transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I wanted a bicycle for Christmas, and they gave me a guitar and pissed me off.

Speaker 2:
[00:08] You played on so many records and you work with so many artists, and it's such a wide variety.

Speaker 1:
[00:14] There are a lot of cats who just want to knock you over with a boatload of hemi-semi-demi-quaver and knock you out with super chops.

Speaker 2:
[00:25] Going back, listening to those records, I mean, it's phenomenal production, phenomenal performance, phenomenal songs. I mean, it's like really is a quite hot moment.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] The main component that I would try to inject into anything I do is joy.

Speaker 2:
[00:42] You look like you're having a good time.

Speaker 1:
[00:44] I'm always having a good time. If I can play the guitar, I'm having a great time.

Speaker 2:
[00:52] Jeff Skunk Baxter, thank you for being on my podcast. You honor me by being here.

Speaker 1:
[00:56] Pleasure is mine and the honor is mine, sir.

Speaker 2:
[00:58] Thank you. I have a child, you just met my children out there, at least you saw them in the corner playing on an iPad. But getting them to play music at an early age, any kid, but I was surprised that you started studying at a very young age. I think five is the number I remember. Is that something you want to do or is that something a parent asked?

Speaker 1:
[01:18] I asked my mom, I said, I want to take piano lessons.

Speaker 2:
[01:21] What was it about music that was so attractive to you at such a young age?

Speaker 1:
[01:26] Well, there was always a piano in the house because my mom played piano.

Speaker 2:
[01:31] Was she good pianist?

Speaker 1:
[01:34] Not great, but that whole generation, everybody played something on some level somehow. It may not have been a professional quality, but back in those days, families got together and had different people play, sang and played, somebody played piano.

Speaker 2:
[01:59] Sheet music and the whole thing, right?

Speaker 1:
[02:01] Yeah. I had been banging on the thing since I can remember. Finally, I just said, I really want to learn to play this. Because I did listen to my mom play and I thought it was really cool.

Speaker 2:
[02:11] How was your piano playing?

Speaker 1:
[02:12] How's my piano playing? Wasn't bad. Wasn't great. But if you're going to study an instrument, if your first instrument is piano, which is really the basis of Western music, if you have that under your belt, that's a tremendous advantage.

Speaker 2:
[02:36] Yeah. I learned piano later and I wish I'd learned it earlier.

Speaker 1:
[02:41] Well, there's so much connected to it. You study trumpet and I study trumpet too. But you study trumpet and you re-learn to read and you learn a little bit about melody, but you study the piano and you're studying harmony, counterpoint, a little bit of composition. I mean, it's this full trick bag of stuff.

Speaker 2:
[03:06] How does this family end up going to Mexico City? That seems to be something I couldn't find other than you just end up in Mexico City.

Speaker 1:
[03:13] Well, did you ever see Mad Men?

Speaker 2:
[03:15] I'm one of those people who doesn't watch a lot of things. I know the show, but I-

Speaker 1:
[03:18] Okay. Well, my dad was Senior Executive Vice President J. Walter Thompson, which was at the time the biggest advertising agency in the world.

Speaker 2:
[03:26] So you lived in Mad Men?

Speaker 1:
[03:27] And they- yep, I did. And they sent my dad down to run Latin America.

Speaker 2:
[03:32] Wow. Okay. So what age do you go to Mexico City?

Speaker 1:
[03:40] Oh, it's like nine or ten.

Speaker 2:
[03:41] And guitar shows up around what age?

Speaker 1:
[03:44] Shows up around ten. I wanted a bicycle for Christmas. And they gave me a guitar, it pissed me off. So I hung it on the wall. And then a friend of mine in the apartment downstairs, a guy named Kurt Bundy, came up to hang out one day and he said, do you play guitar? I go, no. He said, well, I'm taking guitar lessons and if I show you some chords, maybe I could have somebody to play with. I said, yeah, all right. And then I don't know, somehow or other, I got the cosmic bolt from wherever that place is and fell in love.

Speaker 2:
[04:24] Yeah. Still in love, right?

Speaker 1:
[04:27] Oh, I adore it.

Speaker 2:
[04:31] Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. King Thunder and the Lightning Bolts. This is your surf band.

Speaker 1:
[04:40] Well, sort of surf band. Actually, my surf band was a band called The Tarantulas.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] Okay. Good name.

Speaker 1:
[04:48] There's a wonderful musician, bass player named Abraham Loborio, who's like one of the top studio players on the planet. And Ava and I grew up together in Mexico City.

Speaker 2:
[04:58] Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[04:59] And we formed a band called The Tarantulas, which was just the two of us playing guitar. But we didn't think that was out of the ordinary because the original Ventures were only two guitar players.

Speaker 2:
[05:12] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[05:12] And it was only later on when they-

Speaker 2:
[05:15] Did they just go in and cut with studio guys when they would cut the records? Is that the thing?

Speaker 1:
[05:19] Well, they weren't even really studio guys. They were just playing gigs, the two of them.

Speaker 2:
[05:23] Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1:
[05:24] And then when they went in and cut Walk, Don't Run, and they got a drummer-

Speaker 2:
[05:27] Is that one of those guys? I have every Ventures album ever made. I love The Ventures.

Speaker 1:
[05:31] That band-

Speaker 2:
[05:32] So cool, man.

Speaker 1:
[05:33] And I actually wrote Bob Bogle a letter when I was 11, and said, I want to play like you guys. What do I do? And he said, Well, go buy Fender Jazzmaster. Now, in Mexico City, a Jazzmaster was like 800 bucks, that wasn't going to happen. I eventually got one, but came full circle, where I started to play with them, produce records with them, do some touring with them. And then one day, Bob Bogle came into the studio and we were doing, I guess it was Wild Again 2, the album, and he brought the letter with him. And I thought, Oh my goodness, how wonderful.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] He had the letter?

Speaker 1:
[06:19] He still had the letter. And.

Speaker 2:
[06:23] That's such an amazing story.

Speaker 1:
[06:26] It just, I think it's rare that people get to meet the people that they look up to and that they respect. So this comes full circle. And now I'm playing and producing with guys that inspired me.

Speaker 2:
[06:44] Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[06:45] And I love those guys. Don Wilson was the last one. He passed away a few years ago, but I spent a lot of time with those guys. I love that band.

Speaker 2:
[06:54] Amazing band. Amazing.

Speaker 1:
[06:57] Yeah, they had this concept called Play the Melody. What a concept.

Speaker 2:
[07:05] Well, as a guitar player likes to solo, I don't know anything about melody, but.

Speaker 1:
[07:09] Well, this is, as you go through their records and you learn to play the melodies of the songs, later on, when I started doing casuals, you know, weddings and bar mitzvahs and stuff, as I was 12 and 13, and had a stack of fake books this high, I realized that many of the songs in the fake books were songs that The Ventures had recorded.

Speaker 2:
[07:34] I see.

Speaker 1:
[07:35] Cherry Blossom, Peckham, Apple Blossom, White and all the standard stuff, Melody. Once you understand and are comfortable with Melody, I don't know a lot of guitar players that have had that experience. Many of my friends have because they're like you, they were big Ventures fans, but the whole generation of folks had never even heard of them.

Speaker 2:
[07:57] What I love about The Ventures is as you go through their catalog and music tastes change, well, they just go with the time, so you get their take on psychedelia. Their psychedelic records are amazing.

Speaker 1:
[08:10] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] Great stuff.

Speaker 1:
[08:13] Because the guitar playing in that band.

Speaker 2:
[08:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:16] I mean, Bob Bogle was a great guitar player. Again, play the melody and play it wonderfully. Then, Noke Edwards was playing bass for a while, then switched to playing guitar. Noke was just a frightening guitar player. Oh, man, that cat was great. I own and I'm about to release the last Ventures album.

Speaker 2:
[08:39] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[08:40] I recorded it at my house and live. I have a whole live performance of that.

Speaker 2:
[08:46] That's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[08:48] With Noke and a couple other guitar players, it's just something about that combination under that name with that vibe. But you know.

Speaker 2:
[09:06] God bless him. I say I could talk to you about The Ventures for 20 minutes. I saw a clip of you playing with Brian Setzer of Stray Cats 2 and San Onjani Sleepwalk. Were you also a San Onjani fan?

Speaker 1:
[09:18] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[09:18] I'm obsessed with San Onjani too. I just think such a-

Speaker 1:
[09:21] Go watch the Perry Como clip on, I think it's on YouTube or something, when San Onjani appear on Perry Como.

Speaker 2:
[09:28] Okay. I will take you up on that.

Speaker 1:
[09:29] You will laugh your-

Speaker 2:
[09:30] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[09:31] It's like Perry Como is an unwitting straight man for these guys. It's delightful.

Speaker 2:
[09:39] Is it a musical thing or a skit?

Speaker 1:
[09:41] No. It's just that Perry Como is asking him a question.

Speaker 2:
[09:45] Oh, I see.

Speaker 1:
[09:46] Santo is being very droll about his answer. He's like, where did you get that? I bought it in the store. That's the way the conversation keeps going. Perry Como finally goes, okay, just play something.

Speaker 2:
[10:01] So we can go as deep as you want to go. But I remember, I think the first time I heard you, the first time I was conscious of your playing, not knowing it was you, was one of the great Steely Dan solos. I remember thinking without knowing what the language was, there was a modal aspect to your playing. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:
[10:23] I think so. One of the advantages of growing up in a foreign country is being exposed to all different music.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] I mean, Mexico City was very cosmopolitan.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] It still is.

Speaker 1:
[10:38] Absolutely. I mean, the Germans were there. That's why Mexican beer is so good. The French were there, cuisine.

Speaker 2:
[10:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:48] There were oompa bands which eventually translated to the guitar on and the mariachi bands.

Speaker 2:
[10:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:55] There was so much going on that it was like going to the College of Musical Lounge. I see. Being able to absorb all.

Speaker 2:
[11:03] Again, goes deeper light as you want to go, but whether it's a great like a Django Reinhardt, because I guess what I'm trying to get out is not simply like who inspired you like we were just talking about The Ventures, but who for you gave you that sense of what ultimately led the way you play? Because you play so distinctively. How can I put it? Sorry, I'm trying to be a fan boy. But you play so distinctively, and yet the way you play isn't off-putting. It's just like in maybe Django Reinhardt comes to mind. I'm not saying he's an influence, but I'm saying is-

Speaker 1:
[11:40] He is.

Speaker 2:
[11:40] Okay. But what's beautiful about Django is he plays so exotically but it never seems to put you out of the picture.

Speaker 1:
[11:49] That's interesting that you should say that. Because I had talked to someone else about this a while ago. I think the guitar player that inspired me the most was Howard Roberts.

Speaker 2:
[12:00] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[12:05] Again, I was listening to Howard Roberts' records when I was a little kid. Then later on, I got to meet him and then we ended up teaching together at the Guitar Institute of Technology. Then when I got him a guitar synthesizer, that was like light and dry grass. But the thing about Howard's playing, it is exactly that, it's welcoming. When you hear him play, there are a lot of cats who just want to like knock you over with a boatload of hemi-semi-demi quavers and knock you out with super chops. Okay, that's cool, I guess. But every time I would listen to a Howard Roberts recording, it was like he would open the door and welcome you. And then once you're inside and comfortable, then okay, let's see where this is going to go. So I think maybe I've got some of that from Howard.

Speaker 2:
[13:06] Yeah. Because in the history of popular music, and you played on some pretty big hits, your playing is probably on the most exotic end of the spectrum, but nothing you played disqualified them from being hits, or maybe in somebody else's hands, it would have. We've all heard a song where we love the song, and then the guitar break comes in and you think like, well, it's just too weird. But with you, and I remember hearing it, because my dad was a musician, so he was playing in a lot of different bands, but he was learning your leads to play on stage. So we have those records around, and I remember playing those records. I remember thinking, wow, this is so different. Just having that stark first memory of hearing you playing, thinking like, wow, this is really different. Because my dad was a guitar player, I was used to guitar.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] Okay, sure.

Speaker 2:
[13:56] So I had some sense of proportionality to what I was hearing. So it strikes me as really interesting that you played so personally and exotically, maybe that's not the right word, and certainly with great proficiency, but nothing that turned people off from the music, it actually turned them on. So I think it's a great compliment to you.

Speaker 1:
[14:16] That's very kind, and it tells me that the main component that I would try to inject into anything I do is joy.

Speaker 2:
[14:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[14:28] Again, Howard was all about joy. Those guys were all about joy. Django Rwanda was all about joy. I mean, that guy should be happy. They were going to put him in a box car and send him to Auschwitz, and he had his guitar case with him. An SS officer said, what's in the case? He said, the guitar. He said, are you a guitar player? He said, yes. He said, show me. So he started to play guitar. It took him off the box car.

Speaker 2:
[14:54] This is a true story?

Speaker 1:
[14:54] It's a true story.

Speaker 2:
[14:55] Sorry, I missed all your, okay. I thought you're making an analogy.

Speaker 1:
[14:57] That's a true story.

Speaker 2:
[14:58] Oh my God. I didn't know the story.

Speaker 1:
[15:00] His playing from then on was pretty joyous.

Speaker 2:
[15:04] Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1:
[15:07] I had that element of hope and joy.

Speaker 2:
[15:08] Howard research, wow.

Speaker 1:
[15:13] But thank you, that's very kind.

Speaker 2:
[15:15] God bless you. So, you know, digging around, the internet is what it is, but somehow you go from Mexico City to Boston or New York, there seems to be different. So just walk me through how you end up going from there to there.

Speaker 1:
[15:33] Well, let's see. So I was living in Mexico City, and my dad decided that I was getting a pretty good education. I was going to the British Academy School, British Embassy School there. And then he decided he wanted me to get a better education even, so they sent me to prep school in Connecticut.

Speaker 2:
[15:55] Is this, because I didn't grow up in that world, what prep school is what to prepare you for?

Speaker 1:
[16:00] College.

Speaker 2:
[16:01] High-level college? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:03] There's a small group of schools like Hodgkiss and Chode and Taft where I went, Phillips Exeter and over to St. John's. Hodgkiss, these schools that specialize in prepping you for Yale or Harvard or Princeton or an Ivy League college. And it's not just the academics, it's leadership and it's an interesting combination of factors, all of which I ended up using it one time or another. I mean, I know we're not going to go down this rabbit hole, but the work that I do for the government, I would not be comfortable in that atmosphere if I hadn't gone to that school.

Speaker 2:
[16:52] It's a certain vibe. It's certainly not the musician vibe.

Speaker 1:
[16:57] Yes, that's true. But it also gives you a tremendous command of the English language.

Speaker 2:
[17:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:03] It teaches you how to learn as opposed to just rattling off facts.

Speaker 2:
[17:08] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:09] So in all and all and all, I think it was a tremendous experience for me. So my parents put me on airplane, took me to-

Speaker 2:
[17:17] How old?

Speaker 1:
[17:18] Thirteen.

Speaker 2:
[17:21] You must have had a lot of confidence in you.

Speaker 1:
[17:24] Well, again, going up in Mexico City, you get with the program pretty quick.

Speaker 2:
[17:30] Yeah, right.

Speaker 1:
[17:31] So my dad had no qualms at all about me being able to survive. So they sent me away to boarding school. Sometimes instead of flying all the way back to Mexico City during a vacation, sometimes vacations were only like two weeks long. I would just stay at my dad's company, Corporate Apartments in New York City, and go to work.

Speaker 2:
[17:58] I see.

Speaker 1:
[17:59] Go work in the music stores on 48th Street.

Speaker 2:
[18:01] 48th.

Speaker 1:
[18:01] And then play clubs at night.

Speaker 2:
[18:02] It's a shame. They're mostly all gone now, those music stores.

Speaker 1:
[18:05] That whole block is one big steel and glass.

Speaker 2:
[18:09] What happened?

Speaker 1:
[18:11] Real estate.

Speaker 2:
[18:11] I was in New York at one point in the last 10 years, and I thought, I'm just going to go down and poke around at Manny's or something. I was like, what happened? I had such great experiences going down there, buying guitars, and I can't believe it's all gone.

Speaker 1:
[18:26] It is sad.

Speaker 2:
[18:27] But life goes on.

Speaker 1:
[18:29] Everything changes.

Speaker 2:
[18:30] So there's you as a teen working in the stores?

Speaker 1:
[18:33] I'm working at Jimmy's music shop across from Manny's. Henry Goldwick, who was sort of the guru at Manny's, everybody knew Henry, took a liking to me, and kept me under his wing while I was just a kid.

Speaker 2:
[18:52] How's your guitar playing at that point? Are you fairly comfortable?

Speaker 1:
[18:54] It's pretty good because I'm working. I'm doing casuals.

Speaker 2:
[18:59] All right.

Speaker 1:
[19:00] I'm playing with the Vic Goldring Orchestra, so I'm doing bar mitzvahs and weddings. And I even did a brisk of that. I didn't even know what that was until I saw another story. But again, playing all the standards. I mean, the guys in the band were like 80 years old. Clarinet, saxophone, accordion, and drums.

Speaker 2:
[19:21] And what guitar are you playing on those dates?

Speaker 1:
[19:25] Sometimes a Fender Telecaster and sometimes a Jazzmaster.

Speaker 2:
[19:28] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[19:29] Because I finally got a Jazzmaster.

Speaker 2:
[19:31] It's kind of an interesting choice for jazz or jazzish.

Speaker 1:
[19:34] It's a great sounding guitar. I mean, that guitar is an amazing instrument. The Jazzers never really were comfortable with it.

Speaker 2:
[19:41] That's what I'm saying. Normally you think of like, I have a Super 400.

Speaker 1:
[19:45] So do I. And I love that. And a D'Angelico that sits in the corner when I need inspiration. A New Yorker. But it's a beautiful guitar. The pickups on that instrument were that design, which is a very thin bobbin with wide windings, was the design on their original steel guitars. So the pickup has a very...

Speaker 2:
[20:12] That's why it has that sound.

Speaker 1:
[20:15] It's because of the inductance in the amount of turns, and it has a slightly progressed sound. So if the right tone control, you get that pop that you get out of a Super 400. That little something on the rhythm pickup, you can get that and the instrument sounds fantastic.

Speaker 2:
[20:37] Thank you for that. I love it. So there's this apocryphal story of you getting to know Jimi James, who later became Jimi Hendrix to the world. True story, not true story.

Speaker 1:
[20:52] Yeah. I didn't know at the time. I just walked in the store. I was at Jimi's.

Speaker 2:
[20:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:57] And I just walked in the store. Very nice guy.

Speaker 2:
[21:00] Yeah. Did you get to see him play or?

Speaker 1:
[21:03] Yes. He asked me to come down to the Café Wau to-

Speaker 2:
[21:10] Is this like 66 times, right? Or 65 maybe?

Speaker 1:
[21:16] Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2:
[21:18] Because he went to England 66 with Chaz Chandler.

Speaker 1:
[21:21] So this would have been who came in-

Speaker 2:
[21:23] To Café Wau.

Speaker 1:
[21:24] To the Café Wau. So this would have been 65, 66. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[21:31] Did you see something in him? I'm not talking about the charisma because that's obviously different.

Speaker 1:
[21:36] I loved his guitar playing.

Speaker 2:
[21:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:38] I mean, to me, it was the same. It was that welcoming thing. It was just a joy about it that I love.

Speaker 2:
[21:47] I never heard it put that way, but it makes so much sense because he plays so aggressively, it doesn't turn you off somehow.

Speaker 1:
[21:54] No, no. Then I got to sit in for one song. Of course, that blew up into me playing with Jimi Hendrix, but his bass player was late. But we became friends. We didn't see each other a lot, but there are people that you see every once in a while. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[22:17] You saw him yesterday.

Speaker 1:
[22:18] Yeah. Very special guy. Very special guy. I really hurt when he passed away.

Speaker 2:
[22:25] Yeah. Elliot Roberts, who's also passed away and was, infamously, Neil Young's manager for many years, amongst other luminaries. He told me a lot about knowing Hendrix, especially when Hendrix would be out here on the West Coast. He painted a very warm portrait of him that I-

Speaker 1:
[22:43] He's a beautiful guy.

Speaker 2:
[22:44] Yeah. Anybody that I talked to that knew Jimi, they always say the same thing. There was a warmth in him that was-

Speaker 1:
[22:51] Yeah. He had no axe to grind, and his life certainly wasn't easy, but I don't think he could have been James Brown.

Speaker 2:
[23:03] Well, he was in that world, basically.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] But what I mean in terms of his attitude towards the world.

Speaker 2:
[23:08] I see.

Speaker 1:
[23:08] Listen, I love James. I played with him. I love the guy. But there was a hardness, a hard edge to James. There was no hard edge to Jimmy at all.

Speaker 2:
[23:22] Because you saw him in that, let's call it pre-fame period. Just curious because it's guitar player talk, but what was it about his playing that maybe sticks out in your mind? I know you're talking about welcoming, but was there anything else because he makes that leap from what they used to call the Chitlin Circus, he's like, Isley Brothers backing band and all this stuff. And then somehow he seems to make this metamorphosis into like, the Hey Joe guy is like, that leap in those couple years. Did you see any of that in that?

Speaker 1:
[23:56] Yeah. One thing that I was aware of was his, I'm trying to think what the best word is, it probably isn't the best word, his understanding and awareness and insight into guys like Curtis Mayfield.

Speaker 2:
[24:16] That's the thing, sorry to interrupt you. That's the thing that people always missed about Jimmy's playing is Curtis' influence on Jimmy.

Speaker 1:
[24:21] And Little Beaver.

Speaker 2:
[24:23] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[24:23] I mean, he, that whole sliding fifth thing, he took it to a whole other level. But that style in and of itself is warm and welcoming.

Speaker 2:
[24:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] I mean, you listen to the guitar playing on People Get Ready.

Speaker 2:
[24:41] Oh, Curtis'.

Speaker 1:
[24:44] Yeah. It's like, you listen to that, you don't want to play guitar anymore. You listen to Carl Wilson sing God Only Knows. That's it. You might as well just, now you can go home.

Speaker 2:
[24:54] Yeah. I live north of Chicago in a town called Highland Park and I have a cafe. So I'll sit outside sometimes. One day I was sitting outside and this little Jewish man came up with his wife, about 80 years old, and he recognized me and he starts talking to me. I'm just being nice and we're having a nice conversation. He said, I used to be a music manager. I'd say, who would you manage? I managed Curtis Mayfield. From the impressions all the way to Curtis' dad, he was his manager. So we got together for lunch one day and he told me, like the behind the scenes stories of Curtis' music, life, business. I mean, to me, Curtis is just like, especially as a Chicagoan.

Speaker 1:
[25:36] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:
[25:37] Curtis is just like, he's just such a titanic figure in my mind. But I love that you said that when Jimmy's playing because people, of course, point to Albert King and let's call it the obvious parts of Jimmy's playing. But Curtis' influence in that style is so fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[25:51] It's funny when you say Chicago, I used to go do a lot of jingles because Chicago was the town.

Speaker 2:
[25:57] Still the town.

Speaker 1:
[25:58] Working at Clough Weinstein, I worked with Bobby Weinstein and all those guys. But there was something going on. As soon as I would get to Chicago, Buddy Miles would know I got into the town and would call me, and then we go down to some of the clubs down there and play. It was like this telepathic thing. I never figured that out. Chicago is a very special place.

Speaker 2:
[26:23] It's a very interesting place. Buddy was around a lot when I was coming up, and I used to see him out a lot. I never bothered him, but he'd always be there in the corner having a sip and something. I love.

Speaker 1:
[26:37] Kingston Mines, that's the place we used to go play all the time.

Speaker 2:
[26:39] That's right, Kingston Mines.

Speaker 1:
[26:40] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:40] Do you know that? Kingston Mines was actually, I'm pretty sure was the debut of the original production of Grease.

Speaker 1:
[26:47] Really?

Speaker 2:
[26:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:48] There you go.

Speaker 2:
[26:49] Mary Lou Henner, who was from Chicago, was in the original production and it debuted at Kingston Mines. I'm almost positive because they couldn't find any venue that would take this idea of this musical.

Speaker 1:
[27:02] Sure. Wow. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[27:06] There's your six degrees of separation. Just before we started rolling, we were talking a little bit about studio stuff. I love recording studios. I'm a nerd that way. My understanding is you started doing pick up sessions here and there. This is New York in the 60s, right? Is that? Just give me a sense of what it was like to be in a studio in those days.

Speaker 1:
[27:30] Well, it was a lot less sophisticated.

Speaker 2:
[27:33] Right. Very primitive.

Speaker 1:
[27:35] Not that that really-

Speaker 2:
[27:36] Were you interested in the recording process early on?

Speaker 1:
[27:38] Absolutely. Growing up in Mexico, I didn't have any place to really repair anything or fix anything.

Speaker 2:
[27:48] Right.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] I was lucky enough to meet a older gentleman who had a radio and TV repair shop. Of course, television at the time was still in its infancy. But I learned a lot of basic electronics from him, and I've always been a techno geek. I mean, I just love that stuff. Then when I started to work at Jimmy's, and there weren't any guitars coming out of Jimmy's, going up to Dan Armstrong's place to get repaired, Danny came down one day and he said, who's repairing the guitars? Frank said, that guy. Then Danny walked over and said, I'll pay you five bucks an hour, come work for me. That was when I really, really got a chance to dig into the technical side of the guitar.

Speaker 2:
[28:47] Right.

Speaker 1:
[28:47] Not from a playing point, but from a scientific, technical point of view.

Speaker 2:
[28:54] Yeah. Anything to stick out in your mind, some of these 60 sessions. I just love that period of recording because I think what fascinates me is it's so primitive and people still found a way to make magic.

Speaker 1:
[29:09] Well, I think what was primitive was the ability to capture and reproduce it.

Speaker 2:
[29:15] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[29:19] The music was what it was. It didn't need anything else. It was just the fact that sometimes we were recording in mono. There was no reverberation other than people actually built cement rooms.

Speaker 2:
[29:38] Yeah. Chambers or plate rooms.

Speaker 1:
[29:42] Put a speaker in the room and a microphone on a little railroad track. So the difference, it was okay. It was fantastic. And you listen to that, and there's something about the recording on wide tape with big tape heads. I mean, there's just something about that.

Speaker 2:
[30:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:11] It's like, now you can rent a.

Speaker 2:
[30:14] Sim, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:14] A Prius or something or a little four-cylinder thing and drive stuff. This stuff was like having a GTO.

Speaker 2:
[30:22] I see.

Speaker 1:
[30:23] It was muscle.

Speaker 2:
[30:25] I get it.

Speaker 1:
[30:25] It really was muscle.

Speaker 2:
[30:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:28] Great microphones.

Speaker 2:
[30:31] Of course, we all remember Ultimate Spinach.

Speaker 1:
[30:33] Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[30:35] Ultimate Spinach 3, one single, just like Romeo and Juliet. I love that song. Psychish take.

Speaker 1:
[30:43] Yeah. It got airplay. We were shocked.

Speaker 2:
[30:46] Yeah. But I saw you had a song in there, Daisy.

Speaker 1:
[30:50] Yeah. I pulled the lyrics out of, I think it was a creepy comic. Remember creepy comics?

Speaker 2:
[30:59] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[30:59] Yeah. There was Tales of the Crypt.

Speaker 2:
[31:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[31:01] It was creepy. But again, that was a nice experience because first, it was when I first started to play Pedal Steel, which was at the time, I grew up watching the Lawrence Welk Show in Mexico, which was one of the few shows from the United States that they would show. Then the first time I saw Speedy West, I was like, Oh, man.

Speaker 2:
[31:28] Speedy West is amazing.

Speaker 1:
[31:29] Oh, yeah. Speedy West and Thumbs Carlisle.

Speaker 2:
[31:34] Yeah. I collect old country singles. I have some amazing Speedy West 45s.

Speaker 1:
[31:39] Oh, that guy. I love his playing.

Speaker 2:
[31:41] Ridiculous. At this point in your life, it's easy to point to it goes somewhere, but at this point in your life, do you have a vision or you're just excited? You're kid and you're going wherever you're going. Because you have Jimi Hendrix over here, you play at one point with Tim Buckley over here, Buzzy Linhart, which is-

Speaker 1:
[32:05] What a wonderful musician, that guy.

Speaker 2:
[32:08] But I guess what it strikes me is even in an early age, you're non-denominational in your musical interests. You're going where the music takes you. But is that how you felt and is that consistent?

Speaker 1:
[32:23] Yeah, because I wanted to play the guitar. To me, I was agnostic on what that meant. Certainly, I had my preferences. But again, playing in casual bands meant that I spent a lot of time listening to trumpet players, saxophone player. There was a time when I would even go buy trumpet and saxophone books and learn to play out of that because they were the original soloist before the guitar was amplified. So all of those things just contributed to whatever, however you describe the style of guitar playing.

Speaker 2:
[33:02] But did you have a vision of success? I mean, maybe I'm projecting.

Speaker 1:
[33:05] I don't think so. I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[33:11] Is it more of a faith that it all just kind of worked itself out?

Speaker 1:
[33:15] I wasn't even sure it was that organized. It just was and I was kind of going with it. I wasn't sure where it was going.

Speaker 2:
[33:24] Were your parents asking you or would they just assume you're going to go into academics and that was kind of?

Speaker 1:
[33:29] Well, my dad had my whole life planned out for me. Listen, I love my dad a lot. He was an incredible human being and one of my best friends as well, which is weird for parents because I know that's a very strange. They say you can't be best friends with your kids. But my dad had my life plan. I'd go to boarding school and then I would graduate from Boston University with a degree in public communications. Then I would move to Rochester, become a junior executive at Kodak, spend 35 years there, retire as a senior executive vice president and that was it. He had it all planned out, which is what any loving parent would try to do.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] Yeah, it's not unreasonable for sure.

Speaker 1:
[34:21] Yeah. Remember, we're talking about people that grew up in the Depression, when work was few and far between and sacred and if you could put your offspring on a path of success that you were comfortable with and you understood, that's what parents do for their children.

Speaker 2:
[34:43] My father was forever wounded because my step-grandmother, his former mother-in-law had once asked him as a musician, when are you going to get a real job? There was a vibe back in those days that music wasn't a real job.

Speaker 1:
[34:59] Absolutely. As a matter of fact, when you talk about King Thunder and the Lightning Bolt, the prep school band, it was only until the last semester of my senior year, did the school recognize us as, and this wasn't King Thunder now, this was another band, but recognized that kind of band as the house band.

Speaker 2:
[35:27] I see.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] Because nobody wanted the band to play at any dances. Nobody wanted that stuff. They wanted what we were doing.

Speaker 2:
[35:36] I see.

Speaker 1:
[35:37] So finally, they gave in. But you're right, as far as many of the faculty was concerned, that wasn't music.

Speaker 2:
[35:44] Yeah. I want to talk about Gary Katz, because he becomes this kind of important figure in your life. Do you want to give a kind of short bio on Gary Katz? Because he's not a name that most musical people would know. Once you know the resume, it becomes obvious, but it's not a name that rolls off the tongue as far as like, oh, yeah, that guy.

Speaker 1:
[36:04] Well, I never really knew what Gary was doing until I met her in Boston, when he was producing the B-game. Eventually, when we formed Steely Dan, Jimmy Hodder, the drummer came to play with Steely Dan. So that's the first I had met Gary.

Speaker 2:
[36:23] Because it all connects where you meet the Steely Dan guys at a session for a singer.

Speaker 1:
[36:30] For Linda Hoover.

Speaker 2:
[36:31] Yeah, Linda Hoover. I even did my research.

Speaker 1:
[36:34] I listened to her.

Speaker 2:
[36:35] God bless. So it's just interesting that Gary Katz leads you to the Steely Dan guys. Is that how you end up coming west or?

Speaker 1:
[36:47] I actually was coming west anyway, because my dad was now being sent to the West Coast.

Speaker 2:
[36:52] Oh, my goodness. It wasn't music that sent you west.

Speaker 1:
[36:55] Well, it sent my parents. Then I started to look at the West Coast and think, everything I see here, I love surf music anyway.

Speaker 2:
[37:07] Yeah, you're there.

Speaker 1:
[37:09] Abraham LeBoriel had moved to Los Angeles. Everything just seemed to, as the trite saying goes, go west, young man. Everything just seemed to point in that direction. Since I had a place to stay, I could stay with my parents. I just moved out there, and around that time is when Walter Becker and Donald Fagan got a publishing deal at ABC Records through Gary Katz. Gary, I think, said all that.

Speaker 2:
[37:40] It was ABC Dunhill.

Speaker 1:
[37:41] ABC Dunhill.

Speaker 2:
[37:42] Was he more a Dunhill guy or because like, do you remember that?

Speaker 1:
[37:46] I don't really know.

Speaker 2:
[37:48] Because Dunhill was sort of maybe kind of more the alternative label of ABC and, remember, ABC Pro.

Speaker 1:
[37:53] You got me, but I honestly don't know.

Speaker 2:
[37:55] I'm a record collector, that's why. That's okay. I'm going to say, because there was even ABC Pro where they put like the psychedelic bands and the edgy bands. So I was just curious how he fit into that firmament. I try not to just go over the same stuff that you've been asked a thousand times. So I'm going to try to come at the Steely Dan thing slightly differently, if you don't mind. It strikes me as a listener, there's certainly a huge intellectual overlay, at least that's my impression. Somebody likes Steely Dan's music. But like, okay, but at the formation of the thing, do you guys sit in a diner someday and say, yeah, we want to do this? Like, is there sort of a founding document, like it's going to be very wordy? Or what's the philosophical foundation, I guess, is the question I'm trying to get at.

Speaker 1:
[38:42] I'm not sure there was one. I think the Linda Hoover record was the catalyst because after I finished the record, the stuff that I was doing on it, Becker and Fagan said, we've never heard anybody play like that on our music. I said, well, I've never heard any music like this.

Speaker 2:
[39:05] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:06] So there seemed to be an agreement that there may be somewhere along the line this might work out.

Speaker 2:
[39:14] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:14] I think Gary, I had that in the back of his mind as well. So there was already communication between some members of the band.

Speaker 2:
[39:25] What was your first impression of them as writers?

Speaker 1:
[39:28] I loved them. I thought it was great. I really thought that material was good.

Speaker 2:
[39:32] You just got it.

Speaker 1:
[39:34] Oh, yeah. I love playing it.

Speaker 2:
[39:35] Yeah. Because it's an interesting blend of influences and again, this certainly a high, I don't know what the right word is. There's a high faith in the lyric, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[39:49] Oh, yeah. Which works for me because I went to boarding school, which was all about a classic English education.

Speaker 2:
[39:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:58] So everything from Shakespeare to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, reading everything and having, including Henry Miller and William Burroughs, that world plus everything that you grew up reading the classics.

Speaker 2:
[40:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[40:19] So lyric, wordage, I guess is, I'm making that up.

Speaker 2:
[40:24] Good word.

Speaker 1:
[40:26] It was not only familiar, but comfortable.

Speaker 2:
[40:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[40:30] I felt.

Speaker 2:
[40:37] It's funny, because I have two impressions, right? There's seeing you on television in the 70s, you know, with your signature style. And you know, you, joy is a word that comes to mind. You always play with great exuberance. And yet, you know, Donald Fagan is front man. There's like, I don't know, a level of discomfort, or he's not, he's not what you would call like, he's not Freddie Mercury up there.

Speaker 1:
[41:04] No, but it's interesting to me that Donald Fagan would always say, you know, he didn't really like playing live. But I go back and look at what's now becoming ubiquitous. Copies of performances on Midnight Special.

Speaker 2:
[41:27] Yeah, which are fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[41:29] And Donald's having a great time.

Speaker 2:
[41:31] Yeah. And you have the beautiful background singers and.

Speaker 1:
[41:34] They were David Cassidy's original background singers. Unreal singers. Wow. That was a hell of a band. Royce Jones.

Speaker 2:
[41:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[41:47] One of the great singers. Yeah. There's a song that Steely Dan did called Any Major Dude. And in the live show, Royce was a percussionist and also sang background. He would step up the front of the stage and do that song. And it was like no matter where we were, instant club. It's like the lights went down and the cocktails. I mean, it was just, he could turn anyplace into this intimate club singing that song. Magic. Magic.

Speaker 2:
[42:27] Again, this is impressions, right? So it seemed at the time to be kind of a muso thing, if you know what I mean by the use of the word muso.

Speaker 1:
[42:34] I understand.

Speaker 2:
[42:36] But it does fly obviously against, let's call it general pop convention, but it was a successful pop group. So can you walk me through a little bit of the internal balance? Because artists are always aware of the tensions around them, even if they don't talk about them in interviews, and it's easy now to talk about these things.

Speaker 1:
[42:54] I was amazed we got a record deal. Anyway, I mean, when you go in with demos like Dr. Udu's Proto Man and stuff like, you figure who the hell is going to care. Like anything else, I think it has to do with timing. I would posit that if Do It Again was released the year before it was released, or the year after, it would have just died.

Speaker 2:
[43:16] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:19] It's hard to say when this sounds so astrological, but when the stars align, somehow, things get on the radio and people like things that they would not like.

Speaker 2:
[43:32] There are zeitgeist moments where the right song and the right moment seems to be.

Speaker 1:
[43:36] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[43:37] Like certain songs are for the summer, and certain songs are for the winter.

Speaker 1:
[43:40] Yeah, I think that's true. And certain songs just tickle people at a certain time in the spiral of the progression of time.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
[45:37] So was the idea to be successful or just make great music and the success would come off with great music? Because different artists have different philosophies on that.

Speaker 1:
[45:48] Well, we were certainly aware of success. And as a studio musician, I mean, I'm playing on Hamilton, Joe Franklin Reynolds, and all these other bands, records. I'm playing with Linda Rostad. I'm playing pedal steel in her band, Johnny Rodriguez. I'm out doing the country circuit, playing the, I mean, you probably saw the Blues Brothers.

Speaker 2:
[46:18] Yeah, Chicken Wire.

Speaker 1:
[46:19] Man, Bakersfield.

Speaker 2:
[46:23] On a Saturday night.

Speaker 1:
[46:24] The Jack of Diamonds. I mean, this, yeah, hardcore stuff. So a lot of country. I'd been, when I was in Boston, I was playing in the combat zone, playing at the Crazy Horse in the Intermission Lounge. Okay. So there was, and a lot of times you were playing the hits. People wanted to hear, you know, when I was in the Wild Ones. After Christopher Jordan left, I played in the Wild Ones for a while. And again, that was very pop, very commercial stuff. So we were very aware of the formulaic architecture that record companies were trying to create and follow. Steely Dan didn't seem to worry that much about that. I think it was more about the music. And I don't mean to sound disingenuous or somehow detached from the human race. And maybe somebody else was thinking about it. Maybe Gary Katz was thinking about it or somebody else. But I never got the feeling that, okay, we're going to write a three-minute single.

Speaker 2:
[47:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:42] And we're going to play it in such a way that the radio likes it. I was amazed when Do It Again got played on the radio. What?

Speaker 2:
[47:52] It is a very unconventional single.

Speaker 1:
[47:54] Absolutely. So for me, I think that would underscore my opinion on, we're just not that savvy when it came to writing.

Speaker 2:
[48:06] The meticulous nature of Steely Dan's recordings. It's kind of legendary. Let's say Pro Tools before Pro Tools or something. Well, it was clean.

Speaker 1:
[48:17] It was Roger Nichols. It was all about Roger, the immortal.

Speaker 2:
[48:21] He was the one driving that. It needs to have this kind of pristine quality.

Speaker 1:
[48:25] Absolutely. He's a brilliant engineer.

Speaker 2:
[48:29] We have this joke in the band that, when you walk into a venue and the sound man is playing something to the PA, to test the speakers, they're always playing Steely Dan. So we always call it sound man music.

Speaker 1:
[48:44] Well, and that's a compliment. It is a compliment.

Speaker 2:
[48:47] But I just was always curious because it seems so, fussy is not the right word, but there's some consistent vision there to- Well, I like the word fussy.

Speaker 1:
[48:59] I think we were obsessed with perfection on all kinds of different levels.

Speaker 2:
[49:09] Yeah. So on that level, is because you're playing these meticulous backing tracks, so you go in to play a lead, are you playing that live on the floor? Are you overdubbing? Just give me a sense of your philosophy going into that stuff.

Speaker 1:
[49:28] My philosophy was, again, as a studio musician, my job as a journeyman was to apply every ounce of knowledge, understanding, and insight that I had and technique to advance and improve whatever I was doing.

Speaker 2:
[49:53] Yeah. I think I saw this clip of them talking about one of the famous solos where they brought in all these different guitar players, you know what I mean? And eventually you played this solo that was like, like after you played it, there was like, you own this space or something. Have you seen that clip? I can't remember.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] I haven't, but, and that's fair enough.

Speaker 2:
[50:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:16] I mean, I've been in the situations too, where I just haven't been able to nail it.

Speaker 2:
[50:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:21] I've been in the situations where, you know, I got a call from JD Saller one night, it's four in the morning, and I said, I'm pulling my hair out. I've tried seven different guitar players and I can't get the god damn solo. Get your ass down here. So I showed up and I plugged in, played one take and said, what do you think? That's it. Thank you. Let's go get some, let's go to Ben Franks and get some breakfast.

Speaker 2:
[50:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:47] Right.

Speaker 2:
[50:51] When you heard yourself on the radio and the famous songs, Ricky Don't Lose That Number, My Old School, Do It Again.

Speaker 1:
[50:58] There's nothing like it. It's the best.

Speaker 2:
[51:01] But did you have a sense? Again, this might be projection, but your playing was so different than what was out there. Did you?

Speaker 1:
[51:10] Well, as a band as well.

Speaker 2:
[51:12] Okay. I'm saying, did you sense that?

Speaker 1:
[51:16] Again, I did because I couldn't believe Do It Again got on the radio. It just doesn't make any sense to me. But driving down Sunset Boulevard on a Saturday night, going past the Roxy and going past the Central and the different clubs down there on a Saturday night, turning on the radio and hearing them. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[51:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[51:44] That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[51:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[51:46] It makes you feel like, okay, because you really don't think about success or failure, but it also gives you a little kick in the butt and say, hey, maybe I'm getting good at this.

Speaker 2:
[52:01] Yeah. Walk me through, again, these are all apocryphal stories and I don't want to overdo something that's already been told, but I'm curious. The story is you hear them talking about how they're going to hire from touring, you're about three albums in, and you basically say, I'm out. Is there truth to that? Just give me the basic of that. We don't have to go.

Speaker 1:
[52:23] Yeah. I got a phone call. Said that I just don't want to tour anymore.

Speaker 2:
[52:29] Is this because they just want to become the Beatles and they just want to become a studio first thing?

Speaker 1:
[52:34] Whether it's the Beatles or not, I think they had so much success that they felt that they could now be in total control, which is fair enough. I was out on the road with the Doobies and when I hung up the phone, I said, well, that's it for me.

Speaker 2:
[52:52] Was you already in the Doobies loop at this point?

Speaker 1:
[52:54] I'm playing with them. I'm out.

Speaker 2:
[52:55] Yeah. I thought maybe there was a-

Speaker 1:
[52:57] No. When I hung up the phone, I said, that's it for me and Steely Dan said, well, you're in the Doobie Brothers now.

Speaker 2:
[53:05] Not a bad leap.

Speaker 1:
[53:06] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[53:12] Is it because they were going to not play live anymore, or you just didn't want to wait around to make records?

Speaker 1:
[53:19] There's something that I never really understood. Becker and Fagan seemed to try to create, and I hate to use the word myth because it sounds like they're lying.

Speaker 2:
[53:38] Mystique, maybe?

Speaker 1:
[53:40] Yes, where they never played live. And I thought, well, that's weird because we slept all over the United States and England playing live.

Speaker 2:
[53:53] And it was good, or great.

Speaker 1:
[53:56] It was good, the PA system was great. That was the big problem. Fagan felt that you couldn't reproduce the music cleanly enough. Dinky Dawson, the PA, was something like 50 Bose 501, the home speaker, 50 of money. They're very high-fi.

Speaker 2:
[54:21] I see.

Speaker 1:
[54:23] Sounded great. The band sounded great. I mean, I go back and I look at this stuff.

Speaker 2:
[54:26] Look at those clips. The band sounds fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[54:29] So I'm not quite sure why the idea was to create that mystique that the band never played live. But in those days, and it may be the same now, you've got to go out there and play. Now, I think it's possible to just create a band out of nothing.

Speaker 2:
[54:53] Well, they're doing it with AI.

Speaker 1:
[54:55] Yeah. But even there are bands that don't tour.

Speaker 2:
[55:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[55:01] But this band put the time and sweat in to make the band successful, build a fan base.

Speaker 2:
[55:08] Yeah. That's an odd one. So I know you said you're touring with the Doobies, but up until that point-ish, correct me of course, but they were more of a, I think I even saw something where they referred to themselves almost as like a glorified bar band, Doobies.

Speaker 1:
[55:33] Doobie Brothers.

Speaker 2:
[55:34] Yeah. I might be abusing that.

Speaker 1:
[55:37] I think that's fair. They were hard rocking, somewhat biker.

Speaker 2:
[55:42] Right. They had a lot of time to talk about that, playing those places and stuff. So as the story goes, we recommend Michael McDonald, Tom Johnston, I think his health reasons.

Speaker 1:
[55:54] He had some serious health problems and literally couldn't go on stage.

Speaker 2:
[55:58] Right. So here comes Michael McDonald. Then there's this huge shift to what people come and we call it Yacht Rock or whatever. There's lots of terms. I liked it at the time, so it wasn't like I disliked it. I was aware, because as you know, in Chicago, Doobies were huge in Chicago, both rocking Doobies and let's call it smoother Doobies or something. They were always huge in Chicago. So I heard all that stuff on the radio and I heard that transition. I thought, and certainly the success that followed, I mean, you guys were white hot. But I guess internally, was everybody on board with the shift? Because obviously, Michael McDonald's a super talented guy, great singer, great songwriter, but that's a pretty big shift from where the band had been. Was that a smooth?

Speaker 1:
[56:44] Yeah, I think everybody was on board because it was obvious. Because we would go out and play live, and people liked it.

Speaker 2:
[56:51] You just saw it.

Speaker 1:
[56:52] We could see it.

Speaker 2:
[56:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:54] It was like Fleetwood Mac. I mean, there was an early Fleetwood Mac, there's a later Fleetwood Mac. There are other bands that have gone through that transition. Yardbirds did it.

Speaker 2:
[57:03] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[57:04] A number of bands. Beatles did it, even though they didn't change personnel. When I joined the band, and I'm going to quote Pat Simmons, one of the guitar players in the band, who said, Baxter upped our game.

Speaker 2:
[57:28] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[57:28] So I'm not going to say it myself, I'm going to refer to him. But what was fascinating was no matter where I would take this, and when we did the Living on the Fault Line album, I mean that album is almost a Steely Dan record. I mean it is sophisticated, there's a lot of complex stuff going on. That, the musicianship in the Doobie Brothers, even though they were great, quote, bar band, the depth of the musicianship in that band was so profound. Those guys could play anything.

Speaker 2:
[58:04] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:05] Tyran Porter, the bass player, talk about an underrated player.

Speaker 2:
[58:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:12] Nobody, very few people understand how deep that guy really is. Then when you go listen to the early hits and you listen to the bass parts, you go, wait a minute.

Speaker 2:
[58:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:25] This, he's composing, he's not just playing bass. It's like he's writing the cello and viola lines for the song. So I had the band, I suggested to Ted Templeman that, why don't we book the band as a rhythm section in the studio?

Speaker 2:
[58:46] I didn't know that.

Speaker 1:
[58:47] So I said, I've got a Hoyt Axton album coming out. Let's have the band be in the rhythm section.

Speaker 2:
[58:55] That's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[58:55] I've got a-

Speaker 2:
[58:56] Hoyt Axton.

Speaker 1:
[58:57] Wow. We did it with Carly Simon, we did it with-

Speaker 2:
[59:02] Well, they must have loved you. Now, everyone is making hits and making more money.

Speaker 1:
[59:08] Well, what happened was, I thought, okay, let's put the pressure on. Red light goes on. Different game now. It's not the Doobie Brothers, it's somebody else.

Speaker 2:
[59:22] Yeah. You're your own wrecking crew type thing.

Speaker 1:
[59:25] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[59:26] Yeah. Or even the Marshall Scholes guy.

Speaker 1:
[59:28] Everybody stepped up. It was amazing to hear. Leo Sayers, same thing.

Speaker 2:
[59:33] I mean, what's that? Because I wasn't aware of this part of the story. Give me one record that you look and say, you can hear the Doobie Brothers behind somebody and like-

Speaker 1:
[59:44] Some of the Hoyt Action stuff, some of the Keeps You Running with Carly Simon, three or four cuts on Leo Sayers' second record, I think.

Speaker 2:
[59:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[59:58] Now, the band is click, show up at 9 a.m., downbeat 9.30, that kind of discipline. I think it really changed. Changing is the wrong word. It added another dimension to the band.

Speaker 2:
[60:19] Well, going back, listening to those records, I mean, it's phenomenal production, phenomenal performance, phenomenal songs. I mean, it's like really, it's a big, quite hot moment. So there was nobody in the band that was like, well, it's a little too, I don't know, it's my rock and roll brain, but nobody was like, are we too pop now? There was none of that. Everybody just kind of roll with it?

Speaker 1:
[60:42] No, I never really heard that. I think Ted Templeman realized that when Michael came into the band, he brought a songwriting horse power with him.

Speaker 2:
[60:52] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:54] I've told this story before, but Keith Knutson, one of the drummers, wonderful drummer. When we were doing the Living on the Fall Line album, which again, people said, well, it wasn't really the Doobie Brothers. Well, that record will probably stand out more than any record the band ever did 20 years from now. I remember him in the studio going, I've dropped a snow drum beating Bar 51. I went, bingo.

Speaker 2:
[61:29] Now you're in that space.

Speaker 1:
[61:31] Now you're in that space.

Speaker 2:
[61:32] Yeah. I've worked with some studio cats here and there, and it's impressive to watch them. They'll do a take and be like, yeah, Bar 49, I was ahead. Can I punch in here? And you're like, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:42] Yeah. And everybody in the band was like that.

Speaker 2:
[61:44] Oh, that's fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[61:46] That's why I think the band was prepared for the Minute by Minute record.

Speaker 2:
[61:52] Yeah. Well, that's where it just went goofy. I mean, that's my memory. I would have been about 10 years old. I just remember you guys were on TV. Like, there you were. I mean, I'm in Chicago in a basement, but it was like you guys were the band of the year.

Speaker 1:
[62:05] Well, I think it was a great education for everybody.

Speaker 2:
[62:08] Yeah. Did you enjoy all that success? I mean, not everybody takes it the same. Looking back now.

Speaker 1:
[62:14] It blew me away.

Speaker 2:
[62:16] You look like you're having a good time.

Speaker 1:
[62:18] I'm always having a good time. If I can play the guitar, I'm having a great time.

Speaker 2:
[62:26] I saw where you were in an episode of What's Happening.

Speaker 1:
[62:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[62:29] I just said, as a 70s kid, this just makes me laugh.

Speaker 1:
[62:32] I think Warner Brothers, that was a Warner Brothers setup because bootlegging was an issue at the time.

Speaker 2:
[62:41] They were making like a story point.

Speaker 1:
[62:43] So they wrote the script when I guess it was rerun, was caught recording the van.

Speaker 2:
[62:50] Don't you love propaganda?

Speaker 1:
[62:54] By the way, we did two episodes of that for music performance. I went to the director and said, can you produce and direct a music video for the Doobie Brothers? Because that was just beginning.

Speaker 2:
[63:16] Oh, I see.

Speaker 1:
[63:18] And NBC wouldn't let them do it. Because when I saw that concert footage, I went, that's incredible. This guy is an artist here.

Speaker 2:
[63:32] I like to say I don't do gossip. I really try not to do gossip. But the simple version of you bring Michael McDonnell to the band, and then you guys kind of have a fallout. Is a fallout the right word? Where does that go this way?

Speaker 1:
[63:47] I think it's fair to say that Michael was definitely on a roll.

Speaker 2:
[63:53] He was on, I would call it on a unholy roll. Some guys just get in that groove, and there was like seven years there where it's just, and there's that famous SCTV skit where he's.

Speaker 1:
[64:08] Sure, and fair enough. Yeah, Christopher Cross. I think the limit on the fault line album was probably my, if I was going to contribute anything to pushing the envelope of the band, that was it.

Speaker 2:
[64:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:24] And I think Michael and I just began to disagree on how I would interpret things.

Speaker 2:
[64:34] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[64:34] Again, as you know, or as you said, it's unique. And I think part of the uniqueness comes from taking chances.

Speaker 2:
[64:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:44] And I think it may have gotten to the point where he felt uncomfortable with me taking chances. Not that he had a problem. And we're never really a falling. We're good friends to this day.

Speaker 2:
[65:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:03] All the time. I think it just, my dad always told me that if you're going to be a change agent, be prepared for the change.

Speaker 2:
[65:14] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:16] And once you're done your job, you know, time to go do something else.

Speaker 2:
[65:22] Yeah. Interesting. One curiosity question, because you played on so many records and you work with so many artists and such, it's such a wide variety. Different people have different takes on 70s production. You know, this kind of austere, clean, you know. Some people say overly sanitized, you know, and you were at the epicenter of a lot of that influence.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] Steely Dan was definitely in that genre.

Speaker 2:
[65:53] Sure, but I'm saying looking back now, how do you view that style of production? Just strictly from like if we were just in a recording studio talking, like how do you view that style of production in hindsight? I think it's aged fairly well, but at the time, I hated a lot of it.

Speaker 1:
[66:07] I think it's a product of once bands became so successful, the analogy would be an actor signing to a studio, and then the actor becomes so successful that they can write their own ticket.

Speaker 2:
[66:25] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[66:26] They now choose the scripts. They now are involved in the creative process. So bands like Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, Cross Pistols, Nash and Young, bands like that were so successful that they now could have a say in their fate.

Speaker 2:
[66:47] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[66:47] They could say, I don't want to do that song.

Speaker 2:
[66:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:50] When the A&R guy in the 1950s would come in and says, you're doing this, you go, okay.

Speaker 2:
[66:55] Then you got two hours to get it done, or they put out takes, the artist didn't even approve.

Speaker 1:
[67:00] So once artists not only had a control of the creative process, but that included control and influence in a constantly improving and sophisticated technology for recording. Naturally, some of us like diode heads like me got into it and wanted to use that. I mean, you can paint a nice picture with a palette with five colors on it, but when you have a palette of 50, wow, let's take advantage of it.

Speaker 2:
[67:46] In your mind, I'm overly generalizing, but in your mind, was the pursuit of a certain type of clarity or more tonal depth? Does the question translate?

Speaker 1:
[67:58] Well, and I've never really thought about this since you brought it up. But with the advent of FM radio. The awareness of music changed. Because AM radio, you had what you had. With the ability to broadcast in stereo, and the ability to broadcast on a very high pan width, made it almost imperative that the production had to match the capability. I mean, otherwise, if you were playing records that were made in the 50s and 60s on an FM station, you immediately could tell what's going on.

Speaker 2:
[68:45] Yeah. Well, if you remember, they used to do that thing like on Sunday night in Chicago, it was the headphone album.

Speaker 1:
[68:51] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:52] You know, invariably, they play one of those records, you know.

Speaker 1:
[68:55] Sure. And FM station started playing whole album, cuts, whole record. So that in itself drove, I guess, an awareness and a desire for the audience, the listener to want something a little more specific.

Speaker 2:
[69:12] See, I have a weird memory where my father was a musician, stoner, and also a drug dealer. So I have this memory. He was in a band with a lead singer, and he had just gotten Steely Dan's Aja. I don't think you didn't play on that. Okay. Anyway, they just got in the album, so they got horribly stoned. So I was there and I was contact hide out of my mind laying on the floor. So I'm forever scarred by the beautiful depth of that record, but the cleanliness of it all. I'm more on the dark side of distortion and all that. There's something about that. I still have an uneasy relationship with the cleanliness and so.

Speaker 1:
[69:56] Well, I think it's more experiential. You've connected it to a memory.

Speaker 2:
[70:02] God bless you. Yeah. That's a nice way to put it. You never struck me as the partying type. So I guess it's a general question, but like, what was, you know, this town, LA, is legendary for its excess in the 70s, and you were at the epicenter, not necessarily of the partying, but you were at the epicenter of what was going on here. What was your view of that excess at the time?

Speaker 1:
[70:26] It wasn't, listen, I partied hardy, don't, and especially playing in country bands, like, you know.

Speaker 2:
[70:32] But the country people go harder than anybody.

Speaker 1:
[70:35] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[70:36] That's the real rock and roll.

Speaker 1:
[70:37] So a tough night at the Jack of Diamonds, you know, you bet, bottle of Jack Daniels, I'm playing steel, tall at night, Thursday night, doing fated love, absolutely. Waiting for the two guys to finish killing each other so we can go into foggy mountain breakdown. But there was always something in the back of my mind that scared me.

Speaker 2:
[70:59] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[71:00] Because I didn't want to lose my ability, I didn't want to lose my chops.

Speaker 2:
[71:07] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[71:07] And I saw people who damaged themselves to the point where they lost something.

Speaker 2:
[71:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[71:15] That was always in the back of my mind.

Speaker 2:
[71:18] Yeah. Okay. Thank you for indulging me. You have such a singular musical journey, it's hard to quantify or put it arms around it, which is usually what I try to do. So I'm just going to throw out some names that will place sort of free association. You take them however you want. Because I know in some cases you might have only been in a studio with somebody for one day, but I guess I'm looking also more so for personal impressions, but if you want to give musical impressions. So if you don't mind me throwing some names in.

Speaker 1:
[71:46] I'll do my best.

Speaker 2:
[71:47] Okay. Richie Havens.

Speaker 1:
[71:51] I smile because I love Richie. I loved him ever since I met him at Woodstock. We were friends and I remember him calling me and saying, they want me to do jingles. I said, yeah. What's wrong with that? Well, I don't want to sell out. Yeah, well. So we ended up doing some and making a ton of money, and admitting that he was having fun.

Speaker 2:
[72:19] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[72:24] I got to find the right word. He was complex, but in a stripped down way.

Speaker 2:
[72:34] Okay. I get that. It's in his music.

Speaker 1:
[72:37] Yeah. That's it.

Speaker 2:
[72:38] That's why I really like him as an artist.

Speaker 1:
[72:39] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[72:41] He has the simple direct approach of a blues artist, like here's what I'm feeling, but somehow there's this beautiful kind of tapestry that goes around him. That's almost hard to boil down when it's in his records.

Speaker 1:
[72:53] He improvised a lot of that stuff at Woodstock.

Speaker 2:
[72:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[72:56] He was making it up as he's going along.

Speaker 2:
[72:57] Honest.

Speaker 1:
[72:58] Brilliant.

Speaker 2:
[72:59] Very overlooked artist.

Speaker 1:
[73:00] Brilliant.

Speaker 2:
[73:00] Steve Cropper, I know you considered him a friend. God bless. He passed not too long ago from the time we're taping this. What an incredible everything.

Speaker 1:
[73:11] I was on my way to Nashville to have dinner with him. I ended up going to this funeral. Sorry, this is a tough one.

Speaker 2:
[73:23] No, God bless, God bless, I mean.

Speaker 1:
[73:25] I loved them, we were really good friends. We saw things from much the same point of view. I would always have, when I was producing other bands, I would always have Steve Cropper in the studio, even if he wasn't playing, because there was something about his presence that was special.

Speaker 2:
[73:47] Look at what he, look at the records he was in the room.

Speaker 1:
[73:49] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[73:50] Making and producing. What an incredible. It's one thing I love about my show, I'm being selfish here, but it's like to really celebrate that contribution. Because maybe to most people that are music fans, they wouldn't know Steve's contribution to music, which to people like us is immense. But it's not a name that everybody knows like off the top of their head.

Speaker 1:
[74:13] Well, and I just turned in the last chapter of my book.

Speaker 2:
[74:18] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[74:19] So one of the things that I talk about is the physics of the brain. It's a transducer, it's an electromagnetic machine, creates frequencies and oscillations. The concept of nonverbal communication and the ability of someone to influence without saying a word. That was steep.

Speaker 2:
[74:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[74:47] I mean, we were going, I think we did a Dusty Springfield album one time. And for whatever reason, we just couldn't get complete takes. So we went in the studio with two bottles of scotch and a box of razorblades and made an album. We had tape running out into the studio around microphone stands. We were just slicing and dicing away. And Steve, Steve was easygoing, but the man was deep and could concentrate. And his concentration was what I think helped him distill everything that he could do down to the point where it was just exactly what it should be.

Speaker 2:
[75:38] Well, that's why he's a perfect guitar player.

Speaker 1:
[75:40] I think so.

Speaker 2:
[75:41] Amazing. Dolly Parton.

Speaker 1:
[75:45] Oh, wonderful lady. I just saw something, an article about-

Speaker 2:
[75:49] Treasure.

Speaker 1:
[75:50] When I had done some recording for her, I did nine to five and a bunch of other stuff with her. But. I read this in a press release or something about, and when Dolly had asked me to, she wanted fireworks. And I thought, okay, well, I'm a studio guy. There's nothing I can't do. So I was using a guitar synthesizer that I'd helped design for Roland.

Speaker 2:
[76:20] The one with the bar over the top?

Speaker 1:
[76:22] No, this was before that.

Speaker 2:
[76:23] Oh, the earlier one?

Speaker 1:
[76:23] This was the GR500, first one. And so I'm thinking, okay, I got to come up, she wants fireworks, red and white sparkles. So I'm playing with this hand, and I'm working the transposer at the same time. And she's going, whee, that's exactly what I want. That woman is an angel. Not only is she an angel, but she is deep. She's a musician. She's like Joni Mitchell. She is not, doesn't play at music or with music. She is deep into this stuff. She's extremely talented and extremely conscious of what she's doing. And one of the most beautiful, and what I mean beautiful people ever.

Speaker 2:
[77:11] What I always like to say about Dali, I've never met Dali, but as you and I know, as you go through the music business, you hear people talk about other people. It's just the parlor game that people do in the music business. I've never heard one person say an unkind word about Dali. I don't think they exist.

Speaker 1:
[77:28] That's not in her makeup. That's just not her.

Speaker 2:
[77:31] Jackie DeShannon.

Speaker 1:
[77:34] That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that.

Speaker 2:
[77:39] Did you play, I think you played on one record maybe?

Speaker 1:
[77:42] Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2:
[77:43] Did you interact with her at all?

Speaker 1:
[77:44] Stuff is.

Speaker 2:
[77:46] No, God bless, yeah. I just think she's a vastly overlooked songwriter. I mean, I like her as a singer.

Speaker 1:
[77:52] And I grew up listening to her as well. So she was one of my favorites. And so when I got a chance to record with her, I really enjoyed the experience. And it was a great experience. There was no ego. There was no, you know, I'm me and you're not stuff. Very sweet lady.

Speaker 2:
[78:17] Rod Stewart.

Speaker 1:
[78:19] A lot of fun. A lot of fun. I got to know him a little bit when I was playing with Elton John, because he was going and hanging out a bit. And yeah, in the studio, it was just going in there, what do you want? Well, I want this. Okay, let's do that. What do you want here? I don't know. Okay. Then, you know, that's when you say, okay, I'll take the culmination of all my experience, knowledge, et cetera, and apply it. Great guy. Really great guy.

Speaker 2:
[78:52] You referred to him before, Leo Sayer?

Speaker 1:
[78:54] Yes. Again, a lot of fun. Not caught up in himself at all. I mean, there are a lot of artists that are, but not him.

Speaker 2:
[79:09] Tom Rush?

Speaker 1:
[79:11] Oh, my God. He's a very special guy. And I remember an experience after I'd worked on his record, he came out to LA to play at the Troubadour. Wanted me to play pedal steel. So he came out and I had just, the single was a song called No Regrets.

Speaker 2:
[79:33] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[79:34] Which is if you listen to it, it's just, it rips your heart out. And the song had just come out. And he, we were going to go on stage to play and he said, listen, if you don't want me to do No Regrets tonight, it's okay. And I thought to myself, this guy is going to not do, consider not doing his new hit record because he didn't want me to feel bad. Think about that. I mean, there aren't words to describe what a loving, wonderful thing that is. I said, no, it's okay. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. But the fact that he would even offer that, that's to talk about an incredible human being.

Speaker 2:
[80:33] Carl Wilson?

Speaker 1:
[80:36] Well, like I said, once you've heard Carl sing.

Speaker 2:
[80:45] God only knows.

Speaker 1:
[80:46] Yeah. Then it's time to just pack up, go home. Again, a super sweet guy, not a bad bone in his body. I've never seen him ever do anything untoward, say anything about anybody. Working with him was fun because he had a different kind of musical vision. He grew up under the shadow of Brian, but he had a lot to say in his own way. It's like Dennis. Dennis' solo album is one of the most brilliant albums I've ever heard in my life.

Speaker 2:
[81:28] Yeah. It's one of those albums that's gained stature over time.

Speaker 1:
[81:33] As it should.

Speaker 2:
[81:34] Yeah, I really regard it.

Speaker 1:
[81:35] It was brilliant.

Speaker 2:
[81:36] So you look at the talent in that band. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Gene Clark.

Speaker 1:
[81:41] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[81:42] By the way, one of my favorites all time. I just, what a writer.

Speaker 1:
[81:46] Tremendous writer, troubled soul, wonderful guy, good friend, he was actually living in my house for about a year. Just because, said, okay, come live with me. I got a nice house up in the hills, so come live with me. Get away from some of the demons.

Speaker 2:
[82:06] Was it the alcohol abuse or was it just other stuff?

Speaker 1:
[82:10] It was a number of different things. I thought, okay, well, I'd had other folks come and stay with me for a while and sort of chill out.

Speaker 2:
[82:20] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[82:21] You know, Dave Sambar came and lived with me for a while. I think Gene was a victim and a beneficiary of the demons. As I say, kill my demon and then you kill my muse. I think the demons drove his genius and also ultimately destroyed him.

Speaker 2:
[82:48] Beautiful man. Linda Ronstadt?

Speaker 1:
[82:51] Again, it's super sweetheart. We had a lot of fun. Playing in her band was great fun because the band was killer. I mean, the drummer was Richie Haywood. You're talking about a horsepower.

Speaker 2:
[83:02] Yeah. I watched some live clips with them. It's ridiculous. Especially her voice.

Speaker 1:
[83:09] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[83:12] James Brown?

Speaker 1:
[83:14] Awesome.

Speaker 2:
[83:16] I met him one time. Awesome, right? Just awesome.

Speaker 1:
[83:20] Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing with him and he was very complimentary. We stayed in touch for a little while. I had grown up listening to his music and to me, it was almost as good as playing with The Ventures for me.

Speaker 2:
[83:40] Yeah. Okay. Last couple of things. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become an annual subject of debate. I'll stay out of it because I'm not in it. But I did find it curious that you're in it with The Doobies, but not with Steely Dan.

Speaker 1:
[83:58] Interestingly enough, I think it was Keith Richards who said, what the hell is going on? The president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I think there was a, I got to be careful here because I never want to really be disingenuous or negative. I don't do dirt. That's not what I do. But I think there was a discussion about whether Steely Dan as a band or Walter Becker and Donald Fagan would be honored. I think that ended up leaning more towards Becker and Fagan. The president is a good friend though.

Speaker 2:
[84:54] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[84:55] And he said, he told me about this, and he said, I said, well, you know, it's the way it is. He says, don't worry about it. So, okay, well, I don't stay awake thinking about it. And when they announced it, said Walter Becker, Donald Fagan, and Steely Dan. Which we wasn't supposed to do.

Speaker 2:
[85:23] Oh, okay, I got you.

Speaker 1:
[85:25] I thought it was pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[85:27] Oh, I get you.

Speaker 1:
[85:28] Now, do I piss and moan about not getting, no, I'm just happy to be here. I'm proud to serve, as they say.

Speaker 2:
[85:39] Well, I kind of have interesting takes on these things. This is more of an overall comment on, not on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just I like to play with ideas in my head as I know you do too. I want to talk about asymmetrical thinking in a conventional world in a second. But one thing I think, and I'm dating myself because I'm 58 at the time of this taping, but I think I've grown up only with the influence of the baby boomer generation as the pervasive generation culturally, socially. Gen X is a vastly underrepresented generation, partially due to population. Our population is a generation is actually quite low. I think the generations before and after us were like 115, 120 million and Gen X was only about 80 or 90 million. There's a serious dip in my generation for just gross population. One thing I think we're seeing, and tell me if you agree or not, I think one thing we're seeing is the disintegration of the baby boomers version of the order of the world. Halls of Fames and Top 50 list I think are going by the wayside. I think ultimately the people are going to speak and I think you see some of it with streaming services and I think you see some of it even with things like this podcast where people are interested in things that we were told for 50 years weren't interesting. You've been interviewed a million times and it's like there's those 10 things that people want you to talk about. Talk about Ricky, don't lose that number or whatever. Those are important things, but at some point, there's lots of other interesting information. Just even talking about some of the people you work with is a real pleasure because you stood in the room with Gene Clark. Gene Clark was your friend. As somebody who grew up loving Gene Clark, it's like any bit of information, but Gene Clark's not commonly in the culture, but he should be because he's a great writer. There's a reason Dylan who doesn't hand out compliments for his generation, cited Gene as one of the only people that he had respect for as a writer. I think that's not an insignificant.

Speaker 1:
[87:40] No, and I'm glad you brought that up because every time I talk about Gene, I'd like to see his memory stay alive.

Speaker 2:
[87:53] I want to live in a world where people understand how important Gene Clark is. Not even was, is, present tense. Okay. Tell me just a little bit about asymmetrical thinking and conventional world. I watched a little bit of it and I know it was dealing with somewhat military stuff, I mean, if you want to give me a sort of, are you giving talks like Ted Talks or?

Speaker 1:
[88:11] I do a lot of that. I do a lot of corporate speaking.

Speaker 2:
[88:13] Can you just give me a boil down on that? I'm just curious.

Speaker 1:
[88:16] I'm sorry?

Speaker 2:
[88:16] Can you give me a boil down on like?

Speaker 1:
[88:19] Well, yeah, musicians, the structure and architecture that they use to solve problems. Let me step back for a second. Jazz improvisation and improvisation in music on any level is an analytical process.

Speaker 2:
[88:43] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[88:43] It's taking something like a theme. And as you know, in jazz, you take a theme. Each musician in the band interprets that theme in their own way, hands it off to the next, the next. What you end up with is an analytical product.

Speaker 2:
[89:02] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[89:03] Each musician is an analyst. I've taught this to the intelligence community. I've taught it to the military. So musicians think in a non-linear fashion. They think instead of A to B to C to D to E to moving in a linear fashion. Well, and also, they think in a stacked in a in a in a different dimensional. Because when you're playing music, it's tempo, time, and by the way, the two are slightly different. Feel, groove, lyric, melody, chords. All of these things is like a big sandwich that's moving in a in a direction. So, the ability to think on a non-linear level is a very different way to approach problem-solving. And so, I teach that in some of the communities that I work with. And that's asymmetrical thinking.

Speaker 2:
[90:08] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[90:08] As opposed to symmetrical thinking.

Speaker 2:
[90:10] Yeah. I oftentimes talk about asymmetrical marketing, because with the erosion of the music business, the way to market your music these days, you have to take an asymmetrical approach, because you can't just spend money. And the systems have all broken down, so you can't just throw money into a system and hope it all works out or the guy plays your record. Last thing, if you don't mind, it's become the topic du rigueur, no, topic du jour. AI, you know, I just sort of throw it out there as a piece of red meat, so however you want to take that, because it's going to have, in my estimation, it's going to have a cataclysmic effect on the entertainment parts.

Speaker 1:
[90:45] I agree with you. I agree with you for a couple of reasons. From a business point of view, I would posit that the major entertainment companies, especially companies that produce movies and visual programming, visual content, which is virtually always accompanied with music. If they don't have to pay musicians, they will gladly watch them go over the cliff.

Speaker 2:
[91:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:31] Now, most people would say, well, you really can't do that. Well, if you really study what music does in terms of how it stimulates all the neurotransmitters in your brain, which your brain secretes these neurotransmitters, epinephrine, adrenaline, oxytocin, asopressin, neuroepinephrine, all of these, and combine them, combines them in different ways to create different emotions. Okay. Now, people will say, oh, my emotion. Yeah, okay. Well, however you perceive it, and that's fine, it is an electromagnetic biochemical process. So if you can figure that out.

Speaker 2:
[92:30] Cheaply.

Speaker 1:
[92:32] Then you will be able to produce music that will be satisfying and fulfilling without musicians.

Speaker 2:
[92:40] Fast food, basically, or even faster food for lack of.

Speaker 1:
[92:44] That's what scares me because I'll put some people out of work. Now, do I want to walk into a club and see a hologram of somebody playing Killing Floor? No. Right now, I'd like to see the infinite variations that happen, or the very close to infinite variations that happen. Actually, it is infinite because time is a spiral. It never comes back to the same place twice. So you can never exactly recreate. So everything will be infinite. I would like to see that. I don't want to see a hologram. I want to see two guys, three guys, a couple of women, whoever it is, men and women interfacing together, making music, because it creates something at the moment that's uncreatable.

Speaker 2:
[93:42] Amen.

Speaker 1:
[93:43] That may change, and it will get to the point where it's good enough, and there will be a movie director may, if they're extremely successful, they can maybe ask for live music, but they're probably 90 percent of them won't even be able to because they can't afford it, and the company doesn't want it, they want to make a profit.

Speaker 2:
[94:14] Well, they want to own everything too, that's part of the game.

Speaker 1:
[94:16] So the music will be good enough, and will have been studied enough to actually tweak your emotions, make you secrete the right combination of neurotransmitters. That's coming.

Speaker 2:
[94:31] Thank you, Jeff.