Podcast appearances and mentions of rock and roller

Nobody put baby in a corner In the blue light, I deny you Why ask if you're alright When I'm still crumpled up behind you All publicity Stint My growth is altered I want love You i don't know how To I am a monster I am a monster Joel I am a monster Make me feel Holy lighti I divide my lifht Between Divine And Denial So I deny it Denial I hide you Why Cause I like you Let's blow things all out of proportion Media media Publicity stunt And a drunken stupor I got my God at Coachella night one I got my blinders on I got a knife in my pocket A1 steak sauce anyone Well done, Harper Well done, Onyx Now where goes the dolomite! Lodestones I lost one Carry on Four kings My stream of conciousness rocks out My people are earth and your people You see that? Reach out I'm only a comic, comet Reach out! I'm in denial No conciousness Alright? Harper Long road High Road Short ones. You like Tall blondes I like Waffles You know? Can't we all suffer morbidly? (I'm in denial) Write one Right one Higher up off the red carpet I'm looking for something? Nothing, Internet shopping, A long road The more would have I The more horrible I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster Devil next door, and I I am a monster I am a monster And one And one And one I sent an angel Or five I'm a monster I'm in denial I am a monster Bloody conciousness I'm in denial So I deny Monster So I deny it all Encore! Encore! Run the score up Could be anything you know Bloody stream of conciousness Bloody streams and —leave it up, then I do not believe it Pandemic, Actors and then Publicity stunts for nothing Robbers. I'm not even good enough to be good enough for you. Morbid. I made Billie Ellish laugh so hard, The whole world noticed; Then everybody wanted to know me, Numbers, She goes, “I love electronic music” I said, “I have a lot of it.” But I thought Not nearly enough of it, I thought Not nearly enough, I think. Not nearly enough What did you do with six cinder blocks And Stop it What did you do with six bricks And a fortune What do you with with my Headache? Stop it? I want nothing more than an encore, I told them An encore, I said Not the Renaissance Encore I promise: As awkward as it all got It's coming up For once my stream of conciousness Is into something Lover lover lover Keep them coming Roll the dice and Tell me something, Schubert Tell me something, Harvard Tell me something Tell me something Science Why I don't like you I watch the tonight show. I try to find you But find her And her and her At night I dream of him Joel Her And her and her Wanted a lover A show Her and her and her A son and a daughter A mode Her and her and her Here and there and on again I know her and her and her I like Her and her and her I love Her and her and her I know her and her and her I am her and her and her I wonder what would become of us All And the body Were we not so old Scrap metal Carry on while I call my son And wonder what in God Was left after us Hostile motive Wonder wonder I've got nothing left to ponder I want Mark God Dawn Nah Nothing kept secret left Ponder what, helmet Tell you what, Talmud I like the host of the what's it called Danger show Brothel Brothel Opera Opera May Day May Day May is coming So I August I want nothing more Than the great big mouse on magic mountain How's that? … Sam? Flatline? Don't leave us. Encore. Where's he going? Nothing. Awful. I've been drinking. How about not? And well, we're all against the tide when ocean's coming Aren't I, Hollywood? Great big swell and a sailboat Ugh, why am I mad?! That's the old goat! Rock and Roller. Hall of fame god. Prostitots and brothels Some chord and three thousand year old Google documents What you want us! All I was worth was A special on $200, just under What did you want? An umbrella? I told you, the shit show was coming now Cry me a river! Cry me a river! Cry me a river! New York was a sold out show In all non concious conformists Look at God Go. I was all at the surface Sure you wanted a Harper A harpist Pianist and I've got suffering! Call my son back! I've got window pains And window panes And widows makes the none of us I might as well have died when I lost I might as well have died when I lost her — oh, but the husband had already had Her and her and her So no father was he to a daughter And she went beyond that, Calling for brother. Now who are I? Emotionally immature maggots. I sank ships over hatred I called mayday belatedly I show off in Morse code in a mouse head Now who's the helmet!! Now who's the— [BLACKOUT] [The Festival Project ™] Jimmy murmured somethin bout Joel Pilot took a plunge Now the old Rock is 1 for the 1 one Minus President Trump In the back of the car But if I pop the trunk Then we all have a gun in each hand, Huh punk? One for the road Bottle full of sauce I called the boss for the map And we all got lost on the run Interstate map as old as The all of us totaled up What does infinite cost? Two humps and a Tesla? Some hummas? A couple of rocks, and some hot sauce? All got a gun And we all got a God Can't we all get along Backroads, no Feds So it's all gonna cost Got a cot for the tour And a word for the world And a heart full of gold And a house full of fire Can't we all get a long Now we all got a God Call Conan, We all got a hook and a rod Call God, brah Nobody the friend to the world And we all got a girl And they all got problems Now we got a car On a train up a mountain A coin in the fountain A gun in each hand And a phone card Somebody call the opera Or better yet, Harpo, long God Long time We all got a song Somebody mumbled The troll to a hall far A hymn to a poem And a bump on a log Timber timber We all got garages Timber timber We all got a gun Timber timber We all got windfalls Windmills Blond dykes Klondikes Assholes Mayday Long trucks All got blondes All got a God All got a soul All made of gold And we all got goals here, miners Mumble the words of the poem Somebody left a voicemail At one point, though We all had a mom At one point though, We all had a blonde At one point, though we all got a God At one point though, We all got a song Now all we got is cars Long roads And guns At one point, though, We all got along At one point though We all fell in love At one point though we all had a Mom Now I'm so polar Bearr's on the run But we all got a song And we all got a thought And we all got God Now we all get along In the cars With the guns On the road With the blondes Cause we all got a song And we all got Moms And they all got blonde hair Moms got a gun, Hey, Mom's got a song, Hey, Mom's got a son, Hey, Mom's got a thought, Hey, Mom's got a God, No, mom's just a God, Huh, That's what you want, By the light of the sun And the sound of a gun And we all got a rap And we all got problems All got long days All got wants And we all got a God, so God's got problems. — I gotta solve em. Psychic tears and solvents— What do you want Joel? I got problems, I got a son! I got ten songs out, Ten albums so far, Nobody loves them Nobody loves me, I got problems, I got nothing I got too much to really be loveless, Yet, Here I am, Just watching WHAT. Call up my son, Ask him for a joke And the weather forecast I got a whole skeletal system of broken bones And a whole body cast Castrate this diamond, Call up the tin man— Tin man?! Cowardly lion And the straw hat, Call up the — what are those? Lollipops! No, I don't want that I just want a home with some tall grass. I'm really about to whoop this girl's assless ass and she knows that. She has to. Chilling in the bath though But Can't afford a bathrobe I collect Windfall I call the dolphins Shatter that asshole Staggered on stage, then Slandered my hammer, gathered up passwords X1, aren't I? Doctor? I've probably got a straw hat Don't have a heart, though Probably just a robot Somebody tried hard Guess I need a doctor Wombat? What? She looks like a wombat. Damn, dog. Bleed! I came from the world with the no sleep Bleed! I came from the world with the bonfires! Bleed! I parked my car in the palisades. Bonfires! I parked my car in the palisades! Bonfires! I pitched my tent in the Malibu mountains! Bleed! My coworker babysat in Calabasas! Bonfires! Pig and Whistle could spin slick but still doesn't own an apartment! Apartheid! Noah died on all of the story arcs, besides ours. Non partisan! I went to work on a cold hard Monday. Daughters! I wrote the poor some porridge, and they didn't want that! Pesticides! Still a stream of conciousness? I thought he was sober! Bonfires! I got no room for my heart, SO I CUT IT OUT BLEED. Fires. BLEED! Fires. BLEEEEED. Alright, you won. I need my medicine, Medicine, medicine I neee my medicine… Who are I, God? I need my medicine, medicine Medicine— I need my Really, a face with the Bandit? If Seth wants the role, he can have it. Which Seth? Exactly. Bad Son. Deadmau5 Hats off— Actually, a helmet Actually, a deadman. Who cried lurking? Who calls Art Lord? Why, Sir Jyre! My art deposit's on John, man. Art world Awkward Harvard? Aavark? An assless advark. Don't stalk me when I'm hark the halrold hallmark cards and half washed alters! (The last day of Passover, Easter Sunday) Don't pseudoscience Your gross meds have no stream of conciousness at all Your meds have no conciousness at all. Why yes, I terminal hate you, Mr. famous We broke up at an airport over coffee I dream your head But never just the body That I yearn for I'm trapped inside a suffix That was earned from just a metaphor I grasp at mediocre, As Flo said “I would have aspired to be a struggling actress” I would aspire just to b an arifaft A sanctioned little blonde In front row VIP With the pasties on Oh afterparty? Models and bottles and bodies And blondes Brunettes and redheads And a couple of ours with extensions And a dye job Long legs Court covers And awards, Having proven subtle standards set by All of yours When all I want is Hallmark cards. Hold that thought. Rinse out the conditioner Do you get the picture or not?! I don't live here! Do you remember the fact that I've been here Just a minute in my time— Into you! It's infinite forever. Forever, we'll. Forever. Ten minutes in and I don't remember any of it. Ten mirrors ten men and ten hammers, the hammer. Ten tonsils, ten fingers, ten toes and my hall award Ten helmets, ten cars in garages Ten mortals Attention, attention I've written a symphony! Attention, attention! I'm living in misery! Attention, attention, My toys in my toolbox: Attention, attention, My girls and my others Attention? Attention! I'm ten minutes into this Attention, attention. I bet you'll remember this. Mission accomplished? Yes, major. Detective. Agent. But I won't. No, I'm not okay. I'll never hold my baby again. No, what's my shoe size? Too grand? So I hideaway Then, I'm a Marxist, Forgot my own mantras I'm probably home, But no address to mark it Off the map Off the grid What's I miss Nothing much here Contact works Contact breaks Contact lenses Like my hazels? Like my blue eyes? Are they gorgeous? Still, I'm darker Forge the caverns, Then, there's this flaw: Seven numbers You're just like God, Only darker What harm have I brought you? Called your wind Nothing but heartache Cried Agatha, a moan And then I will go, Becoming nameless in code and essence Where willI—? And then nothing at all? As one ceases to be, So the the other; The tale before time Of immortal lovers I'm incognito You're in my his[tory] Copyright © The Festival Project, Inc. ™ | Copyright The Complex Collective © 2019 ™ All Rights Reserved. C'cxell Soleïl

Nobody put baby in a corner In the blue light, I deny you Why ask if you're alright When I'm still crumpled up behind you All publicity Stint My growth is altered I want love You i don't know how To I am a monster I am a monster Joel I am a monster Make me feel Holy lighti I divide my lifht Between Divine And Denial So I deny it Denial I hide you Why Cause I like you Let's blow things all out of proportion Media media Publicity stunt And a drunken stupor I got my God at Coachella night one I got my blinders on I got a knife in my pocket A1 steak sauce anyone Well done, Harper Well done, Onyx Now where goes the dolomite! Lodestones I lost one Carry on Four kings My stream of conciousness rocks out My people are earth and your people You see that? Reach out I'm only a comic, comet Reach out! I'm in denial No conciousness Alright? Harper Long road High Road Short ones. You like Tall blondes I like Waffles You know? Can't we all suffer morbidly? (I'm in denial) Write one Right one Higher up off the red carpet I'm looking for something? Nothing, Internet shopping, A long road The more would have I The more horrible I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster Devil next door, and I I am a monster I am a monster And one And one And one I sent an angel Or five I'm a monster I'm in denial I am a monster Bloody conciousness I'm in denial So I deny Monster So I deny it all Encore! Encore! Run the score up Could be anything you know Bloody stream of conciousness Bloody streams and —leave it up, then I do not believe it Pandemic, Actors and then Publicity stunts for nothing Robbers. I'm not even good enough to be good enough for you. Morbid. I made Billie Ellish laugh so hard, The whole world noticed; Then everybody wanted to know me, Numbers, She goes, “I love electronic music” I said, “I have a lot of it.” But I thought Not nearly enough of it, I thought Not nearly enough, I think. Not nearly enough What did you do with six cinder blocks And Stop it What did you do with six bricks And a fortune What do you with with my Headache? Stop it? I want nothing more than an encore, I told them An encore, I said Not the Renaissance Encore I promise: As awkward as it all got It's coming up For once my stream of conciousness Is into something Lover lover lover Keep them coming Roll the dice and Tell me something, Schubert Tell me something, Harvard Tell me something Tell me something Science Why I don't like you I watch the tonight show. I try to find you But find her And her and her At night I dream of him Joel Her And her and her Wanted a lover A show Her and her and her A son and a daughter A mode Her and her and her Here and there and on again I know her and her and her I like Her and her and her I love Her and her and her I know her and her and her I am her and her and her I wonder what would become of us All And the body Were we not so old Scrap metal Carry on while I call my son And wonder what in God Was left after us Hostile motive Wonder wonder I've got nothing left to ponder I want Mark God Dawn Nah Nothing kept secret left Ponder what, helmet Tell you what, Talmud I like the host of the what's it called Danger show Brothel Brothel Opera Opera May Day May Day May is coming So I August I want nothing more Than the great big mouse on magic mountain How's that? … Sam? Flatline? Don't leave us. Encore. Where's he going? Nothing. Awful. I've been drinking. How about not? And well, we're all against the tide when ocean's coming Aren't I, Hollywood? Great big swell and a sailboat Ugh, why am I mad?! That's the old goat! Rock and Roller. Hall of fame god. Prostitots and brothels Some chord and three thousand year old Google documents What you want us! All I was worth was A special on $200, just under What did you want? An umbrella? I told you, the shit show was coming now Cry me a river! Cry me a river! Cry me a river! New York was a sold out show In all non concious conformists Look at God Go. I was all at the surface Sure you wanted a Harper A harpist Pianist and I've got suffering! Call my son back! I've got window pains And window panes And widows makes the none of us I might as well have died when I lost I might as well have died when I lost her — oh, but the husband had already had Her and her and her So no father was he to a daughter And she went beyond that, Calling for brother. Now who are I? Emotionally immature maggots. I sank ships over hatred I called mayday belatedly I show off in Morse code in a mouse head Now who's the helmet!! Now who's the— [BLACKOUT] [The Festival Project ™] Jimmy murmured somethin bout Joel Pilot took a plunge Now the old Rock is 1 for the 1 one Minus President Trump In the back of the car But if I pop the trunk Then we all have a gun in each hand, Huh punk? One for the road Bottle full of sauce I called the boss for the map And we all got lost on the run Interstate map as old as The all of us totaled up What does infinite cost? Two humps and a Tesla? Some hummas? A couple of rocks, and some hot sauce? All got a gun And we all got a God Can't we all get along Backroads, no Feds So it's all gonna cost Got a cot for the tour And a word for the world And a heart full of gold And a house full of fire Can't we all get a long Now we all got a God Call Conan, We all got a hook and a rod Call God, brah Nobody the friend to the world And we all got a girl And they all got problems Now we got a car On a train up a mountain A coin in the fountain A gun in each hand And a phone card Somebody call the opera Or better yet, Harpo, long God Long time We all got a song Somebody mumbled The troll to a hall far A hymn to a poem And a bump on a log Timber timber We all got garages Timber timber We all got a gun Timber timber We all got windfalls Windmills Blond dykes Klondikes Assholes Mayday Long trucks All got blondes All got a God All got a soul All made of gold And we all got goals here, miners Mumble the words of the poem Somebody left a voicemail At one point, though We all had a mom At one point though, We all had a blonde At one point, though we all got a God At one point though, We all got a song Now all we got is cars Long roads And guns At one point, though, We all got along At one point though We all fell in love At one point though we all had a Mom Now I'm so polar Bearr's on the run But we all got a song And we all got a thought And we all got God Now we all get along In the cars With the guns On the road With the blondes Cause we all got a song And we all got Moms And they all got blonde hair Moms got a gun, Hey, Mom's got a song, Hey, Mom's got a son, Hey, Mom's got a thought, Hey, Mom's got a God, No, mom's just a God, Huh, That's what you want, By the light of the sun And the sound of a gun And we all got a rap And we all got problems All got long days All got wants And we all got a God, so God's got problems. — I gotta solve em. Psychic tears and solvents— What do you want Joel? I got problems, I got a son! I got ten songs out, Ten albums so far, Nobody loves them Nobody loves me, I got problems, I got nothing I got too much to really be loveless, Yet, Here I am, Just watching WHAT. Call up my son, Ask him for a joke And the weather forecast I got a whole skeletal system of broken bones And a whole body cast Castrate this diamond, Call up the tin man— Tin man?! Cowardly lion And the straw hat, Call up the — what are those? Lollipops! No, I don't want that I just want a home with some tall grass. I'm really about to whoop this girl's assless ass and she knows that. She has to. Chilling in the bath though But Can't afford a bathrobe I collect Windfall I call the dolphins Shatter that asshole Staggered on stage, then Slandered my hammer, gathered up passwords X1, aren't I? Doctor? I've probably got a straw hat Don't have a heart, though Probably just a robot Somebody tried hard Guess I need a doctor Wombat? What? She looks like a wombat. Damn, dog. Bleed! I came from the world with the no sleep Bleed! I came from the world with the bonfires! Bleed! I parked my car in the palisades. Bonfires! I parked my car in the palisades! Bonfires! I pitched my tent in the Malibu mountains! Bleed! My coworker babysat in Calabasas! Bonfires! Pig and Whistle could spin slick but still doesn't own an apartment! Apartheid! Noah died on all of the story arcs, besides ours. Non partisan! I went to work on a cold hard Monday. Daughters! I wrote the poor some porridge, and they didn't want that! Pesticides! Still a stream of conciousness? I thought he was sober! Bonfires! I got no room for my heart, SO I CUT IT OUT BLEED. Fires. BLEED! Fires. BLEEEEED. Alright, you won. I need my medicine, Medicine, medicine I neee my medicine… Who are I, God? I need my medicine, medicine Medicine— I need my Really, a face with the Bandit? If Seth wants the role, he can have it. Which Seth? Exactly. Bad Son. Deadmau5 Hats off— Actually, a helmet Actually, a deadman. Who cried lurking? Who calls Art Lord? Why, Sir Jyre! My art deposit's on John, man. Art world Awkward Harvard? Aavark? An assless advark. Don't stalk me when I'm hark the halrold hallmark cards and half washed alters! (The last day of Passover, Easter Sunday) Don't pseudoscience Your gross meds have no stream of conciousness at all Your meds have no conciousness at all. Why yes, I terminal hate you, Mr. famous We broke up at an airport over coffee I dream your head But never just the body That I yearn for I'm trapped inside a suffix That was earned from just a metaphor I grasp at mediocre, As Flo said “I would have aspired to be a struggling actress” I would aspire just to b an arifaft A sanctioned little blonde In front row VIP With the pasties on Oh afterparty? Models and bottles and bodies And blondes Brunettes and redheads And a couple of ours with extensions And a dye job Long legs Court covers And awards, Having proven subtle standards set by All of yours When all I want is Hallmark cards. Hold that thought. Rinse out the conditioner Do you get the picture or not?! I don't live here! Do you remember the fact that I've been here Just a minute in my time— Into you! It's infinite forever. Forever, we'll. Forever. Ten minutes in and I don't remember any of it. Ten mirrors ten men and ten hammers, the hammer. Ten tonsils, ten fingers, ten toes and my hall award Ten helmets, ten cars in garages Ten mortals Attention, attention I've written a symphony! Attention, attention! I'm living in misery! Attention, attention, My toys in my toolbox: Attention, attention, My girls and my others Attention? Attention! I'm ten minutes into this Attention, attention. I bet you'll remember this. Mission accomplished? Yes, major. Detective. Agent. But I won't. No, I'm not okay. I'll never hold my baby again. No, what's my shoe size? Too grand? So I hideaway Then, I'm a Marxist, Forgot my own mantras I'm probably home, But no address to mark it Off the map Off the grid What's I miss Nothing much here Contact works Contact breaks Contact lenses Like my hazels? Like my blue eyes? Are they gorgeous? Still, I'm darker Forge the caverns, Then, there's this flaw: Seven numbers You're just like God, Only darker What harm have I brought you? Called your wind Nothing but heartache Cried Agatha, a moan And then I will go, Becoming nameless in code and essence Where willI—? And then nothing at all? As one ceases to be, So the the other; The tale before time Of immortal lovers I'm incognito You're in my his[tory] Copyright © The Festival Project, Inc. ™ | Copyright The Complex Collective © 2019 ™ All Rights Reserved. C'cxell Soleïl

Nobody put baby in a corner In the blue light, I deny you Why ask if you're alright When I'm still crumpled up behind you All publicity Stint My growth is altered I want love You i don't know how To I am a monster I am a monster Joel I am a monster Make me feel Holy lighti I divide my lifht Between Divine And Denial So I deny it Denial I hide you Why Cause I like you Let's blow things all out of proportion Media media Publicity stunt And a drunken stupor I got my God at Coachella night one I got my blinders on I got a knife in my pocket A1 steak sauce anyone Well done, Harper Well done, Onyx Now where goes the dolomite! Lodestones I lost one Carry on Four kings My stream of conciousness rocks out My people are earth and your people You see that? Reach out I'm only a comic, comet Reach out! I'm in denial No conciousness Alright? Harper Long road High Road Short ones. You like Tall blondes I like Waffles You know? Can't we all suffer morbidly? (I'm in denial) Write one Right one Higher up off the red carpet I'm looking for something? Nothing, Internet shopping, A long road The more would have I The more horrible I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster Devil next door, and I I am a monster I am a monster And one And one And one I sent an angel Or five I'm a monster I'm in denial I am a monster Bloody conciousness I'm in denial So I deny Monster So I deny it all Encore! Encore! Run the score up Could be anything you know Bloody stream of conciousness Bloody streams and —leave it up, then I do not believe it Pandemic, Actors and then Publicity stunts for nothing Robbers. I'm not even good enough to be good enough for you. Morbid. I made Billie Ellish laugh so hard, The whole world noticed; Then everybody wanted to know me, Numbers, She goes, “I love electronic music” I said, “I have a lot of it.” But I thought Not nearly enough of it, I thought Not nearly enough, I think. Not nearly enough What did you do with six cinder blocks And Stop it What did you do with six bricks And a fortune What do you with with my Headache? Stop it? I want nothing more than an encore, I told them An encore, I said Not the Renaissance Encore I promise: As awkward as it all got It's coming up For once my stream of conciousness Is into something Lover lover lover Keep them coming Roll the dice and Tell me something, Schubert Tell me something, Harvard Tell me something Tell me something Science Why I don't like you I watch the tonight show. I try to find you But find her And her and her At night I dream of him Joel Her And her and her Wanted a lover A show Her and her and her A son and a daughter A mode Her and her and her Here and there and on again I know her and her and her I like Her and her and her I love Her and her and her I know her and her and her I am her and her and her I wonder what would become of us All And the body Were we not so old Scrap metal Carry on while I call my son And wonder what in God Was left after us Hostile motive Wonder wonder I've got nothing left to ponder I want Mark God Dawn Nah Nothing kept secret left Ponder what, helmet Tell you what, Talmud I like the host of the what's it called Danger show Brothel Brothel Opera Opera May Day May Day May is coming So I August I want nothing more Than the great big mouse on magic mountain How's that? … Sam? Flatline? Don't leave us. Encore. Where's he going? Nothing. Awful. I've been drinking. How about not? And well, we're all against the tide when ocean's coming Aren't I, Hollywood? Great big swell and a sailboat Ugh, why am I mad?! That's the old goat! Rock and Roller. Hall of fame god. Prostitots and brothels Some chord and three thousand year old Google documents What you want us! All I was worth was A special on $200, just under What did you want? An umbrella? I told you, the shit show was coming now Cry me a river! Cry me a river! Cry me a river! New York was a sold out show In all non concious conformists Look at God Go. I was all at the surface Sure you wanted a Harper A harpist Pianist and I've got suffering! Call my son back! I've got window pains And window panes And widows makes the none of us I might as well have died when I lost I might as well have died when I lost her — oh, but the husband had already had Her and her and her So no father was he to a daughter And she went beyond that, Calling for brother. Now who are I? Emotionally immature maggots. I sank ships over hatred I called mayday belatedly I show off in Morse code in a mouse head Now who's the helmet!! Now who's the— [BLACKOUT] [The Festival Project ™] Jimmy murmured somethin bout Joel Pilot took a plunge Now the old Rock is 1 for the 1 one Minus President Trump In the back of the car But if I pop the trunk Then we all have a gun in each hand, Huh punk? One for the road Bottle full of sauce I called the boss for the map And we all got lost on the run Interstate map as old as The all of us totaled up What does infinite cost? Two humps and a Tesla? Some hummas? A couple of rocks, and some hot sauce? All got a gun And we all got a God Can't we all get along Backroads, no Feds So it's all gonna cost Got a cot for the tour And a word for the world And a heart full of gold And a house full of fire Can't we all get a long Now we all got a God Call Conan, We all got a hook and a rod Call God, brah Nobody the friend to the world And we all got a girl And they all got problems Now we got a car On a train up a mountain A coin in the fountain A gun in each hand And a phone card Somebody call the opera Or better yet, Harpo, long God Long time We all got a song Somebody mumbled The troll to a hall far A hymn to a poem And a bump on a log Timber timber We all got garages Timber timber We all got a gun Timber timber We all got windfalls Windmills Blond dykes Klondikes Assholes Mayday Long trucks All got blondes All got a God All got a soul All made of gold And we all got goals here, miners Mumble the words of the poem Somebody left a voicemail At one point, though We all had a mom At one point though, We all had a blonde At one point, though we all got a God At one point though, We all got a song Now all we got is cars Long roads And guns At one point, though, We all got along At one point though We all fell in love At one point though we all had a Mom Now I'm so polar Bearr's on the run But we all got a song And we all got a thought And we all got God Now we all get along In the cars With the guns On the road With the blondes Cause we all got a song And we all got Moms And they all got blonde hair Moms got a gun, Hey, Mom's got a song, Hey, Mom's got a son, Hey, Mom's got a thought, Hey, Mom's got a God, No, mom's just a God, Huh, That's what you want, By the light of the sun And the sound of a gun And we all got a rap And we all got problems All got long days All got wants And we all got a God, so God's got problems. — I gotta solve em. Psychic tears and solvents— What do you want Joel? I got problems, I got a son! I got ten songs out, Ten albums so far, Nobody loves them Nobody loves me, I got problems, I got nothing I got too much to really be loveless, Yet, Here I am, Just watching WHAT. Call up my son, Ask him for a joke And the weather forecast I got a whole skeletal system of broken bones And a whole body cast Castrate this diamond, Call up the tin man— Tin man?! Cowardly lion And the straw hat, Call up the — what are those? Lollipops! No, I don't want that I just want a home with some tall grass. I'm really about to whoop this girl's assless ass and she knows that. She has to. Chilling in the bath though But Can't afford a bathrobe I collect Windfall I call the dolphins Shatter that asshole Staggered on stage, then Slandered my hammer, gathered up passwords X1, aren't I? Doctor? I've probably got a straw hat Don't have a heart, though Probably just a robot Somebody tried hard Guess I need a doctor Wombat? What? She looks like a wombat. Damn, dog. Bleed! I came from the world with the no sleep Bleed! I came from the world with the bonfires! Bleed! I parked my car in the palisades. Bonfires! I parked my car in the palisades! Bonfires! I pitched my tent in the Malibu mountains! Bleed! My coworker babysat in Calabasas! Bonfires! Pig and Whistle could spin slick but still doesn't own an apartment! Apartheid! Noah died on all of the story arcs, besides ours. Non partisan! I went to work on a cold hard Monday. Daughters! I wrote the poor some porridge, and they didn't want that! Pesticides! Still a stream of conciousness? I thought he was sober! Bonfires! I got no room for my heart, SO I CUT IT OUT BLEED. Fires. BLEED! Fires. BLEEEEED. Alright, you won. I need my medicine, Medicine, medicine I neee my medicine… Who are I, God? I need my medicine, medicine Medicine— I need my Really, a face with the Bandit? If Seth wants the role, he can have it. Which Seth? Exactly. Bad Son. Deadmau5 Hats off— Actually, a helmet Actually, a deadman. Who cried lurking? Who calls Art Lord? Why, Sir Jyre! My art deposit's on John, man. Art world Awkward Harvard? Aavark? An assless advark. Don't stalk me when I'm hark the halrold hallmark cards and half washed alters! (The last day of Passover, Easter Sunday) Don't pseudoscience Your gross meds have no stream of conciousness at all Your meds have no conciousness at all. Why yes, I terminal hate you, Mr. famous We broke up at an airport over coffee I dream your head But never just the body That I yearn for I'm trapped inside a suffix That was earned from just a metaphor I grasp at mediocre, As Flo said “I would have aspired to be a struggling actress” I would aspire just to b an arifaft A sanctioned little blonde In front row VIP With the pasties on Oh afterparty? Models and bottles and bodies And blondes Brunettes and redheads And a couple of ours with extensions And a dye job Long legs Court covers And awards, Having proven subtle standards set by All of yours When all I want is Hallmark cards. Hold that thought. Rinse out the conditioner Do you get the picture or not?! I don't live here! Do you remember the fact that I've been here Just a minute in my time— Into you! It's infinite forever. Forever, we'll. Forever. Ten minutes in and I don't remember any of it. Ten mirrors ten men and ten hammers, the hammer. Ten tonsils, ten fingers, ten toes and my hall award Ten helmets, ten cars in garages Ten mortals Attention, attention I've written a symphony! Attention, attention! I'm living in misery! Attention, attention, My toys in my toolbox: Attention, attention, My girls and my others Attention? Attention! I'm ten minutes into this Attention, attention. I bet you'll remember this. Mission accomplished? Yes, major. Detective. Agent. But I won't. No, I'm not okay. I'll never hold my baby again. No, what's my shoe size? Too grand? So I hideaway Then, I'm a Marxist, Forgot my own mantras I'm probably home, But no address to mark it Off the map Off the grid What's I miss Nothing much here Contact works Contact breaks Contact lenses Like my hazels? Like my blue eyes? Are they gorgeous? Still, I'm darker Forge the caverns, Then, there's this flaw: Seven numbers You're just like God, Only darker What harm have I brought you? Called your wind Nothing but heartache Cried Agatha, a moan And then I will go, Becoming nameless in code and essence Where willI—? And then nothing at all? As one ceases to be, So the the other; The tale before time Of immortal lovers I'm incognito You're in my his[tory] Copyright © The Festival Project, Inc. ™ | Copyright The Complex Collective © 2019 ™ All Rights Reserved. C'cxell Soleïl

An esoteric and magical portrait of Elvis Presley“A lively new book.” —The Guardian• Draws on firsthand accounts from Elvis's wife, Priscilla, his friends and family, the Memphis Mafia, and his spiritual advisors• Looks at key teachers who influenced him, including Yogananda, H. P. Blavatsky, and Manly P. Hall• Examines Elvis's efforts as a natural healer, the significance of his UFO encounters, and his telekinetic, psychic, and astral traveling abilitiesElvis Presley, the most successful solo artist in history and an emblematic cultural figure of the Western world, has been widely perceived as a conservative Southern Christian. However, the truth about the man has been missed.Writer and researcher Miguel Conner reveals how Elvis was a profound mystic, occultist, and shaman. Beginning with the unusual circumstances of his birth—and his stillborn twin brother—Conner traces the diverse thread of mysticism that runs through Elvis Presley's life, drawing on firsthand accounts from the people closest to him, including his wife, Priscilla, the Memphis Mafia, and his spiritual advisors. He shows how Elvis studied seminal 19th- and 20th-century occultists, including H. P. Blavatsky, Manly P. Hall, G. I. Gurdjieff, and P. D. Ouspensky, and was a devotee of Indian yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. Conner argues that Elvis was well-versed in the esoteric practices of sex magic, meditation, astrology, and numerology and had a deep familiarity with Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Theosophy, and Eastern traditions. He also reveals how Elvis was a natural healer, telekinetic, psychic, and astral traveler who had significant mystical experiences and UFO encounters.Looking at the conspiratorial and paranormal aspects of Elvis's life, the author explores the "Elvis visitations" that have occurred since the King's death and the general high weirdness of his life. As Conner convincingly argues, Elvis was not just a one-of-a-kind rock-and-roller. He was the greatest magician America ever produced.Miguel Conner is a writer, voiceover artist, and host of the popular podcast Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio. His books include Voices of Gnosticism, Stargazer, Heretic, and The Executioner's Daughter. He lives in northern Illinois.https://www.miguelconner.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.

In this episode Tara talks to a rock and roller, a rebel, who also happens to be an excellent photographer, Mallorca Aborigine, and free spirit, Pere Colom. In their talk, Pere brings us back to the mystic year of 1979 when the music scene in Deia was as wild and experimental as the musicians who played it. Pere's sense of adventure and his credo of “Porque No?,” makes this a super fun talk and reminds us that in its core, Deia has always been a haven for creativity like no other.

Scott Watson talks with Dion DiMucci - a first generation Rock and Roller and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when a rock and roller decides to venture into clubland? Singer, songwriter and author Lias Saoudi, the charismatic frontman of the Fat White Family, joined me initially to explore this question. Lending his seductive, slinky and sleezy tonsils to techno supergroup, Decius:  their second album "Decius Volume 2: Splendor and Obedience,” absolutely pumps and you can see why they were picked to play at Berghain's 19th Birthday. The Fat White Family have a rep. As Lias says in our conversation, they were a band made up of some of the five worst people in England, yet I found him to be a charming, erudite gent. From the psychological chaos of band dynamics to the romanticized notion of the tortured artist, our conversation touches on the existential struggles of maintaining artistic integrity. Lias offers a raw and honest perspective on balancing creative freedom with the pressures of performance, sharing humorous anecdotes about societal expectations and generational quirks along the way.If you like the show and you havn‘t already, please give it a subscribe and consider leaving a rating and a review on Apple, Spotify, Amazon or wherever you listen. It all really helps build the show.Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience), released 31st January 2025 on The Leaf LabelThe Moonlandingz — The Sign Of A Man, listen here.Follow me on Instagram at PaulhanfordLost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-TechnicaMy BBC World Service radio documentary “The man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin Wall” is available now on BBC Sounds. Click here to listen.My book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culturet Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins

This week I am hanging out with Chris MacDonald. Chris is the author of a new book called Days and Days A story about Sunderland's Leatherface and the Ties that Bind, published by ECW Press. Chris is also the owner and tattoo artist at Under my Thumb on College St. in Toronto and a certified rock and roller playing in the band Le Barons. We talk about backpacking, taking mushrooms at the cottage and new words that burn into your memory. This is Chris MacDonald, Author of Days and Days and these are his stories of friendship. You can follow Chris here: IG: https://www.instagram.com/the_red_beauty/ Book: https://ecwpress.com/products/days-and-days-leatherface Le Barons: https://lebarons.bandcamp.com/album/days-are-mountains Tattoos: https://www.undermythumb.ca/index.html#/ Subscribe to automatically get Chris' episode and more episodes of Social Animals. Subscribe on all the channels at https://socialanimals.ca/ Tell your friends, comment below and enjoy the stories! Thanks for listening!

We pay tribute to the rock and roller (and radio DJ and author) Greg Kihn, who passed on August 13, 2024. Rest in Power, Greg.  Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com. Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with your friends. Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Threads, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music: "Ascension," originally by Quartjar, covered by Frank Muffin. Visit quartjar.bandcamp.com and frankmuffin.bandcamp.com.

Besides the monthly new release episodes, another regular feature of this show is the “quarterly recap”, where I play tracks from the best albums released over the last three months. This month features a wide variety of rock, punk, power pop, Americana, and a few other sub-genres. Everybody should be able to find a new favorite record in this expanded episode. Before we get to the highlights of the quarter, though, I’ve got a tribute to arguably the greatest rock and roller my state has ever produced. Myron Lee, the leader of Myron Lee & The Caddies, passed away just days before his 83rd birthday. Along with airing a handful of his late 50s/early 60s hits, I come clean about the simple fact that for the longest time I was completely unaware of his true rockin’ sound. In fact, it was due to an appearance on another Real Punk Radio broadcast that I finally understood that rockabilly and punk fanatics have been collecting his singles for decades! RIP Myron! Also, please head to YouTube and subscribe to our channel – Public Domain Classics 888. We have close to 300 classic films from over 110 years of releases!  For more info, including […]

Besides the monthly new release episodes, another regular feature of this show is the “quarterly recap”, where I play tracks from the best albums released over the last three months. This month features a wide variety of rock, punk, power pop, Americana, and a few other sub-genres. Everybody should be able to find a new favorite record in this expanded episode. Before we get to the highlights of the quarter, though, I've got a tribute to arguably the greatest rock and roller my state has ever produced. Myron Lee, the leader of Myron Lee & The Caddies, passed away just days before his 83rd birthday. Along with airing a handful of his late 50s/early 60s hits, I come clean about the simple fact that for the longest time I was completely unaware of his true rockin' sound. In fact, it was due to an appearance on another Real Punk Radio broadcast that I finally understood that rockabilly and punk fanatics have been collecting his singles for decades! RIP Myron! Also, please head to YouTube and subscribe to our channel – Public Domain Classics 888. We have close to 300 classic films from over 110 years of releases!  For more info, including […]

Mick Davis describes an unforgettable band gig - at a downtown St. John's elementary school  

Known for their electrifying performances and infectious energy, rock and roller's The Dirty Denims returned with their brand-new album, ‘Party On!', on May 24th, 2024. Creating lovely infectious music that makes you want to move; The Dirty Denims have established themselves as bankable name when it comes to quality rock music and built up a sizable fanbase over the years. They're a popular band, for good reason, and that popularity is only going to increase when they continue to release fun, exciting, thoughtful, and memorable music like the kind that exists on Party On! Check out our full review here: https://www.gbhbl.com/album-review-the-dirty-denims-party-on-self-released/ We spoke to members Mirjam (vocals/guitar/organ) and Jeroen (guitar/vocals) about the new album, their progression, finding the perfect place for The Dirty Denims to exist, the fun they have making music and playing live, and so much more. Find out more here: https://thedirtydenims.nl/ Website: https://gbhbl.com/ Ko-Fi (Buy us a coffee): https://ko-fi.com/gbhbl Big Cartel: https://gbhbl.bigcartel.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GBHBL Twitter: https://twitter.com/GBHBL_Official Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gbhbl/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gbhbl Contact: gbhblofficial@gmail.com Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/gbhbl Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5A4toGR0qap5zfoR4cIIBo Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/hr/podcast/the-gbhbl-podcasts/id1350465865 Intro/Outro music created by HexedRiffsStudios. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKSpZ6roX36WaFWwQ73Cbbg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hexedriffsstudio

CW: Violence, Blood, Gore, Death, Foul Language. (Music & Sound Effects May Change Volume/Tone Quickly)An up and coming young rock and roller gets more than they bargained for when she acquires her role model's prized bass guitar.Written & Narrated By: Adriana Oister (She/They)"Days End And Die" Bass Instrumentation Written & Performed By: Adriana Oister (She/They)Send us a Text Message.SUPPORT THE SHOW!Leave a 5-Star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Goodpods, or wherever you get your podcasts; and tell fellow creatures of the night about the show! Tips can be accepted through Buy Me A Coffee, Patreon, and PayPal. Follow QUEER GHOUL on Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter)! Episode stories can also be found on QueerGhoulPodcast.com. Follow Adriana to stay up to date about QUEER GHOUL and their other projects! Music & Sound Effects: Epidemic Sounds DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ©️ 2024 Copyright Adriana Oister and Queer Ghoul

Trump urges debates with Biden to coincide with early voting, Iran's threat to Israel, TJ with sound tax advice, a Rock and Roller is 80, George Weller, Tom from Port Wing, three hours of airtime for the man who has giving birth, and should NPR be defunded...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elizabeth joins Caitlin to talk about 1996's Scream, a movie that invigorated not just the slasher subgenre, but horror on the whole. We discuss meta storytelling, satire, subversion, and final girls, and we give Scream all the love it deserves. Tangents include: bangs, ghostface mask ideas, socks, driving, sirens in songs, the rock-and-roller to children's-performer pipeline, lady tropes in horror, and spooking yourself with creepypastas late at night.  

Starring in her own original one-woman show, Trans Am, at Joe's Pub this January, Lisa Stephen Friday is a true rock and roller. U Guys, this week's BroadwayWorld Recap is absolutely full of the latest Bway tea! Then I am joined by musician, writer, and creator Lisa Stephen Friday to talk about her incredible new show, Trans Am. Lisa shares her experience as a trans artist, both in the worlds of rock and roll and musical theater. She has played alongside heavy hitters like Pat Benatar and Indigo Girls with her band, Lisa Jackson & Girl Friday, as the out and proud trans front woman. She talks about the importance of her new show, and how it bluntly presents themes of social challenges, tolerance, and LGBTQ+ acceptance. Lisa is such a lovely storyteller, U don't wanna miss this episode! Follow Lisa on Instagram: @Lisastephenfriday Follow the pod on Instagram: @ohmypoduguys Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Making the Sounds of Star Trek with Alan Howarth Alan Howarth calls himself a "Sonic composer," a cool but very accurate title for the contributions he's made to cinema. Howarth is responsible for the sound design for many of the visual effects and hardware heard in the Star Trek movies, as well as composing films across all of Hollywood.  Alan takes us on his journey from rock and roller in high school into "The Weather Report" by the late 70s, and finally doing his first music composition for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," as well as the drama behind getting the movie done in time for release.   Howarth peels back the curtain to tell the secrets behind the sounds for the warp engine of the Enterprise, using organic sounds to make technical sounds, the tools he implemented to create these unique effects, and the sound effect he is best known for that he refuses to use ever again! We also hear stories about the different Trek directors, including Leonard Nimoy and the bizarre demands of William Shatner, and how involved they were in his process, the tragic story behind making the sound of the whales in Star Trek 4, the sound of V'ger in TMP, and for the first time, tales of Wesley H. Bateman and encounters with UFOs!  Plus, stories from his other films, like "The Hunt for Red October," Steven Spielberg's cryptic demands for "Poltergeist," "Robocop 2," working with John Carpenter on films like "Escape from New York," and the Halloween series, "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of The Lost Ark," and more! Check out Alan's website here - https://alanhowarth.com/ Please subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@trekuntold . There, you will see all the old episodes of this show, as well as new episodes and all of our other content, including shorts and some other fun things planned for the future. Visit my Amazon shop to check out tons of Trek products and other things I enjoy - https://www.amazon.com/shop/thefightnerd View the Teespring store for Trek Untold gear & apparel - https://my-store-9204078.creator-spring.com Support Trek Untold by becoming a Patreon at Patreon.com/TrekUntold. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating if you like us! Follow Trek Untold on Social Media Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/trekuntoldTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/trekuntoldFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/trekuntold Follow Nerd News Today on Social Media Twitter:  Twitter.com/NerdNews2Day Instagram: Instagram.com/NerdNewsToday Facebook: Facebook.com/NerdNewsToday Trek Untold is sponsored by Treksphere.com, powered by the RAGE Works Podcast Network, and affiliated with Nerd News Today.

Alan Howarth calls himself a "Sonic composer," a cool but very accurate title for the contributions he's made to cinema. Howarth is responsible for the sound design for many of the visual effects and hardware heard in the Star Trek movies, as well as composing films across all of Hollywood.  Alan takes us on his journey from rock and roller in high school into "The Weather Report" by the late 70s, and finally doing his first music composition for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," as well as the drama behind getting the movie done in time for release.   Howarth peels back the curtain to tell the secrets behind the sounds for the warp engine of the Enterprise, using organic sounds to make technical sounds, the tools he implemented to create these unique effects, and the sound effect he is best known for that he refuses to use ever again! We also hear stories about the different Trek directors, including Leonard Nimoy and the bizarre demands of William Shatner, and how involved they were in his process, the tragic story behind making the sound of the whales in Star Trek 4, the sound of V'ger in TMP, and for the first time, tales of Wesley H. Bateman and encounters with UFOs!  Plus, stories from his other films, like "The Hunt for Red October," Steven Spielberg's cryptic demands for "Poltergeist," "Robocop 2," working with John Carpenter on films like "Escape from New York," and the Halloween series, "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of The Lost Ark," and more! Check out Alan's website here - https://alanhowarth.com/ Please subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@trekuntold . There, you will see all the old episodes of this show, as well as new episodes and all of our other content, including shorts and some other fun things planned for the future. Visit my Amazon shop to check out tons of Trek products and other things I enjoy - https://www.amazon.com/shop/thefightnerd View the Teespring store for Trek Untold gear & apparel - https://my-store-9204078.creator-spring.com Support Trek Untold by becoming a Patreon at Patreon.com/TrekUntold. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating if you like us! Follow Trek Untold on Social Media Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/trekuntoldTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/trekuntoldFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/trekuntold Follow Nerd News Today on Social Media Twitter: Twitter.com/NerdNews2DayInstagram: Instagram.com/NerdNewsTodayFacebook: Facebook.com/NerdNewsToday Trek Untold is sponsored by Treksphere.com, powered by the RAGE Works Podcast Network, and affiliated with Nerd News Today.

Warning: The most jaw-dropping rock'n'roll stories from the least likely rock and roller. This podcast is NSFW. If you like James Blunt on Twitter, this is the podcast for you!Stories:1. Hash Brownies2. The Finger3. A Shallow Grave4. The Biker5. The Stalker6. “Help Me!”7. My Song I Hate8. Elton John Set Me UpJames's 2024 Australian Tour is November. New album ‘Who We Used To Be' is out now, so is his book ‘Loosely Based On A Made-Up Story'.WARNING – this podcast contains adult themes, explicit language and drug references.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BlueCollar.CEO –Rusty Cochran is the President of We Care Plumbing Heating & Air, the premier residential and commercial plumbing, heating, and air conditioning company in Southern California. A former rock and roller, Rusty turned his passion for music into a passion for his customers and employees. Originally operating out of the family living room with two employees, the company has grown to employ 200-plus individuals and is steadily growing. Rusty believes the company's success is attributed to its mission to “go the extra mile” for its customers and the dedication of its employees to make it happen. In this episode, Ryan and Rusty discuss the company's history and how to leverage private equity partners.

Welcome to June 2023 or as we like to call it... Guy Ritchie month aka David's month and to start we review Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. We hope you enjoy this riveting good time as we yank each others chain and of course talk about the movie, the actors, and the director hisself!!!   Music by: Jessejacethomas.bandcamp.com Website: www.ifinallywatchedpodcast.com And say hi to us on Instagram and Twitter @finallywatched     TRANSCRIPT: This movie was having trouble getting distribution. And so she called an acquaintance of hers to help them get distribution. And that was Tom Cruise. I knew it. I knew it was gonna be Tom Cruise. I was like, who's it gonna be Tom Cruise? I should have said it. Fuck. So he apparently attended a screen. I'm gonna be Tom Cruise finally marched, finally marched, finally watched, I know it. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of I finally watched, this is David and this is a and I finally watched Lock Stock and Two Smoke and Barrels. So this month we are going to do four Guy Ritchie movies. Um This being his, his debut, we're doing them chronologically. And I was remembering back when I watched this and so I watched this on DVD or Blu Ray like way after it came out, I think when I was in like law school, college or law school and I watched it after a night of like, I just didn't go to sleep the night before, not like partying or anything, just like never slept. Um And so my memory of it was definitely hazy, but I had seen it before. Um, and watching it this time, I feel very similarly to, like Quentin Tarantino in that. It's a really great first film. But by and large, I like almost everything after it more. Like after this we're gonna do Snatch. And I think that's like a perfect comparison with, like Lock Stock and Snatch to reservoir dogs. And then Pulp Fiction. Um, I think you'll like Snatch like a lot better too. Um, like where, where he has like an idea or like, uh, his, his, um, skill, skill set. Yeah, it just, it gets better. It's just like, it's like a much smaller, it's like a much smaller scale movie. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Why did you say that? You started saying it? He has an idea. No, I was saying an idea of his and I was trying to find the word, like, um, aesthetic and then kind of like, um, polished it up a bit for the second one. Well, he's given a lot more like money to do it and, yeah, he's just got kind of the notoriety this movie. I don't know if you realize this. So, this is Jason Statham's first movie. Um, Vinnie Jones who plays Big Chris is a professional soccer player before this, who was like, apparently did this movie while he was, like, banned from playing is what I read. So, like, I think I read somewhere that, like, 17 out of the 40 something speaking parts were from people who had never acted before. Right. That is it. That's interesting. Yeah, because now, like Jason Statham is, is, uh a well known actor but so is, uh, so is the ex soccer player, see Vinny Vinny? Um, and like in the next movie in Snatch, he gets Brad Pitt. Right. So it's like, kind of a very similar thing, although Quentin with reservoir dogs, I mean, I, I guess, I don't remember, like, if those were all bigger names, they were definitely, like, known actors then, but it's just, I don't know, it's very similar. I, uh, really enjoyed watching this this time. It's an interesting movie to talk about because, like, I think the plot is so linear in that, like, you can kind of, you can kind of see everything being telegraphed to set up the end. Yeah. Um, but it's also just like a very fun movie to watch with like the kind of the Banter and the, like, the British slang throughout. Um, a, what did you think? So? So, I went in it and I was, um, I'm, I'm looking after my niece this week so having, like, not a lot of time to myself watching movies. Uh, I, I know what it's like with you having, having kids. Your hair looks very disheveled today. I was like, oh, man, it's really parenthood's really hitting him this week. I just got out of the pool. Ok. He got me some slack. Um, no, but, but so I haven't had much time to myself. Um, and the first couple nights we had her, we put her down super late. So, um, I was kind of trying to fit it in before bed started it at 11 and it got maybe like 30 40 minutes in. And basically I was like, I gotta, I gotta watch this at another time and then when I rewatched it, um, I just restarted the movie instead of starting it from the 40 minute point, right? And so I just restarted the movie and I'm glad I did because there were so many things that I missed like half paying attention to it. But like you said, it's this huge build up at the end, but they start laying down the pieces in the very beginning. So, um so yeah, if you like really pay attention to the movie from the get go, you see that they're starting that they're setting up stuff that's gonna play out, you know, uh an hour later, which I think is, which I think is really cool. And yeah, I mean, I, we were talking about how many guy Ritchie films I watched before this and it's not, not many. Yeah, you said Aladdin and then you think you've seen all of man from Uncle, but you're not sure. No, I've definitely seen Man from Uncle. Um and Aladdin. I don't know you, when we talked, we talked about it on this pot. So anyone who listened to that part of it, you're like, I kind of remember unless we cut that out, but I remember there was a car chase and there was a wall and, well, it's because it was just so long ago I saw it in theaters when it first came out. I don't know. What was that? 2011? No, no. That one must have been like 2017 or something. It came out in 2015 so close. Um, yeah, so, so what, seven years, eight years ago? So, you know, whatever. Um, but yeah, I think those are the only two, even though I've heard of him and a lot of his films, I just haven't really sat down and watched them. Which, well, it's funny because I don't think a Aladdin is not like, it's not really what you go to when you're trying to watch a Guy Ritchie film, I think, man from UN and Man from Uncle is also fairly different. It's kind of a James Bond. So for this month we're doing lock stock, we're doing Snatch, we're doing Rock and Roller, which is one of my favorite and probably like that almost might have been my entry point into Guy Ritchie movies was Rock and Roller and then we're doing his latest one or it was his latest one up until like just a little while ago because he just had to come out Ruz Deer. Um, something fortunate. And then, um, the covenant that just came out. So, um, I'm excited to do all of those. I think. Let's just start from the top of this. And I, you were saying that the first time you watched this, you watched like 30 minutes. But I thought you told me that you're like, oh, yeah, I started last night but I didn't get very far. And I was like, well, where did you get to? And you're like, where they were throwing all the jewelry as they're rutted down the stairs. And I was like, that's three minutes into the movie. Like max. Um, I think, I think, ok, so, so here's the actual timeline of the thing, right? Um, the first night I attempted to watch it, it was like, literally two minutes into it. Then when I went to go watch it again, I got 30 minutes into it and then restarted it from that point. I watched it with Taylor actually when I restarted it and then we got halfway through that movie and then the next night we finished the movie. So, yeah, that was like four separate watches. That's like me. Now, you, now you get it though, right? Like, as a parent for this week you get, I don't, no, no, no, no, no, I don't. Because the, the initial one. Yes. Sure. But I would have just watched it all the way through. But Taylor is the one who wanted to like, finish it halfway because she was sleepy. I don't get you guys being sleepy and shit, but whatever, probably, I would imagine because she's the one primary, primarily taking care of your niece right now as you get to sleep in. Oh, I wish that was true. But who gets up three times in the middle of the night to take her pee. So I don't have to wash the sheets in the morning. This guy, so the movie opens with just this little scene of them selling kind of fake goods on the street. And you have Eddie being the guy who like, pretends to not know him is like, oh, that's a great deal on like, necklaces or whatever. I love like the kind of the lines from Jason Statham. But one of my favorites that I caught. So I started this movie and I watched like 30 minutes of it and then I realized it was like, oh, wait, we're not recording for like 10 days. So then I just stopped and then I started over like a couple days before the recording. Uh But one of the, when the second time when I start again, one of the lines that I really liked is he's talking, he says to this one lady don't stand there like one o'clock and half past which like, visually is just her kind of like bending over, like hawking at everything, like just looking at it, but like, not buying, he's like, get in here and you give me your money. And I, I love too like the voiceover and I think this will pay off in the next film. But the, the guy that does the voiceover in this movie is the guy that works at Eddie's dad's bar. Oh, ok. And he is also the main antagonist, bad guy in Snatch. From what I remember. What's his name in this movie? He's named Alan or narrator. I don't think we hear his name but he is Alan Ford and he's gonna be like the main, as I just said, the main bad guy in Snatch and he's really great in that. So is Snatch a sequel to this? No, it's just, it's just a Guy Ritchie type movie. So it's like a very similar set up like literally all four we're gonna do are gonna be very similar, but like the story is different but kind of the world um is all much very like this kind of UK underground. They probably all take place in London when you first brought up that we're gonna do this and you brought up this movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I asked you if this was a sequel because I really thought there was a movie called Lock Lock Stock and a Smoking Barrel. And then, and then like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was the sequel. Um But there is no such thing. Uh such a movie as Lock Stock and smoking in a smoking barrel. Um, and, and I, you know, it's funny because have you ever heard of the, the, the movie, um, the whole Nine Yards? Yeah. You know, there's a sequel to that movie called The Whole 10 Yards. I do. Yes. Ok. I thought that was kind of what they were doing here, but not at all because, because there is no existing movie. So, I, I also like how um the guy kind of says the title of the movie, he's like Lock Stock, the whole fucking thing talking about Sting's Bar, which by the way, Sting is in this and actually is like pretty great in his little part. Oh, Sting is the dad. Yeah, see now that you say that, that I connect it but I did not, I did not catch that. That's funny. What's funny too is I was kind of thinking like, why is this called Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? And then he says it, like you said, he says Lock Stock and the whole fucking thing in the, in the movie? I was like, well, where does the two smoking barrels come from? And I go, oh, the two antique guns are the two smoking barrels? I get it now, right? Uh There's this other thing too that I just noticed today, I guess this is a thing that guy Richie likes to do, but there was a lock, there's a show called Lock Stock, which is basically a TV series based off of this movie. Then there was a TV show that was done by Crackle called Snatch that starred Rupert Grant who was Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. And now he's doing the Gentleman TV series which is starring Theo James, which I'm actually super fucking excited for. Um But just like, he's willing to like sell off his, he's like, there's no like, oh, this is, this is sacred ground that can't be touched. He's like, no, yeah, you can make a TV. Show out of this. That's fine. Oh You're, you're thinking that, that like Guy Ritchie sits on a higher plane where he's like, not a sellout. He did Aladdin dude for Disney. Yeah, Ashley was just talking today about how much she didn't like that movie. I thought it was fine. But like, I think all those live actions like, but it's kind of a gimmick. It's kind of a gimmick from Guy Ritchie doing that like fast, slow motion, speed up thing, right? But it wasn't really introduced in his beginning work. So when, when did that become like, oh, that's a guy Ritchie move. Uh I mean, it'd probably be in Snatch. I haven't seen Snatch in years, but I would imagine that's where it's gonna be. Snatch is really great. I can't wait to do. We should get back to this movie, but Snatch is really great mostly because of like Brad Pitt's performance is so amazing in it. Um But so let's get back to it. Um The main setup of this movie is these four guys are getting money together so that their friend Eddie who is just amazing at cards can get in a card game with a guy named Hatchet Harry. Just like as a, as a F Y I like, don't play poker against a guy named Hatchet Harry, which is really funny because they talk about how he beat a guy to death with a black dildo later on in the movie. And then at, at the very end when they go into his office, it says like, Harry, whatever the porn king. Yeah. And I like, didn't catch that throughout the like, oh, this, that's what this guy does because they never really, like, he runs a sex shop. I guess he had that part of it. I, I Harry, there's so many small details though, but I like how it's like driven home at the very end, right? Like that is, you know what I mean? Like it's not integral to the plot, but I like seeing it at the end because they definitely honed in on it on the door. So you could see it. The, the end is my favorite part of the movie and I can't wait till we get there because I really want to break down. Exactly. And it, it, man, it's so good, I think from the, from the point, all of them are going to the four guys flat like the and uh big Chris and dog and his group are already there. I think from that point on, it's like the best part of the movie to me. Well, because the, the weed growers know what um the people who robbed them look like and it just so happens to be kind of like the, the same. Yeah, I know you wanna break it down guys. So it's so great anyways. Um So, so yeah, so as you were explaining, they're getting together 25 there's four of them, they're getting together 25 grand each. So that their friend Eddie who's amazing at poker can beat hatchet Harry and Poker and win a bunch of money. Um I think they're looking for like $20,000.25 apiece. 20 no, no, no, it's 25 apiece but it's 20,000 gain back, right? So they're gonna each get their 25 back plus another 20 grand on top of that. So they're looking for a 20 grand return each. Um and Eddie is pretty confident he can get it. But uh this all is set up to, to, oh, I, I was talking to you about like this, this thing that they established in the beginning and where does it pay off in the end? The man on fire running out of the bar how that like plays and that's right. I, I thought that was great. Yeah, when he explains, yeah, when they explain what he did to that one guy that is, yeah, that's actually really funny. And, yeah, that, this movie definitely, I didn't have time to do it but would definitely reward like a second watch. Um, I also, so right before we go to the poker game, a bunch of more establishing stuff, we go to kind of the shitty apartment that Bacon and Eddie live in, uh, Jason Statham and, uh, Nick Moran. And they, they're like, oh, we always, we have these neighbors that we can always hear and they're like, I guess just thieves, it looks like they have this reputable shop or whatever, but they just steal shit from people. Like I couldn't even figure out, I guess they're loan sharks. Maybe, I don't know what dog actually does for his legitimate part of his business. If there is such a thing. It's kind of funny. Right, because they live on like one side of the flat and dog and his crew live on the other side of the flat and there's like a, a cab service that's in the middle. No, it's not. I think, I think it might be on the other side because the dog actually, like, throws the plank guy through the wall and he's able to see all the cash that got stolen because at the, at the beginning Jason Statham opens, you're right though. Like, basically this was like a flat that was divided in two because Jason Statham opens this door and then there's just a brick wall that was built. And I was like, why does that make sense? But it's like, oh, because it was kind of cut in half. Yeah, exactly. Um, and then we get the weed growers which, like, have a cage at their front door that never, they don't ever use. Which is, it's funny, it's very telegraphed but then the way it's used when it actually gets to, it is very smart. Like for the first time when they're about to get robbed, they've locked it. Like that's just smart to me. Oh, what's the guy? What's the guy who's like friends? The connection between dog and the weed guys? Plank? Plank? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, like Plank realizes that they never lock the cage and that's when he tells his boss, I assume it's his boss, right? Uh They never lock the cage. So it's super easy. So, so it's kind of funny because when uh Bacon and his crew are listening in on that conversation, I was kind of confused because I was like, well, why doesn't Bacon and his crew just rob the weed dealers? I don't think they know where it is. And that's the reason because I was like, they're making, it seem like robbing the weed guys is super easy. And then waiting for them to rob the weed guys and then robbing them is like, the difficult part. But then you're right. They're the only ones who knows where the location of the weed is, right. Um, and then we meet, uh, Vinnie Jones, whose name is Chris. Uh, there's a couple of cool facts about this from Vinnie Jones. So, once I already said this was his first movie. Um, but what I read is on the first day of filming, he had just been released from police custody for beating up his neighbor allegedly, I don't know, allegedly could have been, he could have been convicted. I don't know. And then, uh, he said that he was cast because in the script, the, the big Chris was described as looking like the English footballer, Vinnie Jones. So, like guy Richie had like a Vinny Jones type in mind. And Vinny Jones is like, oh, I got some time. That's hilarious. It's like, oh, oh, I, I, I'm imagining my character looking like this famous person and then the person walks in and you're like, shit, you're hired. I don't even care what, what, what's amazing too is he is actually a real like, so I think maybe one of his more famous roles now would be like Euro Trip, right? And he's just like kind of an over the top character in that. Um But he's actually like, really great in this movie. Like, his acting is really great in this, it's kind of very subtle for most parts. Yeah, I mean, uh, I, it's, when you said he's an ex football player, it surprised me to hear that because I do think he's a pretty good actor. Yeah. I also, I also remember him. One of the first things I saw him in two, which we've already done was, um, gone in 60 seconds where he plays the guy that doesn't speak for most of the movie and then he's, like, super eloquent at the very end. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um I'm trying to remember where I, like, seen him recently recently and it's two things that I remember him distinctly from, uh I watched a review of the Midnight Meat Train and he's the, he's the main character in uh Well, he's the, I don't know if you call it main character. He's the antagonist of the, the Midnight Meat Train. Um But where I've seen him first is an x-men last Stand. He's the juggernaut baby. Oh, that's right. That's right. I probably saw him in that first too. Um So after this, we get to the poker game, we've like introduced a sting. We're introduced to Barry, the Baptist who like hires these basically two fucking idiots to steal these shotguns. That is that his boss wants, which is like, that's a mistake. Why are you hiring those guys that might be my favorite plot line? Just hiring like the worst two possible people for this job. You know, they remind me of the, the, like the Cruella Deville henchman. I would have bet that that would, like, not surprise me if that was written in the script of like, who we're looking for for this. The two. Like, what's his, where are the Horus and Jasper? Jasper. Yeah, I never learned that the idiots in this movie. I never learned their names, like, throughout, um, like, I still am trying to find them in here and I M DB and I was like, I don't know, Gary and Serge maybe, I don't know. Um I know, I know one of them and they've done to my poor Gary, I thought he fucking die dude when the shotgun blast hit his head. Yeah, that is pretty funny. Well, it's also like foreshadowing because he then does get shotgun blasted like at the end. Yeah, that's true. Oh no, he gets hatted. The other guy gets shotgunned a lot of death. I thought too that they were gonna like kind of, I thought Harry didn't die because they don't show him die. They show him like they showed the dude shooting at him, right? But they don't actually show him dead and then literally gonna be like pulp fiction where it's like all the shots and then they just all miss. Oh yeah, it's if you're gonna steal, steal. Well, um so we go to the poker game and also at this time, like the other guys are at Samo and Joe's and they run into Rory and like, ask him to turn off the TV. And he just turns and looks at him, he's like, no, um, the, the card game. I once again have some like, math questions about this because it looks like Eddie is winning quite a bit. And if you started with 100,000, it looks like he's winning quite a few hands. So let's just say he's up to like 1 50 and then he has to get loaned like the other 100. So that's the 2 50 that he has to match. Then maybe, I guess, I don't know. Harry might have said like, oh no, it's 500,000. I don't know. It's, it's weird. Um But all in, all Harry has just now decided that you owe him $500,000. So I guess it's like you can't even question the math because it's just like this dude will kill you if you don't give him $500,000. What's uh what's Hatchet? Harry's um uh muscles name. Bury the Baptist, bury the Baptist. Such a great character. Such a great voice. Like everything about that dude. I love it. So he was actually a bare knuckle boxer before he got into acting. And um this film, I don't know if you saw, it is actually dedicated to him. He died before it premiered of lung cancer. So he was sick the whole time he was shooting this. Oh my God. I thought it was dedicated to someone. I didn't make the connection. It was him though. Yeah. So it's very sad but he um he is, he's so fucking good in that role. It's like, what's a good um like the guys at the end of the firm were perfect as mafia guys. He's fucking like, perfect for this Barry the Baptist roll. So it was funny because, because Taylor had a, had a problem with how uh the cheating was being done. And I was like, I was like, what do you mean? She's like, well, how is, if they have, like, a camera behind Eddie the entire time, um, how is Eddie winning anything at this point? Right. Well, like, why isn't he constantly losing? And I go, I don't know, I guess you're right. I like, why is it? It comes up and she's like, oh, I get it. It's because, uh, the Baptist is on the phone with the two idiots trying to, like, solve their issues or whatever. Um, and during that time Eddie's winning a bunch of hands. Well, and then also at one point you see Barry the Baptist, like, hitting the thing trying to get it to work again and then he gets it to work and he sees, I mean, it's also just horrible card discipline from Eddie to have it, like, out like that. You gotta bring it in tight so only you can see it, you know, to the chest. So he's, he's just a little too uh nonchalant. Um I love like right after this. So basically Eddie just goes and gets drunk for two days. So now we're down to five days but the cook, uh who I guess his name is soap in this um is like, let's just refuse to pay. And Jason Statham is like, do you, do you not know who Harry the hatch is? And then tells a story about how he beat a guy to death with a 15 inch black dildo while this is happening. Hold on while this is happening. It's one of my favorite favorite uh scenes in the movie is they're at a bar where they're telling the story and they all order drinks and they bring them like these fruity pineapple cocktails. And Jason Statham was like, what the fuck is this? And the, the bartenders like it's a cocktail like you asked for. He's like, he's like you can fall in, fall in love with an orangutan in this thing. It's like all this like pineapple uh topping and stuff like that. And he's like, I wanna, I want a cocktail. He's like that is a cocktail. He's like, I thought this was a bar. He's like, it's a Samoan bar. It's like, it's like, well, I just want a beer. It's like we don't serve beer and it's like I thought this was a bar. He goes, it is, it's a Samoan bar. I don't know that whole thing is just so funny to me. I think you could do that about, like, fucking everything. Like, the, one of my favorite bits is when, uh Tom and Nick, the Greek are like, haggling over the stereo and he, he's like $100 is $100 and Tom is like, yeah, except it's not when it's $200. And one thing I didn't notice is he's like, well, what else do I get? And he hands him this shit, this shitty red phone and then he's using it later the whole time the whole, throughout the entire rest of the movie, he just says like what a cheap, like a cheap piece of shit. He is. Um So then also at this time we get the loan sharks are hitting golf balls at this guy. Um then Plank goes to the weed guys and this part is like where I think it's a little too telegraphed but I mean, it happens next. So it's not like that big a deal, but Plank like knocks over a bunch of money and they're like, oh why are you, you know, Plank has seen all of our money. It's like just so obvious what's gonna happen next because there was a scene earlier where dog is like planks like why am I only getting this much in dog? It is like when you come up with the hits, then you'll get paid more. So it's just like all I if if I had like, one complaint about this movie is it's too telegraphed and like, what's gonna happen, it's too, like, easy to follow. I'll tell you why, why. That's not a problem for me. Their accents make it so fucking hard to understand. But I'm glad it is like, literally laid out in this black and white thing because if it, if it wasn't and I had to get over their accents, I would be totally lost, man. I also love the uh dildo idea from Tom about like the, we have the check paid to one company and then we offer them a refund from this other company that's like a very long offensive name. And it's like, and who's gonna cash that at their bank? So their bank knows that this is what they're into, uh which apparently that idea was like stolen from a book or something, but it's fucking great except how great that idea is. It would not work today because everything is done online and you can get like anonymously refunded online. Well, this is 98 didn't work that way. Um So then uh we find out that the idiots sold the guns to Nick who sold the guns to Tom. Um I like when Vinnie Jones goes to sting, it's a great scene where he's like, you know, your boy uh fucked up and Harry, Harry wants your bar, he's always wanted your bar. Um And stings like, well, I know how you feel about cursing. So I'll just say this, tell Harry to go fuck himself, which I, I we didn't even talk about the sons with uh Vinnie Jones and his son in the beginning with the guy who they're getting money from is so great in the, in the tanner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, so good. Um And Vinnie Jones like I'm gonna take that a shock and I'll give you another chance. I, I love that sting is just like, you know, I thought, oh he's gonna feel like he's gonna lose his bar and stings like I'm never giving up my bar like fuck, fuck my son. That's his debt like it doesn't affect me. Yeah. Um And then soap bringing the knives are so fucking funny. He's like, why didn't you bring any big knives? And he pulls out like a machete basically. Yeah. Uh And then I think knives are a good idea. Big fuck off shiny ones is also like a great line from him. Um So, so back to the plot kind of um so we're getting down to the part where they lost all the money from the poker game game and they're all thinking where, where are we gonna get half a million dollars, right? Because if they're like every day that they're laid on the money, a finger of theirs is gonna get cut off by the Baptist um at the request of, of hatchet Harry. So we get to the, to the point where they overhear Doug and his crew and they're like, I, you know, Eddie's like, I know how to do this. So this starting at this point, this is where all the layers are coming together, right? Because at this point, um the two dumb um henchmen have stolen the guns. I OK, I have to say another great, great line is when uh the Baptist is hiring them, they're like, what's in it for us? And he's like, it's an old fucking house. It's in the state. You have antiques. It's like, what are we gonna do with fucking antiques? Um Anyway, so the, the, oh and he's like bad, the Baptist is walking away and he's like, oh those northern idiots and then, and then they're like that southern, you know, whatever. Uh I just love all the dialogue in this movie. Sorry, I love, I love when the guys are going to steal the guns and he's like, hey, you gotta put a mask on. He's like, I just got my hair done. You fucking an idiot if you think that I'm gonna put stocking over this and then he gets a shot off. It looks like, yeah, it looks like I don't even know. So, yeah, I'm, I'm kind of ready to talk to the robbery about the robbery. Um I look like, so they go in and for the first time the cage is locked and then Plank pulls out the gun on the sky and he just immediately faints and I, I love too that they shoot off, they're like, threaten to shoot off his foot. They do it and you don't even get to see it until later on when other people come and his foot's just, like, fucking missing almost. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're like, the rest of the weed guys are hiding up in their after with an air soft gun basically. Yeah, like a B B gun like a high powered B B gun and it's just shooting them in the neck. Although I have to say uh growing up a lot of my uh my buddies around the neighborhood had B B guns. Yeah, like with the not plastic but like the metal, the metal ones. Yeah. And like my biggest fear is getting shot in the eye or shot in the neck uh and just fucking bleeding out or losing an eye. Um But yeah, Plank was shot in the neck and he's just continuously bleeding and you just have an artery like shot in your neck and you just have, I already have one missing man. I can't afford them hitting the other one. Um No, but so yeah, and so uh they're being shot like they're being mildly inconvenienced by this B B gun shot in the neck, shot in the arm. He's like, oh that stings. And then um what I love is there's this running joke that um, what's his name? Willie? The tall lanky one. I don't know. I think it's Harry. He brings a girl in that's like half conscious and no one, no one really pays her any mind because she's so quiet and she blends in with the furniture. Right. I think it's Willie. Willie. Willie. Yeah. And so, um, there's this moment where they're threatening, uh, that they're gonna shoot his foot off unless they not only, hey, listen, come down, open the cage, let us in. But also how many people do you have? And you better not lie to us. It's like it's only the three of us. And then you find out that the girl is up there and the girl basically kills them all. But I'm thinking, wow, they risk, they risk it by lying about her. But then it occurred to me it's like they even forgot that she was there. She was the fifth person they lied about uh Willie, I think because they had that. They had already lied to Plank when Plank came because Willie was the one that let him in Willie or Winston. Who fuck cares. I think it's Willie. No. Yeah, Winston's the main drug guy, but they had already lied that Willie wasn't there because he was kind of Plank's connection to get in and they didn't want plant to get in. So, Plank was like, yeah, yeah, they, he's not here. Um My favorite line from all this too. Is like, they're getting shot with the air, soft guns and dog is like, would you all quit getting shot? Um, and then they bring out the real big fucking gun. Yeah. Which is a nice, like, she just starts shooting everything. I liked it. I mean, obviously I, I like that instead of like killing her afterwards, he just kind of punches her and knocks her out. It's like, it's like, you know, he has to do something to her, but he was like, kind of nice about it in the, as, as nice as he could because she just killed one of his dudes. But, um, the traffic warden that shows up is, uh, I don't know if you wreck that. Have you seen the movie the trip? Uh No. So it's, uh, Rob Brydon plays the traffic cop, which I did not recognize him the first time I watched it because I had not seen the trip. I mean, he's obviously, I think, fairly famous over there, but that's what I know him from. Um, and then, so then our four main guys steal this money back and as it happens, I was like, oh, that was fairly easy and I, you know, I didn't remember much from this movie so it was kind of almost the first watch for me again. Um, it was like, that was, you know, that was too easy and it's funny is things kind of keep coming up for the rest of the movie, but it all feels too easy, like the whole time, you know what I mean? It's like everything sort of works out after the poker game for them. Yeah. No, no, it's like, it's like, convenient. Right? It's like, ok, so we're gonna steal there, there and there and it's like, it just so happens that dogs men comes in at the same time that all of, um, uh, who's, who's, they're, they're stealing weed from a guy but then selling it back to him. What's his name? Uh Rory. Rory, right? So Rory's guys go all in at the same time, dogs men goes all in and they mistaken each other for the opposed, you know, for, for our four main guys. And so there's just a giant shootout and everyone dies and like that part is really convenient for our main characters. Well, I think one thing that the movie does good that I didn't catch on to is so the, the drug guys are talking about how they have a backer, but they don't really mention who it is. And then Nick has started talking to Rory about giving him a sample and they've talked about a price and then when, uh, when he brings Rory the sample, Rory's like, take it to the chemist. So it was like, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Uh And then it's like that's when everything sort of comes together. So they realize they've been robbed and you see the one guy with his foot just shot off, like sitting on the ground as soon as, as soon as Rory says, take you to the chemist Taylor and I look at each other and she goes, I wonder who they are. I bet she saw that from the beginning, did she? Um So then after that, you have our main guys that are just getting drunk at a bar the whole time as like all of this shit is happening, Nick, the Greek is like leaving town Rory like dog has already discovered like the money of their next door neighbors. It's funny like all these lines where he's like, like they're looking for it. Don't even get me started about how the two idiot wait. So they never delivered the, the, the shotguns to Harry. They sold them to Nick, they sold them to Nick. I sold them to Tom. Yeah. Well, yeah, they sold them to Nick who sold them to Tom. But why didn't they give them to Harry? Because they were hired to give them to Harry. They didn't know they said all Barry gave them the instructions of all the guns in the cabinet. So they gave all the guns in the cabinet to Harry. The other rifles were being held by the guy that shot at them. The old guy, like the butler guy. Oh, so there's really bad instructions on Barry, the Baptist part, honestly. Seriously. Um Yeah, so, so those two guns had, had to be, had, have been bought back. It's like 700 quid or pounds or whatever they deal with. Um, uh, for the both of them. Right. So, it's like 3 50 each. And then you find out later they're both, they're worth like, $200,000. Yeah. Um, I like the lines too. Like Roy and Nick the Greek. He's like, your stupidity might be your saving grace because I know if you knew this was my stuff, like you wouldn't have done this. Um And the scene before where Nick the Greek breaks the table with his glass was like it was just an accident that they kept in the movie. So it wasn't like it wasn't intentional. Um The second part where he puts it down again and there's no glass. Um I also like the, it's kind of almost a little too cute, but he's like you guys couldn't, you know, dog is talking to all these people and they haven't been able to find him and he's like you couldn't find him if they're the next door fucking neighbors. And like earlier Eddie had said, oh, next door, we're the next door neighbors. It's the last place to look and then, then he throws plank through a wall and you know, Plank sees it and then that kind of sets up basically the ending, right? Dog is at the guy's place, they're at a bar. Rory is heading over with his men. Um, and I like the shootouts very funny. So basically everyone's dead and Rory once again has come out unscathed and the chemist is there too and then Rory turns plank over and they kill each other and then the chemist runs out, but I love the dog stuff with Harry and, and Vinnie Jones. So Vinnie Jones head butts him and takes the guns and the, and the money and then the, the guys show up with no one else there and they're like, shit, our money is gone. So they're like freaking out. But then Vinnie takes it to Harry and it's like, yep, this is the money they would have given you. And he's like, oh, so, well, then why did you take it? And he's like, you know, you can never be too careful. So it's like the guys don't realize it, but their debt has been paid off because of the way Vinnie Jones has told Harry that like, yeah, this is the money they were gonna give you. It's all there. Like their debt is paid. The, the only, and I love all this. The only part of that whole thing that I had a problem with is dog throwing plank food through the plaster. Too convenient, too convenient. I wish there was, there was some other little like dodgy way that happened but whatever. Um, and then, and then the guys roll up. Well, so, yeah, so they're, well, Harry, uh, Eddie and the guys call Harry and Harry's like, yeah, you've been paid, but I want to know where the fuck you got these rifles. And so they're heading over but then the idiots go to Rob Harry of the guns that they're supposed to give to Harry, which is just a whole, like, that's a hilarious way for that. They're following Vinnie, they're following Big Chris because they know that he has the guns, but they don't know that they're working for the same guys that they're working with. So they're just wanting to steal back from the guy that they're hired to. Oh, fuck, dude. So then, uh they go in and they basically, everyone dies from that and Vinnie goes back to his car and dog is holding a knife to Little Chris's throat, right? Um And so he, you know, it's funny. So the guys have gone in, they, uh Eddie comes back out with 500,000. He's just like, I think we're in the clear as like Vinnie jones' car hits the back and I read that um guy Ritchie told Vinny Jones to just like, just go as crazy as you want with this scene and like, apparently like the cameramen were all kind of like fucking scared about it because for the most part, he doesn't do stuff like this in the movie. He's very like, calm and reserved. But when you watch that scene, if it comes out of nowhere, you're like, holy fuck. This guy's crazy. I thought it was awesome. I love it. And then I thought if we saw the body, like we saw the head, how brutal that would look. And I'm glad there would be no head. No, there's actually a really similar scene. Um I know you don't watch the, like the Netflix Marvel shows, but there's a similar scene in Daredevil where Kingpin loses it and he smashes the guy's head in, uh, with the car door and you see it actually. And, yeah, you're right after that. There is no head. So then he goes back in, after finding the money. I like how he, he, he goes to check if Eddie's all right. And then he sees the money. He's like, oh, you cheeky bastards. And then, like, although he probably doesn't say bastards because he doesn't swear, but he goes inside and, um, and sees Tom there with the guns and they kind of just look at each other and, like, Vinny is about to pull out like a knife, I think, to throw at him or maybe a weapon. I don't know. And, um, they basically just have an understanding of, like, all right, you have the money, I'll have the guns. Um, and then they sort of go their separate ways. One cool thing I read, um, when Vinnie Jones takes the money and the guns to Harry. Harry is holding the guns and he's like, oh, do you wanna hold it to Vinnie Jones. He's like, ah, better not. And apparently the reason that's in there is because Harry wants Vinny Jones fingerprints on the gun so that it may eventually he can kind of like, if they don't need him anymore can, like, kind of get him hit for a crime. You know what I mean? Like, they can use the guns in some way and, like, they'd be tied back to him. Um, I don't know if that's like, just someone's like fan theory or what, but it's kind of interesting. It sort of makes sense. Um, and then I, I love the ending about this. It's kind of, it's kind of convenient just to have like this funny ending. Right. So they tell Tom, hey, throw away the guns, those are the only things that tie us to it. And then, and then Vinnie Jones comes in. He's like, hey, you know, um, I want to take this back because it's yours, you know. Um, but I'm out of a job. So I took some of it for me, um, for me and my son to set us up and then he's got like a new car outside, but when you open the bag, there's nothing in it. Right? And I guess maybe that what he is giving him is like, hey, those guns are worth a lot of money. You probably don't know that. Um, and then, like, they start trying to call Tom as he throws the guns and, like, he misses the water and like, he puts the phone in his mouth because he can't hold it and the lamp post as he's trying to knock the guns into the water and then he's receiving the call and it's the perfect, like, freeze frame ending. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. No, I, I walked away from this movie feeling really good about everything that happened. Like, I feel like everyone, there's a moment where Rory goes in to like, check the, um, the massacre that happened between his men and dogs, men. And there's this great thing where I think his plank is still alive and he has a gun, um, pulled up already on Rory and Rory already has the gun pulled on him. And all you hear is the two simultaneous shots going off and they're just both dead and it's just like everything takes care of itself. And I think what, as dog is leaving, right? Or as who's carrying the, the bag, um, dogs carrying the bag. But then Winston, the drug guy carrying another bag out too, I think like some of the drugs. So it's Winston then. Yeah. So, and he just got away Scott Free, I guess he did, didn't he? But now he doesn't have like a main guy. He's just like the chemist. So he doesn't have the guy that sells it. So he's in a, he's gotta find someone new to work with. But Yeah, I feel like, I feel like it was a good ending because it was like, uh, Eddie, I guess you would call Eddie our main, main character out of all the four guys. But, um, he doesn't die and basically he doesn't get anything with it, but he's still alive at the end, which is really all you can ask, you know, so you can ask for. So in the end they either basically just lost their initial $25,000 investment, which would suck or they made, what, uh, would it be? So, if they made 100 and 50 divided by four, that's like 25 37.5 or something like that, a piece of their 50 off the guns. Yeah, they thought they were 250,000 for the two guns. So, it's the, it's said between 203 100 they were appraised between 203 100,000. But I, it didn't make it obvious to me if it was each or for both guns. Yeah. I don't know. I thought it was for both but it doesn't matter. But anyway, yeah, either they kind of lost a little bit, which sucks. Or they made a little bit, they made basically the profit they thought they would have made off the poker game originally if they get the guns. So it's almost like a, was like nothing happened. It's like either they lost or everything worked out. Like the way they thought it would in the, in the end. Um One final thing I want to say before we go is I read this story, which is pretty cool. Um So one of the executive producers, Trudy Styler, um she like this movie was having trouble getting distribution and so she called an acquaintance of hers to help them get distribution and that was Tom Cruise. I knew it, I knew it was gonna be Tom Cruise. I was like, who's it gonna be Tom Cruise? I should have said it fuck. So he apparently attended a screening. I gonna be Tom Cruise. So he, as the story goes, he attended a screening of the movie and he like walks in there with a bunch of other executives and when they see Tom Cruise walk in, they're like, oh what the fuck. And then they play the movie and after the movie ends, he apparently stands up and says this is the best movie I've seen in years. You guys would be fools not to buy it. And when I read that exact quote, I was like, I can see Tom like Tom Cruise saying fools like you guys would be fools not to buy it like it. That part made it ring true to me his Jerry Maguire impression. So um we owe guy Ritchie his career and we owe like all of these like London gangster movies to Tom Cruise. So thank you again, Tom Cruise. Um As you know, I, we, we talked a lot about the plot and, you know, we already kind of you and I talked about how great the dialogue is through this entire film, but we didn't want to spend too long picking out every line. I'm just gonna, and I, and I, I love the movie as a whole. Um But I'm just gonna leave my part to this, the funniest fucking thing in this movie is how much they rag on fat man. It's like the skinniest guy in the movie. They just keep going. What a, what a complex they give this dude and, and then from like walking to the grocery store and being like, oh my God, what have you eaten to like me? Bacon and Eddie are gonna go this way and fat man, you go this way and then he just like, wait, who's fat man? It's like, I don't understand. I agree. Yeah. That is like the, the, the commitment to that joke? Well, thanks for listening to another episode of, I finally watched, this is David and this is a, and I finally watched Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels----more----

In this episode Dan & Henry discuss; classy marketing, dark origins, & where's our Elephant ?

Hello everyone and welcome to the WDW Mainstreet podcast. Pull up your stool with John and Doug as they discuss all of the latest news from around Walt Disney World and their worlds.  The guys start the showoff with their normal nonsense, then get into some character dining pricings and menus. More news, topiaries up around Epcot, more park reservation are available for annual passholders, Rock and Roller coaster changing band name plus so much more. So, grab yourself a cold one, sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

Help produce Basic Folk by contributing at https://basicfolk.com/donate/By the mid-2010's Canadian rock legend Tom Wilson's life was already pretty epic: he had perfected his blue collar roots rock sound in his bands Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and his seminal 90's outfit Junkhouse. He was a home-grown rock and roller with humble Hamilton, Ontario roots. In addition to his musical output, he had overcome addiction, he was a father, grandfather and painter. However, his life completely changed when, by chance, he discovered he had been adopted and that he was actually of full blood Mohawk descent and not Irish like he was raised to believe. His birth-mother was actually a “cousin” of his, who had been forced into Canada's cruel residential schools. The people he thought were his parents, had actually been his great Aunt and Uncle. At 53 years old, his world was about to get 100% more wild.Ever since then, Tom has been on a path to identity. He's written a memoir, made a documentary, an album as his musical alter-ego Lee Harvey Osmond and his latest project, collaborating with fellow Canadian, the Cree-Métis musician iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ. Tom's new mission at this point in his life is to tell his story, “Our greatest job as storytellers is to open up the door to the next person and let them know they can tell their stories too.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Rockshow episode 169 Jerry Lee Lewis The show was scheduled for December but because of the recent death of Jerry Lee Lewis we moved it up the schedule. So watch and celebrate the the life of Jerry Lee Lewis and thank you for subscribing. Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Nicknamed "the Killer", he was described as "rock and roll's first great wild man and one of the most influential pianists of the 20th century". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, and early recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. "Crazy Arms" sold 300,000 copies in the South, and his 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" shot Lewis to fame worldwide. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential". His rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old cousin once removed. Lewis had a dozen gold records in rock and country. He won four Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre was recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022. In 1989, his life was chronicled in the movie Great Balls of Fire, starring Dennis Quaid. In 2003, Rolling Stone listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology at number 242 on their list of "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2004, they ranked him No. 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Lewis was the last surviving member of Sun Records' Million Dollar Quartet and the album Class of '55, which also included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley. Music critic Robert Christgau said of Lewis: "His drive, his timing, his offhand vocal power, his unmistakable boogie-plus piano, and his absolute confidence in the face of the void make Jerry Lee the quintessential rock and roller." https://jerryleelewis.com/ https://m.facebook.com/JerryLeeLewis/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jerry-lee-lewis-dead-obituary-1234616945/amp/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/2zyz0VJqrDXeFDIyrfVXSo https://www.instagram.com/jerryleelewisthekiller/?hl=en https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4bB5xL577r4&autoplay=1 https://twitter.com/jerryleelewis?lang=en @Jerryleelewis @Greatballsoffire @Thekiller @breathless @sunrecord @pianoplayer @rockabilly #Jerryleelewis #greatballsoffire #rockabilly #rocknroll #piano #sunrecord Please follow us on Youtube,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter,Patreon and at www.gettinglumpedup.com https://linktr.ee/RobRossi Get your T-shirt at https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/gettinglumpedup And https://www.bonfire.com/store/getting-lumped-up/ https://app.hashtag.expert/?fpr=roberto-rossi80 https://dc2bfnt-peyeewd4slt50d2x1b.hop.clickbank.net Subscribe to the channel and hit the like button This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-lumped-up-with-rob-rossi/id1448899708 https://open.spotify.com/show/00ZWLZaYqQlJji1QSoEz7a https://www.patreon.com/Gettinglumpedup --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support

This episode of THE Underground Source of El Paso, TX features local rock and roller - the prolific, terrific, decibel bustin' Melt Citizen! We mainy discuss his new 10 track album "Joylessness" while fending off mosquitoes at Thomas Manor Park - includes bonus horror movie chat towards the end! Enjoy boils and ghouls! Follow Melt Citizen on Instagram - @meltcitizen - and hit the link in the bio! This episode produced by M. De Santiago and G. Armendariz. Edited and Hosted by M. De Santiago. Intro/outro music by Melt Citizen. Intro song: "Even When I Can't Think, I Think of You" Outro song clip: "Some Kind of Indifference" - both taken from Melt Citizen's "Joylessness" album. Cover photograph by YouKnowWho. RATED CHLL.

Episode one hundred and fifty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs is the last of our four-part mini-series on LA sunshine pop and folk-rock in summer 1967. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode available, on "Baby, Now That I've Found You" by the Foundations. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There is no Mixcloud this week, because there were too many Turtles songs in the episode. There's relatively little information available about the Turtles compared to other bands of their era, and so apart from the sources on the general LA scene referenced in all these podcasts, the information here comes from a small number of sources. This DVD is a decent short documentary on the band's career. Howard Kaylan's autobiography, Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, Etc.,  is a fun read, if inevitably biased towards his own viewpoint. Jim Pons' Hard Core Love: Sex, Football, and Rock and Roll in the Kingdom of God is much less fun, being as it is largely organised around how his life led up to his latter-day religious beliefs, but is the only other book I'm aware of with a substantial amount of coverage of the Turtles. There are many compilations of the Turtles' material available, of which All The Singles is by far and away the best. The box set of all their albums with bonus tracks is now out of print on CD, but can still be bought as MP3s. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript We've spent a lot of time recently in the LA of summer 1967, at the point where the sunshine pop sound that was created when the surf harmonies of the Beach Boys collided with folk rock was at its apex, right before fashions changed and tight sunny pop songs with harmonies from LA became yesterday's news, and extended blues-rock improvisations from San Francisco became the latest in thing. This episode is the last part of this four-episode sequence, and is going to be shorter than those others. In many ways this one is a bridge between this sequence and next episode, where we travel back to London, because we're saying goodbye for a while to the LA scene, and when we do return to LA it will be, for the most part, to look at music that's a lot less sunshine and a lot more shadow. So this is a brief fade-out while we sing ba-ba-ba, a three-minute pop-song of an episode, a last bit of sunshine pop before we return to longer, more complicated, stories  in two weeks' time, at which point the sun will firmly set. Like many musicians associated with LA, Howard Kaylan was born elsewhere and migrated there as a child, and he seems to have regarded his move from upstate New York to LA as essentially a move to Disneyland itself. That impression can only have been made stronger by the fact that soon after his family moved there he got his first childhood girlfriend -- who happened to be a Mouseketeer on the TV. And TV was how young Howard filtered most of his perceptions -- particularly TV comedy. By the age of fourteen he was the president of the Soupy Sales Fan Club, and he was also obsessed with the works of Ernie Kovacs, Sid Caesar, and the great satirist and parodist Stan Freberg: [Excerpt: Stan Freberg, "St. George and the Dragonet"] Second only to his love of comedy, though, was his love of music, and it was on the trip from New York to LA that he saw a show that would eventually change his life. Along the way, his family had gone to Las Vegas, and while there they had seen Louis Prima and Keeley Smith do their nightclub act. Prima is someone I would have liked to do a full podcast episode on when I was covering the fifties, and who I did do a Patreon bonus episode on. He's now probably best known for doing the voice of King Louis in the Jungle Book: [Excerpt: Louis Prima, "I Wanna Be Like You (the Monkey Song)"] But he was also a jump blues musician who made some very good records in a similar style to Louis Jordan, like "Jump, Jive, an' Wail" [Excerpt: Louis Prima, "Jump, Jive, an' Wail"] But like Jordan, Prima dealt at least as much in comedy as in music -- usually comedy involving stereotypes about his Italian-American ethnic origins. At the time young Howard Kaylan saw him, he was working a double act with his then-wife Keeley Smith. The act would consist of Smith trying to sing a song straight, while Prima would clown around, interject, and act like a fool, as Smith grew more and more exasperated, and would eventually start contemptuously mocking Prima. [Excerpt: Louis Prima and Keeley Smith, "Embraceable You/I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good"] This is of course a fairly standard double-act format, as anyone who has suffered through an episode of The Little and Large Show will be all too painfully aware, but Prima and Smith did it better than most, and to young Howard Kaylan, this was the greatest entertainment imaginable. But while comedy was the closest thing to Kaylan's heart, music was a close second. He was a regular listener to Art Laboe's radio show, and in a brief period as a teenage shoplifter he obtained records like Ray Charles' album Genius + Soul = Jazz: [Excerpt: Ray Charles, "One Mint Julep"] and the single "Tossin' and Turnin'" by Bobby Lewis: [Excerpt: Bobby Lewis, "Tossin' and Turnin'"] "Tossin' and Turnin'" made a deep impression on Kaylan, because of the saxophone solo, which was actually a saxophone duet. On the record, baritone sax player Frank Henry played a solo, and it was doubled by the great tenor sax player King Curtis, who was just playing a mouthpiece rather than a full instrument, making a high-pitched squeaking sound: [Excerpt: Bobby Lewis, "Tossin' and Turnin'"] Curtis was of course also responsible for another great saxophone part a couple of years earlier, on a record that Kaylan loved because it combined comedy and rock and roll, "Yakety Yak": [Excerpt: The Coasters, "Yakety Yak"] Those two saxophone parts inspired Kaylan to become a rock and roller. He was already learning the clarinet and playing part time in an amateur Dixieland band, and it was easy enough to switch to saxophone, which has the same fingering. Within a matter of weeks of starting to play sax, he was invited to join a band called the Nightriders, who consisted of Chuck Portz on bass, Al Nichol on guitar, and Glen Wilson on drums. The Nightriders became locally popular, and would perform sets largely made up of Johnny and the Hurricanes and Ventures material. While he was becoming a budding King Curtis, Kaylan was still a schoolkid, and one of the classes he found most enjoyable was choir class. There was another kid in choir who Kaylan got on with, and one day that kid, Mark Volman came up to him, and had a conversation that Kaylan would recollect decades later in his autobiography: “So I hear you're in a rock 'n' roll band.” “Yep.” “Um, do you think I could join it?” “Well, what do you do?” “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “Nope.” “Sounds good to me. I'll ask Al.” Volman initially became the group's roadie and occasional tambourine player, and would also get on stage to sing a bit during their very occasional vocal numbers, but was mostly "in the band" in name only at first -- he didn't get a share of the group's money, but he was allowed to say he was in the group because that meant that his friends would come to the Nightriders' shows, and he was popular among the surfing crowd. Eventually, Volman's father started to complain that his son wasn't getting any money from being in the band, while the rest of the group were, and they explained to him that Volman was just carrying the instruments while they were all playing them. Volman's father said "if Mark plays an instrument, will you give him equal shares?" and they said that that was fair, so Volman got an alto sax to play along with Kaylan's tenor. Volman had also been taking clarinet lessons, and the two soon became a tight horn section for the group, which went through a few lineup changes and soon settled on a lineup of Volman and Kaylan on saxes, Nichol on lead guitar, Jim Tucker on rhythm guitar, Portz on bass, and Don Murray on drums. That new lineup became known as the Crossfires, presumably after the Johnny and the Hurricanes song of the same name: [Excerpt: Johnny and the Hurricanes, "Crossfire"] Volman and Kaylan worked out choreographed dance steps to do while playing their saxes, and the group even developed a group of obsessive fans who called themselves the Chunky Club, named after one of the group's originals: [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "Chunky"] At this point the group were pretty much only playing instrumentals, though they would do occasional vocals on R&B songs like "Money" or their version of Don and Dewey's "Justine", songs which required more enthusiasm than vocal ability. But their first single, released on a tiny label, was another surf instrumental, a song called "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde": [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde"] The group became popular enough locally that they became the house band at the Revelaire Club in Redondo Beach. There as well as playing their own sets, they would also be the backing band for any touring acts that came through without their own band, quickly gaining the kind of performing ability that comes from having to learn a new artist's entire repertoire in a few days and be able to perform it with them live with little or no rehearsal. They backed artists like the Coasters, the Drifters, Bobby Vee, the Rivingtons, and dozens of other major acts, and as part of that Volman and Kaylan would, on songs that required backing vocals, sing harmonies rather than playing saxophone. And that harmony-singing ability became important when the British Invasion happened, and suddenly people didn't want to hear surf instrumentals, but vocals along the lines of the new British groups. The Crossfires' next attempt at a single was another original, this one an attempt at sounding like one of their favourite new British groups, the Kinks: [Excerpt: The Crossfires, "One Potato, Two Potato"] This change to vocals necessitated a change in the group dynamic. Volman and Kaylan ditched the saxophones, and discovered that between them they made one great frontman. The two have never been excessively close on a personal level, but both have always known that the other has qualities they needed. Frank Zappa would later rather dismissively say "I regard Howard as a fine singer, and Mark as a great tambourine player and fat person", and it's definitely true that Kaylan is one of the truly great vocalists to come out of the LA scene in this period, while Volman is merely a good harmony singer, not anything particularly special -- though he *is* a good harmony singer -- but it undersells Volman's contribution. There's a reason the two men performed together for nearly sixty years. Kaylan is a great singer, but also by nature rather reserved, and he always looked uncomfortable on stage, as well as, frankly, not exactly looking like a rock star (Kaylan describes himself not inaccurately as looking like a potato several times in his autobiography). Volman, on the other hand, is a merely good singer, but he has a naturally outgoing personality, and while he's also not the most conventionally good-looking of people he has a *memorable* appearance in a way that Kaylan doesn't. Volman could do all the normal frontman stuff, the stuff that makes a show an actual show -- the jokes, the dancing, the between-song patter, the getting the crowd going, while Kaylan could concentrate on the singing. They started doing a variation on the routine that had so enthralled Howard Kaylan when he'd seen Louis Prima and Keeley Smith do it as a child. Kaylan would stand more or less stock still, looking rather awkward, but singing like an angel, while Volman would dance around, clown, act the fool, and generally do everything he could to disrupt the performance -- short of actually disrupting it in reality. It worked, and Volman became one of that small but illustrious group of people -- the band member who makes the least contribution to the sound of the music but the biggest contribution to the feel of the band itself, and without whom they wouldn't be the same. After "One Potato, Two Potato" was a flop, the Crossfires were signed to their third label. This label, White Whale, was just starting out, and the Crossfires were to become their only real hit act. Or rather, the Turtles were. The owners of White Whale knew that they didn't have much promotional budget and that their label was not a known quantity -- it was a tiny label with no track record. But they thought of a way they could turn that to their advantage. Everyone knew that the Beatles, before Capitol had picked up their contracts, had had their records released on a bunch of obscure labels like Swan and Tollie. People *might* look for records on tiny independent labels if they thought it might be another British act who were unknown in the US but could be as good as the Beatles. So they chose a name for the group that they thought sounded as English as possible -- an animal name that started with "the", and ended in "les", just like the Beatles. The group, all teenagers at the time, were desperate enough that they agreed to change their name, and from that point on they became the Turtles. In order to try and jump on as many bandwagons as possible, the label wanted to position them as a folk-rock band, so their first single under the Turtles name was a cover of a Bob Dylan song, from Another Side of Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "It Ain't Me Babe"] That song's hit potential had already been seen by Johnny Cash, who'd had a country hit with it a few months before. But the Turtles took the song in a different direction, inspired by Kaylan's *other* great influence, along with Prima and Smith. Kaylan was a big fan of the Zombies, one of the more interesting of the British Invasion groups, and particularly of their singer Colin Blunstone. Kaylan imitated Blunstone on the group's hit single, "She's Not There", on which Blunstone sang in a breathy, hushed, voice on the verses: [Excerpt: The Zombies, "She's Not There"] before the song went into a more stomping chorus on which Blunstone sang in a fuller voice: [Excerpt: The Zombies, "She's Not There"] Kaylan did this on the Turtles' version of "It Ain't Me Babe", starting off with a quiet verse: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "It Ain't Me Babe"] Before, like the Zombies, going into a foursquare, more uptempo, louder chorus: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "It Ain't Me Babe"] The single became a national top ten hit, and even sort of got the approval of Bob Dylan. On the group's first national tour, Dylan was at one club show, which they ended with "It Ain't Me Babe", and after the show the group were introduced to the great songwriter, who was somewhat the worse for wear. Dylan said “Hey, that was a great song you just played, man. That should be your single", and then passed out into his food. With the group's first single becoming a top ten hit, Volman and Kaylan got themselves a house in Laurel Canyon, which was not yet the rock star Mecca it was soon to become, but which was starting to get a few interesting residents. They would soon count Henry Diltz of the Modern Folk Quartet, Danny Hutton, and Frank Zappa among their neighbours. Soon Richie Furay would move in with them, and the house would be used by the future members of the Buffalo Springfield as their rehearsal space. The Turtles were rapidly becoming part of the in crowd. But they needed a follow-up single, and so Bones Howe, who was producing their records, brought in P.F. Sloan to play them a few of his new songs. They liked "Eve of Destruction" enough to earmark it as a possible album track, but they didn't think they would do it justice, and so it was passed on to Barry McGuire. But Sloan did have something for them -- a pseudo-protest song called "Let Me Be" that was very clearly patterned after their version of "It Ain't Me Babe", and which was just rebellious enough to make them seem a little bit daring, but which was far more teenage angst than political manifesto: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Let Me Be"] That did relatively well, making the top thirty -- well enough for the group to rush out an album which was padded out with some sloppy cover versions of other Dylan songs, a version of "Eve of Destruction", and a few originals written by Kaylan. But the group weren't happy with the idea of being protest singers. They were a bunch of young men who were more motivated by having a good time than by politics, and they didn't think that it made sense for them to be posing as angry politicised rebels. Not only that, but there was a significant drop-off between "It Ain't Me Babe" and "Let Me Be". They needed to do better. They got the clue for their new direction while they were in New York. There they saw their friends in the Mothers of Invention playing their legendary residency at the Garrick Theatre, but they also saw a new band, the Lovin' Spoonful, who were playing music that was clearly related to the music the Turtles were doing -- full of harmonies and melody, and inspired by folk music -- but with no sense of rebelliousness at all. They called it "Good Time Music": [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Good Time Music"] As soon as they got back to LA, they told Bones Howe and the executives at White Whale that they weren't going to be a folk-rock group any more, they were going to be "good time music", just like the Lovin' Spoonful. They were expecting some resistance, but they were told that that was fine, and that PF Sloan had some good time music songs too. "You Baby" made the top twenty: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Baby"] The Turtles were important enough in the hierarchy of LA stars that Kaylan and Tucker were even invited by David Crosby to meet the Beatles at Derek Taylor's house when they were in LA on their last tour -- this may be the same day that the Beatles met Brian and Carl Wilson, as I talked about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", though Howard Kaylan describes this as being a party and that sounded like more of an intimate gathering. If it was that day, there was nearly a third Beach Boy there. The Turtles knew David Marks, the Beach Boys' former rhythm guitarist, because they'd played a lot in Inglewood where he'd grown up, and Marks asked if he could tag along with Kaylan and Tucker to meet the Beatles. They agreed, and drove up to the house, and actually saw George Harrison through the window, but that was as close as they got to the Beatles that day. There was a heavy police presence around the house because it was known that the Beatles were there, and one of the police officers asked them to drive back and park somewhere else and walk up, because there had been complaints from neighbours about the number of cars around. They were about to do just that, when Marks started yelling obscenities and making pig noises at the police, so they were all arrested, and the police claimed to find a single cannabis seed in the car. Charges were dropped, but now Kaylan was on the police's radar, and so he moved out of the Laurel Canyon home to avoid bringing police attention to Buffalo Springfield, so that Neil Young and Bruce Palmer wouldn't get deported. But generally the group were doing well. But there was a problem. And that problem was their record label. They rushed out another album to cash in on the success of "You Baby", one that was done so quickly that it had "Let Me Be" on it again, just as the previous album had, and which included a version of the old standard "All My Trials", with the songwriting credited to the two owners of White Whale records. And they pumped out a lot of singles. A LOT of singles, ranging from a song written for them by new songwriter Warren Zevon, to cover versions of Frank Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year" and the old standard "We'll Meet Again". Of the five singles after "You Baby", the one that charted highest was a song actually written by a couple of the band members. But for some reason a song with verses in 5/4 time and choruses in 6/4 with lyrics like "killing the living and living to kill, the grim reaper of love thrives on pain" didn't appeal to the group's good-time music pop audience and only reached number eighty-one: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Grim Reaper of Love"] The group started falling apart. Don Murray became convinced that  the rest of the band were conspiring against him and wanted him out, so he walked out of the group in the middle of a rehearsal for a TV show. They got Joel Larson of the Grass Roots -- the group who had a number of hits with Sloan and Barri songs -- to sub for a few gigs before getting in a permanent replacement, Johnny Barbata, who came to them on the recommendation of Gene Clark, and who was one of the best drummers on the scene -- someone who was not only a great drummer but a great showman, who would twirl his drumsticks between his fingers with every beat, and who would regularly engage in drum battles with Buddy Rich. By the time they hit their fifth flop single in a row, they lost their bass player as well -- Chuck Portz decided he was going to quit music and become a fisherman instead. They replaced him with Chip Douglas of the Modern Folk Quartet. Then they very nearly lost their singers. Volman and Kaylan both got their draft notices at the same time, and it seemed likely they would end up having to go and fight in the Vietnam war. Kaylan was distraught, but his mother told him "Speak to your cousin Herb". Cousin Herb was Herb Cohen, the manager of the Mothers of Invention and numerous other LA acts, including the Modern Folk Quartet, and Kaylan only vaguely knew him at this time, but he agreed to meet up with them, and told them “Stop worrying! I got Zappa out, I got Tim Buckley out, and I'll get you out.” Cohen told Volman and Kaylan to not wash for a week before their induction, to take every drug of every different kind they could find right before going in, to deliberately disobey every order, to fail the logic tests, and to sexually proposition the male officers dealing with the induction. They followed his orders to the letter, and got marked as 4-F, unfit for service. They still needed a hit though, and eventually they found something by going back to their good-time music idea. It was a song from the Koppelman-Rubin publishing company -- the same company that did the Lovin Spoonful's management and production. The song in question was by Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner, two former members of a group called the Magicians, who had had a minor success with a single called "An Invitation to Cry": [Excerpt: The Magicians, "An Invitation to Cry"] The Magicians had split up, and Bonner and Gordon were trying to make a go of things as professional songwriters, but had had little success to this point. The song on the demo had been passed over by everyone, and the demo was not at all impressive, just a scratchy acetate with Bonner singing off-key and playing acoustic rhythm guitar and Gordon slapping his knees to provide rhythm, but the group heard something in it. They played the song live for months, refining the arrangement, before taking it into the studio. There are arguments to this day as to who deserves the credit for the sound on "Happy Together" -- Chip Douglas apparently did the bulk of the arrangement work while they were on tour, but the group's new producer, Joe Wissert, a former staff engineer for Cameo-Parkway, also claimed credit for much of it. Either way, "Happy Together" is a small masterpiece of dynamics. The song is structured much like the songs that had made the Turtles' name, with the old Zombies idea of the soft verse and much louder chorus: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together"] But the track is really made by the tiny details of the arrangement, the way instruments and vocal parts come in and out as the track builds up, dies down, and builds again. If you listen to the isolated tracks, there are fantastic touches like the juxtaposition of the bassoon and oboe (which I think is played on a mellotron): [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together", isolated tracks] And a similar level of care and attention was put into the vocal arrangement by Douglas, with some parts just Kaylan singing solo, other parts having Volman double him, and of course the famous "bah bah bah" massed vocals: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together", isolated vocals] At the end of the track, thinking he was probably going to do another take, Kaylan decided to fool around and sing "How is the weather?", which Bonner and Gordon had jokingly done on the demo. But the group loved it, and insisted that was the take they were going to use: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together"] "Happy Together" knocked "Penny Lane" by the Beatles off the number one spot in the US, but by that point the group had already had another lineup change. The Monkees had decided they wanted to make records without the hit factory that had been overseeing them, and had asked Chip Douglas if he wanted to produce their first recordings as a self-contained band. Given that the Monkees were the biggest thing in the American music industry at the time, Douglas had agreed, and so the group needed their third bass player in a year. The one they went for was Jim Pons. Pons had seen the Beatles play at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964, and decided he wanted to become a pop star. The next day he'd been in a car crash, which had paid out enough insurance money that he was able to buy two guitars, a bass, drums, and amps, and use them to start his own band. That band was originally called The Rockwells, but quickly changed their name to the Leaves, and became a regular fixture at Ciro's on Sunset Strip, first as customers, then after beating Love in the auditions, as the new resident band when the Byrds left. For a while the Leaves had occasionally had guest vocals from a singer called Richard Marin, but Pons eventually decided to get rid of him, because, as he put it "I wanted us to look like The Beatles. There were no Mexicans in The Beatles". He is at pains in his autobiography to assure us that he's not a bigot, and that Marin understood. I'm sure he did. Marin went on to be better known as Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong. The Leaves were signed by Pat Boone to his production company, and through that company they got signed to Mira Records. Their first single, produced by Nik Venet, had been a version of "Love Minus Zero (No Limit)", a song by Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Love Minus Zero (No Limit)"] That had become a local hit, though not a national one, and the Leaves had become one of the biggest bands on the Sunset Strip scene, hanging out with all the other bands. They had become friendly with the Doors before the Doors got a record deal, and Pat Boone had even asked for an introduction, as he was thinking of signing them, but unfortunately when he met Jim Morrison, Morrison had drunk a lot of vodka, and given that Morrison was an obnoxious drunk Boone had second thoughts, and so the world missed out on the chance of a collaboration between the Doors and Pat Boone. Their second single was "Hey Joe" -- as was their third and fourth, as we discussed in that episode: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe"] Their third version of "Hey Joe" had become a top forty hit, but they didn't have a follow-up, and their second album, All The Good That's Happening, while it's a good album, sold poorly. Various band members quit or fell out, and when Johnny Barbata knocked on Jim Pons' door it was an easy decision to quit and join a band that had a current number one hit. When Pons joined, the group had already recorded the Happy Together album. That album included the follow-up to "Happy Together", another Bonner and Gordon song, "She'd Rather Be With Me": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "She'd Rather Be With Me"] None of the group were tremendously impressed with that song, but it did very well, becoming the group's second-biggest hit in the US, reaching number three, and actually becoming a bigger hit than "Happy Together" in parts of Europe. Before "Happy Together" the group hadn't really made much impact outside the US. In the UK, their early singles had been released by Pye, the smallish label that had the Kinks and Donovan, but which didn't have much promotional budget, and they'd sunk without trace. For "You Baby" they'd switched to Immediate, the indie label that Andrew Oldham had set up, and it had done a little better but still not charted. But from "Happy Together" they were on Decca, a much bigger label, and "Happy Together" had made number twelve in the charts in the UK, and "She'd Rather Be With Me" reached number four. So the new lineup of the group went on a UK tour. As soon as they got to the hotel, they found they had a message from Graham Nash of the Hollies, saying he would like to meet up with them. They all went round to Nash's house, and found Donovan was also there, and Nash played them a tape he'd just been given of Sgt Pepper, which wouldn't come out for a few more days. At this point they were living every dream a bunch of Anglophile American musicians could possibly have. Jim Tucker mentioned that he would love to meet the Beatles, and Nash suggested they do just that. On their way out the door, Donovan said to them, "beware of Lennon". It was when they got to the Speakeasy club that the first faux-pas of the evening happened. Nash introduced them to Justin Hayward and John Lodge of the Moody Blues, and Volman said how much he loved their record "Go Now": [Excerpt: The Moody Blues, "Go Now"] The problem was that Hayward and Lodge had joined the group after that record had come out, to replace its lead singer Denny Laine. Oh well, they were still going to meet the Beatles, right? They got to the table where John, Paul, and Ringo were sat, at a tense moment -- Paul was having a row with Jane Asher, who stormed out just as the Turtles were getting there. But at first, everything seemed to go well. The Beatles all expressed their admiration for "Happy Together" and sang the "ba ba ba" parts at them, and Paul and Kaylan bonded over their shared love for "Justine" by Don and Dewey, a song which the Crossfires had performed in their club sets, and started singing it together: [Excerpt: Don and Dewey, "Justine"] But John Lennon was often a mean drunk, and he noticed that Jim Tucker seemed to be the weak link in the group, and soon started bullying him, mocking his clothes, his name, and everything he said. This devastated Tucker, who had idolised Lennon up to that point, and blurted out "I'm sorry I ever met you", to which Lennon just responded "You never did, son, you never did". The group walked out, hurt and confused -- and according to Kaylan in his autobiography, Tucker was so demoralised by Lennon's abuse that he quit music forever shortly afterwards, though Tucker says that this wasn't the reason he quit. From their return to LA on, the Turtles would be down to just a five-piece band. After leaving the club, the group went off in different directions, but then Kaylan (and this is according to Kaylan's autobiography, there are no other sources for this) was approached by Brian Jones, asking for his autograph because he loved the Turtles so much. Jones introduced Kaylan to the friend he was with, Jimi Hendrix, and they went out for dinner, but Jones soon disappeared with a girl he'd met. and left Kaylan and Hendrix alone. They were drinking a lot -- more than Kaylan was used to -- and he was tired, and the omelette that Hendrix had ordered for Kaylan was creamier than he was expecting... and Kaylan capped what had been a night full of unimaginable highs and lows by vomiting all over Jimi Hendrix's expensive red velvet suit. Rather amazingly after all this, the Moody Blues, the Beatles, and Hendrix, all showed up to the Turtles' London gig and apparently enjoyed it. After "She'd Rather Be With Me", the next single to be released wasn't really a proper single, it was a theme song they'd been asked to record for a dire sex comedy titled "Guide for the Married Man", and is mostly notable for being composed by John Williams, the man who would later go on to compose the music for Star Wars. That didn't chart, but the group followed it with two more top twenty hits written by Bonner and Gordon, "You Know What I Mean" and "She's My Girl". But then the group decided that Bonner and Gordon weren't giving them their best material, and started turning down their submissions, like a song called "Celebrity Ball" which they thought had no commercial potential, at least until the song was picked up by their friends Three Dog Night, retitled "Celebrate", and made the top twenty: [Excerpt: Three Dog Night, "Celebrate"] Instead, the group decided to start recording more of their own material. They were worried that in the fast-changing rock world bands that did other songwriters' material were losing credibility. But "Sound Asleep", their first effort in this new plan, only made number forty-seven on the charts. Clearly they needed a different plan. They called in their old bass player Chip Douglas, who was now an experienced hitmaker as a producer. He called in *his* friend Harry Nilsson, who wrote "The Story of Rock & Roll" for the group, but that didn't do much better, only making number forty-eight. But the group persevered, starting work on a new album produced by Douglas, The Turtles Present The Battle of the Bands, the conceit of which was that every track would be presented as being by a different band. So there were tracks by  Chief Kamanawanalea and his Royal Macadamia Nuts,  Fats Mallard and the Bluegrass Fireball, The Atomic Enchilada, and so on, all done in the styles suggested by those band names. There was even a track by "The Cross Fires": [Excerpt: The Cross Fires, "Surfer Dan"] It was the first time the group had conceived of an album as a piece, and nine of the twelve tracks were originals by the band -- there was a track written by their friend Bill Martin, and the opening track, by "The US Teens Featuring Raoul", was co-written by Chip Douglas and Harry Nilsson. But for the most part the songs were written by the band members themselves, and jointly credited to all of them. This was the democratic decision, but one that Howard Kaylan would later regret, because of the song for which the band name was just "Howie, Mark, Johnny, Jim & Al". Where all the other songs were parodies of other types of music, that one was, as the name suggests, a parody of the Turtles themselves. It was written by Kaylan in disgust at the record label, who kept pestering the group to "give us another 'Happy Together'". Kaylan got more and more angry at this badgering, and eventually thought "OK, you want another 'Happy Together'? I'll give you another 'Happy Together'" and in a few minutes wrote a song that was intended as an utterly vicious parody of that kind of song, with lyrics that nobody could possibly take seriously, and with music that was just mocking the whole structure of "Happy Together" specifically. He played it to the rest of the group, expecting them to fall about laughing, but instead they all insisted it was the group's next single. "Elenore" went to number six on the charts, becoming their biggest hit since "She'd Rather Be With Me": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Elenore"] And because everything was credited to the group, Kaylan's songwriting royalties were split five ways. For the follow-up, they chose the one actual cover version on the album. "You Showed Me" is a song that Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark had written together in the very early days of the Byrds, and they'd recorded it as a jangly folk-rock tune in 1964: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "You Showed Me"] They'd never released that track, but Gene Clark had performed it solo after leaving the Byrds, and Douglas had been in Clark's band at the time, and liked the song. He played it for the Turtles, but when he played it for them the only instrument he had to hand was a pump organ with one of its bellows broken. Because of this, he had to play it slowly, and while he kept insisting that the song needed to be faster, the group were equally insistent that what he was playing them was the big ballad hit they wanted, and they recorded it at that tempo. "You Showed Me" became the Turtles' final top ten hit: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Showed Me"] But once again there were problems in the group. Johnny Barbata was the greatest drummer any of them had ever played with, but he didn't fit as a personality -- he didn't like hanging round with the rest of them when not on stage, and while there were no hard feelings, it was clear he could get a gig with pretty much anyone and didn't need to play with a group he wasn't entirely happy in. By mutual agreement, he left to go and play with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and was replaced by John Seiter from Spanky and Our Gang -- a good drummer, but not the best of the best like Barbata had been. On top of this, there were a whole host of legal problems to deal with. The Turtles were the only big act on White Whale records, though White Whale did put out some other records. For example, they'd released the single "Desdemona" by John's Children in the US: [Excerpt: John's Children, "Desdemona"] The group, being the Anglophiles they were, had loved that record, and were also among the very small number of Americans to like the music made by John's Children's guitarist's new folk duo, Tyrannosaurus Rex: [Excerpt: Tyrannosaurus Rex, "Debora"] When Tyrannosaurus Rex supported the Turtles, indeed, Volman and Kaylan became very close to Marc Bolan, and told him that the next time they were in England they'd have to get together, maybe even record together. That would happen not that many years later, with results we'll be getting to in... episode 201, by my current calculations. But John's Children hadn't had a hit, and indeed nobody on White Whale other than the Turtles had. So White Whale desperately wanted to stop the Turtles having any independence, and to make sure they continued to be their hit factory. They worked with the group's roadie, Dave Krambeck, to undermine the group's faith in their manager, Bill Utley, who supported the group in their desire for independence. Soon, Krambeck and White Whale had ousted Utley, and Krambeck had paid Utley fifty thousand dollars for their management contract, with the promise of another two hundred thousand later. That fifty thousand dollars had been taken by Krambeck as an advance against the Turtles' royalties, so they were really buying themselves out. Except that Krambeck then sold the management contract on to a New York management firm, without telling the group. He then embezzled as much of the group's ready cash as he could and ran off to Mexico, without paying Utley his two hundred thousand dollars. The Turtles were out of money, and they were being sued by Utley because he hadn't had the money he should have had, and by the big New York firm, because  since the Turtles hadn't known they were now legally their managers they were in breach of contract. They needed money quickly, and so they signed with another big management company, this one co-owned by Bill Cosby, in the belief that Cosby's star power might be able to get them some better bookings. It did -- one of the group's first gigs after signing with the new company was at the White House. It turned out they were Tricia Nixon's favourite group, and so they and the Temptations were booked at her request for a White House party. The group at first refused to play for a President they rightly thought of as a monster, but their managers insisted. That destroyed their reputation among the cool antiestablishment youth, of course, but it did start getting them well-paid corporate gigs. Right up until the point where Kaylan became sick at his own hypocrisy at playing these events, drank too much of the complimentary champagne at an event for the president of US Steel, went into a drunken rant about how sick the audience made him, and then about how his bandmates were a bunch of sellouts, threw his mic into a swimming pool, and quit while still on stage. He was out of the band for two months, during which time they worked on new material without him, before they made up and decided to work on a new album. This new album, though, was going to be more democratic. As well as being all original material, they weren't having any of this nonsense about the lead singer singing lead. This time, whoever wrote the song was going to sing lead, so Kaylan only ended up singing lead on six of the twelve songs on what turned out to be their final album, Turtle Soup. They wanted a truly great producer for the new album, and they all made lists of who they might call. The lists included a few big names like George Martin and Phil Spector, but one name kept turning up -- Ray Davies. As we'll hear in the next episode, the Kinks had been making some astonishing music since "You Really Got Me", but most of it had not been heard in the US. But the Turtles all loved the Kinks' 1968 album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, which they considered the best album ever made: [Excerpt: The Kinks, "Animal Farm"] They got in touch with Davies, and he agreed to produce the album -- the first time he did any serious outside production work -- and eventually they were able to persuade White Whale, who had no idea who he was, to allow him to produce it. The resulting album is by far the group's strongest album-length work, though there were problems -- Davies' original mix of the album was dominated by the orchestral parts written by Wrecking Crew musician Ray Pohlman, while the group thought that their own instruments should be more audible, since they were trying to prove that they were a proper band. They remixed it themselves, annoying Davies, though reissues since the eighties have reverted to a mix closer to Davies' intentions. Some of the music, like Pons' "Dance This Dance With Me", perhaps has the group trying a little *too* hard to sound like the Kinks: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Dance This Dance With Me"] But on the other hand, Kaylan's "You Don't Have to Walk in the Rain" is the group's last great pop single, and has one of the best lines of any single from the sixties -- "I look at your face, I love you anyway": [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Don't Have to Walk in the Rain"] But the album produced no hits, and the group were getting more and more problems from their label. White Whale tried to get Volman and Kaylan to go to Memphis without the other band members to record with Chips Moman, but they refused -- the Turtles were a band, and they were proud of not having session players play their parts on the records. Instead, they started work with Jerry Yester producing on a new album, to be called Shell Shock. They did, though bow to pressure and record a terrible country track called "Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret" backed by session players, at White Whale's insistence, but managed to persuade the label not to release it. They audited White Whale and discovered that in the first six months of 1969 alone -- a period where they hadn't sold that many records -- they'd been underpaid by a staggering six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. They sued the label for several million, and in retaliation, the label locked them out of the recording studio, locking their equipment in there. They basically begged White Whale to let them record one last great single, one last throw of the dice. Jim Pons had, for years, known a keyboard player named Bob Harris, and had recently got to know Harris' wife, Judee Sill. Sill had a troubled life -- she was a heroin addict, and had at times turned to streetwalking to earn money, and had spent time in prison for armed robbery -- but she was also an astonishing songwriter, whose music was as inspired by Bach as by any pop or folk composer. Sill had been signed to Blimp, the Turtles' new production and publishing company, and Pons was co-producing some tracks on her first album, with Graham Nash producing others. Pons thought one song from that album, "Lady-O", would be perfect for the Turtles: [Excerpt: Judee Sill, "Lady-O"] (music continues under) The Turtles stuck closely to Sill's vision of the song. So closely that you haven't noticed that before I started talking, we'd already switched from Sill's record to the Turtles' version. [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Lady-O"] That track, with Sill on guitar backing Kaylan, Volman, and Nichol's vocals, was the last Turtles single to be released while the band were together. Despite “Lady O” being as gorgeous a melody as has ever been produced in the rock world, it sank without trace, as did a single from the Shell Shock sessions released under a pseudonym, The Dedications. White Whale followed that up, to the group's disgust, with "Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret?", and then started putting out whatever they had in the vaults, trying to get the last few pennies, even releasing their 1965 album track version of "Eve of Destruction" as if it were a new single. The band were even more disgusted when they discovered that, thanks to the flurry of suits and countersuits, they not only could no longer perform as the Turtles, but White Whale were laying legal claim to their own names. They couldn't perform under those names -- Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, and the rest were the intellectual property of White Whale, according to the lawyers. The group split up, and Kaylan and Volman did some session work, including singing on a demo for a couple of new songwriters: [Excerpt: Steely Dan, "Everyone's Gone to the Movies"] When that demo got the songwriters a contract, one of them actually phoned up to see if Kaylan wanted a permanent job in their new band, but they didn't want Volman as well, so Kaylan refused, and Steely Dan had to do without him. Volman and Kaylan were despondent, washed-up, has-been ex-rock stars. But when they went to see a gig by their old friend Frank Zappa, it turned out that he was looking for exactly that. Of course, they couldn't use their own names, but the story of the Phlorescent Leech and Eddie is a story for another time...

Sound advice from one of the advertisers of Sound Off, Metro political news, Deion called in from Northern MN, Biden is still testing positive for covid, a rock and roller turned 75, and more...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

#theclash #judaspriest #johnmellencamp Get a FREE EP HERE: http://LouLombardiMusic.com if  you love great guitar driven rock from the 70s, 80s, 90s and even  today, you will want to get my EP "The Bad Years". Get your copy while  supplies last! Rockers have been having dust ups with the law since the first time Elvis was arrested in 1955. Given all of the various interactions with law enforcement and the courts over the last 7 odd decades, rock and roller's are in a unique position to put fans wise to the perils of running afoul of the law. On this week's Loudini Rock & Roll Circus Podcast, we will tell you the stories behind 10 songs that taught us that crime doesn't pay Check out the podcast here  https://app.talkshoe.com/episode/19849873 Topics Discussed: Uneasy Rider '88 Charlie Daniels I fought the law Gimme Some Water  _eddie Money The Authority Song... John Mellencamp Hot Rod Lincoln.... Commander Cody SHakedown... Bob Seger Dirty Deeds... AC/DC Hurricane... Bob Dylan Dead End Justice.... The Runaways reference:  https://zinginstruments.com/songs-about-breaking-the-law/ New and notable: Kevin:   Lily: The Almas Lou:   Lyrics With Loudini:   Hot Rod Lincoln This Day In Music https://www.thisdayinmusic.com  

Music Around The World is a music segment featuring various artist and music. Some of these artists are from the United States, while others are from other countries across the globe. In this episode we will be featuring: Angel Heredia, Drokz, Nookie, Sirch and Music News. https://masonverapaine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/15.-MFAW-Episode-57.mp3 MFAW 57 Transcription Intro: 0:00 to 0:12Mason Paine here and this is episode 57 of Music From Around The World. In this episode I will be featuring music from: Angel Heredia, Drokz, Nookie, Sirch and Music News. Angel Heredia: Start –0:13    and  End – 8:02Hailing from Spain, Angel Heredia is an electronic music producer and deejay who since a young age has had a passion for EDM. After completing his studies as a sound technician, he began his career and soon caught the attention of some of the best promoters in the country. He has since taken his talents outside of Spain, performing in countries such as Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Mexico and Costa Rica. Here is a listen to his latest track: The King of Groove. The King of Groove is out now via Label Engine and it's on all streaming platforms. Angel has had many hits on the Beatport charts, and has released music with some of the top labels in the industry. He has also received support from many famous DJs and producers over the years, including Erick Morillo, David Guetta, Mark Knight, Umek, Paco Osuna, Kryder, Andres Campo, Fatima Hajji, Fer Br, Cristian Varela, Hector Couto and Mendo. For the latest about Angel's upcoming projects visit AngelHerediaMusic.com; that's A-N-G-E-L-H-E-R-E-D-I-A-M-U-S-I-C DOT COM Drokz: Start – 8:04    and  End – 11:52Based out of the Netherlands is Dutch, Hardcore Master of Horrors: Drokz. Drokz's love for music began when he started producing. His goal was always to make loud, energetic music that would get people moving. After a successful career as both a DJ and MC, Drokz decided to focus solely on producing and DJ-ing. Take a listen to his latest track The Rock and Roller. The Rock and Roller is out now via Q-Dance and it's on all streaming platforms. When it comes to Dorkz his live performances are full of passion and energy. Many fans say seeing Drokz perform is an experience you won't soon forget. For the latest of his upcoming projects visit DJDrokz.com; that's D-J-D-R-O-K-Z DOT COM News Break 1: 11:53 to 12:51Let's take a brief break for some music news. BTS's J-Hope is making history by being the first South Korean artist to headline Lollapalooza's main stage on Sunday July 31st. He is taking Doja Cat's place on the lineup, as she had to cancel her performance due to a medical issue with her tonsils. It was also announced that TOMORROW X TOGETHER will be performing at Lollapalooza as well. This is a huge moment not only for TOMORROW X TOGETHER, J-Hope, and BTS, but also for the South Korean music industry as a whole. In other news. Tomorrowland is launching special "Kids Camps" for children aged 8 to 17. The camps will teach beat-matching, EQ, looping, and filtering, among other fundamental DJing techniques. The boot camps will take place during the weeks in-between Tomorrowland's two festival weekends July 18-21 and July 25-28. Now let's get back to the music. Nookie: Start – 12:52   and   End – 19:52From his humble beginnings working in a record store, DJ and producer Nookie has come a long way. Born and raised in England, he began studying music at a young age and eventually found his niche in the hardcore techno scene of the early '90s. His debut remix of Ninjaman's "Zig It Up" in 1989 put him on the map, and he has since become one of the most well-known names in the industry. Take a listen to his latest track: The Awakening. The Awakening is out now via Cygnus Music and it's on all streaming platforms. Nookie has remixed and worked with artist like: Tek 9 and Goldie, Ray Keith,

We give the week a spirited shakedown to see what falls out of its pockets. And this includes … The late Ronnie Hawkins – road hog, stunt diver, bootleg liquor smuggler! Who's the only original rock and roller now still alive? If you went to see Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp lumbered on to “jam”, how monumentally hacked off would you be? Kiss have handed in their lunchpails and eyebrow pencils. Shouldn't more hoary old rock acts “retire out of self-respect”? What Danny Boyle's Pistol mini-series explains about the band's urge to succeed – and its corniest moments revisited. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga ... any other musicians who cut it on-screen?  What are the great songs about communal experience along with Thanks For The Memory, I Will Survive, Born To Run, Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) and Airhead's Funny How? What Americans call “hiking” we call “walking”. Sir Tim Rice, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Ian Rankin … our expanding list of beknighted podcast guests.-------Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 18th here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/were-throwing-a-party-for-paul-mccartneys-80th-and-youre-invited-tickets-259008229587Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We give the week a spirited shakedown to see what falls out of its pockets. And this includes … The late Ronnie Hawkins – road hog, stunt diver, bootleg liquor smuggler! Who's the only original rock and roller now still alive? If you went to see Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp lumbered on to “jam”, how monumentally hacked off would you be? Kiss have handed in their lunchpails and eyebrow pencils. Shouldn't more hoary old rock acts “retire out of self-respect”? What Danny Boyle's Pistol mini-series explains about the band's urge to succeed – and its corniest moments revisited. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga ... any other musicians who cut it on-screen?  What are the great songs about communal experience along with Thanks For The Memory, I Will Survive, Born To Run, Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) and Airhead's Funny How? What Americans call “hiking” we call “walking”. Sir Tim Rice, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Ian Rankin … our expanding list of beknighted podcast guests.-------Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 18th here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/were-throwing-a-party-for-paul-mccartneys-80th-and-youre-invited-tickets-259008229587Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We give the week a spirited shakedown to see what falls out of its pockets. And this includes … The late Ronnie Hawkins – road hog, stunt diver, bootleg liquor smuggler! Who's the only original rock and roller now still alive? If you went to see Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp lumbered on to “jam”, how monumentally hacked off would you be? Kiss have handed in their lunchpails and eyebrow pencils. Shouldn't more hoary old rock acts “retire out of self-respect”? What Danny Boyle's Pistol mini-series explains about the band's urge to succeed – and its corniest moments revisited. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga ... any other musicians who cut it on-screen?  What are the great songs about communal experience along with Thanks For The Memory, I Will Survive, Born To Run, Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) and Airhead's Funny How? What Americans call “hiking” we call “walking”. Sir Tim Rice, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Ian Rankin … our expanding list of beknighted podcast guests.-------Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 18th here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/were-throwing-a-party-for-paul-mccartneys-80th-and-youre-invited-tickets-259008229587Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we address a thorny issue: if you're an ageing rock and roller, is it time to quit? If your powers are waning, to be fair to the fans, should you stay or should you go? We can think of one or two who might be happier in retirement, and discuss the late careers of Jon Bon Jovi, BB King and Bob Dylan.In Culture Catch Up this time around: The Captain reports on the mind-bending cinematic experience that is Everything Everywhere All At Once, and a remastered soundtrack album from Richard Thompson. El Tele has finished Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, the Killing Eve series, and reports on new music recommendations from the OAP family, and the new Doctor Who. We lost Dennis Waterman a short while ago, and we talk about his starring roles in classic British TV.El Tele rounds it all off with two jokes for the price of one!Full show notes and links at https://www.onlyapodcast.com/episode-15-should-they-stay-or-should-they-go/

James Rolfe and his long running YouTube character "The Angry Video Game Nerd" are household names to over 3.5 Million subscribers.  A triple threat as a Gamer, a Movie buff and a rock and roller, he joins The Gary & Kenny Show to talk about how he started his career as an internet broadcasting pioneer, how he manages to get the job done without leaving home and we discover some things about Kenny killing nazis from his living room and sipping martinis!

Sarah Borges has been at it for more than 20-plus years and built a strong reputation in punk rock and outlaw country circles as a hard-charging, high energy rock-and-roller out of Boston. She's been noted as "walking that fine line between punk and country," having ranging from Dolly Parton, Mahalia Jackson, X, Sid Vicious, Merle Haggard, to bubblegum pop. Sarah joins us for an entertaining start to Season 3 of The Load Out Music Podcast and we cover a wide range of topics -- from quitting alcohol to life on the road as a divorced single mom to the challenges of building a career in today's music landscape. Enjoy!

#deeppurple #RUSH #davidbowie Get a FREE EP HERE: http://LouLombardiMusic.com if you love great guitar driven rock from the 70s, 80s, 90s and even today, you will want to get my EP "The Bad Years". Get your copy while supplies last! This week's podcast promises to be out of this world! You will be over the moon when we discuss 10 songs about outer space. So... fuel up your rocket, rocket man... as we boldly take you where no rock and roller has gone before! Check out the podcast here  https://app.talkshoe.com/episode/18438586 Topics Discussed: https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/ SpaceTruckin Space Lord Cygnus X-1 Starship Trooper Intergalactic  Astronomy Domine Super Massive Black Hole Get Loudini Swag HERE: https://loulombardimusic.com/rnrcircus/

Tod Weidner has been a foot soldier in the trenches of the Music Wars for decades. He's played festivals, porches, and everywhere in between, earning his place in the fray and a seat in the van with cerebral, lyric-driven songs that come from the heart of a storyteller beating in the bones of a rock and roller. After putting in his 10,000 hours (and then some) as a fixture in the Midwestern Music Scene, Tod has recently relocated to the West Coast to focus on a new chapter as a solo artist and singer/songwriter, crafting his special brand of Americana with Soul- a room in the gloom, with a candle in the corner and a sunrise in the wings. https://www.todweidner.com/https://www.instagram.com/todweidner/@thecareermusician@nomadsplace

Tod Weidner has been a foot soldier in the trenches of the Music Wars for decades. He's played festivals, porches, and everywhere in between, earning his place in the fray and a seat in the van with cerebral, lyric-driven songs that come from the heart of a storyteller beating in the bones of a rock and roller. After putting in his 10,000 hours (and then some) as a fixture in the Midwestern Music Scene, Tod has recently relocated to the West Coast to focus on a new chapter as a solo artist and singer/songwriter, crafting his special brand of Americana with Soul- a room in the gloom, with a candle in the corner and a sunrise in the wings.  https://www.todweidner.com/ https://www.instagram.com/todweidner/ @thecareermusician @nomadsplace

Jack and Chris are back to cover the latest in news, talk about Steel Force at Dorney Park, fantasy, and take your questions! Then the guys are joined by Marcus Leshock to talk about theme parks and journalism, as well as the infamous Rock of Roselle.     Find Marcus Here!   The Rock of Roselle: https://www.facebook.com/pg/pizzahutrock/photos/    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/twistedtravelers?fan_landing=true  Discord: https://discord.gg/4dVYVF4PYX  Twitter: @TwistedTravele1 Instagram: @Twisted_Traveler

LezPod | Hosted by Alexandria Friedlander with Guest Jen Boronico, Founder of Boca Tanning Club Hey Everybody! Welcome to LezPod! You are here, my friends, because you believe in LGBTQ community and the importance of sharing our individuals stories to help impact one another. Our goal with the show is to introduce you to people and ideas that are going to motivate you to pursue your dreams and empower you to believe in yourself. My name is Alexandria Friedlander and I'm here to introduce you to remarkable people who have helped shift the world we live in today. On today's episode, we introduce you to Jen Boronico! Jen is a renaissance woman, who is known as the businesswoman, who created Boca Tanning; she is a part time rock-star, (she is the lead guitarist in one of the top cover bands in town); and a former fighter and TV fight broadcaster/commentator. Jen is the proud founder and franchisor of the Nationally Recognized Boca Tanning Clubs, she had a vision to create something unique, not just a tanning salon, but more of a club, a spa, complete with techno music and high energy. She opened the first store in 2002, creating a business that has been in the top 2% grossing salons in the country. Personally, she owns or operates 4 of them, the rest are franchisees of hers. Boca Tanning began as a dream 15 years ago and she turned it into a life, a lifestyle. She had the vision to create an empire, and she has. A proud, devoted mom to a beautiful 17-year-old daughter, successful businesswoman by day and at night, a rock and roller. Jen is one of the leading female guitarists in Florida. She is most noted for her energy and passion which flows from her veins as she performs. She is truly a unique showman. “Fans are always shocked to see a female attack a guitar with such intensity”. She has been performing with her band Pandia for over a decade. Founder and CEO of Boca Tanning: Made Boca Tanning a National Franchise with over 20 locations in 4 states. Created branding to become the most recognizable name in the industry for 19 years in S Fl. Former Partner with Mike “The Situation” of Jersey Shore. Had our own reality show called “The Sorrentino's”. Official Tanning Salon of Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders. Picked by Y-100 to be interviewed on air, (alongside of CEO of European Wax Center), to speak on Women's Empowerment, for International Women's Day. Jen is a Former Broadcast Journalist for Television | Ringside Commentator for Mixed Martial Arts & Boxing as seen on Fox Sports and HBO Boxing TV color commentator on a show called FightZone, that aired on Fox Sports and broadcast into 38 million homes. Don King TV – Interviewer on HBO & Showtime Cards A former combat sports practitioner and devotee. 3x NAGA Jiu-Jitsu Champion, and FL Golden Gloves competitor from the prestigious American Top Team Academy.

In the first part of our Musicians Spotlight Series, we bring you John Kay from Steppenwolf Fame which brought us such great hits as Born to be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride, The Pusher and 50 years of John Kay music and his work with NGOs helping Elephants survive as they, too, were Born to be Wild. John Kay: from Rock Star to Elephants, We Were All Born To Be Wild #Steppenwolf to #MaueKayFoundation Show Summary (Full Text Transcript Below) John Kay reveals his journey from escaping the Iron Curtain, getting on with limited vision, his passion for music and his love and commitment for wildlife and especially elephants. Ironically, I first learned about John Kay being legally blind from Dan Gausman, a librarian at State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. A client requested to have the Communications Center record an audio copy of John Kay's 1994 autobiography, Magic Carpet Ride. This is a service provided to people who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or have difficulty in reading the printed word. Dan mentioned that John was legally blind. This I did not know. John Kay explains his vision and how it led him from behind the Iron Curtain to the freedoms of West Berlin, his adventures as a youth and his days at Sight Saving school in Toronto. Canada. Most importantly, John talks about feeding the fire, feeding his passion for music and for the protection of wildlife. John Kay is transforming from Rock Star to Wildlife Advocate as his touring days with John Kay and Steppenwolf come to a well-deserved rest after 50 years since the release of the first Steppenwolf album. John is ready to make this transition as he has been devoting his time and proceeds from his touring over the last 10 years towards John and his wife Jutta's Maue Kay Foundation, and NGOs, Non-Governmental Organization, similar to a Non-profit organization, that focus on the protection of wildlife. Image of Elephants provided by MKF Join Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane as they sit down with John Kay and learn about John's continuing soundtrack of his life, his experiences and his focus on the years to come. This podcast is over 80 minutes long and we suggest kicking back and enjoy this epic interview with one of the great social and political voices with us today. My son asked me while he drove us home from the John Kay and Steppenwolf concert September 29 in Prior Lake, MN, why don't today's bands make statements about causes anymore? I thought to myself and wondered… is John Kay one of the last? Maue Kay Foundation Logo Here are some links that will let you know more about his music and his foundation. I suggest starting here, Steppenwolf.comwhere you can dive in and find out about everything Steppenwolf, purchase their swag, read articles and more about John Kay. Be sure to get their latest release, a 3 CD set titled, John Kay and Steppenwolf-Steppenwolf at 50. Included in this 3-disk set is an entire CD of John Kay and Steppenwolf live. You will learn and enjoy this collection of hits, and somewhat over-looked songs from 1967 to 2017. That is where you will find all the music used in this podcast, John Kay and Steppenwolf-Steppenwolf at 50. Follow John Kay and Steppenwolf on Facebookand on Last.FM Be sure to check out John Kay's web site. Where you can find links to articles, interviews, his solo music, the elephant sanctuary and the Maue Kay Foundationand learn about the passion and selflessness that John and Jutta and others are doing to protect wildlife around the world. And an Elephant size Thank You to John Kay for taking time to conduct this interview and to Charlie Wolf for all that you do and whom I met at the concert in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Glad I could support the band and I love the T-Shirts. By the way, the concert was Great! Thanks for Listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Get the Free blind Abilities App on the Google Play Store Full Transcript John Kay: From Rock Star to Elephants, We Were All Born To Be Wild #Steppenwolf to #MaueKayFoundation John Kay: To become aware of how special they are. I'm a big elephant lover you might say. Jeff Thompson: Blind Abilities welcomes John Kay, wildlife activist. John Kay: My vision got me probably out of Communist East Germany and my vision very definitely kept me out of Vietnam. Jeff Thompson: Who happens to be a rockstar. John Kay: They were all telling her, “You got a legally blind, penniless musician, and that's your future? I think you can do better than that.” Jeff Thompson: John talks about his limited vision, his band, Steppenwolf, one's inner voice, and following your passion. John Kay: There's an old snide remark, what do you call a musician without a girlfriend? You call them homeless. Jeff Thompson: I would like to thank Dan Guzman of the Communication Center at State Services for the Blind of Minnesota, as Dan informed me that a client had requested the autobiography of John Kay to be converted into audio format. Dan also informed me that John Kay was legally blind, and this started the process that led me to the interview of John Kay. John Kay: Hey, we all got stuff to deal with, kid, just get on with it. You learn how to figure out workaround solutions for what you're dealing with. Jeff Thompson: Hello, John Kay. I'm Jeff Thompson, and with me is Pete Lane. Pete Lane: Good morning, John. It's an honor. I'm Pete Lane. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida. Jeff is in … Jeff Thompson: Minnesota, Pete. Pete Lane: Yeah, Minnesota. John Kay: I'm in Santa Barbara. Jeff Thompson: What's the tie to Tennessee then? John Kay: I lived there for 17 years. In '89 my wife and I were a little tired of Los Angeles beehive activity. We said, “If not here, then where?” To spare the other boring details, we wound up just south of Nashville, Tennessee. In our travels with Steppenwolf we had played there several times. We'd met a lot of friendly people. It's a beautiful area. Lots of music, obviously. We were out in the country, and lots of privacy, and had a recording studio and our tour bus. We just relocated what we called Wolf World out there. For the following 17 years that was home. It was a good period during our life to be a little bit away from large cities. Jeff Thompson: Great. Pete Lane: Do you have an elephant reserve, do you not, still in Tennessee? John Kay: I don't, but Tennessee certainly does. While we lived in Tennessee, we became aware of the elephant sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, which was about, I don't know, maybe 40 minutes drive from where we lived, which was near a little town called Franklin, Tennessee. John Kay: Anyway, one thing led to another. Eventually my wife got involved with the board of directors of the sanctuary, and then they're after our daughter, who's all about animals, so from childhood wound up becoming a caregiver to three large African elephants. She was there for several years. It was like the Peace Corps slogan, the toughest job you'll ever love. She did love it, but she's rather slender in build and developed arthritis. The doctors told her she should quit, which she had to do very reluctantly. John Kay: However, the sanctuary of course continues doing very well. It's a wonderful place for often abused, neglected, sick, old circus and zoo elephants to finally live amongst their own kind without any human intrusion. They have 2,700 acres of rolling hills and woods and waterholes for them to swim in. Once you get to know elephants, because our foundation is involved with African elephants-focused NGOs in Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania, and the like, once you get to spend a real amount of time with them out in the wild, in those places where they aren't traumatized by poaching, you become aware of how special they are. I'm a big elephant lover you might say. Pete Lane: I was reading on your website where you posted the awareness of the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee and how they live a lifestyle that they never get to live when they're held in captivity. John Kay: Exactly. It used to be this way, and I don't suppose that has changed, the number one killer of captive elephants was foot rot, because unlike in the wild, where they walk up to 50 miles on relatively soft, sandy soil, in captivity they are often forced to stand on a solid concrete floor, and that's not good for them, so eventually they … One of the rescues, Tina, which came from the Vancouver Zoo, when she arrived, they had to … I was gonna say, one of the sandal makers, I can't think of the name of the brand right now, they actually made a pair of very soft boots for her because she was suffering so badly. Unfortunately, she died a couple of days before those boots arrived. I saw the bottom of her feet, which were just terrible situation. John Kay: They don't belong in captivity unless you can have a relatively good number of elephants together in a large area where they can at least simulate the kind of life they would have in the wild. Pete Lane: 2,700 acres is a large area. Do you know how many animals are on the preserve? John Kay: I think at the moment they have somewhere in the neighborhood of close to a dozen Asian elephants. They fenced off a section of the 2,700 acres for the African elephants, which are much larger, and thank goodness in relatively good health. They're larger and younger and very active, so they keep them away from the Asians, that are older and more docile. I believe right now they have about four Africans, because the Nashville Zoo I think has two of them that are there at the sanctuary now. I don't know whether they will stay there long-term, but that's what's going on there right now. John Kay: It's quite an amazing place, and so much has been learned about how to look after these creatures, and from the standpoint of veterinarian care. The research, both in the wild and in places like the sanctuary, on elephants continues, because there's still much to be learned, even though people like Joyce Poole has been studying their communication skills and language and rumbles and all of that for over 40 years. They're still working on figuring out what goes on that's beyond the grasp of science right now. Jeff Thompson: We'll be sure to put a link in the show notes for that. John, your story is quite interesting. I'm doing some research, and I just came across Feed the Fire. I was wondering, hearing about that elephant sanctuary, your foundation, it seems like you stuck to your passions. John Kay: Yeah. That's quite observant and quite spot-on, because long ago as a child, the first time I became aware of something that is I suppose related to passion or rooted in passion is when I discovered the power of music. That oddly enough was … John Kay: My father had been killed in Russia a month before I was born. When the Russian Army advanced on the area where my mother and I lived, I was just a few months old, she took me, and we got on a train headed west, and wound up eventually in a little town that wound up behind the Iron Curtain, and hence we were living under Communism until I was five. When we escaped, my mother and I, by paying off some people and getting through the border, which was patrolled with soldiers and all of that, anyway, we made it. John Kay: The point is that I was about eight or nine years old, living in West Germany, under democracy and freedom, and my mother took me to hear, of all things, an all-male, a Russian choir, the Don Cossacks. This was in a church with great acoustics. It was just a concert. Some of these ancient, incredibly sad songs that these 15 guys with these amazing voices were singing reduced me to tears, even though I didn't understand a word of Russian. I still don't. In fact, my mother was somewhat concerned. It introduced me to the power of music when it connects with your internal core. John Kay: Oddly enough, less than maybe four years later, I had a similar but very opposite experience when I first heard on American Armed Force Radio Network the likes of Little Richard and Elvis and all the rest of the rock-and-roll pioneers. I just had goosebumps, chicken skin from head to toe. Once again, I didn't understand a word of what they were singing, but the music was so primal, so intense, so full of just joy of living I'd say. That was just something that I had to have more of. John Kay: I became obsessed with trying to find this music wherever I could, and of course at a certain point started to have the delusion that someday I could be on the other side of the ocean and learn how to speak English and get a guitar and do this sort of thing myself. Obviously conventional wisdom and the adults were saying, “Yeah, sure, kid. In the meantime, pay attention in school.” Jeff Thompson: It's quite obvious you didn't lose that glitter in your eye. John Kay: Yeah. That's I think very important. It's one thing that concerns me with regards to young people that are raised with constant sensory stimulation and having a virtual life through their little screens that they're attached to all the time. John Kay: I remember once talking to university students, and I asked them, “Be honest. How many of you fear silence?” A number of hands went up, because a lot of them, from the time they're toddlers, whether it's TV or the background music of the supermarket or wherever, whenever there's silence, it astounds them, and it concerns them. I finally said, “I'm here to tell you that unless you learn to find some quiet spots, you may never hear a voice that's in you that is trying to tell you there's more out there. In other words, if you don't hear that voice, you may live a totally external life all your life, instead of finding something that is … ” John Kay: That is the humbling experience that I've had, running into people who all their lives have not been seeking the spotlight, but have been from early on moved by a passion to work on behalf of something greater than themselves. I'm specifically talking about the various people that in the last 15 years, through our efforts in various parts of the world, we've had the great pleasure and honor even to rub shoulders with. It's a humbling thing to see people who are not about themselves, but on behalf of others. You learn from that sort of thing. John Kay: There are a lot of young people who have that capability also. I'm often wondering whether they aren't so barraged with constant Twittering and social media and whatever else is going on that they never have a quiet moment. That's not necessarily a good thing in my opinion. Jeff Thompson: I was talking to Pete earlier, and I was dissecting your song, but you just answered the question for me, that solitude is no sacrifice. John Kay: That's right. You picked up on that. That song has been used by a number of people who wanted to play something for their daughter or son that were about to leave home and go to university or go far afield to do something on distant shores. That's basically it. “Solitude's no sacrifice, to catch a glimpse of paradise.” Jeff Thompson: That's an awesome song. I really like that song. Pete, you've got some questions I'm sure. I've been jumping in here. Pete Lane: John, I'm just honored to be speaking with you. I'm in my late 60s and of course grew up with you and your music and of course Steppenwolf. Until recently I had no idea of how enduring you have been and how diverse you are in your view of the world and society. I just want to compliment you on that for starters. John Kay: Thank you. That's very kind of you and generous. I would hope and think that I will continue to be still in a lifelong learning process of clumsily following the footsteps left by others that have preceded me with their examples of how to nurture their humanity and how to have a purpose in life beyond just mindless consumption and amusing themselves, as the book once said, amusing ourselves to death. It's something that keeps the inner flame burning, and been very, very fortunate in many different ways, currently still healthy, thank goodness. Any day when you remain vertical is a good day. Pete Lane: Absolutely. John Kay: There are so many out there who lead with their example. I have met some of them who have been inspirational. Every so often, some young people come along, say, “Hey, I came across your music, and it has given me some stuff to listen to when I have to get over one of the speed bumps of life, and thank you for that.” It's a generational thing. I'm still focused on the ones ahead of me. There are younger ones that have found something in what we have to offer of a value that went beyond just musical wallpaper, but with no real substance that you can use for your own. John Kay: There's so many out there who have written songs and played music practically all their lives, which has given sustenance to the rest of us, or the listeners, and have had personal little anthems that we go to when we need to have a moment of rejuvenation through music. John Kay: I sometimes talk to people who say, “You're talking about all these other people doing great work, making music that gives great pleasure and joy to people. It's not a bad way to make a living either.” While I agree with that, music will continue to be something that I do on occasion, meaning once in a while I have a desire to write a song or two, irrespective of whether they will ever be recorded and commercially released. I've performed at fundraisers and things like that. Music continues very definitely to be part of my life. John Kay: By the same token, I am very much now focused on bringing the word to a lot of people, who once they know what we are losing, meaning wildlife, we've had this number of times, we're talking to people who are well-educated, quite engaged, very successful in what they do, and when we talked about that an elephant was being killed every 15 minutes for their tusks and that we, at this rate, 15 years from now, may no longer have any living in the wild, and the same holds for the rhinos and numerous other species, they're aghast. They're, “I didn't know that. This is terrible. Who's doing anything about it?” Then further to that, “Who can I trust with my money if I want to help?” John Kay: That's really what our little foundation is about. We have been supporting various entities. I think at this point we're at 16 different NGOs we support annually for about 15 years. We're the ones who are a little bridge between the boots on the ground who are fighting to preserve what remains, and those who are willing to help provide it, there's some assurance that their money will go to the boots on the ground. We're the ones who can vouch for a number of wonderful people at NGOs. Because we have born witness to the work they do, we're going to back to Africa next year to look in on several of the NGOs again. That's my role of both my wife and I. John Kay: In fact, this year's the last year that Steppenwolf will be performing. We have six more engagements to play, the last one October 14, and after that the wolf will go into hibernation, if you want to put it that way. My emphasis is now on … I assume both of you are familiar with TED Talks. Jeff Thompson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Pete Lane: Yes. John Kay: With that in mind, although the following is not a TED Talk per se, because those talks are limited to 18 minutes in length, mine is more like an hour and 15 minutes, but what it is, it's similar to a TED Talk, in the sense that I'm up on stage giving my story, while behind me on a screen there are many, many still images and short video clips and so on. The whole thing is called Born To Be Wild: From Rock Star To Wildlife Advocate, John Kay of Steppenwolf and His Journey of Transformation. John Kay: It basically starts with my early life and how I got out from behind the Iron Curtain and was enthralled with American rock-and-roll when I grew up as a teenager in West Germany and made it to Canada as an immigrant, got my first guitar, and then got into music more and more, and of course the story of Steppenwolf, and then how gradually over time we, my wife and I, through our travels, went to Cambodia, where we saw the killing fields, and we got involved with building a school there, which was the start of our foundation, and then Africa and so on down the line. John Kay: Basically at the end of this presentation, towards the end, after having shown what we do, where, and who is doing what in Africa and Asia and Borneo and so on, it's basically a pitch of saying, “Now that you know, if you didn't know already, you can use our website as a gateway to other NGOs or you can support what we do directly, but do it for your grandchildren's sake or do it to honor the 2,000, almost, African rangers that have been killed by poachers in the last 12 years, or do it simply because our fellow living beings have very little left to call their home, and they too have a right to exist.” Pete Lane: Unbelievable. Jeff Thompson: That's awesome. I love the way you talk about your passion that you even have today. Pete and I both met because we had a passion for recording. One story that really caught my attention is when you were in Toronto and you received your reel-to-reel, and I don't think you listened to the books as much as you wanted it for recording music. John Kay: You got that right. It was a scam from the get-go. I said, “I don't need talking books. I can read books, even though I gotta read them with my nose.” I said, “I could use it for something else.” I was just simply appalled at what came out of that dinky little speaker that was built into that Wollensak tape recorder, because when I tried my hand at recording my first efforts of playing guitar and singing, I said, “I don't sound like that, do I? This is terrible.” It was sheer ego that kept me going, said, “One way I can get better if I keep at it.” Hope springs eternal. Sometimes you simply have more luck than talent. Pete Lane: John let's talk a little bit more if you don't mind about your eye condition. Talk about that a little bit. Let's start if you don't mind a little bit in your early years and maybe focus in Toronto when you were moved into is it Deer Park, that Deer Park school? John Kay: Yeah, that was the sight-saving classes. It's a strange thing, with respect to my eyes. When I was still a baby, lying in one of these carriages that back in those days were typical, I think the English call them prams or whatever, living in this tiny little town in what was then East Germany, I would cry whenever the sun was in my eyes. John Kay: When I was older, my mother took me to an ophthalmologist, and he said, “He obviously has very, very poor vision and he's very light-sensitive.” The only thing he could think of at the time was that, “His condition might improve if he had a better diet,” because at that time we were on food rations, and because of where we were, we were eating herring morning, noon, and night, boiled, fried, stewed herring, coming out of the ears. I never touched a fish again after that until I was 40-something years old. John Kay: This is the important point about this. My mother took that as a, “Maybe the doctor's right.” It was that that caused her to take the risky chance of getting caught, imprisoned, or shot by, in the middle of the night, together with about half a dozen other people, getting smuggled by a couple of border guides that worked for the railroad and knew how to time the searchlights from the watchtowers and the dog patrols and everything else. John Kay: We got through, and then it turned out that, this was in Hanover, Germany, West Germany, and of course this was after the war, there were still schools in short supply, having been destroyed, and so there were classes 50 children large, two shifts, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I was not doing well. It was my mother who was working as a seamstress who managed to get me into the Waldorf school, the private school, which was banned under Hitler because it was far too humanitarian, but which looked after me. There I blossomed, and the eyes didn't play as big a role. John Kay: It wasn't until I came to Toronto that I was back in public school. I didn't speak English yet and couldn't read what was on the blackboard. The school officials got in touch with the CNIB, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and they said, “We have these sight-saving classes in a, it's just one large schoolroom segmented into two or three different grades, at a public school called Deer Park School, in the northern part of Toronto.” That's where I went for about two years. John Kay: The primary benefit was that, yes, they had textbooks with extra-large print and all that, but I learned English during those years, not just in school, but because of my obsession with listening to the radio all the time, looking for music that connected, I was always having to try and make out what these speed-rapping DJs were saying, because they were yakking a mile a minute. Between radio and the Deer Park School, I got to the point where I got a handle on things. Of course during that period at that school, I was also given this tape recorder on loan. As I mentioned before, I immediately pressed that into service. Jeff Thompson: That's really impressive, just the journey. John Kay: One thing I should add, by the way, was that nobody really knew what was the matter with me. I went to a Toronto University I think, the medical department, ophthalmology I think it was. There I was treated like a guinea pig. They brought in all these medical students and take a look in my eyes and everything. They said, “Oh, you're totally colorblind. Let's see here.” John Kay: They had one of those books where every page is made out of these little mosaic little pebbles with different colors.” Embedded amongst them, so to speak, would be a combination of these colored tiles that spelled something, a letter or a number or something. At the beginning of the book, the contrast between the primary colors versus whatever the number or the letter was very stark. I said, “Yeah, that, it says six, okay.” As we went from page to page, the differences in terms of contrast became more and more subdued to the point where by page whatever, I don't see anything other than just one page of all these little mosaic tiles and pebbles. They would say, “No, actually there is a light yellow whatever something or other.” John Kay: They figured out later down the line that I was an achromat, achromatopsia, that as an additional bonus with that condition comes extreme light sensitivity. Then finally, I also have a congenital nystagmus, which is the eyes shaking all the time. You do the best you can with what you have. John Kay: Now in '63, and this has a point with respect to my vision, my vision got me probably out of Communist East Germany, and my vision also probably, in fact very definitely, kept me out of the U.S. Army and probably out of Vietnam, because when in '63 at age 19 my mother and stepdad, my mom had remarried, decided to move from Toronto to Buffalo, New York, because my stepdad had something going on business-wise, and I joined them there, the first letter that hit our mailbox was from the draft board. Of course I had to show up. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to the States. John Kay: Of course somebody once said that the military intelligence is an oxymoron. I'm not the judge on that, but I will tell you that I had something that made me scratch my head, namely when I was there and I was to have a complete physical, I tried to tell the man that I was legally blind, and of course he said, “We'll get to that, son.” After a very, very thorough, top to bottom, in and out physical examination, he said, “Now read those letters on that chart on the wall.” I said, “What chart?” He said, “You can't see the chart?” I walked a little closer, said, “I see it now.” “What do you see?” “If I can step a few steps closer … ” “Yeah, you can.” “Okay. I think there's a large capital A at the top, and the rest is guesswork.” He harrumphed about, “You could've said … Never mind.” My designation was 4F. I asked him, “What does that mean really?” He said, “Son, in your case it pretty well stands for women and children first, before you. Nobody's gonna put a rifle in your hands.” John Kay: It was one of those things where during those times, because in short order I went to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, to hear the greats, and I was amongst tens of thousands of young people my age, of course many of them, at least 50% or more, being young men. The draft in the Vietnam War was very much on everybody's mind. I could relate to their concerns about going off to a foreign land. This case, I would imagine my eye condition did me a service. Jeff Thompson: That was probably a baptism into the social issues of the United States coming from Toronto for you. John Kay: That's very true. That is very true. Sometimes you have the aha moment decades after it was already rather obvious. In certain ways, what makes up my musical background in terms of my self-taught things, is to some extent rooted in the early '60s folk music revival, in my visits to not just the 1964 but also the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. '65 of course I saw Dylan go electric. That is that I had already, because of my baptism with rock-and-roll, by the early '60s rock-and-roll had lost a lot of its punch and we had the pretty boy Philadelphia singer syndrome, like Frankie Avalon, Fabian, and the like. There wasn't much on the radio that I could really sink my teeth into. Here comes the folk music revival. John Kay: While living in Buffalo, a folkie says, “If you really want to know the roots of all this stuff, go down to the main library, they have a music department, which has all of the Library of Congress recording that John and Alan Lomax made in the field. You can listen to Appalachian Delta music. You can hear Delta blues, whatever.” I did that. They would let you take a few albums home every week and trade them out for other ones. I went through the entire thing and gave myself a bit of an education. John Kay: Then when I went to the Newport Folk Festival and saw some of those still alive, those recordings I'd heard, I didn't know that McKinley Morganfield, who was recorded in the Delta by the Lomaxes, was actually Muddy Waters. Here he was with his band playing at Newport, and all of those kind of things. John Kay: The blues, which as Muddy once said, “The blues had a baby and they called it rock-and-roll,” so the blues immediately spoke to me, particularly when I came across some of the lyrics of the chain gang songs and other things. There's a powerful song about … The lyrics go, “Why don't you go down ole Hannah.” Hannah was the name they gave to the sun, “And don't you arise no more, and if you rise in the morning, bring judgment day,” because these are guys, they hated her, because the sun came up, they were forced to work in the field, out of the prison, the chain gangs, and they didn't get any rest until the sun went down. I learned that the blues had a lot more to offer than just, “Woke up this morning, my chicken walked across my face,” and all the rest of the stuff they'd write. John Kay: The other thing was great, was that the likes of Dylan and numerous others of the times were following in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie and writing new songs about the here and now that was of interest to our own age group, because this was the time when the three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi. I remember hearing, let's see, I can't think of his name right now, it'll come to me later, he was just like Dylan, a topical, as we called them, we never called them protest songs, topical songwriter. I remember he sang it, had just written it, about the killing of these three, at a topical song workshop in the afternoon. His name was Ochs, Phil Ochs. Jeff Thompson: Phil Ochs, yeah. Pete Lane: Phil Ochs, of course. John Kay: Suicide some years later. The refrain of the song was, “And here's to the land that you've torn the heart out of. Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.” Jeff Thompson: That rings through with your Monster song. John Kay: Yeah, because the thing that became obvious to me was that songs can have content which is reflective of what's on people's minds. One of the first things we experienced as Steppenwolf was a baby band, when we went on our first cross-country tour and we were still approachable, so to speak, by long-haired kids in bellbottoms who wanted to say hello after the show, a lot of them said, “Those first two albums of yours we got, you're saying on our behalf some of the things that worry us or that we are concerned with.” John Kay: That's the first time we had positive reinforcement that what we were writing about was not just our own individual personal opinions, but it was reflective of what was on the minds of many of those in our own age group. Of course I had experienced that at Newport. It was a galvanizing experience to be amongst 20,000 young people, and they're listening to somebody like a Phil Ochs or a Bob Dylan, and others who were writing about what was going on in our country in the world. Like JFK once said, “And that's the role of the artist, to remind us of the potential we have yet to reach,” in terms of being a just society and all the rest. John Kay: When it came time for us to start writing our own songs, we had of course witnessed, in fact I'd played in a couple of the same coffeehouses as a journeyman folk musician solo act in Los Angeles with the likes of David Crosby and then still called Jim, later Roger, McGuinn and the rest, who formed of course The Byrds. Jeff Thompson: The Byrds. John Kay: Their first album was by and large electric versions of Bob Dylan songs. In fact I was at Ciro's nightclub when The Byrds played, when Dylan showed up and played harmonica with them. That was a photograph on the back of their first album. John Kay: The point is that I took from there, why couldn't even rock music have lyrics that go beyond “oowee baby” and the typical? That's why our first album had songs like The Pusher and The Ostrich and Take What You Need, which was really about the environment, and later, things like Don't Step On The Grass Sam and None of Your Doing, which was on the second album, which was about a Vietnam soldier coming home and nobody understands him and he can't deal with what he had witnessed. Then of course eventually came the Monster album. John Kay: The thing with the Monster album, which was very, very successful, popular on the college campuses, were all these demonstrations which were going on against the war in the campuses, and then of course the horrific Kent State shooting. These were things where what we had to say resonated with a lot of young people. John Kay: What I found interesting was that we after so many years were no longer playing that song as part of our show. Then came the Great Recession, 2007-08, and all of a sudden, a couple of things happened. I can't think of his name right now, he's been a stalwart writer for Rolling Stone for several decades, from the early days on, and he had posted a thing, something like, “I went back to listening to Steppenwolf's Monster album and I was astounded how appropriate it is in the here and now.” John Kay: That coincided shortly with getting more and more requests on our website via email primarily, “Please start playing Monster again.” From about 2009 onward, we've been playing it ever since. It's rare that that song does not get a standing ovation in the middle of the show. Of course it's aided and abetted by visuals that accompany our live performance, not every song, but many. In the case of Monster, it is a 10-minute film that illustrates pretty well what the song, line by line, lyrically is about. John Kay: I remember when we did it for the first time in 2009, our sound man, who's been with us now for over 30 years, and he said, “John, I had the most weird experience tonight, because there was this strange situation with Monster. It was like I was watching a movie that had a soundtrack that a live band was playing, and instead of a narrator telling me what the story was, you were simply singing the story. It was just a really intense experience.” It's been like that ever since. John Kay: Sometimes you write something, and it goes out there like a kid leaving home, and you have no idea what it's doing out there, and then all of a sudden it comes back and say, “I'm still here.” Jeff Thompson: The prodigal song. John Kay: It's been like that for the last 10 years. It's a song that seems to very much resonate about what we are dealing with right now. Pete Lane:         It's funny, John, Jeff and I, again, were speaking before you connected with us this afternoon, and I had prepared a question along those lines. As you did earlier in this interview, you've answered it. Let me ask you this question. It's a slight variation on what we just spoke of. For those of you who don't know, Monster is just a dynamite song. It chronicles the country, the United States from its inception to what was then modern-day U.S. back in 1970 I believe, '71, early '70s. John Kay: Correct. Pete Lane: My question is this. If you were to write that song today, would you title it anything different? John Kay: No, because in my opinion the Monster has almost taken human shape now. Donald Trump: The American Dream is dead. Richard Nixon: I'm not a crook. Donald Trump: We will make America great again! Richard Nixon: I'm not a crook. I'm not a crook. I'm not a crook. Pete Lane: Just a dynamite song. Jeff Thompson: There's another long big song. It was big on the album I bought. You had over I think it was 20-minute long, The Pusher. John Kay: Yeah, that thing. There's a story to be told about that, I'll tell you. You're referring to the so-called early Steppenwolf album, a vinyl album obviously, back in those days. One side was that 20-minute version of The Pusher. That whole thing came to be because it was really a performance done by the band The Sparrow, which I had joined. John Kay: When I was in the early '60s, like so many others, with a guitar, hitchhiking around, playing wherever they'd let me, in coffeehouses and the like, when I returned after a year of being in Los Angeles, hanging out at the Troubadour, doing various things, meeting Hoyt Axton, learning The Pusher from him, etc, and wound up in Toronto again, and York Village at that time, section of Toronto had exploded into this area of just coffeehouses and clubs, all sorts of things. While I played at a coffeehouse as a solo act, I bumped into this Canadian band called The Sparrows, with an S, plural at the time. We joined forces. I started to perform The Pusher with an electric band instead of just acoustically. John Kay: The Sparrows eventually left Canada, because in those days most people did, where there was Joni Mitchell and Neil Young or others, and wound up in the States. We played in New York for a while, got a record deal that went nowhere. I kept badgering them that having seen the formation of The Byrds in L.A., that we ought to go to California. That's what we did eventually, and wound up, through various reasons I won't take time to explain, in the Bay area. There we played on the weekends usually the Avalon Ballroom or the Fillmore Ballroom. During the week we would play different clubs. One of them was a permanently beached paddle wheeler ferry boat in Sausalito called The Ark. John Kay: We were now amongst all of these Bay area bands that liked to stretch out and experiment and jam and do different things. We said, “Hey, we can play songs that are longer than four or five minutes.” We started to do different things. One of them was this ad-libbed version of The Pusher, which was preceded by us doing different instrumental experiments. Steve Miller would come by and sit in and play all the different things. One of the things we'll always remember is that regularly the Hells Angels would come, drop acid, lie down on the dance floor, and stay all night listening. John Kay: We also played a club called The Matrix. Unbeknownst to us, the manager of the club had a couple of microphones suspended in the ceiling. When Steppenwolf later were moving forward into the '68 and '69, when we were quite successful with our first couple albums, we were being badgered to go back into the recording studio, because the label was always hungry for a new product. We had a couple record contracts that obligated us to deliver two albums a year, which was in hindsight ridiculous. John Kay: Anyway, the point is that the label said, “This young man, or this guy showed up, and he has these tapes that he recorded, unbeknownst to you, when you guys were still called The Sparrows, from a show you played at The Matrix in San Francisco. We would like to put it out as a collector's item called Early Steppenwolf.” We listened to it. Of course you can imagine that with a couple of microphones suspended from the ceiling, this was, yeah, a collector's item for those who must just for bragging rights have to have one of everything, to be able to say, “I got everything they ever did.” We hated that. We hated it then, but it bought us time. It bought us time in the studio, because when that thing was released, we got busy on writing and eventually recording what became the Monster album. That was a major step forward. Jeff Thompson: Yes, it was. Pete Lane: Fascinating story. Jeff Thompson: John, I want to go back to you told a story about how kids in school would bully you, but you took their names, you remembered, and you would get them back somehow. John Kay: It wasn't so much in school. What would happen is, like just about everywhere in the world, including the States these days, soccer, what they called football, every kid plays it. They play it barefoot in Africa. Whatever. We did too, meaning the kids in the street in West Germany when I was young. There was a vacant lot next to our little apartment building, and that's where we played. John Kay: During the day, with the sun in my eyes, even with my dark glasses, that wasn't so cool, but the moment the sun started going down, during twilight hours, I'm like a nocturnal creature that can make do with very little light. My eyes open up. I don't squint. I can see much better, not further, just more comfortably I can see things. John Kay: I would join the kids playing soccer. When they figured out that I couldn't always see what was going on, there's an 11-meter penalty kick that's part of the rules, and so when it was my turn to make that kick, some wise ass would put a half a brick in front of the ball, so I wouldn't see it. I'd come with just regular street shoes, no special athletic shoes, and take a run at shooting this ball, and of course, wham, would run my toes right into that brick- Jeff Thompson: Ouch. John Kay: … holding my foot and hopping around on one leg, doing a Daffy Duck, “Woo! Woo!” That did not go down well with me. I was fairly big for my size always, tall. They then of course saw that I was gonna come after them. They also knew that if they managed to run a certain distance, I could no longer find them. I had to learn to say, “This is not the time.” Two or three days would go by, and they would have forgotten about it, and whoever the instigator was would be doing something, and then I would go over there and deck them. They would be, “Oh man, what was that for, man? I didn't do … ” “Yes, you did, and I did not forget, but I hope you will remember this,” and they did. Jeff Thompson: I remember seeing your album covers. I collected albums. There was one of you leaning back, and you're very tall, the way the angle was on it. You wore the sunglasses. When I thought of artists, musicians, I go through Roy Orbison and other people that wore the sunglasses on stage and stuff, I never thought of you. When someone brought it to my attention, State Services for the Blind here, some client wants your book recorded, so they'll take volunteers, record chapter by chapter for the person to listen to. They contacted me, said, “Hey, John Kay, he's visually impaired.” I went, “Oh, that explains the sunglasses,” maybe for the lights on stage or something. John Kay: Absolutely the case. I had learned over time, since I wore dark glasses during the day, certainly outdoors, I got in the habit of keeping them on, because I went, “Spotlights and stage lights, they're pretty bright, and sometimes it's difficult for me to see the guitar fret board, where my fingers go and everything, and so I'll just keep the dark glasses on. Besides, some pretty cool people seem to be wearing them, and so that's just part of the persona.” Over time, meaning literally decades, I learned that I could avoid, provided the spotlights were mounted high enough with a downward angle, I could look under them in a sense, look at the audience rather than up into the bleachers. Gradually I was able to dispense with them on stage, although the moment we play outdoors they go right back on. In fact I have one pair that's damn near as dark as welding goggles when things get really super sunny, Africa's sun is very bright, or the snow is very reflective, that sort of thing. John Kay: Of course I remember one time, we were never the darlings of Rolling Stone, and so there was a negative review of one of our albums. The guy said, I'm paraphrasing, “As far as John Kay's jive sunglasses are concerned,” he went on about something else. Actually, one of our managers felt compelled to write them a letter and point out that those glasses have a purpose for being on my face. He's just like everyone else. John Kay: When I was a kid in West Germany when we first got there, I had a key around my neck, because my mother was a seamstress in other people's homes, so making a living until she remarried, and I had to learn how to get around, to get on this streetcar to get to there, because I was at a daycare center run by the Swedish Red Cross and I had to make my way back home and I couldn't read the street signs. You figure things out, there's this kind of a building on that corner, and markers that you imprint into your memory banks. John Kay: You have to remember, this is a time, post World War II, the Soviet Union alone lost 20 million people. In Hanover in 1949 and '50 and '51, there were tons of people, legs and arms missing and crutches and this and that, those who managed to survive the war in some semblance. It was basically a mindset of, “Hey, we all got stuff to deal with, kid. Just get on with it.” You learned how to figure out workaround solutions for what you're dealing with. I'm certainly one of millions who are having to make adjustments. John Kay: I remember we had a dear neighbor in Tennessee was a Vietnam veteran, Marine Corps, and he was in a wheelchair. He had to overcome his anger and started to meditate and do other things. He said to me, “Hey John, it's not the hand that's dealt you, it's how you play the hand that's dealt you.” He married, had a wonderful daughter. He became a cotton farmer and somehow got onto his tractor, and like so many out there, that okay, he's not perfect, but what are you gonna do with what you got? Jeff Thompson: John, regarding your visual impairment these days, do you use technology, computer, smartphone, anything along those lines? If so, do you use any kind of adaptive tools or screen enlargement features, anything like that? John Kay: I'm lucky enough in the sense that most standard issue devices have features that work just fine. I have a fairly large flat-panel monitor on my PC. Of course with the zoom feature and other things, I can make the font, what I'm reading, as well as what I may be writing, email and Word documents or whatever, whatever I want. The iOS, I have a phone, I have a iPad, they have a zoom feature that's just marvelous. I use that when needed. Some things with Siri or Chicano or something, in the PC world you can actually just ask for certain things to be brought to the screen. I'm learning how to do that more and more. It's a great convenience. John Kay: I really don't have any problems. I've flown all over the world to meet my band mates on my own. I've learned to do … That was a big deal for me, because of … One of you mentioned you had been to our foundation's website. There are a number of videos about the things that we support, and we have witnessed and the wildlife that we see and so on. All of that was shot by me, edited by me, and then narrated by me. Now granted my wife, who is a fine photographer and had no colorblindness like I do, I ask her sometimes, “What about this?” “We can tweak that a little, whatever.” Other than a little color assistance, I do all that myself. John Kay: The reason I can do it primarily is because there are several brands of prosumer or even professional camcorders that have up to 20x optical zoom lens, which gives you an incredible reach from where you are to get a closeup of whatever's in the distance, an elephant, whatever it may be. I use it like a pair of binoculars, because I remember one time we were in Africa and our guide was asking my wife, “He's constantly looking through that thing. Is he always shooting?” She says, “No no no. Instead of picking up a pair of binoculars, then finding something he wants to shoot, putting down-” Jeff Thompson: Good for you. John Kay: “… the binoculars, picking up his camera, he just uses that zoom lens of his like a pair of binoculars, and when he sees something, he just pulls the trigger and starts recording.” Jeff Thompson: That's great. That's neat. John Kay: That's my workaround solution for that. Jeff Thompson: John, there's so much information on your website. I was going through it. That's how I found out about the elephants and your foundation. I also was reading your question and answer, which any of the listeners who are out there, go to his website and check it out, the question and answer, because it answers so many questions. One of them was when someone mentions you are a legend, I loved your response to that. You would say it to if you met Chuck Berry or someone else or something. It was just such a humbling thing that you … Then I believe you met your wife in … John Kay: Toronto. Jeff Thompson: Yeah, in Toronto. Usually when you hear about rock stars and these legends, they've gone through wives, divorces. You're still together. John Kay: We are still together. I was a member of the aforementioned Canadian band in Toronto called The Sparrows. We were playing Downtown Toronto at a place. Between sets, our bass player said, “Hey, my girlfriend is here, sitting over there at that table, and she brought her girl friend. Why don't you join us for a drink or something?” I went over there, and I met this young woman by the name Jutta, spelled J-U-T-T-A. She was from Hamburg, Germany, where she had already as a teenager seen the band that later was to name itself the Beatles and numerous American rock-and-roll stars at The Star-Club in Hamburg. We had some things in common. I liked her a lot. I followed her home that night and moved in with her. We've been together ever since. Jeff Thompson: The longest one-night stand. John Kay: Yeah. The thing is that I, like so many others in the rock-and-roll world, being in our early 20s when we caught a wave as Steppenwolf and we were out there on the road, there's a degree of too much ego, testosterone, drugs, and temptations out there. When my wife sometimes, particularly women ask her, “Was it all roses and rainbows? You guys are still together. What's the secret to your marriage's longevity?” She'll look them straight in the eye and say, “The secret is not getting a divorce.” Jeff Thompson: Rocket science. John Kay: We're very much lifelong partners. We have much, much in common in terms of our interests and where we direct our energy and passion and time. The other hand, rather, she has certain intuitive traits that for whatever reason elude me, and I'm more analytical and more logical in some ways. We're a good fit. It's the yin and the yang together. We hope to remain like that until we are no longer vertical. Jeff Thompson: I have a question about this. When you met her, was your eyesight at the time, did you have to explain to her you won't be driving or something like that? John Kay: Yeah, you're right. Just like my thing that I mentioned earlier, when you're a 12-year-old and you're fantasizing about becoming a rock-and-roller on the other side of the ocean and being told, “Sure, kid,” when I moved in with her, she was a very young, desirable, good-looking woman, some of her friends, there's an old snide remark in the industry, which is, “What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? You call them homeless.” John Kay: When I went back to this other girl that I had been living with, to get some of my belongings to bring those over to Jutta's place, when I showed up at this other girl's place, there was another guy sitting there already, playing the guitar. I said, “Hello, who are you?” He says, “My name is Neil Young. I just came in from Winnipeg and I'm joining this band called The Mynah Birds.” I said, “Oh, cool. I just joined this band called The Sparrows.” In other words, all of us folkies were always looking for a kindhearted woman to put a roof over your head. John Kay: When I moved in with Jutta and we had been together for a while, they were all telling her, “You got a legally blind, penniless musician, and that's your future. I think you can do better than that.” Of course the conventional wisdom, they were absolutely right. The chances of all of this working out the way it did, you'd probably get better odds winning the lottery, if you go to Vegas, they would give you better odds for that, but like I said earlier, sometimes you just have more luck than good sense. It all worked out just fine. Jeff Thompson: That's great. How did you keep your focus? How did you, I keep going back to that song, but your eye on the chart, through all that has gone on with the early Steppenwolf to John Kay and Steppenwolf? What kept you focused? John Kay: That's an interesting story, question rather, because I've had to contemplate that before. I've never felt the need to go see a shrink. I seemed to always get over whatever emotional speed bumps there were. I suspect that the same deeply rooted passion for certain things, be it music, be it a sense of justice, being easily enraged by injustice, that I think is also the touchstone of other things where anger is the motivator and the engine. In the case of Steppenwolf, was very successful, we had various albums, some more commercially successful than others. It wasn't all roses and rainbows, but on the whole, it was a segment of my life that was pretty special, obviously. John Kay: Then came time when the obligations to the band, because of being its primary songwriter and lead singer and front man and all that, became such that I wanted time for the private me, which meant my family, our daughter, who was hardly ever seeing me. John Kay: When I pulled the plug on Steppenwolf in the late '70s, after a rejuvenating period in the mid-'70s on a different label, our little family went in our little family van all over the Southwest. We spent a lot of time in Hawaii, on Maui and stuff. That was quite nurturing and very good for me, but I was also, “Okay, I'm gonna do a solo album, this and that.” It was on pause to a certain extent. John Kay: Then the news reached Jerry Edmonton, the original drummer and co-founder of the band, and friend, that a couple of ex-members of the band were out there using the name Steppenwolf. Then all sorts of boring details as to lawsuits and other things involved, but the news that reached us was generally from fans, saying, “We went to see what was called Steppenwolf, and it was horrible. People were throwing stuff at them. They're trashing the name.” John Kay: We tried to put a stop to these activities, using the legal system, lawsuits and so on. Again, it would take too much time to go into the details. Let's just say that the results, I kept saying, “This legal system is limping along like a turtle with a wooden leg. We're not getting anywhere here with these lawsuits.” It was like whack-a-mole. You'd go after them in this state, they'd pop up in another state. John Kay: Finally, out of sheer desperation and anger, I had a number of musicians with whom I had been playing as the John Kay Band, I called Jerry and I said, “Man, I want to go out there as John Kay and Steppenwolf, because I want to resurrect the name and rebuild it. We'll work out something, so you participate financially.” He was already into his photographer and artist mode. That was fine. John Kay: In 1980 I went out there, driven by the outrage and anger of, “You guys are destroying something that you didn't build. I was the one who called everybody up to see if you wanted to what became Steppenwolf, and I'm going to go out there and compete with you guys on the same low-level clubs you guys have played the name down into, see who wins.” John Kay: We from 1980 on went out there 20 weeks at a time, five shows a week, overnight drives 500 miles, playing in the toilet circuit of bars, where some of them, you wouldn't want to enter those clubs without a whip and a chair. It was just horrible. John Kay: The mantra was, “Yeah, three years ago we were headlining in arenas. That's not the point. If there are 300 people here tonight at this club who are not above being here to hear us play, and we're certainly not above us playing for them, so the mission is every night we gotta send people home smiling and telling others, ‘You missed a really good show,' and all you can do is grit your teeth that that will eventually,” because we ran into, we distinctly remember, a club on the outskirts of Minneapolis, St. Paul. During the soundcheck time, relatively young guy came over and looked me straight in the face, said, “You're not John Kay. He wouldn't play a shit hole like this.” That was the level to which the name had been played down into. John Kay: That really got me aggravated. I said, “I'm gonna kick their butt, not by … The lawyers are still fighting over this and that, but in the meantime, we're getting great reviews and we're going town by town, state by state.” By 1984, after relentless touring in the States, also twice in Canada, by that time we had also released a couple new albums, twice in Europe, once in Australia, we in essence put what we called the bogus Steppenwolf bands out of business. John Kay: While we were at it, since we were somewhat damaged goods, we said, “Then we're gonna learn how to mind the store ourselves.” That's when we had our own music publishing company, our own recording studio, our own merchandise corporation, our own tour bus, huge truck with a triple sleeper, 105 cases of gear, and on and on. To give you an idea of how tight a bond was formed, our entire crew, all four members have been with me for over 30 years. Jeff Thompson: Oh wow. Pete Lane: Wow. John Kay: We took the reigns into our own hands and learned. I did not want to become a paralegal or para-accountant or any of those other things. Almost everybody in our 12-member organization, bus drivers, everybody, wore multiple hats, selling merchandise during the show or whatever. They were all quality people, and we learned how to fend for ourselves, and not just survive, but at a certain point, thrive. We knew exactly where the money was coming from and where it went. Nobody was running off with our loot to Ecuador. Jeff Thompson: What suggestions would you have for someone today who is interested in music like you were, driving your passion from Little Richard, Chuck Berry, all those people that inspired you to follow your passion? What suggestions in today's music world would you give to them? John Kay: Unfortunately, I wish I had some kind of a magic formula to impart to them, but obviously every situation is vastly different, is really I think in the end, I know people who are tremendously talented, vastly more talented than I am, who are not necessarily doing well. I've experienced in the early days where someone whose primary talent was to show up at every opportunity to pitch what they had to offer. It's one of those, “Did you go to that audition yesterday, this morning, or whatever?” “I had a really late-night last night. I'll go to the next one.” How many opportunities are gonna come your way? It's one of those. John Kay: The other thing is, do you have the fire in your belly to handle the ego-destroying rejections, because there are probably hundreds, if you were to take a poll of … Well-known singer-songwriter Nora Jones, that first album, which I love, was rejected I think by every label in town twice. There are stories like that all over the place. John Kay: How do you pick yourself up every morning after, “I'm sorry, it's just not radio-friendly,” or, “You don't really fit into our whatever.” You need to have a pretty intense flame of passion about what you are and what you have to offer. You need to be able to handle … John Kay: You may be the one that wins the lottery, where the first attempt reaches the right set of ears and you've got a partner in your career moving forward, but most likely you will be like so many of the baby acts these days, and some who have been around already for 10 years plus, which is you have to learn how to wear a lot of different hats, the social media stuff, the pitching your music on YouTube or whatever, to endlessly tour in clubs, to build a following, four of you sleeping in the van with the gear, whatever. It'll burn you out if you're not made of something that can handle those rigors. John Kay: Meantime, you have the temptations of, “I want to have a private life too,” depending on whether you're a female or male, an artist, “I met somebody I want to share my life with. At some point we want to have children. This band isn't getting me anywhere.” There are all these things that are strikes against your ability to prevail in this, unless you are one of those who's willing to take those beatings out there, in terms of the rejection and being often the response that you get from reviewers or whatever is not always positive, particularly if you're still in the process of really finding and tweaking who you are and what you have to offer. John Kay: If you're a singer doing other people's stuff, that's one thing. If you are a writer and you really have something to say, that may be an advantage in the sense that if it resonates, you may find what we found in the early days, which is, “Wow, you've become our musical spokesperson. When I play that song, it is my inner voice, having been give voice, by your voice.” If you're one of those who's able to put in words what moves you most, and there are lots of others out there that take your music as their personal soundtrack, then it may still be a long slog uphill, but usually that sort of thing spreads readily on social media. John Kay: We have the Wolf Pack. When we played our official 50th anniversary, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the formation of the band, when we played that official concert to commemorate that at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee last August, and the Wolf Pack fan club was notified of that. We had over 300 Wolf Pack fan members coming from all over North America and at least close to 70 or 80 of them coming all the way from Europe. They all know each other. They're all like the Dead Heads. They have a passion that they share with others. John Kay: If you are able as an artist to reach people in that kind of way where what you have to offer becomes more than just sheer entertainment, then I think your chances of making a go of it are pretty good. Some of more or less my contemporaries that are still writing, still out there, still loved, John Prine, John Hiatt, if you are one of those, or you're aspiring to become one of those, I wish you a lot of good fortune. John Kay: Sarah McLachlan song Angel, it has moved millions to tears. One of the verses that basically I'm paraphrasing, about when you're always being told you're not good enough, you're basically having the door slammed in your face all the time, and the self-doubt creeps in and nobody seems to get what it is you have to offer, those kind of things, they're hard on you. John Kay: You wouldn't want to be a writer, artist, player, whatever, singer, if you didn't have some degree of ego that says, “Hey, I've got something to offer, something to say. I'm up here. Do you like what I got?” That's rooted to some extent in your ego. If you have that ego under co

The Yellow Brit Road turns one! We've been on this golden road a full year now, so here's to another great show to celebrate! June is Pride month, and we're celebrating with queer musical history and icons all month. This week, we explored the legacies of arguably the first openly trans rock and roller, Jayne County, and the godmother and inventor of all rock music anywhere, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. You can find Sister Rosetta Tharpe's spirited live performance of Up Above My Head as played on the show here. We also had music from Bristolian punks Grandma's House London supergroup Child's Pose CHVRCHES (and Robert Smith!) with an exciting new collaboration Dance floor bangers from Bristol's Lynks Leeds alt rock band The Harriets Electronic punk trio NOISY Our submission this week was from Floridian indie-pop band Community Towel, who say of themselves, "Departing from bass and vocal duty in post-hardcore outfit GILT, multi-instrumentalist Nico Baci uses their indie/dream-pop solo project Community Towel to explore their struggles with mental and physical health, and experiences as a nonbinary and Latinx individual" Masala Chai artists this week were: Chicago-based multi-instrumental indie musician SuperKnova Montreal's shoegaze punkers Heathers Invigorating grunge from Toronto's PONY Find this week's playlist here (try and support artists directly if you can!) Listen live on your dial at 101.9 FM in the Kingston area, or on cfrc.ca, Sundays 8 to 9 PM! (Full shows are available in the archive for 3 months from release) Get in touch with the show: email yellowbritroad@gmail.com or tweet @YellowBritCFRC. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/yellowbritroad/message

This week – in the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time – also known as Trinity Sunday – Julie gives context to three readings to enable easier understanding and prayer: Deut 4:32-34, 39-40, Romans 8: 14-17, Matthew 28: 16-20. She also discovers heavy metal rock ‘n’ roller Alice Cooper is Christian and shares a bit about Alice’s testimony and return to the faith. He and his wife are both KPs – Kids of Preachers. Alice Cooper talks about how it’s possible to be a heavy metal rock and roller and still stay true to God.

We sat down with our favorite undead rock and roller, Rod Usher (The Other, & founder of FIENDFORCE RECORDS) to talk about horror novels, action figures, and the terrifying truth behind the popularization of the genre name...HORROR PUNK. A very busy ghoul, indeed!

Come sit with Bridget and her guest Eugene, a colourful character with a heart of gold.  The two chat about inevitable inappropriate crushes, moving on after loss and the magic of solstice.     Have a story to share or an ex to interview? Write to us at interviewswithexes.com   Interviews With Exes is sponsored by BetterHelp. Go to betterhelp.com/iwe to get 10% off your first month and get matched with your counsellor within 48 hours.

I made a ton of announcements in today's episode. And all the pertinent links are below. But I also talked about an important aspect of our daily lives that I illustrated through a personal story and the story I'd hear told by a Rock and Roll Legend! Life has its ups and downs, and so do our bodies. And in our down cycles and rhythms, our energy wanes. In these times, it's very enticing to want to pull the covers over our heads and just take the day off. While the occasional day off for physical or mental care is very legitimate and will feel good in the short term, showing up anyway is also very important. Because life is waiting for us out there. When we show up in spite of our energy level, we open the potential for greatness. I shared a story about genius I'd heard in a TED Talk, and that's pasted below for you as well. But the thing is that none of us know when genius will show up and, as per my story and the story of that Rock and Roller, it doesn't necessarily show up when it feels like it will. That is to say that your energy and how you feel on any given day does not determine how you impact the world around you. So if we show up in spite of our low energy, we just might change someone's life in spite of ourselves. Here are the links I mentioned in today's episode: To become a Patreon (the first 3 people get an automatic upgrade and gain access to the benefits of tier 2 patronage, regardless of the monthly contribution!): https://www.patreon.com/artburns To check out the Learning to Surf Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learning-to-surf-ep-1-adam-art-hour-compassion-love/id1512499997?i=1000508643601 To join our Wednesday evening meet up: https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/events/276481843/ To join our Saturday morning sit: https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/events/qwblfsyccdbkc/ And here is the TED Talk link: https://youtu.be/86x-u-tz0MA

The Nuge. Uncle Ted. Great Gonzo. The Motor City Madman. Today Dave and Sam are discussing the rock legend, Ted Nugent,  in honor of his upcoming birthday.    The list of conservative rock-and-rollers is pretty short. But even if you were only going to have just one, Ted Nugent would do the trick.   Ted Nugent goes by many names, but he was born with the unassuming moniker Theodore Anthony Nugent in 1948, the third of four kids in Redford, MI. Part of a military family, Nugent's father was a career sergeant in the army. For his part, though, Nugent was of draft age during the Vietnam War, he flunked his physical and was declared unfit for military service. Today, however, he is a member of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Felony Task Force.   Nugent began his rock-and-roll career with the Amboy Dukes, one of the premiere psychedelic rock bands of the era. They replaced the equally legendary Shadows of Knight as the house band at The Cellar, a teen rock club in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, IL. Their breakout hit was “Journey to the Center of the Mind,” a song that is clearly about LSD use – but not to Uncle Ted, who is one of the most notoriously sober rockers in history. In fact, he was cited by Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye, and others of the early hardcore scene, as one of the biggest inspirations for the straight-edge movement.   Indeed, The Nuge claims and proudly owns his role as the inspiration for this movement. In a VICE interview he said that he will work with anyone who is anywhere on the political spectrum (citing Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello as both a friend and a collaborator), but that he's reticent to work with anyone who does drugs of any kind because he believes that it robs them of focus.    You can read the full article “Ted Nugent: The Forgotten History of the Conservative Rock-and-Roller and Gun Advocate” at Ammo.com.     For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).   Follow Sam Jacobs on Parler: https://parler.com/profile/SamJacobs1776/posts   And check out our sponsor, Libertas Bella, for all of your favorite 2nd Amendment shirts at LibertasBella.com.   Helpful Links:  Ted Nugent: The Forgotten History of the Conservative Rock-and-Roller and Gun Advocate Resistance Library  Sam Jacobs

In this week's episode of the RBP podcast, we pay tribute to Kraftwerk cofounder Florian Schneider, along with Afrobeat linchpin Tony Allen and Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield. The excellent Simon Witter joins us to offer essential expertise on Schneider's vital part in making Kraftwerk the hugely influential group they were, with discussion revolving around our guest's epic MOJO retrospective on the electronica godfathers.RBP's regular triumvirate consider pieces by the week's featured writer Lisa Verrico, commencing with a hilarious 1994 diatribe from the Fall's Mark E. Smith. More-up-to date are her great Sunday Times profiles of cutting-edge stars Billie Eilish and Christine & the Queens, prompting passionate endorsements by "our Jasper" Murison-Bowie. Being a tiny bit older than "our" Jasper, Mark Pringle & Barney Hoskyns steer the conversation towards the week's new audio interview. Clips from John Tobler's 1973 chat with Rick Nelson trigger musings on TV teen Idol Ricky's metamorphosis into a credible rock and roller – and then into the trailblazing L.A. country rocker whose Stone Canyon Band backed him on his wry Top 10 hit 'Garden Party'. Finally, Mark walks us through the new library additions that most tickled his interest this week, including Jamie McCluskey III (a.k.a. Eden, a.k.a. Nikki Wine) chatting to the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson in 1965, David Keeps in conversation with Detroit's Was (Not Was) in 1983, and RJ Smith anticipating Trump's America in a prescient 1991 piece about Guns N' Roses. Barney pics Carol Clark's lovely 2001 lament for the inimitable Joey Ramone, while Jasper focuses on – among other items – John Calvert's 2015 dissection of problematic lyrics by Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye… Many thanks to special guest Simon Witter.The Rock's Backpages podcast is part of the Pantheon podcast network.Pieces discussed: Kraftwerk, Kraftwerker, Am Kraftwerksten, Mark E. Smith, Billie Eilish, Christine and the Queens, Rick Nelson audio, Brian Wilson, The Band, Was (Not Was), The D.O.C., Guns N' Roses, Hip Hop in 1998, Joey Ramone, Neil Cowley Trio, The Weeknd and Tame Impala's Slow Rush.

In this week's episode of the RBP podcast, we pay tribute to Kraftwerk cofounder Florian Schneider, along with Afrobeat linchpin Tony Allen and Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield. The excellent Simon Witter joins us to offer essential expertise on Schneider's vital part in making Kraftwerk the hugely influential group they were, with discussion revolving around our guest's epic MOJO retrospective on the electronica godfathers.RBP's regular triumvirate consider pieces by the week's featured writer Lisa Verrico, commencing with a hilarious 1994 diatribe from the Fall's Mark E. Smith. More-up-to date are her great Sunday Times profiles of cutting-edge stars Billie Eilish and Christine & the Queens, prompting passionate endorsements by "our Jasper" Murison-Bowie. Being a tiny bit older than "our" Jasper, Mark Pringle & Barney Hoskyns steer the conversation towards the week's new audio interview. Clips from John Tobler's 1973 chat with Rick Nelson trigger musings on TV teen Idol Ricky's metamorphosis into a credible rock and roller – and then into the trailblazing L.A. country rocker whose Stone Canyon Band backed him on his wry Top 10 hit 'Garden Party'. Finally, Mark walks us through the new library additions that most tickled his interest this week, including Jamie McCluskey III (a.k.a. Eden, a.k.a. Nikki Wine) chatting to the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson in 1965, David Keeps in conversation with Detroit's Was (Not Was) in 1983, and RJ Smith anticipating Trump's America in a prescient 1991 piece about Guns N' Roses. Barney pics Carol Clark's lovely 2001 lament for the inimitable Joey Ramone, while Jasper focuses on – among other items – John Calvert's 2015 dissection of problematic lyrics by Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye… Many thanks to special guest Simon Witter.The Rock's Backpages podcast is part of the Pantheon podcast network.Pieces discussed: Kraftwerk, Kraftwerker, Am Kraftwerksten, Mark E. Smith, Billie Eilish, Christine and the Queens, Rick Nelson audio, Brian Wilson, The Band, Was (Not Was), The D.O.C., Guns N' Roses, Hip Hop in 1998, Joey Ramone, Neil Cowley Trio, The Weeknd and Tame Impala's Slow Rush.

Classically-trained opera singer turned rock and roller, Hayley Thompson-King, hangs with Tatiana Z at the Compass Records headquarters during AmericanaFest 2018. Thompson-King shares about her 2017 LP, Psychotic Melancholia. Recorded Sept. 2018 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode sixty-nine of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Fujiyama Mama” by Wanda Jackson, and the first rock and roller to become “big in Japan” Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley.  —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.   I have two main sources for this eposode. One is Wanda Jackson’s autobiography, Every Night is Saturday Night. The other is this article on “Fujiyama Mama”, which I urge everyone to read, as it goes into far more detail about the reasons why the song had the reception it did in Japan.   And this compilation collects most of Jackson’s important early work.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we begin this episode, a minor content note. I am going to be looking at a song that is, unfortunately, unthinkingly offensive towards Japanese people and culture. If that – or flippant lyrics about the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki – are likely to upset you, be warned. When we left Wanda Jackson six months ago, it looked very much like she might end up being a one-hit wonder. “I Gotta Know” had been a hit, but there hadn’t been a successful follow-up. In part this was because she was straddling two different genres — she was trying to find a way to be successful in both the rock and roll and country markets, and neither was taking to her especially well. In later years, it would be recognised that the music she was making combined some of the best of both worlds — she was working with a lot of the musicians on the West Coast who would later go on to become famous for creating the Bakersfield Sound, and changing the whole face of country music, and her records have a lot of that sound about them. And at the same time she was also making some extremely hot rockabilly music, but she was just a little bit too country for the rock market, and a little bit too rock for the country market. Possibly the place where she fit in best was among the Sun records acts, and so it’s not surprising that she ended up towards the bottom of the bill on the long tour that Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash did over much of North America in early 1957 — the tour on which Jerry Lee Lewis moved from third billed to top of the bill by sheer force of personality. But it says quite a bit about Jackson that while everyone else talking about that tour discusses the way that some of the men did things like throwing cherry bombs at each other’s cars, and living off nothing but whisky, Wanda’s principal recollection of the tour in her autobiography is of going to church and inviting all the men along, but Jerry Lee being the only one who would come with her. To a great extent she was shielded from the worst aspects of the men’s behaviour by her father, who was still looking after her on the road, and acted as a buffer between her and the worst excesses of her tourmates, but she seems to have been happy with that situation — she didn’t seem to have much desire to become one of the boys, the way many other female rock and roll stars have. She enjoyed making wild-sounding music, but she saw that mostly as a kind of acting — she didn’t think that her onstage persona had to match her offstage behaviour at all. And one of the wildest records she made was “Fujiyama Mama”: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “Fujiyama Mama”] “Fujiyama Mama” was written by the rockabilly and R&B songwriter Jack Hammer (whose birth name was the more prosaic Earl Burroughs), who is best known as having been the credited co-writer of “Great Balls of Fire”. We didn’t talk about him in the episode on that song, because apparently Hammer’s only contribution to the song was the title — he wrote a totally different song with the same title, which Paul Case, who was the music consultant on the film “Jamboree”, liked enough to commission Otis Blackwell to write another song of the same name, giving Hammer half the credit. But Hammer did write some songs on his own that became at least moderate successes. For example, he wrote “Rock and Roll Call”, which was recorded by Louis Jordan: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Rock and Roll Call”] And “Milkshake Mademoiselle” for Jerry Lee Lewis: [Excerpt, Jerry Lee Lewis, “Milkshake Mademoiselle”] And in 1954, when Hammer was only fourteen, he wrote “Fujiyama Mama”, which was originally recorded by Annisteen Allen: [Excerpt: Annisteen Allen, “Fujiyama Mama”] This was a song in a long line of songs about black women’s sexuality which lie at the base of rock and roll, though of course, as with several of those songs, it’s written by a man, and it’s mostly the woman boasting about how much pleasure she’s going to give the man — while it’s a sexually aggressive record, this is very much a male fantasy as performed by a woman. Allen was yet another singer in the early days of R&B and rock and roll to have come out of Lucky Millinder’s orchestra — she had been his female singer in the late forties, just after Rosetta Tharpe had left the group, and while Wynonie Harris was their male singer. She’d sung lead on what turned out to be Millinder’s last big hit, “I’m Waiting Just For You”: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder and his orchestra, “I’m Waiting Just For You”] After she left Millinder’s band, Allen recorded for a variety of labels, with little success, and when she recorded “Fujiyama Mama” in 1954 she was on Capitol — this was almost unique at the time, as her kind of R&B would normally have come out on King or Apollo or Savoy or a similar small label. In its original version, “Fujiyama Mama” wasn’t a particularly successful record, but Wanda Jackson heard it on a jukebox and fell in love with the record. She quickly learned the song and added it to her own act. In 1957, Jackson was in the studio recording a country song called “No Wedding Bells for Joe”, written by a friend of hers called Marijohn Wilkin, who would later go on to write country classics like “Long Black Veil”: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “No Wedding Bells For Joe”] For the B-side, Jackson wanted to record “Fujiyama Mama”, but Ken Nelson was very concerned — the lyrics about drinking, smoking, and shooting were bad enough for a girl who was not yet quite twenty, the blatant female sexuality was not something that would go down well at all in the country market, and lyrics like “I’ve been to Nagasaki, Hiroshima too/The things I did to them I can do to you” were horribly tasteless — and remember, this was little more than a decade after the bombs were dropped on those cities. Nelson really, really, disliked the song, and didn’t want Jackson to record it, and while I’ve been critical of Nelson for making poor repertoire choices for his artists — Nelson was someone with a great instinct for performers, but a terrible instinct for material — I can’t say I entirely blame him in this instance. But Wanda overruled him — and then, when he tried to tone down her performance in the studio, she rebelled against that, with the encouragement of her father, who told her “You’re the one who wanted to do it, so you need to do it your way”. In the last episode about Jackson, we talked about how she’d tried to do her normal growling roar on “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad!” but was let down by having drunk milk before recording the song. This time, she had no problem, and for the first time in the studio she sang in the voice that she used for her rock and roll songs on stage: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “Fujiyama Mama”] To my ears, Jackson’s version of the song is still notably inferior to Allen’s version, but it’s important to note that this isn’t a Georgia Gibbs style white person covering a black artist for commercial success at the instigation of her producer, and copying the arrangement precisely, this is a young woman covering a record she loved, and doing it as a B-side. There’s still the racial dynamic at play there, but this is closer to Elvis doing “That’s All Right” than to Georgia Gibbs ripping off LaVern Baker or Etta James. It’s also closer to Elvis than it is to Eileen Barton, who was the second person to have recorded the song. Barton was a novelty singer, whose biggest hit was “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake” from 1950: [Excerpt: Eileen Barton, “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake”] Barton’s version of “Fujiyama Mama” was the B-side to a 1955 remake of “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake”, redone as a blues. I’ve not actually been able to track down a copy of that remake, so I can’t play an excerpt — I’m sure you’re all devastated by that. Barton’s version, far more than Jackson’s, was a straight copy of the original, though the arranger on her version gets rid of most of the Orientalisms in Allen’s original recording: [Excerpt: Eileen Barton, “Fujiyama Mama”] I think the difference between Barton’s and Jackson’s versions simply comes down to their sincerity. Barton hated the song, and thought of it as a terrible novelty tune she was being forced to sing. She did a competent professional job, because she was a professional vocalist, but she would talk later in interviews about how much she disliked the record. Jackson, on the other hand, pushed to do the song because she loved it so much, and she performed the song as she wanted it to be done, and against the wishes of her producer. For all the many, many problematic aspects of the song, which I won’t defend at all, that passion does show through in Jackson’s performance of it. Jackson’s single was released, and did absolutely nothing sales-wise, as was normal for her records at this point. Around this time, she also cut her first album, and included on it a cover version of a song Elvis had recently recorded, “Party”, which in her version was retitled “Let’s Have a Party”: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “Let’s Have a Party”] That album also did essentially nothing, and while Jackson continued releasing singles throughout 1958, none of them charted. Ken Nelson didn’t even book her in for a single recording session in 1959 — by that point they’d got enough stuff already recorded that they could keep releasing records by her until her contract ran out, and they didn’t need to throw good money after bad by paying for more studio sessions to make records that nobody was going to buy. And then something really strange happened. “Fujiyama Mama” became hugely successful in Japan. Now, nobody seems to have adequately explained quite how this happened. After all, this record was… not exactly flattering about Japanese people, and its first couple of lines seem to celebrate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it’s not as if they didn’t know what was being sung. While obviously Jackson was singing in English and most listeners in Japan couldn’t speak English, there was a Japanese translation of the lyrics printed on the back sleeve of the single, so most people would at least have had some idea what she was singing about. Yet somehow, the record made number one in Japan. In part, this may just have been simply because any recognition of Japanese culture from an American artist at all might have been seen as a novelty. But also, while in the USA pretty much all the rock and roll hits were sung by men, Japan was developing its own rock and roll culture, and in Japan, most of the big rock and roll stars were teenage girls, of around the same age as Wanda Jackson. Now, I am very far from being an expert on post-war Japanese culture, so please don’t take anything I say on the subject as being any kind of definitive statement, but from the stuff I’ve read (and in particular from a very good, long, article on this particular song that I’m going to link in the liner notes and which I urge you all to read, which goes into the cultural background a lot more than I can here) it seems as if these girls were, for the most part, groomed as manufactured pop stars, and that many of them were recording cover versions of songs in English, which they learned phonetically from the American recordings. For example, here’s Izumi Yukimura’s version of “Ko Ko Mo”: [Excerpt: Izumi Yukimura, “Ko Ko Mo”] In many of these versions, they would sing a verse in the original English, and then a verse in Japanese translation, as you can again hear in that recording: [Excerpt: Izumi Yukimura, “Ko Ko Mo”] Izumi Yuklmura also recorded a version of “Fujiyama Mama”, patterned after Jackson’s: [Excerpt: Izumi Yukimura, “Fujiyama Mama”] There are many, many things that can be said about these recordings, but the thing that strikes me about them, just as a music listener, and separate from everything else, is how comparatively convincing a rock and roll recording that version of “Fujiyama Mama” actually is. When you compare it to the music that was coming out of places like the UK or Australia or France, it’s far more energetic, and shows a far better understanding of the idiom. It’s important to note though that part of the reason for this is the peculiar circumstances in Japan at the time. Much of the Japanese entertainment industry in the late forties and fifties had grown up around the US occupying troops who were stationed there after the end of World War II, and those servicemen were more interested in seeing pretty young girls than in seeing male performers. But this meant two things — it firstly meant that young women were far more likely to be musical performers in Japan than in the US, and it also meant that the Japanese music industry was geared to performers who were performing in American styles — and so Japanese listeners were accustomed to hearing things like this: [Excerpt: Chiemi Eri, “Rock Around the Clock”] So when a recording by a young woman singing about Japan, however offensively, in a rock and roll style, was released in Japan, the market was ready for it. While in America rock and roll was largely viewed as a male music, in Japan, they were ready for Wanda Jackson. And Jackson, in turn, was ready for Japan. In her autobiography she makes clear that she was the kind of person who would nowadays be called a weeb — having a fascination with Japanese culture, albeit the stereotyped version she had learned from pop culture. She had always wanted to visit Japan growing up, and when she got there she was amazed to find that they were organising a press conference for her, and that wherever she went there were fans wanting her autograph. Jackson, of course, had no idea about the complex relationship that Japan was having at the time with American culture — though in her autobiography she talks about visiting a bar over there where Japanese singers were performing country songs — she just knew that they had latched on, for whatever reason, to an obscure B-side and given her a second chance at success. When Jackson got back from Japan, she put together her own band for the first time — and unusually for country music at the time, it was an integrated band, with a black pianist. She had to deal with some resistance from her mother, who was an older Southern white woman, but eventually managed to win her round. That pianist, Big Al Downing, later went on to have his own successful career, including a hit single duetting with Esther Phillips: [Excerpt Big Al Downing and Little Esther Phillips, “You’ll Never Miss Your Water Until The Well Runs Dry”] Downing also had disco hits in the early seventies, and later had a run of hits on the country charts. Jackson also took on a young guitarist named Roy Clark, who would go on to have a great deal of success himself, as one of the most important instrumentalists in country music, and Clark would later co-star in the hit TV show Hee-Haw, with Buck Owens (who had played on many of Jackson’s earlier records). In 1960, Jackson returned to the studio. While she’d not had much commercial success in the US yet, her records were now selling well enough to justify recording more songs with her. But Ken Nelson had a specific condition for any future recordings — he pointed out that while she’d been recording both rock and roll and country music in her previous sessions, she had only ever charted in the US as a country artist, and she’d been signed as a country artist to Capitol. All her future sessions were going to be purely country, to avoid diluting her brand. Jackson agreed, and so she went into the studio and recorded a country shuffle, “Please Call Today”: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “Please Call Today”] But a few weeks later she got a call from Ken Nelson, telling her that she was in the charts — not with “Please Call Today”, but with “Party”, the album track she’d recorded three years earlier. She was obviously confused by this, but Nelson explained that a DJ in Iowa had taken up the song and used it as the theme song for his radio show. So many people had called the DJ asking about it that he in turn had called Ken Nelson at Capitol and convinced him to put the track out as a single, and it had made the pop top forty. As a result, Capitol rushed out an album of her previous rockabilly singles, and then got her back into the studio, with her touring band, to record her first proper rock and roll album — as opposed to her first album, which was a mixture of country and rock, and her second, which was a compilation of previously-released singles. This album was full of cover versions of rock and roll hits from the previous few years, like Elvis’ “Hard-Headed Woman”, LaVern Baker’s “Tweedle Dee”, and Buddy Holly’s “It Doesn’t Matter Any More”. And she also recorded a few rock and roll singles, like a cover version of the Robins’ “Riot in Cell Block #9”. Those sessions also produced what became Jackson’s biggest hit single to that point. At the time, Brenda Lee was a big star, and a friend of Jackson. The two had had parallel careers, and Lee was someone else who straddled the boundaries between rockabilly and country, but at the time she had just had a big hit with “I’m Sorry”: [Excerpt: Brenda Lee, “I’m Sorry”] That was one of the first recordings in what would become known as “the Nashville Sound”, a style of music that was somewhere between country music and middle-of-the-road pop. Wanda had written a song in that style, and since she was now once again being pushed in a rock and roll direction, she thought she would give it to Lee to record. However, she mentioned the song to Ken Nelson when she was in the studio, and he insisted that she let him hear it — and once he heard it, he insisted on recording it with her, saying that Brenda Lee had enough hits of her own, and she didn’t need Wanda Jackson giving her hers. The result was “Right or Wrong”, which became her first solo country top ten hit, and all of a sudden she had once again switched styles — she was now no longer Wanda Jackson the rock and roller, but she was Wanda Jackson the Nashville Sound pop-country singer: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson, “Right or Wrong”] Unfortunately, Jackson ended up having to give up the songwriting royalties on that record, as she was sued by the company that owned “Wake the Town and Tell the People”, which had been a hit in 1955 and had an undeniably similar melody: [Excerpt: Mindy Carson, “Wake the Town and Tell the People”] Even so, her switch to pure country music ended up being good for Jackson. While she would have peaks and troughs in her career, she managed to score another fifteen country top forty hits over the next decade — although her biggest hit was as a writer rather than a performer, when she wrote “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around” for Buck Owens, who had played on many of her sessions early in his career before he went on to become the biggest star in country music: [Excerpt: Buck Owens, “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around”] Like almost everything Owens released in the sixties, that went top ten on the country charts. Jackson was a fairly major star in the country field through the sixties, even having her own TV show, but she was becoming increasingly unhappy, and suffering from alcoholism. In the early seventies she and her husband had a religious awakening, and became born-again Christians, and she once again switched her musical style, this time from country music to gospel — though she would still sing her old secular hits along with the gospel songs on stage. Unfortunately, Capitol weren’t interested in putting out gospel material by her, and she ended up moving to smaller and smaller labels, and by the end of the seventies she was reduced to rerecording her old hits for mail-order compilations put out by K-Tel records. But then her career got a second wind. In Europe in the early 1980s there was something of a rockabilly revival, and a Swedish label, Tab Records, got in touch with Jackson and asked her to record a new album of rockabilly music, which led to her touring all over Europe playing to crowds of rockabilly fans. By the nineties, American rockabilly revivalists were taking notice of her as well, and Rosie Flores, a rockabilly artist who would later produce Janis Martin’s last sessions, invited Jackson to duet with her on a few songs and tour North America with her: [Excerpt: Wanda Jackson and Rosie Flores, “His Rockin’ Little Angel”] In 2003, she recorded her first new album of secular music for the American market for several decades, featuring several of her younger admirers, like the Cramps and Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats. But the most prominent guest star was Elvis Costello, who duetted with her on a song by her old friend Buck Owens: [Excerpt: Elvis Costello and Wanda Jackson, “Crying Time”] After duetting with her, Costello discovered that she wasn’t yet in the rock and roll hall of fame, and started lobbying for her inclusion, writing an open letter that says in part: “For heaven’s sake, the whole thing risks ridicule and having the appearance of being a little boy’s club unless it acknowledges the contribution of one of the first women of rock and roll. “It might be hard to admit, but the musical influence of several male pioneers is somewhat obscure today. Even though their records will always be thrilling, their sound is not really heard in echo. Look around today and you can hear lots of rocking girl singers who owe an unconscious debt to the mere idea of a girl like Wanda. She was standing up on stage with a guitar in her hands and making a sound that was as wild as any rocker, man or woman, while other gals were still asking ‘How much is that doggy in the window'” Thanks in large part to Costello’s advocacy, Jackson finally made it into the hall of fame in 2009, and that seems to have spurred another minor boost to her career, as she released two albums in the early part of last decade, produced by young admirers — one produced by Justin Townes Earle, and the other by Jack White. Jackson has been having some health problems recently, and her husband and manager of fifty-six years died in 2017, so she finally retired from live performance in March last year, but she’s apparently still working on a new album, produced by Joan Jett, which should be out soon. With luck, she will have a long and happy retirement.  

Finding the courage to be yourself –– and showing up as your full self everyday –– isn't the easiest thing to do for most. But that's exactly what Park Howell put his time and energy into doing and it's been one of the keys to living a fulfilling life, personally and professionally. As the founder of The Business of Story, a platform-based system that helps purpose-driven brands find their voice and connect through the art of storytelling, Park knows firsthand the struggles that come with growing a business. Well, two in his case. He is also the founder of Park&Co., an advertising and marketing agency, which has been in business for over 24 years, as well as the host of The Business of Story podcast.  In this episode of The Success Lab Podcast, we have a frank discussion with Park about what the early days were like as a startup entrepreneur, how he eventually achieved a true work-life balance, and the importance of simply showing up and following up. Read on for a selection of questions, and listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above. What led you to create Park&Co.? I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the Seattle area. I graduated from Washington State University and moved down to Phoenix in 1985 thinking I was going to be here for a year or two. But I met my wife and had three kids and have been here ever since. While here, I started working as a writer for a public relations firm. I really love the creativity of copywriting for advertising so I moved over to the ad world side. I worked then in-house for a company called Quorum International as its creative director. When I left there, I knew it was time for me to start my own ad agency so I started as a one man band and grew it from there.  What were those early days like?  In the early days I was literally working out of this tiny little room in the back of our very first house that we bought while raising our three kids. Like any entrepreneurial struggle, you get up early, you get on the phone, you deal with clients, and you fend off little kids trying to get your attention while you're trying to get work done at home. You live that for what seems like 24/7 for the first couple of years until you get your feet beneath you. I was very blessed because my very first client was Forever Living Products International. They brought me into their fold like family and I worked with them for about 18 years and still do some consulting with them on the side. My second client was Sky Harbor International Airport and I represented them for about 10 years. I had a really fortunate one-two punch with clients when starting up my agency. What were some of the biggest challenges you encountered in growing Park&Co.? I remember on a couple of occasions becoming very overwhelmed by biting off way more than I could possibly chew. Although I had the energy to put into it, I was also looking at work-life balance with our family. I grew up in a family of seven kids and my parents were always there for us. Balance is really important to me. It's something you chip away at it and hope to figure it out sooner than later. We did, but it was a challenge, especially while we were continuing to build the company without spending a lot of money on employees.  What has been one of the best things you've done for The Business of Story to help propel its growth? The (Business of Story) podcast I do once a week. It is a lot of work, but it enables me to connect with amazing minds from all around the world. We cover every aspect of business storytelling. I've also got a really excellent person that handles my community development and SEO for my company. What was one of the most important lessons you've learned along the way? I think the secret to achieving your goals is 50% showing up and 50% following up. You have to do what you say you're going to do, otherwise you will lose complete and utter credibility.  What connections along your journey have made a big impact? There was a gentleman who has totally changed the course of my life. His name is Bruno Sarda. At the time, he was working at Dell in sustainability and supply chain and was also teaching at Arizona State University. At a conference in Phoenix, Bruno came over, introduced himself and we became friends. Bruno called me one day and said ASU was looking for a leadership professor and he wanted to invite me to write out the communications curriculum around my storytelling program. I'd never done anything like that before and I ended up doing it for five years. You just never ever know when that person's going to step into your world and have that tremendous impact.  What's one piece of advice you would give to fellow entrepreneurs looking to make impactful connections? Be yourself –– show up as who you are. I know people hear that all the time, but often when we're young in our careers and we're trying to look accomplished and as if we have our act together, it gets in the way of who we really are and all the foibles and the vulnerabilities we have. I was talking to my mom, who's 95 and in great health, and I asked her, “What's the difference from 30 years ago to who you are now?” She said, “I worry a heck of a lot less.” I would tell people, stop worrying about themselves and get over the fact that you don't have it all figured out because none of us do. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? Yes. One business tool you're geeking out over right now? My Calendly calendar invite system. Favorite piece of technology? This microphone and the ability to be able to record. What's one book you'd pass along to a fellow entrepreneur? One of my favorite storytelling books in business is Shawn Callahan's Putting Stories to Work. One person you'd like to make a connection with? Ben Folds. He's a great songwriter, piano player, and pop rock and roller. What's your favorite ice breaker when introducing yourself to someone (either online or off)? I don't have one icebreaker that fits all. I have to first look at the background and I'll ask a question particular to their situation so I can connect with them as quickly as possible.  How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? I get between six and eight hours. How can people connect with you or The Business of Story? Head on over to the website businessofstory.com. If you have any questions specific to me, feel free to shoot me an email at park@businessofstory.com or we also have a private Facebook group, a Business of Story for leaders. We welcome all newcomers who are interested in learning how to better communicate and have more confidence in their communication using the power of story.

Episode sixty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. This one comes with a bit of a content warning, as while it has nothing explicit, it deals with his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Rumble” by Link Wray. —-more—-  Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode (with one exception, which I mention in the podcast). The Spark That Survived by Myra Lewis Williams is Myra’s autobiography, and tells her side of the story, which has tended to be ignored in favour of her famous husband’s side. I’m relying heavily on Sam Phillips: the Man Who Invented Rock and Roll by Peter Guralnick for all the episodes dealing with Phillips and Sun Records. Books on Jerry Lee Lewis tend to be very flawed, as the authors all tend to think they’re Faulkner rather than giving the facts. This one by Rick Bragg is better than most. There are many budget CDs containing Lewis’ pre-1962 work. This set seems as good an option as any. And this ten-CD box set contains ninety Sun singles in chronological order, starting with “Whole Lotta Shakin'” and covering the Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins records discussed here. There are few better ways to get an idea of Lewis’ work in context. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Erratum: I say “Glad All Over” was written by Aaron Schroeder. In fact it was co-written by Schroeder, Roy Bennett, and Sid Tepper. Transcript   We’ve looked before at the rise of Jerry Lee Lewis, but in this episode we’re going to talk about his fall. And for that reason I have to put a content warning at the beginning here. While I’m not going to say anything explicit at all, this episode has to deal with events that I, and most of my listeners, would refer to as child sexual abuse, though the child in question still, more than sixty years later, doesn’t see them that way, and I don’t want to say anything that imposes my framing over hers. If you might find this subject distressing, I suggest reading the transcript before listening, or just skipping this episode. It also deals, towards the end, with domestic violence. Indeed, if you’re affected by these issues, I would also suggest skipping the next episode, on “Johnny B. Goode”, and coming back on February the second for “Yakety Yak” by the Coasters. We’re hitting a point in the history of rock and roll where, for the first time, rock and roll begins its decline in popularity. We’ll see from this point on that every few years there’s a change in musical fashions, and a new set of artists take over from the most popular artists of the previous period. And in the case of the first rock and roll era, that takeover was largely traumatic. There were a number of deaths, some prosecutions — and in the case of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, scandals. In general, I try not to make these podcast episodes be about the horrific acts that some of the men involved have committed. This is a podcast about music, not about horrible men doing horrible things. But in the case of Jerry Lee Lewis, he was one of the very small number of men to have actually faced consequences for his actions, and so it has to be discussed. I promise I will try to do so as sensitively as possible. Although sensitivity is not the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Jerry Lee Lewis, generally… [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Great Balls of Fire”] When we left Jerry Lee Lewis, he had just had his first really major success, with “Whole Lotta Shakin'”. He was on top of the world, and the most promising artist in rock and roll music. With Elvis about to be drafted into the army, the role of biggest rock and roll star was wide open, and Lewis intended to take over Elvis’ mantle. There was going to be a new king of rock and roll. It didn’t quite work out that way. “Whole Lotta Shakin'” was such a massive hit that on the basis of that one record, Jerry Lee was invited to perform his next single in a film called Jamboree. This was one of the many exploitation films that were being put out starring popular DJs — this one starred Dick Clark, rather than Alan Freed, who’d appeared in most of them. They were the kind of thing that made Elvis’ films look like masterpieces of the cinema, and tended to involve a bunch of kids who wanted to put a dance on at their local school, or similar interchangeable plots. The reason people went to see them wasn’t the plot, but the performances by rock and roll musicians. Fats Domino was in most of these, and he was in this one, singing his minor single “Wait and See”. There were also a few performances by musicians who weren’t strictly rock and roll, and were from an older generation, but who were close enough that the kids would probably accept them. Slim Whitman appeared, as did Count Basie, with Joe Williams as lead vocalist:… [Excerpt: Joe Williams, “I Don’t Like You No More”] The film also featured the only known footage of Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords, who we talked about briefly last week. More pertinently to this story, it featured Carl Perkins: [Excerpt: Carl Perkins, “Glad All Over”] That song was one of the few that Perkins recorded which wasn’t written by him. Instead, it was written by Aaron Schroeder, who had co-written the non-Leiber-and-Stoller songs for Jailhouse Rock, and who also appeared in this film in a cameo role as himself. The song was provided to Sam Phillips by Hill and Range, who were Phillips’ publishing partners as well as being Elvis’. It was to be Carl Perkins’ last record for Sun — Perkins had finally had enough of Sam Phillips being more interested in Jerry Lee Lewis. Even little things were getting to him — Jerry Lee’s records were credited to “Jerry Lee Lewis and his Pumping Piano”. Why did Carl’s records never say anything about Carl’s guitar? Sam promised him that the records would start to credit Carl Perkins as “the rocking guitar man”, but it was too late — Perkins and Johnny Cash both made an agreement with Columbia Records on November the first 1957 that when their current contracts with Sun expired, they’d start recording for the new label. Cash was in a similar situation to Perkins — Jack Clement had now taken over production of Cash’s records, and while Cash was writing some of his best material, songs like “Big River” that remain classics, Clement was making him record songs Clement had written himself, like “Ballad of a Teenage Queen”: [Excerpt: Johnny Cash, “Ballad of a Teenage Queen”] It’s quite easy to see from that, which he recorded in mid-November, why Cash left Sun. While Cash would go on to have greater success at Columbia, Perkins wouldn’t. And ironically it was possible that he had had one more opportunity to have a hit follow-up to “Blue Suede Shoes” at Sun, and he’d passed on it. According to Perkins, he was given a choice of two songs to perform in Jamboree, both of them published by Hill and Range, but “I thought both of them was junk!” and he’d chosen the one that was slightly less awful — that’s not how other people involved remember it, but he would always claim that he had been offered the song that Jerry Lee Lewis performed, and turned down “Great Balls of Fire”: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Great Balls of Fire”] That song was one that both Lewis and Phillips were immediately convinced would be a hit as soon as they heard the demo. Sam Phillips’ main worry was how they were going to improve on the demo by the song’s writer, Otis Blackwell, which he thought was pretty much perfect as it was. We’ve met Otis Blackwell briefly before — he was a New York-based songwriter, one of a relatively small number of black people who managed to get work as a professional songwriter for one of the big publishing companies. Blackwell had written “Fever” for Little Willie John, “You’re the Apple of My Eye” for Frankie Valli, and two massive hits for Elvis — “Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up”. We don’t have access to his demo of “Great Balls of Fire”, but in the seventies he recorded an album called “These are My Songs”, featuring many of the hits he’d written for other people, and it’s possible that the version of “Great Balls of Fire” on that album gives some idea of what the demo that so impressed Phillips sounded like: [Excerpt: Otis Blackwell, “Great Balls of Fire”] “Great Balls of Fire” seems to be the first thing to have been tailored specifically for the persona that Lewis had created with his previous hit. It’s a refinement of the “Whole Lotta Shakin'” formula, but it has a few differences that give the song far more impact. Most notably, where “Whole Lotta Shakin'” starts off with a gently rolling piano intro and only later picks up steam: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Whole Lotta Shakin'”] “Great Balls of Fire” has a much more dynamic opening — one that sets the tone for the whole record with its stop-start exclamations: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Great Balls of Fire”] Although that stop-start intro is one of the few signs in the record that point to the song having been possibly offered to Perkins — it’s very reminiscent of the intro to “Blue Suede Shoes”: [Excerpt: Carl Perkins, “Blue Suede Shoes”] I could imagine Perkins recording the song in the “Blue Suede Shoes” manner and having a hit with it, though not as big a hit as Lewis eventually had. On the other hand I can’t imagine Lewis turning “Glad All Over”, fun as it is, into anything even remotely worthy of following up “Whole Lotta Shakin'”. Almost straight away they managed to cut a version of “Great Balls of Fire” that was suitable for the film, but it wasn’t right for a hit record. They needed something that was absolutely perfect. After having sent the film version off, they spent several days working on getting the perfect version cut — paying particular attention to that stop-start intro, which the musicians had to time perfectly for it not to come out as a sloppy mess. Oddly, the musicians on the track weren’t the normal Sun session players, and nor were they the musicians who normally played in Lewis’ band. Instead, Lewis was backed by Sidney Stokes on bass and Larry Linn on drums — according to Lewis, he never met those two people again after they finished recording. But as the work proceeded, Jerry Lee became concerned. “Great Balls of Fire”? Didn’t that sound a bit… Satanic? And people did say that rock and roll was the Devil’s music. He ended up getting into an angry, rambling, theological discussion with Sam Phillips, which was recorded and which gives an insight into how difficult Lewis must have been to work with, but also how tortured he was — he truly believed in the existence of a physical Hell, and that he was destined to go there because of his music: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Phillips, Bible discussion] Sam Phillips, who appears to have had the patience of a saint, eventually talked Lewis down and persuaded him to get back to making music. When “Great Balls of Fire” came out, with a cover of Hank Williams’ ballad “You Win Again” on the B-side, it was an immediate success. It sold over a million copies in the first ten days it was out, and it became a classic that has been covered by everyone from Dolly Parton to Aerosmith. It’s one of the records that defines 1950s rock and roll music, and it firmly established Jerry Lee Lewis as one of the greatest stars of rock and roll, if not the greatest. Jack and Sam kept recording everything they could from Lewis, getting a backlog of recordings that would be released for decades to come — everything from Hank Williams covers to the old blues number “Big Legged Woman”: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Big Legged Woman”] But they decided that they didn’t want to mess with a winning formula, and so the next record that they put out was another Otis Blackwell song, “Breathless”. This time, the band was the normal Sun studio drummer Jimmy Van Eaton, Billy Lee Riley on guitar — Riley was also furious with Sam Phillips for the way he was concentrating on Lewis’ career at the expense of everyone else’s, but he was still working on sessions for Phillips — and Jerry Lee’s cousin J.W. Brown on bass. J.W. was his full name — it didn’t stand for anything — and he was the regular touring bass player in Lewis’ band. “Breathless” was very much in the same style as “Great Balls of Fire”, if perhaps not *quite* so good: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Breathless”] To promote the record, Jud Phillips, Sam’s brother, came up with a great promotional scheme. Dick Clark, the presenter of American Bandstand, had another show, the Dick Clark Show, which was also called Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show because it was sponsored by Beechnut chewing gum. Clark had already had Jerry Lee on his show once, and he’d been a hit — Clark could bring him back on the show, and they could announce that if you sent Sun Records five Beechnut wrappers and fifty cents for postage and packing, you could get a signed copy of the new record. The fifty cents would be more than the postage and packing would cost, of course, and Sun would split the profits with Dick Clark. Sun bought an autograph stamp to stamp copies of the record with, hired a few extra temporary staff members to help them get the records posted, and made the arrangements with Dick Clark and his sponsors. The result was extraordinary — in some parts of the country, stores ran out of Beechnut gum altogether. More than thirty-eight thousand copies of the single were sent out to eager gum-chewers. It was around this time that Jerry Lee went on the Alan Freed tour that we mentioned last week, with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Larry Williams, the Chantels, and eleven other acts. The tour later became legendary not so much for the music — though that was great — but for the personal disputes between Lewis and Berry. There were two separate issues at stake. The first was Elmo Lewis, Jerry’s father. Elmo had a habit of using racial slurs, and of threatening to fight anyone, especially black people, who he thought was disrespecting him. At one show on the tour, a dispute about parking spaces between Berry and Lewis led to the elder Lewis chasing Berry three blocks, waving a knife, and shouting “You know what we do with cats like you down in Ferriday? We chop the heads off them and throw it in a lake.” Apparently, by the next day, Elmo and Chuck were sat with each other at breakfast, the best of friends. The other issue was Berry’s belief that he, rather than Lewis, should be headlining the shows. He managed to persuade the promoters of this, and this led Lewis to try more and more outrageous stunts on stage to try to upstage Berry. The legend has it that at one show he went so far as to set his piano on fire at the climax of “Great Balls of Fire”, and then walk off stage challenging Berry to follow that. Some versions of the story have him using a racial slur there, too, but the story in whatever form seems to be apocryphal. It does, though, sum up the atmosphere between the two. That said, while Lewis and Berry fought incessantly, Berry was one of the few people to whom Lewis has ever shown any respect at all. Partly that’s because of Lewis’ admiration for Berry’s songwriting — he’s called Berry “the Hank Williams of rock and roll” before now, and for someone who admires Williams as much as Lewis does that’s about the highest imaginable praise. But also, Lewis and his father were both always very careful not to do anything that would lead to word of the feud getting back to his mother, because his mother had repeatedly told him that Chuck Berry was the greatest rock and roller in the world — Elvis was good, she said, and obviously so was her son, but neither of them were a patch on Chuck. She would have been furious with him, and would definitely have taken Chuck’s side. After the tour, Jerry Lee recorded another song for a film he was going to appear in. This time, it was the title song for a terribly shlocky attempt at drama, called High School Confidential — a film that dealt with the very serious and weighty issue of marijuana use among teenagers, and is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made. The theme music, though, was pretty good: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “High School Confidential”] That came out on the nineteenth of May, 1958, and immediately started rising up the charts. Two days later, Jerry Lee headed out on what was meant to be a triumphal tour of the UK, solidifying him as the biggest, most important, rock and roll star in the world. And that is when everything came crashing down. Because it was when he and his entourage landed in the UK, and the press saw the thirteen-year-old girl with him, and asked who she was, that it became public knowledge he had married his thirteen-year-old cousin Myra. And here we get to something I’ve been dreading talking about since I decided on this project. There is simply no way to talk about Jerry Lee Lewis’ marriage to Myra Gale Brown which doesn’t erase Brown’s experience, doesn’t excuse Lewis’ behaviour, explains the cultural context in which it happened, and doesn’t minimise child abuse — which, and let’s be clear about this right now, this was. If you take from *anything* that I say after this that I think there is any possible excuse, any justification, for a man in his twenties having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl — let alone a thirteen-year-old girl in his own family, to whom he was an authority figure — then I have *badly* failed to get my meaning across. What Lewis did was, simply, wrong. It’s important to say that, because something that applies both to this episode and to the downfall of Chuck Berry, which we’ll be looking at in the next episode, is the way that both have been framed by all the traditional histories of rock and roll. If you read almost anything about rock and roll history, what you see when it gets to 1958 is “and here rock and roll nearly died, because of the prurient attitudes of a few prudes, who were out to destroy the careers of these new exciting rock and rollers because they hated the threat they posed to their traditional way of life”. That is simply not the case. Yes, there was a great deal of establishment opposition to rock and roll music, but what happened to Jerry Lee Lewis wasn’t some conspiracy of blue-nosed prudes. It was people getting angry, for entirely understandable reasons, about a man doing something that was absolutely, unquestionably, just *wrong*. And the fact that this has been minimised by rock and roll histories says a lot about the culture around rock journalism, none of it good. Now, that said, something that needs to be understood here is that Lewis and most of the people round him didn’t see him as doing anything particularly wrong. In the culture of the Southern US at the time, it was normal for very young girls to be married, often to older men. By his own lights, he was doing nothing wrong. His first marriage was when he was sixteen — Myra was his third wife, and he was still legally married to his second when he married her — and his own younger sister had recently got married, aged twelve. Likewise, marrying one’s cousin was the norm within Jerry Lee’s extended family, where pretty much everyone whose surname was Lewis, Swaggart, or Gilley was married to someone else whose surname was Lewis, Swaggart, or Gilley. But I don’t believe we have to judge people by their own standards, or at least not wholly so. There were many other horrific aspects to the culture of the Southern states at the time, and just because, for example, the people who defended segregation believed they were doing nothing wrong and were behaving according to their own culture, doesn’t mean we can’t judge them harshly. And it’s not as if everyone in Jerry Lee’s own culture was completely accepting of this. They’d married in secret, and when Myra’s father — Jerry Lee’s cousin and bass player, J.W. Brown — found out about it, he grabbed his shotgun and went out with every intention of murdering Jerry Lee, and it was only Sam Phillips who persuaded him that maybe that would be a bad idea. The British tour, which was meant to last six weeks, ended up lasting only three days. Jerry Lee and his band and family cancelled the tour and returned home, where they expected everyone to accept them again, and for things to carry on as normal. They didn’t. The record company tried to capitalise on the controversy, and also to defuse the anger towards Lewis. At the time, there was a craze for novelty records which interpolated bits of spoken word dialogue with excerpts of rock and roll hits, sparked off by a record called “The Flying Saucer”: [Excerpt: Buchanan and Goodman, “The Flying Saucer”] Jack Clement put together a similar thing, as a joke for the Sun Records staff, called “The Return of Jerry Lee”, having an interviewer, the DJ George Klein, ask Jerry Lee questions about the recent controversy, and having Jerry Lee “answer” them in clips from his records. Sam Phillips loved it, and insisted on releasing it as a single. [Excerpt: George and Louis, “The Return of Jerry Lee”] Unsurprisingly, that did not have the effect that was hoped, and did not defuse the situation one iota — especially since some of the jokes in the record were leering ones about Myra’s physical attractiveness — the attractiveness, remember, of a child. For that reason, I will *not* be putting the full version of that particular track in the Mixcloud mix of songs I excerpted in this episode. This is where we say goodbye to Sam Phillips. With Jerry Lee Lewis’ career destroyed, and with all his other major acts having left him, Phillips’ brief reign as the most important record producer and company owner in the USA was over. He carried on running Sun records for a few years, and eventually sold it to Shelby Singleton. Singleton is a complicated figure, but one thing he definitely did right was exploiting Sun’s back catalogue — in their four-year rockabilly heyday Sam Phillips and Jack Clement had recorded literally thousands of unreleased songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Conway Twitty, Charlie Rich, Billy Lee Riley, and many more. Those tracks sat in Sun’s vaults for more than a decade, but once Singleton took over the company pretty much every scrap of material from Sun’s vaults saw release, especially once a British reissue label called Charly employed Martin Hawkins and Colin Escott, two young music obsessives, to put out systematic releases of Sun’s rockabilly and blues archives. The more of that material came out, the more obvious it became that Sam Phillips had tapped into something very, very special at Sun Records, and that throughout the fifties one small studio in Memphis had produced staggering recordings on a daily basis. By the time Sam Phillips died, in 2003, aged eighty, he was widely regarded as one of the most important people in the history of music. Jerry Lee Lewis, meanwhile, spent several years trying and failing to have a hit, but slowly rebuilding his live audiences, playing small venues and winning back his audience one crowd at a time. By the late 1960s he was in a position to have a comeback, and “Another Place, Another Time” went to number four on the country charts, and started a run of country hits that lasted for the best part of a decade: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, “Another Place, Another Time”] Myra divorced Jerry Lee around that time, citing physical and emotional abuse. She is now known as Myra Williams, has been happily married for thirty-six years, and works as a real-estate agent. Jerry Lee has, so far, married four more times. His fourth and fifth wives died in mysterious circumstances — his fourth drowned shortly before the divorce went through, and the fifth died in circumstances that are still unclear, and several have raised suspicions that Jerry Lee killed her. It’s not impossible. The man known as the Killer did once shoot his bass player in the chest in the late seventies — he insists that was an accident — and was arrested outside Graceland, drunk and with a gun, yelling for Elvis Presley to come out and settle who was the real king. Jerry Lee Lewis is still alive, married to his seventh wife, who is Myra’s brother’s ex-wife. Last year, he and his wife sued his daughter, though the lawsuit was thrown out of court. He’s eighty-four years old, still performs, and according to recent interviews, worries if he is going to go to Heaven or to Hell when he dies. I imagine I would worry too, in his place.  

  Episode sixty-three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Susie Q” by Dale Hawkins, and at the difference between rockabilly and electric blues. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Shake a Hand” by Faye Adams.  —-more—- Errata I pronounce presage incorrectly in the episode, and the song “Do it Again a Little Bit Slower” doesn’t have the word “just” in the title. Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. This time, for reasons to do with Mixcloud’s terms of service, it’s broken into two parts. Part one, part two. There are no books that I know of on Hawkins, but I relied heavily on three books with chapters on him — Hepcats and Rockabilly Boys by Robert Reynolds, Dig That Beat! Interviews with Musicians at the Root of Rock and Roll by Sheree Homer,  and Shreveport Sounds in Black and White edited by Kip Lornell and Tracy E.W. Laird. This compilation of Hawkins’ early singles is as good a set as any to start with, though the liner notes are perfunctory at best.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript We’re pretty much at the end of the true rockabilly era already — all the major figures to come out of Sun studios have done so, and while 1957 saw several country-influenced white rock and rollers show up, like Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, and those singers will often get referred to as “rockabilly”, they don’t tend to get counted by aficionados of the subgenre, who think they don’t sound enough like the music from Sun to count. But there are still a few exceptions. And one of those is Dale Hawkins, the man whose recordings were to spark a whole new subgenre, the style of music that would later become known as “swamp rock”. [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Susie Q”] Dale Hawkins never liked being called a rockabilly, though that’s the description that most people now use of him. We’ll look later in the episode at how accurate that description actually is, but for the moment the important thing is that he thought of himself as a bluesman. When he was living in Shreveport, Louisiana, he lived in a shack in the black part of town, and inside the shack there was only a folding camp bed, a record player, and thousands of 78RPM blues records. Nothing else at all. It’s not that he didn’t like country music, of course — as a kid, he and his brother hitch-hiked to a nearby town to go to a Flatt and Scruggs gig, and he also loved Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers — but it was the blues that called to him more, and so he never thought of himself as having the country elements that would normally be necessary for someone to call themselves a rockabilly. While he didn’t have much direct country influence, he did come from a country music family. His father, Delmar Hawkins senior, was a country musician who was according to some sources one of the original members of the Sons of the Pioneers, the group that launched the career of Roy Rogers: [Excerpt: Sons of the Pioneers, “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”] While Hawkins Sr.’s name isn’t in any of the official lists of group members, he might well have performed with them at some point in the early years of the group. And whether he did or didn’t, he was definitely a bass player in many other hillbilly bands. However, it’s unlikely that Delmar Hawkins Sr. had much influence on his son, as he left the family when Delmar Jr was three, and didn’t reconnect until after “Susie Q” became a hit. Delmar Sr. wasn’t the only family member to be a musician, either — Dale’s younger brother Jerry was a rockabilly who made a few singles in the fifties: [Excerpt: Jerry Hawkins, “Swing Daddy Swing”] Another family member, Ronnie Hawkins, would later have his own musical career, which would intersect with several of the artists we’re going to be looking at later in this series. Del Hawkins, as he was originally called, did a variety of jobs, including a short stint as a sailor, after dropping out of school, but he soon got the idea of becoming a musician, and started performing with Sonny Jones, a local guitarist whose sister was Hank Williams’ widow. Jones had a lot of contacts in the local music industry, and helped Hawkins pull together the first lineup of his band, when he was nineteen. While Hawkins thought of himself as a blues musician, for a white singer in Shreveport, there was only one option open if you wanted to be a star, and that was performing on the Louisiana Hayride, the country show where Elvis, among many others, had made his name. And Jones had many contacts on the show, and performed on it himself. But Hawkins’ first job at the Louisiana Hayride wasn’t as a performer, but working in the car park. He and his brother would go up to drivers heading into the car park for the show, and charge them fifty cents to park their cars for them — when the car park filled up, they’d just park the cars on the street outside. What they didn’t tell the drivers was that the car park was actually free to the public. At the same time he was starting out as a musician, Del was working in a record shop, Stan’s Record Shop, run by a man named Stan Lewis. Hawkins had been a regular customer for several years before working up the courage to ask for a job there, and by the time he got the job, he was familiar with almost every blues or R&B record that was available at the time. Customers would come into the shop, sing a snatch of a song they’d heard, and young Del would be able to tell them the title and the artist. It was through doing this job that Hawkins became friendly with customers like B.B. King, who would remain a lifelong friend. It was also while working at Stan’s Record Shop that Hawkins became better acquainted with its owner. Stan Lewis was, among other things, both a talent scout for Chess records and one of the biggest customers of the label — if he got behind a record, Chess knew it would sell, at least in Louisiana, and so they would listen to him. Indeed, Lewis was one of the biggest record distributors, as well as a record shop owner, and he distributed records all across the region, to many other stores. Lewis also worked as a record producer — the first record he ever produced was one of the biggest blues hits of all time, Lowell Fulson’s “Reconsider Baby”, which was released on the Chess subsidiary Checker: [Excerpt: Lowell Fulson, “Reconsider Baby”] Lewis took an interest in his young employee’s music career, and introduced Hawkins to his cousin, D.J. Fontana, another musician who played on the Louisiana Hayride. Fontana played with Hawkins for a while before taking on a better-paid job with Elvis Presley. At Lewis’ instigation, Hawkins went into the studio in 1956 with engineer Merle Kilgore (who would later become famous in his own right as a country songwriter, co-writing songs like “Ring of Fire”), his new guitarist James Burton, and several other musicians, to record a demo of what would become Hawkins’ most famous song, “Susie Q”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Susie Q”, demo version] Listening to that, it’s clear that they already had all the elements of the finished record nearly in place — the main difference between that and the finished version that they cut later is that the demo has a saxophone solo, and that James Burton hasn’t fully worked out his guitar part, although it’s close to the final version. At the time he cut that track, Hawkins intended it as a potential first single, but Stan Lewis had other ideas. While Chess records put out almost solely tracks by black artists, their subsidiary Checker *had* recently released a single by a white artist — a song by Bobby Charles called “Later, Alligator”, which a short while later had become a hit for Bill Haley, under the longer title “See You Later, Alligator”: [Excerpt: Bobby Charles, “Later Alligator”] Lewis thought that given that precedent, Checker might be willing to put out another record by a white act, if that record was an answer record to Bobby Charles’. So he persuaded Hawkins to write a soundalike song, which Hawkins and his band quickly demoed — “See You Soon, Baboon”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “See You Soon, Baboon”] Lewis sent that off to Checker, who released Hawkins’ demo, although they did make three small changes. The first was to add a Tarzan-style yodelling call at the beginning and end of the record: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “See You Soon, Baboon”] The second, which would have long-lasting consequences, was that they misspelled Hawkins’ first name — Leonard Chess misheard “Del Hawkins” over the phone, and the record came out as by “Dale Hawkins”, which would be his name from that point on. The last change was to remove Hawkins’ songwriting credit, and give it instead to Stan Lewis and Eleanor Broadwater. Broadwater was the wife of Gene Nobles, a DJ to whom the Chess brothers owed money. Nobles is also the one who supplied the Tarzan cry. Both Lewis and Broadwater would also get credited for Hawkins’ follow-up single, a new version of “Susie Q”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Susie Q”] On that, at least, Hawkins was credited as one of the writers along with Lewis and Broadwater. But according to Hawkins, not only did the credit get split with the wrong people, but he didn’t receive any of the royalties to which he was entitled until as late as 1985. And crucially, the other people who did cowrite the song — notably James Burton — didn’t get any credit at all. In general, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement about who contributed what to the song — I’ve seen various other putative co-authors listed — but everyone seems agreed that Hawkins came up with the lyrics, while Burton came up with the guitar riff. Presumably the song evolved from a jam session by the musicians — it’s the kind of song that musicians come up with when they’re jamming together, and that would explain the discrepancies in the stories as to who wrote it. Well, that and the record company ripping the writers off. The song came from a myriad musical sources. The most obvious influence for its overall sound — both the melody and the way the melody interacts with the guitar riff — is “Baby Please Don’t Go” by Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, “Baby Please Don’t Go”] But the principal influence on the melody was, rather than Waters’ song, a record by the Clovers which had a very similar melody — “I’ve Got My Eyes on You”: [Excerpt: The Clovers, “I’ve Got My Eyes On You”] Hawkins and Burton took those melodic and arrangement ideas and coupled them with a riff inspired by Howlin’ Wolf — I’ve seen some people claim that the song was “ripped off” from Wolf. I don’t believe, myself, that that is the case. Wolf certainly had several records with similar riffs, like “Smokestack Lightnin'”: [Excerpt: Howlin’ Wolf, “Smokestack Lightnin'”] And “Spoonful”: [Excerpt: Howlin’ Wolf, “Spoonful”] But nothing with the exact same riff, and certainly nothing with the same melody. Some have also claimed that Wolf provided lyrical inspiration — that Hawkins was inspired by seeing Wolf drop to his knees on stage yelling something about “Suzy”. There are also claims that the song was named after Stan Lewis’ daughter Suzie — and notably Stan Lewis himself bolstered his claim to a co-writing credit for the song by pointing out that not only did he have a daughter named Susan, so did Leonard Chess. He claimed that he had mentioned this to Hawkins and suggested that the two of them write a song together with the name in it, because it would appeal to Chess. Both of those tales of the song’s lyrical inspiration may well be true, but I suspect that a more likely explanation is that the song is named after a dance move. We talked way back in episode four about the Lindy Hop, the popular dance from the late 1930s and forties. That dance was never a formalised dance, and one of its major characteristics was that it would incorporate dance moves from any other dance around. And one of the dances it incorporated into itself was one called the Suzie Q, which at the height of its popularity was promoted by a song performed by the pianist Lilian Hardin, who is now best known for having been the wife of Louis Armstrong, whose career she managed in its early years, but who at the time was a respected jazz musician in her own right: [Excerpt: Lil Hardin Armstrong, “Doin’ the Suzie Q”] The dance that that song was about was a simple dance step, involving crossing one’s feet, swivelling. and stepping to one side. It got incorporated into the more complex Lindy Hop, but was still remembered as a step in itself. So, it’s likely that Hawkins was at least as inspired by that as he was by any of the other alleged inspirations for the song. Certainly at least one other Checker records artist thought so — Jimmy McCracklin, in his song “The Walk”, released the next year, starts his list of dances by singing “I know you’ve heard of the Susie Q”: [Excerpt: Jimmy McCracklin, “The Walk”] According to the engineer on the session, Bob Sullivan, who was more used to recording Jim Reeves and Slim Whitman than raw rock and roll music, “Susie Q” was recorded in four takes, and Hawkins had the final choice of which take to use, but in Sullivan’s opinion he chose the wrong one. The take chosen for release was an early take of the song, when Sullivan was still trying to get a balance, and he didn’t notice at first that Hawkins was starting to sing, and had to quickly raise the volume on Hawkins’ vocal just as he started. You can hear this if you listen to the finished recording: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Susie Q”] This new version of “Susie Q” was stripped right down — it was just guitar, bass, and drums — none of the saxophone that was present on the early version. But it kept the crucial ingredients of the earlier version — that biting guitar riff played by James Burton, and the drum part, with its ear-catching cowbell. That drum part was played by Stan Lewis’ fifteen-year-old brother Ronnie on the new version, but he’s closely copying the part that A.J. Tuminello played on the demo — Tuminello couldn’t make the session, so Lewis just copied the part, which came about when Hawkins had heard Tuminello playing his drum and cowbell simultaneously during a soundcheck. Now that we’ve put the song in context, there’s an interesting point we can make. As we discussed in the beginning, people usually refer to “Susie Q” as a rockabilly song. But there are a few criteria that generally apply to rockabilly but not to “Susie Q”. And one of the most important of these ties back to something we were talking about last week — the electric bass. The demo version of “Susie Q” had, like almost all rock and roll records of the time, featured a double bass, played in the slapback style, and as we talked about back in the episodes on Bill Haley several months back, slapback bass is one of the defining features of the rockabilly genre. For this new recording, though, Sonny Trammell, a country player who played with Jim Reeves, played electric bass, as he was the only person in Shreveport who owned one. This was a deliberate choice by Hawkins, who wanted to imitate the sound of electric blues records, rather than using the double bass, which he associated with country music — though as it turns out, he would probably have been better off using a double bass if he wanted that sound, as Willie Dixon, who played bass on all the Chess blues records, actually didn’t play an electric bass. Rather, he got a sound similar to an electric bass by actually placing the microphone inside the bottom of the bass’ tailpiece. But that points to something that “Susie Q” was doing that we’ve not seen before. One of the things people have asked me a few times is why I’ve not looked very much at the music that we now think of as “the blues”, though at the time it was only a small part of the blues — the guitar playing male solo artists who made up the Chicago sound, and the Delta bluesmen who inspired them. And that’s because the common narrative, that rock and roll came from that kind of blues, is false — as I hope the last year and a bit of podcasts have shown. Rock and roll came from a lot of different musics — primarily Western swing, jump bands, and vocal group R&B — and had relatively little influence in its early years from that branch of blues. But over the next few years we will see a lot of musicians, primarily but not exclusively white British men, inspired by the first wave of rock and rollers to pick up a guitar, but rejecting the country music that inspired those early rock and rollers, and turning instead to Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and Howlin’ Wolf. There’s never a first anything, and that’s especially the case here where we’re talking about musical ideas crossing racial lines, but one can make an argument that Dale Hawkins was the first white rock and roller to be inspired by people like Waters and Wolf, and for “Susie Q” as the record, more than any other, that presaged the white rock acts of the sixties, with its electric bass, Chess-style guitar riffs, and country-inflected vocals. Acts like the Rolling Stones or the Animals or Canned Heat were all following in Hawkins’ footsteps, as you can hear in, for example, the Stones’ own version of the song: [Excerpt: the Rolling Stones, “Susie Q”] What’s surprising is how reluctant Chess were to release the single. The master was sent to Chess for release, but they kept hold of it for ten months without getting round to releasing it. Eventually, Hawkins became so frustrated that he sent a copy of the recording to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records. Wexler got excited, and told Leonard Chess that if Chess weren’t going to put out the single, Atlantic would release it instead. At that point, Chess realised that he might have something commercial on his hands, and decided to put the record out on Checker as it was originally intended. The song went to number seven on the R&B charts, and number twenty-seven on the pop charts. Between the recording and release of the single, James Burton quit the band. He moved on first to work with another Louisiana musician, Bob Luman: [Excerpt: Bob Luman, “All Night Long”] Burton then went on to work first with Ricky Nelson and then as a session player with everyone from the Monkees to Elvis. Hawkins had an ear for good guitarists, and after Burton went on to be one of the most important guitarists in rock music, Hawkins would continue to play with many other superb players, such as Roy Buchanan, who played on Hawkins’ cover version of Little Walter’s “My Babe”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “My Babe”] And then there was the guitarist on the closest he came to a follow-up hit, “La-Do-Dada”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Lo-Do-Dada”] That guitarist was another young player, Joe Osborn, who would soon follow James Burton to LA and to the pool of session players that became known as the Wrecking Crew, though Osborn would switch his guitar for bass. However, none of Hawkins’ follow-ups had anything more than very minor commercial success, and he would increasingly find himself chasing trends and trying to catch up with other people’s styles, rather than continuing with the raw rock and roll sound he had found on “Susie Q”. By the early sixties he was recording novelty live albums of twist songs, to try to cash in on the twist fad: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Do the Twist”] After his brief run of hits dried up, he used his connection with Dick Clark, the TV presenter whose American Bandstand had helped to break “Susie Q” on the national market, to get his own TV show, The Dale Hawkins Show, which ran for eighteen months and was a similar format to Bandstand. Once that show was over, he turned to record production. There he once again worked for Stan Lewis, who by that point had started his own record labels. There seems to be some dispute as to which records Hawkins produced in his second career. I’ve seen claims, for example, that he produced “Hey Baby” by Bruce Channel: [Excerpt: Bruce Channel, “Hey Baby”] But Hawkins is not the credited producer on that, or on “Judy In Disguise With Glasses” by John Fred and the Playboy Band, another record he’s often credited with. On the other hand, he *is* the credited producer on the big hit “Do it Again Just a Little Bit Slower” by Jon and Robin: [Excerpt: Jon and Robin, “Do it Again A Little Bit Slower”] Towards the end of the sixties, he had a brief second attempt at a recording career for himself. Creedence Clearwater Revival had a hit in 1968 with their version of “Susie Q”: [Excerpt: Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Susie Q”] And that was enough to draw Hawkins back into the studio, working once again with James Burton on guitar and Joe Osborn on bass, along with a few newer blues musicians like Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, on an album full of the swamp-rock style he had created in the fifties, “LA, Memphis, and Tyler, Texas”: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins: “LA, Memphis, Tyler, Texas”] When that wasn’t a success, he moved on to RCA Records to become head of A&R for their West Coast rock department — a job he was apparently put forward for by Joe Osborn. But after a successful few years, he spent much of the seventies suffering from an amphetamine addiction, having started taking speed back in the fifties. He finally got clean in the early eighties, and started touring the rockabilly revival circuit — as well as finally getting his master’s degree, which for a high school dropout was a major achievement, and something to be as proud of as any hit. In 1998, he recorded his first album in thirty years, Wildcat Tamer: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, “Wildcat Tamer”] That got some of the best reviews of his career, but his next album took nearly a decade to come out, and by that time he had been diagnosed with the colon cancer that eventually killed him in 2010. Hawkins is in many ways a paradoxical figure — he was someone who pointed the way to the future of rock and roll, but the future he pointed to was one of white men taking the ideas of black blues musicians and only slightly altering them. He was a byword for untutored, raw, instinctive rock and roll, and yet his biggest hit is carefully constructed out of bits of other people’s records, melded together with a great deal of thought. At the end of it all, what survives is that one glorious hit record — a guitar, a bass, drums, a cowbell, and a teenage boy singing of how he loves Susie Q.

  Episode sixty-one of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “That’ll Be the Day” by The Crickets. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Gene Autry —-more—- Before I get to the resources and transcript, a quick apology. This one is up many hours later than normal, almost a full day. I’ve been dealing with a combination of health issues, technical problems, and family commitments, any two of which would still have allowed me to get this up on time, but which in combination made it impossible. Errata I say in here that Larry Welborn lent Holly a thousand dollars. That money was actually lent Holly by his brother, also called Larry. I also at one point say “That’ll Be the Day” was co-written by Joe Allison. I meant Jerry Allison, of course — Joe Allison was also a Texan songwriter, but had no involvement in that song.   Resources   I’ve used two biographies for the bulk of the information here — Buddy Holly: Learning the Game, by Spencer Leigh, and Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly by Philip Norman.  There are many collections of Buddy Holly’s work available, but many of them are very shoddy, with instrumental overdubs recorded over demos after his death. The best compilation I am aware of is The Memorial Collection, which contains almost everything he issued in his life, as he issued it (for some reason two cover versions are missing) along with the undubbed acoustic recordings that were messed with and released after his death. A lot of the early recordings with Bob, Larry, and/or Sonny that I reference in this episode are included in Down The Line: Rarities, a companion set to the Memorial Collection. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript And so, far later in the story than many people might have been expecting, we finally come to Buddy Holly, the last of the great fifties rockers to appear in our story. Nowadays, Holly gets counted as a pioneer of rock and roll, but in fact he didn’t turn up until the genre had become fairly well established in the charts. Which is not to say that he wasn’t important or innovative, just that he was one of the greats of the second wave — from a twenty-first-century perspective, Buddy Holly looks like one of the people who were there when rock and roll was invented, but by the time he had his first hit, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, and Gene Vincent had all had all their major chart hits, and were on their way down and out. Little Richard was still touring, but he’d already recorded his last rock and roll record of the fifties, and while Fats Domino was still making hit records, most of the ones he’s remembered by, the ones that changed music, had already been released. But Holly was arguably the most important figure of this second wave, someone who, more than any other figure of the mid-fifties, seems at least in retrospect to point the way forward to what rock music would become in the decade after. So today we’re going to look at the story of how the first really successful rock group started. Because while these days, “That’ll Be The Day” is generally just credited to “Buddy Holly”, at the time the record came out, it didn’t have any artist name on it other than that of the band that made it, The Crickets: [Excerpt: The Crickets, “That’ll Be the Day”] Charles Hardin Holley grew up in Lubbock, Texas, a town in the middle of nowhere that has produced more than its fair share of famous musicians. Other than Buddy Holly, the two most famous people from Lubbock are probably Waylon Jennings, who briefly played in Holly’s band in 1959 before going on to his own major successes, and Mac Davis, who wrote several hits for Elvis before going on to become a country singer of some note himself. Holly grew up with music. His elder brothers performed as a country duo in much the same style as the Louvin Brothers, and there’s a recording of Holly singing the old country song, “Two Timin’ Woman”, in 1949, when he was twelve, before his voice had even broken: [Excerpt: Charles Holley, “Two Timin’ Woman”] By his mid-teens, he was performing as “Buddy and Bob” with a friend, Bob Montgomery, playing pure country and western music, with Buddy on the mandolin while Bob played guitar: [Excerpt: Buddy and Bob, “Footprints in the Snow”] He would also appear on the radio with another friend, Jack Neal, as “Buddy and Jack”. Some early recordings of that duo survive as well, with Jack singing while Buddy played guitar: [Excerpt: Buddy and Jack, “I Saw the Moon Crying Last Night”] When Jack Neal, who was a few years older than Buddy, got married and decided he didn’t have time for the radio any more, the Buddy and Jack Show became the Buddy and Bob Show. Around this time, Buddy met another person who would become important both to him and the Crickets, Sonny Curtis. Curtis was only a teenager, like him, but he had already made an impression in the music world. When he was only sixteen, he had written a song, “Someday”, that was recorded by the country star Webb Pierce: [Excerpt: Webb Pierce, “Someday”] Buddy, too, was an aspiring songwriter. A typical early example of his songwriting was one he wrote in collaboration with his friend Scotty Turner, “My Baby’s Coming Home”. The song wasn’t recorded at the time, but a few years later a demo version of it was cut by a young singer called Harry Nilsson: [Excerpt: Harry Nilsson, “My Baby’s Coming Home”] But it wasn’t until he saw Elvis live in 1955 that Buddy Holly knew he didn’t want to do anything other than become a rock and roll star. When Elvis came to town, the promoter of Elvis’ show was a friend of Buddy and Bob, and so he added them to the bill. They became friendly enough that every time Elvis passed through town — which he did often in those early years of his career — they would all hang out together. Bob Montgomery used to reminisce about going to the cinema with Elvis to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Elvis getting bored with the film half an hour in, and leaving with the rest of the group. After seeing Elvis, Buddy almost immediately stepped up his musical plans. He had already been recording demos with Bob and Sonny Curtis, usually with Bob on vocals: [Excerpt: Buddy and Bob, “I Gambled My Heart”] The bass player on that song, Larry Welborn, believed in Buddy’s talents, and lent him a thousand dollars — a *massive* amount of money in 1955 — so he could buy himself a Fender Stratocaster, an amp, and a stage suit. Holly’s friend Joe B. Mauldin said of the Strat that it was the first instrument he’d ever seen with a gear shift. He was referring there to the tremelo arm on the guitar — a recent innovation that had only been brought in that year. Buddy kept playing guitar with various combinations of his friends. For example Sonny Curtis cut six songs in 1955, backed by Buddy on guitar, Larry Wellborn on bass, and Jerry Allison on drums: [Excerpt: Sonny Curtis, “Because You Love Me”] Curtis would later talk about how as soon as Elvis came along, he and Buddy immediately switched their musical style. While it was Buddy who owned the electric guitar, he would borrow Curtis’ Martin acoustic and try to play and sing like Elvis, while Curtis in turn would borrow Buddy’s Strat and play Scotty Moore’s guitar licks. Buddy was slowly becoming the most popular rock and roll singer in that part of Texas — though he had an ongoing rivalry with Roy Orbison, who was from a hundred miles away in Wink but was the only serious competition around for the best local rock and roller.  But while Buddy was slowly building up a reputation in the local area, he couldn’t yet find a way to break out and have success on a wider stage. Elvis had told him that the Louisiana Hayride would definitely have him on at Elvis’ recommendation, but when he and Sonny Curtis drove to Shreveport, the radio station told them that it wasn’t up to Elvis who got on their show and who didn’t, and they had to drive back to Texas from Louisiana without getting on the radio. This kind of thing just kept happening. Buddy and Bob and Sonny and Larry and Jerry were recording constantly, in various combinations, and were making more friends in the local music community, like Waylon Jennings, but nothing was happening with the recordings. You can hear on some of them, though, exactly what Sonny Curtis meant when he said that they were trying to sound like Elvis and Scotty Moore: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Don’t Come Back Knockin'”] These songs were  the recordings that got Buddy a contract with Decca Records in Nashville, which was, at the time, one of the biggest record labels in the country. And not only did he get signed to Decca, but Buddy also got a songwriting contract with Cedarwood Music, the publishing company that was jointly owned by Jim Denny, the man in charge of the bookings for the Grand Ole Opry, and Webb Pierce, one of the biggest country music stars of the period. So it must have seemed in January 1956 as if Buddy Holly was about to become a massive rock and roll star. That first Decca recording session took place in Owen Bradley’s studio, and featured Sonny Curtis on guitar, and a friend called Don Guess on bass. The session was rounded out by two of the regular musicians that Bradley used on his sessions — Grady Martin on rhythm guitar, so Buddy didn’t have to sing and play at the same time, and Doug Kirkham on drums. The songs they cut at that initial session consisted of two of the songs they’d already demoed, “Don’t Come Back Knockin'” and “Love Me”, plus “Blue Days, Black Nights”, a song written by Ben Hall, a friend of Buddy’s from Lubbock. But it was the fourth song that was clearly intended to be the hit. We’ve talked before about the Annie songs, but that was back in March, so I’ll give you a brief refresher here, and if you want more detail, go and listen to episode twenty-two, on “The Wallflower”, which I’ll link in the show notes. Back in 1954, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters had recorded a song called “Work With Me Annie”, a song which had been, for the time, relatively sexually explicit, though it sounds like nothing now: [Excerpt: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, “Work With Me Annie”] That song had started up a whole series of answer records. The Midnighters recorded a couple themselves, like “Annie Had a Baby”: [Excerpt: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, “Annie Had a Baby”] Most famously there was Etta James’ “The Wallflower”: [Excerpt: Etta James, “The Wallflower”] But there were dozens more songs about Annie — there was “Annie Met Henry”, “Annie Pulled a Hum-Bug”, even “Annie Kicked the Bucket”: [excerpt: the Nu Tones, “Annie Kicked the Bucket”] And the fourth song that Buddy recorded at this first Decca session, “Midnight Shift”, was intended to be another in the Annie series. It was written by Luke McDaniel, a country singer who had gone rockabilly, and who recorded some unissued sides for Sun, like “My Baby Don’t Rock”: [Excerpt: Luke McDaniel, “My Baby Don’t Rock”] Jim Denny had suggested “Midnight Shift” for Buddy — though it seems a strange choice for commercial success, as it’s rather obviously about a sex worker: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Midnight Shift”] Perhaps the label had second thoughts, as “Blue Days, Black Nights” was eventually chosen as the single, rather than “Midnight Shift”. When the paperwork for it came through for Buddy to sign, he discovered that they’d misspelled his name. He was born Charles Holley — h-o-l-l-e-y — but the paperwork spelled it h-o-l-l-y. As he was told they needed it back in a hurry, he signed it, and from then on he was Buddy Holly without the e. For the rest of 1956 Buddy continued recording with Owen Bradley for Decca, and kept having little success. Bradley became ever more disillusioned with Holly, while Paul Cohen, the executive at Decca who had signed Holly, at one point was telling his friends “Buddy Holly is the biggest no talent I have ever worked with.” One of the songs that he recorded during that time, but which wasn’t released, was one that Owen Bradley described as “the worst song I’ve ever heard”. It had been written by Holly and Joe Allison after they’d been to see the John Wayne film The Searchers — a film which later gave the name to a band from Liverpool who would become hugely influential. Holly and Allison had seen the film several times, and they kept finding themselves making fun of the way that Wayne said one particular line: [Excerpt: The Searchers, John Wayne saying “That’ll Be The Day”] They took that phrase and turned it into the title of a song. Unfortunately, the first recording of it wasn’t all that great — Buddy had been told by Webb Pierce that the way to have a hit single was to sing in a high voice, and so he sang the song far out of his normal range: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “That’ll Be The Day”] Around this time, Sonny Curtis stopped working with Holly. Owen Bradley didn’t like his guitar playing and wanted Holly to record with the session musicians he used with everyone else, while Curtis got an offer to play guitar for Slim Whitman, who at the time was about the biggest star in country music. So as 1956 drew to a close, Buddy Holly was without his longtime guitarist, signed to a record company that didn’t know what to do with him, and failing to realise his musical ambitions. This is when Norman Petty entered the story. Petty was a former musician, who had performed crude experiments in overdubbing in the late forties, copying Les Paul and Mary Ford, though in a much less sophisticated manner. One of his singles, a version of Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo”, had actually been a minor hit: [Excerpt: The Norman Petty Trio, “Mood Indigo”] He’d gone into the recording studio business, and charged bands sixty dollars to record two songs in his studio — or, if he thought the songs had commercial potential, he’d waive the charge if they gave him the publishing and a co-writing credit. Petty had become interested in rockabilly after having recorded Roy Orbison and the Teen Kings’ first single — the version of “Ooby Dooby” that was quickly deleted: [Excerpt: Roy Orbison and the Teen Kings, “Ooby Dooby”, Je_Wel Records version] When he heard Sam Phillips’ remake of the song, he became intrigued by the possibilities that echo offered, and started to build his own echo chamber — something that would eventually be completed with the help of Buddy Holly and Buddy’s father and brother. Petty recorded another rockabilly group, Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids, on a song, “Party Doll”, that went to number one: [Excerpt: Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids, “Party Doll”] When the Rhythm Orchids passed through Lubbock, they told Buddy about Norman Petty’s studio, and Buddy went there to cut some demos. Petty was impressed by Holly — though he was more impressed by Sonny Curtis, who was still with Buddy for those demo sessions — and when his contract with Decca expired, Petty and Holly agreed to work together. But they had a problem. Buddy’s contract with Decca said that even though they’d only released two singles by him, and hadn’t bothered to release any of the other songs he’d recorded during the year he was signed to them, he couldn’t rerecord anything he’d recorded for them for another five years. Buddy tried to get Paul Cohen to waive that clause in the contract, and Cohen said no. Holly asked if he could speak to Milt Gabler instead — he was sure that Gabler would agree. But Cohen explained to him that Gabler was only a vice president, and that he worked for Cohen. There was no way that Buddy Holly could put out a record of any of the songs he had recorded in 1956. So Norman Petty, who had been secretly recording the conversation, suggested a way round the problem. They could take those songs, and still have Holly sing them, but put them out as by a group, rather than a solo singer. It wouldn’t be Buddy Holly releasing the records, it would be the group. But what should they call the group? Buddy and Jerry Allison both really liked New Orleans R&B — they loved Fats Domino, and the other people that Dave Bartholomew worked with — and they particularly liked a song that Bartholomew had co-written for a group called the Spiders: [Excerpt: The Spiders, “Witchcraft”] So they decided that they wanted a name that was something like the Spiders. At first they considered “the Beetles”, but decided that that was too creepy — people would want to squish them. So they settled on The Crickets. And so the version of “That’ll Be The Day” that Buddy, Larry, Jerry, and Niki Sullivan had recorded with Norman Petty producing was going to be released as by the Crickets, and Buddy Holly’s name was going to be left off anything that the heads at Decca might see. Amusingly, the record ended up released by Decca anyway — or at least by a subsidiary of Decca. Norman Petty shopped the demos they’d made around different labels, and eventually he took them to Bob Thiele. Thiele had had a similar career to Milt Gabler — he’d started out as a musician, then he’d formed his own speciality jazz label, Signature, and had produced records like Coleman Hawkins’ “The Man I Love”: [Excerpt: Coleman Hawkins, “The Man I Love”] Like Gabler, he had been taken on by Decca, which of all the major labels was the only one that really understood the way that the music business was changing. He’d been put in charge of two labels owned by Decca — Coral, which was being used mostly for insipid white cover versions of black acts, and Brunswick, which was where he released rockabilly tracks by Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio. The Crickets were clearly a Brunswick group, and so “That’ll Be the Day” was going to be released on Brunswick — and the contract was sent to Jerry Allison, not Buddy Holly. Holly’s name wasn’t mentioned at first, in case Thiele decided to mention it to his bosses and the whole thing was blown. Norman Petty had assumed that what they’d recorded so far was just going to be a demo, but Thiele said that no, he thought what they had was fine as it was, and put this out: [Excerpt: The Crickets, “That’ll Be The Day”] But the Crickets had still not properly finalised their lineup. The core of Holly and Allison was there — the two of them had been playing together for years — and Niki Sullivan would be OK on rhythm guitar, but they needed a permanent bass player. They eventually settled on Joe B. Mauldin, who had played with a group called The Four Teens that had also featured Larry Welborn. Joe B. had sat in on a gig with the other three, and they’d been impressed with his bass playing.  Before “That’ll Be the Day” was released, they were already in the studio cutting more songs. One was a song that had originally been written by Holly’s mother, though she refused to take credit for it — she was a fundamentalist Southern Baptist, and rock and roll was the Devil’s music. She was just about okay with her son playing it, but she wasn’t going to get herself involved in that. So Buddy took his mother’s song and turned it into this: [Excerpt: The Crickets, “Maybe Baby”] And at the same time, they also made an agreement that Holly could record solo material for Coral. That would actually be recorded by the same people who were making the Crickets’ records, but since he was coming up with so many new songs, they might as well use them to get twice as much material out — there was no prohibition, after all, on him recording new songs under his own name, just the ones he’d recorded in 1956. And they were recording a ludicrous amount of material. “That’ll Be The Day” still hadn’t been released, and they already had their next single in the bag, and were recording Buddy’s first solo single. That song was based on “Love is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia, a favourite of Holly’s: [Excerpt: Mickey and Sylvia, “Love is Strange”] Holly took that basic musical concept and turned it into “Words of Love”: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Words of Love”] That wasn’t a hit for Holly, but even before his version was released, the Diamonds, who usually made a habit of recording tracks originally recorded by black artists, released a cover version, which went to number thirteen: [Excerpt: The Diamonds, “Words of Love”] The Crickets were essentially spending every second they could in Petty’s studio. They were also doing session work, playing on records by Jim Robinson, Jack Huddle, Hal Goodson, Fred Crawford, and more. In the early months of 1957, they recorded dozens upon dozens of songs, which would continue being released for years afterwards. For example, just two days after “That’ll Be the Day” was finally released, at the end of May, they went into the studio and cut another song they had patterned after Bo Diddley, who had co-written “Love is Strange”,  as a Crickets side: [Excerpt: The Crickets, “Not Fade Away”] and, on the same day, a Holly solo side: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Every Day”] All these songs were written by Holly and Allison, sometimes with Mauldin helping, but the songwriting credits didn’t really match that. Sometimes one or other name would get missed off the credits, sometimes Holly would be credited by his middle name, Hardin, instead of his surname, and almost always Norman Petty would end up with his name on the songwriting credits. They weren’t that bothered about credit, for the moment — there was always another song where the last one came from, and they were piling up songs far faster than they could release them. Indeed, only a month after the “Not Fade Away” and “Every Day” session, they were back in the studio yet again, recording another song, which Buddy had originally intended to name after his niece, Cindy Lou. Jerry, on the other hand, thought the song would be better if it was about his girlfriend. And you’ll be able to find out what happened after they decided between Cindy Lou and Peggy Sue in a few weeks’ time…