The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast
The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast - Episode 013 - Steve Berkwitz
Our guest this week is my college roommate, Dr. Stephen Berkwitz. We reminisce about our college days and Steve's influence on my musical tastes. Steve shares great stories about the shows he's seen throughout his life, spanning a wide variety of musical genres and acts from Prince and Soul Asylum to Alice Cooper and The Lunachicks.
Additionally, he lifts the curtain behind the scenes from his time as a concert promoter, as we hear how a show is (or is not) cancelled because of sudden bad weather, and which artist's tour manager asked Steve to drive him around Vermont looking at log cabins. Finally, he recounts how his worst concert flop forced him to get creative, resulting in the most successful and satisfying show he produced.
Steve's journey is a testament to the transformative power of live music, and our conversation will strike a chord with any concert fan. So join me and Steve on this week's episode of The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!
Our guest this week is my college roommate, Dr. Stephen Berkwitz. We reminisce about our college days and Steve's influence on my musical tastes. Steve shares great stories about the shows he's seen throughout his life, spanning a wide variety of musical genres and acts from Prince and Soul Asylum to Alice Cooper and The Lunachicks.
Additionally, he lifts the curtain behind the scenes from his time as a concert promoter, as we hear how a show is (or is not) cancelled because of sudden bad weather, and which artist's tour manager asked Steve to drive him around Vermont looking at log cabins. Finally, he recounts how his worst concert flop forced him to get creative, resulting in the most successful and satisfying show he produced.
Steve's journey is a testament to the transformative power of live music, and our conversation will strike a chord with any concert fan. So join me and Steve on this week's episode of The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!
Welcome to the Rock-N- Roll Show podcast. We're here to share the magic of experiencing live music together with strangers and friends, and to get to know our guests a little bit better through their concert experiences. I'm your host, Gadd, and I do this because I love talking about live music and concerts with people. Finding out what bands someone likes, what shows they've been to, allows us to get to know and understand one another a little bit better. And, hey, I just love swapping stories about the shows we've seen over the years.
Alex Gadd:i Today I'm happy to welcome Steve Berkwitz to the podcast. He's now Dr Stephen Berkwitz Berkowitz, head of the Language, Cultures cultures and Religions Department at Missouri State University. Steve and I were roommates in college for three of our four years at the University of Vermont which is why I'm wearing this ratty old 35-year-old t-shirt and he was responsible for turning me on to a ton of music that I wasn't focused on before we met. He was also involved in the University Concert Bureau, the organization which booked all of the live performances on campus, so he was really the concert guy. We'll revisit some of those shows, some of the other shows that we caught together and his history of concert going on today's episode, but for now, Steve steve, thank you so much for
Alex Gadd:joining
Alex Gadd:us.
Steve Berkwitz:Thank you, Alex. It's fun to be here. I'm excited to talk.
Alex Gadd:Me too, it's great to see you always, and we never get to see each other enough, so this is a pleasure. Thank you, agreed To start out with, how did you get your love of music? Because when I met you at 18, I guess you were a passionate music guy and so somewhere along the line you got really into music. How did that happen for you?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, it's funny because I can't really credit that to my parents. From my upbringing it's not as if we always had music playing around the house. I was the oldest of two kids so I didn't have an older sibling kind of turn me on to stuff like some people do. You know. I think it had to do with back in the day when we were little right, there was only what four or five TV stations you could watch, no smartphones, five TV stations you could watch, no smartphones, no internet. So we kind of had to keep ourselves entertained, and I was a latchkey kid and so I, you know listening to music, I think was one of the ways that I kept myself entertained. And also I think I was influenced by random people I met and looked up to.
Steve Berkwitz:So a good friend of mine when I was a little kid he was a year older than me was into R&B, so I got turned on to punk music. In the 70s and early 80s Went on a van ride with some other teens older teens to an Alateen conference or something, I think in western Wisconsin, and on the way this is back in the day where you don't really have seat belts you could just jump in the back of the van with the boom box and just go for a four-hour drive on the highway and listen to classic rock music. So I got turned on to Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and that experience and so I think listening to music was always a way for me to connect with people and so it just kind of developed that way. But it must've been something in me that got me into music because it wasn't really my family.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, so you sought it out. I think it's important to note for this conversation that you grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and in the late seventies, early eighties that was really a blossoming music scene of original musicians. So funk especially was not a standard thing. That had already kind of happened with Parliament Funkadelic nationally and then waned, but then certainly Prince and other bands out of Minneapolis kind of brought it back.
Steve Berkwitz:Do you remember?
Alex Gadd:having a first favorite band.
Steve Berkwitz:Oh gosh, I almost have to say it was Prince. It doesn't sound super original because there was a lot of people who grew up in the Twin Cities that would probably say the same thing. But I remember listening to a local community radio station, kmoj in North Minneapolis, which was run for the predominantly black community in that area, predominantly Black community in that area. They played national music, of course, but they played a heavy dose of Prince and the Time and other groups that were kind of in Prince's orbit. And I just remember listening to it being blown away, getting Controversy the album when it came out and just thinking wow, this is something really special. You don't hear this kind of music just anywhere.
Alex Gadd:It was definitely different than all the other things that were on the radio. Even the disco that was coming out was nowhere near what Prince and his crew were doing. That leads into your first concert.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, so the first concert I went to, I would have been about 14, I think I was in eighth grade. I went with a friend of mine to the old Met Center in Bloomington, minnesota, to see Prince, and this was the 1999 tour.
Alex Gadd:So 82.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, somewhere around there 82, 83, I can't really remember and so that was the first concert I went to. These two little white kids dropped off in the ice hockey arena to convert it for Prince's show, and I don't remember a whole lot about it, I just remember being pretty impressed by it and loved the music. I had listened to the record by the time I went to see the show, so I knew the songs. It was amazing, but that was probably. I feel pretty good about having that be my first concert experience.
Alex Gadd:As first concerts go. That's pretty amazing. I remember the first couple of concerts I saw. I can't remember a ton of specific concert moments. I just remember the overwhelming feel of excitement and joy from being there, because it was a lot and it was a long time ago.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, electric with all the people, and there's something really unique about that experience.
Alex Gadd:Very nice. So that leads you into high school. Did you start going to more shows in high school?
Steve Berkwitz:You know I didn't see very many live shows in high school. I listened to a lot of music, bought a lot of LPs, but I didn't go to too many. I think there was a couple times where I may have taken someone on a date. I remember going to see Arlo Guthrie at a theater, which was kind of fun.
Alex Gadd:Wasn't there a Guthrie theater in Minneapolis?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, yeah no relation.
Alex Gadd:That would have been amazing if you would see, that would have been something.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, no relation. So I saw a few, but not many, and at this time a fair amount of me was being held at nightclubs and bars and I was too young to get into those. But I did see a few, but not a whole lot of concert yet. That comes later, probably when I get to be 18, 19, 20. And then when we meet up in Vermont and that was sort of the heyday, I think, of my concert going experiences that was sort of the heyday, I think of my concert-going experiences.
Alex Gadd:Let's jump into that then. So you show up. I feel like at that point I had seen probably I don't know 30 concerts and they were all major bands and I was feeling pretty into it like I was a big-time rock and roll guy. But once I met you I learned I was such a mainstream rock and roller and you had such a broader musical base of interests and you turned me on to so many things and I remember Nazareth, old Alice Cooper and hard rock from the early 70s and the funk stuff that was coming out of Minneapolis and the alternative stuff that was coming out of Minneapolis, the soul asylums and Husker Du, which was Bob Mould, and other things from that time.
Alex Gadd:And I was just so impressed that you had such a broad base of interest, whereas mine were so much like everything that was on what was still rock radio. It wasn't quite classic rock radio yet. And the other thing I was really interested in is you came with a pretty clear idea of what you wanted to do. You came as a comparative religions majors and you now are chairman of a department at a major state university and yet you also had this really like hard rock and heavy metal side and the funk and the girls metal bands that you were into. Where did all these things? Can you dive into a little bit more how all those different flavors got into your soup?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, and to be honest, it's going to be hard for me because this was so long ago, but I think part of it was just being hungry to learn about as much music as I could. I think that's part of my DNA is that when I find something I like, I throw myself in and I try and learn as much as I can about the subject inside and out. I remember I became a record collector when I was pretty young and I think it was Rolling Stone. They had a really comprehensive guide for all the major and even minor artists and the rankings, ratings of all of the albums and the date and the name. And so I studied that and I thought, okay, this is a highly rated album by the Moody Blues, I better get it, I'm going to check it out and listen to it.
Steve Berkwitz:So I did that for a while when I was still really listening to classic rock and the world of alternative music really hadn't penetrated my consciousness yet. I think part of growing up. When we did, we were kind of bombarded by boomer music, right, classic rock, and that wasn't much else if you wanted to listen to rock music. But then, yeah, I started to find out about these other bands that way, but then also, I think, paying attention to local newspapers that talked about alternative music and just trying to learn as much as I could, because I wanted to be knowledgeable and exposed to new things and music that I would have a chance of really liking.
Alex Gadd:It seemed that way to me. I thought to myself I remember I had made a joke to someone he's a comparative religions major and he's a comparative music major too, because he knows this. And it felt like that was the same mindset, that you were interested in learning about all the religion and all the different types of music, and that turned me on and forced me to open my ears and seek out different things. So let me publicly thank you for something.
Steve Berkwitz:Well, thank you, that's very kind You're welcome. That's a very astute observation. I had not put those two things together, but I think you're spot on that's good.
Alex Gadd:That leads right into getting into the concert bureau. So at UVM the concert bureau ran all of the production, booking, everything involved with putting on Any type of concert anywhere in the facilities of the campus and the important thing to note there that the campus held some of the largest venues in the state of Vermont. Our gym was the largest concert venue in the state of Vermont at the time.
Steve Berkwitz:I don't know if I still know it.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, pretty astounding, so you got involved in the Concert Bureau freshman year as your primary extracurricular activity. Is that correct?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, it's really my only extracurricular activity. Is that correct? Yeah, it's really my only extracurricular activity. I did it during my time at UVM. But yeah, I saw that and I thought, yeah, this is the thing I want to do, and I dove in, really enjoyed that. It was a good experience for the most part.
Alex Gadd:And it opened you up to seeing more concerts.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, I had a kind of almost semi-professional obligation right to be able to go out and check out bands and see how other people were staging shows.
Alex Gadd:Right? Do you remember the first show that you put on at UVM?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, this was shortly after I had to be interviewed by the current members of the Concert Bureau and then I was asked to join and not long after we held a concert by INXS in the Patrick Gymnasium on campus, and so that was my first kind of experience behind the scenes at a show, and I was a fairly low-level kind of runner, someone who was putting the little chips of wood underneath the risers, so the stage was even. It was a pretty crappy stage at the time. It was exciting as fun as it is to be in the audience at a concert. To be backstage at least at that age at about 18, was pretty cool and InXS was a big band then, and so that was fun to to be a part of that.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, I was amazed that we were able to pull InXS. That was, I think, on their kick tour, which was their biggest record ever. That was an amazing show and I didn't even like InXS that much. Yeah, but it was fun. It was fun and thank you again for all of the access you provided for me. You also put on much cooler small shows. I remember there was a show maybe freshman year that you asked me to crew on, which was in the chapel, and that was Yarmulke, and Rick Danko and Jonathan Edwards did three solo sets. I thought that was a brilliant show.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, that was fun. That was fun, and I don't know exactly how that was put together. I imagine they were touring together or something at the time.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, I always wondered that. I wondered if your team packaged that up or if they were on a tour doing three solo sets together.
Steve Berkwitz:I want to say that they were touring together I think Again a long time ago, but regardless, that was a neat show and all talented musicians and songwriters and, yeah, that was fun. And the Ira Allen Chapel on the UVM campus was a neat place to to see a show very intimate and good acoustics, so that was fun as well.
Alex Gadd:They also had a smaller auditorium in town called the Memorial Auditorium that I saw Meatloaf, I saw the Hooters, I saw all the 80s.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, we saw some shows there together.
Alex Gadd:I think yeah, yeah we saw a bunch of shows there.
Steve Berkwitz:And Robert.
Alex Gadd:Cray, robert Cray, oh, that was a great show. I just saw him a couple years ago. Did you see shows when you went home then during that, the first two years of school?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, I did. I saw a lot of shows when I went home to Minneapolis then in the summertime, but also during like school breaks, and at that point I was, I had made my conversion away from classic rock to alternative and so I wanted to see the bands that were playing at places like First Avenue place called the Caboos in Minneapolis, and then there were the smaller theaters like the Guthrie or the Orpheum and some places they've either closed or moved or places that don't exist anymore. So I was interested in doing that. But I also, pretty early on, probably after my freshman year, I got a gig as a kind of volunteer intern with one of the local promoters in Minneapolis, a guy named Rand Levy who used to run a company called Rose Productions, and so he was one of the two big promoters that got all the major bands that went through the Twin Cities. And so I've got experience with a professional concert promoter working on various shows and festivals during the summers of my college experience, where I was pretty keenly interested in becoming a concert promoter one day.
Alex Gadd:Interesting. I didn't know that part of it, that last part. Do you have any interesting stories that you can share from that time of being backstage at bigger productions and festival-type shows that had multiple bands?
Steve Berkwitz:playing. Oh yeah, I think it's funny because I look through my scrapbook with ticket stops and I come across so many shows I just can't even remember being.
Alex Gadd:Me too, I have shows from. So I moved to your hometown right when you were leaving to go to graduate school in California and I saw every show that I could get a ticket to at First Avenue because I loved First Avenue, and now I have ticket stubs from shows and I thought I went to see Meat Puppets Really no memory at all that kind of happens.
Steve Berkwitz:I think from that I remember a lot of it was just learning to navigate the music industry, or at least that slice of the music industry, the personalities and whatnot. I worked at something that was called Riverfest, which was a summer 10 or 12-day all-day festival on Harriet Island in St Paul in the Mississippi River Multi-stage festival, all the you know, food and all that type of stuff, some really good bands and performers, some kind of not so good ones. But there was the most memorable event connected with that, I think, was when another band that I'm not crazy about, reo Speedwagon, was playing the main stage at Riverfest one evening and there was a lot of drama because the weather forecast had this severe thunderstorm. It was going to come in to the Twin Cities and pour down a bunch of rain and there'd be lightning and thunder and all of that. And this was going to happen right around the time when the headliner, ariel Speedwagon, was supposed to take the main stage.
Steve Berkwitz:And so I remember being in gosh it must have been a trailer with lead promoters, maybe the second in command who was on a walkie-talkie talking with the stage manager at the time saying we have to cancel the show. You have to pull them off. We can't go on. There's going to be a huge storm coming in. This is a safety hazard, for whatever reason. I never actually asked the guy. The stage manager refused. He just stood down and said, nope, we're going to happen.
Steve Berkwitz:And the sky was getting dark and I think there was some kind of nervous energy in the crowd and whatnot. But lo and behold, we refused to pull the show and just like minutes before they were supposed to hit the stage, the sky parted and cleared and there was a kind of weird moment that I think everyone in the audience love. But had they heard the arguments about whether or not the show was even going to take place, it would have made it even more special. Yeah, that stage manager lucked out for sure. Yeah, he did. Do you have any other questions? I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question.
Alex Gadd:I'm going to take place. It would have made it even more special.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah that stage manager lucked out for sure, yeah, Do you have a band that you've seen the most in your life? Oh gosh, probably. Again. This is partly a factor of where I grew up, but probably Soul Asylum. I saw them a bunch. They were just becoming big. When I discovered them they were with a local record company and then they went national and they are just trailing behind the replacements in Husker Du. But they were supposedly the next big thing and they turned out to be the next big thing coming out of Minneapolis for that Grunstroll thing.
Alex Gadd:I remember when you got to school, the first record you shared with me of theirs was Hangtime, and then when I was a DJ at the college radio station they released and the horse they rode in on and that's the show.
Alex Gadd:We drove to New York city while we were our our senior year and saw them with driving and crying from Atlanta, opening One of the best shows I ever saw. Yeah, that was pretty cool, that was a good one. Soul Asylum is again. It's easily explainable. You lived where they played. They were on the way up, so they were playing a lot and getting a lot of exposure.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, I saw them a ton. I have a bunch of I can't remember all the shows, but I have a ton of ticket stubs from seeing their shows and places like First Avenue and they would sometimes play with members of other bands and kind of ad hoc shows that would come together. So that was fun. I think they even played in. Didn't they play in Burlington once when we were there? Maybe not.
Alex Gadd:Well, I don't think so. The Replacements played in Burlington right before you went away. They played at the Memorial.
Steve Berkwitz:We were there.
Alex Gadd:The spring semester before you went away for junior year, okay, and I think we went to see that together.
Steve Berkwitz:I bet we did.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, I'm pretty sure we did, because I was there and I just have always assumed you were with me because you introduced me to the replacements too yeah, yeah.
Steve Berkwitz:No, that was a good show too. Yeah, I saw them. I've seen alice cooper a lot. That was I had friends that I grew up with who were big alice cooper fans, and this was the older stuff and by the time I was old enough to see him he was in his kind of like shock metal stage and and someone that was a yeah, it wasn't all, it wasn't all that great, it wasn't a good time really for hard rock, but he would play some of his old stuff and he would. Also he would do the same theatrics. So I always enjoyed seeing alice cooper play. That was fun, right.
Alex Gadd:Um, I also saw a band called the lunatics a lot I remember you introduced me to them too and I thought who the hell are the lunatics? What a name yet I don't understand.
Steve Berkwitz:They were a great band, all-female kind of punk rock band from New York, different, though, from a lot of the other sort of all-female bands, and they were very intentionally subversive and they made themselves look as ugly as possible.
Alex Gadd:Right they were making smarter music than the vixens of the world.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, and they. The message was always their own, and so they. They didn't become huge, but still a kind of respected band and that lineage of female musicians or more generally, that kind of punk rock era from on this side of the ocean, did you?
Alex Gadd:doing all of these shows backstage? Did you ever spend any time with any of the artists? Did you have any exposure to them other than just passing by?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, not really. I was always felt funny. I didn't want to be, I felt like I had to maintain some kind of professional decorum and not be a fan and kind of go up. And we didn't have cell phones to take pictures with them at the time, so that probably made it a little easier, but not a lot. I saw them. I remember seeing Elvis Costello when he was getting ready for soundcheck in Burlington at the gymnasium, so that was neat, but I didn't talk to him.
Alex Gadd:I was curious if maybe it was interesting to have a conversation with an artist that was actually about their show, instead of a fawning fan conversation.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, it would have been.
Alex Gadd:How about with tour managers? I'm sure you interacted with a lot of them.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, probably more with stage managers and tour managers and things like that, and sometimes they were really cool and other times they were really awful. And that In Excess show one of my vivid memories is their stage manager was a major jerk and he was just cussing out students our group who were putting on this stage and clearly a kind of attempt to put us in our place. I thought that was lousy. But not long after the tour manager for Elvis Costello turned out to be this great guy and I took him out on a tour Not really a tour, but I got a van. He wanted to go see a log cabin. He wanted to buy a log cabin and have it, like, shipped to England. I don't know if he ever did, but he rode around in the roads and outside of Burlington, vermont, talking with him, and so that was fun, because here's a guy who was experienced, was making a living in touring, but he wasn't so hung up about his status or his importance, so he was someone I could actually have a conversation with.
Alex Gadd:Did you have any weird concert writer experiences situations? The famous story is always that Van Halen insisted on no brown M&Ms and they did that to make sure that the promoters read the whole ride and so they could walk in, and if they saw a brown M&M in the M&M bowl they would know that no one had checked the electrical circuitry and setup.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, and that makes sense. Actually, it was really smart of them to do that. Yeah, genius, I don't really recall. I think the In Excess guy got upset because there was something missing from the catering, or I recall now, but it wasn't something that I paid a lot of close attention to, for whatever reason.
Alex Gadd:So then you go off to Edinburgh for the year our junior year. Did you see different kind of music there? I know you came back with some new music to share with me that you would have gotten exposed to. Did you see any bands while you were over there?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, I saw a bunch of bands. I sought out one of the local promoters at Edinburgh and the guy met with me and it was nice. He didn't really have any work to offer me, but he did hook me up with some shows and so I saw some established acts. I saw heart. I saw yes, although I can't remember it for the life of me yet that's funny um so obviously it didn't leave much of an impression on me.
Steve Berkwitz:I remember seeing Maria McKee there. She was fantastic, Great voice. Saw Van Morrison at a cool theater. That was really cool. Roy Harper a folk musician was good.
Steve Berkwitz:One of my favorites I saw Faith no More in a tiny little rock club called the Venue, called the venue in edinburgh, and maybe 500 people could see them and this was new and they were just getting big. That was fun. Red hot chili peppers put on an amazing show in a little club in edinburgh that I have vivid memories of because that would have been on the mother's milk tour yeah, the higher ground signal that they were playing yeah, and they were still pretty. They hadn't quite become an established act yet.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, it was the next record was really the one that put them over the top. So you came back and I remember the day you came back to school. I was living up there full time by then and I picked you up at the airport and it may have even been your birthday, okay.
Steve Berkwitz:Around that time.
Alex Gadd:As I was pulling out to go get you at the airport, I heard over the radio that Stevie Ray Vaughan had just died in a helicopter crash the night before.
Steve Berkwitz:Oh, wow.
Alex Gadd:And so it's one of the few events in my life where I know exactly where I was, because I was in the driveway of our apartment, leaving to go get you for the airport. I was taken aback. I had to stop the car. And then you came back and I remember there was a concert that had been booked that was poorly thought through, right when you got back to school and you were now the co-head of the concert bureau for your senior year. Yeah, can you talk about that a?
Steve Berkwitz:little. Yeah, I was all excited and I was probably had an overinflated sense of importance. I was a 21-year-old experienced concert guy and coming back from Europe and thinking, okay, now I'm going to really have big ideas and plans to have a great year putting concerts on in Burlington at UVM. But I had gotten back and my predecessors had been convinced by our booking agent to book Little Feet, which was a popular band at the time in our university. But they booked them one week after school started in the gym and so we didn't have time to sell tickets. People were just getting back to campus and we lost our shirts on the show and I was livid because that cut into all the other kinds of performances we could hold in our senior year, and it was.
Steve Berkwitz:I think the concert was good. Little, the concert was good. Little Feet was fine. They were great. Yeah, we spent too much money on it. We didn't make enough money back and I felt that we got taken advantage of by our booking agent and so we had a split with that guy for a while and he turned around and we found out he was trying to blacklist us and not get anyone else to work with us, and so this was all. This experience is where I'm like the music industry might not be a really good career for me, yeah you really have to be able to stomach a lot of sleaze.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, that was a big disappointment. Again, behind the scenes the show was good, but that really limited what we were able't put on four major concerts a year. But because we lost so much money on Little Feet we had to reorganize Again. Booking agents weren't going to work with us. We had to come up with something else and I remember one of the other students in the group approached me with an idea about having a benefit concert for Women's History Month. That sounds great. Why don't you look for some artists who we could get? And I don't know I can't remember where she got this information, but she did some research and we were looking at various artists and on that list was Sean Colvin, who no one had really heard of Her first record had just come out.
Steve Berkwitz:Right, and it was like maybe $5,000.
Steve Berkwitz:It was just some ridiculously low price to have her come and play for us, and so it seemed like this would be a good idea. We took a risk on it. I went to bat on the idea with the other people and we decided we'd hold it in the chapel again. We booked her and we arranged that the proceeds would go to the women's domestic violence shelter in Burlington. That was something we were going to do again, just to do something good, give back to the community and emphasize the importance of the event and recognizing Women's History Month.
Steve Berkwitz:And around that time, as we started to sell tickets, her album won a Grammy and so people started paying attention to her and it was a great album. And so I remember we had a boom box in the lunchroom or in the cafeteria and we were playing her album for people to hear and it was just a really fun again, born out of necessity, but a fun show to put together in an unorthodox way, Good cause. It was her with a guitar and a microphone on the stage and it was amazing music really lent itself to that venue and that thing yeah, it was packed, yeah yeah, and we didn't know at the time.
Steve Berkwitz:We said, we don't, what else can we do? We'll try this and right. It just turned out to be spectacularly successful, and I really wish that the people that followed me continued that, because that would have been just such a good idea to have an annual competition People could look forward to.
Alex Gadd:They didn't. I remember seeing that show and I ran into our friends Ellen and Lisa and we were all just gobsmacked by how good it was. That was really one of the highlight not the best show I ever saw, but definitely top 10. And she told a funny story about running into Bob Dylan backstage at the Grammys and he was totally nodding in and out. Don't meet your heroes, basically. And I always remember that too.
Steve Berkwitz:She was fun, yeah. Then she after a rousing applause and all of that, and she was trying to leave the stage for an encore and I messed up and got the elevator all screwed up so she couldn't get off the stage and by the time I got on she waved from me and said okay, so she never got to do the traditional leave the stage and come back.
Alex Gadd:I like when people don't even bother. They do the encore just by staying up there. That's how good she was. Yeah, and at the end she just like packed up her car and drove back, I think in massachusetts somewhere.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, hey, sean great show.
Alex Gadd:Well, that's why it was five thousand bucks, because she took it all, yeah, but after that that was pretty much the last show you put on, was it not uvm? Yeah, yeah.
Steve Berkwitz:And I think by that point I had become a little disenchanted with the concert industry and decided I wasn't going to try to pursue that as a career. I had become interested in academics. Edinburgh gave me a taste of this kind of old-fashioned, cultured life of an academic and that seemed kind of fun. So I didn't do any more shows after that. I went to shows but I didn't.
Alex Gadd:Let's talk about those. So after college you were at home for a couple of years. You went to Santa Barbara for graduate school. Were you seeing shows during that period?
Steve Berkwitz:You know I was. It's go down to LA a few times to see music and come back, but I was a haul Santa Barbara, got some shows not a lot of shows that I wanted to see. I remember I saw Dishwalla, who I think were from Santa Barbara, in a little local bar once and that was kind of cool. But yeah, I didn't see as many, I think at this point and I was also pretty focused on graduate school and gaining the skills I would need to become a professor one day. I wasn't seeing as many but I still saw some. I went and saw PJ Harvey in LA amazing, she's my all-time favorite performer. Saw Bob Mould's band Sugar predominantly great show. Luna Chicks down at the Roxy was one of the last shows I saw in LA, so it was fun.
Alex Gadd:We've talked a lot about the past. What was the most recent concert you went to?
Steve Berkwitz:You know, I think the most recent one was heck in Soul Asylum. Right they're still playing. They played First Avenue, which again was the place I saw them the most my favorite venue, A lot of memories there and I went in large part because I wanted to bring my older daughter, rashmi, who I guess she was 20. So she could go to First Avenue. I wanted to kind of introduce her to what First Avenue was like and go see this band I had seen so many times growing up and it was fun. It's not her taste in music and it's kind of crowded, but it's a good experience. So I wanted to give that to my daughter, to something that she could experience for herself and gain some insight into what I spent a lot of time doing growing up and I was hurt, right.
Alex Gadd:Especially since she didn't grow up in Minneapolis.
Steve Berkwitz:She grew up in Springfield, Missouri, which is very different and not as much live music here.
Alex Gadd:Do you have a most memorable concert you've ever seen?
Steve Berkwitz:It'd be hard to choose just one Alice Cooper's show I saw in St Paul with Guns N' Roses opening, and I didn't know who Guns N' Roses were. They were complete unknowns.
Alex Gadd:Isn't that the best? I usually ask that question because have you ever discovered a band just because they were the opening act? Yeah, that's the ultimate dream. You just hit the jackpot.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, that was like wow. And then Alice Cooper was great and my buddies and I tried to go back to the hotel and we actually got on the elevator with Alice Cooper until his guys made us get off again. So we didn't get up to the after party, but there was this glimmer of hope. Maybe we could. That was a great show. Seeing Nirvana at First Avenue was amazing. That is incredible. That was being in the right place in the right time and they were just getting popular with Nevermind.
Alex Gadd:Was that after college, when you first got home? I think so. Yeah, yeah I think so.
Steve Berkwitz:So that was amazing. Had the Luna Chicks and the 7th Street Entry was a lot of fun.
Alex Gadd:Right. The 7th Street Entry was the smaller club next to First Avenue.
Steve Berkwitz:Exactly yeah, where the smaller bands can play Right Gosh, there's so many that I've enjoyed Did you ever go to a show and just walk away completely deflated or disappointed because they underperformed?
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, fortunately not a lot. You know, and I suppose when I look at my scrapbook and I see ticket stubs where I don't remember going probably gives you some idea. I think the most disappointed I was was a Steve Winwood concert, because my friends and I went. We were traffic fan but we wanted to hear him play Dear Mr Fantasy, john Barleycorn and all these great, great old traffic songs and instead it was bring me a higher love and all these things and we were surrounded by adults and they had little hip flasks drinking whiskey, but they were seated and it was just such a. I think it was at the Met Center also. It was so boring.
Alex Gadd:That's exactly what I envisioned by asking this question Ones where you love the band, but the band is not in the same space as you are.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah yeah. He sold a lot of records but that later Steve Wynwood kind of pop music just didn't do it for us.
Alex Gadd:That was a pretty disappointing show.
Alex Gadd:I can imagine For a couple minutes. I just want to dive into some music media. For people of our age, live albums were, in my opinion, critical Before MTV. When I wasn't old enough to go to concerts, the only way I got a sense of what my favorite bands actually sounded like live was to get a live album. The live album also served a dual purpose of being a greatest hits record, so I didn't have to buy the greatest hits record. Also, I could buy the live record. Did you have a favorite live record?
Steve Berkwitz:You know I remember I had a bunch of live records. A favorite live record you know I remember I had a bunch of live records. I don't know that I appreciated them as much as you did, but I was a cheap trick. Live at Buddha con, at Buddha con.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, that was one of the two most fundamental records in my upbringing.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, that was a pretty fun album. I remember that one. Oh good, you liked that too.
Alex Gadd:Oh loved Great record, so fundamental. We were nine when it came out. It was pop, glam rock, but it was also a little grungy and dirty and oh, it was fantastic.
Steve Berkwitz:A fun band, just the best. Yeah, and I'm sure there's some.
Alex Gadd:I probably had a few live Jimi Hendrix records that I listened to a lot and liked yeah Once records that I listened to a lot, and like yeah Once, the Hendrix estate started going through his archives and putting out stuff. That was some. There's some incredible stuff there. The problem is mostly that there's so much of it now and it's all kind of the same. It's all great, but not one thing doesn't really stand out from the other. You can get some. You can get the Woodstock record, you can get a.
Alex Gadd:Monterey pop record, or there are a whole bunch of things that he did with that were all just incredible. But I have listened to them all and I they don't really stand out. One from the other.
Steve Berkwitz:Just all amazing when the economic interests come into play. There people are just trying to put out as much stuff as they can and inevitably means the quality starts to diminish. So couldn't agree more.
Alex Gadd:So let's talk about bucket list things. Is there a venue you haven't been to yet that you most want to go to see a show at you?
Steve Berkwitz:know it's funny, it really would be a bucket list, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to get there. But I'd kind of like to see someone play at the Hollywood Bowl in LA, I think that would be fun.
Alex Gadd:That's something we could arrange.
Steve Berkwitz:When I was living out there I drove past it but I never saw a show there. It would be neat to go and see someone in that atmosphere and that size of an arena. I'm kind of turned off by the really huge amphitheaters. I saw some other pretty disappointing shows at the Alpine Valley Amphitheater.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, Alpine Valley is like the classic Midwest large amphitheater.
Steve Berkwitz:Yeah, like the Stones and the Dead, and I was just like why am I here? I can't even see who's on stage.
Alex Gadd:Oh hey, I was just at Life Stadium seeing the Stones and I was just close enough that I could make out Mick wherever he was on stage. But you really do have to watch the show on a TV.
Steve Berkwitz:So maybe the Hollywood Bowl, maybe if I eye on who's coming through there and see if I can arrange it. But boy, that would be expensive when you add everything up.
Alex Gadd:That's okay. I mean, what are you living for if not to go do things that? Are life affirming True, If you could see a band that you have yet to see that's still out there performing. Is there anyone would like to see it?
Steve Berkwitz:Well, there's probably a lot, but a band that I somehow missed during their heyday and I'd love to see is Tool. So it must've been because I was in grad school and I was just not tuned in to that music very well. But I've kind of rediscovered Tool and think this is an amazing band and they would be cool to see. Well, they just had a tour last year.
Alex Gadd:I think I'm sure they'll go out again because they're rolling again as a band. It's exciting to watch.
Steve Berkwitz:One of those, almost you know. Rush was the super group of the 70s. Tool may have been the super group of the 90s in terms of amazing musicians.
Alex Gadd:Their musicianship is off the charts. And then, do you have any tickets for upcoming concerts? Do you have any plans to go and see any shows this summer?
Steve Berkwitz:Oh gosh, not at the moment. I kind of look around and see who's coming. Occasionally we'll get someone to come through, but I'm usually not interested in seeing them. I try and see who's playing in Minneapolis when I go up and visit my family, and so maybe I'll get a chance to see someone the next time I go back up there, but I don't have any tickets right now. All right?
Alex Gadd:Well, we'll have to wait a couple more years until your daughter's old enough to strike out on her own, and then I'll start coming out and we'll start going to see shows. We should definitely do that. So my last question is getting at the whole point of this podcast, which is what is it about live music that keeps drawing you back, even if you're not going to see as many shows now as you used to. I know that if you could, you would yeah, I mean the experience of live music.
Steve Berkwitz:It's taken a toll on my ears and I'm I'm pretty pretty close. I'm sure I'm going to be getting um hearing aids here in the next few years, but I love still that that there's nothing that can replace that experience of going and traveling to some venue with all sorts of other people, strangers. You get in a room together, the lights, the atmosphere. There's something really special, I think, about seeing artists perform music in front of you with a crowd of people who are as excited about it as you are, and there's this kind of magical, electric feeling about being there that really difficult to replace. You can go to a sporting event and sometimes there are moments where there can be a really special thing that happens. But I think, generally speaking, live music is something that's pretty unique when it comes to experiencing excitement and joy and wonder all at the same time.
Alex Gadd:I think that's really well said. I wish you many more concerts in your future and I thank you very much for being on the show.
Steve Berkwitz:It's been my pleasure, alex. I've enjoyed. It's always good to see you and it's fun to talk about live music.
Alex Gadd:Right on. I hope we get to see each other and talk more soon. A G G G
Steve Berkwitz:Yes.
Alex Gadd:And that's it for today's conversation. Thank you all for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday and if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you'd like and subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about each new episode, and please tell your friend Also. I have a new product note. We're going to release a playlist for every episode, so look for the Rock and Roll Show podcast playlist on both Apple Music and Spotify every week, featuring songs by the bands mentioned during each episode, so check that out. Additionally, we want to know what you think. Please leave us a comment and we'll respond to each one of them. The Rock and Roll Show podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, alex Gad, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concerts together.