Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 934 - Ripple Music Turns 15 - Todd Severin Talks Doom, Stoner Rock, and the Label’s Legacy

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 934 - Ripple Music Turns 15 - Todd Severin Talks Doom, Stoner Rock, and the Label’s Legacy · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

0:00
One day I get the stack of unreleased master CDs sitting on
0:04
my desk just came in the mail and they're all these unreleased
0:07
JPT scare recordings. And I called and, you know, I
0:09
talked to the guy. I go, you know, these are great,
0:11
but you know, what do you want me to do with this?
0:12
I can't review it. It's not been released.
0:15
And he goes, I don't want you to review it.
0:16
I want you to release it. And I was like, what are you,
0:18
what are you talking about, man? I'm, I'm not a record.
0:21
I don't know anything about being a record label.
0:23
I'm a freaking ophthalmologist. I'm an eye surgeon in Danville,
0:26
CA. And there's nothing less cool in
0:28
the world than being an eye surgeon in Danville, CA.
0:31
I don't know what to do. And he goes, I trust you.
0:34
You're in music for the right reasons.
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I want you to put this out for us.
0:37
So I actually took a little bit of time and I kind of put my
0:40
brain on pause and I started researching what it meant to be
0:43
a record label. And I really kind of delved down
0:45
into the sub pop model because they started as a Zine as well
0:49
and then became the label. In fact, they've done a few
0:52
things when they started that I still want to do.
0:54
Someday maybe I'll get around to them.
0:56
But I started to research this and I said, you know what?
0:58
This is really the next step of what I want to do because I've,
1:01
I just love music so much. And I'm definitely more of a
1:03
behind the scenes person that's I have a face that's made for
1:06
radio, as people would say. So it's like, you know, the
1:11
ripple effect as a review site, eventually you're going to write
1:15
reviews as can do whatever it does.
1:17
And eventually it's just going to die.
1:18
And that'll be like it was never there.
1:20
You know, there's so many sites that had come.
1:22
I mean, the time that you and I have been writing stuff, heavy
1:25
planet came and gone. I mean, there's a bunch, a bunch
1:28
of them good sites. Umm Peace dog man came and went
1:31
because there's just no momentum to keep it alive after the
1:33
writing stopped. And I figured that ripple effect
1:36
would be like it had never existed.
1:37
So I wanted something that would kind of be something that could
1:40
last, and that's kind of what the record they was.
1:49
What's up everybody, It's Kefi at ghostcoatmag.com.
1:52
I am so stoked and honored to meet a man I have admired for a
1:56
very long time but actually met in person for the first time the
1:59
other day, Todd Severin of Ripple Music.
2:02
Mr. Ripple, how are you, Sir? Oh man, I'm doing great.
2:05
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me.
2:08
And it was great to to see you and everybody else who came out
2:11
on Saturday night. Right, we were celebrating the
2:14
Ripple Music 15th anniversary. 15 years of anything is a
2:19
tremendous amount of discipline, you know, outside of your
2:22
professional life and your family life, this is, you know,
2:25
a tremendous accomplishment. I'm very proud to say I have
2:29
been a fan of yours for a very long time.
2:30
Before the label Ripple Effect, People know I've been in music
2:34
writing about almost as long as you had the blog.
2:38
And then it kind of spawned into this label, which is magical and
2:44
has really brought a lot of people together and it's
2:46
championing this music that I feel like the rest of the world
2:49
is still catching up to. There's a part of it that's
2:52
still unlike People don't understand that rock music has
2:54
never died. It lives in this genre, in these
2:57
genres. Stoner rock, Stoner doom, doom
3:00
metal, psychedelic rock, all flavors, whatever that means.
3:04
And it didn't die. It didn't go anywhere.
3:08
And you know, you can't measure rock music the same way we
3:12
measure pop stars. It's not.
3:14
We're not trying to play on the same playing field.
3:17
When a band breaks through big, I'm really proud of them.
3:21
I'm super happy for like a Greta Van Fleet that got so big and
3:25
you saw what it did to them. It burned them out really quick.
3:27
And they're taking some time now to recover because, like, they
3:31
hit too fast, too hard, too soon.
3:33
But you've been at this a long time.
3:35
I have been a fan and collector of the labels music for a long
3:38
time. It was lovely to meet you and
3:40
Mrs. Ripple as well. And so many people.
3:42
And not only saw so many friends of mine from the scene, I met
3:46
people I never saw before because we just had never been.
3:49
I've lived in the Bay Area for five years now almost, and some
3:53
people you just never run into because I'm just, you know, I'm
3:55
going to less shows as I get older and can't do as much
3:58
anymore. And it was such a magical night.
4:02
Incredible bands, incredible vibes, bottom of the hill.
4:05
You have my heart. I love that venue.
4:07
I've seen so many great shows there.
4:09
It is. I, I love Gilman, but like
4:11
Bottom of the Hill is kind of like my CBGB's or my Middle
4:15
East. If you're, you know, those
4:17
places, of course, Middle East is still around CB's not
4:20
anymore. But those are my like, that's my
4:23
touchstones is my lifetime as an East coaster and bottom of the
4:26
Hill is one of those places. I'm so glad it was there.
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Yeah, there was no doubt in my mind where I wanted to do it,
4:32
and that's always been bought on the hill.
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To me, it's just the, it's just a class venue.
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It's in a good part of the city, You know, it's easier to get to.
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The traffic's not bad, that parking is not bad.
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Less of a chance that your car will get broken in while you're
4:44
at the show, you know, and then you got the Connecticut Yankee
4:48
bar right down the street, which has got good food and it's a
4:51
great meeting place for for the bands and for the fans who are
4:54
going to the show. There's and then right down the
4:56
street a couple more blocks is the Parkside, which is another
4:58
great venue. So between the Parkside and
5:01
bottom of the hill, that's like the epicenter of what I consider
5:05
to be the home of ripple music for live right on.
5:07
We did have the Friday night show at neck of the woods, which
5:10
is a very cool venue. We've had a few shows there in
5:13
the past, a little bit harder to get to, but it's it's a very
5:16
cool venue. We've had a few shows at the
5:18
brick and mortar. There's a few new venues that
5:20
I've never, I've never even been to them, much less had to show
5:23
there. But like the Kilowatt?
5:25
Kilowatt reopened and has music. The killer punk rock bar, right?
5:29
New part of the mission, not too far from my house.
5:32
Really great. I've heard great things about
5:34
it. Haven't had a chance to get
5:35
there yet, but when it came to this, you know the show, I
5:38
wanted to do 2 nights. Backing up just a little bit, we
5:43
had a 10 year anniversary party which was scheduled for either
5:46
June or July of 2020 and that was going to be a big event.
5:50
I was flying out low fat, I was flying out Mothership, I was
5:53
flying out Wino. We had all the local bands.
5:55
We had a few LA bands coming up. There's like 9 bands for two
5:58
nights now. It's all going to be at the
6:00
Brick and Mortar. We also were going to do an
6:02
exclusive preview of the long hoped for planet of Doom
6:06
animated film. And so we had a 10 minute
6:08
preview and we had all that set up and then a little virus had a
6:13
different opinion on what was going to happen.
6:15
So that got cancelled. And then the next year I was
6:18
going to do a, you know, fuck COVID crank up to 11 party that
6:22
got cancelled. So then I just kind of backed
6:24
off. I said, well, you know what?
6:25
That's wasn't meant to be. I'll just and then when the 15
6:28
year came around and life's kind of gotten back to normal, I
6:32
said, well, you know what? It's let's do something.
6:34
I believe it or not, I don't actually set up much in the way
6:36
it shows. The bands are usually touring on
6:39
their own. They're working with promoters.
6:40
It's not that often that I'll actually try to set up a show on
6:43
my own. And I'll be honest with you,
6:44
part of it is because I'm terrified because you know what,
6:47
if you throw a party and nobody comes, it's like, it'll be me
6:51
and then like my wife in front of the stage.
6:53
But you know, the bands would have still done it.
6:55
But I have to admit, there's always that that hesitancy to
6:58
put yourself out there that way. But we got this one done and we
7:02
had the help of Christina Helgoth who booked the Friday
7:06
night show, which regrettably I couldn't attend.
7:09
As you can tell from my voice. I I started to come down with
7:12
something. And so Friday night, I just had
7:14
to stay in and try and rest to get ready for Saturday.
7:16
But I heard that Friday night went amazing.
7:18
And then you, you were there Saturday, which fortunately
7:21
people did come. Many people came.
7:24
It was so wonderful. I also couldn't make it Friday.
7:26
I was out of town. Neck of the woods is also a
7:28
place I've gone to a bunch of times.
7:30
Brick and mortar is also so down the block.
7:32
I live really like right between Soma and the Mission.
7:35
I'm dead center. So like I'm in the heart of
7:37
everything. I often walk to Great American
7:40
Music Hall for shows and and then August Hall and stuff like
7:44
that. And yeah, we have an
7:46
embarrassment of riches. I hope the Parkside something
7:49
comes in and saves the day. Doesn't sound like it's going
7:51
to, which is a shame because that place has been around for a
7:54
long time. And I know DNA got DNA Lounge
7:57
got like protective status, which is insane.
8:00
We should have did that in New York to a bunch of places that
8:02
are gone. When I was last in my hometown,
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I hung out with a best friend of mine who's a fellow peer, my
8:07
friend Ken Pierce at Piercing Metal.
8:09
And we walked all over the village where all the all the
8:11
bars and all the venues are gone.
8:13
I was like, this is like the Heartbreak tour.
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But you know, San Francisco does support live music and
8:19
especially and the East Bay of course, too.
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And I mentioned Gilman, but of course, Oakland, there's a bunch
8:24
of places an elbow room is back open and stuff like that in Jack
8:28
London Square. So we have an embarrassment
8:30
riches. But let's talk about Ripple for
8:32
a second. Great night.
8:33
It was a it was an amazing show. I have so much I could say
8:36
about. I've already seen the photos
8:38
from the great Raymond Aner. We'll post that soon.
8:43
You know, Fireball Ministry. Black Wolf said it was
8:47
incredible to see Zed come back. I love that band so hard and I
8:51
love Fireball Ministry so much. You can't even imagine.
8:55
I'm so thrilled that they're aligned with the label.
8:57
But let's take it all the way back to young Todd.
9:00
Like, what inspired you to what make?
9:02
Like what did you, what made you love music as a kid even?
9:05
Because like, I think you probably have a very similar
9:08
journey to me. I had a musical family a bit and
9:11
I had an older brother who was very into heavy rock and
9:13
progressive rock. And I ran around the house a lot
9:16
of times with like us a towel as a Cape and a knitting needle as
9:19
a wand and listen to 2112 and Pink Floyd in Genesis with Peter
9:24
Gabriel and lost my mind on a lot of that stuff.
9:27
And then I kind of went on my own journey musically so and my
9:29
parents had their own music too. But like, what is the thing that
9:31
made you love music in the 1st place?
9:33
And then when did you start getting into like rock music
9:36
and, and ultimately more, you know, obvious Stoner doom and
9:40
still and Stoner rock music? Dude, my my musical journey is
9:44
shockingly similar to yours. I did grow up in a musical
9:48
family. My my mother was a very talented
9:51
piano player, even though she never did it for anything other
9:55
than for herself. But as a kid, when she would
9:57
play the piano, I would always sit on the bench and just watch.
10:00
One of my favorite songs that she would play was The House of
10:03
the Rising Sun and I used to call it the Witch Song because
10:06
of the way her fingers would move on the keys during that
10:09
period. It was, it just blew my mind.
10:11
So at a very early age, there was always music coming into my
10:15
life and my parents music was Neil Diamond Cat, Steven Simon
10:19
and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot and the hair soundtrack, those
10:23
5. And so that was like the
10:25
foundation of my my musical upbringing.
10:27
And I'll be honest with you, I still absolutely love all of
10:30
those artists today, but I'll listen to the hair soundtrack
10:33
any day of the week. It's just a phenomenal
10:35
soundtrack to me. And I remember there was this
10:38
one time I was my family was a little disruptive, you might
10:42
say. There wasn't a lot of peace in
10:44
the house and certainly on my own, the only time I can get
10:50
away from the shouting was to be in my room with music turned up
10:54
loud. It was like the only place where
10:55
I was safe from the chaos around.
10:57
But as a family with me and my mother and father, I'll never
11:01
forget. There's this one time we were in
11:03
the den and my dad was playing Neil Diamond's Hot August Night
11:07
record. And the song that was playing
11:09
was I Am, I said on side four of the original album.
11:14
And like Neil or don't like Neil, the guy's a phenomenal
11:17
performer and he's a phenomenal songwriter.
11:20
And at one point in that song, he just really like really dug
11:24
deep into his vocals. And my mom commented on
11:26
something just as I can off the cuff comment.
11:29
She said something like, my God, listen to him sing that part.
11:32
And that just stuck in my head that there was something about
11:35
music which is different than just listening to it.
11:38
You know, that you could really deep dive listen to the music
11:42
and that there was more to get to from than just a pretty
11:45
melody or just something you can hum along to.
11:47
And I think that in a lot of ways, that kind of really stuck
11:52
in my brain as I was going into music and just listening for
11:55
what they're actually doing and what is the emotion that they're
11:58
coming up with in their songs. Because to me, music in the end
12:02
all has to be based in emotion. It's got to make you feel
12:04
something, can make you feel happy, make you feel sad, make
12:07
you whatever. Music's got to make you feel
12:08
something or else it doesn't really serve much of A purpose.
12:10
It's just elevator music at that point.
12:12
No, I did not have an older brother.
12:14
I had an older sister who was pretty worthless to my musical
12:17
journey, but but my best friend had an older brother three years
12:21
older than us, and he was the cool kid.
12:23
He was like the star defensive back on the football team.
12:25
And he had an Afro that was like, I mean, like one of these
12:28
Afros, you know, I was just, he was the cool kid and he was
12:32
really, really into all of the classic rock bands of the 70s.
12:36
I'm older than you, right? So I was born in 63.
12:39
So I was really good friends with this kid, you know,
12:42
starting from 717273 etcetera, like so through the early mid
12:45
70s and, and Danny three years older.
12:48
He knew all these bands and I didn't, but I knew that he did
12:53
and that was enough to make them cool for me to be interested.
12:55
So long before I ever heard like a Thin Lizzy song that I could
12:59
say with Thin Lizzy, I knew how to draw the Thin Lizzy logo, you
13:02
know, I knew I knew how to do the KISS logo and the Aerosmith
13:06
logo even before I'd heard the music.
13:07
So that like opened up my eyes that there was this really cool
13:10
music out there. But specifically when it came to
13:13
rock, without a doubt, the epiphany moment, the eye
13:16
opening, ear opening moment for me was Destroyer by KISS.
13:21
You know, came out in 1977. I was 7677, whatever year was, I
13:25
was like 13 years old. I was with a buddy, We're in
13:28
Walnut Creek. There was an early membership
13:30
store called Gemco. I don't know if they had those
13:33
on the East Coast and, and we weren't members.
13:35
But when you're 13 years old, you can get into a membership
13:38
store anytime you want by following an adult, right?
13:40
Nobody's gonna stop you. So we went in and I'm in the
13:42
little record section there and $3.98 the day it came out was
13:47
KISS Destroyer. I'd never heard KISS.
13:49
I'd probably never even seen the KISS record, but I knew how to
13:52
draw their logo, right? So I knew I was going to be
13:55
interested in it. And when you look at that cover
13:57
and I was already into comic books, I just had to buy it.
14:00
And I put it on back in my friend's house.
14:03
And, you know, Detroit Rock City comes on and you go through that
14:06
little intro scene, which you're not used to hearing in a Simon
14:09
and Garfunkel album, right? And you have that whole thing
14:12
going. You're kind of going, what the,
14:14
what the fuck is this? This is what's going on.
14:17
And then the riff starts right? And it's just like, whoa, this
14:21
is this is not sign of a Garfunkel.
14:23
And that's really what what launched me head first into
14:27
heavy metal at the time, now classic rock and my love of the
14:31
riff. And that's just permeated
14:33
everything, you know, that's that's happened to me since now,
14:37
just to very quickly follow up on your story.
14:39
I then went on and pursued my own musical journey.
14:41
I became a radio disc jockey in college and I was in college
14:45
from 81 to 85 in Los Angeles, which is a hell of a time to be
14:49
a disc jockey. I mean, 81 to 85, we still had
14:51
all the punk, all the US punk and all of the UK punk was
14:54
coming out. The second round of punk,
14:56
particularly Lai Mean X played my college party.
14:59
You know, it was just one of those scenes.
15:01
You know, we had the vandals, you had fear, you had suicidal
15:03
tendencies and and it's all right happening right then right
15:07
there and you had all the techno and in no way you had all the
15:10
Paisley stuff going on and you had all the powerpunk, uh,
15:13
powerpop stuff, You know, like the plim souls.
15:15
I was really into the Paul Collins beat and you had the
15:19
beginnings of really, really dark goth too.
15:21
I was hardcore into death, southern death cold and then
15:24
death cold and then cult and all of that stuff.
15:26
So I was playing that on the radio all the time.
15:29
So that's when I really just went off on my own to explore
15:32
music. Fast forward 10 years or maybe
15:35
more, there comes a point in everybody's medical career where
15:39
you stop listening to music because you 120 hours a week in
15:43
the hospital, right? So all that's going on, I missed
15:45
all of the let's see, I you can look at my musical career as
15:49
like 87 to 92. There was nothing, OK, because I
15:54
was too busy. So if you think about what was
15:55
going on, then it's actually kind of like 86.
15:57
So I missed all the thrash. I really missed all the grunge.
16:01
Now all that was just was in the vacuum of time where I wasn't
16:04
able to do anything. I missed death.
16:05
I didn't know what death metal was.
16:07
I've never heard of this stuff. But now it's 1993 and I'm doing
16:11
my postdoctoral clinical fellowship.
16:13
I'm in Houston and there's a comic book store there called
16:15
Bedrock City, which I told you I was already in the comics and I
16:19
would hang out there because I'm in Houston for a year.
16:21
I'm not going to make friends. I don't need friends for a year.
16:24
I just wanted a place to hang out.
16:25
So I'd hang out the comic book store.
16:27
And at the comic book store, there's some really cool guys
16:29
who worked there. And every time I walked in,
16:31
there was this amazing music playing and I never knew who it
16:33
was. It's all stuff I hadn't heard
16:34
before, but it was just really riff heavy and reminded me a
16:38
little bit of that that surge when I first heard Kiss and
16:41
those other classic bands back in the 70s.
16:43
And it turned out that these bands were Fu Manchu, Caius,
16:46
Nebula, probably you need AI don't I don't know exactly all
16:50
of the bands. The only name I really remember
16:53
hearing for sure was Fu Manchu and Nebula.
16:55
And one of the guys behind the counter was Jeremy Stone, who is
16:59
Mr. Plough. He was an 18 year old kid then.
17:02
And so he and I became friends, which obviously has lasted to
17:04
this day. And Jeremy kind of is
17:07
responsible for me getting back into that type of music, which
17:10
eventually led to Ripple. Sorry, my Webmaster is messaging
17:13
me at the same time while he's in the back end of the site
17:15
doing magic. Amazing stuff by the way, just
17:19
randomly. And I love, I'm a huge KISS fan
17:22
and and the loss of Ace and Ozzy this year has absolutely gutted
17:25
me. But I came in my first vinyl I
17:28
bought with my own money and it was a year later and it was 498
17:32
and it was Rock'n'roll over and I love Rock'n'roll over and
17:35
Destroyer. And that's for first like 8 KISS
17:37
records counting Alive and alive too.
17:39
Yeah, I'll throw down over those.
17:41
Anything else? Up to a live too man it's magic.
17:44
Yeah, I hated that Steve. Unfortunately, I ended up liking
17:47
some of it now, but not I was made for loving you that room my
17:50
childhood and worse than poverty, worse than abuse was I
17:55
was made for loving you disco. No, that you know that maybe
17:57
it's when people do disco. When Pink Floyd threw in a disco
18:00
beat, I liked it. When kiss did it, I was like,
18:02
no, I just got a whole reaction over my body.
18:06
But. In retrospect, it's not a bad
18:08
song. I.
18:08
Mean it's a great song. It's just a Kiss song.
18:10
I just don't. Like it?
18:12
We didn't want cuz we didn't want it.
18:14
Yeah, I didn't. Want our band to do that?
18:16
We wanted them to be me. We wanted Godathon.
18:19
Ace Ace and Peter didn't even want it.
18:20
Apparently according to Peter he didn't want it.
18:22
He wanted them to keep doing Hard Rock and and yacht rock cuz
18:26
that's what he loves. But really quick.
18:28
Do you have a favorite comic book?
18:29
Since you spent so much time in the comic book stores, what's
18:32
your favorite, you know, comic book?
18:34
Of all time growing up, it was it was a couple things.
18:39
Captain America was my favorite superhero, just bar none, good
18:43
and bad. Whatever.
18:44
I just loved Captain America. I just loved his resolve.
18:47
You know, he didn't have the, the inks that Peter Parker had,
18:50
which was, you know, an attraction to Peter.
18:53
But I didn't feel that kind of angst either, or at least I
18:55
didn't want to read about it. My comic books, to me, comic
18:58
books were always the imagining and the escapism that I could be
19:01
something other than an HD Peter Parker.
19:04
I didn't want to be that. So for me it was always Captain
19:08
America. And then I was a huge fan, and
19:10
still a huge fan of Master of Kung Fu, the original series.
19:14
Love it. And somewhere over here I would
19:17
show you my my Conan statue, but I I can't find that one right
19:20
now. But I was always big into Conan
19:22
too. Right on.
19:23
It's buried behind a bunch of books, which we'll talk about in
19:26
a bit. So Fast forward, you start
19:29
writing about music. You had radio, which is amazing.
19:31
You have a great voice for radio, of course.
19:34
And you start doing the blog and you know, obviously you're
19:37
collecting music and you're heavy into the scene and you put
19:40
out the first music. At what point were you like, OK,
19:43
this is a whole this? Did you just transition to a
19:45
whole label or did you it just happened organically?
19:49
I don't. And I'm always marveling about
19:50
how a small business becomes its own cottage industry.
19:54
Yeah, well, you nailed it exactly.
19:57
I'll back it up just a tiny bit for you.
19:59
So the ripple effect started with me and my friend and we
20:02
really had no intentions other than to write about music that
20:05
was already in our collections. I mean, yes, my music collection
20:08
is rather sick. It's I'm going through it right
20:10
now, but I have like 15,000 CD's, about 6000 records and I'm
20:16
trying to thin some of that out right now.
20:17
But I'm just a music hoarder is what I am.
20:20
And and so is John. And so it's like.
20:23
We just wanted to write a Zine about stuff that we had in our
20:25
collections that nobody had ever heard of.
20:27
Not because it wasn't good, but because we just never got that
20:30
that buzz. So we want to just create
20:32
ripples about some of this music that had gone unheard.
20:35
And I wrote the very first review for a band called APB,
20:40
which is a Scottish post punk funk band that are just so good.
20:44
And just to kind of tie things into the future.
20:46
I wrote it while I was at a novel writing conference in Cape
20:50
Cod. So I'm I'm there for a
20:51
conference the the meeting's over.
20:53
I had some time at night. I wrote that first review and
20:55
Blogger was something that was pretty new, so I just created
20:59
the blog the Ripple Effect and put it up.
21:00
One of my earlier reviews after that was of a band called the
21:04
the JPT scare Band. And at that point in time, I'd
21:07
really gotten very much into proto, just this whole, you
21:11
know, late 69 to 71 vibe of bands that had come out the most
21:15
of us had never really heard of in the real world.
21:18
But we're just mining that really dark heavy vibe as
21:22
psychedelic. The happy psychedelic was
21:24
turning more towards heavy music.
21:26
And that's of course the vibe of of what Sabbath was doing.
21:28
But as you know, there's so many other bands in that time period,
21:31
whether it's Sir Lord Baltimore or Leaf Hound or Bang or Buffalo
21:35
or all these great bands were coming out then.
21:37
And there was an article in Classic Rock magazine written by
21:39
a Music Writer called Sleaze Grinder, and it was the
21:43
progenitor, the progenitors of heavy metal or something like
21:45
that. And he talked about a bunch of
21:47
bands that I had not heard of who were playing this really
21:51
early type of metal. And again, Sir Lord Baltimore
21:54
was one of them, as was JPT Scare Band.
21:56
So I tracked down a JPT Scare Band CD, loved it, wrote about
22:01
it. Within a week of publishing it,
22:02
the drummer wrote me and, you know, just thanked me for the
22:06
article. And then he and I just started
22:07
talking and became pretty friendly.
22:09
After about a year, maybe 10-12 months of us communicating, one
22:15
day I get the stack of unreleased master CD's sitting
22:19
on my desk just came in the mail and they're all these unreleased
22:22
JPT scare recordings. And I called, you know, I talked
22:25
to the guy. I go, you know, these are great.
22:26
But you know, what do you want me to do with this?
22:28
I can't review it. It's not been released.
22:30
And he goes, I don't want you to review it.
22:31
I want you to release it. I was like, what are you, what
22:34
are you talking about, man? I'm not a record.
22:36
I don't know anything about being a record label.
22:38
I'm a freaking ophthalmologist. I'm an eye surgeon in Danville,
22:41
CA. And there's nothing less cool in
22:43
the world than being an eye surgeon in Danville, CA.
22:46
I don't know what to do. And he goes, I trust you.
22:49
You're in music for the right reasons.
22:51
I want you to put this out for us.
22:52
So I actually took a little bit of time and I kind of put my
22:55
brain on pause and I started researching what it meant to be
22:58
a record label. And I really kind of delve down
23:01
into the sub pop model because they started as a Zine as well
23:04
and then became the label. In fact, they've done a few
23:07
things when they started that I still want to do.
23:09
Someday maybe I'll get around to them.
23:11
But I started to research this and I said, you know what?
23:13
This is really the next step of what I want to do because I've,
23:16
I just love music so much. And I'm definitely more of a
23:18
behind the scenes person. I have a face that's made for
23:22
radio, as people would say. So it's like, you know, the
23:26
ripple effect as a review site, eventually you're going to write
23:30
reviews as can do whatever it does and eventually it's just
23:33
going to die. And that will be like it was
23:35
never there. You know, there's so many sites
23:37
that had come. I mean, the time that you and I
23:38
have been writing stuff, Heavy Planet came and gone.
23:41
I mean, there's a bunch, a bunch of them good sites.
23:44
Peace Dog Man came and went because there's just no momentum
23:47
keep it alive after the writing stopped.
23:49
And I figured that ripple effect would be like it had never
23:52
existed. So I wanted something that would
23:54
kind of be something that could last and that's kind of what the
23:57
record they was. So once we got the JPT Scare
24:00
Band album out, which was our very first release, Ripple
24:03
LP-001, double vinyl, psychedelic, 2 tone, you know,
24:07
clear vinyl, we, we really did it up.
24:11
I was just kind of off and running.
24:12
And from that point on, I was just going to, I was gonna do a
24:15
record label. Right on.
24:16
I love that so much for you and thank thankfully thank you for
24:21
you and John for doing this. You're not supposed to have
24:23
favorite children. You're not supposed to have
24:25
favorite people. But you know, surely you have
24:27
favorite bands on and outside of the label.
24:31
And you know, you've put out so many amazing records, so many
24:34
records that I have a deep connection to personally.
24:37
Do you have like an absolute favorite Ripple release in 15
24:41
years or is that too hard? Oh fuck, that's a really good
24:45
question. Do I have Ripple releases that I
24:48
will listen to over and over and over?
24:51
The answer is yes. Have I put out some that I don't
24:55
listen to very much? The answer is yes to that also.
24:57
And I might love releases for different reasons.
25:00
So I'm going to give you 3 with a with a third and a half.
25:03
OK. The first thing that it will
25:06
always be so dear to me is going to be when we did the first
25:10
stone axe record, or even before that.
25:12
Was the stone axe mighty High split 7 inch.
25:16
Do you have a copy of that? I don't believe I do.
25:19
Okay, I remember it. I love stone axe.
25:21
Great. I got it.
25:22
I have more than one so you can get one.
25:26
Cool, cool, cool. I'll get you one.
25:27
If you need it for your collection, I would.
25:29
Love to have one short. I would never say no.
25:32
So that that became a major thing, you know, not that it's
25:35
the greatest release of all time, but that's what brought
25:37
Tony Reid into the fold of Ripple and with Tony Reid in the
25:41
fold, and then we did more Stone Axe than we did Moss Generator.
25:43
And I've done Tony Reid's solo album.
25:45
And I mean, Tony Reid for a while was considered the third
25:48
member of Ripple. You know, he's mastered and he's
25:50
mixed an inordinate amount of our stuff.
25:52
He's recorded a lot of our stuff.
25:53
He's he's you know, he's fucking Tony Reid, right?
25:55
I mean, that's he's just a legendary kind of guy and he's a
25:58
great guy. And that becoming friends with
26:00
him and getting phone calls from Tony Read is going to be one of
26:03
my greatest memories of doing a record label.
26:05
So that's going to be one of my highlights.
26:07
Two others are highlights for different reasons, mainly
26:11
because part of the fun, you know, Ripple.
26:14
I don't just work with established bands.
26:17
I mean, I love it. We just, we have a Hermano
26:19
record coming out right now. We just announced it.
26:21
Fucking my mind's blown. I'm dealing with, you know, all
26:24
of these legendary Hermano artists, John Garcia, Dave
26:28
Angstrom, Dandy Brown, see, I mean the whole crew on a daily.
26:31
I mean, Dave Angstrom writes me on every day almost.
26:34
And it's like that stuff doesn't happen to a guy like me, right?
26:37
But Dave's a great guy and and I've had plenty of conversation
26:40
with John Garcia. I mean, it's it's kind of mind
26:42
blowing to me that track and I love working with bands like
26:47
that. But part of the fun, and I'm
26:49
sure you get it as well, when I say I've got 6000 records, this
26:53
is most of it was dumpster diving, right?
26:55
It's crate digging and you're just flipping through and you're
26:58
finding something that looks cool and you might pull out 10
27:00
that suck, but you find 1 and that's it's worth its weight in
27:04
gold. You know, you found this record
27:05
for $0.50 and it's one of your favorite records of all time.
27:08
Now that's, that's really cool. So I've always wanted to make
27:11
sure that there was a large part of Ripple that was dedicated
27:14
towards discovering new bands and helping new bands get some
27:18
exposure. And if I can get a band to get
27:20
enough exposure that they can leave Ripple to go to a major,
27:24
whatever that is, you know, Metal Blade, Napalm, whoever it
27:26
is, that to me is a victory, right?
27:29
There's like no hard feelings. Every contract I have has an
27:32
escape clause and other labels coming for you.
27:34
You get a kiss on the cheek and I'll love you forever.
27:36
But do what's best for the band, right?
27:38
So that that's always been one of my highlights is finding
27:42
those bands that nobody had ever even heard of.
27:44
And two of them that come to mind.
27:46
One is Richard's Creed, Witcher's Creed, which is just
27:50
this incredible proto doom record from a group of kids who
27:54
were I think the oldest was 20. And it's just so many years
27:59
ahead of their age in terms of the sound.
28:01
They all they broke up after the record.
28:03
They only ever played like 3 or 4 shows.
28:06
But I did have them open up for Ripplefest Sweden on the second
28:09
night of the Sweden two. And the audience was, this was
28:13
one of like those moments for me.
28:14
It's like I gave them the chance, these these young kids,
28:17
and nobody knew who they were yet.
28:19
The record probably had come out, but it hadn't made a buzz
28:21
yet. And and they came out and
28:24
everybody was sitting back. You know what it's like in the
28:26
show, everybody's in front of the stage, everybody was sitting
28:29
and these kids come out and they start playing and within, by the
28:32
end of the first song, the audience had all moved forward.
28:35
By the end of the second song, everybody was pumping their fist
28:38
and these guys, they're all looking at me.
28:39
They go, where did you find these guys?
28:41
Because that record was so, so good.
28:43
We wound up selling through two or three pressings, I can't
28:46
remember. If I pressed it again, it'd
28:47
probably sell again. It's such a good record.
28:49
And then another band who was kind of like that was a band
28:52
called the Necromancers from France, who, you know, they came
28:55
to me. They've only had one video out,
28:57
it was Servants of the Salem Girl.
28:59
And it's just incredible that that first record we did with
29:03
them just still blows my mind today.
29:05
It might be one of my favorite records that I've ever done and
29:07
nobody had heard of them. So those are really special to,
29:10
you know, to be able to pull out a band like that.
29:12
And then other ones are going to be bands who I just have a
29:15
strong personal connection with. You know, you're talking about
29:17
Zed. You know, Marcus Evis is is like
29:19
my right hand man does all the graphics for Ripple Black Wolf
29:23
and I have been together for such a long time.
29:25
And a band over in Belgium called Fire down below are just
29:29
wonderful friends of ours. So, you know, there's, there's
29:31
always personal connections to bands.
29:34
Another really good friend right now is a guy from Mexico, Pablo
29:38
Anton, who's in Demons. My friends, you know, this is
29:41
more than you wanted to know, but Ripple Fest Austin, not this
29:44
year, but prior year, my wife had just lost her sister.
29:48
And Pablo, who we did not know, was talking to my wife.
29:52
And they just connected on this deep level where they're both in
29:55
tears, you know, crying about recent losses.
29:59
And it's that's the sort of vibe that you get in Ripple family.
30:03
And so lots of favorites that way to me to name right now.
30:06
Right, right on. Again, sorry for your family's
30:09
loss. And that's a lovely story.
30:11
Ripple family is a phrase that came up over and over on
30:14
Saturday and comes up online all the time.
30:17
The Ripple family. And it's not just the bands,
30:19
it's this whole group of people that love this music and this
30:22
label. I'm going to make a prediction.
30:23
I'm going to put my Nostradamus hat on.
30:25
I think the next breakout band for the label, if there is such
30:29
thing, but I think so is my favorite underground band of the
30:32
entire Bay Area, and that is Snake Mother.
30:34
Oh my God, what an incredible band live.
30:37
I got the repress. That's like one of my favorite
30:39
represses in this whole year. When you put that repress out,
30:42
immediate buy, immediate first day buyer right here.
30:45
That's what I do. I don't, you know, whatever I
30:47
can't, you know, things get sent to me.
30:49
I'm grateful, but like I still buy.
30:51
I love records. I actually play my records.
30:53
That's the, you know, the slogan of my other podcast, which is
30:56
like we actually play our records.
30:57
We know flippers, but umm, I think that band can be
31:01
humongous, like the same level of Mesa and and the Spin this
31:05
year on Metal Blade. Like that big.
31:06
I think they could go that big. They're so good already and I
31:10
can't wait for new music. Yeah, I agree with you.
31:12
Umm. So I first got turned on to them
31:15
by the clean and sober Stoner who had posted about them enough
31:20
that I looked them up because they'd released their, they self
31:22
released their album on Band Camp.
31:24
Of course they didn't have a vinyl to it, they just self
31:26
released it. And so I started talking to
31:28
them. So I listened into it and I
31:29
loved it, and I had High Priestess on the label before
31:32
then, and High Priestess ticked a lot of those same vibes for
31:36
me, and just the ethereal, ethereal heaviness to the music.
31:41
But Snake Mother brought this Eastern mysticism on top of it.
31:45
And it's just like, damn, that's so good.
31:47
And, you know, High Priestess regrettably had broken up by
31:49
that time. Not that I needed one or the
31:52
other. It's not like that.
31:53
It's just, you know, I love that vibe.
31:54
And so I, I, I tuned into that Snake Mother record and then I
31:59
had a show coming. Forgive me if I can't even tell
32:03
you who else was on the show. It might have been viral.
32:05
Tyrant was coming down. I, I don't recall, but I, I had
32:09
snake mother get on that show just from talking to him.
32:11
They weren't on the label yet. I just wanted to see them live
32:14
and they, they were amazing. Bianca is, is theatrical, but in
32:19
AI don't want she's not, she's not acting.
32:21
She's not putting on a suit and pretending to be something she's
32:25
not pretending to be a a wizard or a warrior or a dragon or
32:28
whatever. She's just Bianca and she's
32:30
mystical and she is theatrical with her masks in the way that
32:34
she performs. And the band was solid as hell.
32:37
So I met them that night and we talked and told him, you know,
32:41
you should come on the label, we'll do a new record and I'll
32:43
re release the first one, which is what's happened.
32:45
The new record is has been recorded with Billy Anderson.
32:49
So and I'm very happy that I had a little role in connecting
32:53
them. So I'm really like, I haven't
32:54
heard it myself. I don't know, but I just trust
32:57
them and I know it's going to be great.
32:58
So when I was doing the original idea for the two night Ripple
33:03
15th anniversary party and I said Friday night was going to
33:05
happen, Snake Mother was supposed to be part of that
33:07
original lineup and as was Godzillionaire and as was
33:11
Baracho. And what had happened was Mark
33:14
of Godzillionaire has got some health challenges and they
33:17
weren't sure he was able to make it.
33:18
So that was starting to crimp the night.
33:20
And then Snake Mother lost their lead guitarist and they're in
33:24
the process of auditioning to find a new one.
33:26
And I couldn't risk having a ban on the Ross on the on the bill
33:31
who may not be intact for the show.
33:33
So I had to kind of like just cancel my idea for the Friday
33:36
night, rearrange a few things. And that's what led to the show
33:39
that you saw. But I wanted Snake Mother to
33:41
play one of those two nights because I agree with you.
33:43
They're amazing. Right on.
33:44
I think if there's anybody that is, there's a lot of bands out
33:47
there. One of my favorite bands ever is
33:48
Coven. My second biggest interview on
33:51
YouTube and podcast is Jinx Dawson.
33:53
We continually get both hateful and loving comments all the time
33:57
on that video. It's amazing and terrible.
34:00
But I feel like that's that's like a maybe there is no next
34:05
Jinx, but like in that vein, absolutely, 100% in that vein.
34:10
Possible vibes and and, and possible power.
34:13
And I'm really looking forward to that as one of my most
34:15
anticipated records of next year.
34:17
Is there a band or a few bands you missed on that you for
34:21
whatever reason you didn't sign, that you now are sorry you
34:24
didn't or, you know, someone else swooped in and got somebody
34:28
you wanted. Has that happened?
34:29
Yeah. Yeah, that happens.
34:32
Mainly it happens because the band just hits me at the wrong
34:37
moment in time. And it's not that I may not like
34:40
their music, it's just that if my schedule is too, too, too
34:44
full, I just kind of, you know, I close the doors in my brain.
34:48
It's like I don't, I'm not going to be able to take this on.
34:50
For example, right now I'm booked out through August of
34:53
2026, which is a little bit insane.
34:55
That's better than it had been, which had been more than a year.
34:59
So if I'm a year booked out on releases and you come to me, one
35:03
of the first things I'm going to say is, man, there's nothing I
35:05
can do. You know, I'm not sure where you
35:07
go to 2027 and that's not fair to any band.
35:10
So I'm upfront with that from the beginning.
35:12
So there've been a few that have come to me that just the timing
35:16
wasn't good where I wish in retrospect, perhaps I could have
35:19
made it happen. One of them was dual right when
35:22
they first, even before their first record, right when they
35:25
formed a contact to me and I heard the stuff and I loved it.
35:27
Didn't hear from them again for six months or whatever.
35:31
By that time schedule was jammed and I just didn't have the
35:33
bandwidth for it. I think Hippie Death Cult falls
35:37
into that category as well, I think.
35:40
If not, I just wish they were on the label anyways.
35:44
So good. It's everything they do is
35:48
magical. They're so good.
35:50
Right, right. And I don't recall if they did
35:53
come to me or if I just heard about them at a time when I
35:57
couldn't do anything about it for the most part.
36:01
Otherwise, the answer would be no.
36:03
I mean, if, if I've turned down the band, it's usually for no
36:06
fault of the band. It's just may not be what my
36:07
ears won at that time. You know, I can only hear so
36:09
much Sabbath, you know, And for the scene to expand, for it to
36:13
continue to grow and be interested, people have to keep
36:16
pushing it in different directions.
36:17
I've, I've never considered Ripple to be a Stoner or even a
36:20
Stoner doom label. I, I consider it to be a heavy
36:23
rock label. And it's like, I imagine a cross
36:26
where you have like, you know, the core ripple sound of the
36:28
middle and you have Stoner, you have doom, you have metal, you
36:31
have heavy psych and you can throw off a prong for Prague
36:34
because I do some real proggy stuff.
36:35
I do a little post metal stuff. I just want whatever I hear at
36:38
the time that's going to move me, you know.
36:40
So I but it's got to be it's got to be constantly growing.
36:43
You know, you got to keep infusing new life.
36:46
The Eastern mysticism of Snake mother is a great example.
36:48
There aren't a lot of bands. I mean, Ohm did what Ohm did,
36:52
and Ohm is amazing, but there aren't a lot of bands that are
36:54
bringing that in that sort of tone, which just changed the
36:58
complexion of what they're doing.
37:00
So I'm always listening for that new sound.
37:02
Right on. I love that so much.
37:04
Just a few more questions you and you've been terrific.
37:06
As expected, nobody is an island.
37:08
And in addition to John, I want to give a special shout out that
37:11
somebody I work with frequently, which is Claire Baron Day of
37:15
Purple Sage PR. We've done a lot of premieres
37:17
for Ripple when the obelisk is tied up or you can't get Metal
37:21
Injection. I am always happy to say yes to
37:24
Claire. She has been phenomenal and
37:28
really has is one of the few as a global brand.
37:31
We started as a Zine in Europe and I took it over.
37:34
So I have a real handle. I'm one of the few people that
37:36
really sees both sides of the global PR from all the labels.
37:40
And Claire is a person that has respect and reach here in
37:43
America the same way that they do in France and Europe.
37:47
And so that's really been to me. I think PR is hugely important.
37:52
I think it helps not just with getting music into the the ears
37:56
of people like me, but also does actually help promote in a way
38:00
in intangible ways that aren't obvious like marketing does.
38:04
So yeah, shout out to Claire. And you know just what a
38:08
wonderful allied have in your in your corner.
38:11
Yeah, we've been with Claire now she can tell you better than I
38:15
can. Wow.
38:16
I have to think back six years, maybe 7 years.
38:19
And we met her at the Ripple Fence Ripple Fest France, which
38:24
was in non France, which was an amazing, incredible event.
38:28
It was, it was two nights, 9 or 10 bands.
38:32
And it was so sold out that they put a sign on the door that said
38:36
do not try to enter. And this venue was incredible.
38:40
It had a bar in front and the stage was upstairs.
38:43
And then if you went out around the bar, there's a huge area for
38:46
merch, a big outdoor patio with a restaurant there and then a
38:50
green room for the bands. It was just such an amazing
38:53
location. And the the show was phenomenal.
38:56
And and Claire was there and my wife was there, of course.
38:58
And they hit it off just phenomenally.
39:01
In fact, probably too phenomenally, as I recall, as
39:03
far as the amount of beer that was that was drink that night.
39:06
But and and Speaking of which, you know, at that show that the
39:11
necromancers were there as was fired down below, you know, like
39:14
I said, two of my my lifelong favorite bands.
39:16
So that was phenomenal. Claire does a great job and
39:19
she's conscientious and she cares.
39:22
And probably best of all, she's a fan of the music.
39:25
You know, when you bring her an artist like Wino to work with,
39:29
she realizes that she's working with Wino.
39:31
You know, it's, and there's that certain level of enthusiasm,
39:35
which is exciting and it's, it's missing from some of the other
39:38
PRS where they may not even know the music very well.
39:40
It just happens to be the, the avenue that they were able to
39:43
find their, their place. You know, they stake their flag.
39:46
Claire is, is a life for the music now for me as far as that
39:50
island goes. And we, we did talk about my
39:52
partner John, who still, he's not, hasn't been involved for
39:56
about 10 years, but he's still my best friend and we talked
39:59
about stuff all the time and he helps me out when he can.
40:01
His life just went through some changes.
40:03
I've already mentioned Marcus Evans of Zedd, the bass player,
40:06
and he's done all the graphics for me for more than 10 years
40:11
and he never, ever says no. He's just awesome.
40:14
He's definitely, and he's my Webmaster too, so he's
40:16
definitely been a right-handed man for all that stuff.
40:18
There's a guy named Hakan Neiman whose nickname is Swede Beast,
40:22
and Swede's been helping me set up my distribution for 13 years,
40:26
12 years, something like that. There's a guy named Matt Wood
40:29
whose nickname is Sludge. And right now he's been setting
40:32
up all of our digital singles and he handles our YouTube page.
40:36
Regrettably, our long term bookkeeper guy named Chance
40:40
Pittenger passed away unexpectedly beginning of the
40:43
year. That's been a tough one.
40:44
And I've, you know, I'm still trying to recover and get the
40:47
books back into shape, but he had helped out for such a long
40:50
time and, you know, all these people do this stuff just for
40:53
the love. Nobody's getting paid.
40:55
I haven't gotten paid. Ripple's never made a paycheck
40:58
to me. I Claire gets paid.
41:01
You ask? Professional PR.
41:03
Everybody does it just for love, you know?
41:04
They just want to be a part of it.
41:05
Amazing. You just published your debut
41:08
novel. I don't know when you sleep or
41:10
eat or, you know, take a breath, but you wrote a book and I'm
41:14
always marveling at people that can write a book because I want
41:17
to write a book, but I don't know if I can do it and still do
41:20
everything else that I'm doing capably.
41:22
But let's talk about Deadly Vision and and talk about your
41:26
your writing aspirations, because I'm just so fascinated
41:28
that in the middle of all this other stuff, you also wrote
41:31
book. Well, and I wish I could claim
41:36
to be Superman, but the timeline doesn't quite fall out that way.
41:40
The book was actually concepted and written first draft anyways,
41:46
in its entirety way back in 1994.
41:48
And the idea was an experimental fusion of heart surgery and
41:53
virtual reality and how this experiment goes horribly wrong.
41:59
And I wrote it, like I said, back in the in the 90s, I did
42:02
when I was doing my fellowship and I got an agent for it and
42:05
went back to New York publishing houses.
42:07
And in 1994, they were not ready to hear about something that
42:10
involved virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
42:13
Those were science fiction terms to them.
42:14
And this was not a science fiction book.
42:16
It's a medical thriller. And so I had to kind of keep
42:20
working on it and revise and trying to get it to a place
42:22
where they would understand that it was a contemporary thriller
42:26
with some futuristic scientific principles, but still just a
42:29
contemporary thriller. And it got to the point where,
42:32
again, I had another agent at this point and the book had come
42:35
back to me from the publisher looking for revisions right when
42:39
I started. I mean, literally like the same
42:41
month. And that's when the bandwidth
42:43
got sucked up because I went Hedhog into Ripple, as you know.
42:46
So I just put the book away and it sat on my computer for 15
42:49
years and it stayed there untouched, pretty much unthought
42:52
about for 15 years while I went ahead.
42:55
And it started just doing Ripple.
42:57
And then, you know, come, you know, 2023, all of a sudden
43:00
virtual reality and AI are like words that people understand.
43:04
And so I said, I better get this book done and get it back out
43:06
there now. So I went back and I revised it.
43:09
I get up at 4:00 in the morning. Yeah, I can do a lot of work
43:11
before I go to work and got the revision done and got a new
43:14
publisher and got the book out. And yeah.
43:17
So this is, that's Deadly Vision.
43:19
And it's, uh, it's been out for, I don't know, six or eight
43:22
months And it's, it's, it's the reception's been really amazing.
43:25
It's been very encouraging because my goal was not to
43:28
publish a book. My goal is to be a novelist and
43:31
not just a novelist. My goal is to be an
43:33
international best selling novelist.
43:35
And that, that's what I will do if everything aligns properly.
43:40
So this is going to be just the the first step of me, you know,
43:44
knocking the doors down in the publishing world to bring back
43:47
some exciting medical thrillers, which really haven't had a home
43:51
since Michael Crichton died and Michael Palmer died.
43:53
And, you know, Robin Cook is in his 80s now.
43:56
So it's time to bring back that good scientific based medical
43:59
thriller with just a lot of espionage and body count and the
44:03
whole works. And and that's what I'm, I hope
44:05
to do. So my next one is concepted.
44:06
I'm getting ready to start writing.
44:07
It right on maybe, and I wonder if you would do an audio book
44:12
because you have such a great voice in that radio background.
44:14
But again, time time is the enemy there.
44:17
Is there is an audio book but it's not read by me because
44:21
there wasn't an option. The publisher did it.
44:24
I've heard that the guy who reads it is good.
44:27
I've had some some friends who have read the book.
44:29
I've heard the audio and they said he did a really good job.
44:32
I personally could not listen to the audio, but that's because,
44:36
you know, I've lived with that book for so long that every
44:40
sentence and paragraph has a cadence to me.
44:42
And if his cadence and saying it is different than my cadence and
44:45
reading it or writing it, it sounds off.
44:48
Nothing against him, it's just his cadence is his cadence.
44:50
My cadence is mine. And I just, it sounded weird to
44:53
me so I just stopped listening. Yeah, I tried to do the Aussie
44:56
audio book and I've clearly he wasn't going to be able to do
44:58
the audio book of his final memoir.
45:00
But yeah, it was tough. The read was better than the
45:05
British guy they got with the cockney accent.
45:07
But anyway, which Aussie doesn't have so the right so much, so
45:13
much to say and I'm just so proud of everything you've
45:15
accomplished and succeeded. And you just as a music fan, you
45:19
have given me so much. You've given everybody so much.
45:22
And I just want to say thank you.
45:24
Not just Keith from ghost called.
45:25
Thank you, but thank you for me, the music lover, because it's
45:28
you. We know our own, we smell our
45:30
own kind, you know, and I always end these with a wild card
45:34
question. So the one I have for you.
45:35
And I pondered this for a while and I think we'll do the the
45:39
wild card question for Todd is going to be the I can, you can
45:42
invite any five people to dinner, living or dead, famous
45:45
or not. Who would you invite and what
45:47
would you? What would the menu be?
45:49
Wow. Yeah, that is a wild card
45:52
question. OK, one of them would be Albert
45:56
Einstein. Fascinated by Albert Einstein.
45:58
You may not see it, but I have an entire shelf of Albert
46:01
Einstein figurines, plushies, and bobble heads, fascinated not
46:07
so much just by his theoretical physical insights as much as his
46:12
insight and thoughts into the bridge between physics and
46:16
religion or, more appropriately, spirituality.
46:19
And I think that that would be a fascinating conversation.
46:22
I'd probably butt up against Einstein with a little Lemmy,
46:27
because that would really change the tone, but I bet you Lemmy
46:30
would have a lot. Lemmy was a smart dude.
46:32
I bet he would have a lot to say about that.
46:35
We talked earlier about Maurice Sendak and Where the Wild Things
46:37
are, and I think I would love to have a conversation with
46:40
Maurice. And he was a very deep thinker
46:43
as well. I don't want to get too esoteric
46:45
on you. There's a guy named Dan Millman
46:47
who wrote a book called The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which
46:50
was a huge influence on me at a particular point in my life.
46:53
And I think that he, I'm trying to get get this conversation
46:56
together, which is going to be intellectual, spiritual,
46:59
musical, and just nutty at the same time.
47:02
So if we're going to, we got Lemmy already, but we need
47:06
another rock and roller to really kind of round out this
47:09
crowd. And I think if we're going to
47:10
throw just a wild host of ideas in there, we'll we'll bring Wino
47:15
into the conversation. First of all, Wino remind me of
47:17
friends anyway, so they know each other or we're friends.
47:20
And you know, Wino is a free thinker, man.
47:23
Is he a free thinker? As is Lemmy, as was Ali Stein.
47:26
So I think that all of them together could give us a pretty
47:28
entertaining meal. And what would it be?
47:31
I'm just seeing this really, really good prime rib, right?
47:34
You know, it'd be meat. It would not be a vegetarian or
47:36
vegan. It's going to be meat.
47:39
Great bottle of wine, like a case of it.
47:41
And just I just see this. I just see, let me just stab in
47:44
that big old piece of meat and pulling up his fork while he's
47:47
talking to Einstein about theoretic physics.
47:49
That'd be nice. Amazing, great job, Todd, man,
47:52
what a just an honor and a pleasure to know you and have
47:55
met you in person now and Mrs. we're bowl and you know, every
47:59
time I spin a vinyl from your label, I'm going to think of
48:02
this conversation and meeting you and and everything you've
48:04
done. Thank you so much for
48:05
everything, man. Thank you for supporting.
48:08
You've been you've been helpful to us.
48:09
The label's been helpful to us as well.
48:11
And Claire, shout out one more time and yeah, just Congrats on
48:14
everything. Let's get 15 more.
48:16
Let's get 30 more, whatever you can do.
48:18
You betcha. Hey, at the party, you got the
48:20
cookie, right? I am pretty diabetic and so I
48:23
passed on the cookie set OK. OK, but it.
48:25
Was offered one and I said I bought the shirt though because
48:29
that's my love. I have more black shirts than
48:31
probably most human beings should and I I politely turned
48:36
down the cookie, but I and I saw the cake also and I was like no
48:38
cake. I can't, but I thank you.
48:40
It's just there's this tradition of cake being at Ripple shows.
48:43
Yeah, yeah. I have the video of you on
48:45
stage, so I need to post that and I'm happy to share it with
48:48
you and tag you guys in it. It was really wonderful.
48:50
I think a few people were videoing, but I was like, oh,
48:52
get the phone up, you know, dork.
48:55
Thanks so much for having me today man, I really appreciate
48:57
it. Right back at you, pal.
48:59
Thanks so much. We'll see you in a show
49:00
probably. You know, we're not neighbors,
49:02
but it's Bay Area, so. That's loose enough.
49:04
Yeah. OK brother.
49:05
Take care. Bye.
49:06
Bye.