Latest / Troubled Men Podcast / TMP328 JOE ASHLAR GETS HAPPY

Transcript

TMP328 JOE ASHLAR GETS HAPPY · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Greetings, troubled 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, where with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, and former future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:34
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir. That is me.
• 0:36
  Speaker A: All right, trying to get the verbiage together for the going forward here.
• 0:40
  Speaker B: I'm still the former, but we've got some runoffs coming up in a week or so, some exciting stuff going on tonight. In fact, there's big election in New York City for their mayor.
• 0:52
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 0:54
  Speaker B: And for democracy, apparently.
• 0:56
  Speaker A: Okay, right. Yeah, we're going to see how that turns out.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Right. I think the polls just closed about an hour or so ago in New York, so we shall see what happens as this young socialist. Yes.
• 1:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It looks like he's going to win. So I'm saying, well.
• 1:10
  Speaker B: Really?
• 1:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe so. So I don't think there's any chance that he's not going to win.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: So when I say free bus rides for people.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Free bus rides, government grocery stores. Anyway, I have high hopes for the people up there. And we'll see. That's when I said we'll see how it turn turns out. I didn't mean the election. I mean we'll see how the next four years in New York turns out.
• 1:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. Will I spe welcome there?
• 1:32
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I think probably not, but it's, you know, federal authorities really take precedent over local authority, so we'll have to see.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: It's, it's, it's going to be conflict, though, for sure.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: And now who is the mayor right now in New York?
• 1:49
  Speaker A: It's the guy that dropped out. Oh, what is his name?
• 1:54
  Speaker B: Guy who was busted there for a while.
• 1:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got busted. Taken money from the Turks, right?
• 1:59
  Speaker B: Giving Turks and Caicos.
• 2:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, no, the actual.
• 2:02
  Speaker B: From what is Turks and Caicos?
• 2:04
  Speaker A: It's some island in the Caribbean, I think. I don't know. Maybe our guest knows.
• 2:10
  Speaker C: I don't know either. I was just trying to place it myself.
• 2:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:14
  Speaker B: I keep hearing. Every once in a while I hear about Turks and Caicos.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 2:17
  Speaker B: Like, you know, I watch a game show and they win a trip to the Turks and Caico.
• 2:21
  Speaker C: I haven't even heard it before.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: No, yeah, no, I've heard of it.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: It's an island somewhere.
• 2:27
  Speaker B: Did the Turks discover.
• 2:28
  Speaker A: I don't think it has anything to do with Turkey.
• 2:30
  Speaker B: Okay, yeah.
• 2:31
  Speaker A: I'm not sure. That's a good question for the troubled nation, though. Maybe somebody can.
• 2:35
  Speaker B: What the hell does caicos mean?
• 2:37
  Speaker A: Who knows, man?
• 2:38
  Speaker B: It's a. It's a.
• 2:39
  Speaker A: It's a whole riddle wrapped in an enigma.
• 2:41
  Speaker B: Turks and Caicos. Yeah. Shout out, nation. Let us know what the hell that means, where it is, and why it is.
• 2:49
  Speaker C: A Japanese woman's name is Keiko. That's right.
• 2:51
  Speaker B: Oh, that's true.
• 2:52
  Speaker C: But this is with a C. Oh, I gotcha.
• 2:54
  Speaker B: I think it's with a C and caicos, but it's not like cake.
• 2:59
  Speaker A: Right.
• 2:59
  Speaker C: That's what I was thinking of, too.
• 3:00
  Speaker B: It's like C, A, I, C, O, S or something. Yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: Kos.
• 3:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I have no idea. I've heard that. Yeah, it is. It does probably show up more in game shows than anywhere else.
• 3:10
  Speaker B: Now, why was this mayor taking money from them?
• 3:13
  Speaker A: Well, I think they wanted, like, the. Maybe the Turkish government wanted. Or some corporation. Turkish corporation wanted some kind of building permit or some. Something like that. And maybe he. He went to, you know, outside the regular cafe, probably.
• 3:32
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker B: Could be here in New Orleans.
• 3:35
  Speaker A: Right, Right. At least he had some shame.
• 3:38
  Speaker B: You do the social media, right?
• 3:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I have to do some. You know, I don't do it for. For fun. I do.
• 3:45
  Speaker B: You ever. When you're on Facebook, right?
• 3:47
  Speaker A: I'm on the Facebook, yeah.
• 3:49
  Speaker B: Yeah. My wife's on there, and I'm on there a little bit. But on my phone, I always get these. Manny, remember your memories? You ever get those?
• 3:58
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, all the time.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Your memories. And just recently, it was a picture of the Hard Rock Cafe that, you know, fell down. Oh, yeah, right off Canal Street. Yeah.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 4:11
  Speaker B: Those were good times.
• 4:12
  Speaker A: Good times. Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker B: It's a good memory. It really was a good memory. You know, not for three people, though.
• 4:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was bad. Bad memory. Last memory for those three people.
• 4:21
  Speaker B: Right.
• 4:22
  Speaker A: And then for their famil. Heart goes out to him. It's very tragic. It didn't have to happen. You know, the whole scandal that. That was at the root of that is still going on with the building inspections. And in fact, a lady that hangs out here at Snake and Jake's was involved in some of that. She's a bit of a whistleblower.
• 4:41
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 4:42
  Speaker A: And, you know, there's a whole scandal still going on.
• 4:45
  Speaker B: I love those two words together. Women and blower.
• 4:49
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 4:50
  Speaker B: That's what I like. I'll take that anytime.
• 4:53
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 4:54
  Speaker B: All right. She's here tonight.
• 4:56
  Speaker A: No no, no, I haven't seen her. Haven't seen it. But you never know. You never know what's going to go.
• 5:00
  Speaker B: I'll be in the men's room right now working for two bits.
• 5:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: You know. Yeah. Anyway, so. Yeah. So the election in New York and then there was some history is going to be made tonight in New Jersey, I think, our Virginia.
• 5:15
  Speaker A: One of those. Yeah.
• 5:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. Where they've never had a female governor.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Right. And both the candidates are females.
• 5:22
  Speaker B: Both females. So we think maybe. Maybe they're not. I don't know. You can't tell with this whole world today.
• 5:28
  Speaker A: It's topsy turvy, man.
• 5:29
  Speaker B: Lgbq, high five and all that stuff.
• 5:32
  Speaker A: Well, who knows, man? Everybody gets to decide for themselves, apparently. So. You know, it's.
• 5:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: But play it as it lays.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: There you go. What else has been happening? I forgot my book, so I don't know.
• 5:43
  Speaker A: That's okay. I got a lot of things you probably would have brought up anyway. Well, one, I saw your Dodgers won. Congratulations.
• 5:51
  Speaker B: Back to back, baby.
• 5:52
  Speaker A: That's. That's very rare, huh? It's been a bunch of years, 10 or so, 15 years since that happened.
• 5:59
  Speaker B: Well, it's been about 15 years that it's happened, but for a National League team, It's been about 50 years. The last team to do it was the Big Red Machine.
• 6:11
  Speaker A: What is that? Cincinnati.
• 6:12
  Speaker B: The Cincinnati team that our former guest Keith o' Brien loves so much.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 6:18
  Speaker B: He bleeds.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: The Big Red Machine hero, Pete Rose.
• 6:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. But they're not such a machine anymore.
• 6:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: But they had. The Dodgers won, and they won last year. You know, L. A. They're not very strong with parades, you know, but they. The last couple seasons, I watched the parade, and it was pretty good.
• 6:39
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: You know, they had it under control.
• 6:41
  Speaker C: We set a high bar here, so that's.
• 6:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, right. There you go. And a low one, like, hit this place.
• 6:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, simultaneously, high and low.
• 6:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. But they won.
• 6:53
  Speaker A: And you watched all the games.
• 6:55
  Speaker B: I watched pretty much all of them, yeah. I didn't get to see. I only saw half of game one and half of game two, but I saw pretty much the rest of. You know, baseball is a game where you can, like, you know, come back to it.
• 7:10
  Speaker A: It's still going on.
• 7:11
  Speaker B: It's still going.
• 7:13
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 7:13
  Speaker B: But those last three games were just the most amazing games. So I didn't. That game one or game two went, like 19 innings.
• 7:21
  Speaker A: Oh, D. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: I was like, I'm not doing that.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. I hardly saw I saw a little bit of. Of one of the games when, When I guess the Dodgers wound up losing it. And I watched it and it was kind of a lackluster game. I turned it off and I was actually, I, I went out. Speaking of parades, you always talk about how there's a parade for everything. And, and while there was a. A Day of the Dead parade on Sunday over at. In the Bywater, they had a whole little fair in the afternoon over there. And then we all. They had a procession down Royal street about, I don't know, a mile or so over to St. Roch Cemetery. And I told somebody there, I was like, oh, you know, both of my grandparents have two grandparents buried at St. Roch Cemetery. And they're like, so what? I was like, well, I mean, I think that's probably not. Most people here don't have two grandparents buried at St. Roch Cemetery.
• 8:13
  Speaker C: I don't.
• 8:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, you know, most of these people, probably from somewhere else anyway, so. But, but yeah, that was a lovely parade there. Saw some of our friends. The two carries some other.
• 8:27
  Speaker B: They just celebrated their anniversary this past weekend.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: All right. Maybe they were still celebrating when I saw them.
• 8:34
  Speaker B: Maybe. I don't know. But they like to go out.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're fun.
• 8:38
  Speaker B: I wasn't. I didn't even know about it, so.
• 8:41
  Speaker A: Right.
• 8:42
  Speaker B: I wouldn't have gone.
• 8:43
  Speaker A: It wasn't. Well, it wasn't well advertised. But anyway, I went to that. But when I got home, I watched a television show not realizing that the, the game was still going on. The seventh game or whatever. Whatever game. It was the series. Yeah, the World Series was still going on and, And I guess it was tied and went into extra innings and.
• 9:03
  Speaker B: It was unbelievable game. Yeah, unbelievable game. Game six and seven. I mean, it. Unbelievable. If you're baseball fans, you're, you know, you know what I'm talking about.
• 9:13
  Speaker A: Outstanding. Just an outstanding congratulations to Dodgers nation.
• 9:17
  Speaker B: You know, and apparently, if Toronto would have won, la won. But they. Both teams, organizations said Trump was not invited to Game seven.
• 9:29
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:29
  Speaker B: Or any game at all. They didn't. They didn't want him there.
• 9:32
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:33
  Speaker B: Which is cool. But, you know, I saw the Toronto Blue Jay fan reaction and, you know, it's French, British, you know, Canada. Canada. Right. And Canadian Canadia.
• 9:44
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 9:46
  Speaker B: They were interviewing all these fans after the game and they were like, well, they played hard. You know, they weren't like, pissed off. Yeah. They're so polite, very calm and all that.
• 9:58
  Speaker A: We're really sorry we didn't win, but there's always better luck next year he.
• 10:04
  Speaker B: Something like that where, you know, even LA won the series and they were, you know, shooting fireworks and blocking off streets and doing all that, that car stuff, turning over cars, doing all that spin outs in the intersection like that. That happened here once. You know, like I remember when the Lakers, you know, in the Kobe dynasty, when they were in the championship at home, they had in the big screens outside the arena that guys like Shaq and Kobe said, listen, if we win, don't destroy this place. Basically, that's what their speeches were. You know, win happy, you know, don't destroy happy, you know. So.
• 10:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we got to say that, you know, pretty much.
• 10:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker A: You know, try to have cooler heads prevail.
• 10:53
  Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, yeah, so they won. And it's, you know, baseball's so fucking long to begin with. You know, I, I heard, you know, today's what, November 4th. Pitchers report to camp in February.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's a long ass season.
• 11:10
  Speaker B: It's fucking. What the fuck is that about?
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, full time job, big commitment.
• 11:16
  Speaker B: I just love saying, oh, tiny. I love saying that. Okay. It sounds like a kind of a word some character in Star wars would say, right? You know, oh, tiny. Yeah, doesn't it? Yeah, you're right. Like one of those little Ewoks or something would say ohtani or something like that. Anyway, what else has happened?
• 11:36
  Speaker A: What else is going on? Well, you know, they, they had the, the infected monkeys that got loose. You heard about that?
• 11:42
  Speaker B: Oh yeah. Watch out with those monkeys. Still too loose.
• 11:45
  Speaker A: Still too loose. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:47
  Speaker B: One lady shot one yesterday. I saw that.
• 11:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, there was, it was menacing her.
• 11:51
  Speaker B: Did you see the interview with her?
• 11:52
  Speaker A: No, no.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: It was pretty funny, man. She said, she said, I saw that monkey and I shot and missed. And he just stood there staring at me.
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Challenging her.
• 12:07
  Speaker B: He's like. And then, you know, I was worried about my kids, you know, with disease and all that, and I shot him and I hit him and he still didn't move. But then he just died. Okay. It's like, it was like so matter.
• 12:22
  Speaker C: Of fact, where was it? I didn't, I wasn't aware of this.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: Where was it? Well, they're, they're Mississippi somewhere. Somewhere Heidelberg, Mississippi. I do remember, I read the article.
• 12:33
  Speaker B: They were, you know, Tulane University here has that monkey research on the North Shore. They were transferring some monkeys to Florida and the guy lost control and all these monkeys got out. Now Tulane defended themselves by saying they.
• 12:49
  Speaker A: Weren'T our monkeys, they're not our Monkeys. It wasn't our transport. Yeah, we don't know anything about them, but we do know they're not actually infected. It's like. Well, I don't know. Why was it reported that they were there? Was initially reported that they were all hep C positive and had herpes. It reminds me of some friends of mine.
• 13:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Some people here in this bar, you know, but. Yeah, so they caught the. They got two on the loose still.
• 13:17
  Speaker A: Two on the loose, you know, see where they wind up.
• 13:19
  Speaker B: Well, we got to do. Just like we did the. The inmates at OPP, right? Over. An over under for those last two.
• 13:26
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: I give them. I give them another 10 days.
• 13:30
  Speaker A: Another 10 days.
• 13:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, one of them is probably hanging with some, you know, other animals or something.
• 13:36
  Speaker C: I guess I'm just waiting to see if they write too easy somewhere.
• 13:39
  Speaker A: Right.
• 13:40
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 13:41
  Speaker A: They might be able to spell. Who knows, you know, they are. They came from Tulane, have a quality Tulane education.
• 13:48
  Speaker B: Really?
• 13:49
  Speaker A: I don't know.
• 13:49
  Speaker B: I was on a Zoom meeting today for. At Tulane for my job, and the guy, the gal who's running the Zoom meeting, we're getting ready for spring already. And it's like a classroom sometimes, you know, These stupid Zoom meetings, you know, it's just like, really. You know, I just. Can I just go get off this Zoom meeting and go work, you know, do the stuff that you're slowing me down from? It's like, right. You know, you're telling me to do all this stuff. Well, I could be doing it if I didn't have to sit here, you know, one hour a day, you know, that kind of shit.
• 14:20
  Speaker A: Wow. Really? They have all your time.
• 14:25
  Speaker B: Oh, it's ridiculous. But they're. They're talking about the hiring students and, you know, for the rush and all that and stuff. And she came. She goes, manny, what's your. What's the biggest thing that you need from your. They call them CST's or whatever.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: Customer service kids, Technicians.
• 14:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, whatever. I said, well, first thing I always do is I ask them if they know the Alphabet, because you'd be surprised how these kids don't know the fucking Alphabet.
• 15:00
  Speaker A: They have to alphabetize stuff.
• 15:01
  Speaker B: Yes, they do. It's part of their job. Alphabetize stuff. And she looked at, you know, she was like, people laughed. Just like, you're laughing. But I didn't get a laugh from her. I didn't get a laugh from her. But it's so fucking true, man. I mean, I've had kids. It's just like, okay. And we even have Signs that say.
• 15:23
  Speaker A: A, B have the Alphabet right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:28
  Speaker B: And I said, just do me a favor. You got all these books. Alphabetize them by author, okay?
• 15:35
  Speaker A: Now, last name. Not first name, last name, the author. Yeah.
• 15:39
  Speaker B: Last name of the. Today, I found a book that was written by Tolstoy in the M's.
• 15:46
  Speaker A: It's like, this is.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: What I'm dealing with was that.
• 15:48
  Speaker C: Is. It was his middle initial M. No, no. So it just makes no sense.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: The book was just, you know, the title, and then Tolstoy, you know, no.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: M's involved at all. Who knows? Who knows? So you can't get good help these days.
• 16:01
  Speaker B: You can't. You can't. Especially at Tulane.
• 16:03
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, we should get to our guest, but we have a couple of. No, of. Of deaths we should mention. Of Deaths of note.
• 16:10
  Speaker B: Great.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: Diane Lad passed away. Laura Dern's mother, a great actress. Started. Stern's husband, Bruce Stern's wife. Yeah, yeah. Start in Chinatown.
• 16:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker A: Starting wild at heart. Alice doesn't live here anymore.
• 16:25
  Speaker B: She had a good career. She was on that HBO show for a while, that. With Laura Dern. She acted with her.
• 16:31
  Speaker A: Oh, Big Little Lies or something.
• 16:33
  Speaker B: No, enlightened.
• 16:34
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Oh, I did see that. She was creepy in that. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker B: Well, Laura Dern was really creepy in that. And the guy who played her co worker. What's his name? I forget. He. He's the guy who created that show White Lotus. That's such a big.
• 16:50
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Michael something.
• 16:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Speaker A: Mike something. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker B: He's a real freaky kind of guy.
• 16:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's great. Great writer, though, man. Great director, too.
• 16:58
  Speaker B: So she died. Yeah, I heard about that.
• 17:00
  Speaker A: Very sad. And then the other one is Dick Cheney finally died.
• 17:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker A: He lived for years without a heart, but somehow.
• 17:09
  Speaker B: Somehow. Yeah. Survived.
• 17:10
  Speaker A: Finally caught up with him.
• 17:12
  Speaker B: What did he die of?
• 17:14
  Speaker A: Old age, I think. You know? Yeah, Heart failure.
• 17:17
  Speaker B: Didn't they make a movie about him called Dick? Wasn't it just called Dick?
• 17:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there was a movie called Dick. It might have been about him.
• 17:24
  Speaker B: It was about. With Christian Bale.
• 17:26
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 17:27
  Speaker B: He played Dick.
• 17:28
  Speaker A: Right, right. He was good in that.
• 17:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:30
  Speaker A: That's pretty entertaining film.
• 17:32
  Speaker B: No call. He's, you know, you got to give to Dick Cheney. He shoots somebody, and the guy he shot says it was my fault. Right, yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: Remember that power of personality? Yeah, yeah. Guy. Guy got shot. Apologized for getting his face in the way.
• 17:50
  Speaker B: Sorry, Dick.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: My bad. Yeah, but he. He. I remember that. That incident where. It was on a hunting trip somewhere, and they're all probably drinking. I. I just assume because. Because they waited. Even though the guy had a, you know, shot in the face with a shotgun, they waited till, like, the next day to report it and go in. So you didn't feel it, had some time to sober up?
• 18:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, he was so fucked up, he didn't feel it.
• 18:16
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 18:17
  Speaker B: But I'll never forget when Katrina hit and Dick Cheney went to Mississippi to see the damages. And he's got the press with him and he's looking around, talking like he does, and there's some white trash guy just going, you Cheney. You can hear the whole time going, you Chase. Just gets this big laugh and smirk like. But it was so funny.
• 18:44
  Speaker C: Kind of turned him on the whole time he was.
• 18:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much. They're asking him questions. He's, you know, that, well, we're gonna come in here with FEMA and, you know, do all this stuff. Fuck you, Chaney. But anyway, I. Yeah, it's fine. Right.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: Well, maybe we should get our guest in here.
• 19:00
  Speaker C: All right.
• 19:01
  Speaker A: Well, we have a terrific guest tonight. It's a guy I've known for a while. We actually spoke a bunch of years ago before we ever started doing this podcast, when I just had the germ of the idea doing a podcast. He and I played a gig together and we. I was talking about it to him. We hung out, even recorded our conversation for about three hours. And it's kind of a preamble just to see how things went. And so all these years later, I'm glad to finally get him on the show. He's a fantastic jazz, funk and R and B, organ and piano player, composer, bandleader. He's toured with Dr. John. He plays with Galactic side Project, Good Enough for Good Times, as well as his own organ trio. He's worked with a ton of great players, including Nicholas Payton, Nora Jones, DJ Logic, Mike Mills and Scott McCoy from R.E.M. roy Hargrove, Lou Solo, the great Lou Solo from Bullet, Blood, Sweat and Tears, as well as Wynton Delio and. And Jason Marcel has worked with all those. We're going to get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Joe Ashler. Welcome, Joe.
• 20:09
  Speaker C: Good to be here. Yeah, man, thanks for having me.
• 20:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker C: Taking many years and we finally made it happen.
• 20:14
  Speaker A: Well, you know, that's what I say. You know, it's like, like, Paul, you're too young to remember this commercial, but Orson Welles used to do this. This Paul Masson wine commercial. And the tagline was, paul Masson, no wine before it's time.
• 20:29
  Speaker C: Ah, nice.
• 20:30
  Speaker A: Similarly, no guests before it's time. It's all gonna work out. I've been keeping an eye on you from a distance, waiting to see when it was gonna be a good time for you.
• 20:38
  Speaker C: Yeah, right.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: And then I ran into you a couple of weeks ago. I was playing this John Papa Gro tribute to Dr. John. Yeah. And you played an opening piano set and then you sat in on organ on a few tunes with us. And that was a thrill.
• 20:52
  Speaker C: And such a fun night.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. Great night.
• 20:54
  Speaker C: Such a night.
• 20:55
  Speaker A: Such a night.
• 20:56
  Speaker C: Couldn't help it.
• 20:57
  Speaker A: And got to reconnect with you there and thought, pitch it to you again. You're like, yeah, I'll do it. So here you are. So here you are. Unlike our guest from last week, I actually do know that you're not from New Orleans.
• 21:09
  Speaker C: I am not from New Orleans originally. No.
• 21:11
  Speaker A: So let's go back and give us some of your background. Where'd you grow up?
• 21:16
  Speaker C: I am from Connecticut originally.
• 21:17
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 21:18
  Speaker A: What part of Connecticut?
• 21:19
  Speaker C: Middletown.
• 21:20
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 21:20
  Speaker C: Which most people wouldn't know other than for Wesleyan University. That's the one thing we have. And, you know, we do have a little bit of a music scene there, but it was more on the avant garde side of things.
• 21:30
  Speaker A: Huh. Okay. And were your parents academics?
• 21:33
  Speaker C: No, no. My dad worked for the post office and ran several businesses, including a music store in his retirement, which was really worked out well for me too, because I had a fun place to hang out when I went home and access to all kinds of music equipment.
• 21:50
  Speaker A: So that wasn't when you were growing up?
• 21:52
  Speaker C: No, no, no, not when I was growing up. That was he actually him and his wife bought the. The music store after I moved to New Orleans.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: You know, as a kid, I still have this thing where I'll go into a music store and have no intention of buying anything. I just like looking at all the people. Yesterday I would go in world irons as a little kid, you know, five, six, because I lived in Algiers and they had a Oakwood shopping center. Had a whirl ons over there, you know, so set you loose in the mall. And I'd just go walk up and down, look at all the horns, look at the guitars. I didn't have a ton of guitars, but, you know, just any kind of finely made instrument like that. I find it fascinating. So you grew up there in Connecticut, musical family.
• 22:41
  Speaker C: Well, so my dad. My dad is a musician at heart. And it was something that he really wanted to do for his life, but for various reasons, he didn't end up pursuing it professionally.
• 22:52
  Speaker A: But he played as a hobbyist.
• 22:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, he played. Well, he started as a kid and he played drums, clarinet, he sang, and he played guitar. So as a kid, I grew up listening to him practice the guitar. And I also grew up hearing a lot of great music because he was a collector. So he just had lots of. At the time, it was records and tapes. A really great record and tape collection. You know, long story short, my mom was not very supportive of music, so she had given him a choice.
• 23:21
  Speaker B: That's why they divorced.
• 23:22
  Speaker C: That is a big component of why they divorced, yes.
• 23:25
  Speaker B: Now, did you. Since he worked at the post office, did you guys get free stamps?
• 23:30
  Speaker C: You know, that's a good question. I bet we did before I even understood that it cost. It cost a few cents to mail something, but.
• 23:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, but a leakage they call that.
• 23:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Right.
• 23:44
  Speaker B: Now, why was your mom against music?
• 23:46
  Speaker C: You know, I mean, I think part of it was just maybe knowing that it's not necessarily the most stable of careers. I think part of it was that, and I think part of it might have been just, you know, having my dad out there playing gigs. And maybe there was an element of jealousy, wondering if he was going to stray or something like that. You know, when I took an interest in music, she wasn't really fond of that either.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Now, you were a wee lad when you first started studying. Tell us about studying music and getting serious with it.
• 24:16
  Speaker C: So for me, everything changed. One day I watched Sesame street and Herbie Hancock was on Sesame Street. And that was actually the day that I switched from I want to be a firefighter, police officer, astronaut to I want to be a musician.
• 24:30
  Speaker A: It's crazy, the. The. The reach that Herbie had.
• 24:33
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. You know, and he was really big then, too, because he had Rocket. He was. It was a hit at the time. So he had reached, you know, even beyond the jazz community.
• 24:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was probably the height of his fame.
• 24:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, he was on commercials for Casio keyboard. It was a really fun one to look up.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: Who was your favorite on Sesame Street?
• 24:50
  Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question.
• 24:51
  Speaker B: Who?
• 24:51
  Speaker C: What? I mean, I. I think it's probably Ernie.
• 24:53
  Speaker B: Ernie.
• 24:54
  Speaker C: I think it was Ernie.
• 24:55
  Speaker B: Now, who did Herbie do the scene with?
• 24:57
  Speaker C: Herbie. So I don't think there were any of the Sesame street characters in the scene, but they did have. Because she later became famous on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. They had Tatiana Ali when she was a little kid. And I remember this well, and I may have seen it as an adult on YouTube. But I did remember it as a kid that he had a sampling keyboard and he sampled her voice, Tatiana Ali. And then played her voice back to her on the keyboard. So actually at that time, I wasn't even interested in music yet. I was interested in a keyboard. I was interested in the tech side of things. And, and I saw him using, you know, if you've seen a keyboard player use a pitch bend wheel.
• 25:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:33
  Speaker C: You know, I didn't know what that was, but I saw him do it. So when I got my first little keyboard, I started like playing with the volume slider, thinking it was doing something.
• 25:41
  Speaker B: And then you got interested in Tatiana?
• 25:44
  Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. And then, and then I looked her up and who's this cute kid? You know, so.
• 25:50
  Speaker A: So you see, Herbie, do you start begging your parents for music lessons or.
• 25:56
  Speaker C: So it didn't start with music lessons. It started with an obsession with the keyboard.
• 26:01
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 26:01
  Speaker C: And. And, and I also. And you know, now I'm talking in this holding this microphone up. I had an obsession with microphones too. So I guess it was a whole tech thing, you know, audio and tech thing. But.
• 26:10
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:10
  Speaker C: You know, the way. The way it went down. My grandfather, he called me on the phone because I had just anytime anybody that would listen to me, I was like, keyboard, keyboard. Joey. Joey wants to talk about keyboards and I want to talk about music. I'm four. Four or five. Yeah. Four or five years old, you know, but, you know, I would just talk anybody's ear off about keyboard and Herbie Hancock and, you know, the little bit I knew at the time. And so grandpa calls me on the phone and he says, hey, Joey. You know, because I was Joey, I'm Joe Jr. But you know, I went by Joey Gotcha to differentiate me from my dad. Hey, Joey, you gotta come over. I got a keyboard. And I was like, no, no way, no way. He's like, you're playing with me. No, no, no, I'll play. And he played, played it for me, this chip tune sounding thing over the phone. And that was all I needed to hear. And I was like, dad, you gotta take me to grandma and grandpa's. Grandpa has a keyboard. And he's like, no, he does not. I promise you, he does not have a keyboard. I was like, no, he played it for me on the phone. He wouldn't lie to me.
• 27:06
  Speaker A: Now you're the oldest.
• 27:07
  Speaker C: He's got a keyboard. I'm the oldest. Yeah. And I was the only child at that time. I don't think my brother was. Because we're four years apart.
• 27:12
  Speaker A: I could tell. I could tell.
• 27:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, good point. Yeah, go on. So. So, you know, I beg him. He's like, we're gonna. I'm gonna take you over there, but I don't want you to be disappointed. I'm telling you, he does not have a keyboard. And I would not. I wouldn't hear it. I wouldn't hear it. So we got there, and he's got this smile on his face, and he's got this fucking Hawaiian doll. And he pushed the button, and it does a little hula dance, and it played that song that I heard on the phone. There was no keyboard. It was this Hawaiian doll.
• 27:42
  Speaker A: Oh, man.
• 27:43
  Speaker C: And he laughed and I cried.
• 27:46
  Speaker A: Oh, my God.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: And my grandmother felt so bad, she came back into the room with a fistful of cash, gave it to my dad and said, you go buy him a keyboard right now.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: Good for your grandma.
• 28:00
  Speaker B: What was your grandfather. What was he thinking?
• 28:04
  Speaker C: I have no idea. He played tricks like that. And of course, you know, my dad knew. He knew that Grandpa was just fucking with me.
• 28:13
  Speaker A: Oh, so your dad could tell already?
• 28:14
  Speaker C: Oh, he knew. He knew from when I was telling him to bring him to bring me over. But I wouldn't take no for an answer. And dad was trying. He's like, he doesn't have keyboard. You're going to be disappointed.
• 28:22
  Speaker A: That's awful. I would never do that to a child.
• 28:24
  Speaker C: I would do a lot, you know, And. And, you know, dad would say, yeah, he's. He's pretty much the same grandfather that he was as a father. So he's like, I'm sorry.
• 28:33
  Speaker A: I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
• 28:35
  Speaker C: But Grandma, she was a she. She was. She had a heart of gold.
• 28:38
  Speaker A: So. So you ran down to the music store.
• 28:41
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker A: You pick something out.
• 28:43
  Speaker C: Yeah. Little Casio keyboard. And. And he still has it. Dad still has it. My very first keyboard. It had little micro keys and lights above the keys and a little cartridge that would play basic songs on it. And the lights above the keys would light up. And that's how I started as I just started messing around. I didn't know what the names of the notes were or anything. I just started trying to follow the lights. And like I said, I was doing my Herbie Hancock impression, moving the volume knob back and forth on the keyboard, thinking that that's how professionals do.
• 29:15
  Speaker A: Looked good.
• 29:15
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker C: I was like, oh, you gotta. You know. And that's why Prob. I've leaned into being a showman now, too, is you gotta. You gotta look the part as well as play the part, you know, Absolutely. Make the stank face when you play.
• 29:27
  Speaker A: So at some point you. You get beyond just playing. You show some promise, obviously. And your parents get you into lessons or something.
• 29:36
  Speaker C: Yeah. And then to specify my dad, my mom was like, no, Right, right, right, right. But yeah. So just coincidentally, the store that we went to for lessons was a Yamaha Electone dealership. And the Yamaha Electones were these Japanese synthesizer organs that were very popular in Japan. And they had a short moment in the United states in the 80s. And so this place was a dealership for those. And that's actually how indirectly how I became an organ player was. My first lessons were on an organ rather than a piano. But of course they had all the sounds and stuff that I was looking for, like the keyboard did. So it was right up my alley.
• 30:17
  Speaker A: And explain for the listeners, difference between playing organ. The piano. You have a sustained pedal, the notes have resistance to them. You know, they have weight to them. Organ doesn't have any weight.
• 30:28
  Speaker C: That's exactly right.
• 30:29
  Speaker A: To the keys. And there's no sustain pedal. So it's a totally different approach.
• 30:34
  Speaker C: The commonality they have is all the notes are in the same place, but you really play them as two completely different instruments.
• 30:41
  Speaker B: Do they have the same amount of keys?
• 30:43
  Speaker C: Some of them do and some of them don't. So a piano is typically 88 keys.
• 30:47
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:47
  Speaker C: Keyboards can be any size. And the organ that I was playing when I first started playing had. And you know, you have two keyboards on. You have an upper keyboard and a lower keyboard. And put together, those two keyboards still didn't have the same amount of keys as a piano. So there's less keys and they're staggered, so one keyboard goes lower.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: How many keys did your Casio have?
• 31:05
  Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question. I have to bet it was somewhere in the 30s or 40s.
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Two and a half octaves. Yeah, yeah, I remember those.
• 31:11
  Speaker C: Yeah. Little micro keyboard pretty much.
• 31:13
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Well, you had little micro fingers, so.
• 31:15
  Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. Now I couldn't. I mean.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:18
  Speaker C: I've tried to get away because I have a chord keyboard that I use during the pandemic, that's a synth. And the keys are about the same size. And it's. It's tricky to go from full size adult keys to.
• 31:27
  Speaker A: With full size.
• 31:28
  Speaker C: Yeah, full size adult. Yeah, exactly. And I have pretty big hands, you know, so it's like.
• 31:33
  Speaker B: So let me go back for a second. Your grandfather died.
• 31:36
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 31:37
  Speaker B: And he left you that Hawaiian doll in the world.
• 31:40
  Speaker C: Oh, man, that would have been funny. Yeah, exactly. I wonder. Whatever. Hawaiian doll.
• 31:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, I will this doll to you.
• 31:52
  Speaker C: Yeah, that would have been his style, though, I'll tell you. I don't even. I don't think. I don't even know if he had anything to will. He was. He was quite the gambler. Oh, yeah.
• 32:03
  Speaker B: He probably won that in a bet, that doll.
• 32:06
  Speaker C: That might have been the case. Yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. Who goes by that? I mean, would he buy something like that just to fuck with you, or he just found it? Probably.
• 32:14
  Speaker C: I don't think he bought it to fuck with me, but he did. He did a lot of dumpster diving. He did a lot of, like, flea markets. And so he had, you know, anything. Anything you needed, you weren't allowed to buy if you told him, oh, I bought this. I just bought a hat. What'd you buy that for? I got 10 hats down the cellar. Didn't matter what you had. He had it in the cellar.
• 32:33
  Speaker A: He had inventory.
• 32:34
  Speaker C: He had inventory in the cellar you couldn't get away with. You know, that cellar was a field of dreams, for sure.
• 32:42
  Speaker A: So you get an actual keyboard, you start taking lessons from somebody.
• 32:46
  Speaker C: Yeah, so I went to this organ store, and I started with group lessons. So it was a bunch of kids, you know, I guess I started at eight years old. So this was. It was four years from when I got that first Casio to when I actually took my first lesson.
• 33:00
  Speaker A: Okay, now, you found you learned a lot of stuff just on your own, just developing your ear?
• 33:06
  Speaker C: Yeah, I developed my ear. And I was just kind of screwing around, and I started. Oh. You know, what actually happened right before we had the lessons was my mom wanted to. I don't know where this came from, but she decided she wanted to play the keyboard, so they bought a Yamaha keyboard. And it had. She put the stickers of the note names on it. So I actually learned some of the note names from that. But then I never let my mom play it because I took it out as soon as I saw there was a keyboard. I'm like, this is mine. You know, it's also why my brother doesn't play music, because anytime he brought an instrument home that he was gonna try, I hijacked it. So I was a pretty asshole brother.
• 33:38
  Speaker A: In that regard before we had the Internet and all these distractions, you know, we had to entertain ourselves.
• 33:44
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 33:44
  Speaker A: An instrument like that, it's like a toy that never gets old.
• 33:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, totally.
• 33:49
  Speaker A: So you start taking group lessons. You excel, I imagine. Rising. The cream's rising to the Top teacher pulls you aside and says, yeah, all these, it's fine what these kids are doing. You're a different thing.
• 34:02
  Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. Then they put me in private lessons at the same store. Ended up switching teachers too. They connected me with a more advanced teacher. And at the time I was playing, I had no interest in jazz or improvisation. I was playing movie and TV themes.
• 34:15
  Speaker A: Okay. Manny's a big, big movie and TV theme fan.
• 34:20
  Speaker B: I love it.
• 34:21
  Speaker A: And he's a collector of. Of movie themed soundtracks.
• 34:24
  Speaker C: Oh, excellent.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 34:25
  Speaker B: I have most of the Bond.
• 34:26
  Speaker C: All right.
• 34:27
  Speaker B: Tracks.
• 34:28
  Speaker A: Lalo Schifrin.
• 34:29
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker B: Sergio. Yeah. Who's that guy?
• 34:35
  Speaker A: Leone.
• 34:36
  Speaker B: No, not Leon. No. Who's the guy? Who? Maroder, Sergio Giorgio, Georgia.
• 34:42
  Speaker C: Oh, all right.
• 34:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love all that stuff. I love the TV soundtracks too. The best though is cuz they're just so catchy.
• 34:49
  Speaker C: I remember I did they have to.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: Be really catchy, you know, for like 30 seconds.
• 34:53
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 34:54
  Speaker A: You know, I had some good ones in the 70s, like Neil Hefty wrote some of those. Had some great writers writing those. Like the theme from Manx or something.
• 35:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, I did.
• 35:02
  Speaker B: I know I did San Francisco. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were good ones.
• 35:06
  Speaker C: Yeah, I did mash. I know I did that one. I did Peter Gunn. That was a big one. That was a fun one to play on the organ pedal. That was my little show off piece. As the Peter Gunn bass line on the organ.
• 35:17
  Speaker A: Were you actually studying organ at some point and kicking bass pedals?
• 35:20
  Speaker C: Yes. So that's from, from day one at that music store. Even in the group classes, they were teaching us how to play pedals.
• 35:27
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 35:27
  Speaker C: So, yeah, we were learning. When I learned where middle C was in my right hand, I learned where it was in my left foot. And yeah, and so that was, you know, unlike a lot of people who come to the organ later. People ask me, how did you learn to play pedals? How did you add it? I had the benefit of not having to add it. It was just part of my.
• 35:43
  Speaker A: Did it right from the start.
• 35:44
  Speaker C: Right, right.
• 35:45
  Speaker A: Well, that's, I think, the best way to do it, you know?
• 35:46
  Speaker C: Yeah. So now it's just, it's how I think about playing. And even when I'm playing piano, my feet sometimes don't do because I'm so used to being engaged in that part of the song.
• 35:56
  Speaker A: Now when you play bass pedals, you take your shoe off.
• 35:59
  Speaker C: I play barefoot now.
• 36:00
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 36:01
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Not at the. Not as a kid. As a kid I had to have the, the, like the, the pumps, high top sneakers.
• 36:08
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 36:08
  Speaker C: In the like late 80s, early 90s. That was a whole part of the whole, the whole shtick, you know.
• 36:13
  Speaker B: I have this Jordan pump.
• 36:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, the Jordan. Yeah, exactly.
• 36:16
  Speaker A: I have this friend, Mike Flanagan, who plays with Billy Gibbons, organ player, and he kicks bass pedals with cowboy boots on.
• 36:27
  Speaker C: Oh, that, that's gotta be so hard.
• 36:29
  Speaker A: It's crazy.
• 36:30
  Speaker C: I can't even imagine doing that.
• 36:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's like not, you know, like big old wide cowboy, but God, Mike, how do you do that? He goes, I don't know. I think he started off as a guitar player too. Crazy.
• 36:41
  Speaker C: Oh, wow.
• 36:42
  Speaker A: Super talented guy. Anyway, so it's not long before you actually start playing gigs, huh?
• 36:47
  Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know as doing. When I was doing the movie and TV theme stuff, I was hustling gigs from a very young age and doing like a lot of local things like town festivals, fairs.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: How's a 10 year old hustling gig?
• 37:01
  Speaker C: You know, I'm making calls. I remember I had, I actually got the city council to give me a grant to play music in all the convalescent homes and elementary schools in my town.
• 37:10
  Speaker A: And how.
• 37:11
  Speaker C: Yeah. At 10 years old.
• 37:12
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 37:12
  Speaker A: Good for you.
• 37:13
  Speaker C: So I was, Yeah, I was like doing little local, local tours, you know, playing, playing these, these themes for the old folks. Yeah, the old folks. And then with the kids, I picked, you know, whatever movies were popular at the time. I think I did like An American Tail and A Little Mermaid and the Lion King and any of the Disney movies. I was doing all those things.
• 37:30
  Speaker B: How are you getting around? Is your dad your rod?
• 37:31
  Speaker C: Dad's driving me around.
• 37:33
  Speaker B: The roadie?
• 37:33
  Speaker C: Yeah, he's driving me around in the van, you know, help the organ apart and bringing it to all these places and setting up and playing.
• 37:39
  Speaker A: So what kind of organ is a Yamaha organ?
• 37:41
  Speaker C: So yeah, at the time it's called the Yamaha Electone. They're still actually very. It's very much a major thing in Japan.
• 37:47
  Speaker A: With bass pedals.
• 37:48
  Speaker C: With bass pedals, yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker B: Huh.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: And it's all. It all fits together as one unit. Or the bass pedals sit separate.
• 37:54
  Speaker C: The bass pedals are. They connect as one unit, but they are detachable.
• 37:58
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 37:59
  Speaker C: So actually I have, I still have one. I have one in my apartment here that my teacher gave me.
• 38:04
  Speaker B: So the city gave you money to just go around and do this?
• 38:07
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker B: How much money? I mean, how many gigs did you do?
• 38:10
  Speaker C: I. At that time, I mean, I was playing. I was playing an average of once or twice a week. Ish.
• 38:16
  Speaker B: Because you're still going to school?
• 38:17
  Speaker C: I was still going to school, yes. But I'd leave school early to do.
• 38:20
  Speaker A: Then your day job of elementary school.
• 38:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly, my elementary school day job. I did some, like, public access TV shows and I did some restaurants and things like that.
• 38:30
  Speaker A: And now were you famous in your town for doing this? Were you getting some status?
• 38:34
  Speaker C: Yeah, I got some. I got. I got some notoriety in my hometown, I think some groupies, like nine year old group. Yeah, I didn't.
• 38:41
  Speaker A: 12 year old.
• 38:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. The groupies didn't come around until. Until later on, you know. Yeah, I had to wait my turn for that, for that perk of the business.
• 38:50
  Speaker A: By that time, are you already convinced that this is your path in life?
• 38:54
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like I said, from the day from. From when I was four, I was convinced, like, this is. This is gonna be it. This is what I want.
• 39:00
  Speaker B: Have you met Herbie Hancock?
• 39:02
  Speaker C: I met him once, very briefly.
• 39:04
  Speaker A: Did you tell him this long story?
• 39:06
  Speaker C: I didn't get to tell him the long story. No, I just said it was nice. I played at the Jazz Educators Conference in Los Angeles when I was in high school. And Herbie was there actually with Donald Harrison, who's from here. Big Chief Donald Harrison. They were. I think they played a duo gig in one of the jazz clubs that we were. That they allowed the underage kids to go to.
• 39:26
  Speaker A: Just over in Hawaii with Donald Harrison.
• 39:27
  Speaker C: Nice.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: Playing the Maui Jazz and Blues Festival.
• 39:31
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 39:31
  Speaker C: He's so awesome.
• 39:32
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 39:32
  Speaker C: Such an amazing musician to back him.
• 39:34
  Speaker A: Up with the Iguanas.
• 39:35
  Speaker C: Oh, that's killer.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: So you're continuing to study. At what point do you start getting into jazz?
• 39:43
  Speaker C: The biggest. So I got into jazz before I got serious about jazz. I got my first time playing jazz was really with this Connecticut Youth Jazz Workshop. It was a local music educator who realized that there was a gap in the music education in the state's schools. So he started an after school, like a statewide jazz band for kids, extracurricular. And that's actually where I started learning about jazz. But that was all like big band stuff. And so I played piano. I played. They didn't have any bass players, so I also played key bass. I played trumpet, saxophone, valve trombone.
• 40:20
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 40:21
  Speaker C: Yeah. So any of his bands, I would pick a different instrument so I could be in every combo. So whatever I was best at, I'd be in the best band. And whatever I was new at, I'd be in the beginner band. Yeah, so that was my first exposure to jazz. But when I Got serious was high school. I went to an arts academy very similar to Arnoka here in your same town. It was in Hartford. Okay, so in the capital. And the school was in a renovated funeral home that they turned into an arts academy.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: Makes sense.
• 40:53
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Speaker A: The roof probably leaked.
• 40:55
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I remember we had an FBI drug raid in the building next door while we were in school. It was definitely a life changing opportunity in many ways.
• 41:07
  Speaker A: I promise the listeners we're gonna get to Joe getting to New Orleans, but right now we need to. It's about that time.
• 41:13
  Speaker B: Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah. We take a break and we'll be right back.
• 41:42
  Speaker C: SA Sam.
• 42:50
  Speaker A: And we're back, back, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Joe Ashler. Now, Joe, I know you're, you've heard some of these podcasts. You may be aware that, that this is a listener supported operation here and we have devoted listeners. Use these PayPal and Venmo links that we have in the show notes of every show and the Facebook page to support the podcast. Buy us cocktails that we're having tonight.
• 43:19
  Speaker C: Thank you for those.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're.
• 43:21
  Speaker A: You're having a, an abbreviated adult beverage.
• 43:24
  Speaker C: Abbreviated. That's okay.
• 43:25
  Speaker A: And, oh, look at that. And we also have Patreon page the link there for that. We have a handful of patrons supporting us week in, week out. We love you. Thank you so much. Also, the links in the show notes for the troubled men podcast T shirts again. Christmas is staring us down the barrel, man. And you guys want to give those to your family? Get on the ball. What else? Follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook and rate. Review and subscribe to the, the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Cost you. Nothing helps us a lot. Check out the Iguanas will still be back at our residency every Sunday night, 7 to 10 at the Carousel Bar in the famous Hotel Montlion, right down there on Royal Street. And let's get back to our guest, the great Mr. Joe Ashler. Now, Joe, so we were. You're, you're, you're a very gifted child here in this, in the, the narrative we were telling, studying music very seriously. Have your eyes on the prize. You're in high school, getting into jazz. You're no dummy. You're a presidential scholar. You wind up going to Berklee College of Music.
• 44:34
  Speaker C: I did the summer program at Berkeley.
• 44:36
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 44:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, I did two summers in a row at the Berkeley College of Music summer program. And they have the Narus foundation that does the Grammy Awards. Does a Grammy band. And they would also rehearse at Berkeley. So that's my connection to Berkeley, which was.
• 44:49
  Speaker A: Okay. And you were involved in the Naris band.
• 44:52
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I was in the New England version of the Grammy Band.
• 44:55
  Speaker A: Okay, cool. So. So you didn't actually attend Berklee College of Music. As for college.
• 45:01
  Speaker C: Not for. Not for my adult college, just a summer program.
• 45:03
  Speaker A: Did you go to adult college?
• 45:05
  Speaker C: I did.
• 45:05
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 45:06
  Speaker C: Yeah, I went to the New School University in New York City.
• 45:08
  Speaker B: Huh. All right.
• 45:09
  Speaker A: I know where that is. It's. Yeah, I used to stay at a place right down the street from there.
• 45:13
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah? Yes.
• 45:15
  Speaker C: I love Boston. And Berkeley was one of my four schools that I was considering to go to and ultimately chose New School.
• 45:22
  Speaker A: Okay, and you got a degree from the New School.
• 45:25
  Speaker C: I didn't finish my degree at the New School.
• 45:27
  Speaker A: Outstanding. That's most. Most of our successful guests.
• 45:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's. No. No degree attained leave after two years. Yeah. And that was also precipitated by 9, 11 as well.
• 45:37
  Speaker A: How so?
• 45:38
  Speaker C: Because I was. I was right down there. Yeah. I was living right near there when it. When it happened. And that would have been the beginning of my third year, the fall semester of my third year of school. And understandably, I freaked and left the city for a little while after that.
• 45:54
  Speaker A: So where'd you go?
• 45:55
  Speaker C: I went back to Connecticut for a little bit, and then I started gigging around, like, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland. So I was kind of using Connecticut as my solo with bands. Both. Both solo and with bands. And I had friends in a bunch of those cities. And so I would try to keep myself working by pretty much driving between Baltimore. All the way from Baltimore to Boston was my circuit for a while, so.
• 46:17
  Speaker A: Playing in all kind of bands. Jazz bands.
• 46:19
  Speaker C: Yeah, Jazz, funk. I had my own band around that. Around that time called Grandfather Ridiculous.
• 46:26
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 46:27
  Speaker C: And we did. My goal was to play jazz for people that don't like jazz.
• 46:31
  Speaker A: Okay. Which is most people.
• 46:33
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So we gave. Exactly. It's most people. I was like, how can I play for people who. Who don't have a degree in music or didn't. So we did hip hop. We did hip hop. And at the time, the dominant electronic genre was drum and bass.
• 46:46
  Speaker A: Stella by Starlight.
• 46:48
  Speaker C: Drum and bass, Exactly. Yeah, sure. And we actually had. Bobby McFerrin's son was our frontman, Taylor McFerrin.
• 46:55
  Speaker A: Oh, cool.
• 46:55
  Speaker C: We did that. So he would beatbox and rap at the time. And then popular group regionally. We got pretty well known regionally for sure. And. And Bobby sat in with us a couple times in our early days. Super cool.
• 47:09
  Speaker A: So you're like 20, 21.
• 47:10
  Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. Early 20s, for sure.
• 47:13
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 47:13
  Speaker B: So, wait, when were you born?
• 47:15
  Speaker C: I was born in 8108.
• 47:17
  Speaker B: Jesus. Okay, so, yeah, he could be our child. All right, so. But there's no kind of. Did you ever dabble or listen to, like, the classic rock or the punk rock or the new wave?
• 47:29
  Speaker C: Classic rock was what I came up with with my dad's taste in music. Yeah. Yeah. So classic rock was a huge part of my upbringing, listening to, like, you know, Zeppelin and Stevie Ray Vaughan. And I'm just little feet, thinking of the artists that. My dad was really into it.
• 47:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some rootsy stuff. Well, little feet, if you're listening to that, then the. The New Orleans stuff. When you finally get that, you go, oh, I know this from somewhere.
• 47:51
  Speaker C: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
• 47:53
  Speaker B: What about, like, you know, because you're like a teenager during the grunge. What about all that?
• 47:57
  Speaker C: You know that. I kind of missed that while it was happening. I got into it later on.
• 48:00
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 48:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Because then I got very pigeonholed, and not pigeonholed. I got very tunnel vision on jazz temporarily. Right. Which I. Which was good for honing my skill set. But then as I started to hone that skill set, I opened my mind back up to all music, and then I. Yeah, I kind of, like, picked up on some things later on that I missed while they were. While they were current.
• 48:21
  Speaker B: I got you.
• 48:21
  Speaker A: Well, how do you wind up moving to New Orleans?
• 48:24
  Speaker C: So the short version of that story is, post Katrina, there were a bunch of musicians from NOLA that moved up to New York City.
• 48:32
  Speaker A: Don't call it nola.
• 48:33
  Speaker B: Oh, New Orleans.
• 48:35
  Speaker C: New Orleans.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: There we go.
• 48:36
  Speaker C: They were.
• 48:37
  Speaker A: It's not a real name.
• 48:38
  Speaker C: That's. That is true. So there was. There was. Yeah, quite a. Quite a few musicians who moved up to New York after Katrina.
• 48:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 48:49
  Speaker C: And I ended up meeting drummer Simon Lottie.
• 48:51
  Speaker A: Simon Lott. The great Simon Lott, one of our early guests during the Pandemic. He was on during the pandemic. I love Simon. Simon's one of those kids that plays so good, is such a joy. Is exuding such joy from behind the.
• 49:07
  Speaker C: Drum kit, smiling Simon.
• 49:10
  Speaker A: You can't play with that guy. Not have fun, man.
• 49:13
  Speaker C: Totally. And that's exactly what happened, is we played. We were on a hotel gig together in Manhattan with a mutual friend, trombone player named Elizabeth. And. Yeah, it was supposed to be a background music gig, and it was anything but cause Simon and I immediately connected musically and we're like, oh, we're off to the races. And that began what's now been a 20 year friendship. And so when Simon moved back to New Orleans. I stand corrected. When Simon moved back to New Orleans. Making progress. Exactly. Yeah. You know, I like to. To consider myself very teachable. So when Simon moved back to New Orleans, he. He started calling me to fill in with that band you mentioned earlier, Good Enough for Good Times.
• 49:53
  Speaker B: Right.
• 49:54
  Speaker C: Which was a post Katrina formed band that was meant to fill some spots at clubs that didn't quite pay enough to hire Galactic. But Robert Mercurio and Jeff Rains of Galactic still wanted to play. So Simon gave me a call, it was November of 2000, 2006, to fly down here. And he offered me two weeks worth of work, both with Good Enough for Good Times with him.
• 50:17
  Speaker A: Did you learn Jazz Fest or something?
• 50:18
  Speaker C: No, no, it was like I said, it was November, so. Yeah, yeah, it was in November, but it was two weeks of gigs. And the very first gig I played, which has now become my, my home away from home, is the Maple Leaf. We played the Maple Leaf subbing for Johnny Vodakovich and it was me, Simon Lott and Brian Seeger on guitar. And like I said at that time, I was only here visiting, but I noticed that, you know, all the people at the Leaf were congregated at the bar, connecting and having drinks and having fun. And as soon as the band started playing, I saw everyone migrate from the bar to where the band was playing. And coming from the northeast where, you know, you could be standing there naked playing, you know, a Led Zeppelin solo on the kazoo, and no one's going to give you the time of day.
• 51:01
  Speaker A: Really notice the cultural difference, right?
• 51:03
  Speaker C: It was, yeah, it was like, what the fuck is this? Where has this been my whole life?
• 51:07
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 51:07
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. That moment really stood out to me as being like, this is what, this is what I want out of music.
• 51:13
  Speaker A: Huh?
• 51:14
  Speaker C: You know, I've always been, like I said, loving and curious about music. But for me, a big part of it is connecting with people, right? And seeing how, you know, and seeing how much fun people in New Orleans were having listening to what we were doing. I was like, this is it.
• 51:26
  Speaker A: Now, before that, were you. Did you have an idea in mind to move to New Orleans?
• 51:30
  Speaker C: No, not at all. The only thing that's, you know, if you want to think about the universe giving you signs is, I guess because I was into jazz as a kid, I ended up having a bunch of Shirts that all had something to do with New Orleans. So it's like my T shirt choices were letting me know I was on my way here.
• 51:45
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 51:45
  Speaker C: But it was totally off my radar until that call from Simon. And then I started flying here a bunch. And on the very. On the third trip that I made, you know, I said to Simon, I said, if we can find an apartment, because he was living in Baton Rouge at the time. If you want to be roommates and we can find an apartment before I leave on this trip, I'll move to New Orleans.
• 52:05
  Speaker A: He's very messy, isn't he?
• 52:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 52:07
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 52:08
  Speaker C: We were the worst roommates.
• 52:09
  Speaker A: I've been to his apartment a few times. Here, let me move some stuff so you can walk in the room.
• 52:15
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 52:16
  Speaker C: The only reason it worked for. I made it 11 months living with Simon. And the only reason. And let me just tell you, he's a great friend and I love him. We are just terrible roommates. We're not meant to live together.
• 52:26
  Speaker B: But.
• 52:26
  Speaker C: But because I have ocd, so I'm very. I'm like, everything has to be in its place and organized. And he is.
• 52:33
  Speaker A: I love when musicians tell me they have OCD or any good artist. Yeah, no shit. How do you think you got like this? You know?
• 52:42
  Speaker C: How do you think you get good at anything? That's a very.
• 52:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's not a. It's not a flaw. It's a feature.
• 52:48
  Speaker C: It is. Yeah. You know, it's required as long as I can make it to the gig on time and I'm not stuck checking a light switch. Yeah, smart lights were the best thing that ever happened for OCD people. I've got. My whole house is all smart lights. All I have to do is say one word and they go out and I don't have to check them.
• 53:06
  Speaker A: Okay. So sorry I got you sidetracked here. So you're living with Simon.
• 53:11
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 53:12
  Speaker A: Now on those gigs, you still. You have your little. Well, they have. Everybody has B3s down here.
• 53:20
  Speaker C: Yeah. I didn't when I moved here, though. I didn't initially.
• 53:22
  Speaker A: But, I mean, a lot of clubs have them or so.
• 53:25
  Speaker C: Yeah. But I was. The places that didn't, you know, to bring my story around full circle. With the Yamaha Electone.
• 53:30
  Speaker A: Yes, please.
• 53:31
  Speaker C: I was playing. I brought a Yamaha Electone down, and I was running it through a laptop with a Hammond B3 sound on it. This thing took me, like, an hour and a half to set up.
• 53:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, it might crash at any time.
• 53:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, it might crash at Any time I remember Ivan Neville came to one of the gigs and. And they were like, oh, we want him to sit in. And he looked and he says, what the fuck is that? I don't think he sat in because nothing. Yeah, nothing made sense where it was. So. So I did that for a little under a year. And that was our. That was our tip. Banter at the gigs was. Got a tip as well. So Joe can buy. Buy Joe a Hammond organ, basically.
• 54:04
  Speaker A: Right, right. So. So you guys are playing around town just like, it's what, you and Simon or.
• 54:11
  Speaker C: So my first gigs were, you know, me, Simon, Robert Mercurio, Jeff Reigns, doing good enough for good times, but. But I'll tell you, after I moved here, I moved here pretty much knowing only those four people, and I had maybe three or four gigs booked. And by the end of that month. This was March, by the way. March of 2007. By the end of that first month here, I had played 26 gigs.
• 54:31
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 54:33
  Speaker C: And that was. That was, you know, dude, the Frenchman street hang at that time was just second to none. Like, I would just go there and I. You know, I was drinking heavily at the time, so I'd close. You know, I'd usually hang out at DBA till close. And I just met and sat in with everybody that came through dba.
• 54:49
  Speaker A: And New Orleans is one of those towns that you sit in with a band, they go, wow, you play real nice, man. What are you doing next Saturday?
• 54:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's exactly how it went down, you know, as I would. I would go out to get drunk and I would leave with work.
• 55:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 55:00
  Speaker C: You know, so it was. It was a good. It was a good exchange, you know, most of the time, other than tipping the bartender well, I didn't pay for the drinks either. So it was like I got the leave. I'm leaving up, you know, which is good.
• 55:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:12
  Speaker C: Nice, nice.
• 55:13
  Speaker A: Now you're mentioning filling in for Johnny Vodakovich. I know. At his regular trio gig on Thursdays at the Maple Leaf.
• 55:20
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 55:21
  Speaker A: I often see you showing up on those gigs nowadays as the third person.
• 55:26
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'll be there with him. I don't think this will air in time, but I'll be there with him this Thursday with me, him and, I believe, Mark Mullins, who's my old bandmate. I used to play with Bonerama in the first couple years I lived here.
• 55:39
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. So you. So you move here and you. You run in all these bands, looking at all these. These groups you played in, you know, I guess Just for. For one reason or another, they're doing a recording session or they have some kind of big festival gig they're going to add keyboards to or they need. Of course, you know, because some of these bands don't regularly have.
• 55:59
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 56:00
  Speaker A: Players.
• 56:00
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 56:02
  Speaker A: But, you know, someone is as game as you are. I'll say. You know, you just put this kid behind the organ. Oh, look at that. He does something cool.
• 56:10
  Speaker C: You know, that's. Yeah, I've kind of made my living on that, is being the guy that you can call relatively last minute. And I'm going to show up, hopefully playing the music like I've been playing it my whole life.
• 56:20
  Speaker B: Right.
• 56:20
  Speaker C: You know, and that's. And if that's really what I try to project is that I'm going to show up with a good attitude and I'm going to play my ass off. I'm going to give you everything I got, unless you tell me not to give it everything I got. Sometimes they're like, hey, Joe, you got to stay. You know, rein it in a little bit. You know, leave some for us. I've been told that before, so just.
• 56:39
  Speaker A: That's funny.
• 56:41
  Speaker C: So.
• 56:42
  Speaker A: So where are you guys living in town at that time?
• 56:45
  Speaker C: So Simon and I were living uptown. Yeah. Not too far from here. Yeah, we're over on Pine Street. Yeah, that was my first place. So, you know, Maple Leaf was very close, but I was hanging on Frenchman Street. And now that I live in Bywater, Maple Leaf is where I'm playing. So I never live close to where my. My main spot is.
• 57:01
  Speaker A: It's good that you're not drinking anymore.
• 57:02
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 57:03
  Speaker A: You have to run the car.
• 57:04
  Speaker C: You know how many times I've been so grateful coming home from the Leaf, knowing how long that drive is and just saying, oh, man, I'm going to make it today.
• 57:12
  Speaker B: Now moving your gear has gotta be tough.
• 57:15
  Speaker C: Oh, it sucks.
• 57:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. Cause we've had, like, lots of drummers on the show.
• 57:20
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 57:21
  Speaker B: And they're always. They said they're always the last ones to get laid. Cause they're always having to deal with all their shit.
• 57:27
  Speaker C: Either the last one. So it's either the last one to get laid or the last one to break your shit down. So I've gotten many photos from my texts of just my equipment on stage, from the band, letting me know, joe, it's time to. I haven't done that in a long time. Yeah, it's time to go, like, you know, on come. Cause I learned that pretty quick. Oh, if you pack your shit up, you're not gonna meet anybody. So I'd get off stage and I'd go to the bar and I would, you know, we call it basking. You know, you gotta.
• 57:52
  Speaker A: Basking. Basking, yeah.
• 57:54
  Speaker C: After the gig, you gotta bask.
• 57:55
  Speaker A: And then the afterglow.
• 57:56
  Speaker C: The afterglow. See who comes up to you. And. Yeah, and I would, like. I would try to be flirting it up, and I'm like, I'll deal with the friendly guy. I'll deal with the gear. Thank you. I'll deal with the gear later, you know.
• 58:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, man, it'll be there. Nobody going to carry that. Yeah, and if they do, God bless them.
• 58:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, I did when I had. When I was rolling around with the organ, I would leave it in my van at night because I'm like, nobody is going to put the effort in to steal this.
• 58:21
  Speaker A: They won't. It's like a. Like a. Nobody said, you know, a bass cabinet. I've had my bass cabinet, different bass cabinets. Be at the scene of thefts of other music equipment.
• 58:31
  Speaker C: Yeah, they will take it.
• 58:33
  Speaker A: They will not take it, man.
• 58:34
  Speaker B: You know.
• 58:35
  Speaker C: You know what was fucked up, though? When I lived in New York, me and the drummer of that band, Grandfather. Ridiculous, we went out. We went out for drinks. We had, like one drink or something. We parked out front. Parked out in front of the bar. We came out, the window was smashed. My keyboard was underneath his drums. They. They took the keyboard and they put the drums back. They had to, like, take the drums out. They returned the drums, only the keyboard was taken.
• 58:59
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 58:59
  Speaker C: That was very selective.
• 59:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, man.
• 59:01
  Speaker C: Selective theft there.
• 59:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 59:03
  Speaker A: You know, just. They were going to add a keyboard player. They already had.
• 59:06
  Speaker C: The keyboard was a piece of shit, though, so. Jokes on them. The drums are probably worth twice as much.
• 59:11
  Speaker A: It's like that.
• 59:12
  Speaker B: That.
• 59:12
  Speaker A: That dancing monkey that you're.
• 59:14
  Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:16
  Speaker B: Well, also, sometimes I've spoken to some drummers and they said, well, what you do is you go to the bar, you meet a girl, and then she helps you break down your.
• 59:24
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
• 59:25
  Speaker A: That was the Johnny Vakovich advice.
• 59:27
  Speaker B: Right, Right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. She'll help you break down the equipment.
• 59:30
  Speaker C: Well, you know how I solved my problem of equipment moving is I got rid of my van.
• 59:35
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 59:36
  Speaker C: It's like, oh, you bring in the organ. No, I don't. I don't have a van. I can't do it. That. That was one day. I was like, I'm getting rid of this fucking thing. I got a Honda Civic and nobody Expected anything from me anymore.
• 59:48
  Speaker A: Does the club have a. Have a B3?
• 59:51
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 59:51
  Speaker A: Does. Or you can get someone, hire one and bring it in?
• 59:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 59:56
  Speaker A: And they can pick it up the next day. Well, let's move on a little bit. So you wind up on this Dr. John band.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker A: Now that had to be. Had to blow your mind. How does that happen?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker C: That was one of those life circumstances that just happened in the. Like, I didn't even know he was looking for a keyboard player. I didn't know I was in consideration for it, which is probably good because then I didn't have to deal with the anxiety of wondering, will I or will I not get this gig?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker B: It was.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker A: Was just at this point, he'd had the.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker B: The.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker A: The previous band, previous lineup for maybe 12 years, sometimes longer. And it was, you know, in the last few years of his life, had a girl trombone player came in and kind of started moving things around and I don't know, that band was dismissed and they formed a new band.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker A: You were in the new band.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker C: This was meant to kind of recover from that.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker A: And this was kind of the era right after he'd made that. That last record that. That Dan Auerbach produced from the Black Keys.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker C: That's right.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker A: So. So you. You're on that band.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker C: Yes, but I'm not on the record.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker C: But I was in the bit. Yes, I was in the band. That happened right around then. And I just got. And it, you know, the call came at a time when I was actually going through a pretty rough spot too. I remember just feeling like, severely depressed and just. Just going through a tough time. And I get this call and it's like. It's amazing how shit can just change like that. Yeah. With one call. You know, I really thought, you know, because the guy that called me was his manager at the time, and I didn't know him, I didn't know his name. So at first I honestly thought it was a joke. I thought somebody was just playing a prank on me, like, hey, do you want to play a jazz fest with Dr. John? You know, that was the first gig. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And then he started mentioning the names of the band members. And that's. So the, you know, short story of how I got that is that a lot of the people in that last band were people that I played with in other projects. They had Leon Kid, Chocolate Brown, Herlin Riley on the drums, Eric Struthers and Roland Garon.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker C: Was the musical director. So I had good relationships with all of them. And I think that Eric Struthers, who, again, he was Dr. John's guitar player, he also played with the Neville Brothers for quite a long time. I think that Eric. Eric and I's musical connection, I think that he was very instrumental in getting me that gig. I think he put in a strong. A strong recommendation for me that the tip is played.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker B: You played that one gig or you.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker C: Oh, no. Then I up touring with him for his entire last year of. Of tours. Of touring. Yeah, it was. It was awesome. And playing that Jazz Fest show was also before Tom Petty's last Jazz Fest show. It was the same year that Tom Petty. His last year of touring. So that was just an amazing experience to play at the acura stage with Dr. John, which would have, you know, ended up being his last Jazz Fest ever.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker C: They had us. It was a big thunderstorm too. They kept us waiting outside in the van. We didn't know if we were gonna get to play.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker A: Did you see Tom Petty that year? Yes, because I played that day.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker A: And so I was there.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker A: And you're right, they didn't open the thing till like 3 o'. Clock. Something they only had, like, I played my show, I think at three.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker A: And then I was done and I went. Walked over to see Tom Petty and There was about 200 people in front of the. Yeah, the stage.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker A: What a. What an amazing show. Yeah, that was absolutely one of top. Tom died within the like six months.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker C: But, yeah, it was very soon.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker A: Incredible, man.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker A: So you're. You're touring. Y' all toured the states, you toured overseas.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker C: I didn't get to go to Europe with. With Mac. Everything that we did was domestic. And, you know, he was. He was slowing down significantly at that point. So we were trying to go easy on him with the travel, you know.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker A: Get to pick his brain about. About stuff in general.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker C: Not too much because, you know, he. Like I said, his health was on a decline, so he slept a lot. But I'll tell you, when he had something to say, it was usually, you know, heavy. Yeah, it was usually heavier. I mean, one thing that I remember is that I don't remember what bathroom I read it in, but it says. It said if you say. If you say beer can in a British accent, it sounds like bacon in a Jamaican accent.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker C: I told that story. And Max says, I sang at Bob Marley's funeral.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker C: I was like, okay, well, you. You win that conversation. I have nowhere to go from there.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker A: Matt could probably win every conversation.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker C: Yeah. You know it's like, that's what interactions with him were like, is he'd just be silent and then he would throw something out there, like jaw dropping. Like that job of the hut. Yeah.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker A: No, that's not the world. That's not the Star wars character. I'm not. I shouldn't even.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker B: Yoda.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker C: Yoda. Yoda. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker A: Shouldn't use these stuff. I don't know what I'm talking about, so. Well, unfortunately, Mac passes away. So that job ends.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker C: Yes, it ended about a year before he passed away because he started canceling gigs. The last shows that I had on my calendar would have been a double nighter at Tipitina's. And those were the first cancellations that happened. And we kind of knew that this was. He was gonna be done playing. But our last show ended up being in Bowman, South Carolina. Well, I say little festival. It was supposed to be a big festival, but it turned out to be. There was a lot of political stuff going on in the city, in that city at the time, so people were boycotting the festival. So unfortunately, his last show ended up being played to a very small audience, but it included my dad and stepmom, which is pretty cool. So they got a little facetime with Mac backstage, and I got a nice picture of me with my family and Mac, which I don't think would have happened if the festival was properly attended because, you know, we would have tried to keep him away from everybody.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker A: And so it worked out for you?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker C: It really did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that's what's important. And I. I think, honestly, the state of mind he was in at the time, I think he. I mean, he played his ass off. I don't even think he realized that knew anything that was happening with the politics of the situation.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker C: I'm sure he played a fucking amazing show.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker B: What year was this?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker C: It was in 2017. So that was in like mid October of 2017. Yeah.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker B: So was that the time when. When that white guy. They were protesting the monument stuff? Was it that.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker C: I don't think it had to do with the monuments. I think this had something specifically to do with the fairgrounds where the festival was happening. Had something to do with some politicians in the city, but.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker A: Local politicians?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it had something to do with local politics.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker B: Some people boycotted the festival.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker C: Some people were boycotting the festival and the vendors were pulling out, you know, so by the time we played, most of the vendors had left and Mac was the headliner, you know, so. So, yeah, we didn't. Of Course, make it a. You know, we didn't make it a point to tell Mac that this festival was kind of.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker A: Yeah. Why? It's not important.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker A: It has nothing to do with anything.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker C: But, you know, like I said, he played his ass off. He played. He played a great last show.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker A: And, you know, man, you know, playing music, I always say, whether I'm playing In front of 20,000 people or 10 people, I play the same notes and I play with the same. I try to play with the same intensity and the same. The same sense of urgency.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker A: In other words, we're trying to save our souls here.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker C: That's very true. Yeah.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker A: That is the ultimate goal of this endeavor. So, you know, it's really immaterial, you know, who's on the other side. I mean, you know, of course you're doing something there. Like you said, it's a relationship, it's a give and take. But ultimately, you're pursuing the divine.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker A: I like it.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker A: You're agreeing with.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker C: I agree with that. And, you know, Mac, we would pray before the gigs, too. And I'll share one thing you said about pursuing the divine. He'd always pray to the Great Spirit. And I remember one of the last prayers. It wasn't at the very last gig, but it was one of the last prayers. I remember he said, great Spirit, we're going to play the baddest gig we ever done played, and we're going to know it while we're doing it. And then he said. He pointed to each person. He said, and you're going to be a mother, and you're gonna be a motherfucker. And then he would end. We would end the prayer with A, which was Max. Yeah. And he'd say A, and we'd all say A. And that's also how you knew from Mac, if you did a good job, if you got a. A from him after your solo that you were in. Yeah, you know, I would. I would play and I'd be looking for. I'd be looking at him to see if I could see his mouth. And he'd point me like a.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker A: Nice, nice. Oh, man. So sweet.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker B: What a. What a.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker A: What a treasure to have experienced that.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker C: Yeah. I'm so grateful for that experience.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker A: Holy cow.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker A: Oh, man. So after that, you come back to New Orleans. You have, you know, such a huge list of people. You.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker B: You've.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker A: You know, that you. That you work with. You know, going back to Galactic, Stanton Moore, you mentioned Johnny Vodakovich. You know, you wind up playing with him. In a lot of situations. George Porter, Donald Harrison, Steve Mazachowski, my first teacher.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker C: Oh, I love Steve.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's my first.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker C: We're gonna get him on the Happy Organ Hour this month. Oh, yeah, he's joining us.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, yeah, we can jump to that. So you're currently playing with Joe Ashler Organ Trio. And then you also do these gigs where you. It's like a quartet with Brad Walker.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker C: Exactly. Yep.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker A: And you do those Happy Organ Hour at the Maple Leaf.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker C: Yep. Maple Leaf has become a Wednesday night residency.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker C: Stanton and I have mutually agreed that we only do it when we're both available. Okay. In the early days of it, you know, which is a year ago. It's not that long ago, but it's been about a year strong, a year and a half strong. We did subs on a couple of them and it just, you know, we want to keep it as like a really consistent thing that have an identity. Yeah. So if you come out to Happy Organ Hour, you're gonna always see me and Stanton for sure. And then the third person is a rotating. Usually guitar player. But we've opened it up to include saxophone and bass. We've had Brad Walker do a couple. We've had Scarrick do a few. Noah Young has done it with us. And then this month, for the first time, Steve Mazikowski's gonna be our third member. So the last. The night before Thanksgiving. If this is out by then, Steve Mazikowski will be on it. And I've done the Johnny Trio with Steve too. He's just. Yeah. And here. And those two have such a history together.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker C: For me, getting to step into that is. Is such an amazing.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker B: I was in this movie back in the 80s called the Happy Organ.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I might have seen that one.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker B: You did.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker A: It was. It wasn't an hour, though. It was more of a short.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker C: It was a short.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker B: It lasted until the quarters went out.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker A: You've played with some interesting people. I was noticing you. I was looking at your discography. Lyrics Born.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker A: He's a very cool guy. Go have done a few gigs opening for Lyrics Born.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker C: Yeah, he's awesome.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker A: Him and DJ Logic. That's another. Another cool guy.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker C: Yeah. Logic was back in those grandfather ridiculous days.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker A: Oh, really? No shit.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, we used to do shows up in the Northeast like Co Bill's, you know, where he was the headliner usually, but then would also sit in with us. So we, you know, we'd do some like. Like I said, Taylor McFerrin was beatboxing. So he would do some vocal trading with DJ Logic scratching, and it was very cool. And then. Who was the other name you just mentioned?
• 1:10:37
  Speaker A: I was saying lyricsborne.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker C: Oh, lyrics born. Yeah. And that's a connection through Robert Mercurio of Galactic, because they, you know, they use lyrics born. Yeah. And Robert has produced lyricsborne's last several records.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker C: So Robert has been, you know, such a great friend and connection for me. Almost anytime he's producing something, he gives me a shout to put my sound on it.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker C: And, yeah, getting to do the lyrics.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker A: What a great. What a great space to be in, you know, the ghost.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker C: I am very, very lucky. And, you know, especially just being here. I mean, they said I couldn't have.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker A: Planned it out, just being here at Snake and Jake's. What's the trouble, man?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker C: I mean, that's where all these. All these stories were leading here, you.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker B: Know, all downhill from there.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker A: Exactly. Now we have to get back. Sorry, I have a note. I'm. I'm seeing Dr. Lonnie Smith. Yeah. Can't. Can't have. Can't end this podcast without very good speaking about him. So explain who Dr. Lonnie Smith was. Explain his impact on you.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker C: So Dr. Lonnie Smith is definitely one of the. Probably top. He's one of my top three organ players. And Stanton and I always like to say on the mic at the Maple Leaf that any organ player worth their Salt would list Dr. Lonnie Smith as one of their top three organ players. You know, just somebody who has had his hand in, like, every. Every version of what jazz and funk organization does as a composer and an improviser. And he was a showman, too, and I loved that, too. It was just so much fun to watch. But I met him as I was 15 years old. Again, I was saying I did a lot of these music competitions and Grammy Band, and one of these other things was the Vail Jazz Foundation. They would pick jazz students from around the country to come out and do a summer camp that was timed at the Vail Jazz Festival. So I got to see Dr. Lonnie Smith play at the Vail Jazz Festival, and I asked him some. I don't even remember what the question was. I wish I did, but I asked him a very simple. Probably like a yes or no kind of question. And. And he sat me down for an hour and a half and shared all this knowledge with me. I ended up getting a free impromptu lesson with Lonnie Smith that I didn't even ask for that. Yeah. And so These guys are like that. Yeah, he was so generous.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker C: He was so kind. I mean, here's this, like I said, this 15 year old kid from Connecticut, you know, that he has no, no reason to. Yeah.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker A: White kid.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker A: Can I say that?
• 1:13:03
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to hide it. And. Yeah. And so, I mean, just a white guy from Connecticut, you know, that he's, he has no reason to, to give this kid his time, you know, let.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker B: Alone some other, I don't know, doctor could have given you a prescription, give you a checkup.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker A: No, no, no. That's incredible, man.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker B: So.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker A: And obviously it had a huge impact on you.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And you know, unfortunately, I never got to talk to him as an adult. I got to see him play a few more times, but I never got the chance to go up and say, hey, this is what I do now and thank you for and this is what you did for me. Yeah. So, you know, but, but I do get, you know, Snug harbor does these Lonnie. Dr. Lonnie Smith tributes that I've been.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker A: I did one I saw with Donald Harrison again.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker C: Donald Harrison and we had Kyle Russell play and Will Blades play. Yeah. So it's just, it's really great to, to be, to be able to, you know, like in with the Dr. John tribute a couple weeks ago. It's really great to get to be part of these things that honor the legacy of these amazing musicians, you know. So even though I didn't get to thank Dr. Lonnie, I feel like I'm carrying on that, that tradition of playing organ like that. And, and also, you know, the other thing I got from him is, is to be, to be a kind and generous person too, you know, so when people ask me questions about the instrument, I think of that spirit. I'm like, you can be really good at what you do and not be an asshole.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker A: Oh yeah, it's better. It's preferable.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean. And you know, another person who's like that be. Would with me when I moved here was, Was John Grow.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker C: Yeah. I used to hang at the Leaf all the time and, and, and he would always invite me to sit in with Papa Gross Funk. And then after the gig, we would hang out and talk, shop for hours and drink moonshine and, you know, talk or. Yeah. So I, you know, I feel like that's a big part of the culture here too, is that we, most of the musicians here, we all like, care about each other.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker A: It is a community.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker A: Well, we're kind of on the down slope of the podcast here, wrapping up, but. But, you know, you play around town. Where can people see you playing these days? I noticed that you're showing up, besides the happy organ hour on Wednesdays at the Maple Leaf, that you play some of these gigs at the Bayou Room at the Pontchartrain Hotel.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker C: Fridays, I see Friday is my regular night with Peter Harris. I'm there usually two to four times a month. The Friday night gig, I usually split with Victor Atkins, another great keyboard player in town. So. But I'm there, like I said, good two to four times a month, depending on what Victor's availability is. And we play there with Ed Perkins and Wes Anderson doing some. Yeah, it's. It's. It's fucking fantastic. And Peter's just cultivated such a vibe in that room. I mean, that's like. You know, when I first moved here, I just want to give a shout out to Donna's was the. Was where I really, you know, got my education in New Orleans music. And I feel like the new hang is the Bayou Bar. It's like, four nights a week, and Peter's hiring some of the best players in town, and musicians are going, students are going, and people who are tourists are going, and it's just. Yeah, the energy is always, you know, it's always topnotch.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker A: Outstanding. Well, man, Joe, it's been such a pleasure having you on here.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, good to be here.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker B: Give him a sticker.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we have.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker C: I'll take a sticker.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker A: The ceremonial presentation of the Troubleman podcast.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker C: All right.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker B: Here.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker A: Like, you have one to stick and one to save.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker C: All right.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker C: It needs a fanfare.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker A: So everybody look out for Joe Ashlar out there. You know, you'll see him in many bands. You'll see his bright shining face and his energetic organ playing and piano playing as well. But notice the difference.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker C: I never look bored.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker A: Never look. Well, thank you so much. What a pleasure. And as always on the Troubleman podcast, we like to say trouble never ends.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker B: But you know what, Joe? The struggle continues. Good night.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker C: Good night. Night.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker A: Sam.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker B: It.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker C: It.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker B: Sam.