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TMP329 CHRIS FINNEY IN THE MIX · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:16
  Speaker B: Listeners, welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I'm Renee Komen, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times and future mayor of New Orleans. Excuse me, former future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:37
  Speaker A: Hey, man.
• 0:38
  Speaker C: What is happening with you?
• 0:40
  Speaker B: Oh, you know, just.
• 0:42
  Speaker C: You're playing gigs.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Playing gigs.
• 0:44
  Speaker C: And they're all. Everyone's so positive. They're great gigs. Standing room only.
• 0:49
  Speaker B: Well, you know, I don't know.
• 0:51
  Speaker C: Sitting room only because they can't stand up.
• 0:53
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, some can sit, some can stand. Yeah. So it's a variety of all that.
• 0:57
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker B: Flying. Flying up to New York or at least trying to fly up to New York on Friday to play Mercury Lounge.
• 1:04
  Speaker C: Mercury Lounge, where is that?
• 1:06
  Speaker B: That's on Bowery and Manhattan.
• 1:09
  Speaker C: All right.
• 1:10
  Speaker B: On Houston Street.
• 1:12
  Speaker C: Houston. It'll always be Houston to me.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: To you. Okay.
• 1:16
  Speaker C: You know, when I lived in New York, I'd have arguments just like I have down here with these idiots down here, you know? What is it, Burgundy? Well, it's burgundy, you idiot.
• 1:27
  Speaker B: Well, that's not the worst of it. It's like we have Melpamine, which is actually Melpomeni.
• 1:32
  Speaker C: Yeah. Calliope. Calliope.
• 1:35
  Speaker B: Calliope. They say calliope instead of calliope.
• 1:38
  Speaker C: What is the problem with another. This is like reason numbers. 855, why I hate people. People are the worst.
• 1:48
  Speaker B: Oh, well, you know what you gonna do what you can't get away from.
• 1:51
  Speaker C: Can't even pronounce a word right.
• 1:53
  Speaker B: Oh, some can. Some can, you know, but yeah, I'm gonna try through the.
• 1:58
  Speaker C: The.
• 1:59
  Speaker B: The airport shutdowns happening, apparently.
• 2:02
  Speaker C: It's all gonna be good.
• 2:03
  Speaker B: Oh, you think so?
• 2:04
  Speaker C: Yeah, because everyone's getting two grand. Oh, right, right. Everyone's getting two.
• 2:10
  Speaker B: Tariff dividend.
• 2:11
  Speaker C: I did see, you can just tell someone to. You can bump someone off with two grand. Say, let me get on this flight.
• 2:18
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, they just got two grand too. So, you know, it's. It's gonna just blow, what, $680 million just for fun. Oh, well, it's a small change, really. So, yeah, I'm gonna try to fly up there now. Today is Armistice Day. You're aware they call it Veterans Day, but it started off as the end of World War I.
• 2:44
  Speaker C: The Great One. The great war.
• 2:46
  Speaker B: The big war.
• 2:47
  Speaker C: Yeah. War to end all wars.
• 2:49
  Speaker B: Right, right, right, right.
• 2:50
  Speaker C: That didn't do anything, man.
• 2:52
  Speaker B: 11Th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
• 2:55
  Speaker C: Right.
• 2:56
  Speaker B: That is today.
• 2:56
  Speaker C: And that's today. That's when the rape became legal for one day. Well, now boys came home and just could rape.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: That's a different movie.
• 3:05
  Speaker C: Oh, is it?
• 3:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.
• 3:07
  Speaker C: Is that with the zombies walking?
• 3:09
  Speaker B: Maybe, I think. Yeah, yeah, something like that. The Purge.
• 3:12
  Speaker C: I'm not a big history buff.
• 3:14
  Speaker B: Sure, sure. Well, nobody is these days. Few people know anything that happened before they were born, generally. And often there's.
• 3:22
  Speaker C: I used to like European history.
• 3:25
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 3:25
  Speaker C: I hated early American history as a kid. Thought it was boring. Always liked the European history. But then people started saying, well, you should check out mythology and all that. And I was like, I could not stand that.
• 3:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's seems kind of silly, huh?
• 3:42
  Speaker C: You know, the Greeks and the Romans and the Plato and the platypus and, you know, give me a break. Right. Well, yeah, I don't like any of those kind of movies.
• 3:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, let's.
• 3:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, like, let's keep it real. Fantasy movies. Well, speaking of movies, I went and saw the first movie that I. That I saw in a theater. I went to the Britannia Theater to see this new Guillermo del Toro production of Frankenstein.
• 4:06
  Speaker C: Oh, it's Frankenstein.
• 4:08
  Speaker B: Frankenstein.
• 4:10
  Speaker C: Frankenstein.
• 4:11
  Speaker B: Well, so we wanted. Because we, you know, he's a great filmmaker, often very visual. You know, we thought even though the thing was going to come out the next day on Netflix, I could see it for free. But we thought, well, let's go see this in the theater. Big screen. It's a 35 millimeter print now. I went with my.
• 4:28
  Speaker C: My Good Britannia's not that big a screen, though, really.
• 4:31
  Speaker B: Well, it's bigger than my tv, is my saying.
• 4:34
  Speaker C: It was a piece of.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: Well, I thought it was a very. A fairly plodding production. Yeah, I was kind of disappointed, frankly. I'm. I went.
• 4:43
  Speaker C: But I'm not a big fan of his, to be honest with you, you know.
• 4:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they're usually visually kind of stunning.
• 4:50
  Speaker C: What else has he done that I've hated?
• 4:52
  Speaker B: Oh, what? He did something about South America. I don't know if our guest remembers.
• 4:57
  Speaker C: I saw this movie he did about Carney, I think.
• 5:00
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was on. That was on one of the streaming.
• 5:04
  Speaker C: Services, and I couldn't stand that either.
• 5:06
  Speaker B: I kind of enjoyed that. I know. I remember talking about there wasn't enough.
• 5:09
  Speaker C: Rape in that movie.
• 5:10
  Speaker B: Well, okay. Second time that's come up.
• 5:12
  Speaker C: I was looking for rape.
• 5:13
  Speaker B: Well, okay. Reaching our.
• 5:16
  Speaker C: I don't know. Guo means William.
• 5:19
  Speaker B: Is that. Okay.
• 5:19
  Speaker C: All right. William del Toro. Del Toro means. Come on Bull. Come on. Toro, Toro. Ever been to a bullfight?
• 5:28
  Speaker B: I have not. Have you?
• 5:29
  Speaker C: Oh, many bull fights.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: Really?
• 5:30
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. My grandparents used to take us all.
• 5:32
  Speaker B: The time in Mexico.
• 5:34
  Speaker C: Huh? Used to go and see those bulls get slaughtered. He just kept rooting for the bull.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: Sure. How can you not, you know, it's.
• 5:42
  Speaker C: Just like watching nascar. You just want an accident. I don't care who wins this race.
• 5:46
  Speaker B: But the bull never wins, right?
• 5:47
  Speaker A: Not really.
• 5:48
  Speaker C: But the funniest thing was, like, the third time I went to a bull fight, you know, the poor bull just got slaughtered. And my grandfather came with a box full of, like, tacos and stuff. And they were really good. And I asked my grandfather, I said, what are these tacos? He says, that bull you're hurting, that one that just got slaughtered the round before.
• 6:14
  Speaker A: Fresh.
• 6:15
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Good stuff.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: Nothing goes to waste.
• 6:17
  Speaker C: Nothing goes to waste. Exactly. Exactly. No, I've seen many bull fights. I saw a bull fight in Spain once. Okay. Yeah. The pageantry is what it's all about.
• 6:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker C: A lot of people have matador, and I used to, like, dig those matador outfits. Yeah. You know, I thought that would be the jacket especially. I thought that would be, like, a good look for, like, a crazy punk rock band.
• 6:41
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 6:42
  Speaker C: All dressed up in matadors and sing.
• 6:44
  Speaker B: Like, you know, the bolero jackets.
• 6:46
  Speaker C: Y just sink some crazy punk rock, you know. But the bull fights are good.
• 6:52
  Speaker B: They still have them, I guess, side to side, Right.
• 6:54
  Speaker C: Those hats and they. Their hips go side to side.
• 6:56
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 6:58
  Speaker A: High waters.
• 6:59
  Speaker C: High waters. Yeah. And stuff.
• 7:01
  Speaker B: Like stockings.
• 7:02
  Speaker C: Anyway. Yeah, bull fights are good.
• 7:05
  Speaker B: They're good.
• 7:06
  Speaker C: Yeah, I like them.
• 7:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. I would go see a bull fight now. A lot of people are. The people out with PETA, you know, these animal rights organizations are very against these bull fights.
• 7:16
  Speaker C: Them.
• 7:16
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: They're right behind rape as far as popular events.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 7:24
  Speaker C: Good stuff, I guess. You know, they protect. You know, I just can't stand those long commercials they have, you know. You ever watching, like, a show? Like, I watch, like, all the reruns of Law and Order. I just love the music, really. The music is probably the only kind of music I like. The stories are okay, but then you get these commercial breaks for Law and Order on these channels, and it's all about, you know, this dog hasn't eaten in, you know, 74 days. Won't you do something to help this animal? And they're all actors. They're not really hungry, these dogs. It's all set. It's all set up.
• 8:02
  Speaker B: Staged.
• 8:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, they're just.
• 8:08
  Speaker B: But they say never, never work with. With dogs or animals or children because they'll always upstage you.
• 8:14
  Speaker C: Right, Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're doing that in these commercials and they. I used to have a good friend of mine who lived down here. He committed suicide about a year ago.
• 8:23
  Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 8:24
  Speaker C: He. He. I met him. He was one of the first people I met down here who wasn't from down here. And I actually lived with him for a while, and we were drinking buddies and stuff, and he would just sit there. Couldn't sleep, the guy. He'd sit there all night. This is back in the early 2000s. And he'd just be on the phone just watching these commercials, just giving these people his money.
• 8:51
  Speaker B: Oh, geez.
• 8:53
  Speaker C: He did it constantly. No, he could afford it. He could afford it because he made some good cake, you know, but that was like, you know, hey, man, go to sleep, man. You know, there's only so much you can give.
• 9:05
  Speaker A: This dog seems to go hand in hand. I knew a friend who. Who got deep in the hole to Sister Cleo. She could afford it, but it doesn't take away the sting of how much she sent to Sister Cleo.
• 9:22
  Speaker C: Well, actually, I've known people, not just this friend of mine, but I've known people over the years that they had to have interventions for.
• 9:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. Because listen, the home shopping.
• 9:34
  Speaker C: Home shopping. Right. Or, you know, you know, Reverend somebody and that kind of thing.
• 9:40
  Speaker B: Oh, that's the worst. Old people. And then once they get you number, man, they keep calling you up, especially with those.
• 9:46
  Speaker A: The.
• 9:47
  Speaker B: The religious charities, they keep hitting you up over and over and over again.
• 9:51
  Speaker C: Yeah. There was this one guy in LA who. Who was famous on the cable. The public access channels in LA in this late 70s and early 80s, and he got people to give. I don't know why these people gave, because he. It was. He was basically. Basically preaching some form of Scientology. It wasn't. There was no hoard or. There was. There was some weird bit about it.
• 10:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker C: And he'd have. He'd have people eating out of the garbage cans and, you know, giving him their last nickel and stuff like that.
• 10:24
  Speaker B: Wow. Power. Persuasion.
• 10:26
  Speaker C: He was a really. I forget his name, but he always had really good sound bites. Really good sound bites. Like, I remember one, I was watching it once, and he would say. He went on and on and on and on about something, and all of a sudden he just stopped and said, now that's prayer, damn it. You know, things like that. And he had chalkboards. He had chalkboards behind him. God, if anyone can remember his name in LA, late 70s.
• 10:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:53
  Speaker C: Messages public. Yeah, message us. God, he was hilarious to watch.
• 10:57
  Speaker B: I remember a guy that. That was out there who. It was not the same person, but I saw like, videos of him. I think it was like Dr. Rule or something. And he would. Is kind of a bit of a.
• 11:11
  Speaker C: Did he have a white beard?
• 11:12
  Speaker B: Intellectual? No, he had some kind of. I don't think it was white, but yeah, one. One bit. I remember him talking about how to extract all the last bit of the toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube.
• 11:24
  Speaker C: Well, I gotta tell you how to do that. I know how to do that.
• 11:27
  Speaker B: Well, he's like referring to it as, you know, it's trapped in its plastic prison and he's there talking you through as he's cutting it open and scraping it out.
• 11:35
  Speaker C: I had a roommate who was always so broke that he would, like, take the scissor and just cut the bottom of the tube and squeeze it all out and stuff.
• 11:44
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's what he was doing.
• 11:45
  Speaker C: He had green teeth for something.
• 11:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 11:47
  Speaker C: Well, it's crazy.
• 11:48
  Speaker B: Should have. Should have sprung for a new tube of toothpaste maybe.
• 11:51
  Speaker C: Well, right. Well, he's always late on the rent.
• 11:55
  Speaker B: Oh, it sucks, man. I have a tenant like that nowadays. Sometimes he'll be like, you know, almost like past two months late.
• 12:04
  Speaker C: Oh, wow.
• 12:04
  Speaker B: Then. Then he'll catch up.
• 12:06
  Speaker C: I would kick that out.
• 12:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I want to. I want to, but, you know, it's.
• 12:10
  Speaker C: Like your wife sleeping with him.
• 12:12
  Speaker B: No, I mean, not anymore. More. But, you know, it might get started again.
• 12:15
  Speaker C: The security deposit has been spent.
• 12:17
  Speaker B: Just joking. But. But yeah, it's a. It's a problem, man, because, like, every time it happens like that, now I have to deal with this. This is anxiety that I have to take on.
• 12:29
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 12:31
  Speaker B: The answer is yes.
• 12:32
  Speaker C: Yeah. Unless you kick them out.
• 12:33
  Speaker B: I mean, it's not. Yeah, yeah. It's not fair. I mean, like, you know, I would never do that to somebody. You know, it's like I. You. He has parents. I am a parent. I have children of my own. If my children needed rent money, I would give the. To him. But you are not my child. Anyway, moving on, some sad news. In the.
• 12:54
  Speaker A: In the.
• 12:54
  Speaker B: In that I saw yesterday, great actress Sally Kirkland passed away.
• 13:01
  Speaker C: See that? She did. Yep. Yeah, I didn't see that.
• 13:04
  Speaker B: Maybe it was just today, actually.
• 13:05
  Speaker C: Sally, I didn't see that. I've been busy. I know. Diane Ladd.
• 13:09
  Speaker B: That was last week. We talked about that. Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker C: Sally Kirkland, who was she again?
• 13:13
  Speaker B: Well, she was in some movie. Anna, maybe, like, from the. But she was in a million Small Things. And, you know, I think she. She graduated from the Actors Studio New York, like, in the early 60s, and was on. Was on Broadway a lot, but then also a lot of, you know, like, small TV roles over the years. You know, she'd pop up in this movie or that movie and go, who was that? And somebody would go, Sally Kirkland. Go, oh, right, right, right, right.
• 13:40
  Speaker C: Huh.
• 13:41
  Speaker B: Anyway, she was 81 years old. Apparently, she was someone who was naked so much and brought in off Broadway shows that she became known for that. You know, she just didn't care. She'd take her clothes off and she.
• 13:54
  Speaker C: Retired to Whore Island. Right. Is that what she did?
• 13:57
  Speaker B: I don't know. I think she wound up in hospice at the end, but. Really? Yeah, Yeah. I think Junkie.
• 14:02
  Speaker C: Yeah. Naked hospice.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: I think she was closed, clothed.
• 14:06
  Speaker C: With an old man, like, pouring Pepsi on his. Trying to get it hard.
• 14:10
  Speaker B: Who knows, man?
• 14:11
  Speaker C: You know, I. I know guys have done that before.
• 14:14
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 14:15
  Speaker A: Whatever it takes.
• 14:16
  Speaker C: Yeah, whatever it takes, baby. You got it, man. Listen, never waste a boner, okay?
• 14:23
  Speaker B: I've heard that.
• 14:23
  Speaker C: Never. At this age. Never waste a boner.
• 14:25
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 14:26
  Speaker C: You know, and always don't always treat a fart as a fart, either.
• 14:31
  Speaker B: That's been said before. Before on the podcast. Not by me. Not something I would say, but someone else said it and then asked me to take it out, as I recall, but early on, many, many years ago. Anything else, Manny?
• 14:43
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 14:44
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 14:46
  Speaker C: Did you hear that our sheriff who lost the election, the incumbent sheriff, Susan Hudson. Yeah. She had to go in front of the board, Louisiana Board of Ethics.
• 14:57
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 14:57
  Speaker C: Because, you know, when you run for an office, this. You've got to do these reports. You got to file these reports electronically, or you do them in person, or you can mail them if you have enough stamps. But apparently she didn't fill out one of her forms. And, you know, this is someone who raises money. You know, I don't raise any money. You know, but she raises money and you got to report all this stuff.
• 15:21
  Speaker B: Right?
• 15:21
  Speaker C: And she didn't. She forgot. She was late, apparently. And then she was going to be fined $5,000. And her excuse was. Did you hear this?
• 15:29
  Speaker B: No, no.
• 15:30
  Speaker C: Her excuse was she went to the Board of Ethics in Baton Rouge, which. I've gone there before.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: I'll bet.
• 15:34
  Speaker C: And she. She. She explained that it wasn't her fault. Her lawyer, who did all the filing for her was in jail.
• 15:45
  Speaker B: Oh, well, that explains it.
• 15:47
  Speaker C: You know, and so she must have played a really good story, a good argument, because it went from a five thousand dollar fine to a five hundred dollars fine. All right. She got off pretty easy.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a blessing.
• 16:03
  Speaker C: I guess that's her last little freebie before she gets booted out, you know, in January when she has to give over the job to. What's that chick with the Jerry curls? I forget her name. Wood fork.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 16:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker B: Michelle.
• 16:18
  Speaker C: Not really Jerry curls.
• 16:20
  Speaker B: No, she has more of a process.
• 16:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, Process wax kind of thing. It's part of her skull. It looks like her hair.
• 16:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. She has straight, straightened hair.
• 16:27
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's something like that. I don't know how much that costs, but it kind of looks cool. Yeah. Maybe she could have it look like a. A badge.
• 16:38
  Speaker B: Okay. Interesting idea. Crest of some sort.
• 16:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:43
  Speaker C: And then also, last thing, I don't know if you have any, but last thing, you know you're gonna travel. Hopefully travel. Maybe you won't do this. I'm sure we'll see some guy at our airport here in New Orleans. He went through tsa and he decided, like, you know what? I'm gonna get through this fast. So he took off all his clothes. Oh, no. Down to his chones. He took off all his clothes and they just stared at him.
• 17:12
  Speaker A: And.
• 17:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, he was dancing around a little bit and stuff like that. He did a little dance, like a little Irish jig.
• 17:20
  Speaker B: Oh, no, no, that's not good.
• 17:23
  Speaker C: But he was wearing boxers, and I saw the whole footage. It was very funny.
• 17:28
  Speaker B: Huh.
• 17:28
  Speaker C: And apparently, you know, he did this, but he didn't. They didn't detain him or anything.
• 17:33
  Speaker B: They just let him go through.
• 17:34
  Speaker C: Yeah, they just let him. Went through.
• 17:36
  Speaker B: They put him in the front of the line.
• 17:37
  Speaker C: Yeah, he was. He was flying to Kuwait.
• 17:40
  Speaker B: Okay, so let you go over big there.
• 17:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, he just. They just wanted to get him out. Yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker A: So his stunt worked.
• 17:47
  Speaker C: His stunt work. Okay, man, you got that right, man.
• 17:50
  Speaker A: Keep that one.
• 17:50
  Speaker B: Everybody likes a good gag.
• 17:52
  Speaker C: Anyway, so that happened and, you know, I would just think it's a lot of trouble to go through.
• 17:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Speaker C: Because then you got to put all the clothes back on. Right? Right. Unless he walked to the plane and just. Jonas, I don't know.
• 18:04
  Speaker B: Okay. All right, well, maybe we should get to our guest, huh? While you can still breathe. We have a terrific guest tonight. He's been. He's been monitoring the show on and off over a period of time, and we recently kind of Crossed paths and I thought, oh yeah, that guy, perfect. So he's a two time Grammy award winning recording engineer, music and video producer and the owner of New Orleans Audio visual production facility, Sound from Space right here in this neighborhood. He's engineered or produced sessions with all kinds of greats. Robert Plant, B.B. king, Herbie Hancock, Dr. John Allen, Toussaint, Fats Domino, Galactic Rebirth, on and on and on the meters, just to name a few. He's also a professor of music business at Tulane University and a member of the Memphis chapter of the Recording Academy. We're going to get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Chris Finney. Welcome Chris.
• 19:07
  Speaker A: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
• 19:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Glad to have you here. You know, I know we've worked together many times over the years. You know, it's. But one time I always think, which I don't really remember, but I always see your name on the credits.
• 19:22
  Speaker A: Which we must have done that.
• 19:24
  Speaker B: Which is the second Geraniums record that we recorded at. At Truck Farm.
• 19:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. I was trying to think back of when you and I first crossed paths and I may have met you could be.
• 19:38
  Speaker B: What could be. But who knows who you know. So out of our mind. Bar on poppers.
• 19:43
  Speaker C: I love lipstick lesbians, man.
• 19:45
  Speaker B: Sure, sure. What's not.
• 19:47
  Speaker C: Who doesn't? Yeah, yeah, I know.
• 19:49
  Speaker B: I like them all anyway.
• 19:51
  Speaker C: Especially the redheaded ones.
• 19:52
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 19:53
  Speaker C: Tall, redheaded, lipstick.
• 19:55
  Speaker B: You have someone in particular in mind?
• 19:57
  Speaker C: Oh, many. Oh, I can tell you a few, but we don't have.
• 20:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, we don't have that kind of time. So you were saying, Chris?
• 20:03
  Speaker A: I think we first crossed paths in the Keith Keller days.
• 20:08
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 20:09
  Speaker A: Cuz he was a bit of a mentor to me and I got caught up in, you know, Mike Mayu. I was in Mike Mayu circle for a while and still am.
• 20:18
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:18
  Speaker A: And. And Keith was a big influence on Mike and kind of, you know, through that process. Keith had a lot of influence on me and did his Svengali mind tricks on numerous occasions.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: Keith was quite a guy, man. Keith and I were real tight, man.
• 20:35
  Speaker A: One of one last.
• 20:35
  Speaker C: He was a big man.
• 20:37
  Speaker B: He was a big large. He was a big guy.
• 20:39
  Speaker C: Is that how he died?
• 20:40
  Speaker A: Ultimately, yeah. Contributed to his demise.
• 20:43
  Speaker B: He was tall. He was, you know, just snored to death. Big in every way, you know, but he was light on his feet. That's.
• 20:50
  Speaker C: Did he do a mama cast.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Asleep. Just a power nap.
• 20:55
  Speaker B: Sleeping in his chair.
• 20:56
  Speaker A: He was powerful of power.
• 20:57
  Speaker C: N. He was like £400 or something, right?
• 21:00
  Speaker A: He.
• 21:01
  Speaker B: He was.
• 21:01
  Speaker C: He was over 3D, Gregory kind of guy, right? The. The jaws of life would come and take him out, right?
• 21:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. He was, he was. He was a powerful man, for sure.
• 21:11
  Speaker A: He was. And he had one pair of cut off sweatpants that he wore his entire life.
• 21:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, sure.
• 21:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, man, that. That place on Annunciation he had incredible at, you know, big double parlor with. With all the. The plaster archwork and. And. And pendants and everything. That. That was about, I would say maybe 60% renovated. And then he just stopped.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: He was. He was a bit of a gentrifier before. It was cool.
• 21:39
  Speaker B: Oh, man. He bought that place on Annunciation for I think $18,000. Now that's when you couldn't give a property on that block of Annunciation. Now that same place is probably worth a million dollars easily. But yeah, he was. He was definitely kind of a homesteader down there. Yeah, Keith, I remember, in the Garden District. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker A: Stone's throw from the bridge.
• 22:04
  Speaker B: Like, you know, I'd known Keith and I'd record with him. And then one time I. We did this deal and I worked like a really good deal on him. Like. And then the next day he called me up and he goes, man, that was a. I don't know how you did that, Tony. He goes, but we should be partners.
• 22:19
  Speaker A: Nice, nice.
• 22:21
  Speaker B: So we did become quite close. We were studying neuro linguistic programming together.
• 22:27
  Speaker A: He got me into it as well.
• 22:28
  Speaker B: Oh, no, kid.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: I'm a. I'm a fair student myself.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, I, I've. I've dropped off study, but I understand all the principles. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's.
• 22:38
  Speaker A: Just don't get caught using it.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: Well, even right from the start, they teach you this has to be used ethically or it will come back to bite.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Use it for good. It's not. And not.
• 22:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
• 22:47
  Speaker C: Now, what is this?
• 22:48
  Speaker B: Oh, it's just. It's the use of language in, in the. In persuasion. And it was developed by.
• 22:56
  Speaker C: By pimps.
• 22:57
  Speaker B: By. Well, pimps use it for sure. No, pimps are. And that's how it was.
• 23:03
  Speaker C: Like Epstein is a pimp. Right, sure.
• 23:05
  Speaker B: That. Well, that's how it was developed by like Erickson and Bandler and Pearls. Yeah, right. And. And what?
• 23:12
  Speaker C: I don't know who any of those people.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Just different psychologists, you know, theoreticians, linguists.
• 23:19
  Speaker C: And like Dr. Lecter.
• 23:21
  Speaker B: I don't. Dr. Lecter, I think he was A psychiatrist, right? Yeah, probably. But no, they. They developed it by watching people who are good at persuasion and sort of quantifying what was going on and the different techniques that were being used and creating a matrix for that.
• 23:38
  Speaker C: So basically like pimps who are convincers, right?
• 23:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker C: Convince people to do stuff.
• 23:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's what they say.
• 23:43
  Speaker C: Just like Trump, our president, he's just convinced people.
• 23:46
  Speaker A: Weird bastardized kind of way.
• 23:48
  Speaker C: Yeah, he's just convince the stupid minded people of this country, which is 99 of them, if you ask me, myself included. Yeah, 99. Stupid minded, you know? You know, but who say Burgundy, you know, that kind of stuff.
• 24:04
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, you go to Metairie and they have Orion street and. Yeah, Hesiod.
• 24:09
  Speaker B: Right.
• 24:12
  Speaker A: They throw all that mythology you hate right out the window.
• 24:15
  Speaker B: Right. I'm guessing that you are from New Orleans.
• 24:18
  Speaker A: Born and raised.
• 24:19
  Speaker B: Okay, so what neighborhood you grow up in?
• 24:21
  Speaker A: So I was born in Mercy hospital on Bayou St. John. Nice. And. And then as the Phineas proliferated, my folks moved us out to Metairie.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 24:32
  Speaker A: And then ultimately River Ridge.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Oh, okay. Reefer Ridge.
• 24:35
  Speaker A: Reefer Ridge, exactly.
• 24:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, sure.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: Manny has relatives there in Reefer Ridge.
• 24:39
  Speaker C: Yeah, my wife's from there.
• 24:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's.
• 24:43
  Speaker C: And how old are you?
• 24:46
  Speaker A: Early 50s. What is this? 51.
• 24:49
  Speaker C: Okay, so you're just a kid on this show.
• 24:54
  Speaker B: You are.
• 24:54
  Speaker C: You're just a kid, so. Because usually he books these guys who are dying and then they die.
• 25:00
  Speaker B: Well, a few have not every. Most. Most have not. Most are. Still have survived the.
• 25:05
  Speaker C: Not a few. A few means three. We've had more. More than three Dias.
• 25:08
  Speaker B: It might be four or five.
• 25:10
  Speaker C: We've got Uganda. We killed Uganda.
• 25:14
  Speaker B: We have Mickey, Sons and Bach. We lost. We have Stanley Atkins. We lost since then. Oh, geez.
• 25:21
  Speaker A: Carlo.
• 25:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, a few others. I don't know. Let's back our guest. We have a. We have one. A live one on the. For now, strike while the iron's hot.
• 25:34
  Speaker C: So.
• 25:34
  Speaker B: So. So tell us, you.
• 25:36
  Speaker C: You.
• 25:37
  Speaker B: You went to school there in Metairie and.
• 25:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, did the high school thing at Rummel.
• 25:42
  Speaker B: What about elementary school?
• 25:43
  Speaker A: St. Matthew out in River Ridge.
• 25:45
  Speaker B: Okay, nice.
• 25:46
  Speaker C: So it's hardcore catholic stuff.
• 25:48
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 25:49
  Speaker C: Now, were you ever raped again?
• 25:52
  Speaker B: Keeps coming up. Jesus Christ.
• 25:54
  Speaker A: Nor. No.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: Well, it's better.
• 25:56
  Speaker A: I don't think I've been to a.
• 25:56
  Speaker B: Bullfight either, so it's better to block it out if you had. Really, that's what I think.
• 26:01
  Speaker C: Well, you could use Renee's expl. Excuse. You can't keep a secret, you know?
• 26:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, well, that's what I said. That's, that's what kept me safe, is the priest could tell that I was the kind of kid that could not keep a secret.
• 26:11
  Speaker A: Maybe that was my problem.
• 26:12
  Speaker B: Had a big mouth. Yeah, right.
• 26:15
  Speaker C: You see, they, they know.
• 26:16
  Speaker B: It's like, oh, no, no, no, this, this kid is.
• 26:18
  Speaker A: It exempted me from.
• 26:19
  Speaker B: Exactly. I really think it did. You know, if you're a mouthy kid who's probably, you know, like, oh, no, I need somebody withdrawn, certain profile.
• 26:31
  Speaker A: You have to.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: Right, right, right, right. Okay. So you were safe. Good, good, good.
• 26:34
  Speaker A: Yep. As far as we were unscathed. Actually had a relatively positive experience through all of that, you know, minus the rumble, being all boys. That was.
• 26:42
  Speaker B: Sure. It's tough. You know, my parents threatened to send me to Jesuit at one time when I was, you know, they didn't like what I was doing at Ben Franklin. And I said, I said, hey, don't you have to take an entrance exam for that? And they said, yeah. And I said, let me take that test.
• 26:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 26:57
  Speaker B: Watch how badly I do.
• 26:58
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 26:59
  Speaker B: They thought, okay, well, let's not call his bluff here. So were you playing music at all at that time? Were you?
• 27:07
  Speaker A: I guess you could say I was playing with music.
• 27:09
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: I started playing, you know, guitar in a room full of 30 kids banging out a C chord badly in grade school.
• 27:16
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 27:17
  Speaker A: And I, I recognize there was some magic to that, but never could really get a handle on it. And then I guess around 13 or 14, there was a cute girl in piano class. And I said, dad, I want to play piano. So they got me into piano class.
• 27:32
  Speaker C: You just said you went to a boys school.
• 27:33
  Speaker A: Well, that was before, before high school.
• 27:36
  Speaker C: Oh, okay.
• 27:36
  Speaker A: Like eighth grade, seventh day.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: Oh, so you went to a mixed school.
• 27:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:40
  Speaker C: Previous junior high. For junior high.
• 27:41
  Speaker A: Exactly. And so that kind of, you know, set the tone for the rest of the, the story. It was like a half assed terrible pursuit. Pursuit of terrible musicianship in hopes that it would get the attention of girls.
• 27:57
  Speaker B: Okay. And probably worked, huh?
• 27:59
  Speaker A: You know, it had, you know, had a good, had its moments until the lipstick lesbians. No, you know, I had a, I had a pretty good batting average, but you know, until high school, until the.
• 28:08
  Speaker B: Old boys school and it, then it really took off.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: So the. Got into, got into tech stuff in high school doing theater and stuff like that. If you, if you didn't make it on the stage, they would twist you in the booth. And that just kind of always Spoke stagecraft. Right.
• 28:26
  Speaker B: I love. I did that in summer school at summer camp that I went to. I thought that was so cool.
• 28:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was.
• 28:32
  Speaker B: I mean, it was. It.
• 28:33
  Speaker A: It definitely was rewarding when you weren't, you know, doing all the other things. And. And my grandfather was an electrician. My other grandfather was a mechanic. So I had, I guess, blessed and cursed that whenever I asked a question, they would not just blow me off, they would explain it to me in gory details.
• 28:50
  Speaker B: Your grandfathers.
• 28:50
  Speaker A: Both of my grandfathers, had different skill sets that were pretty profound.
• 28:54
  Speaker C: And they never took you to the bull fights?
• 28:57
  Speaker B: No, I don't have them here anymore.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: Unfortunate.
• 29:00
  Speaker C: They have the Angola rodeo. Right.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: Went to the Wrinkle.
• 29:05
  Speaker C: See, I've never been to that.
• 29:06
  Speaker A: Equally as horrific.
• 29:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
• 29:09
  Speaker C: I bet you don't get tacos at.
• 29:11
  Speaker A: The end of it. Lots of stuff goes to waste in Angola.
• 29:18
  Speaker B: But lives particularly.
• 29:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, right. Amongst other things. But, yeah, so it was like I had this interest in, you know, technology, I guess you could say. And. And then somewhere around senior year, our band had to record a demo. We had a garage band, and, you know, we were recording a demo, and I kind of fell in love with the Other side of the glass right about then. And there was a studio in Metairie that mainly did heavy metal stuff and rock and roll. There's this place called Side One Studio.
• 29:48
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 29:48
  Speaker A: So I. I went to work for the guy who ran it, who was a Jesuit cohort with Ben Mumfrey.
• 29:55
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 29:56
  Speaker A: And I recorded Ben's band, and that's how he and I kind of fell into former guest.
• 30:01
  Speaker B: A great engineer himself and a great.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: Influence on me and. And a great friend. He's always. He's got a. He's got a. A really good sense of integrity that has kind of always, you know, iron sharpens iron kind of thing.
• 30:13
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 30:13
  Speaker A: And I've always appreciated that about.
• 30:15
  Speaker B: I love that guy.
• 30:16
  Speaker A: Him as an engineer and as a person.
• 30:17
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker A: And so just kind of fell into that and attempted to go to college. Two Lane wouldn't have me, nor could I have afforded it if they did. Loyola wouldn't have me, even though I was an altar boy.
• 30:29
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 30:29
  Speaker A: But then again, it's the Jesuits, right? You got to be in that. Click. Yeah. And so Loyola wouldn't have me, so I. I opted.
• 30:38
  Speaker C: Maybe you just weren't that smart. I don't accept you because you just.
• 30:42
  Speaker A: Got a firm grasp of the obvious.
• 30:46
  Speaker B: You've been very successful.
• 30:47
  Speaker A: Your insight is profound.
• 30:50
  Speaker C: It was like, oh, God, this guy.
• 30:51
  Speaker A: No, don't sell yourself short, Hammers.
• 30:55
  Speaker C: No, I kid you. No, I don't know who you are, but I kid you.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: I think it.
• 30:59
  Speaker A: No, I, I think it's. There's something.
• 31:01
  Speaker C: It was probably the best thing for you.
• 31:03
  Speaker A: I was a solid C student.
• 31:05
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:06
  Speaker C: I made the most of what I. Yeah.
• 31:08
  Speaker A: So I, I went to uno and.
• 31:11
  Speaker C: You know, which is going to be LSU soon.
• 31:15
  Speaker B: Do you know that the LSU New Orleans, which it was before I was.
• 31:18
  Speaker C: The lsu, they're taking over lsu. Our governor, Landry, we're back. Yeah, he's taking it over.
• 31:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, at the time, the, the, the, the director of the jazz studies program was Ellis Marcellus at uno.
• 31:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker A: And I was a buddy of mine said, you know, they have this work study thing that you can go and get a job on campus and they'll pay for your school and you can pocket your student loan.
• 31:46
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 31:47
  Speaker A: I was like, oh, this sounds like a good angle.
• 31:49
  Speaker C: You know, sounds like city hall.
• 31:51
  Speaker A: So maybe that's where we learned it. And so they know why the state's getting involved. So I went and applied and they said, well, we have this job. Sound. Doing sound, setting up the sound system on campus. I said, I'm 100% in. And so I started doing that regularly. And UNO had a bar on campus and I would set up the, the sound system every Wednesday night for the jazz program ls.
• 32:14
  Speaker B: What's it called? The Sand.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: The sandbar.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: Sandbar.
• 32:16
  Speaker A: And I mean, it kind of shows you the trajectory you were on if you're at uno. The bar on campus literally across the street from the science building and open all day long. And there was no, you know, no one had any qualms about buying a beer and walking into class with it.
• 32:33
  Speaker B: Sure. Well, it's New Orleans.
• 32:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it was a 90s, you know, but the, the. I started doing sound and I'd get, you know, I would. Started falling into the circles with Ellis and, you know, Jim Singleton and all those. That, that whole crowd, Torkonowski and, and the, the jazzers of the day. And one day Ellis busted me doing something untoward. May. May or may not have been herbal remedies involved. And he kind of pulled me to the side and he said, look, what you fail to realize is that you are not good enough as a musician to pull this kind of stunt. And kind of broke my heart. It was like, wait a minute, dude.
• 33:17
  Speaker C: But was he right?
• 33:18
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay.
• 33:20
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 33:20
  Speaker A: I was a cringe worthy bassist.
• 33:22
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 33:23
  Speaker A: You know, growing up in Met, it was all Heavy metal. And so here I am trying to hold my own with these jazz guys.
• 33:27
  Speaker B: Right, right, right.
• 33:27
  Speaker A: And they're looking down at the R and B guys and the R and B guys could smoke me. So it was just like I had no shot. And so he said, you know, what I suggest is your prowess with a microphone is on par with your colleagues and their instruments. So maybe that's a road you should pursue.
• 33:43
  Speaker B: So, you know, Ellis was my teacher at Noka man. And that, that sounds exactly like the kind of very penetrating and concise advice that he would give someone. Totally, really change the trajectory of your life 105.5minutes completely.
• 34:00
  Speaker A: Because it was like he, you know, he broke my heart and told me the truth, but at the same time put me back together and ordained the rest of my career.
• 34:09
  Speaker C: Right.
• 34:09
  Speaker A: You know, and so I was like, okay, well I'm all in. Let's do it.
• 34:12
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: So then by. So I failed to mention at some point in there, I started hanging around John Otan's store. Rock and roll music.
• 34:19
  Speaker B: Rock and roll music in Mid City. And my former classmate at Loyola. We did get into Loyola. Sorry, but, but I left, I left before it was, I, I, I left after two years. So it's a, you know, before it.
• 34:32
  Speaker A: Became a, a burden, it didn't become a problem. So, but I was working with John and I met a cast of characters at Rock and Roll, you know, Big Dave Jacob who just passed and Louis Ludwig who became a real influence. Rosie Rosado and Clark Vreeland was in those circles in those days.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: Clark Vreeland, Yeah, yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker A: Clark became a big influence on me as well because he was one of the first people who I felt was like crazy talented and powerful and older who took a young person seriously. He didn't make me feel like I was a 19 year old or 18 year old. He made me feel like I was just a dude in it with him. And Louie did too. And so they had a know little rabbitash studio in the back for John's record label.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: Right.
• 35:15
  Speaker A: And that's where I cut my teeth learning how to do that stuff. And then one of the people who would come in all the time was John Thomas Griffith who lived around the corner, okay. From the record store, from the Red Rockers. He's a guitar player from Red Front.
• 35:31
  Speaker B: Man is from the Red Rockers. But then he started Cowboy Mouth with.
• 35:35
  Speaker A: With Fred and Fred back then Paul Sanchez. And right early on it was Paul Clement on bass.
• 35:40
  Speaker B: Paul Clement and Steve Walters shortly, the great Steve Walters from the Normals.
• 35:45
  Speaker A: Living legend.
• 35:45
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 35:46
  Speaker A: And truly one of my favorite people on the planet. And so rocking, dude. Like, just legitimate, you know, and probably the most. The most authentic person I know, short of like, you know, Napolitano or something, you know, it's just like balls to bones. You are that thing. And that's it.
• 36:05
  Speaker B: I have a great Steve Walters story that. That somebody from. From that. That circle told me that it's when. After Paul Clement left or was leaving Cowboy Mouth, and. And they kind of pulled Steve Walters out of retirement, right. And. And. And they went to his house or something, or he came to them and. And to have the first rehearsal, and he pulls the. His base out, and the base is totally covered. The strings are all covered in rust, and it's all filthy, you know, and they're kind of laughing at it. He goes, you think that's funny? Wait till you hear me play.
• 36:39
  Speaker A: Right? This is a perfect analogy. Right?
• 36:44
  Speaker C: Right.
• 36:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 36:44
  Speaker A: No, he's. He's still one of my favorite people. And so right around the end of my first semester, after Ellis had kind of shattered me and put me back together, the guys from Cowboy Mouth asked me to go do guitar tech stuff. And Mike Mayu was doing front of house for them.
• 37:01
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: Mike had to dip out to go have heart surgery right about that same time. And so the guys came to me and said, hey, are you going to go back to college or what? Because we need a sound man. Will you come on the road with us?
• 37:13
  Speaker C: Oh.
• 37:14
  Speaker A: And in that moment, I was like, right, let's go. I'm going on the road.
• 37:17
  Speaker B: I'm joined in the circus.
• 37:18
  Speaker A: I joined the circus. My folks were none too pleased to hear about it, but, you know, to their credit, they went with it. And, you know, I realize now the mechanism that triggered. Now that I'm a dad, I get it. Most of your life is propping up your kids, bailing them out, and just standing back and hoping for the best.
• 37:37
  Speaker B: Give them the best chance.
• 37:38
  Speaker A: That's right. And, you know, you try not to damage them too much. And I think that's more of what my folks were doing is like, you know, we could freak out, but we're just going to see where this thing goes. And so I went on the road with the band, and that was. That was really the, you know, the pebbles that precluded the avalanche of how I ended up being, you know, long boring story. I fell in love with being in the studio more than being on the road.
• 38:02
  Speaker B: Interesting how these. The, like, the happenstance of life winds up being the actual you know, the. The fulcrum that it all turns on.
• 38:12
  Speaker A: Kind of true. He's in a moment. Literally a moment. I decided, nope, yeah, I'm going on the road with you guys. And so.
• 38:19
  Speaker B: So you guys were playing so many, like, 250 days.
• 38:23
  Speaker A: 185 is the number that comes to mind at that time. But, yeah, it was. And. And the. The band went to Europe, and I had joined just before I could have gotten in on that, so I had to sit at home while they went to Europe and had all these amazing ventures and came back, and then we toured the country in a converted airport shuttle.
• 38:43
  Speaker B: And you're just mixing front of house.
• 38:45
  Speaker A: Mixing front of house, setting up the stage, teching their guitars.
• 38:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 38:49
  Speaker A: And just getting to be pals and having adventures and learning from these cats who were, you know, older than me.
• 38:55
  Speaker B: And getting a ton of experience, a ton of raps and.
• 38:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. And meeting people all over the place. And, you know, the big thing for me was I got to put a microphone on a snare drum on a great drummer every night.
• 39:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:08
  Speaker A: And that's the skill, ultimately, that you need to develop to be a recording engineer or, you know, or any kind of engineer or producer is. You have to do it over and over again. You have to experiment and make mistakes.
• 39:20
  Speaker C: Who's this drummer?
• 39:21
  Speaker A: Fred LeBlanc.
• 39:22
  Speaker C: Okay. I don't know who that is.
• 39:23
  Speaker A: He's a force of nature.
• 39:25
  Speaker C: Oh, okay.
• 39:26
  Speaker A: He certainly was back then.
• 39:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Fred. Fred's one of the greats and comes out of a. The Chris Luckett tradition. You know, there's a line of Chris Luckett, Fred LeBlanc, Kyle Melloss on, like, Guys that are Beasts behind the kit like that.
• 39:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I was a. I was a Dash Riprock fan, too, so that seeing Fred and that, you know, and then kind of maturing into Cowboy Mouth is a little more developed than dash. Dash was really raw and kind of primal, and Cowboy Mouth had harmonies and they had a deeper songbook, and. And I just. I saw that, as you know, I love the diversification of the band, how each member of the band had enough autonomy that when they came together, it really was okay. It was something special.
• 40:11
  Speaker B: Right on.
• 40:12
  Speaker A: And so I enjoyed that for a while. And then they opened House of Blues and Chopper Brady. Mike was going to work at House of Blues. He's like, I'm not coming back on the road. And Chopper called me and said, hey, do you want to come off the road? You can make the same, if not more money, and you can Sleep in your bed every night. It was like, yes, 100%.
• 40:29
  Speaker B: So as opposed to someone else's Okada.
• 40:33
  Speaker A: I'm gonna tell you some stories. I have a Steve Walter story, as a matter of fact.
• 40:37
  Speaker C: Tell it.
• 40:38
  Speaker A: Oh, I don't. I would have to clear that with Steve first.
• 40:43
  Speaker C: All right.
• 40:44
  Speaker A: It's a good one.
• 40:45
  Speaker C: And so don't bring it up then if you're not gonna tell it. It's a good one. You said it's a good one. Well, say it.
• 40:54
  Speaker B: Theater of the mind. You can just imagine how good it could be to you. You know, it's leaves.
• 40:58
  Speaker C: I don't even know I can tell it.
• 40:59
  Speaker A: But you have to cut it out.
• 41:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's.
• 41:02
  Speaker C: He'll cut it out anyway.
• 41:04
  Speaker A: Editing.
• 41:04
  Speaker B: Not if he says it. If he doesn't say if.
• 41:06
  Speaker A: We have to get permission from Steve first.
• 41:08
  Speaker B: Sure. Yeah.
• 41:10
  Speaker A: So, yeah, it was like, you know, this opportunity to stay home. And then I realized I wanted to have a studio. I was working at that place out in Mety, working with different bands, doing a lot of rap and gospel. You know, Greg, the owner, would throw us on the sessions that he didn't want to do. And so at some point, I realized, you know, there's a thousand things under a dollar in Greg's studio that we could make better, that would. That a studio would be better than a thousand dollars. Better if we fixed all those things.
• 41:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Speaker A: And so me and my buddy George Ortolano got together, and his. His grandfather had invented the snowball machine, Snow Wizard. He had the building where the snowball machine was invented on Magazine Street. It's now the pack and ship and a framing place.
• 41:54
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 41:54
  Speaker A: And it was sitting empty, and his grandma offered it to us and said if y' all want to do something, because she recognized the value of having somebody in there more than rent if it's sitting empty.
• 42:04
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 42:05
  Speaker A: So she let us build a studio in there, and we pulled together our resources and we built the studio. Magazine Sound Recording. And Ben kind of joined us and cut our teeth. Napolitano. Mike Napolitano would come and do some stuff there. We. And we did some things, you know, we. Afghan wigs and squirrel nut zippers. There were some. Some things that came there mainly as a byproduct of Napolitano. But it was, you know, at the time, it was Kingsway and Egyptian Room and a couple of smaller places, and we were. We had a shot at edging out, you know, of getting into the. The brass ring. And so we went as hard as we could. And we just didn't know what we were doing as far as running a business.
• 42:47
  Speaker B: But you're getting again, tons of recording.
• 42:49
  Speaker A: Experience, all analog tape. So, you know.
• 42:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, I want to, I want to talk about that too because, because you've seen, just as I've seen, you know, the, the evolution or de. Evolution of the music business. The, the business side, you've seen the evolution of analog to digital and, and everything. All the, the good and the bad that comes from that. But right now, it's about that time, Manny.
• 43:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, we're gonna take a break. We'll be.
• 44:45
  Speaker B: And we're back, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Chris Finney. Now, Chris, I know you're familiar, somewhat familiar with this podcast and the fact that we are a listener supported operation. We have Venmo and paypal links that our beloved listeners will access to buy us cocktails, help support our, defray our operating costs. And a guy I mentioned a few weeks ago as having latched on to one of my catchphrases from the show has supported this week's cocktails. My old buddy from the Governor's program in Lake Charles, David Monette. Shout out to David Monette, who used the PayPal link to buy tonight's cocktails. And as I say those, those links are in the show notes of every show as well as the Facebook page. And also in the show notes we have the Patreon link there. We have a handful of patrons supporting us week in and week out. Thank you so much. We love you. Also, the link for the Troublemen podcast T shirts is right there. And I always say follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook and rate review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Helps us a lot. Cost you nothing. That's the phrase he had latched on to. He uses it with his co workers. Everybody can try that, see how that lands. Let's see what else. Have some dates coming up here on Friday, November 21st, I'll be playing with the Tremolo Kings at DBA. Then I have next Sunday, November 23rd with Susan Cowell at the Wild Things Weekend in Hammond. And of course, always every Sunday. Now, the Iguanas at the Castel Bar, seven or ten. All right, back to our guest, Mr. Chris Finney now. So Chris, you're talking about how you're cutting your teeth doing all these recordings. You're working at the House of Blues as well, mixing a ton of great acts.
• 46:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, mainly getting the Thing I took away from House of Blues was being proximal to such incredible musicianship and seeing what that level of performance feels like. You know, it's. It's one thing to listen to a Neville Brothers record. It's another thing to see the Neville Brothers live. It's yet another thing to stand on stage with the Neville Brothers and.
• 47:10
  Speaker B: Right.
• 47:11
  Speaker A: The Allman Brothers or Nine Inch Nails or Johnny Cash or Sonny Rollins, all these. It's insane. The list of people. Johnny Guitar Watson, amazing man. You know, on the, in the weird. In the weirdest part of the universe, I was assigned to walk Charles Brown out on stage because he was blind. The band would. The band would fire up, do a couple songs to warm up, and then when they would announce him, I had to escort him out to the stage and then I would dip behind the monitor board. So we'd be sitting behind the wall off the wings and we'd be chit chatting. And over the, over the three or four times, we kind of made a friendship like a, you know, like a pal, at least. And I felt comfortable enough asking him about things and, you know, talk to him about. My favorite recording of all time. On the short list at least is Bring It On Home to Me by Sam Cooke. Yeah, he told me, oh, that's Lou Rawls singing the harmony, the Second Volt. Something you couldn't have known before the Internet unless you spoke to someone who was on the session. And he's telling me about writing that song and he's talking about working with Sam Cooke and getting all this great insight. He reaches into his coat pocket, he pulls out a flask and has a nip of whiskey and offers it to me. And I'm like, this is up there with smoking a joint with Bob Dylan or something. Like, I'm taking a nip of whiskey with Charles Brown. Like, this is unbelievable. Walk him out on stage, do the show. So it was just story like that over and over again. You know, smoking a joint with Jam Master J from Run dmc, like that was one of my all time heroes.
• 48:40
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 48:40
  Speaker A: You know those kinds of things.
• 48:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. What an incredible opportunity.
• 48:45
  Speaker A: How do you, how else would you have access? How else would a kid in my position have access to that kind of stuff? And then being able to soak up those performances and seeing what the mechanics of a performance like that looks like, right? And realizing that these weren't like moments that just happened. These cats were like Olympians who had trained and trained and trained and they weren't waiting for Lightning to strike. They could get out there and do it at any given moment.
• 49:11
  Speaker B: Right.
• 49:11
  Speaker A: And so that was something I tried to bring back into the studio as much as possible.
• 49:16
  Speaker B: Well, you know, we were talking about the advent of going from analog recording to digital recording. You know, I came up in the era when we were using, you know, tape. Everything was on tape. That's all the only way there was to do it totally. And 16 track or 24 track and you've used all the tracks and now you need to fix a thing and you just have to stand up there and be an adult in front of the microphone or, you know, and be able to deliver it like. And as an engineer on your side, like you guys are doing in that era as far as punch ins, punch outs, you know, like you're doing destructive.
• 49:54
  Speaker A: Editing and yeah, you learn grace in that moment because everybody has one. You know, there's a. The great Dan Prothero told me one time, every engineer has one inadvertent sacrifice they've made to the recording gods. And there's like the Lost album with a lost take or, you know, you accidentally punched in a measure too soon on George Porter Jr.
• 50:16
  Speaker B: Right.
• 50:16
  Speaker A: And his grace was just like, oh, it's no problem, I'll do it again.
• 50:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker A: You're like, oh, thank God. Because that could have been a career ender.
• 50:22
  Speaker B: Well, and, and, and that people that grew up playing in that, in that.
• 50:26
  Speaker A: Era of recording, yeah, they were complicit.
• 50:28
  Speaker B: Had the ability to do that. And, and really anyone who is competent at playing live in a consistent, at a high level should still be able to do that. You know, you can walk out on the, on the floor and do it at will, like. And it's funny, I'm sure you've, you've seen or been experienced like someone doing a Pro Tools edit that takes 45 minutes when the person could walk out on the floor and have it done in five minutes.
• 50:57
  Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And you know, I did the first session that Dr. John ever did on Pro Tools.
• 51:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:05
  Speaker A: And I saw him go through that exact evolution where he was like, you know, he played, he was doing a roads overdub and he made a mistake and he came back in and he was listening and he points out the mistake. And I said, oh, oh wait, I can fix that. And I did it super quick. And he was like, oh. And then the next take or so he, he, you know, before he comes back in the room, he says, do I gotta do that again? Or can you just fix it with the computer machine?
• 51:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:35
  Speaker A: And I was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're of all people. No, I'm gonna punch you in. Like, just forget I showed you that. And he was always. He was always good about, you know, not relying on the technology and keeping his musicianship sharp.
• 51:51
  Speaker B: You know, if you have the ability to do that, obviously it's faster and, you know, has. Retains the. The integrity of the performance. Well, so. So take us in the timeline. So you're working at House of Blues, but. And you're working at this studio and magazine that you have.
• 52:06
  Speaker A: I was funding the studio and magazine.
• 52:08
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 52:08
  Speaker A: With the. The money from House of Blues.
• 52:11
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 52:11
  Speaker A: Almost purely.
• 52:12
  Speaker B: Well, as they say, the way to make a. A small fortune in the. In the. The recording business is start with a lot of.
• 52:19
  Speaker A: With a large one. Yes. Yeah, that was pretty much it. And, you know, like I said, we weren't savvy business people, so it was kind of destined to fail. And then about 10 years into it, I. I felt like I should have had more to show for my career and just didn't quite understand what wasn't connecting. So I walked away for a little while, and I saw the writing on the wall that computers were coming. I knew it was coming. This was like 2000, 2001. You could start buying a Pro Tool system and a computer for about the same cost as making a real record.
• 52:58
  Speaker B: Right.
• 52:59
  Speaker A: The difference was if you spent that money with us in the studio, you'd have a record in three to six weeks. If you spent that money on a Pro Tools rig, it might have been a year or 18 months, but before you had a record, because you had to learn how to use it, you had to, you know.
• 53:14
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 53:15
  Speaker A: Accrue all the other accoutrements that go into it.
• 53:18
  Speaker B: And, you know, and, And. And as a. As a musician, do you want to become an engineer and then, you know, still try to be a musician? Or. Or is it better like, you know, the Western civilization has succeeded largely because of specialization. You know, we all. We all do one thing really well, and then we all get together and share those.
• 53:39
  Speaker A: I always like Robert Heinlein's take on that, though. Specialization is for insects. Should be able to change a tire. And a baby's diaper.
• 53:45
  Speaker B: Well, I can do both of those.
• 53:47
  Speaker A: Exact.
• 53:48
  Speaker B: But anyway.
• 53:49
  Speaker C: And even an adult diaper.
• 53:51
  Speaker B: Sure. Well, I'm gonna. Eventually, I'm gonna have to.
• 53:53
  Speaker C: Unless you.
• 53:54
  Speaker A: Unless you go to the naked old folk.
• 53:57
  Speaker B: Oh, geez, no, you don't want to see that. That's not. That's. That's Nothing. Nowhere I want to be Sally Kirkland. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:02
  Speaker A: And the guy from the airport.
• 54:05
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 54:07
  Speaker B: So you land in another recording situation. Take us to the next step.
• 54:10
  Speaker A: I dipped out to go work at a computer store. And this is pre Apple Stores. And this was a small computer store in Metairie that specialized in Apple computers. Okay. And it was cool because I was already into Apple computers and I recognized that that was the tool for creative people. PCs were for business people, and, you know, Apples were for creative people. So I figured learning how to work the inner workings of an Apple wouldn't be a bad thing.
• 54:38
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 54:39
  Speaker A: And in the meantime, it was a paycheck. And I had a little tiny studio in a shack in, in Metairie in Fat City, and little one room spot. But it was. It was enough. And I could keep practicing my pro tools, keep putting microphones on things and making a living from this. And. And it was kind of a. I kind of missed that existence. It was very simple, you know.
• 55:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 55:01
  Speaker A: And it was, it was. But eventually people started coming into this, the computer store from the music industry to get their computer fixed. Reggie brought Alan Tusane in and it was, hey, we got a computer and we need somebody to come help us fix it. And I'd go out there and help him set it up. And then porter, George Porter Jr. Was messing with a computer and, you know, Dave Stocker called me in to come help him do that. And then Terence Blanchard and Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor. And so it's like all these folks are. Are now I'm right back in the recording world, right? Like I. I'm trying to quit, trying to get out.
• 55:39
  Speaker B: They keep pulling you back in. So what did you. Were you involved in working on the. The 9 inch Trent's studio there on magazine?
• 55:48
  Speaker A: A couple times I worked. Mike Montero dragged me along for a few of those because same same lesson I was getting from the computer store, which is that you can have this talent and the people, the music, the folks in the industry can know that you have this talent. But unless you have the business infrastructure put around you, you could be wasting your time and leaving money on the table. I'm watching this guy at the computer store charge hundreds of. Of dollars an hour for me, and he's paying me 20 bucks an hour. But it was consistent. I got a paycheck and, you know, whatever. And it was like, okay, lesson learned. Same thing with Montero. He's billing out Mr. Montero meters running. Montero. He was. He was billing us at the top Dollar. But he's bringing me in to fix the computer, and, you know, he's paying me well, but it wasn't nearly what he was billing.
• 56:35
  Speaker C: Right.
• 56:35
  Speaker A: And so I realized, okay, if I'm going to be. Make it doing what I do, I have to figure out this business part of things. And I'm still figuring it out. Like, I'm still, you know, 30 years later.
• 56:45
  Speaker B: When you do, let me know.
• 56:47
  Speaker A: But, I mean, that's. And that's ultimately what led to, you know, teaching a class for the Tip of Tina's foundation to high school kids. And it was, you know, Trombone Shorty, John Batiste, Chris Royal, those guys are all my students. And hopefully something got through because they all have careers now. Yeah, yeah, they're all doing okay. And. And then one thing led to another, and Tibetina's foundation became Trombone Shorty foundation, and then that led to Tulane. And so that's always been a part of my own path of learning, is helping other folks learn it as. As best I can.
• 57:19
  Speaker B: Nice, Nice. But somewhere in here, you record Fats Domino and Robert Plant. And where. Where. What studio did you. Were you working?
• 57:28
  Speaker A: So that was at the music shed. That.
• 57:29
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 57:30
  Speaker A: That was all. So somewhere in the computer shop days, 2002, 2003, the folks at Tips had gotten their hands on a Pro Tools rig, and they recorded a bunch of Rebirth brass band shows in the hopes of making a Rebirth brass band documentary or live performance, like, to celebrate their anniversary.
• 57:50
  Speaker B: I think we just had a guest on. Who. Who was the video producer on that? Charlie.
• 57:54
  Speaker A: Charlie Brown. That's actually how Charlie and I connected. I did the audio.
• 57:58
  Speaker B: He was the last guest. He was the last episode that came out.
• 58:01
  Speaker A: What a great guy Charlie is, man. What a mind on that guy. Go listen to that episode.
• 58:07
  Speaker B: See, this is how it works on the Troubleman podcast and in New Orleans.
• 58:11
  Speaker A: It's true. It's the biggest small town you've ever been to. If you haven't worked with somebody, you will.
• 58:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a joke about there's really only one band in New Orleans and everybody's in it.
• 58:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, right.
• 58:23
  Speaker B: So.
• 58:23
  Speaker A: So, yeah. So after. Right around Katrina, there was a group of guys who I had known forever had built a rehearsal room in this giant warehouse right. Right up the street from Keller's old place.
• 58:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I know. I recorded there a bunch of times. Did a Lynn record. Lynn Drury record. Bruce. Bruce Burrell. Had a. Oh, hey, bro. Had a mastering studio there. Maybe. Maybe still does.
• 58:47
  Speaker A: No, I think he's at Misha's. Now he's in the basement of M. That makes sense. Anyway, Car. Yeah. So. So they had called me in to help with some acoustics in the rehearsal rooms. They were having trouble with Bleed. And just the. The sound of the rooms wasn't great. And Eric Fletcher had started to build a little studio in the front, which.
• 59:06
  Speaker B: Is Terry Fletrich's son from the. The Midday show on. On Channel 4.
• 59:12
  Speaker A: Anyway, I don't think I made that connection. I knew. I knew he was related to the dentist on. In Mid City, but that's all I knew.
• 59:18
  Speaker B: Anyway, the first time I met him, I was like, are you related to Cherry Fl? Yes.
• 59:24
  Speaker A: Eric's a great guy and.
• 59:25
  Speaker B: He's a great guy.
• 59:26
  Speaker A: Fantastic engineer.
• 59:27
  Speaker B: Yes. Worked at the Egyptian Room.
• 59:29
  Speaker A: He worked at the Egyptian Room.
• 59:31
  Speaker B: Did a record there with him.
• 59:32
  Speaker A: And he. He evacuated to Memphis for Katrina and never came home. So it left this kind of vacuum at the music shed. And a lot of people were asking about using the recording studio, but Eric wasn't around. So I kind of. Originally, I went into it thinking, I'll build up the studio for when Eric comes back home. The studio will be up and running. And then Eric never came back home, and I found myself with a recording.
• 59:57
  Speaker C: Studio and so you were angry.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker A: Nah.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker C: No. You were inside all for him, and then he never came back.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker A: That's son of a.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker C: A Exactly.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker A: Mother left you, right? I'm gonna have words with him. Let me call him right now.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker C: Call him right now, man. Put him on this show.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker A: You know, I never thought about that.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker C: Let me.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker A: Let me. Let me explore these feelings.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker B: Now, you see, you gotta skate over that, man. It's like everybody wants to be so aggrieved these days.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker A: You know, I think all my grievances with Hurricane Katrina and really, that's it.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker B: You can't blame the weather. You know, it's. The government is different.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker A: You could try. What if the government was controlling the weather?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker C: There you go.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker B: The Jews aren't controlling the weather either. Please.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker A: I thought it was the Yakuza, but.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker B: Okay. Well, I can't say they're not. I don't know enough about Yakuza to definitively take a position.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker A: I was going around for a while that the Yakuza caused Hurricane Katrina in retaliation for World War II.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker B: I don't know. People say crazy things. I saw a thing that you had on somewhere and you. You characterized yourself as 14 time Grammy nominee, 12 time Grammy loser. I mean, I thought that's. I like that.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker C: You won twice.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker B: He won Twice. Yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker C: Well, that's good.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker B: No, that's great.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker C: It's great.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker B: But I just love the, The.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker C: The.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker B: The way you put it all in perspective.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker A: I mean, that kind of. It's, you know, I don't know if those numbers are entirely accurate, but the picture is posted there. You know, it's like you're.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker B: You, You.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker A: You just get into a mode. You're just doing so much stuff. So much stuff. So much stuff that you never look up. And at some point they say, hey, you. You know, John Foal came to me and said, hey, you heard we're nominated for a Grammy for that Dr. John record. I was like, what? Are you sure? He's like, yeah. And then the next thing you know was, hey, you know, fill out this form. They're going to send you a statue. Was like, holy. Really? And, you know.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker C: But you don't get to go to the show.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I've been to the show. Yeah, there's two. It.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker C: It's. Yeah, I know there's two shows.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker A: There's two shows. And I fell for the daytime one once.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker A: I'm good. I love my Grammy, folks. But, yeah, if you're. If you're going to endeavor the daytime Grammy Awards, eat first. Bring food in your pockets.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker B: Oh, really? Sneak in bars or something daytime, grimy.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker C: Is that like the soap opera and stuff like that? Stuff like that.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker B: It's the one with. With all the stuff they don't show on tv.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker A: That's it. Yeah. But, you know, the technical stuff, and it's. It's fun. It's still a. You know.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker C: Is that the Dorothy Chandler? Right. It's the Staple center or the Staples Center?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker A: Staple Center.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker C: Really? They have it in the Staples center for the guys who don't get on TV.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker C: And it is really.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker A: It's eight to 10 hours. They don't tell you when you're gonna win your award.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker C: You can't leave, but you know you're a winner.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker A: No, you're not.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker C: No.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker A: You find out. You.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker C: You.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker A: That you're going.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker C: You just said they send you a form to fill out.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker A: That was after the award time.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker C: Oh, okay.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker B: Right, right, right, right.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, they. Because they have to FedEx it and they want.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker C: Now, do you keep your Grammy above your toilet?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker A: So I've done both.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker A: If it's a band that I know would be impressed and influenced by it, I know I can inspire them to a better performance. I'll put it out where you see it. But if it's a band that I know isn't going to value it for anything. I'll put it on the back of the toilet.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker C: Now. What's that band?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker A: I like a punk rock band. Or, you know, any number of bands that carry spite for such honors.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker B: Sure, sure, sure.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker A: The good ones.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker C: You don't want to name them?
• 1:03:39
  Speaker A: I can't think of.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, you start trying to make a list of people.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker A: It's a big black hole in the center of my.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker B: Well, it's like I like when somebody walked. So one time this girl walked up in the middle of the. Of one of these podcasts and she goes, hey, ask, asking me, and who are your favorite keyboard players to work with? And I, and I, I was like, I, I can't start this list because it's. I'm gonna dig myself a hole. Gonna hurt somebody's feelings.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker A: Well, then you, you get home and it's like at 2am you wake up and you go, I didn't say yeah.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's because like you said, you're just trying to do work. Just.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker A: You're in a zone. You're not. That's the whole thing with, like, I.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker C: Mean, you've worked with a million bands and you've engineered and produced, and now there's got to be one band that you like. Why did I get myself into this one? Yeah. Bunch dozens. Okay.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker C: Well, what are those? Who are those guys?
• 1:04:36
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I'm sure they would be stoked to hear that, right?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker C: No one listens to this show, so don't worry, man. Listen to this show.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker A: I'll say, Davis Rogan.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, Davis Rogan.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker B: All right, all right.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker B: Manny will accept a mention under the.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker A: The band would cash their paychecks at a place called One Stop. And the producer came to me and he said, well, what is this One Stop with the band cashes all their checks. The record company wants to know, is this a fraud thing? And I was like, well, One Stop is a check cashing place, but One Stop is also a dude who sells drugs in front of the One Stop. And so he realized that this was going to. To work against the ability to make the record. And so he bought drugs and he would hand it out as a reward for the performance.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker B: Because they always say, you know, it's, it's okay if it's, it's a reward, but you can't, it can't be a lifestyle.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker A: It was a lifestyle.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, so that's. You want to stay away from being a lifestyle, so you're there at the. At the.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker A: The music shed.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker B: The music shed that you. That you're recording. All. All.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker A: Doctor. So I had, I had connected with Dr. John through Herman Ernest. And Herman was the house drummer for the House of Blues All Stars, right? And so Herman and I had built a really profound friendship and what a guy. Still one of the people I missed the most on. I, I love everybody, but I'd trade any one of you for Herman in a. Sure.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It'd be a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker A: And so he, he was kind of grooming me and Mike May you to work with Dr. John. And then Katrina happened and Mike went to Nashville and so I was just kind of last man standing. And I had the studio at the same time again.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker B: Proximity, happenstance, right place, right time.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker A: But chance favors the prepared mind. So it's a little bit of both, you know.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker A: And so, so Mac started needing more and more work. Herman would direct him my way and kind of. I kind of got integrated into the band in that regard. David Berard and John Foale and then Mac. And then it came time. We did tons of little one offs. We did a tribute to Harumi Hosano, which he let me produce. Like, that was my first time driving the Cadillac. And that was a really fun thing. We did shit, tons of things like that. And. And then the album came and we went out to Dockside and we posted up at dockside for 10 days, made the record. And the first record, my buddy Jeff Jones, the Jedi Master, mixed it in New York.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker A: Jedi and Mac were in a 12 step program together, so they were super tight friends in New York. And I really feel like it was everybody putting in their best effort as a collaborative group that got us the Grammy that first time.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker B: Now being a Dockside, it's crazy, man. For years I would hear people talk about, oh, Dockside, it's so great you're out in the country. I'm like, I hate it already. I don't like the country. I don't want to be out there by myself.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker A: Pretty special place now.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker B: I finally recorded there a couple of years ago for the first time. Went out and did Loose Cattle record with Justin Tockett engineering. And John. John, no, actually John Oniello was producing and engineering from Record Plan. He's worked with everybody. Justin was sitting on the sofa, like as the. The microphone concierge, you know. John would turn around and go, what do we have to record? A snare or, you know, whatever an according with. And you go, Well, I have this. I have this. And go, what do you like? And he'd go, well, I like. I think this one sounds great. He's gonna go, put that on there.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker A: But it's like using John McEnroe as a ball boy.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker B: Right, right, right. But amazing. The fucking desk sounds so incredible, man. You know, you the, the thing that I, that I love and, you know, the last few years, I've, you know, worked in recording studios. My new thing is I don't go and set my amps. I don't try to get, like, a live sound. I just tell the house engineer, just give me a lead. Just give me the wire. I'll plug it in. If I don't like it, I'll tell you afterwards. And, you know, we did a couple of takes, and I'm like, let's go in and hear what the sounds like, just to calibrate. And we walk into the control room, we're listening back to playback, and we're like, holy shit. That sounds fucking amazing.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker A: It sounds like a finished record.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker B: Holy.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's remarkable. And I was thinking about that when you were saying that there were three Collins tube compressors around from Keith Keller's studio.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker B: I have one of them.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker A: You have one of them. I have one of them. And Mike Mayhew had one that got lost in Katrina. So Keith's three compressors are down to two, and it's just me and you, bro.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker B: So that one that's sitting at your new studio that I saw a couple of weeks ago, when I saw that, I walked in, in. And, you know, you, you couldn't be there, but I was like, wow, Collins limiter. I was like, yeah, you know, I have one of those from Keith Keller. And Mike Mayhew said, I think that was from Keith. Those things sound amazing. You know, I, I, I went into Richard Gray's National TV Shop on, on Jefferson highway maybe 15 years ago or something. He was, I went with a friend. He was doing a tube repair on a stereo amp for. And I said, hey, you know, I have this weird thing. I don't know if you've ever seen one of these, a Collins limiter. And he goes, collins limiter? That's what we used in nom, man.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker A: Holy shit.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker B: He goes, those things are built like a tank. Yeah, they are. He goes, yeah, man. You know, that's what I did in Vietnam, as I, as I said, set up a broadcast tower.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker A: He was, good morning, Vietnam.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he, but he was in the truck. He said, the thing was, he said the, he said the VC would, would blow up the towers, but they wouldn't blow up the truck. So it was, it was cool, man. I was safe. It was like, okay, well, can I bring it in for you? He goes, oh, yeah, no, I'd love to see it. He totally rewired the whole thing. Recapped it and everything.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker A: I wish that guy was still around. I had a Dinoco that he could work.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker B: He still goes in there. He just doesn't answer the phone. So he's still going in. It's like Sanford and Son in there. He's got a million TVs that don't work. Anyway, so back to your story. You're there, you're recording. So Somehow you record 14 or 12 or some double digit number of Grammy nominated records. Records.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. Between that and yeah, I was doing a lot of stuff with Tracy Freeman. I kind of became Tracy Freeman's right hand man. Tracy was responsible for a lot of New Orleans records, mainly by virtue of the fact that he's been Harry Connick producer, Harry Connick Jr's producer from day one. And you know, that's kind of the bright light that leads the way for a lot of New Orleans musicians because Harry is this great mashup of great guy, great success and tremendous talent. And so he kind of became so. Absolutely.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker C: Really?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker A: Absolutely. I'll stand by that.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker C: Worse.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker A: I like talking about anybody. Yeah, Anywhere, anytime.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker C: Like, Aaron Neville has got that guy. He sucks.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker A: I mean, probably.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker C: I understand that voice. Yeah, everyone loves that voice, boys.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker A: That's.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker B: It's so silky. That's not to like about. I don't know. No accounting for taste. That's what we always have to say.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker C: It's like, all right, well, you know.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker A: Not everybody has to like, New Yorkers think mayonnaise is too spicy. So.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker B: Well, we're kind of, you know, winding our way down on the podcast. So we should talk about your, your new venture, your latest venture, the Sound From Space. It's a full audio visual production facility there. You have a studio. It's. It seems like you're trying to marry the vintage analog hardware with the cutting edge digital technology. And, and you are. You're also doing as well as audio recordings, you have a podcast and a video aspect. So talk about that.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like it's, you know, diversification these days of, you know, kind of requires you to be good at a lot of things. We don't get the luxury of being specialists anymore. But if your effort is to facilitate people making great recordings Whether it's audio or video, I feel like you kind of have a duty to offer the full suite of tools. And nowadays, you know, I think New Orleans musicians have always, always been a meritocracy, and you always could rely on letting the music and letting your work speak for itself. And nowadays you have to represent yourself on the Internet one way or another, visually or, you know, whatever, social media. And so, so many folks now, when they want to come in to record, they want a video component that goes with it or at least some documentation of it visually.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker A: And, you know, during the pandemic, I. I helped a lot of musicians make the transition from live performance to live streaming.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker A: Because.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker C: And then porno. Yeah, well, that's all. It's all about the porno these days.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker B: It's all free, though. You can't make it, so you can't monetize any of this.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker A: Only fans is pretty lucrative.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, it is a big.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker B: It hasn't been for me, but I.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker A: Maybe not really reaching the right audience.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker B: I guess. I'm not.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker A: You need the naked old folks home.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker B: Okay, well, maybe I can come over for a consultation. You're right around the corner from my house.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker A: I got a guy.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker B: You're literally a block away from me.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, so that's, you know, the idea was that, you know, I knew I. I couldn't do something without a recording studio. I had all this gear piled up and, you know, this body of knowledge, and that's just. There's some things you are, and there's some things you do, and that's what I am. But, you know, like I said, the. The pandemic kind of helped me focus on video and learn about that modality. And it's just been a great thing to add and help, you know, I love making music videos. I wish MTV was still a thing because I would go all in on. On making music videos. You know, it's the most fun I'm having.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker B: Somebody would have to watch broadcast tv. You could put them in.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker A: Or cable at least. Yeah, sure, you'd have to pay for cable, but. So, you know, finding this place I've been wanting. I. I been seeing this building forever since I left the music shed. I had a minute to kind of regroup, get myself together and, you know, become a dad, start my family and kind of, you know, do that stuff. And I had built a studio in the back of my house, but. And when we got pregnant, kind of the writing was on the wall that eventually this was going to have to become a playroom. And so my little guy turned 4, and the wife was like, hey, it's time. It's time for a studio. And so I. I started looking for a building. I found this spot and it was perfect right when the street was torn up. So I was able to negotiate really good rent.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker B: Nice, nice. Yeah. Then they flower studio or something.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker A: Flower and then, like, lamp kind of weird stuff.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm glad it's a studio. It's a perfect building for it. It really is beautiful building.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker A: Jeff Traffinger helped me a lot with laying out the space and shout out to Jeff Traff. Jeff Traffinger and, you know, helped me translate English to English with the idea of what I wanted to build into how it could be built.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker A: So I owe him a lot. Tremendous guy.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker B: Oh, man, we all do. Well, you know, Chris, you're one of those guys I could talk to for the next four hours, but, man, he's looking at his watch, it's time to go.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker C: Yeah. This has been a great, great show for nerds and geeks.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker A: Okay, well, I had a question, though, about Manny. Are you. Are you named after the car dealership or is the car dealership named after you?
• 1:16:50
  Speaker C: No, none of that.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker A: No relation.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker B: I think you won that in a card game, right?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, something like won that name in a card game.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker B: All right, well, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a thrill. So I think this is the beginning of the rekindling of our relationship.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker A: Indeed.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker B: And as always on the Troubleman podcast, we like to say trouble never ends.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker C: But it could struggle continues. Good night.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker B: Good night.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker C: Life.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker D: Is indeed death.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker A: Experience.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker D: Hell is right here on this great bigger earth. It can be a little too taste of heaven. If we only knew our words. All we got to do is want it bad enough to push ourself through. We always underestimate ourselves. We do it every day. We gonna always do better in each and every way. If we don't believe in ourselves, Nobody's gonna do it. If we don't push ourselves, we'll never make it through it. All you gotta do is want it bad enough. All you got to do is want it bad enough. All you got to do is want it bad enough. You might be surprised. Is a near death experience.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker C: He.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker D: Is right here. On his green.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker A: Be great.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker D: And it could be a little taste of heaven. If we only do our work. But all we gotta do is won't it bad enough to. You might be surprised.