do the same gig. You know what? I mean Like it's bizarre.

Speaker 2 14:07

Well, and then here's the other quote you don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. Right, okay, yeah, that's a different, that's a different and a lot of times you're right in that a lot of musicians musicians are. We are our own worst enemies. Yep, you know you'll take a gig you know for less money and somebody else is not getting that gig for more money you know, but I'm past that man.

Speaker 1 14:31

I'm like no, no, chris's favorite, chris Corbett's favorite line is uh, I wouldn't even get up my toilet by that.

Speaker 2 14:38

No, but. But you know, my problem is, if I'm expected to show up Saturday night eight o'clock with a tux on, you need to get a certain amount. That's what I'm saying that's bad and there's a lot of stuff that's going on that's that's not right, so that that that should be changed. But you know, for for more or less um it.

Speaker 1 14:58

Just what's weird to me is there's a there's a market for mediocrity in music and not and not too many other play.

Speaker 2 15:04

I mean, we're all. So when I was booking my for for a while I had my own club date ban, but that that was.

Speaker 1 15:10

you ran a club. Terry Franks oh my God, who's Terry Frank?

Speaker 2 15:14

Well, you know the joke. Oh yeah, it's got to have two first names Right, no, no no, no, no, no Musicians. Uh, the first 10 years. Who's John Stimuloni? The next 10 years? Get me John Simione the next 10 years. You know what we need? We need a young John.

Speaker 1 15:30

Simione.

Speaker 2 15:32

And then the last 10 years. Who's John Simione?

Speaker 1 15:36

And the person saying who's John Simione is John Simione.

Speaker 2 15:41

No, the thing about the thing about you know we joke around, like you know, for when people complain about how much musicians are charging, you know, the one thing is that somebody posted on Facebook a while back is I want you to hire eight plumbers to come to your house on Saturday night and whatever they get in tuxes and whatever they get, we'll take half, Right, yeah?

Speaker 1 16:05

Or how about the fact that you can't? You know you, every other occupation said this is what I get paid for it for this many hours of this particular service, and after the service you don't. People don't go up to you and say, okay, just can you throw in another.

Speaker 2 16:17

Yeah, and we do it every. Could you fill another cavity, please? Right, we do it every day. Could you do another tax return? Just one more song.

Speaker 1 16:23

Just one more song.

Speaker 2 16:24

We're drunk, can you just go ahead and then we you know. So let me ask you a question Did you get the musician discount on your mortgage? No, no, neither did I. Did you get the musician discount on your taxes?

Speaker 1 16:36

No.

Speaker 2 16:36

Neither did I. Did you get the musicians discount on your groceries?

Speaker 1 16:41

What are you getting out here?

Speaker 2 16:43

We pay the same bills everybody else.

Speaker 1 16:45

This is what it costs to live on Long Island or in the city or around. Right. In other words I'm joking around about you know, do you get a discount?

Speaker 2 16:55

No, when you go to stop and shop, you get the musician discount.

Speaker 1 16:57

No, I mean, that was that was the other thing about club dates. That was good, it was only a few things. And the good thing was like sorry, no, it's five o'clock and the gigs over and other people are coming in here. Sorry, we can't do that, but I've been on gigs where it's like you do three, four, one more songs, you know, and these fucking people don't want to leave, and I get it.

Speaker 2 17:16

They're out to have fun, but it's still, but if you add up all the hours that you put in to becoming the musician that you are, it's it doesn't compare to, I mean, probably any other, maybe becoming a surgeon I'm serious about this or becoming a lawyer. Or you know the amount of studying that you have to do in the library to become a lawyer.

Speaker 1 17:38

I mean compared to the amount of hours you've practiced in your life, right, right, and there's no, none of us are going. You know, yeah, what do you do? I teach, but you know, in the weekends I do I dapple and brain surgery you know, I'll do it, for I'll do a fellow half the price of your guy. Just just bring the kid over and I'll, and all the difference.

Speaker 2 17:54

You know when was the last time you had to play a Marengue or Chacha oh God that's. But you had to learn a little, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 17:59

I did. That's, that's 1978 or something. Yeah, that was part of my drum lesson as a kid. My teacher taught me a Chacha Marengue, a Rumba, a Wals Vasanova. I had to have all that. That's cause that's all you did on the gig. You didn't do it.

Speaker 2 18:14

We did a cocktail hour for an hour straight. We played nothing. We played one long Vasanova, every tune as a Vasanova, even when the drummer took a break. It started at seven o'clock and the Vasanova ended. Cause people don't pay attention.

Teaching, Music, and Club Gigs

Speaker 1 18:29

Like you said, that's the sad thing, man. So let's get back to so.

Speaker 2 18:34

you graduated you graduated, I did my student teaching. How did you? How did?

Speaker 1 18:39

you find Lenny of Lenny Lepento, you student taught for and in fact you stood. You student taught for Lenny and I had just started teaching there.

Speaker 2 18:45

Well, my mom knew Bernie Jones. Okay, you know so. Oh, through that circuit. Yeah, well, my mom was conducting the West Isle of Orchestra at the time.

Speaker 1 18:53

Oh right, I knew Bernie, tony right, I've been a million times. They used to rehearse at beach. I can't believe I just made that connection. That is bizarre.

Speaker 2 19:03

She lived in West.

Speaker 1 19:04

Isle. She used to rehearse on my stage. That's right.

Speaker 2 19:09

Yeah, Wow, and what she did for 25 years. And she conducted the Long Island Mandolin Orchestra. She taught in East Meadow, she taught in Elwood John Glenn and she was in the Long Island Symphony. And so you know again, I grew up.

Speaker 1 19:22

Okay, now it's all coming together so he put me first with Gordon.

Speaker 2 19:26

I'm not gonna say Pogano yeah.

Speaker 1 19:28

And then he put me with.

Speaker 2 19:29

Lenny, and Lenny the first day didn't show up, you told, me that story. We were at Dakota Rose the night before. He just didn't come in.

Speaker 1 19:38

I kept asking Lenny I have plenty of hope for listening to this, but he knows.

Speaker 2 19:42

But I taught all the lessons, I did the band rehearse and I went home. The next day I came in he said well, I just want to see how you would do.

Speaker 1 19:48

Yeah, that's what he wanted.

Speaker 2 19:49

I threw you into the pool, yeah, that was his plan, I just wanted to see how you could do it, but then I had a stroke of luck, I got hired in Beijor, which was wonderful.

Speaker 1 19:58

As a grand teacher.

Speaker 2 19:59

As a middle school band teacher, Fourth and sixth elementary, and and. Four through six, four and six, four and six, fourth grade band in the elementary, sixth grade band in the middle school, two days in one building, three days in the other building and doing, still doing, club dates. You know, occasional big band, occasional orchestra gig.

Speaker 2 20:17

You know, and then, and the guys I worked with, ted Scalzo and Ed Schaefer, and you had good guys, we just Ray Burns, we just kind of fed off each other, especially with the technology, because you know Midi was just coming out.

Speaker 1 20:29

I know I used to come there and like be jealous Because you guys had funding. We had nothing.

Speaker 2 20:34

We, you know, but a lot of it was the superintendent we had at the time, Evelyn Holman, because she used us to To do the website. To do. I did the website, Ted did videos for the.

Speaker 1 20:45

Both of which I did also and didn't have the same funding. Yeah well, I had a beg for it. I mean, I got it. Eventually, I got a lab.

Speaker 2 20:52

We also were very lucky we had in Bechar, we had the Barbash family who were, you know, don't need a lot of money. Oh, really. Arts Education Fund and yeah.

Speaker 1 21:01

Oh.

Speaker 2 21:02

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I used to pinch myself every day. It was great.

Speaker 1 21:05

So then you taught how long there before you made three hours 13 years.

Speaker 2 21:08

You know at the time if you want to get credits you have to take graduate credits. So I said I'll take my administration. I never intended on using it, but then the director at the time came to me and said I'm retiring and everybody kind of wanted me to do it because it was an inside person, right. But there was some of the administrators were kind of against it. But eventually I got lucky and I got the job and it was great.

Speaker 1 21:29

Well, that was a smart move on the airport?

Speaker 2 21:31

Yeah, well, I think so.

Speaker 1 21:33

Yeah, I mean, where were they gonna go Get a guy? And I have?

Speaker 2 21:35

to be honest with you, I don't know if I would have become an administrator if it wasn't for Bayshore. I don't think I would have just continued teaching.

Speaker 1 21:42

So you wouldn't have pursued it unless it came to you right? Well, it was Bayshore.

Speaker 2 21:46

That's why I did it.

Speaker 1 21:47

Because you were in Bayshore, you liked Bayshore, yeah. And then you know, and then the rest is history. So you were doing, you were director of music there 17 years, 17 years and still doing gigs. Yeah, 100 gigs a year 100 gigs.

Speaker 2 22:01

Yeah, I mean, we talked about this. So how many times I had to leave a family barbecue or a birthday party and put a tux on and drive to Jersey?

Speaker 1 22:10

Yep, I was doing in 19,. What was the heyday for club dates, or like 888, 890, whatever, yeah, 80s, 90s, I mean. I was doing four or five a weekend, and Sunday nights was the worst.

Speaker 2 22:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:24

Sunday you just waiting right to get paid, you know. And then Monday morning is sixth grade band at 720. And you show up. I used to show up at Beach Street in my band room Kids, I'm just going to close my eyes and listen.

Speaker 2 22:37

I was the crazy.

Speaker 1 22:38

This is so 1990, you could be. I was a crazy strict teacher. You know. I had always, you know the band. Kids are always a great kids and I remember like I'd show up there and the kids would read it, and usually the flute players in the front row.

Speaker 1 22:50

I'd hear them say he's not a good boy today. I don't think he got any sleep last night. You know I hear them whispering to each other. You know I mean because and they knew it and it was true I, if I show up and I was chipper, they knew that Means no gig Sunday night. Don't worry, if I had a gig Sunday night, they knew that, you know.

Speaker 2 23:06

Yeah, it takes its all and you know, but it was, but I couldn't do that now. No, there's no way. No, but the extra money was nice, you know.

Speaker 1 23:14

It became like something you needed, you know. I mean, because of that, I have to say, I have to say this Because of the club dates, I was able to, you know, bang up my 401k. Otherwise I would have been putting all that money, I would have needed that money, you know.

Speaker 2 23:27

Now that's the other piece of it is that almost all of the club dates I did were union club dates.

Speaker 1 23:33

Oh, really, yeah, see none of the club dates.

Speaker 2 23:36

And again, I had something to put on the shows. I did some classical freelancing trust fund gigs. So I get a pension from AFM. Now there are players who are complaining well, I don't get a. My question is well, which pension plan did you pay into? Because every gig I did, every club date, I paid 4% work dues plus the yearly dues of 150 a year. So you know, if you took 4% of all your club date money and put it into a mutual fund, right and which we didn't do.

Speaker 1 24:01

It's my money. Yeah, so we all got. We just took the money. Yeah, I mean, but it was weird because I never and I paid taxes on that money. Yeah, it was all 10, 99. But you wrote off the union dues.

Speaker 2 24:12

Yes, yeah, yeah. But you know, so I was lucky in that way that and the gigs were, but the gig, the traveling was difficult, I mean you know, new Jersey, oh my God, jersey, connecticut. They used to fly us out, they fly us to. It's crazy. I've flown to LA, chicago, phoenix, florida, my band, the band that I worked for, the president of Steven Scott and Joey Mills, and that band went to Anguilla. They went to Hawaii. I couldn't do it For club dates.

Speaker 2 24:41

Yeah, they couldn't do it, because I mean, I couldn't do it because I was teaching, you know. So they would take three, four days and go out to Hawaii, wow.

Speaker 1 24:50

Yeah, that's cool man. I mean that's, that's a, I mean that's kind of a perk.

Speaker 2 24:54

I would say yeah, and the other part of the union thing is like there were minimums in the hotels in the city, like the Hilton had a 20 piece minimum, the Waldorf had a 20 piece minimum. And the union rep would come and count heads. Oh God.

Speaker 1 25:09

See now I had a different thing man. I was doing man up until like 16 to, I would say, 44. I was doing just one band to another.

Speaker 2 25:24

I kept joining bands that have all this work up until Local, local, local, all locally.

Speaker 1 25:29

And then even the last one, it the last band I was in that went another 15 years till it was retired. Yeah, was, was that, but it was different, a different. At that point, club dates were to head change.

Speaker 2 25:40

Yeah, you remember your first club date.

Speaker 1 25:42

Yeah, it was. It's a narrow against it in.

Speaker 2 25:46

Which is on Long.

Speaker 1 25:47

Island right, which I think now was like a Kmart right, which it should be Honey.

Speaker 2 25:52

Townhouse is now a target right.

Speaker 1 25:56

And they both should. They both are better at those things than they were called.

Speaker 2 25:59

I got married at the Huntington Townhouse. Yeah, oh my god, it was the cheapest place.

Speaker 1 26:04

I haven't many stories but anyway. So I'm trying to think Lou Lou Perry was the guy. He's probably long gone now at this point, but I was. It was he paid $40 a gig and I I I mean I told the story of on the like two podcasts ago, but the way it happened was I went to my, my dad when I was 16, where it was 4th of July.

Club Date Stories and Drummer Comedy

Speaker 1 26:23

We were going to a party and he said you know, don't wear shorts, we're black pants with shoes and a shirt. I was, and I didn't. Back then you didn't talk, I didn't say why you should just do it, get the car, everybody else's dress in the pool and the barbecuing. And then it took me to the narrow against it, drop your narrow against. And he knew Gus Coletti and forced me to sit in. He didn't even ask. He's like see that band, you're gonna sit with them, just gonna play three, four songs. Then we're gonna go home, and I did. And then I got hired like this is my father's fault, you know. And then that was it. It was at the narrow against it in every week with this guy, lou, whatever his name, yeah, so 40 dollars a gig.

Speaker 2 26:57

My first club date was I play keyboard, so I had a far fisa organ. And my friend was a drummer in high school and his father was a saxophone player, so it was the three of us. On New Year's Eve, I never forget, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Wyandanche ooh and Wheatley Heights, and it was like you know, what did I know I like like five songs.

Speaker 1 27:19

You know, we just kept playing the same song over and over again you know, those are the days where you'd show up and you knew no, I've been a man gives what new. Nobody in the band. Yeah, I'd show up. In fact, you know, they see Dave Segal. It's a base player. So I met. I met Dave on on a Was the guy's name was a screamer.

Speaker 2 27:37

No, I wasn't a screamer, but it was a guy who, who was for people who don't know? Yeah right, explain that. So a lot of times the bands would double book themselves and you know they would just throw on any band to a wedding, but it wasn't the band that the people hired. Right, so the father of the bride would come and screaming.

Speaker 1 27:55

This is not the man, but it's too late. What are you gonna do? You're gonna do you got a band.

Speaker 2 27:59

You got. The guests are there at the catering hall, but right, so the guy's name was Saul Herman.

Speaker 1 28:04

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 28:04

I know so, so I would.

Speaker 1 28:05

Dave and I met on a soul harming gig and at the end of the gig and this obviously was a throw together band, I mean I didn't know anybody they said, oh man, you know we should take my number, this buck, and he had cards right and he started handing me his card and I started hitting mine and saw flipped he was.

Speaker 2 28:22

Don't shake hands Because you just met you do.

Speaker 1 28:28

This is truth, you know I mean so. So Herman was the. That's the guy them. Matt Miller throws a great story about him. He's kind of used to count off one song. Matt was doing the gig and Saul counted song like this one, two, three brushes would be nice, you know. So it's songs in five, four now.

Speaker 2 28:51

Have you seen? You know Neil Neil Kapolango.

Speaker 1 28:55

No, I don't think he's a drummer lives in Huntington. I did million maybe if I saw yeah he played with B?

Speaker 2 29:00

S&T actually, oh did he?

Speaker 1 29:02

way back. Yeah, so Dave knows them because they play with them.

Speaker 2 29:04

I don't know if they were on at the same time. Yeah right, they probably knew each other, but anyway, he did a whole movie called club date stories and it's on you.

Speaker 1 29:12

Oh, I heard about you. Have you seen it? No, it's great?

Speaker 2 29:15

No, it's. There's a lot of funny stories, a lot of there's also.

Musicians Discussing Gig Experiences and Changes

Speaker 1 29:19

There's a YouTube video that Joel turned me on about 10 years ago called the drummer Uh-huh. That's. It's a short, it's hilarious, it's a bad, it's just, it's so dead. I don't know why nobody isn't. That's what we should do. We should do a movie, right, and I'd go to that movie. A lot of people would go to that movie to see what really goes on. Yeah, you know, I used to be at a place like the townhouse and then on the brakes would go to the next room to see who's playing, and he always knew somebody in the next room and then the other room and then people come into your room.

Speaker 2 29:46

Yeah, you know, yeah, well, but this did different levels of club dates. I mean some of the good gigs I used to do, like at the Waldorf, 22 pieces with strings, yeah and harp, and you know we used to do the est alorder at Gus Coletti always booked corporate gigs, so is that's the load of Avon. How about? We used to do like in December, used to do like one Christmas party after another.

Speaker 1 30:06

We used to do 13, 14 gigs in December with us. Yeah, which was bizarre, everybody else was off. Yeah, and that was. That was a no showcase, mostly cash. I work for Gus a little.

Speaker 2 30:16

I actually played with Bobby Sedita.

Speaker 1 30:17

Yeah, remember Bob's a deed, oh my god, yes.

Speaker 2 30:22

Did a couple years.

Speaker 1 30:23

Bobby. Oh my god, I have a funny story about Bob. I'm, I guess, now that we said his name, we should. But Bobby had a stutter, yeah, but he sang, perfect he. That was the thing. He. As soon as he got on the mic, he could speak a different part of the brain, yeah, that's. That was just that blew me away about him. He had a like a serious speech in bed, but he could sing and speak on a microphone, no problem, yeah.

Speaker 2 30:45

I thought it was messing me at first no. Yeah, Bob.

Speaker 1 30:48

Sedita right.

Speaker 2 30:49

So you know, to complete the whole thing, now I'm, I have the good fortune of being able to just play whatever gigs I want to play like chill out big bands Did some orchestra gigs this year. You know some bar bands at the earth when, if I are the shining star gig don't don't be advertising your gigs, don't be pushing, don't be pushing your band at this point I'm kind of breaking even on that, because you know, bring you lucky break it even, you know, between rehearsal studios and we have to hire the PA and I'm doing the website and you know.

Speaker 1 31:20

That's the other. I do websites. Oh right, they don't have a PA, that they have to hire PA for a gig. Yeah, wow, some must be like a wash. Then right for the gig.

Speaker 2 31:28

It's, it's it's what it is. That's a. That's a big. There they're working on getting bigger, bigger, better paying games, yeah, so it's still.

Speaker 1 31:37

Nobody wants that responsibility. I don't play them to bring the PA system.

Speaker 2 31:40

Yeah, no, it's a great band? No, but just being able to and teach them some private lessons.

Speaker 1 31:45

And you know.

Speaker 2 31:45

So I'm like you know. Somebody said you're the busiest retired person.

Speaker 1 31:48

I well that's always me too. I'm not even right.

Speaker 2 31:51

But so I retired from school, but I'm not retired.

Speaker 1 31:53

retired from life, yeah actually we have a fun. You know, I have a funny story we could share, so we were supposed to be on a gig was a two weeks ago. This is like a recent. Now most of my funny stories are from like 1970, but this is from like three weeks ago.

Speaker 1 32:07

So, Terry and I have a gig At the catch, at the catch in in what is it? Lidon Hurst, yeah, okay, so we show up to the gig, I show up to the gig and and whether it's fine, okay, on the way to. This is the funny part of on the way. I think I told you it's on the way to the gig I had. I started I was like, oh man, I gotta go to the bathroom. So I'm like, should I just like go to the place and go right?

Speaker 1 32:27

in the bathroom we should. I set my drums up for and I was a little late so I knew John was getting nervous. So I was like, okay, I'll set my drums up and I'll run to the bathroom. So I go, you know, you were there. I said. I threw my drums together, I didn't put the cymbals up or this, or just I'd left everything symbols down and I ran to the bathroom. I was in there for 10 minutes and when I got out of the bathroom I couldn't get back to the bandstand Because it was.

Speaker 2 32:50

Like a hurricane right, it was like a hurricane we had to hold the tarp up right to Prevent the wind, and the rain was like raining, sideways right. So I and hell, hell I.

Speaker 1 33:00

Sat there at the bar because I couldn't go out of the bar and watched my drums get rained on right. I saw you guys holding up a tarp. I had masters plus 75 hold the tarp Right and then finally I was able to run to the drums. Everything was soaking wet, yeah, and, and the keyboard player had water in his key. Yeah, he was Dripping it up blew through like a hurricane right it was really like.

Speaker 2 33:22

I've never seen anything like a mini tornado.

Speaker 1 33:24

Yeah and then, like I think there was a point that where I was driving my drums off and we weren't sure if we were still gonna play, like maybe we're gonna, I'm gonna, maybe I'm gonna play with wet drums and see how that sounds. You know, it's a $750 snare drum with water in it, let's see how that works. And then they cancel, they call the gig, you know, like yeah, and then I was walking out to my car and then when people stop me, like a week, we go what you know, guys, an egg to play.

Speaker 2 33:49

You can't water, they would disappointed. Yeah, I understand, but the umbrellas were blowing down everything.

Speaker 1 33:54

Umbrellas are blowing down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was.

Speaker 2 33:57

That was fun. That's no, but you know, over the years I've played and you have to in every freezing cold blazing you know, yeah, every, every environment. Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 34:10

I thought the outdoor gig sometimes bother me with that. I mean, we've done some weddings and that's the worst. We've done weddings where you're under a whatever pergola, yeah, and then the sunships are there, yeah. All of a sudden is it? That's 90 degrees on your brutal black tux back soaked through. Yeah for soak through, you know.

Speaker 2 34:28

Yeah, so you know it's. It's the whole. The whole business has changed. I think what you were talking about. A lot of what happens to us is, Although the music business might not be good for you or for me, it's still Going strong if you go if you go to go to Google and type in New York wedding band, you know, you know how many kids you can. I think that's the difference. The difference is you still have these offices.

Speaker 1 34:54

That's what you're saying. There's a lot still. Yeah, wedding bands.

Speaker 2 34:57

Yeah, there's a new thing now it's called hybrid, where they have DJ at. I've done the cut us off. No it playing the music play. No, when, when you know it's it's, there are our bands, there are Individual bands now, where they used to be Steven Scott Hank Lane. You know they used to be Steven Scott had like 30 bands at one point or something like that. Right, you know?

Speaker 1 35:28

And was that office still around?

Speaker 2 35:29

No well, they sold to a DJ company and there's a guy running it, but it's not the same the hybrid thing.

Speaker 1 35:34

I don't get, man. I mean I mean, well, it's Chris. Tony used to do a couple of those too it depends upon the people.

Speaker 2 35:39

I mean, there's one group that I play with from time to time and they're really great singers and they're really good music and they sing with tracing with the tracks? Yeah, it's weird, it's either a karaoke track or you know. You know, apple music now has that sing feature where they can block out the vocal.

Speaker 1 35:56

I still. You know I don't see the whole thing for me but they is on this one particular gig they had.

Speaker 2 36:03

They don't have a bass player. They had a guitar player that had a drummer, they had two singers, they had a keyboard player and they had three piece horn section with a DJ.

Speaker 1 36:11

So right, okay. So what I was gonna say, and I understand that, why you would do it, for I mean it work, it makes sense, yeah, monetarily. I guess, you know, you know economically for the whoever.

Speaker 2 36:22

I don't know that it's that much less than higher.

Speaker 1 36:24

Oh well, I mean it's easier, you know the rehearse, but what I was gonna say is that that's the thing that bothers. They bother me about club dates was that whole, that element that was missing of you doing you doing a tune, right? Mm-hmm, it's going somewhere and it's it's. You know, it's like all right, let's just go do another course or something.

Speaker 1 36:41

You know, I mean we'd build and and and that didn't happen. On club dates yeah, we were the last club they've been. I was in and a couple of club dates been still do this like you'd have good players, right, you'd be playing, and all of a sudden like, wow, hey, this feels pretty good, I'm a me.

Speaker 1 36:55

That's what I live for like feel, so it feels good and it's oh man, this is good, you know, people start reacting to playing and then, and ultimately, the club date leader tends when I goes whoa, that's not even you know, you guys, let's bring it down meaning stop grooving. Yeah don't go too far to left there, because that's too musical and we're not here really for that.

Speaker 2 37:18

We're just here to supply a service. Yeah, the other thing is the music has changed and the music industry has changed. What I did, a gig recently with a band, a great band With great musicians. Off, all of them were younger than me.

Speaker 1 37:30

This is the club event.

Speaker 2 37:31

Yeah, but they started with four on the floor the minute the people walked in and it didn't stop for four hours and it's kind of like-.

Speaker 1 37:40

And that's kind of a market for that right.

Speaker 2 37:41

Well, they're replicating the club atmosphere and there was a lot of hip hop, a lot of rap and, again, great players, great singers. But the thing that struck me was all the guests who were like in their late 20s and early 30s or 30s, singing along every word with the rap Right.

Speaker 1 38:02

Yeah, because there's a difference in the rap.

Speaker 2 38:03

This is how I know that.

Speaker 1 38:04

What's it is. I went to a I don't know. The worst thing about not being in the club day band is having to go to weddings. I have to go to weddings as a guest. As a guest I used to go. Nope, got a gig Now.

Speaker 1 38:16

So I get dragged to this thing in New Jersey and we got there early, of course, because it was a nine hour delay and I had to leave early. So we get there waiting for the party start. It's a club day place, so there's stuff going on in different rooms and we're sitting outside one room that's got a party going on and the band's playing and my wife says to me oh, maybe this is our room, these guys are just ending. I said nope, there's just starting. She goes heading into the just starting and I could tell it was a first set soon, that's how, and I walked in and I was right they would the bride. The bridegroom wasn't even in the room yet. You know what I mean and that's that's like. I've been to weddings where I'm sitting there and the band plays the first set.

Speaker 2 38:58

And you could name every song they can play next.

Speaker 1 39:00

I can, but then, after they finished playing, whatever little thing they do is I stand up, cause I know the next thing is ladies and gentlemen, please, and I'm the only idiot who's standing up on myself, and then everybody stands up. That's like bizarre programming.

Speaker 2 39:14

I can never get rid of them yeah.

Speaker 1 39:16

I know, oh God, and then you have to pay to go. I used to. I used to getting paid. I get a. Now I got to drive there and pay to eat club day food.

Speaker 2 39:25

I used to get for free Rubber chicken Yep, they're rubber chicken right, or as you get both steak and chicken. It's a Chuck or Clark, Chuck and Clark. The other one the leader I used to work with. Ladies and gentlemen, your meat is out, your meat is on the table.

Speaker 1 39:46

I used to play with this band called black tie affair and the keyboard player. For a while he got fired but he was a real jazz guy I wish I could think of his name. He was great and he but he didn't understand the appropriateness of whatever. So we were doing a gig and they had the whole spieling. So it was. You know, the ladies and gentlemen knew you know now we're going to do now the the bride, and you know program we do this. And then he gets to the point where the, the the MC, said the bride is going to take someone very special to the dance floor right now, and this keyboard player and I think he was drunk said on the mic her black lover.

Speaker 2 40:23

And the band went nuts but he got fired right after that, yeah.

Music Industry and Live Performances Changes

Speaker 1 40:27

Oh God it was. It was terrible. That's bad. And I've also been at gigs, where one gig in particular where they're announcing the bridal party, you know they got girls, got the list in front of her and the calling. You know the couples and they get to one. You know Uncle Joe and Beth and nobody comes out. You know so. You know everybody's standing around and applauding and then uncle Joe and Beth come on. Uncle Joe and Beth. So just this Beth comes out and she's no with Uncle Joe. So the, the, the MC said where's Uncle Joe? Come on, uncle Joe, we know you're out there and the guy's dead. He died.

Speaker 1 41:09

He died like a week before they didn't update the list, you know, and she's going where do you know? Come on out, we know you're out there. And then somebody comes in and said, no, no, he's dead. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 41:21

Yeah, no, so things have changed.

Speaker 1 41:25

I mean, you know I don't like that anymore. I like that.

Speaker 2 41:28

And the thing is that you know you had to learn tunes back then. You had to learn all the standards and you know with the band up until the last one.

Speaker 1 41:35

I didn't have to learn anything ever, never. I showed up, you learned on the job. They would say swing be flat. You played, and that's the way it was.

Speaker 2 41:44

So that was Gus's band.

Speaker 1 41:45

And Gus had great guys Richie, skollum and Sal. You know I mean great musicians, and that's what they would do.

Speaker 2 41:52

Yeah, the other thing I think that's changed is in the last 20 years you don't pay for music, right? You go on YouTube or you go to Apple music.

Speaker 2 42:01

I mean you have a subscription or you do Spotify with the ads or without the ads, you know, but it's. They negotiated all those contracts back when people are using dial-up modems and now we have high speed, you know, and you can stream everything, you stream movies, and so it's, I think, the devaluing of music. But I think that's gonna be. I think there's a resurgence of live music. I mean, these cover bands are doing crazy. I know they're doing great. There's a million, you name it. There's a cover band, especially on Long Island, and they fly them out, they fly them down to Florida.

Speaker 1 42:35

Dave Clark. You had Dave Clark on. I had Dave. Dave was in Lou Davis' band for a while. I did a main club with Dave. He always had a good band. But you know, I mean I got a call actually about two months ago to see if I wanted to do the Selena band. And it's good guy, all good guys, great bass player Lenny Rasil was on it. And then he started telling me you know, it's that kind of thing of what we do. We do big venues and you know, sometimes we have to fly out and stay through nights.

Speaker 2 43:01

I can't do that. They do casinos and they do.

Speaker 1 43:03

Yeah, yeah, I just can't.

Speaker 2 43:04

I mean I, you know, no, not with the kids. No, it's impossible.

Speaker 1 43:07

I have little kids, yeah.

Speaker 2 43:10

No, so to you know, I mean there is some of that, but I still think there's just a lot more individual bands that book themselves. I think that's-.

Speaker 1 43:18

Which is probably a better idea, and they're all set bands, yeah.

Speaker 2 43:21

Like in Steven Scott, they used to circulate us around. Are we going over time?

Speaker 1 43:24

No, no, we're good, I'm just checking.

Speaker 2 43:26

They used to circulate us around. You know I would be with this band one night and this band another night. You know.

Speaker 1 43:31

Right, but that worked. Yeah, they added extra pieces. They would I don't think the club they bands now, because the generation of musicians, young musicians who are in those bands, can't do what we used to do, which is wing songs, right.

Speaker 2 43:44

Well, the other thing that I got into doing was the Orthodox Jewish work and a lot of the top musicians went into that field because it's a lot of work and you do horn players do six hours because you do the cocktail hour ceremony.

Speaker 1 43:57

And you get paid long enough. And four hours.

Speaker 2 43:59

Yeah, but you had to learn all that repertoire. You had to bring a cassette recorder and record and learn all this stuff. Now they all have iPads. So the leader changes the page and all the other iPads change that same page. So they're hiring young kids out of conservatories to go in and just read.

Speaker 1 44:16

I'm just saying my whole career, except for the last whatever 10 years I had to. I even still do now. Once I'm off, you look at me on a gig. I'm looking around and see what's going on. I'm trying to see and they don't do that. They're like it's A-A-B-A and the song's over, that's it. And I'm not used to that. I'm used to somebody cue me with something gonna happen to it. You know, I'm looking around and that's non-existent now, I think, with most young musicians, because it's so used to program stuff. And if you're on a farm between or not, I mean I don't know, maybe it's a maturity thing, I don't know if that's you know.

Speaker 2 44:50

No, you have to be aware of what's going on.

Tempo and Sampling in Music Performance

Speaker 1 44:53

You do right. I mean sometimes when I'm on a gig I'm getting ignored. I'm like somebody just look at me, can somebody? You know I mean. My pet peeve always and it happens with all the bands is the thing with tempo.

Speaker 2 45:06

That just Well. Your line is the best.

Speaker 1 45:09

What.

Speaker 2 45:09

You want me to count it off too fast or too slow.

Speaker 1 45:12

Right, right, because that was I mean. You know, I think maybe I've worked with I don't know, two singers who would actually volunteer to count off their song the way they want it. They'd rather say no, no, you please start it and then I'll tell you if it's too slow or too fast. They'd rather hear it a little bit and I'll just speed it up a little bit. That makes no sense to me, because me I'm like I'm trying to establish something and they're gonna say yeah, you need to speak to school a little faster, you know there you go.

Speaker 2 45:41

Well, they get used to they're old drummer, they get used to hearing it a certain way. Yeah, if this happened in the band I was in for a long time.

Speaker 1 45:48

They'd be like because here's the thing we used to do in that band. We used to do like four or five tunes programmed, so it'd be a sequence, and we'd usually do the first sequence in the first set and I would gauge myself by that sequence, because I'd play and I'd go hmm, I'm feeling like this is a little fast today, so I'm feeling things slower today, or the opposite. It feels slow to me, but it's the same track and everybody's internal clock varies on how they feel it's high or whatever. And that's how I gauge myself and everybody thinks well, I'm feeling this, this sounds slow to me today.

Speaker 2 46:19

Well now, I don't know if you've ever done this, but a lot of the groups play to tracks.

Speaker 1 46:23

now They'll play to it the club. Eight bands, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 46:26

So what we used to do with Luz Band was and John Hanser, who's another phenomenon musician I went to Juilliard with, he used to do sampling. They call it sampling but it's sample loop triggering. So I learned to do it from him and then when he left the band I continued to do it, actually brought my laptop, had logic On the gig On the gig. So what would happen is with these dance tunes we're mostly with house, whatever is on the radio now, that kind of stuff, four on the floor, kind of stuff. So I would press a low C and that would trigger an actual audio track of the original recording and then oh right, so that is sampling yeah so.

Speaker 2 47:04

But what had to happen was I had to nail the downbeat but the drummer had to play along with it. So now it's foreign for drummers to have to, and every once in a while it would be just a kind of a a fraction of a second late or a fraction of a second early, and it would be a hiccup. But the singers would sing along live with the original track and the band would play along and people used to come up and say you guys sound exactly like this, like a record, because it is a record.

Speaker 2 47:29

We did it when, but that was only I would say that was maybe 45 minutes out of the whole night, that wasn't the whole gig. Then you know, most of the gig was just regular stuff.

Speaker 1 47:38

Right, we did it, we did a gig. I remember some kid coming up to us and this is like 15 years ago, when stuff started to get sequenced One must have been more than 20 years ago and I remember a kid, not a kid, a 20 year old man walked up and said to the sax player that's what a sax looks like. That's a real sax, like he was only used to like playing the sax sample on his keyboard, on his casio at home, you know.

Speaker 2 48:03

But the advantage of doing it the way we did it was you could vamp on something until the singer was ready, or you could go back and do the chorus over and over again if you wanted to. So when you play with a straight track, you just stuck with whatever that is Right. So, and if things went wrong, I hit the panic button and it just stopped.

Speaker 1 48:22

That's why my favorite gig ever was this Lawrence Elder thing that they did. Man, if that'd be 15 years, now go. That just was such a good like pure his stuff is great.

Speaker 2 48:34

Well, that's all about the guys and girls. You're playing Well, phil Phil.

Speaker 1 48:37

Magalene, this is playing bass, oh yeah, phenomenon. And Kenny was playing guitar, ken Talvy and Lawrence. Lawrence is great Top world class players.

Speaker 2 48:46

I mean, this is like I get to play with John Marshall, leon Petruzzi.

Speaker 1 48:49

John In one band, and then I get to Because you don't bowl. We'll tell that story too.

Speaker 2 48:55

And then I get to play with Phil Gray and Wayne Schuster in the other band.

Speaker 1 48:59

So it's like Phil's great on that gig. Man, he's the gig Phenomenon musician. That last gig when he subbed with us. He was really great man, and I love Wayne too, wayne's great. Wayne's funny Wayne's phenomenal.

Speaker 2 49:10

Phenomenal player. Great guys and great guys, that's the other thing yeah.

Speaker 1 49:16

Great guys to hang with, yeah, it doesn't mean Not a gig, it's a reunion, right, right. It almost doesn't matter to me if the guy's great at things.

Speaker 2 49:22

No, the bowling thing was like one time John and I were at a gig and were taking our stuff out of the car.

Speaker 1 49:27

John.

Speaker 2 49:27

Marshall, john Marshall, and he looks at me and goes why do we do this?

Speaker 1 49:31

I said because we don't bowl. I'm selling all my horns and buying a set of golf clubs and that's it yeah sometimes bowling's more musical, but that's the other part of it.

Speaker 2 49:42

The other part is people. People say well, at least you love what you do. Right Well yeah, fine, but again I don't get the musician discount on my groceries.

Speaker 1 49:52

I'm still amazed at the disconnect on some intelligent people who I know, who are non-musicians, who I mean. This happened to me like a year ago. Somebody came to my house like an acquaintance and Greg Schleich played at the orchestration for me and it was just crazy good he was. He's just he should work for Disney. I don't say that lightly, man, I don't compliment anybody and it was great and I played. I only played it for them because my kids sang on it and Greg played. And then this neighbor of mine said oh, my husband plays just like that. I was like in my mind I'm going.

Speaker 2 50:27

No, he does not.

Speaker 1 50:29

Not even close. You got it. Just because you have a grand piano in your house does not mean he plays like that, but again bringing it back.

Speaker 2 50:36

That's what we were trying to do with music education. When kids have played in a band, I believe that they listen to music differently when they've played in an orchestra.

Speaker 1 50:44

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 50:45

Or they sang in a choir, Because most we call them civilians, most civilians.

Speaker 1 50:49

Listen to music.

Speaker 2 50:51

Listen to music. Listen to music and it's just a wash. It's a sound, one big thing we dissect. That's the bass line, that's the guitar we can analyze that and we know what kind of chords are being used, or we know what kind of rhythms are being used or what kind of.

Speaker 1 51:08

That's the problem actually, because I listen to music totally different than my wife's.

Speaker 2 51:13

When I drive in a car, I have everything off. Yeah me too, because you get distracted, unless it's just, like you know, wallpaper music.

Speaker 1 51:22

Do you know Pat Carroll, the bass player? No, so Pat's a bass player. I played with him 30 years ago and when he first met his wife she'd come down to the gigs and he told me that for the first year that she would come down and listen to the band. She couldn't decipher what instrument he was playing. She couldn't hear the bass.

Speaker 2 51:42

I have another theory about, especially about drums. It's like when people are looking at a band, they automatically assume that they look at the drummer, because they can see what the drummer is playing. You have sticks in your hands. You're hitting a drum, you're hitting a cymbal with a trombone or a trumpet or even a keyboard. You don't see anything. I mean guitar. You see it kind of visually, but for a civilian again they look at a drummer and they can do that and he's like what's the big deal?

Speaker 2 52:11

He's just kind of a stick and he's hitting the drum.

Speaker 1 52:13

Yeah, boom-bop, boom-bop. What's the big mystery? Yeah, yeah, anybody can do it. I used to play in high school, you know. Yeah, it's just right, and that's the other thing. I was here Like oh, so what do you do? I'm retired music teacher. Oh, my husband's a drummer. Here we go, you know, like, or I'm at.

Speaker 2 52:30

Frank Belucci does a funny thing out of that. He says when you get together, especially with your Italian family, he says so you still playing them drums? Yeah, you were always big with the music. I got a friend he plays guitar you should get together with him.

Speaker 1 52:46

That drives me nuts. I was at awake like, like, Not that.

Speaker 2 52:49

We've spent years and years I know college that gets under my skin.

Speaker 1 52:53

I was at my aunt's wake like two years ago. My cousins are there and my cousin's husband's like whatever, you know, he's like an investor or some shit, whatever. He plays guitar and the weekends here we go, he does that right. And I said, hey, you know, I'm sorry, but you know what I'd say now, because he was hey, this is my friend, joey, he's a bass player, you know we've got three musicians here.

Speaker 2 53:12

No, we don't. You sell stocks. The other thing now is if you notice, when you watch TV ads for all these medications like Jardians and all that stuff everybody's playing music.

Speaker 1 53:24

Oh, everybody's playing a guitar the Jardians.

Speaker 2 53:28

I want to strangle everybody in those, the one with the marching band, with the women, conduct that whole thing right, yeah, but there's also one where ladies playing like sort of a conch she's sort of rubbing a conch or something.

Speaker 1 53:38

And then the lady with the tambourine who's on a balcony playing tambourine and I have a wonderful joyful life that I can just play. Yeah, I'm so happy with my life. I just learned to play drums. Don't listen to the side effects that. Right, right, right. Your left arm might fall off and your right foot might explode.

Speaker 2 53:54

But oh God, yeah, it's a little crazy. But, you know there's a oh look, I don't think we're there yet, but there's an aging out. That happens to me. Oh, I'm sure the a lot of the leaders I used to work with are no longer with us.

Speaker 1 54:08

Even some of my musician friends.

Speaker 2 54:11

you know Carl. We just lost Carl, right and right.

Speaker 1 54:15

So you know we we were just having this conversation, me and Joel took by this whole time. He's, you know his, his gigs are always travel and it gets tiring, you know you get to a point where you know it's it's you start to change your perspective a little bit. I mean even Dave Wecco, I, you know I don't I'm not in contact with Dave, but I see he's getting more now towards this, his teaching thing, and he's trying to push that a little bit and he, he probably wants to slow down too. You know you, travel the world how many times?

Speaker 2 54:41

Yeah, you know, you want to have a reasonable life. You know, back when I had just graduated, I was offered a couple of road gigs, but they were low level road gigs. I mean, when was the I think the Tommy Dorsey band and a cruise ship and something like that and? And? When they told me what it paid, I was like, oh yeah, but I'm making more money here in town and my family's here, and you know cause?

Speaker 2 55:02

those are like the stepping stones to then eventually get to play with Buddy Rich or what he heard, right you know. But you take yourself out of the town for six months and and you know you lose. So I was just starting to make contacts and I did a little bit of recording, you know, and and subbing for for different players and playing, and playing, rubbing elbows with some top players and you know, and so that's what you got to do.

Speaker 1 55:24

I mean, you got to, you got to pay those dues.

Speaker 2 55:26

I'm glad I did what I did and I don't look back at all. I should have done that.

Speaker 1 55:31

Yeah, no, you can't really.

Speaker 2 55:32

Because at this age I have close friends who are you know, it's, it's, it's a challenge. Yeah To to, to freelance Sure.

Speaker 1 55:39

I mean you have to again take every gig and travel. Yeah.

Speaker 2 55:42

And and it's, it's not that it's easy. I mean, you know, I worked really hard at school for many hours and coming back for meetings and concerts and, and and but there's a there's an end to that.

Speaker 1 55:54

There's a there's an end game with that, because you retire.

Speaker 2 55:57

Yeah, and you're done. Yeah, I mean, I was at school, like you know and then like I would be at school like three nights and then they would have something Saturday night and Monday morning and they'd say oh, we missed you at the gala.

Speaker 1 56:06

So, oh, hey, Well, I'm going to get a couch for your office and stay there. Yeah, all right. So I think we're going to have to wrap this up.

Speaker 2 56:15

Oh, so much fun Bullshitting for an hour. This is great. I'm glad you're doing this. You should, you should continue.

Speaker 1 56:20

Yeah, well, I'm trying to get you know. Just get everybody out in here to speak to them.

Speaker 2 56:23

Everybody. You've had top players and you've had you know?

Speaker 1 56:26

Yeah, it's good to hear the stories. And Greg Slick and Dave Clark and. Yeah, oh, good guys. And Joel, great Danny, miranda too. Danny was funny. Yeah, because Danny, danny and I kind of grew up together in Gus. We played in Gus's man.

Speaker 2 56:40

It's funny. You know there's a whole network of players and some players you've played with, but some players you've heard their names, you know like so all times on Facebook I'll say somebody you know you want to be friends with so and so and I'll say you know, I've heard that name, but I never met him. I've never played with it, but the name is very funny.

Speaker 1 56:57

The story I told when I was doing John talking to John Scarpaula was that when John got the tower power gig, danny had not yet gotten the queen thing. Yeah, and he was in my apartment and him and Chris were there. We were doing a session or something and Danny was talking to Chris about. He said you hear, scarpaula got the tower power gig and they're like, yeah, and Danny said that's the equivalent of me like getting a Metallica gig.

Speaker 2 57:22

And then he wound up getting the queen gig.

Speaker 1 57:24

You know it's like it's so weird that he said that he was very aware of the fact that that was John's niche and he found it, you know, and he was looking for his and he did. He found it.

Speaker 2 57:33

No, I didn't realize it at the time, but the education thing was the right thing for me.

Speaker 1 57:37

Well, I mean, I mean to me too now because I'm off, yeah, so that sent me a check and he's down. That's yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 57:43

But again you paid into that. Yes, I did so you know you paid your dues, but you know that's John Lennon. Life is what happens while you're busy making.

Speaker 1 57:52

That's correct, correct, all right. So thanks to Terry and Agrily for stopping by. Terry, you know, see you on the next non gig. Absolutely All right, cool, thanks, man, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.