Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Good Times & Big Fun with Guitarist/Music Journalist Tom Guerra [Episode 246]

Transcript

Good Times & Big Fun with Guitarist/Music Journalist Tom Guerra [Episode 246] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I know dialogue, How's I found the conversation? That's a geyser?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Interesting?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Interesting as provocative? Daddy Man back Man.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Rock and Roll. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: For those about to read and rock. Find the podcast
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: online at Booked on rock dot com. Every episode in
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: audio and video video, highlights from episodes blogs. The latest
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: rockbook releases back with another chapter in the dialogue series.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: A chill and chat with authors, fellow podcasters, musicians and more.
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  Speaker 2: Our guest is guitarist and music journalist Tom Gara. Since
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  Speaker 2: the late seventies, Tom has been a popular guitarist on
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  Speaker 2: the New England club circuit, playing with a host of
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  Speaker 2: leading blues, rock and roll in R and B acts.
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  Speaker 2: Over the years, He's recorded played with artists like Rick Darringer,
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  Speaker 2: Max Weinberg, the Eastern Brothers with Muddy Waters, bassist Charles Kelmice,
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  Speaker 2: Jamo from the Alman brother Band, Kenny Aronson, and Moore.
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  Speaker 2: He's been a writer for Vintage Guitar Magazine since nineteen
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  Speaker 2: ninety eight. His work has also been published in Premire Guitar,
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  Speaker 2: The Tone Quest Report, and Modern Guitars Magazine. He's got
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  Speaker 2: some great stories about working with these amazing musicians. He's
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  Speaker 2: worked with guitar magazines his music, including his recent single
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  Speaker 2: good Time's Big Fun and his upcoming collaboration with legendary
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live vocalist Christine Olman. A playlist of Tom
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  Speaker 2: Garret's music, including his latest single, good Times Big Fun,
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  Speaker 2: can be found on the show notes page. Our guest
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: is musician an rock journalist Tom Gara. He's been a
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: popular guitarist on the New England club circuit since the seventies,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: playing with a host of leading blues, rock and roll
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: in R and B acts, First Game Notoriety after being
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  Speaker 2: featured in Guitar Player magazine in nineteen ninety one. He's
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  Speaker 2: recorded or played with Rick Darringer, the Dirty Bones blues Band,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Max Weinberg, Mark Nomad, Sticky Fingers, the Eastern Brothers with
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Muddy Waters bassist Charles Calmees, the Great Jamo from the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Alman Brothers Band, Second Son Guitar Shorty add Off, Jacobs
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  Speaker 2: of The Coasters, Kenny Aronson and the Delrays. He's also
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  Speaker 2: been writing for Vintage Guitar magazine since nineteen ninety eight.
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  Speaker 2: His work has been published in Premier Guitar, The Tone
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  Speaker 2: Quest Report and Modern Guitars magazines. Tom that I cover
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  Speaker 2: it all down here.
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  Speaker 1: I think, so, Yes, there's a lot there.
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  Speaker 2: Hi yao, man, thanks for being here. You've been around,
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  Speaker 2: You've been around. How you doing.
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing great. How are you?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? I'm doing good. Great to have you on the show.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm so interested, Oh my pleasure, and I'm so
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  Speaker 2: interested in hearing about these amazing musicians you've worked with
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  Speaker 2: Andrew work with Vintage Guitars. But let's start with your background.
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  Speaker 2: You're originally from New England.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, originally from the Hartford area. I went to high
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  Speaker 1: school in Hartford. I went to college in Eastern Connecticut.
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  Speaker 1: Always have been playing music professionally since I was fifteen
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  Speaker 1: years old, so a couple of years now. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you just always have loved music, loved writing music, write
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  Speaker 1: a lot of music, and also write about music. I
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  Speaker 1: love interviewing guitar players or musicians. I really admire It's easy.
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  Speaker 1: It's easy work when you know the questions to ask
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  Speaker 1: because you know what they've gone through or what they've produced.
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  Speaker 1: And also work a lot in the vintage guitar area
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  Speaker 1: as well. Right for Vintage Guitar Magazine, for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, and also do a lot of guitar
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  Speaker 1: work and just love everything guitar.
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  Speaker 2: For those watching you benefit you get to see some
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  Speaker 2: sweet guitars that are behind and behind Tom tell us
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  Speaker 2: about those what do you got back there?
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  Speaker 1: Got a bunch of a lot of what you're seeing
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  Speaker 1: now are old stratok Asters, including that white one behind me,
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  Speaker 1: which was Howland Wolf's not that white one, really, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that one that was Holland Wolf's guitar. It's a pretty
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  Speaker 1: famous guitar. Has spent about five years in the Rock
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  Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame. Was out in the Fender
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  Speaker 1: Museum earlier this year in Fullerton, California, where it was
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  Speaker 1: built in nineteen six's been in the Phoenix Museum of
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  Speaker 1: Musical Instruments. And it's a great guitar.
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  Speaker 2: And how did you get your hands on it?
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  Speaker 1: About twenty five years. I bought it just as a
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  Speaker 1: sixty three stratigaster from a guy from Chicago, and then
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  Speaker 1: I was looking at the pit guard one day and
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  Speaker 1: it has the words Lil Bill sort of etched into
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  Speaker 1: the pit guard like if you maybe put it on
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: with like nail polish, and it burned in and then
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  Speaker 1: somebody removed it. Then I started investigating who's Lil Bill.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Come to find out, Little Bill is lil Bill Wallace,
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  Speaker 1: who is one of the really important musicians around the
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  Speaker 1: Mississippi area that BB King grew up and he convinced
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  Speaker 1: BB King to play blues because Biebe was thinking of
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  Speaker 1: playing gospel. And I found I tracked the guy down.
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  Speaker 1: He was in a nursing home at the time, this
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  Speaker 1: is probably two thousand and four. Maybe sent him pictures
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  Speaker 1: of guitar goes that was my guitar. Oh yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: had that for a number of years. I loved playing it.
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  Speaker 1: And I got that from Wolf. I said, Wolf, who
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  Speaker 1: he's like Howland Wolf Chester Burnett was a good friend
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  Speaker 1: of mine. He'd stay at my house all the time.
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  Speaker 1: And I got that guitar from him in about nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty five. So I'm thinking, hmm, is this true or not?
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  Speaker 1: So there is right where near where Lil Bill lives
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  Speaker 1: is a Holland Wolf museum. I contacted them and I said,
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  Speaker 1: did Helen Wolf ever play a white Fender Stratocasterroom like,
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  Speaker 1: oh yeah, we'll send you pictures, And they sent me
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  Speaker 1: pictures all right, And I opened up the envelope held
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  Speaker 1: up the picture to the guitar, and the same nick
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  Speaker 1: in the lower bout of the guitar was on this
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  Speaker 1: picture when with Wolf playing it in nineteen sixty four.
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  Speaker 1: And I got like a chill when that happened.
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  Speaker 2: So what is it just go to? Person? How does
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  Speaker 2: it wind up? It?
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  Speaker 1: Just well, we tracked it down. It went from Wolf
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  Speaker 1: to little Bill Wallace. Little Bill Wallace had it until
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  Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy. At that point in time, Little Bill
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  Speaker 1: Wallace was out of music. He was driving a beer truck.
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  Speaker 1: We think he sold it at a pawn shop and
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  Speaker 1: Chicoto and then it went eventually to the guy that
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  Speaker 1: I got it from. And I've had it for twenty
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  Speaker 1: five years now, so vintage guitar. A couple of magazines
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  Speaker 1: have documented this too, and it's really gotten around so
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  Speaker 1: and it still plays great. I was just playing it
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  Speaker 1: yesterday too.
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  Speaker 2: Your website mentions Rory Gallagher, Paul Kassof, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards,
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  Speaker 2: Ronnie Wood, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and Joel Walsh as
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  Speaker 2: being big influences. Is there a common style or theme
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  Speaker 2: of those guys because they all play with feel? Well,
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  Speaker 2: I have a distinct personality to each of their playing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that is the commonality is they're unique
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  Speaker 1: and they all play with feel. None of them are
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: really shredders, and I do like some Shredders too. I
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: was the first kid on my block that bought Van
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Halen one the week it came out because I heard
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: that sledgehammer. Yeah I saw that. Yeah, But I like
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  Speaker 1: all things guitar, but in terms of the stuff I
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: write and play, those are the main that influenced me,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and for all different reasons. Soe Page was incredible in
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: his compositions. Rory was just probably my favorite live guitar player.
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  Speaker 1: I mean he was just on fire, coss off very
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  Speaker 1: much kind of like the original slow hand, very slow
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  Speaker 1: and stinging with that vibrato. So I really love that.
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  Speaker 1: And Clapton kind of started it all for a lot
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  Speaker 1: of those guys and really have admired him to.
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  Speaker 2: Paul Kossoff is think is the most interesting of those names,
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  Speaker 2: because there are some people that may not even know
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  Speaker 2: who he is. But he was the guitarist of Free
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  Speaker 2: That's right. He got way too young.
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  Speaker 1: Way too young. He actually, oddly enough died twice. His
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  Speaker 1: heart stopped. They got it started. He lived another year.
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  Speaker 1: He had a lot of substance abuse problems. He died.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't even make the twenty seven Club. He died
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  Speaker 1: at age twenty five. A lot of your viewers might say, well,
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  Speaker 1: what songs did he do? It's like, turn on the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: TV every night, all right now is on a drug commercial?
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  Speaker 1: I think, oddly enough, and that's Cossa his guitar and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: all right now, and that's that's just scratching the surface.
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  Speaker 1: He had so many great lines, and he was such
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  Speaker 1: an economical player where he do one note and it
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  Speaker 1: really would get to you, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, finally got around to really exploring Freeze music. Who's
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  Speaker 2: the first guy you worked with? And what was that
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  Speaker 2: experience like? Was it Rick Darringer? Like a big, big
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  Speaker 2: time first.
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  Speaker 1: Big name was probably you know, played played with Jmo
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  Speaker 1: in the nineties, a bunch of gigs, played a little
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  Speaker 1: bit opening for Ronnie Earl. Got to really know Ronnie
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  Speaker 1: and really respect his playing. Then, when we were doing
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  Speaker 1: the first Mambo Suns album, I was on w CCC
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  Speaker 1: radio promoting a CD I was doing with a band
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  Speaker 1: I was with at the time called Delrays, and I
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  Speaker 1: got a call on the radios and a guy said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: I really like the guitar on that song, and I said, oh,
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  Speaker 1: thanks a lot. This was like, you know, when a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: song was playing in between being on the air, I said,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: do you play guitar? He goes, yeah, this is Rick
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Darringer And I said, Rick, how why are you? I said,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I've I've always loved your stuff, and you know, I
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: was just starting to write for Vintage at the time.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I said I would love to maybe interview you. He's like, well,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: maybe we can work together at some point. So about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: six months later, I was starting the first Mambo Sons
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: record and or CD. I called him. I said, hey,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I'm doing this, you want to you want to maybe
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: help produce it and contribute some guitar, and he's like sure.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So he came by and we tracked him and he
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: played some great guitar on that first album. And it's
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: weird because Kenny Aronson also played on that, and Kenny
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was Rick's longtime bass player. Kenny is still playing with
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: me today as well, so we've got a real long history.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: But but Rick was sort of the big name, first
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: big name guy I played with, you know, and worked
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: with in a studio capacity.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: You know, you worked with Ric Darrendres. You mentioned what
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: was it like working with Rick? What did you do
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: with Rick?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: A couple projects he played on. I think he played
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: on three or four songs off that first So's album
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and then helped. Really was I learned so much about
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: working in the studio from him, because that guy has
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: produced everybody, and I mean his Weird Now We even
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: produced Weird Now. Yeah, absolutely, But I mean you listen
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: to the stuff he did with Johnny Winter. I think
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: that's probably some of his best production because he captured
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Johnny and Johnny was a friend of mine as well,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And I actually did the liner notes for a couple
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of his albums. He asked me to do that. And
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Johnny was a great guitar player too, and I think
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: he thought very highly of Rick as well. So, but
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that right after that, Rick moved down to Florida. We's
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: kept in touch, I you know, spent time with him
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: down there as well. He's an amazing guitar player. I
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: mean people kind of put him in a box so
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: he was with the McCoy's or whatever, and but that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: guy could literally play anything. He could hang with Les Paul,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you know, he played a bunch of times with Les
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Paul and was doing all those jazz runs and stuff.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: He was a great help for me and really gave
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: me a boost.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just think trivia with him too. Is the Hulk
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Hogan theme song?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I am a real American Rightah. That song
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: got a lot of play after nine to eleven. I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: remember too, when there was a lot of pro America
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: music going out there. I think he might have re released
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: it then and did pretty well with it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcast We'll be back after this, patience boys,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: All good things to those who wait. I'm a huge
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Springsteen fan. So I got to ask you about Max Weinberg.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what work have you done with Max? And
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: how did you meet?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: That was a cool story. When I was in college,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: we would play quite a bit around the college circuit
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with a band called the Dirty Bones Band, and Max
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Weinberg had just written a book called The Big Beat,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: all about his favorite drummers. This is in nineteen eighty six.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: As luck would have it, the first school he went
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to was the Eastern Connecticut, the school I went to,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and he asked the guy there, so you know, I
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: like to play with the band? Can you hook me
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: up with a band, he goes, so I can hook
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you up with a band. So we ended up playing
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: with him on that tour promoting his book. He was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: really great to work with, perfect gentlemen, really good drummer,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: solid drummer. But a couple of times it was funny
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: because we were playing I think it was. We did
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a bunch of covers like my generation stuff, his favorite drummer,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Keith Moon, Charlie Watts, So we played a lot of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: music that his influences drummed on. Initially, at one point
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I told him I thought he was rushing the beat
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: on something, and he looked at me like I just
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: played on the Born in the USA tour. You know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking sorry, But he was. But he was great,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I mean great to work with. And you know, another
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: person that helped us out quite a bit.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Eastern Connecticut is will Amantick, Connecticut.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you're familiar with the shehaboo In.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Very familiar with it. Yeah, for a bunch of those
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: guys as well too.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: For those who aren't familiar that aren't from Connecticut. This
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: is a pretty legendary club. It's not around more, but
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: it was the kind of club that had up and
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: coming bands play there, and some maybe on their way down,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: but they had Aerosmith, the Police, all these bands that
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: were on their way up and on the way up.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: And there's a story I always I always remember, and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I tell this anytime Aerosmith comes up in a conversation
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that the first time they ever played dream On was there,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: like in nineteen seventy.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, yes, Tyler mentions that in his biography.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: He does mention in there, okay, you got any good
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: shaboo in stories that you could share?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh geez, lots of uboo in stories. The musicians
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that hung out there.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: The cars, right, I think the cars played there a lot.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: The cars played there, The police played there, dire Strates
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: played there. Dire Straits did a live radio broadcast from there.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I believe I played with jacksni years later, who was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: with Dire Straits as well. The Sheboo All Stars was
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: sort of the lasting legacy, and I played with them
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a couple times. Lefty Foster Mark Easton was one of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: my great mentors, sadly passed away the first year of COVID.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: From COVID, Mark had a band out there called Avalanche
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that was one of the heaviest rock bands that ever
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: came out of the state, and they were really really
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: big for a couple of years, and then they split up.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And after they split up, Mark and I got together.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: This is when I was doing the Dirty bonesing, but
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I was also playing with Mark and Mark was a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: great influence. And that's where I met Charles Calnice as well,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: who was Muddy Waters bassist. Also played with like Turner
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and Chuck Berry and Johnny Winter, but his probably his
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: proudest moments were playing with Muddy Waters on the Heart
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Again album and Charles kind of took me under his wing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And sadly he's no longer with us anymore, but he was.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: He was a great influence of mine as well.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: What was the show? I'd never been in the Chebouine
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: and I think it closed.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The closed. I think there was a fire there. I
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: actually went to the last show there, which was May
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty two with a band called Max Creek,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: which was a big band, jam band still around. It
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: still around.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my older brother just saw them a few weeks ago.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I saw them about six months ago.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: They're still rocking and they were they were really I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: had a girlfriend at the time that was sort of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a dead head, so we'd always go see them. But anyway,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: we saw them the last show at the Shebou and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: then like I think the next week it burned down.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But inside there, it was like the whole thing was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: like raw wood and everything, and the tables were like
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: those cable schools, you know. I mean, the thing that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the place was pretty raw inside, but it just I mean,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been in there nights when you felt
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like the paint was going to melt off the walls
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: because it was just rocking ferociously. You had a big
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: PA system too.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's worthy of a book. I don't think a
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: book's ever been written about it, but it really is.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean Lefty's Lefty Foster and Bruce John's were
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: two of the owners. They're still around. They should write
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a book because the people who played there and and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: stayed there because you could stay above it. Freddie King,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you know, all these Bonnie Raid I mean, everybody who
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: was anybody at the time played there, you know, because
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: it was a good in between place from Boston and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You know, Charles Kalmi's any good muddy Water stories that
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: he shared with him.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: He just a couple of times. He just told me
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that Muddy was very very straightforward in his blues playing,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and Charles was from the South Side of Chicago. He
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was he had blues in his blood and he could
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: play anything. But sometimes he'd like to get into the
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: funk flapping with the bass, and apparently Muddy didn't like that,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you know. He told me a couple of times that
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that Muddy cut that out, you know.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: So how did you meet Jamo?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I met Jamo because I was playing in a blues
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: band at the time called the del Rays, and we
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: were playing a lot around the circuit, around the New
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: England Circuit, Theodorees and Springfield, you know, a bunch of places.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of clubs that closed were that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: we were playing at the time. And his wife had
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a band and they were a great band, and I
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: would sit in with them occasionally, and then a couple
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of times I sat on with them and Jamo gets
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: on the drums. And first time I met Jamo though,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: was we were opening for Ronnie Earl in Hartford. Actually,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: you know, this was when we had the Del Rays
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and I was playing a lot of slide guitar at
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the time, and I was really getting into it sounded great,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and I looked up and like three feet away from me,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it's Jamo going like this, and I'm thinking I knew
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: exactly who it was at the time. I'm like, oh
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: my god, this is the guy who was Dwayne almondge
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: band mate, you know, and he's I was a little nervous,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: but I kind of got through it, and then on
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the break we kind of formally introduced ourselves and he
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: ended up playing with the headliner that night, Ronnie Earl.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: He played a lot with Ronnie over the years, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Jamo was just a sweetheart of a guy. He's the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: only living Alming brother brother left.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: The only guy left in that Yeah, it is so it.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: This is one of my all time favorite bands, the
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Allman Brothers band, and he always he always just seemed
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: like the nicest guy. He's been living in Connecticut for
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: quite a while. Yes, Yeah, so, Kenny Aronson, He's this
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: is a guy who's worked with some legendary artists. Along
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: with Rick Deringer, He's worked with Bob Dylan, Billy Idol,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Joan jed In, the Blackharts, Fog Hat, Billy Squire, New
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: York Dolls, Holland Oates and Sammy Higar, Michael Shreve, Neil Sean,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Samuel's HSAS and it's a great album. It's like a
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: one off deal.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: One off album, and they were going to tour, Kenny
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: told me, but then it got some record company nonsense happening.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Right. Did you meet him through Rick Deringer?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Oddly enough, I didn't. I met him. I was doing
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: some studio work with a guy by the name of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Alan Saint John and Allen was the keyboard player. He's
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a guy who's played with everybody, but he's most famous
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: for playing keyboards with Billy Squire.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the name sounds very familiar.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I know, I must have seen Allen's played with a
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: lot of people that played with John ent Whistle. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that was probably the second biggest gig. But anyway, he
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: was doing some work for me on the what became
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the first Mambo Sons record, that same thing Rick was on.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I had put bass down on these tracks that I
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: had played myself, and I'm like, you know, I'd love
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to get a real bass player on this thing. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: he's like, call Kenny Aaronson up. I'm like, Okay, so
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I called Kenny up and talked to him quite a
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: bit and we kind of you know, he didn't know
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: who I was, but he was cool and he was like,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I love to hear the music. I sent
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: him the tracks down. He really liked the music and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: he came up played on I think all but one
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: track on that album, and we kept in touch. So
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that was the first Mambo Sons. We did three more
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: albums after that, the last one was a double album,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and then in twenty fourteen, I really just had the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: itch to release more music. You know, I was not
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the lead singer in the Mambo Sons. We had a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: great lead singer. But I'm like, you know what, I'm
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: writing music, I'm gonna sing it and put it out there.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So I called Kenny. He's like, yeah, I'd love to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: hear it. And that was in twenty fourteen, and we did.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: We did five solo my solo albums together where he
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: played on everything. And now for the past year I've
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: been doing past year and a half, i've been doing
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: singles because that's kind of what everybody does now, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: he's played on all the singles and he's played a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: lot of different instruments just besides bass, he played upright bass,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: He's played horns, some keyboard stuff. He's a great lap
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: steel guitar player, and he's a great guy. I love him.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I love that guy. He and I also he's played
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: for the past dozen years with the Yardbirds and they're
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: still plugging around. You know. In twenty sixteen, they were
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: going they were going to record a new album of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: original music. They had done the album Birdland about ten
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: years before that with Steve Vai a lot of like
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: havy guitar players, but they wanted to do their own
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: original album and Kenny was very active in the band,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: very adamant about, Yeah, I've got you know, I got
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a guy I want to bring in to help write.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So he brought me in and we wrote about five songs.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And I mean, this is one of those deals where
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I could taste that Jack Douglass was going to be
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the producer on this thing, and they were meeting, they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: were meeting, and then all of a sudden, they pulled
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the plug on the album. So I'm like, oh, it
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: was really disappointing, and we were all disappointed. So anyway,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I had four or five songs that we had written,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, these at least three of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: these are going on my next album. And I released
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the album American Garden in twenty eighteen. It's got three
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: of those songs that Kenny and I wrote for the Yardbirds,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and I liked that album a lot a lot of people.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: A guy just emailed me the other day said, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I got all your albums, but I like that one
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the best. So it's probably the most most like guitar
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: bassed rock and roll based. You know, they all they're
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: all guitar based, you know.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to talk about your latest single and
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: your latest music and yep, what you got coming up.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So but that speaks to the music business. There's a
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: lot of almost and that's what you gotta be ready
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: for the ups and downs. Yeah, And I'm finding a
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: lot of these musicians just from doing these interviews. If
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: you could play multiple instruments, if you could do more
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: than just one thing, it's certainly going to help you
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: a lot, because you get a lot more gigs that way.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And especially if you're a bass player that's a
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: great singer, you know, huge demand for that, or anybody
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a guitar player, drummer, that's a great singer. You know,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that's a big thing too.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Bo Podcast. We'll be back after this.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Don't go away, gentlemen, we may need all of you.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Our guest is Tom Gara. So let's get into your
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: writing career. Your articles have been published since the late nineties.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Talk about how you began a career in writing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. We were just talking about that Ronnie,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: your old gig. With that, I met Jamo and i'd
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: done some other opening slots for Ronnie and I was
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: talking to I subscribed to Vintage Guitar magazine for a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: while at that point. I really loved the magazine, and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a guy who wrote for them.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: He's like, what are you doing these days? I said,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I'm playing this guy doing this blah blah blah. Opened
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it for Ronnie Early. He goes, Ronnie Earl, that's somebody
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: we've never had in the magazine. We'd love to get him.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I could do that, and then you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: here we are twenty something years later. But that's how
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: it started. I interviewed Ronnie and it was great because
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I had just worked with him. I watched his whole set.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I knew he was playing through a Leslie on some tunes.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: He was playing on it with a super reaver. He
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: had three different strats. He and I were talking about
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the years, so I mean I already had this thing
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in my head what I was going to ask him,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and it really really worked out well. That was when
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: he was releasing an album on I think it was
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: on Verve. It was a big label called The Color
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of Love Color CEO Lo you Are of Love. That's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: what he said. That's one of his favorite interviews of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: all time, and that actually made it into There's a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: book released last year on Ron Earl and there's a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: big section of that book that quotes that article. But
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: he was great to work with, and he's a very
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: caring person and a great guitar player too.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: So and writing for magazines that focus on the guitar,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: that's got to be fun for you because then you
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: could really get into some of the yeah, the inner
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: workings of it, like tone and set up and the ampsy.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Us and absolutely everything.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could. It's it's like, whatever you want to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: ask about guitars, go ahead, Whereas if you're writing for
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: a mainstream magazine you may not. You may have to
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: kind of pick and.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Choose exactly, because you know, I've sent a couple of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: these articles to my folks and they're like, well, this
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is good, but it's just way too technically. I'm like, yeah,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that's the purpose of the magazine, you know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: It's the audience. That's the audience, right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And in the early days of Vintage Guitar it was
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit more free form, where you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you could give them like two thousand words on Ronnie
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Earl or whatever, and it was great. And now it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it's just a little bit more like every publication is
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: just slim down a lot.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: You know. Guitar tone is, to me is fascinating, is
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: the I don't think there's any two guitars with the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: same guitar tone.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It's it's totally totally great.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, how does one go about getting
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: a guitar tone. There's various components. It's the it's the amp,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: it's the guitar using, it's a bunch of things.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: It's your fingers, it's it's your you know, you're picking,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: it's your your left hand, and how you fret When
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I work for a guitar tone, I usually am working
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: on a song and I'm like, this song we're going
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to talk about in a little bit, the new single
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that's coming up next month. I had a specific guitar
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: sound in this in my mind that I wanted to use,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and it was a muted guitar sound. It was an
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: arpeggiated part, but a muted guitar tone. So I took
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a piece of foam, actually I stuffed it under the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: bridge of that that strap right there. It was a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: crippy and it sounded that's exactly how I wanted it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of knowing what the song you're going
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking in the studio. Live is a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: different story, but in the studio, you know, you come
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: up with an idea for a song, and I mean
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: when you write a song, and that's that's the most
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: fun thing I do, you know musically is I just
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: love the creative aspect when you write a song. It's
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like you get one piece of a puzzle and it's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: up to you to build that puzzle out however you
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: want it. And a lot of that is I from
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: my experience, and what I do is guitar related, you know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: And I really try to take the time to make
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the guitar sound not necessarily different song to song, but
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: it does. It does end up being like that because
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I don't like to repeat myself tone wise, and use
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: whatever you got to do to get that tone. You know,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: different amps, different microphones. Sometimes you mike the amp closely,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes you mike the room. I do both and then
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I blend them together, depending on what part of the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: song is. You know, for a solo, sometimes I'd like
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: to have kind of a room mic to make it
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: sound really big, but sometimes for a tight rhythm part,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you want to use more of the close mic. Different
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: amps have different sounds. Different guitars have different sounds. Sometimes
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you use a pedal, sometimes you use a guitar, a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: chord and an amp. That's what I usually use.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: You know, are you your own producer, engineer? Do you
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: have outside people?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't master myself, but I typically will record
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: engineer and mix myself, and then I'll send it out
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to somebody I trust mastering wise, And at that point
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: it's good because at that point you're going nuts because
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you've heard this song three hundred times or whatever, right,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: and you need a second set of ears. I work
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: with a company out a Chicago called Massive Mastering, guy
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: by the name of John Scrip, who's great. He and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I work closely when he's mastering it, but he'll like
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: take it from me and then he'll do his thing
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and he'll send it back and I'm like, well, this
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: sounds great, but I think we need to maybe not
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: squash the drums as much or whatever whatever, and go
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: back and forth. So it is a little bit of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: an iterative process.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I was just reading an article on the Black Crows
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: or Chris and Rich Robinson being interview because they're up
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: for a Grammy this new album they put out, which
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I really like. Yeah, and it's there. They're up there
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: with the Stones, Hackney Diamonds, and I think Jack White's
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: albums nominated as well. Anyway, in the story in the article,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: they talked about the album and this album particularly, they
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: decided to get an outside producer because I believe they
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: would produce their own work. That's interesting to me because
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: they purposely wanted somebody from the outside, and they weren't
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: afraid to have somebody who's gonna tell them Now, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: don't like that. I like that. I don't like that.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Let's cut that out let's, you know.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And that's the toughest thing when you're doing it yourself,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: is to.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: When you get around for a while too, right, if
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: you're a musician's moraleful. A lot of times musicians say,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I don't need a producer anymore.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Right, And it's that self editing. And I try to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: be as critical as possible. Like a lot of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: songs that I initially record will be four and a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: half minutes long, and I'll listen, I'm like, it doesn't
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: need that extra chorus here. And nowadays, I mean, I
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: did a lot of work in studios when it was
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: tape and I got to actually use a razor blade
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and learn how to edit that way. But when the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: digital revolution started in the late nineteen nineties, the editing capabilities,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that's what I like about recording on digital the most,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you know, it's none of the none of the I mean,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you can go nuts with digital with stuff like auto
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: tune and just phony stuff, you know, but and I
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: like to keep my music real. But it does have
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a great editing capability, and it takes you just so
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: much less time to have.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: It about to say, ease of use. David Gilmour was
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: on Jimmy Fallon. I think it was Fallin. And here's
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: a guy who's old school. You would think, I don't
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: need the new technology. You really need to gold school,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: and he's like, I love this stuff because it makes
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: my Can you imagine if they did Dark Side of
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the Moon now wou they would have been done with
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that thing a hell of a lot quicker. I know
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that was all old school cutting, splicing, getting real sound effects,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I had in the early days of digital I had
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: a system that a year or so after I bought it,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the company mothballed it. But I used it until last year,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: like twenty years post mothballing, because it had just the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: greatest sounding drivers in there. And I loved working in
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: this And people are like, that's what, what do you
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: got on your guitar? It sounds great there. I'm like,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it's just I had mentioned. But anyway, it got to
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: the point where I mean I was warning on like
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Windows XP and that was an upgraded version from the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: initial version, and they stopped updating it, and I just said,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I got to get into the twenty first century here,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: so bummer.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, yeah, as I can relate in a sense,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: and as a podcaster, I actually enjoy the editing process
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: as long as I'm using software I love. And in radio,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: when I was producing commercials, I was introduced to Sony Vegas. Yeah,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and this is you know, endless tracks and just the
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: ease of use. You could move everything around the audio, this,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: that the other. And I've tried other systems and they
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: would drive me insane. It was like, it's buffering too long.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: When you have something that works, you just stick with
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: it absolutely unless this unless the software updates tell you
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you can't anymore.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: But right, And I think it's because there's only so
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: much time you can spend on this stuff, and you
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: want to be spending it creating versus program you know.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: That's my personal take on it. But I mean, I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people are a lot more technical
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: with it than me. But I know how to use it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I know how to use it to satisfy what I'm
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: trying to do, and that's cool. And you know, like
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: when I'm working with Kenny or something, he's got his
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: own system as well, so he'll model some stuff there
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and then we'll bring it in here and it works
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: out well, you know.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: You have interviews on your website, so people can check
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: that out. It's on tom Garat dot com. Last name
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: is spelled g u e r r A, so t
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: o m g u e r r a dot com.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: You have a recent one. I think it's recent with
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Elied Easton of the Cars.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did that in twenty twenty four. Extremely, Oh
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: my god, one of my favorite guitar players because he's brilliant,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: because his guitar solos are sort of like songs within
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a song. Yeah, of course he had a great song.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Rick Okazik was a great writer to begin with. Ben
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Orr was a great singer, so you know that brought
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: his game up. But Elliott just came up with so
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: many cool parts. He's always been an idol of mine.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Now, I want to ask you about that. What's more
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: difficult a solo or a riff?
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: To me, it depends. Sometimes I'll start a song off
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: with a riff that I came up with. I did
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a song last year called Mutilated World, and that's that's
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: exactly how that. I was playing that riff for like days.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Set repetitive, slow riff, almost like a free type of riff.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: You know. Then I overdubbed the guitar solo on there
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and made the guitar solo sound it was again using
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the room. It sounds really really big and kind of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: lots of reverb on there too, So it really it depends.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Every song is a little different sometime. I mean, I
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: never will write a song based upon a guitar solo.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: To me, I love guitar solos. I have them in
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: most of my songs, although the new one's not gonna
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: have a guitar solo on it. But guitar solos to
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: me are like frosting on the cake. You know, it's
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: really sweet. I like it, but you need that cake
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and the song is the cake, you know.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Sure. I think of David Gilmour and the comfortably numb
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: guitar solos. We talk about how amazing that is and
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: just you just think how hard that must be and
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: did he do it in one take? Did he have
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: it in his head beforehand? Did it? Just Just let's,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: you know, start recording and I'll see what I come
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: up with you Because is there a certain type of
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: day that's better to do that? Because your feet you
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: have to really feel something coming through you when you're
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: doing those solos, So if they stand out, it's like
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: you're the spotlight's on that solo for those absolutely thirty seconds,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: sixty seconds whenever.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting the time of day thing you
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: just brought up. I do ninety percent of my writing
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in like the hour that the first hour I'm awake,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: because I just have these thoughts and sometimes I don't
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: even think I'm awake when I have these ideas. So
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that's kind of where I come up with that. But
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, usually most of the guitar solos
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that I put down on my records or on my
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: songs are first or second take, you know, because usually
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: when I totally clear and I play something, sometimes it's
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: worked out in my brain a little bit, you know,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you may do it a second time. But
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: after that, I always find myself repeating what I did
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in that first or second take. So even though those
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: first or second takes might not be perfect, they are
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: definitely the best feeling for me. At least.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: You've interviewed ian hunter, Jim Wieter, Mike Campbell of Tom
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Petty's Heartbreakers. There's a photo or two of you with
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Mike the late Gray J Giles. You interviewed. If you
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: had to pick a highlight interview or two, do you
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: have any that stand out?
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of my early interviews with Johnny
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Winter I thought were high points because we got to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: be friends, so that was cool. Mike Campbell interviewed him
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: a couple time, spent some time with him, and he
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was a real, real sweet guy. He's like, oh, check
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: this out, it's my fifty two Telly.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: I'm like, uh, you know, my favorite that's Mojo. I
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: think of all of his Peter Green tone on that
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: album School.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when he had got just gotten a fifteen
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: nine less Paul and that's what he was playing on
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that quite a bit. But all of all of them
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: have been interesting in their own way. I mean, I
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: loved spending time with Jay Giles. He was a really
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: nice guy and really serious about being He was a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: jazz musician in his later years. Ian Hunter loved him
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: because I love his music, love his songwriting. Interviewed him
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: three or four times. John Hyatt, I mean I bumped
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: into John Hyatt and a Starbucks and next thing I said, Hey, John,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: how you doing. I'm Tom Gara right for vintage Guitar.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh, let's have a coffee. Ended up spending
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the afternoon with him, you know, he was he smoked
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: about three cigars and we're just sitting there. I'm like, okay,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: let's set a date. I'm going to interview you and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I this The date we had set was the next week,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: which was nine to eleven, and like, okay, we're not
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: going to do the interview today. So we did a
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks after that. But that was that was
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a cool story.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So another underrated artist.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Just great, yeah, songwriter.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: You know, bucket list, you have a bucket list, Like
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: who would you love to interview?
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I think I'd love to interview Keith Richards, you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: just because I've been a massive stone stand since I
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: was you know, pre teen years.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Live in Connecticut, so I know, I know, so.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Any any of the you know, surviving Beatles. Would have
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: loved to interview George Harrison because I really liked he
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: was it. He's sort of the prototype for Elliot Easton
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: in terms of playing what fits the song. You know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: would have loved to interview Jeff Beck was a huge
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Beck fan. Did a show on Trinity's college radio station
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: right after he died that was a tribute show to
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher. You know, these these guys are
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: kind of like my guitar heroes.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: But how about new guitars are newer? I mentioned Jack
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: where he's been run for a while, but guys you've
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: maybe been around from ten to twenty years that you.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Get out there, like everybody I see that's brand new
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: is great on the guitar. I mean, I think the
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: technical ability of guitar players. I mean when I was
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: coming up, it was like the bar was Hendrix. Okay,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: you could maybe get to that level if you really
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: really worked hard, I mean play that stuff, not necessarily
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: come up with it. Then Eddie van Halen came out
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and that was sort of the next big threshold of
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: guitar playing. And for many years people you know, doing
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: this stuff, Eddie van Halen stuff. Even Randy Rose, who
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: was a great player, I think felt like he hadn't
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: developed enough off of that Eddie van Halen style. You know,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: by the time he passed really young. Then you know,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Stevie Ray came in. He was like the next big
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: guitar player hero, and a lot of people started playing
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that style of blues. I mean, I'd played a lot
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: of blues before that didn't really play that style, but
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: everybody who came afterwards played that style of blues. But
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the technical ability, and I think a lot of it
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: has to do with YouTube. The facilities available to people
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: are just you know, you want to learn guitar, just
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: go on YouTube. You know. I've got a friend of
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: mine who wanted to learn guitar. He's a couple of
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: years younger than me. I said, go on YouTube. You know,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: get a decent guitar. Go on YouTube. You can learn anything.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: So I think the quality of musicianship and guitar playing
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: has increased over there. It's a technical aspect. That being said,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of always rooted in the stuff that I
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: grew up on. I do listen to all sorts of music,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: but that's sort of my favorite stuff, you know. I mean,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I saw a band last year, Guster, a post sort
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: of my generation band. But they were great. They were fantastic,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you know, and those guys are probably ten fifteen years
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: younger than me.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: So, Perry Clark Junior, you're a fan of.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: All great guitar players. I actually have a good Joe
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Bonamasa story when he was probably thirteen years old. His dad, Lenny,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: was a vintage guitar dealer, and we used to always
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: go to the in the I think it was the
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: East Village. There was an annual New York City guitar show,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and this was like in the late eighties. I was
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: down there and I was talking to Lenny Bonamasa. He
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: had his old beat up strat like Rory Gallagher's. I said,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: what do you want for it? He told me, and
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, we're like three hundred dollars apart. He wasn't moving.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I wasn't moving, but I wish I had bought that strat.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: But he's like, here, Joe, Joey, Joey, here, give it
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: to the man, you know. And that's where I met
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Joe Bonamasa. He was probably he's probably fourteen years old
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: then and he was, you know what, he was great then.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So so he's a guy I really admire because the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: music industry has gotten harder and harder and harder, and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that guy, you know what, he's done it all on
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: his own. He has made it on his own. He's
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: got a great guitar, a ridiculous guitar collection. But I
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: admire that, you know, the fact that this guy has
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: done it on his.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Own done rock podcasts will be back after this.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with the Magic Tones for the Armador
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Rooms to our disco swing party after this short break.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Till then, don't you go change.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: In your career with your own bands? Does this go
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: back ninety nine? Was your first band, Mamo Sons?
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: No, No, that was That was not my first band.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: The first band was. The first band that really made
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: any noise was the Dirty Bones. I think we formed
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: in like eighty two. We play a lot of a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: lot of colleges around and it was really taught. We
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: were like fish out of water because at the time
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the big thing was MTV rock. You know, these bands,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: these skinny English guys with their little skinny ties, and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: we're like, you know, somebody saw us one time said,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: oh my god, this band looks like Jesus and his Disciples.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: We're all like shaggy people, you know. Yeah, and we
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: played quite a bit like really our own you know.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Some one reporter said this is a grime and gristle
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: rock and roll band. I'm like, I can live with that.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: That's that's exactly right. Our singer sounded like John k
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: of Steppenwolf, so it's just had that raw voice. So
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: that kind of took me into the nineties, and I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: played blues a couple of blues bands throughout the nineties
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and then had a chance to do my own thing
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and put together the Mambo Sons in ninety nine. That lasted.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: That's still kind of going on today. We still play occasionally,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: but in terms of recording career, that lasted about ten years.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Then have done my own original albums since twenty fourteen
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: every two years, and then I started doing singles last
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: year and did I think I've done five or six
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: singles over the last year. Getting ready to release the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: next one.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, Good Times Big Fun, which is a great song.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I love it. Tell us about this song. Who's on
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: the track? Oh yeah, people can hear it.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Good Times Big Fun was the one we released in
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: September and it's me, Kenny Aronson and Mike Kozak, who's
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the drummer. You can stream it all of the streaming platforms.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Have my music app Spotify. You can listen on my website.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: You could buy CDs off my website of my albums
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: that I released physically up until twenty twenty two. I
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: think it was, but yeah, all of the singles are
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: available on all the streaming platforms. Good Time, Big Fun
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: is about a father talking to his son. He feels
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: like his son's gonna break up with his girlfriend and
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a pep talk the father has given
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: the son and then you know, with lots of guitar
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: and it's got kind of a false ending, and then
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: it goes into sort of this almost like this real
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: up tempo, punky thing with some with some wild guitar
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: playing on it, and it's just the three of us
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: who did that one, Mike, Kenny and me.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And the tone I love, it's like a crunchy tone.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Is that any word?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a crunchy tone on both
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the rhythm guitars and then the lead guitar part at
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the end. A friend of mine is a great guitar
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: player himself, said, you know what, because I'm listening to
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the solo, it sounds like five of my favorite guitar players.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, who are they? You mentioned? Well, this
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: part sounds like Hendrix, this part sounds like Jimmy Page.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're right, Yeah, you got me.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: You know, so it just got and that just kind
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of again one of those situations where that was the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: whole thing was a first take and it's you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: it's not technically perfect, but it I think it kicks butt,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, is there a YouTube video? I know the songs
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: on YouTube.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's not a YouTube video of that, but there
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: there's I've got a whole bunch of different YouTube videos.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: A lot of them we produced during COVID because everybody
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was climbing the walls. And John Butcher, who was a
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: dear friend of mine who was played on a lot
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of my music. He's a fantastic guitar player. He's produced
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: a bunch of my videos as well. He played on
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: my single that came out in I think it was
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: June of this year. That's called Television Dreams, and it's
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: got a wild guitar part in there that John Butcher plays.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: He and I also did vocal duet on a song
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: called California's Got to My Girl. That's He sings beautifully
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: on that too.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All these are on your website and I also
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: put together a playlist for each episode, so if you're
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: on Spotify, I'll pull him and we'll put him in
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: the episode playlist. I love the picture for the single
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: for Good Times, Big Fun. Where was that taken?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: That was taken in the I think it was the Southwest.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I did not take that picture. I worked with a
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: graphic designer by the name of John Kellyo who's done
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: everything I think I've ever done since the second Mambo
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Suns record. He's just did the graphic for the upcoming
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: release that has the Saturday Night Live tie. He did
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a really nice job on that. It's really real pretty graphics,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Let's get to it now. Christine Oleman, the Beehive Queen,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: The Beehive Queen. Yeah, so you have a project with Christine.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: She has been a member of the Saturday Night Live
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Band since nineteen ninety one. Is she still working with
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the SNA band?
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: She absolutely is. Yeah. And I met her many years ago.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine was her guitar player, Eric Fletcher,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and we met back then, and I always loved her.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I mean I actually saw her in the I think
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: the late seventies. She was with a band called the
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Scratch Band, and she was the only female in the band,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and everybody was in love with her, you know, And
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: she just had such a beautiful, strong, kicking voice. They
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: did a cover of that old Dusty Springfield song I
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Only Want to Be with You. You should check that out.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: It's on YouTube. It's just it'll make your heart melt.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: So I always loved her voice. When I started doing
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: my singles, I kind of got in touch with her again.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: She's on the Sudden Signs of Grace video that I did.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I just remember that. That's a really good video. It's
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: got like a bunch of guest stars, you know, ranging
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: from guys from Dire Straits to the Georgia Satellites and anyway.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: So I'm writing, you know, these new tunes, and I
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: had sent her to tell Vision Dreams and she's like,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and I said, hey, can you find a part on this?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And she's like, this song is ready to go, you know,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: put it out like this. So I'm like, okay, well
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the next one. So the next one was good Times,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Big fun. I'm like, now that's a rocker. I want
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to kind of keep that. But then I started working
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: on the new song. I had written kind of a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: counterpart for a female. It's kind of a boy girl song.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: You know. That's the one where I use the muted
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: stratocaster and I sent it to her and she's like,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I love this. She's like, I definitely will do it.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: So she came up, We tracked her vocal, did like
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: three or four different versions of what she was going
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to do, and I said, this is what I think
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: we should do, and I played it for her. She goes, yeah,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: do that, you know. I'm like, this is I want
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to kind of put a little bit of shimmer on
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: your voice? Is it okay? You know? And she's like, no,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that sounds great, let's do that. So she's on the track.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: It's going to be called she Chee Chu Chi Chi Chu,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and it's about a guy kind of pining for his
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: girlfriend and after she throws them out and Christine comes
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: in on the second verse and sort of doesn't answer vocal.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: It's really it's a cool song. It's kind of kind
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: of like a text mes feel. Kenny and I worked
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: up some almost mariachi sounding trumpets on it, so no
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: guitar solo, but it's not really about that. It's sort
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of kind of like R and B text mex with
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: some soul in there. Christine's got a lot of soul,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: so yeah, that's it. It'll be out in the next
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, January release, Yeah, January seventh.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that single. And people can
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: subscribe if they go to your website. I believe all
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: the links to your Facebook, oh, your social media, Yeah
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: sites are there, so people can check that out.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Again.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Tomgarat dot com, t O M G U E R
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: r A dot com so people can.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Check that out.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Book on rock podcast. We'll be back after this. Out
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: your pants pockets old kids in the future where that
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: pants can signe out. I always ask guests who come
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: on for this series all the Dialogue series, books that
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: you've read, books that you want to read, books that
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: you wish were written, And man, you sent me a
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: less Yeah, this is quite a less. I love it.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I read every single night. Most of the reading that
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy our biographies or autobiographies, just because I
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: find people's lives fascinating. One of my favorite books of
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: all time is called Last Train of Memphis. It's about
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: the early Elvis days. Peter Garalmik wrote that fantastic book.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Loved Keith Richards's book Life. There's a great book that
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Moe Foster, who used to be the bass player for
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, including Jeff Beck wrote about the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: early days of British rock and roll called seventeen Watts. Yeah,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: great great book, and seventeen wats was like everybody used
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: this Watkins zamp that was seventeen watts. So that's kind
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: of how they named it, how Moe named it. My
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: friend Mary Lou Sullivan wrote a great book on Johnny
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Winter and that's definitely one of my favorite rock and
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: roll books as well, the Raisin Kine. Yeah, that's that's
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: a great one. And you know, I also liked the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Ike Turner book and that was called taking Back My Name.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: You know, Ike is maligned because you know he Tina
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: said he was not a nice guy, and I'm sure
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of that is true, but but Ike was
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: really important in the development of rock and roll and
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the crossing over a blues. He was an early Sun artist.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: He got Howland woolf on Son. He was really one
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: of the first guys that put together traveling bands. And
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Ike Turner was on the first rock and roll single,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: which is Rocket eighty eight. I mean that was his
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: band by the time it came out. They kind of
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: gave Jackie Brentston, who sang that the kudos and the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: name appeared on the title, But Ike was there, tell
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: me about.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Heavy Load the Free bio. I didn't even know there
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: was a bio on Free. It's on that company and Free.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's ninety percent free. Yeah. Todd Clayton wrote that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: David Clayton, I'm sorry, and Todd Smith I think is
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: his last name, wrote that book. And that's a really
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: good book. Kind of in a strange format. It's almost
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: like in a high school yearbook publishing format, so they
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: probably self published it and they got somebody like that
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to produce it. But it's a great book about how
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Free kind of came about their rise, their breakup for
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the first time they got back together, they broke up again,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and then coss Off kind of spun out of control sadly.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a really good book. I had reviewed
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: that right around the time it came out for Vintage
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and interviewed both Simon Kirk, the drummer and Rabbit Bundrick.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Rabbit for many years after he left Free went on
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: to play with The Who, but he joined Free for
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: their last album, Heartbreaker, and he was a really great musician,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: so he had a ground zero type insight of free
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: and the pros and the cons of what happened there.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Well, what's this when Astro weeks Van Morrison in Boston
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: is just specific to Boston.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great book that was written about Apparently
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: after Van and them broke up in like sixty seven,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I think sixty eight, he moved to Boston and he
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: was living in New York working for I think Bang Records,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and moved to Boston and actually got together with some
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: musicians up there. And I know the son of his
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: bass player, Thomas Kilbania, Tommy Kilbania is a drummer, but
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: his bass player, Thomas Kilbania, was part of that. It's
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: a really interesting look at what was going on in
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the Boston music scene then too. It's definitely worth checking out.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Now. Another one I want to ask you about here,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Never a dull moment rock and roll in the year
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. That year, it really is fascinating to
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: look back at that year. This is David Hepworth, right.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: That is a book I just got, And I got
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: three books that I'm reading right now. One is that,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: which is fascinating. The other one is the book by
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Alex van Halen that I really am starting, alike.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I've already read, well, I did the audio.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and I'm looking forward to that and it
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: reminds me of I've got a brother who's a year
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: and a half older, so I can kind of relate to,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: you know how Alex, who was the older brother and
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: his younger brother Eddie kind of got along and you know,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: fought as young kids, that type of thing.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: What do you think about Alex as a drummer underrated?
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I think he's totally underrated. I think he's a great drummer. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: he if you know what, if his brother wasn't Edward
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: van Halen, we'd be talking about Alex like John Bonham,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I always say this, it's the interplay between
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: him and ed during solos, which is the most interesting
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: aspect of Alex's drumming, his work on the symbols and
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: the way they were locked in all the time. Oh yes,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: it's something to something to behold. That's her as my
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: favorite band, so yeah, uh see what else we got here?
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: We're running through him a lot of a lot of
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: good so. Oh, Crosby still's a Nash and young bio. Yeah,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: dear mister, to see Island Records. Is it about Island record?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: It's about Island records. That's a great book. Yeah, it's
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: got all the island bands and there. Speaking about Island records,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I just did a song last week with Luther Grovener
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: who joined Matehopel and was renamed Ariel Bender, but he
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: was in He was in an early Island band called
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Spooky Tooth. He had asked me to play guitar on
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: one of his new songs, which is a cool kind
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: of slow blues song, and I got to play a
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: little bit of kind of sparse electric on that. So
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: that was a cool thing. That'll be out I think
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: in April.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: So oh cool. What's his one ballad? Hunting by Max Hunter?
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: What's this about?
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah? That was the book somebody gave me, and it
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: was about a guy who in the forties and fifties
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: would go around to really all of these impoverished areas
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: of the United States and try to track down original
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: folk songs. So it was it was quite interesting to
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: read that.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: How about Elvis Costello's bay thing that surprised you from
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: the book that you didn't know about him? In the book.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I think he's a brilliant songwriter and he really gets
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: into minutia, as does Pete Townshen on his biography. But
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it was an enjoyable book. I learned a lot about
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Elvis and how he kind of grew up in England
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: kind of in the shadow of the Beatles. You know.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: I guess everybody was in the shadow of the Beatles,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: but I didn't realize until I read it how huge
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: of an influence as a songwriter they were on him.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: But now going back and listening to some of his music,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: especially his second album, This Year's Model, you can hear
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: some of those changes, like that's a Beatles change.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Every time I hear a song that has multiple sounds
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: altogether that almost create one sound. I think of Phil Spector.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: You read the book The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: What a tragic story. Brilliant guy, but obviously had mental
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: health issues.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: And they were I think from his teenage years. You
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: know what you learned, You learned some of the stuff
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: he went through, So I think that was always with him,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: and I think it came out as he aged a
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: lot more, you know.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Tearing down the wall of sound. The Rise and Fall
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: of Phil Spector.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's it.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: That would be Mick Brown. Okay, yeah, he's a very
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: well known author. Let's see History of Aerosmith Tour Journal.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: That was a book that a guy who I helped
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: sell off his guitar collection sent me. He was a
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: big Aerosmiths fan and he lived in Boston during the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: early seventies when they were up there, you know, and
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: followed him around. I don't know if it's a fan
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: club book or whatever, but it is a book about
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the early days of Aerosmith and has every single date
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: they ever played up until the Rocks period, which was coincidentally,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: up until that point they were one of my favorite bands.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I thought Rocks was a masterpiece for them.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Same with Toys. That book has some great pictures in it.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: So then would be in that book.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: It probably would be Yeah, I think it is.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Actually yeah, No, here's one Laurel Canyon. The inside story
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: this is these are the books that you want to read?
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Is bad. I haven't picked that up yet, but I
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: want to read that because I'm fascinated with Laurel Canyon
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and the songwriters. Yeah, and I did a song earlier
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, I think it was January twenty
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: four called Sister Topanga and it's my tribute to all
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: of those female songwriters from Laurel Canyon. So I definitely
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: got to read that all right.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Now, we finished with what books on rock you'd like
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: to see written that haven't been yet? These are always fun.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I would love to see another book on the detailed
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: history of Island Records.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more detailed than the one that I did read,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: because I think that's fascinating. I did read the Chris
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Blackwell autobiography and that was fascinating, and that probably is
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: as close as you'll get. Although you know you think
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: of Island Records, I mean, those are some of my
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: all time favorite bands, whether it's Traffic, Mata Hoople, Free
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Spooky Tooth. You know, Steve Winwood came out of there
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: as a solo artist as well.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: It wasn't you two Island Records.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: They I think they were. I think they actually got
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: so big the Island Records sold to another label because
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the YouTube got so massive, you know.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe was Marlee Bob.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Marley, Oh yes, sure, yeah, yeah, just talked.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: To Peter Ames Carl in great book on ram and
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: that's the same thing with like IRS Records. They were
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: happy with the label because they let them do what
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: they want artistically, but they didn't have the really didn't
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: have the resources to help really bring them to a
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: wider audience, Like if you go to Europe. They couldn't
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: stock any albums out in Europe, so they didn't have
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: much of a following there. So eventually the band outgrows
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: these type.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Of exactly, and I think a lot of bands outgrew Island.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I mean I mott outgrew them certainly and went to
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Columbia and kind of got huge for a while.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: At least would love to see a book on the
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: changing world of live local music from nineteen sixty five
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: to nineteen eighty the main source of entertainment for young
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: people with live music. They started to change in the
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: eighties and now and is now much more sporadic.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: That's a big, big thing. And I mean, I talk
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: about a niche book, but I was thinking I would
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: really love especially now where a lot of the guys
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: who were in bands are really getting older active bands.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a friend of mine who's seventy five,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and he played in a lot of popular bands from
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the mid sixties to up until a couple of years ago.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: In those days, in those late sixties, early seventies days,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: that's what you did for entertainment as a kid. You
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: go to a club and you see this band, you'd
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: leave that club, go to see that band, leave that club,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: go to the third club and see another band. And
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: that was really the main form of entertainment. As a result,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: music really, I mean a lot of music flourished, you know,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: and some bands actually did well making it out of
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Connecticut as well.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: And that's where a lot of those great bands cut
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: their teeth and they really, yeah, get that sound down
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: before it's done to make.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: The first right. And everybody, even if they're a famous musician,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: had those sort of you know, kind of post garage
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: days when they were in their early club days. We
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: could tell some stories, I'm sure, I mean, we would
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: all have the same opinion of certain club owners.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Did you hear just today, just heard that Southside Johnny
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: was forced into immediate retirement, as they put it in
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: the headline.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I saw that, yeah, yeah.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: He played two songs at the last show and then
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: walked off stage and the rest of the band finished
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: the show, Yes, so hopefully. I don't know what's going
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: on with that, but it just speaks to you a
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: lot of these artists towards the end or.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: The same thing happened to Frank Marino last year, where
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden they put out a statement saying
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: he'll never play live again. So, and I know Robert
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Robin Trower has had some recent health issues, but I
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: think he's coming back to the States. Another great guitar player.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: So Tom Garrett dot com. And then you have Facebook,
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: do you have Twitter? Do you have x You got
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: all those covered?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: All that stuff really?
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: And YouTube?
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah as well? Okay, a lot of stuff on YouTube.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Tom Garrett, thanks man, This was great.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Eric, it's been great talking to you.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I really came up with some great questions too. I
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed it. Well, no, that was an adventure.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: I was quite assure you put onto the Well, let
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: me just close this conversation by saying you are one
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: unique individual.