Latest / Troubled Men Podcast / TMP309 CHARLIE HALLORAN BONES UP

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TMP309 CHARLIE HALLORAN BONES UP · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign listeners, welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times and future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome Manny.
• 0:34
  Speaker B: Hey. What is going on?
• 0:36
  Speaker A: Oh, not too much. See a lot of these kids, two lane kids, university kids, kind of celebrating maybe the tail end of the, their, their post semester celebrations. Are they.
• 0:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, they're gone.
• 0:49
  Speaker A: They're gone.
• 0:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 0:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 0:51
  Speaker B: Thank goodness.
• 0:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:53
  Speaker B: These fucking kids, man. They're just. I don't know. Don't give me that.
• 0:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we don't need to get started on all that. Right, right, right.
• 1:02
  Speaker B: They have a thing for commencement where they say wave goodbye. You know, they're the two Lane Greenway.
• 1:08
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 1:09
  Speaker B: That's their mascot. It's a wave. That's what I say. I go goodbye.
• 1:14
  Speaker A: You're happy to perform the wave goodbye. Right, right.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: You know, and then in a few months it all start all over.
• 1:21
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:22
  Speaker B: It's funny how the end of semester is. The end of the school year is getting as busy as the beginning of.
• 1:29
  Speaker A: The school year for you with the textbooks. Yeah.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: With everything going on with the commencements, the books and the parents. Parents are the worst. They're the worst. Are you a parent?
• 1:43
  Speaker C: I am not a parent.
• 1:44
  Speaker B: Yeah. Don't ever be a parent.
• 1:45
  Speaker C: That's the goal. I'm way ahead of you.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: Because I want things.
• 1:51
  Speaker A: It says pluses and minuses, but you know.
• 1:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, so that's. I'm very exhausted.
• 1:58
  Speaker A: Right, okay.
• 1:58
  Speaker B: Well.
• 1:59
  Speaker A: Well, we have some, some big news. We were talking about it last week, but now the, the news came in. Since then the, the new Pope has been selected.
• 2:07
  Speaker B: Oh yeah. I'll give him one year and then he's dead.
• 2:09
  Speaker A: One year. Yeah. Yeah. And a visit from J.D. vance.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Well, that or because he's an American.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker B: I think he's going to be assassinated within the year.
• 2:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. Some of those Illuminati insiders from Vatican.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: I don't know what that means, but, but I think an American will kill him. I think a Trump supporter will probably try to assass.
• 2:31
  Speaker A: Wow. Crazy.
• 2:31
  Speaker B: That's my prediction.
• 2:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 2:33
  Speaker B: I give it 12 to 18 months and he's a dead man.
• 2:37
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: Or maybe a Cubs fan will kill him.
• 2:39
  Speaker A: Right, right. He's a White Sox fan. Right.
• 2:41
  Speaker B: He's.
• 2:42
  Speaker A: He's an American from the south side of Chicago with Creole New Orleans roots. Grandparents were here in the turn of the, the 20th century. Living here in the seventh ward. Creoles and who wants to.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: Nobody listens to the Pope. It's like the Dalai Lama. Nobody listens to that guy either. You know, he's all about peace. The dolly mama. Nobody listens to. Nobody listens to Pope. They kiss his ring and they move on.
• 3:10
  Speaker C: A Blues Brothers inspired Pope, though, is this.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. And he's a trombone player as well, right?
• 3:16
  Speaker C: Is that real?
• 3:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, that's true.
• 3:19
  Speaker C: I've been seeing that photo. I didn't know if it was AI or.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: No, that's. No, that's true.
• 3:23
  Speaker C: He actually plays.
• 3:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:24
  Speaker C: Oh, man.
• 3:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker C: Okay. He's like Bones Malone.
• 3:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, he's got a finger something.
• 3:31
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's keeping it clean.
• 3:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker A: Keeping it. Keeping it on the up and up.
• 3:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:36
  Speaker A: What else is going on? Well, you know, the. The festival season is over, and I've had a contrast in my life. You know, I like to. I. I go from the highs to the lows. Just last weekend or sometime. Yeah, last weekend I was up in front of the. The adoring masses on stage at the jazz fest. Multiple stages. And this week. Yesterday, four people. Yeah, well, no, yesterday I. I was at a. A junkyard in New Orleans east and the dump in Kenner on the same day.
• 4:09
  Speaker C: What a day.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: I had business at both of those. And, you know, I had this thing. One of our. My cars someone ran into was a hit and run and the person ran off. And that car is an older car, and I wasn't carrying a collision or comprehensive on. I just had liability and uninsured motorists. So I was an uninsured. And since the guy split, it's like, oh, what am I going to do? You know? And I bring it into the body shop, and the guy's like, well, this is a $5,000 repair. I'm going, well, this isn't a $5,000 car. So what do you do? But then I had a, you know, kind of my. My poor person's history back in my. In my brain. I was like, oh, let me see if a junkyard has two doors pull apart, you know?
• 4:56
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 4:56
  Speaker A: And So I found two doors in the junkyard for $200 a piece. And then I went to my. My local mechanic and I said, could you put these on? He goes, yeah, I'll do it for $150. I was like, okay, not five grand. Not five grand.
• 5:10
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker A: So, yeah, went to the junkyard and then. Then had to clear out one of my properties and haul it all out to the. To the dump. So I'm keeping it. Keeping it real.
• 5:19
  Speaker B: Okay, whatever.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I lost you a long time ago, mainly talking to the guest here.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: You bought two doors. Why don't you just fucking get a new car, man?
• 5:30
  Speaker A: Well, because the car is. It's a car that was. Has been in my family. I know it's been well maintained, you know, for $500. I now have the car repaired, and, you know, I can't buy a car that's. That's of this quality.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Who drives this car?
• 5:44
  Speaker A: Different kids of mine, you know, at different times at some.
• 5:47
  Speaker B: These are kids that you know of.
• 5:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kids.
• 5:51
  Speaker B: I know you have a lot of.
• 5:52
  Speaker A: Kids in my house. No children that grew up in my house. Those the only ones I. I know of. But.
• 5:57
  Speaker C: And other than the doors, the car is fine.
• 5:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, the car is great. Yeah, car is solid. Anyway, that's. That was in my. My.
• 6:04
  Speaker B: And then you took the car to the dump.
• 6:06
  Speaker A: Well, no, that was a. A different. A different.
• 6:10
  Speaker B: You took your kids to the dump?
• 6:11
  Speaker A: Took my kids to the dump. One of my kids came to the.
• 6:14
  Speaker B: Dump because you're too cheap for Disney World health.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 6:18
  Speaker B: Took him to the dump. Look at this kid.
• 6:20
  Speaker A: Look. The junkyard was a big attraction, too. When I said I was going to the junkyard, he's like, can I go? I was like, sure, Yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker C: I can't bring you to Jazz Fest, But. But the dump is open.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: That's right. If my mom comes, we get to go in for free. Right, because she's got the Jefferson Parish driver's license, you know. Sneak. Sneak us through the door.
• 6:38
  Speaker C: Worth every vinny.
• 6:39
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Anyway, it's a little bit of excitement there in my. In my life today.
• 6:43
  Speaker B: How did you move these doors? You put them in your truck?
• 6:47
  Speaker A: Put them in the back of the truck. Yeah, yeah. They actually would have fit in the back of the. The crv. The Honda crv.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: That now wouldn't have been cool just to drive around with no doors.
• 6:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure. You know, you probably could get away with it in New Orleans as far as not getting pulled over by the police. But I'm not sure how safe it would be, really. It's a lot of wind, too. You know, I don't like that much breeze on me.
• 7:09
  Speaker C: It's getting to be the time of year where you need ac, too.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. But, you know, if it was like. If you were like a rural mailman, that might be a good Design.
• 7:18
  Speaker C: Did you see the car that hit you? Was it. Were you there?
• 7:21
  Speaker A: Wasn't. I wasn't involved in it. And I was. I mean, they saw the car that hit and the person was sitting there in the neutral ground. They're like. You see me, right? I mean, their eyes met.
• 7:30
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 7:30
  Speaker A: And then the person just came in anyway. Ran straight, straight into it.
• 7:33
  Speaker C: Oh, man.
• 7:34
  Speaker A: Anyways, people are goofy. Bad drivers. That's why you can't. You can't ride bikes in New Orleans. Motorcycles are. Are a dicey proposition. People will just run into, you know. Anyway, the Diddy trial has been underway. Manny, have you been following that at all? The testimony's been going on because I'm.
• 7:53
  Speaker B: Getting ready to be called.
• 7:54
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. As a witness.
• 7:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker A: Okay. You don't want to.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: I can't say anything right now about the Diddy pop, okay?
• 8:02
  Speaker A: You're under gag order. Yeah, okay.
• 8:05
  Speaker B: Order. So I. I'm. No, I don't know anything about it. All I know is he's gone gray.
• 8:11
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 8:12
  Speaker B: I don't know if that's for sympathy or not, or is that just the. The. The oil working on his head? I don't know.
• 8:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think maybe they. They don't.
• 8:21
  Speaker B: Maybe it's the cum shots. All the cum shots that went on his head turned white.
• 8:25
  Speaker A: Well, he's. He's. He's in Rikers Island. I don't know if they give you access to hair dye there.
• 8:30
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, I don't know, but. Well, it's curious. There was someone who testified today who said that she. She was part of many, many, many, many things over there, you know? But I'm not following it too much. Who cares?
• 8:47
  Speaker A: All right?
• 8:48
  Speaker B: You know, it's just like.
• 8:49
  Speaker A: You know, the thing that caught my. My ear today and the, the news reportage was the four day long freak offs. Like four days.
• 8:59
  Speaker C: Four days.
• 9:00
  Speaker A: Jesus, man. I mean, a day is a long time.
• 9:02
  Speaker C: Plenty.
• 9:03
  Speaker A: Two days is really pushing it.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: More than enough if you're in your 20s. Man. I remember days in my 20s, you know?
• 9:10
  Speaker A: It was four days.
• 9:11
  Speaker C: Four days. Come on.
• 9:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, man.
• 9:14
  Speaker C: My man.
• 9:16
  Speaker B: You know, smoking off Flocka or crack.
• 9:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:20
  Speaker B: You know, or some heroin, you know, you can last. There was what we call it. We used to call it the high heroin. Hard on. You could just. On heroin.
• 9:29
  Speaker A: But not without coming.
• 9:30
  Speaker B: Not for four days, 12 to 15 hours.
• 9:36
  Speaker C: Sounds awful.
• 9:36
  Speaker A: It's. Yeah, it does sound.
• 9:38
  Speaker B: Well, it pleases. It pleases everybody.
• 9:40
  Speaker A: I'm not sure about. Who. Who wants to get for 12 to 15 hours?
• 9:45
  Speaker B: Oh, you'd Be surprised.
• 9:46
  Speaker A: Okay, well, it's a different culture out there on the west coast back in the, back in the late 80s, early 90s.
• 9:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Speaker C: I'm a Midwestern boy.
• 9:54
  Speaker B: And then what happens is you last that long, the word gets around and there's more females coming by, you know, out of the blue, you know, Interesting. Doing the pop ins.
• 10:06
  Speaker A: For the dope.
• 10:06
  Speaker B: Ah, yeah. You know.
• 10:08
  Speaker A: Okay. All right.
• 10:09
  Speaker B: No, man, those were a great day. I could see it happening.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: Okay, all right. All right. I thought that was something there. Yeah, apparently not. All right, well, in other news, Pete Rose was, is being reinstated to baseball.
• 10:24
  Speaker C: Really? Is that true?
• 10:25
  Speaker A: That came out today, yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker B: Wow. They're going to reinstate him, but now they have to vote him.
• 10:29
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. But that's the first step is to make him eligible for, for voting.
• 10:33
  Speaker B: But he's dead.
• 10:34
  Speaker A: Well, sure, yeah, they, well, they waited till he died, you know, they just, they had to twist the knife, you know.
• 10:40
  Speaker C: But first ballot for sure. Right.
• 10:42
  Speaker A: Well, you would think that he would be. Yeah, yeah. You know, also they, they reinstated a shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the black socks. Did you see that?
• 10:50
  Speaker C: No. Come on. For the Pope.
• 10:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, maybe so. Maybe so.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: All right. It's all coming together.
• 10:57
  Speaker B: But I mean, you know, people don't understand it is that Pete Rose isn't in the hall of Fame, but all his records are, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker C: Oh, I didn't know him. Okay.
• 11:07
  Speaker B: Just the name Pete Rose. But like the guy who leads the league and career hits Pete Rose, all that stuff's in the hall of Fame.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah.
• 11:16
  Speaker B: But just he doesn't have his little. A bust a statuette.
• 11:21
  Speaker C: Right?
• 11:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's the only thing that's not in the, in the hall of Fame is that. But all his records and all, everything he did.
• 11:27
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 11:27
  Speaker B: They count are in the, are in the hall of Fame. So it's like, you know, not as.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: Bad as it could have been.
• 11:33
  Speaker B: But I put, I, I, I heard before he died he put a bet down.
• 11:37
  Speaker A: I bet he was going to get back in.
• 11:39
  Speaker B: He was going to get back, so I hope. He seemed like a good guy.
• 11:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker B: But I remember growing up as a Dodger fan, going to see in the 70s the Reds and Dodgers play each other. That was a huge rivalry.
• 11:52
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: And Pete Rose was a left fielder then before he moved to first base later in his career. And man, the Dodger fans and the bleachers, man, they would throw all sorts batteries, batteries, cigarettes and beer on them and he just stood there and took it.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker B: He stood there and took it pro. What a legend, you know, and. Yeah. What. You know, I guess he's a good guy. I don't. He's a great switch hitter, though.
• 12:21
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Practice that as his dad from an early age drilled him on. On switch hitting.
• 12:28
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 12:28
  Speaker B: So. But I'm sure. Does he have any family, any kids? That's what I don't know.
• 12:33
  Speaker A: I can't remember. You know Keith o' Brien, our former guest? I'm sure he's.
• 12:38
  Speaker B: He's.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: He wrote the book Charlie Hustle? Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's thrilled. I'm sure he's has a lot of thoughts on the subject.
• 12:45
  Speaker B: Now, Charlie Hustle was a guy who used to hang out at P. Diddy's place.
• 12:50
  Speaker C: He had four days in him.
• 12:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, he hustled all right.
• 12:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:54
  Speaker C: Leg it out, hustle here, hustle there.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: Legged it out. Three legged it out.
• 12:58
  Speaker C: Three legged.
• 12:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's a good guy, you know. Anyway, so that's about it. I don't know what else is on.
• 13:05
  Speaker A: Going.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: Going on.
• 13:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 13:07
  Speaker B: Well, unless you have more to talk about.
• 13:09
  Speaker A: Oh, no, just one other item that. That cross crossed the. My. My view was, you know, this guy, RFK Jr, right?
• 13:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Speaker A: Health and Human Services, Secretary, whatever. He's a nut, Right? He's a total nut. So something I didn't. Nutty. I didn't know about him is that he. He doesn't subscribe to germ theory.
• 13:29
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker A: Meaning. Meaning that, you know, diseases caused by microorganisms.
• 13:34
  Speaker C: Doesn't wash his hands and so.
• 13:35
  Speaker A: So recently he was. He was photographed or filmed swimming along with his kids in sewage. Tainted.
• 13:45
  Speaker C: Come on.
• 13:45
  Speaker A: Water.
• 13:46
  Speaker B: The Hudson River.
• 13:47
  Speaker A: I don't know where it was. Somewhere up there. But he was. He was saying, no, this is not a problem, man.
• 13:53
  Speaker C: That's no issue.
• 13:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. Germs don't cause disease.
• 13:57
  Speaker C: I'm not for it.
• 14:01
  Speaker A: I'm glad he has a high position of power in the health. In the health structure there.
• 14:05
  Speaker B: I can't believe that what's her name married him. From Kirby enthusiasts.
• 14:10
  Speaker C: Yeah. Cheryl.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: Cheryl, yeah. I can't believe she married him. She just.
• 14:14
  Speaker A: I don't know, you know, the heart wants what.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: I wonder if he believes in condoms though, huh?
• 14:19
  Speaker A: He may not believe in sperm theory, you know, but she's. Well, you know, Irma Thomas said she had four kids before somebody explained to her where babies came from. Yeah, she was a. She was a child, you know. You know, I just didn't talk about those things, I guess. But. But yeah, so who knows? With the.
• 14:43
  Speaker B: Now I understand about condoms. You know, the way they advertise them and stuff. You know, the whole thing about. It's got a reservoir.
• 14:51
  Speaker C: Right. The tip.
• 14:52
  Speaker B: What's with the reservoir? It's just a little bubble where your.
• 14:56
  Speaker C: Stuff goes, you know, summer vacation, you can go. Go down by the reservoir.
• 15:00
  Speaker B: Maybe P. Diddy, you know, maybe he had something to do with calling it the reservoir.
• 15:04
  Speaker C: The reservoir. The red.
• 15:08
  Speaker B: Back of the multi ribbed reservoir.
• 15:11
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Well, they're always trying to come up with some. Some language that will. Will be persuasive.
• 15:16
  Speaker B: You know, it's like, I'll never forget the time. This is years ago. I. I picked up, I was. I had this date and we went back to my place and we were about to do it and I pulled out this rubber, you know, and she goes, oh, these are good ones.
• 15:33
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: I was like, oh, that's good to know.
• 15:36
  Speaker A: She had a lot of experience, huh?
• 15:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. You had a lot of experience with the reservoirs?
• 15:40
  Speaker C: Sure, yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker A: She'd been comparing. Comparing, sampling. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
• 15:46
  Speaker B: Girl is Cheryl Heinz.
• 15:47
  Speaker A: Okay. There you go.
• 15:49
  Speaker C: I believe in germ theory.
• 15:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. But listen, I got something to talk about because I think you'll dig this.
• 15:54
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 15:55
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: What's your name again?
• 15:56
  Speaker C: I'm Charlie.
• 15:57
  Speaker B: Charlie.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: Charlie Howard.
• 15:58
  Speaker B: Charlie.
• 15:58
  Speaker A: Haven't introduced him yet, but letting the cat out of the.
• 16:01
  Speaker B: I heard this story.
• 16:02
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker B: At this old folks home. There was these three guys talking at this old folks home. And the first guy's like, man, I would do anything just to have a healthy number one. It's just drips and drips and drips. It's just horrible. It's a horrible thing. And the other old guy goes, oh, what are you talking about, man? I would do anything to have a healthy number two. You know, I haven't had one in weeks. And the third old man says, well, you know what? Every morning at 7:30 I got a number one that's like the Coulee Dam, man. It's just.
• 16:45
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker B: And then at 7:45, I got a number two. That's Mount St. Helens. And the other two guys go, what the are you complaining about? He goes, well, I don't get up till 9.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 16:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's a bad way to start the day.
• 17:01
  Speaker B: It not good.
• 17:02
  Speaker A: No good.
• 17:03
  Speaker B: Not good. You know, that's the way I'm feeling late.
• 17:05
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 17:06
  Speaker B: You know, I'm always looking for the healthy, but it never seems to happen.
• 17:10
  Speaker C: It's the germs. Germ theory is real.
• 17:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:13
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 17:14
  Speaker A: Well, maybe we should get to our guest here.
• 17:15
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 17:16
  Speaker A: It seems to be the way we, we, we close out the opening segment every time now. It's a lot of bathroom stuff, but okay. There we go, keeping it running. Oh, we have a fantastic guest tonight. I've been trying to get him on for a while. We're persistent if nothing else. He's a Grammy winning trouble.
• 17:35
  Speaker B: He's gonna cut out that joke, I know he will.
• 17:37
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 17:38
  Speaker A: No, I'm not.
• 17:39
  Speaker C: No, that was a joke.
• 17:43
  Speaker B: That was. You laughed.
• 17:44
  Speaker C: I thought you knew that guy.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Anyway.
• 17:47
  Speaker B: I thought you were that guy.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Okay, we're all that guy. Anyway, he's a Grammy winning trombone player. So singer, arranger, band leader of his own group, the tropicals. It's a 1960s style Caribbean lounge band. They play all over town. He also plays in many other groups such as Panorama Jazz Band, the Palmetto Bug Stompers, Tuba Skinny, Preservation Hall Band, Machia Lake and the Little Big Horns. On and on. John Cleary, Anders Osborne. He's also a member, was a member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers for several years going back in the 2000s. He's recorded with all kind of people. You two, Ricky Lee Jones, Maria Muldar, John Boutet. He's also a fixture on Frenchman Street. You can catch him there three or four nights a week. Anyway, we're going to get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Charlie Halloran. Welcome, Charlie.
• 18:42
  Speaker C: Hey, guys. Thank you for having me. Yes, yes.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: Did I mention the name of your band? The Tropicals.
• 18:47
  Speaker C: Tropicals, that's right. Yeah. I like it to be kind of. I'll take any, any pronunciation. There's not a right. I say Tropicals, okay, because my Spanish isn't very good.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: But people say Tropicalis.
• 18:59
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 19:00
  Speaker A: Something I don't.
• 19:01
  Speaker C: You know.
• 19:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, correct. Anyway, so, so yeah, you, you've. You've played a lot of traditional jazz gigs around New Orleans and all these different bands and now you have this terrific band. This plays a lot of. Thank you beguines and, and calypso music. And you guys are really coming into your own now. It feels like it's.
• 19:23
  Speaker C: I've been leaning into that since COVID Four years now. That's kind of my main push.
• 19:27
  Speaker A: It's paying off. It's paying off.
• 19:29
  Speaker C: I hope so. Thank you.
• 19:30
  Speaker A: The band's terrific. Let's get some background on you. You're not from New Orleans.
• 19:35
  Speaker C: I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: St. Louis, Missouri. Okay. That's a cool town, huh?
• 19:40
  Speaker C: It's a cool town. Good music town. There's not a lot of trombone, not a lot of need for trombone players.
• 19:45
  Speaker A: In St. Louis, unlike New Orleans. We've commented many times on. Well, we've had a lot of trombone players on the show.
• 19:52
  Speaker C: First of all, we're available.
• 19:54
  Speaker A: Well, you seemingly not. In fact, I think. Are you taking a night off tonight?
• 20:00
  Speaker C: I figured something out and it's worth it.
• 20:02
  Speaker A: God bless you, man. I appreciate that.
• 20:04
  Speaker C: Glad to be here.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: I like that. I like the commitment to the Troublemen podcast, Charles.
• 20:09
  Speaker C: That's right. Dedicated.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: Yes. But I've often commented on how in any other town. Well, you know, there's a joke about trombone player and the frog. I'm sure you know that joke.
• 20:20
  Speaker C: I don't know.
• 20:20
  Speaker A: Okay, well, you'll love this one. So the difference between a trombone player walking down the road and a frog walking down the road is the frog is on his way to a gig.
• 20:31
  Speaker C: Yeah. Come on.
• 20:32
  Speaker A: But now that's really funny if you know about frog gigging. You know that that's a word. It's hunting for frogs, digging for.
• 20:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'm in.
• 20:42
  Speaker A: Now my wife thought that joke was funny even without knowing about frog gigging.
• 20:46
  Speaker C: Just because trombone players.
• 20:48
  Speaker A: Frog was more likely to have a job. But that's not. That joke is not true in New Orleans.
• 20:54
  Speaker C: No, luckily.
• 20:55
  Speaker A: Because not only are there so many bands with trombone players, there are so many bands led by trombone players. I mean, there must be like 6 or 7 trombone player led bands in New Orleans.
• 21:08
  Speaker C: Definitely. No, without a doubt. Glenn, David Andrews, George Brown, Corey Henry, Bonorama.
• 21:13
  Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah, your name Monkey like.
• 21:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
• 21:15
  Speaker A: On and on and on.
• 21:16
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker A: So, you know, it is one of those towns that. Where the, the instrument is still very respected and you know, it flourishes.
• 21:24
  Speaker C: That was. I, you know, I was listening to New Orleans music as a kid. So it was, you know, from, from a pretty early age. It was. Move to New Orleans was the plan.
• 21:32
  Speaker A: Okay, well, let's go back. So. So you're in St. Louis and they do have a. Somewhat of a jazz tradition. Although it's maybe it's time has passed, you know.
• 21:40
  Speaker B: How old are you?
• 21:41
  Speaker C: I'm 41.
• 21:42
  Speaker B: All right, so you're just a kid.
• 21:43
  Speaker C: I'm just a kid.
• 21:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker A: But.
• 21:45
  Speaker B: So you like the hockey team in St. Louis? That's a good hockey.
• 21:49
  Speaker C: My uncle, my dad's sister's husband, Hal Dean was the owner of the Blues.
• 21:56
  Speaker B: Really?
• 21:56
  Speaker C: From in the late 70s, so before I was born. But in the late 70s were going to leave town. He was the CEO of Ralston Purina and he bought the team and said they can't. It can't be a New Orleans Jazz, Utah Jazz situation. This before that happened, I think. But the St. Louis Blues can't leave St. Louis, so my uncle bought that team in the 70s and owned it for a few years.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: And he's still in the pet side business.
• 22:20
  Speaker C: I mean, he's passed now, but. So I got to go to blues games as a kid.
• 22:24
  Speaker B: Excellent.
• 22:25
  Speaker C: Definitely.
• 22:25
  Speaker B: They were all right back then.
• 22:27
  Speaker C: I'm a baseball guy, too, so I never really cared about the blues, but cool that I got to go in the Brett Hole days.
• 22:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, that's excellent. Now, are you still in the pet food business, your family?
• 22:39
  Speaker C: I'm. I've moved over from the Ralston to. To wellness now. I get the expensive dog food now.
• 22:46
  Speaker B: Oh, I got you science.
• 22:48
  Speaker C: Yes, that's right.
• 22:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker C: Science.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: Well, that's cool, because hockey is a great sport live.
• 22:55
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 22:56
  Speaker B: It's not great on tv. At least back then it wasn't great, but now it's a little better.
• 23:01
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker B: You don't follow it.
• 23:02
  Speaker C: No. Baseball pretty much it.
• 23:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. And your Cardinals aren't doing so great.
• 23:06
  Speaker C: They haven't for years now, but. But my whole life until like three years ago, they were great. I'm spoiled.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. OK, well, good.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: So growing up there in St. Louis, you're playing in the school band, playing trombone?
• 23:20
  Speaker C: Not particularly. I started. I started in middle school or grade school. Fourth grade when you start. I went to a real small high school that didn't have a football team, didn't have a marching band. They got a band together when I was in high school, but it was, you know, 10 people, 11 people. It wasn't a jazz band or anything like that.
• 23:36
  Speaker A: Okay, but you were taking private lessons?
• 23:38
  Speaker C: Not even. I have older brothers who are musicians.
• 23:41
  Speaker A: Oh, no kidding.
• 23:41
  Speaker C: And so I was playing in bars with their band. My closest sibling is eight years older. So when I was 14, he was, you know, 22.
• 23:51
  Speaker B: Are you the youngest now?
• 23:52
  Speaker C: I'm the youngest of five.
• 23:53
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 23:53
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 23:54
  Speaker A: So they kind of raised you a little bit.
• 23:56
  Speaker C: Exactly. So it was, you know, from, you know, 10, 10, 11, 12 years old. It was my older brothers being. Listen to this. Listen to this. Check this out. Learn how to play this.
• 24:04
  Speaker A: What kind of bands were those?
• 24:05
  Speaker C: Mostly ska bands.
• 24:06
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 24:07
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: So were they horn players?
• 24:09
  Speaker C: Guitar player and a drummer.
• 24:11
  Speaker A: Okay, but you played trombone.
• 24:13
  Speaker C: And I played trombone.
• 24:13
  Speaker A: So my trombone fits in with Scott.
• 24:16
  Speaker C: Funny story. So my. My dad had bought a trombone or my brother, my closest sibling, had bought My dad a trombone.
• 24:25
  Speaker A: Your father plays music?
• 24:26
  Speaker C: No, but he was a huge Preservation hall fan. He loved the Preservation Hall Band. So he would tie on a few drinks and then play along with Preservation hall records. This was his thing. He liked Louis Armstrong and the Preservation Hall Band. So there was a trombone in the house. My parents bought my.
• 24:42
  Speaker B: Were there pets in the house?
• 24:43
  Speaker C: A dog.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 24:44
  Speaker C: We got three dog food. So my. So. So one brother played drums, one brother played guitar. When it was time for me to start playing music, they weren't going to buy a third instrument. So there was a trombone in the house. I mean, that was. It was that. That's all it was.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: So you said ska. So what were their influences?
• 25:03
  Speaker C: I. I mean, this is. Again, this is the mid-90s, so Scott was popular, but they particularly, And I'm thankful for this, they liked Desmond Decker, they liked the Scout, they liked the Rarely. They liked the early shit. And I. You know.
• 25:17
  Speaker B: But Scott. Scott was more popular back in the early 80s. I don't remember it being popular in the 90s.
• 25:21
  Speaker C: It had a huge thing in the 90s.
• 25:23
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 25:23
  Speaker C: That I didn't particularly love at the time. It's fine, you know, and it's not like I didn't have any of those records. But I. You know, I wasn't a Mighty Mighty Boss Tones fan or a Real Big Fish fan. Like, I was listening to Alton Ellis when I was 11, which is weird. I went and saw The Scatterlights in seventh grade, sixth grade, and it was the original with Tommy McCook and Roland Alfonso and.
• 25:47
  Speaker B: Well, I remember I saw the English beat.
• 25:50
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 25:50
  Speaker B: In 80.
• 25:51
  Speaker C: So my older sisters, I honestly don't know how much older than me they are, but they're, you know, they're graduating high school in the late 80s, early 90s, and so that was their first listening to the English Beat and the Specials and.
• 26:04
  Speaker B: Well, I saw the English speed in 1980.
• 26:07
  Speaker C: Awesome.
• 26:07
  Speaker B: And it was the craziest show because for some reason, the promoter decided to have this band that no one ever heard of open for them, called RM no way.
• 26:19
  Speaker C: Where is this?
• 26:21
  Speaker B: The. The country club out in Resita, California. It's a Valley club. And all these ma. And it was an unannounced show.
• 26:29
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: So the Modsters all heard about it. Everyone went there and tried to get in. It was packed. Everyone's waiting for English Beat.
• 26:37
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker B: And this band, R.E.M. comes out to open, and within, like, 12 songs, they're booed off the stage.
• 26:44
  Speaker C: No way.
• 26:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, of course, of course. Six months later, they explode yeah, right. You know, whatever. But anyway, that's my English speaker.
• 26:52
  Speaker C: I rode my screen scooter here, and I want to hear.
• 26:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, I wanted.
• 26:55
  Speaker C: Roger.
• 26:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. I want to get out of the way. Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker A: Well, so. So you're there playing from a young age. You wind up. It's very interesting now that you say that. It makes perfect sense. Who's been on the bandstand since they were.
• 27:10
  Speaker C: I'm 15. Like, I definitely remember being driven to a bar like this. Being driven because I couldn't drive yet to play. Okay, well, that must have been rock city reggae. Cool.
• 27:19
  Speaker A: When you're, like, going to high school the next day.
• 27:21
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: Now. Now, did that get you some status among your. Your peers, for sure.
• 27:27
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 27:28
  Speaker A: Girls look at you a different way.
• 27:30
  Speaker C: It didn't hurt, right? It didn't hurt, No. I mean, there's photos of me in my high school yearbook of me at the Snake and Jakes of St. Louis French Music Lounge. For sure. When I turned 21 there. Seven years later, they're like, what? You haven't been 20? Like, how old are you?
• 27:46
  Speaker A: Right.
• 27:46
  Speaker C: I've been playing it for eight years before I'm 21.
• 27:49
  Speaker B: Were you drinking, though, as a young.
• 27:51
  Speaker C: Not a lot. I'd have a Stag. I'd have a Schlitz, but I wasn't partying. I was in goody two shoes for the most part.
• 27:56
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 27:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. You needed to be. You don't. You don't need to.
• 27:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. Were you driven to school? I mean, you were driven to the gigs?
• 28:05
  Speaker C: I was driven to the gig. I mean, once I turned 16, I had a Volkswagen. I had a 73 Volkswagen Beetle. And then that got smashed. Truck ran a light and smashed it.
• 28:13
  Speaker B: And then did Renee repair it for you?
• 28:15
  Speaker C: We went to the dump in Kenner.
• 28:18
  Speaker A: Junkyard in New Orleans.
• 28:19
  Speaker C: Okay, same thing. I got a. I got a Vespa. I got a 68, 50cc Vespa after that.
• 28:28
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker C: So I was riding my scooter around, listening to the English.
• 28:31
  Speaker B: How hard is it to travel with a trombone on a scooter?
• 28:34
  Speaker C: You wear it on your back. No problem.
• 28:36
  Speaker B: Wear it on your back.
• 28:37
  Speaker C: Easy.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: Okay. All right.
• 28:41
  Speaker A: So what point do you start getting into, like, traditional jazz? Are you. Are you simultaneously?
• 28:46
  Speaker C: Pretty much simultaneously. Simultaneously, yeah. So, like. So my dad is saying, check out this record from Louis Armstrong plays W.C. handy. Or this Preservation hall record from the 70s. Or this Olympia brass band record. My parents went and saw the eureka band in St. Louis in the 60s on a date. So my dad was into New Orleans music. He Wasn't, you know, he didn't know the name of everybody on the records or anything. He wasn't a collector, but he was. That is the music he's listening to.
• 29:12
  Speaker B: Did he come down here at all?
• 29:14
  Speaker C: He came down here on his way to visit his brother, and he had a layover in New Orleans on his way to Honduras, and he picked up the Red Preservation hall album at the airport because he thought it looked cool. He got to Honduras and who's his brother?
• 29:30
  Speaker B: So your uncle's in Honduras in prison as a priest.
• 29:33
  Speaker C: He's like one of these cool priests in the 60s in Latin America. Weird.
• 29:38
  Speaker B: A Jesuit?
• 29:39
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: Really?
• 29:40
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 29:41
  Speaker A: Liberation theology, Big time.
• 29:42
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 29:43
  Speaker C: So he gets down there, and somebody. One of the other priests with my uncle. Oh, man, this is. This is big Jim Robinson on this. This is the Humphrey Brothers on this. Like, where did you find this? So that guy, that priest turned my dad onto. This record you picked up randomly because you, like, the COVID is cool as shit. So my dad, from the 60s on, he had already been a Louis Armstrong fan. He snuck in to see Louis Armstrong. Louis armstrong at the St. Louis Country Club in 64, right after hello, Dolly. So he was. He was into it already, but then he got turned on in New Orleans music. So the records in the house were Preservation hall records, Louis Armstrong records. There was some swing, you know, Glenn Miller and that kind of stuff.
• 30:21
  Speaker A: Or Jack Teagarden.
• 30:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Jack Teagarden and Alton Ellis. Early Bob Marley.
• 30:27
  Speaker A: Right.
• 30:28
  Speaker C: You know, Desmond Decker, Rocksteady, Ska. Scatter Lights Records. That's. That's kind of all.
• 30:34
  Speaker B: What happened with your uncle, the priest?
• 30:36
  Speaker C: He left the priesthood.
• 30:38
  Speaker B: Really?
• 30:39
  Speaker C: Moved to Puerto Rico with P. Diddy, right? Yeah. My Aunt Maria is lovely, and now I have a bunch of cousins who speak Spanish as their first language in Miami. Yeah.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: Oh, very nice.
• 30:52
  Speaker C: But he's probably in the CIA like, we. Nobody, really. He's still alive? Yeah.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, and where does he live now?
• 30:59
  Speaker C: He lives in Tallahassee.
• 31:01
  Speaker B: Oh, God. Really?
• 31:03
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker A: A lot of those agency guys wind up there. Retirement. There's no. No property tax, you know.
• 31:09
  Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker A: Well. So. So all during this time, you already had in mind that you wanted to move to New Orleans?
• 31:16
  Speaker C: Pretty much. I mean, I started. I visited New Orleans for the first time in high school. That band that the school started in my junior year, we came down here and played at the Loyola, right across from the. From the. The Fairmont. From the. What is that? Theater right there. We played the Orpheum at some, like, band competition.
• 31:35
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 31:36
  Speaker C: And then I went to College in St. Louis. And then it was from my freshman year on spring break, anytime I could get away for four days, drive down to New Orleans, sleep in my car, go.
• 31:45
  Speaker A: Listen, what years was this?
• 31:47
  Speaker C: This is 2002, okay. Through, you know, Katrina by. By 2004, 2005, I'm planning to move here as soon as I get out of school, basically. Katrina hits, and Jeremy Davenport brings his full band back to St. Louis. So he's playing at the. At a, you know, kind of swank bougie bar with Thaddeus Richard, piano player with Wings in Preservation Hall, Bunchy Johnson, Fats Domino's drummer, Nobu Usaki, Jesse Boyd, handful of other sidemen, but. So I'm hanging out with these guys. Jeremy stayed at a different. He had a different housing than the rest of the band. So I would drive the band around to get groceries and stuff. And they're saying, you should move to New Orleans. You should move to New Orleans, you know, So I didn't come in 2006 when I graduated college because I just didn't know what the city was like after Katrina. Right away to graduate school. But, you know, from 2004, the plan is to move here.
• 32:42
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 32:42
  Speaker C: Actively coming down.
• 32:43
  Speaker A: So you wind up coming down here a few years.
• 32:46
  Speaker C: I get here in 2008.
• 32:47
  Speaker A: All right.
• 32:48
  Speaker C: Yeah. But I came knowing the guys in Jeremy's band. I came knowing Wendell. I mean, not well, but, yeah, I know who Wendell is. I know where Donna's is. I kind of knew the lay of.
• 32:59
  Speaker A: The land a little bit.
• 33:00
  Speaker C: Craig Klein, I had met. Rick Trollson, I had met.
• 33:03
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, I'm sure, you know, every. And musicians in New Orleans are so welcoming, especially to somebody who really respects the music and. And comes in, you know.
• 33:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:15
  Speaker A: And so I'm sure probably in about a week of you getting introduced and sitting in with people, you literally. Your calendar is starting to.
• 33:22
  Speaker C: Literally. I busked in Jackson Square for about a week. I was busking with a very young John Michael Bradford and Glenn David Andrews. And then I started playing with the Panorama Jazz Band a week after living here.
• 33:35
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 33:35
  Speaker C: So, yeah, I picked up my first weekly Spotted Cat gig on, like, day six, living in New Orleans. And then, same thing. I met up with St. Louis Slim, who I never knew in St. Louis, but met him here, and he had, you know, pretty steady work at dba. And so I fell in quick. And Bonerama was touring a lot then, too, so there was a lot of empty trombone.
• 33:56
  Speaker A: Oh, right, right. You needed Craig needed subs for all of his trad gigs. Right, that makes sense. Well, so. So you're here for. For a while. You're playing that. That Frenchman scene. I guess maybe you. Is that where you meet Dr. Sick? I'm trying to figure out because I know you wind up like maybe right about that year, right at the next year is when Jumbo Mathis kind of reforms Squirrel Nut Zipper.
• 34:21
  Speaker C: So I meet Jimbo. Well, I met Jimbo in St. Louis.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Oh, no kidding.
• 34:25
  Speaker C: And when I was in college, you know, wasn't a situation where I might join the band, but I met Jimbo, you know, 2002.
• 34:32
  Speaker A: Probably the Huck fan of American music.
• 34:35
  Speaker C: Very much so. One of my best friends. I love that guy. Then I was hosting Pokey Lafarge, who's a blues. An Americana. Americana singer. He moved to St. Louis right when I moved away. So we didn't overlap in St. Louis, but we had all the same kind of mutual friends. He came down from Mardi Gras 2009, my first Mard GR. And I was hanging out with him a ton. I saw Jimbo on a. I was. I was playing on a Mardra float and I saw Jimbo watching the parade.
• 35:07
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:08
  Speaker C: The parade stalled. I jumped off the float and ran over to him and introduced myself. Hey, glad to meet you. I met you however, many years ago. Big fan of the band. You're the coolest. Holy. Then I get back on the. On the float, finish the parade. I call Pokey. Pokey, I just met Jimbo Mathis. They had made some records together already. So Pokey called Jimbo, said, hey man, you should. That guy that met you at the parade today, you should put him on.
• 35:32
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 35:33
  Speaker C: Exchanged my number and like three days later got a phone call from Runless Dippers management. We heard you met Jimbo. We heard you play trombone. We need a horn player to go on the tour with the band. It was. They never heard me play.
• 35:44
  Speaker A: That's crazy, man. Just like the impulse to jump off and make this connection.
• 35:49
  Speaker C: Totally.
• 35:49
  Speaker A: You know, it's like I've brought this up before, this idea of the secret, you know, like that's that stupid thing that was popular. And I was like, oh, it's ridiculous. Because the mysticism, but the non mystical part of it is that just go.
• 36:04
  Speaker C: Introduce yourself and say hello.
• 36:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Be into something. Have some energy behind it.
• 36:09
  Speaker C: For sure.
• 36:09
  Speaker A: You know, it really works.
• 36:11
  Speaker C: They took me, I did a like a one tour kind of tryout. And this is. It was cool because it was more of the original Band. I mean, it wasn't just Jimbo. It was Jimbo. It was Jay Widenhouse, the trumpet player from the third record on. It was the original bass player from the second record on. So it was some of the guys on those records from the 90s that blew up. So I, you know, I'd been listening to them since I was a kid, since those records came out. I had those records when they were new.
• 36:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, that must have been a perfect gig for you, 100%, because you had all these anachronistic tendencies of musical tastes.
• 36:44
  Speaker C: I knew the songs, and I knew Jimbo in the Knockdown south records, you know, like, I knew Hit the rest of his book. For the most part. Catherine Whalen was still in the group. I knew her. Her records as well. So, you know, I fell in pretty hard with him right away.
• 36:56
  Speaker B: Were you still living in your car at that time?
• 36:58
  Speaker C: I was living in a. At a very crummy house on Alvar. No, no, that's not true. I was living in the. The Alamo on Crete. Does anyone. Did anyone ever hang there? The Alamo at. Yeah, I think it was the place to score drugs in the.
• 37:11
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Might have been after my time.
• 37:13
  Speaker C: Yeah. Okay.
• 37:14
  Speaker A: Well, I know what I was gonna say before is at the time that you were moving to New Orleans, there was a huge influx of new musicians, for one reason or another. I mean, we got a lot of people coming in, a lot of do gooders who came in post Katrina. Some of them were musicians, some were just opportunists or. And. But then a lot of people came in through the UNO jazz program, you know, that Ellis had stolen and then Steve Mazikowski had taken over, and it kind of just started this conveyor belt of younger guys from other places who would come here and forget where they came from.
• 37:47
  Speaker C: That Frenchman street scene and that kind of transplant trad jazz scene, I didn't know that existed. I did not move here to be a part of that. I was like, I can maybe play at Preservation hall once a month and I can get a normal job and. Because the people I knew were Thaddeus Richard and Punchy Johnson, and they were these older guys, and they were not. They're not playing the spot.
• 38:06
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 38:07
  Speaker C: Four nights a week. You know, I had no idea that scene was here. It busking on in the corridor and on Royal Street. I quickly met the Tubuskini people, the Loose Marbles people, Mashia Lake. But that was not like those people moved here a year before me, maybe. So it's not like they'd been here.
• 38:21
  Speaker A: A long time, but it's like kind of perfect timing.
• 38:23
  Speaker C: 100.
• 38:24
  Speaker A: All those people in your age group, you know, they're all peers.
• 38:27
  Speaker C: We all fell in, you know, the Tubaskini, the Loose Marbles band, kind of dissolved and became Michia Lake and Tubaskini separately. So those two groups kind of started at the same time. 2008. Summer 2008.
• 38:39
  Speaker A: And that's. It's not unrelated aesthetically to the Squirrel Nut Zippers thing. You know, it's. It's. It's, you know, kind of circus freak.
• 38:50
  Speaker C: Exactly right.
• 38:51
  Speaker A: Vibe to it.
• 38:52
  Speaker C: Exactly right. Exactly right. Yeah. So I fell in with the Zippers then. I mean, my first year here. Toured a thumb real hard for a year. And then Catherine quit, and so Jimbo broke the band up.
• 39:03
  Speaker B: Why'd she quit?
• 39:04
  Speaker C: Her kid was, I think, starting grade school. Can't be on the road.
• 39:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, parenting is the most important thing. It's funny, a lot of musicians I know, you know, they're. Before they have children, they're so ambitious, and music, and this is the most important thing. And then you have a kid and a month later, like, what music? Who cares?
• 39:27
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: I mean, if you don't feel that way, it's. It could be a problem for you.
• 39:31
  Speaker C: That's an issue.
• 39:32
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 39:33
  Speaker C: Fair.
• 39:34
  Speaker A: Was it all. Someone would imagine the. The Squirrel Nut Zippers on the road being. I mean, was the.
• 39:41
  Speaker C: It was fun.
• 39:42
  Speaker A: I mean, sideshow vibe going?
• 39:44
  Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. You know, they're kind of country, they're kind of ratchet. Jimbo's. It's Jimbo. You know, like, it was the best. It wasn't a bus, it was a van. Sometimes a van and a. Like a station wagon.
• 39:55
  Speaker A: Right.
• 39:55
  Speaker C: But, you know, rolling through the night. I had done a handful of tours with this rock and roll group called the Walkman.
• 40:01
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:02
  Speaker C: Right before that. And. And they were playing bigger venues than the Zippers, but it was a rock and roll gig, and it wasn't something that they weren't gonna take me out all the time. So, like, getting the chance to play in the Squirrel and Zippers, who I'd been listening to since, you know, they started, and, you know, horn section. That's a horn section dream, you know. So, like, it was. It was the perfect fit.
• 40:22
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 40:23
  Speaker C: The money was good. It was a wild way to start my touring life was, you know, the first tour I ever went on was sold out show at the Fillmore.
• 40:30
  Speaker A: Hell, yeah.
• 40:31
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. And then the second tour I ever went on was scoring the Zippers playing to pretty big houses, you know, and getting spoiled there. So it makes it hard to then go, okay, now we're gonna get in my CRV and we're gonna go play for literally no money.
• 40:44
  Speaker A: You're gonna sleep on somebody's floor.
• 40:46
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 40:46
  Speaker A: Maybe.
• 40:47
  Speaker C: Exactly. So I started. I was, I had a, you know, a blessed beginning to that. Nice.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: Well, Manny, it seems like a good time looking at my drink and clock. Why don't you tell the people we're.
• 40:58
  Speaker B: Gonna take a break. We'll be right back. SA.
• 41:30
  Speaker A: Sudan. And we're back. Back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Charlie Halloran. Now, Charlie, I know you're. You've heard a few of these podcasts, so you're familiar with the fact that this is a listener support, supported operation. And, you know, we have listeners use our PayPal and Venmo links, which appear in the show notes of every show, as well as the. The Facebook page. And they, they'll support us. They'll. They'll buy cocktails, help us to defray our. Our podcast hosting costs, and these composition books that we use. And this week, longtime listener and previous supporter and good friend, also former guest, the great Michael Skinkus. Skinkus bought us. Bought us a round to drink. So thank you very much, Michael and Michael. I played a couple of terrific jazz fest gigs with. With Michael. He played on the blues tent set with John Mooney, came and played congas with us. And then we also. Michael and I played on the Ed Vault, Volker, Dave Malone.
• 43:40
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 43:41
  Speaker B: What kind of name is Skinkus?
• 43:43
  Speaker A: I'm not sure. We had it. We had him Polish. We had him on the podcast.
• 43:47
  Speaker B: Norwegian.
• 43:48
  Speaker A: Might be. Might be Greek.
• 43:49
  Speaker B: Maybe. It's Greek.
• 43:50
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker A: Greek to me. We'll have to ask Michael, have him back on the show and, and ask him about that.
• 43:55
  Speaker C: Cheers, Michael. Thank you.
• 43:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Michael. And be like Michael and, and. And support the podcast with those using those links. Also, we have a link for the Patreon page. We have a handful patrons supporting us week in, week out. Also, we have the link there for the Troubleman podcast T shirts, which are available in many colors and all the sizes, ladies and. And men's design. Also follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook.
• 44:27
  Speaker B: And do you think you got teased a lot as a kid with that last name?
• 44:30
  Speaker A: I would guess so, yeah. I would think so. I would think a. It's a character building thing. You know, it's like with the name Renee. You think? I got teased a lot yeah, of course. And plus, just the way I act would have been enough. I had it coming. Let's. Let's face it. I was asking for it. I still am. Anyway. Yes, I was saying. Oh, yeah. Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Uh, give us five stars. Cost you. Nothing helps us a lot. Nobody gives us. Nobody rates us anymore.
• 45:03
  Speaker C: Oh, no.
• 45:04
  Speaker A: People should do that.
• 45:05
  Speaker C: Let's go, let's go, let's go.
• 45:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 45:07
  Speaker C: Three more this week.
• 45:08
  Speaker A: All right.
• 45:08
  Speaker C: Come on.
• 45:09
  Speaker A: That would be three more than last week, that's for sure. Anyway, what else? Yeah, so if you're. I'm going out and playing some iguanas dates. You can see those.
• 45:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. When are you leaving?
• 45:20
  Speaker A: I'm actually leaving tomorrow. I'm playing in. In Washington, D.C. at the Hamilton. I'm sure you played there. Great, great club there. Right downtown. Right down the street from Ford's theater.
• 45:31
  Speaker C: Right? Look out.
• 45:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, look out. And then playing in Norfolk, Virginia the next night and then coming right back, I'm playing here at Chicki Wawa on Saturday night with the great Layla Musselwhite. But yeah, you can find all my dates there. And the. The link to Renee Komen Facebook page. Well, Charlie Hallerin, since we're talking about dates. You have dates coming up. You have the Tropical's website dates?
• 45:56
  Speaker C: Yes, well, just under Charlie Halloran.
• 45:57
  Speaker A: Charliehallerin.com.
• 45:58
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I got it. It was available.
• 46:00
  Speaker A: Nice. I was there today. It's beautifully designed. Thank you. Very comprehensive. You know, it's, it's. Everything was functional.
• 46:09
  Speaker C: Hey, I'll take it. It's not easy.
• 46:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we'll have the, we'll have the, the links to all of Charlie's, you know, important web web pages in the show, notes of this show. And that's enough of that. So let's get back to Charlie and talking about his life. So you're talking about being out there with the Squirrel Nut zippers. So you're saying the singer, original singer, left to go parent her and so was that the end of your tenure in that.
• 46:36
  Speaker C: Right. So Catherine Bales.
• 46:38
  Speaker A: And then were you involved in the infamous airport incident? We don't have to re. Litigate that.
• 46:43
  Speaker C: I don't even know about that.
• 46:44
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right.
• 46:45
  Speaker C: Well, it's not.
• 46:45
  Speaker A: Well, listen to doctor.
• 46:46
  Speaker C: Oh, you know what? I do know. I do.
• 46:48
  Speaker A: Of course you do.
• 46:49
  Speaker C: Okay. Yes.
• 46:50
  Speaker A: We don't have to. We don't have to tread. That's, that's.
• 46:52
  Speaker C: Oh, I need to listen to that.
• 46:53
  Speaker A: Well, trodden Ground.
• 46:55
  Speaker C: So we don't.
• 46:55
  Speaker A: We don't need to.
• 46:57
  Speaker C: I was not. I was not there for that. I was. I was on the phone. I know all. I was there on real time.
• 47:03
  Speaker A: You had moved on. You were. You were playing in other groups.
• 47:06
  Speaker C: Right? So. Yeah. So the scornless dippers breakup, 2010, probably. I dive all into being just local trombone ringer. Okay, so fall into four or five weekly gigs and on Frenchman Street.
• 47:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, so. So you have a good personality. You have a beautiful sound on the horn. You're. You're diligent, you know, happy to learn tunes. Right, right, right.
• 47:28
  Speaker C: Read music. Put me in.
• 47:30
  Speaker A: There you go. I'm ready for it. You've been preparing this for this for your entire.
• 47:34
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 47:35
  Speaker A: Since you're 10 years old.
• 47:36
  Speaker C: I know songs. I can learn new songs. I'm ready to go.
• 47:39
  Speaker A: And. And, you know, I like that I've had this conversation with Delfio Marcellus before. About. About. Because he's someone who knows what a trombone is supposed to sound like. He likes to get a pretty sound on the horn. Not everybody and not every trombone player in New Orleans subscribes to that approach. A lot of people that overblow and I want to blow their brains out. Now, Delphio will. Will. When I bring this up to him, he. He doesn't want to be critical. He wants to defend everyone.
• 48:08
  Speaker C: And I mean, to be fair, if I had the physical ability to play as loud as a lot of New Orleans trombone players play, I would do it. I don't have that ability to do it, but I can play quietly. And I've been able to carve out some work as a trombo player that can play quietly, which there aren't a lot of drumroll players that can do.
• 48:30
  Speaker A: That honestly and get a nice sound. I mean, trombone has, like a cello sound, you know, at times. Beautiful.
• 48:40
  Speaker C: Same range, warm, round.
• 48:43
  Speaker B: Now, what about this guy, Shorty?
• 48:45
  Speaker C: He's pretty good.
• 48:46
  Speaker B: Yeah? You like?
• 48:46
  Speaker C: Pretty good.
• 48:47
  Speaker A: He's an excellent musician.
• 48:48
  Speaker C: Shorty and I were. Were MySpace friends when we were both 17.
• 48:53
  Speaker B: He's not that short, is he?
• 48:55
  Speaker C: He's taller than me.
• 48:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, he started off when he was four, so.
• 48:58
  Speaker C: Right. He's got the short few years head start.
• 49:01
  Speaker B: Your father alive? Your father.
• 49:03
  Speaker C: Father. He.
• 49:05
  Speaker B: He appreciates the music you're playing?
• 49:07
  Speaker C: I think so. I hope so. He. He has a Pandora channel under my name. Will write me every few weeks.
• 49:13
  Speaker A: He must be very proud.
• 49:15
  Speaker B: What does that mean? Pandor.
• 49:17
  Speaker C: That's, you know, Internet radio.
• 49:18
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 49:19
  Speaker C: Where they play music that sounds like Me.
• 49:21
  Speaker B: So he plays your music.
• 49:23
  Speaker C: He plays my music.
• 49:23
  Speaker A: Your music and stuff. That sounds like something you.
• 49:28
  Speaker B: And your mom is still. Still alive.
• 49:29
  Speaker C: They're both still alive. Both in St. Louis.
• 49:31
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 49:33
  Speaker A: Still married.
• 49:33
  Speaker C: Still married.
• 49:34
  Speaker B: Getting those food.
• 49:36
  Speaker C: I said Midwest.
• 49:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:37
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'm very Midwest.
• 49:40
  Speaker A: It could be worse.
• 49:41
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 49:42
  Speaker B: You kind of look. You know who you look like to me? Like a young Hunter S. Thompson.
• 49:46
  Speaker C: I'll take that.
• 49:46
  Speaker B: You look like.
• 49:47
  Speaker C: I'll take that.
• 49:48
  Speaker B: I could see that bald and glasses is the big.
• 49:53
  Speaker A: Got the twinkle in his eye? Yeah, he had the. The cigarette holder.
• 49:56
  Speaker B: Are you a gun owner?
• 49:57
  Speaker C: No way.
• 49:58
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean. So we'll take that. You're not a hunter.
• 50:02
  Speaker C: No. He's cooler than me.
• 50:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker A: You're more alive though.
• 50:07
  Speaker C: Fair.
• 50:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, fair.
• 50:09
  Speaker A: So. So you're. You're playing in a ton of bands. At what point do you start. Think. Well, so you start making solo records. Pretty. Pretty early in this whole.
• 50:21
  Speaker C: Yeah. A trip back to St. Louis. I meet up with the teacher I studied with in college there and he says you should put out a record under your own name just so you can have some control of some of the music that has your name on it. So I put out a traditional jazz record. I never really had a traditional jazz band, but I put out a record with Tim Laughlin and Charlie Fardella and some Prince street players, mostly people that had been living here or from here put that out together. And then a year or two later is when I kind of really dive into the more Caribbean stuff and put out our first tropicals record in 2019. And then that gets picked up by a label in 2021.
• 51:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 51:04
  Speaker C: And then I've been only releasing, you know, more Caribbean stuff since then. But. Yeah, but I put out my first record in 2016, I think.
• 51:13
  Speaker A: 15 or 16.
• 51:14
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker A: Nice. And well now since. So you're just to jump forward here, meant to mention at the top, the latest Tropicals record was just came out last year. Jump up.
• 51:25
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 51:26
  Speaker A: That's on Newtone Recordings.
• 51:29
  Speaker C: Newtone Recordings.
• 51:30
  Speaker A: Now do you know what Newtone is? So I don't know.
• 51:35
  Speaker C: Maybe not.
• 51:35
  Speaker A: This is a reference to this or not.
• 51:37
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 51:38
  Speaker A: But I grew up at this on. In this house in Algiers that my parents bought when I was five. We moved over there and it was an all electric kitchen.
• 51:48
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 51:48
  Speaker A: And all the appliances had this. They were by Newtone.
• 51:54
  Speaker C: I've never heard this.
• 51:55
  Speaker A: And it was spelled the same way. This nu, capital T, O N E. Right, right, right. I just want. I saw that I was like, I wonder if that's like a 1970s suburban reference.
• 52:06
  Speaker C: It probably is. The label is based out of Freehold, New Jersey. It's a couple of Vincent and Magda. They have a surf rock label called High Tide Jump or excuse me, Shake the Rum, the record we did in 2019 that is on High Tide Recordings, which is the surf rock label. So they put out almost exclusively kind of, you know, guitar driven surf rock. And then they started the New Tone records so that they could branch out from guitar music. And then they put our next record out on the New Tone label. But that's their M.O. is kind of 1970s vintage, so I would. I suspect that's intentional.
• 52:44
  Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, it just caught my eye. I mean, I wrote it down. I was like, oh, wait a second. It's like jogging my.
• 52:49
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. And I just moved from Algiers a year ago. I lived over there for 10 years. Yeah, in the Point. Yeah.
• 52:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I, I never say that I lived over there. I say that my parents move, move there and then, you know, I had, I didn't have a choice.
• 53:04
  Speaker C: Gotcha.
• 53:04
  Speaker A: It was the day I moved back to, to the. The east bank was a very. One of. One of my happiest days of my life.
• 53:14
  Speaker C: I agree.
• 53:14
  Speaker A: Now I like people living like Susan Cassill and Russ Rusard live in Algeria.
• 53:20
  Speaker C: I was three doors down.
• 53:21
  Speaker A: Beautiful over there. I love. It's New Orleans style housing. You're right there by the river. It's. But I just hate the bridge. I hate the traffic. I hate, you know, having to run the gauntlet back over there. Strong agree when I, If I'm. If I'm coming from, from the Bywater and I have to get to uptown. It's a long drive.
• 53:39
  Speaker C: That's a hall.
• 53:39
  Speaker A: But, but there's, there's back roads. I can go the whole way. I don't have to get on that bridge and, you know, run the gauntlet.
• 53:47
  Speaker C: My vet and my dentist and all that is still over there. So I'm over there more often than your typical east banker.
• 53:53
  Speaker B: You guys know nothing about fucking long trips.
• 53:58
  Speaker C: 20 minutes.
• 54:00
  Speaker A: We're spoiled here.
• 54:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, you guys are spoiled for sure.
• 54:04
  Speaker A: Now let's see. I had a bunch of things. Well, one thing that's coming up and I just was texting with our host today is that we're both going to the, the Big Island Jazz and Blues Festival. Just a couple of weeks, man. It's. That's May 30th through June 1st. First there at the Maunakea Beach Resort. Hotel.
• 54:24
  Speaker C: Take me there. I'm so stoked.
• 54:26
  Speaker A: It's. The Iguanas have done it maybe for 10 years on and off with Kenny. Yeah, it's. It. The. The property is amazing. You know, Hawaii is amazing. And the hang is really cool, man. Like, this is going to be such a fun group of people. Wayne Tubes, Camille Beaudoin from the Radiators. It's gonna be a blast.
• 54:53
  Speaker C: I'm Doug Garrison. Doug Garrison, drummer in the Iguanas. Drummer in my band, the Tropicals, plays.
• 54:59
  Speaker A: Has played in the Tropicals since the beginning.
• 55:01
  Speaker C: Since the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. He. He has been hyping me to this gig for probably the full 10 years you guys have been going. I mean, I've been knowing this gig and he introduced me to Kenny pretty early on.
• 55:11
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 55:11
  Speaker C: So I've been kind of bugging a bug in Kenny's ear since the beginning. Hey.
• 55:16
  Speaker A: Hey.
• 55:16
  Speaker C: Hey. You want to come to Jazz Fest? You wanna.
• 55:19
  Speaker A: Took longer than Jimbo Mathis, but again.
• 55:23
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 55:23
  Speaker A: Persistence does.
• 55:24
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 55:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker C: I'm gonna just. I'm gonna keep leaning.
• 55:26
  Speaker B: So you're gonna be joining the senior circuit.
• 55:28
  Speaker C: Basically. I'm. I'm an Iguanas fan, so I am stoked. I am stoked to go.
• 55:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 55:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of playing together.
• 55:36
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 55:38
  Speaker A: So. So the Tropicals are playing. You guys played all kind of Jazz Fest dates. I was looking at your Jazz Fest calendar, and not only do you play, you. You have several of your own bands, multiple bands of yours, and you play in all these other bands, then you show up in all these other things. Like Joy Clark.
• 56:00
  Speaker C: Right.
• 56:01
  Speaker A: And sure. So cool, man.
• 56:03
  Speaker C: I mean, I love being a sideman. I'm a better sideman than a band leader.
• 56:06
  Speaker A: Me too. It's my favorite band.
• 56:07
  Speaker B: I.
• 56:08
  Speaker A: A lot.
• 56:08
  Speaker C: I am much better at answering the phone and learning your song and showing up. I want. There are songs that I want to play, and I'm only going to get to play those if I book the gig. But otherwise, I'm better at learning somebody else's music and showing up. That's my strength for sure.
• 56:25
  Speaker A: It really is the best.
• 56:28
  Speaker C: 100%. That song. I want to be a sideman. Like, that's me. That is exactly me.
• 56:34
  Speaker A: Well, my fault. Father was a band leader his whole life.
• 56:36
  Speaker C: Right.
• 56:37
  Speaker A: And I watched him do it. And I understand what it takes. And I thought, no, it's so hard.
• 56:43
  Speaker C: I am not good at it. I'm trying and I want to be better at it. I'm working on it, but I But I'm a pretty good side man. I'm happy to, happy to do. I did 10 sets at the fairgrounds.
• 56:52
  Speaker A: Crazy, man.
• 56:53
  Speaker C: Yeah. Every day. I love it. I love Jazz Fest.
• 56:56
  Speaker A: Right. You know, I was telling somebody about how I had two days where I. I didn't have a gig at the festival and I didn't have a gig that night. And I had. I know it just worked out that way, but therefore I was able to go as a fan and hang out all day long. How had I had a gig that any one of those nights I couldn't do that. And I was telling this to my sister in law, she's like, but you played two sets during the day and then went and played a nighttime gig. I'm like, that is so much easier, man.
• 57:27
  Speaker C: Way easier.
• 57:28
  Speaker A: That's what I do, way easier. My car, I get picked up in the van, they drive me to the stage, I play a set, which I do again.
• 57:35
  Speaker C: There's free waters and I go to o and get coffee.
• 57:38
  Speaker A: Make me tired. That makes me energized. A th percent go do another one, go to my car and I can play a nighttime gig. If I had to walk around the track and see bands out in the heat for four hours, forget it.
• 57:49
  Speaker C: Yeah, I've never been to Jazz Fest as a spectator. Yeah, never. I love Jazz Fest. Again, I say that as.
• 57:56
  Speaker A: Because you don't have nights off.
• 57:57
  Speaker C: Yeah, no, no, definitely not. I just had this past weekend off, three days off in a row. And it was divine.
• 58:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.
• 58:06
  Speaker C: But that said, I love jazz best. I love going as, you know, playing my set and then staying all day like, I'm in.
• 58:13
  Speaker A: And obviously you love playing the horn. You love being on the bandstand.
• 58:16
  Speaker C: For sure.
• 58:17
  Speaker A: I know. You know, I have a friend who, he has a huge record collection. He's always getting new music and always getting a better version of music that we've been listening to for 50 years. You know, you had a higher resolution, a new remastering and, and I just, you know, it's nice to hear, but I, I don't get super excited about it, you know. And one day he looks at me, goes, you know, Renee, I love listening to music. You love playing music. I was like, that's exactly.
• 58:45
  Speaker C: Bingo, bingo. And like, I like, I buy a couple records and week I try to. I love having vinyl and listening to records, but I love playing music. It's not uncommon to be playing and looking at people listening to the music and thinking, that sounds so fun. That looks so Fun listening to a band. But I don't get the chance to do that very often because I play every day.
• 59:07
  Speaker A: But I mean, which I love, you know.
• 59:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, of course I wouldn't trade it, but. But I do. I like Jazz Fest because of that. I can go play a set or two and then go hear five bands. I don't hear other bands, you know, I'm not going out after my gig.
• 59:20
  Speaker A: Right, right, right, right, right.
• 59:21
  Speaker C: I'm 41, I'm boring.
• 59:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, you have to. Yeah. You have this kind of mid century aesthetic. You know, obviously all your Tropical's records have this kind of liberty record style, mid century design, graphic. The.
• 59:39
  Speaker C: The kind of 1950s, 1960s version of almost everything is my favorite.
• 59:44
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 59:45
  Speaker C: The. Like the Cars. Any Cars. I like the versions from the 50s and the 60s the most. Most music. I like the Louis Armstrong. I like his records from the 50s more than his records from the 20s. Mighty Sparrow. I like his records from the 50s more than the 1970s.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker C: Art Neville. Give me that. Give me those. Alan Tucson, you know, those early records, I love that the most. I like the Meters, don't get me wrong. But give me that early stuff the most. Like, I love that era.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. You ever think about why that is?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker C: Who knows? I have no. I had no idea.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker C: No idea.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker A: It's funny how. Yeah, certain people have these. These vibrations now. Were you ever into. I mean, the Tropicals kind of verges on Exotica. A little bit into Martin Denny?
• 1:00:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny Sumac. I love the kind of like Tiki Craze, for sure. That's what a lot of the band started, you know, as a latitude 29 fever dream.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker A: Right. Well, you were the right age to be influenced by the lounge revival.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker C: Definitely those. What were those records? There was a bunch of compilations.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker A: I mean, to me it was like. It felt like a little bit of a pose or a little bit.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker C: I'm sure it was like definitely.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker A: You know, I remember this music like, you know, the first time. I mean, kind of. Not really. I wasn't a contemporary, but I knew through my parents, definitely. So.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker C: No, no, it hit me. It hit me in high school. Like I. I've loved that stuff my whole life, definitely.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker A: But it opened up a lot of ears and, you know, people listening to the real stuff for sure.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker C: And that it's been interesting to team up with this label in New Jersey because their whole crowd is people that like instrumental music, original or not, but specifically with that sound from the 50s and 60s. So they throw these events and it's surf rock bands playing original music or Ventures songs. And it's not a jazz scene. That's not my scene. I've never wanted to play modern jazz music. I like instrumental music, but it's not like I want to go play John Coltrane. It's cool. But that's not my. That's not what I'm going to do, you know. And so meeting those people. Yes.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker A: Let's go now. Did you see Herb Alpert in. I think at 91, he has a new record coming out out.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker C: Unreal. I was in a Herb Alpert music video a couple of years ago.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker B: It's called. Do you want to guess?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker A: Okay. All right.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker C: So I had those like whipped cream and other delights.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker C: Sergio Mendez records. Like I had all that.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My. I remember I have my parents copies of those records now.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker C: 100.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. Man.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker B: You hear Derek Carr retired did say that. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker C: I'm okay with that.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, you're okay.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker C: I'm okay.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker A: Let's the Saints off of a 30 million dollar salary cap.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker C: Are they gonna bring Jamis back though? That's the question.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker B: No, no, James, no. They're done.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker C: He's charming though.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker B: You like him?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker C: He's charming.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker A: The, the, the team.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker B: Why? Because he steals crawfish from a Florida supermarket?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker C: Does he?
• 1:02:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, he did. He was busted for that.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker A: He was popular with his teammates. I know that. And, and my son always liked him because he said he's an exciting player, you know. Yeah.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker C: Again, I don't know anything about football, but I know he's funny and I like him and.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker B: All right, well, he's no longer a saint. He.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker C: Is. He play with anybody?
• 1:03:00
  Speaker B: He said he's with the Cleveland Browns.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker B: You know, fighting for a job.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker B: You know, they just drafted Deion Sanders, kid.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker B: Shadour Stand.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker A: Wow. Right. Went, went much lower in the draft.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker B: Lower, you know, because his dad is a jerk.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker B: You know, and well, I, I heard.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker A: The, the real, the real thing was you don't want to hire a backup quarterback who's going to wind up being the, the main story at your team.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker C: That's.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, but a lot of people think he should have been a starting quarterback.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker C: Is he that good?
• 1:03:35
  Speaker B: I don't think so.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker A: Okay, well, there you go. The answer is no. Now, now, Charlie, so you know, going back to this, this mid century or possibly earlier, anachronistic inclination that you have, you've put out some, some unusual releases with the Tropicals one the Alcoa Session. Tell us a little bit about that.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker C: So there was a steamboat cruise, pleasure cruise, that left out of New Orleans run by the Alcoa Company, which is the aluminum company of America, that ran from 1949 to 1959. New Orleans to Venezuela, Jamaica, they went down to the French Caribbean. They went to. I don't think they went to Cuba. They went to the Dominican Republic. And so I've always wondered. Their. Their advertising leans heavily into the music and the dancing that you were going to hear on board. They also released. Released records on 45 by the Duke of Iron by Haitian drumming groups. So they would put out albums or singles of. Of Caribbean music that they just licensed. They didn't record it, they licensed it. And so all of their artwork, all of their advertising is leaning heavily into, you know, here's the cool music. You're gonna hear beguine music. You're gonna hear calypso, you're gonna hear rah rah bands from Haiti, you're gonna hear drumming groups from the Dominican. You're gonna waltz. There's gonna be Venezuelan waltzes on deck under the stars at sea. Beautiful artwork. Like what we were saying earlier, you know, everything hits me exactly bullseye. And so I've always wondered what the band was. They say, you know, dancing on deck. So is there a band on that boat? They don't specifically say that. There is. They say there's dancing.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker B: Are these gay cruises.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker A: That was probably before the time when they had. When they could. Could. When they could say that as a top line.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker C: Totally.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker B: There was no br. Was there?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker C: I don't think so. It was. I mean, so. So I've wondered, is the band on there new. A New Orleans band, or did. Are they picking up bands along the way? But that's the era when. When Dave Bartholomew is putting out music that's certainly inflected by Caribbean music.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker C: Lots of New Orleans music, all American pop music is inflected by.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker A: That's the thing. Like, you know, I try to explain to people, other places, like people in New Orleans, think the mambo is from New Orleans.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker C: Right.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker A: You know.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. So I always, like, as soon as I found out about this and started seeing the ads for this cruise, like, what is that band? Is that band Caribbean music? Is it Caribbean musicians? Are they playing any New Orleans music? Because that's like I was saying, the era that I specifically like, the New Orleans rock and roll at its peak, for my money. Caribbean music at its peak, for my money.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker A: So you wound up assembling this large group of musicians from all these places. Cuba, trinidad, Martinique. And us.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker C: There's like 20 of us on there. And it's all music from the period that you might have heard on that cruise boat. So there's a couple Dave Bartholomew songs. There's some bean from the French Caribbean, from Martinique, from Guadalupe. There's a waltz from Venezuela on there. There's a calypso on there. And I got. I called in, you know, all the favors I could.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker A: Right. Nice, nice. Now this other record you made, C. Bean, that's a solo record of yours, I suppose.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker C: Yep, yep.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker A: And that was recorded straight to 78 RPM acetate.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker C: Yeah. Bingo. So we. A buddy of mine had.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker A: Going way back.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker C: Way back. It's a buddy had a. Had a 78 cutter and a bunch of blankets. 78s acetate, 78s. So we gathered into his apartment on Saint Cloud.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker A: You made this record for. For five people.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker A: You have basically players.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker C: It was a. It was a fool's errand. I thought record collectors might like it because it sounds like a record. But record collectors like records. They don't like CDs and people that like. People that like CDs don't like CDs that sound like.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker A: Okay, so. So you.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker C: You weren't.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker A: You weren't releasing an actual 78?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker C: No, we put it on CD. Like a 78.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker A: Right. I misunderstood. Cuz my next question was going to be, do you have any plans to release any wax cylinders?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker C: I've done. I've done three or four wax cylinders.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker B: Really?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker C: Yes. You got the right guy. I've done a handful of songs to wax cylinder. Guilty.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker A: Where do you record the wax cylinder?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker C: There's. There's a guy here. I did one in Laplace. We did some Kidori music straight to wax cylinder in Laplace at his house.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker A: Holy moly.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker C: I also. There's a. There's a.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker A: See. See how my mind works?
• 1:08:11
  Speaker C: I'm way ahead of you. We got. There's a. A wonderful musician in Austin, Texas. Guy named Colin Hancock. And he recorded a band in New York City in the height of COVID 2020. I somehow snuck into New York and did. Did a wax cylinder recording.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker C: That is out there. You can find it.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker A: I'm trying to make a joke, but.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker B: So.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker C: It's too real.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker B: The people. What's a wax thing?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker C: It's like what, like a Thomas Edison. 19 what? 1910, 1890 something.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker A: It's pre records. Yeah, it's pre wax disc. It's. It was a cylinder and they came like in a 2 inch in diameter. Yeah, by maybe 4 inch tall. Little. Little tube. And you would slide it out and what, you'd put that onto a player that had a needle that would sit in that and read all the impressions. Well, that's just. That was the first. That was what they had before. Oh, why would.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker C: Why would I want to do that? Now that's a fair question.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker B: It seems like a waste of time.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker C: It might not be a waste of. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker B: Maybe when you're dead.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker A: I like it though. I like the. The lost cause they used to refer.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, every now and then I'll hear that. I'll hear that say begin record on Oz. And I just think this sounds terrible, but. But it's kind of cool. Like it sets a vibe. But it sounds awful. Like it is not a good sounding record. Obviously. It sounds like it's from 1929. I mean, it sounds terrible. Well, a friend of mine.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker A: But it has a flavor.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker C: It has the flavor and I have a friend. It's all. So that record is all music. Music from Guadalupe and Martinique.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker B: You have a friend.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker C: I do have one friend who played, who played that for a drummer in Guadalupe and it tricked him. It fooled him. He said, oh, that's an old record. Yeah, I don't know these. I don't know what band is, you know, like. So it does sound like a band from Guadalupe from 1931. I mean, it does sound like that.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker A: Well, Charlie, we're kind of on the downslope of the podcast here, but. But is there anything, any kind of hidden aspects of your life that we should know about? Like recently we had a guy I've known for a long time and I was having a casual conversation, found out that he had lived with the Cramps and been there roadie for four years.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker C: No, I have done anything that cool.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker A: No, you haven't done nothing like that. Not involved in any cults except for Squall Nut Zippers, obviously. But he never worked at Enron or for the nsa.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, Monsanto, something like.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker A: No, I think your. Your uncle was in the. In the agency.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker C: Likely.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker A: Likely, likely, yes.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker C: No, nothing that exciting. I wish. Like I said, I'm boring.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker A: Okay, well, not so boring. Don't. Don't say that on the podcast.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker A: Okay, so the rest of the summer you're going to be playing here on Frenchman street all the time and then you're taking the Tropicals on the road in August, I believe.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker C: Yep. We've got a two week run in August. What's up, Carl? Hey, Vince, we have a two week run in August, starting up in Cape Cod. Martha's Vineyard.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker A: Cape of Cod.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker C: The Cape of Cod down in New York City. Our singer lives in New York, so this is. You know, we'll be able to get her and. And do a new tour. We got a lot of new music, hopefully a new single out by then. Oh, we're working on it.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. Always something exciting happening in the Charlie Halloween universe.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker C: Keep it going. Content.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker C: We're leaning into the more Rocksteady New Orleans. You know, Irma Thomas as Rocksteady and Ernie Cato as Rocksteady.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker C: And.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker A: All right, Ernie.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker B: Kato. He's still around.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker A: No, no, no, no. He's long gone. Long gone. Burn, Kato, burn. Never be another emperor of the universe. Anyway, well, Charlie, thanks so much for coming on, man. It's been a kick. I hope it was worth you giving up a gig.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker C: Worth it. Very much worth it.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker B: All right, well, thank you, sir.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker A: Well, Manny, how do we. What do we say?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker B: Listen, man, what is it? Trouble never ends, but the struggle continues. Yeah. Good night.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker A: Good night.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker C: It.