Latest / Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment) / From Gigs to Getaways: The Daring Daytime Bank Robbery That Left Me Speechless

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From Gigs to Getaways: The Daring Daytime Bank Robbery That Left Me Speechless · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: What is going on.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Everybody, my name is Aaron and welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: On today's episode, we're going to do a couple of cool things.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: First, I want to let you know about an easy, easy way to reach out and contact me.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I've been getting more and more emails and text messages and phone calls over the past few weeks, and that is great because it means that the podcast is getting out there, it's getting worldwide and people are hearing it.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for doing your job of listening, downloading, subscribing and sharing with your friends.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: So got an email address for you.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Super easy Murders2music at gmailcom.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Super easy way to get in touch with me, get involved, let me know your questions, tell me if this is helping, if it's hurtful, if it's helpful, if you're triggered, if you have something you want to add or contribute, if you think your story might be a great story to get on the show, please reach out to me, let's talk, let's communicate and let's connect those dots and get you on here.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So you know.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: The other thing I want to talk about tonight is I want to go through some music stuff.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It's been a minute since I've done a music show, so I'm going to talk about the second thing in life, third thing in life that absolutely blows my hair back with passion.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: First is my family.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Second is, or was, law enforcement.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Third is going to be music, and by music I'm talking about live music.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: That's what we're going to discuss tonight, but before we do, I want to talk about a recap of the bonus episode I put out last Tuesday.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: The bonus episode I put out last Tuesday, if you remember, spoke about a very impactful therapy session.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: How maybe I was fighting with God and my faith and I wasn't ready to give up the challenge.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I wasn't ready to give up the battle to take care of things on my own.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: When it came to my case, when it came to life in general, my disputes with others, I was digging my heels in and I'm.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I can't say that I'm past that, but what I can tell you all is that I had a another therapy session on Tuesday and we did some EMDR.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And if you're not familiar with EMDR, emdr is a therapy modality, therapy technique that allows you to go back in, to dig in to a specific situation and change your relationship with it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: So you might go into that being super angry at somebody because of what they did to you or what you perceived they did to you or what you feel happened during that situation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Again, a trauma is just a trauma because of the relationship you have with a set of circumstances that occurred in your world.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So in this case, one of the things we had to attack or deal with was a situation where I wasn't feeling valued and I felt like I was left out there to the wolves, and that is the courtroom with the piece of crap defense attorney that I probably still wouldn't save if he was dying in front of me, and I don't say that tongue in cheek Right now.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: That's where my heart is.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I have a strong dislike for him and I don't know that he needs to continue down the road of abusing people the way that he does.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: However, I had a very strong dislike for him and I blamed him for everything that occurred to me post-trial.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: So the bad moods, the stress, the anger, the frustration, the blowing up on Easter, the loss of temper, all of the things that manifested after that court trial, my cold case trial in February and March of this year.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I blamed specifically on him because of his actions and that actually isn't the truth.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: It's not his fault.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And let me explain.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I was angry with him and when I closed my eyes, the point that really drove home the image that I had was him standing in front of me while I was on the witness stand.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: His face was 16 inches away from mine.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: He's got a greasy pot marked skin.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: He's old, he's gray.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: His eyebrows need to be trimmed and monitored and maintained and plucked.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: He's got these tiny little half glasses on and his little smug ass.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Look on his face as his glasses are down on the tip of his nose.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: His chin is slightly down.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: He's looking at me, staring at me over his glasses and calling me a liar, calling me anything except an honorable, honest, hardworking, competent, confident detective.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: He was an asshole in that moment and he will probably in all of his moments, but that one stuck out to me.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: That is the image and the anger that I felt, and talking about it spun me up.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: So we had to deal with that in therapy, had to deal with that in EMDR, and here's the result.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: The result is, yes, all of that occurred.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, he could have handled it differently and the situation might have went better.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, I took it personal and it was painful and it hurt and it got me back into cop mode.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: All of that is true.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: What is not true is the way I handled it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I chose because I was back in cop mode and in cop mode, remember, I wasn't going to therapy.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Therapy was a bad four-letter word.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not good at math, but I think there's four letters.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Therapy wasn't a good word, so I wouldn't go to therapy as a cop.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: In cop mode I took care of things myself.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I compartmentalized them, the tools I had were good enough and I could handle this on my own.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: If I need help, I'll ask for it when I need it, but right now I don't need help.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So for those eight to 10 weeks I was back in cop mode.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I was not asking for help.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I knew what therapy was, but I'm smart enough.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I've got all these tools.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: They've already given them to me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I can process this and if I need help, well then I'll get help down the road.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The truth is that's when I should have reached out for help, because in cop mode it nearly drove me to my deathbed, and that is what I'm allowing it to do again post-trial.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You see, I chose to handle this on my own and I chose to take my healing journey into my own hands.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: That was wrong.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: As a result of taking it into my own hands, it allowed my anger to manifest.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It allowed my temper to get out of control.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: It allowed me to withdraw, isolate, insulate, push people away, push the church away all signs of PTSD, all real life experiences of post-traumatic stress.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: However, I had a choice.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: My choice could have been to go to therapy right away and say, hey, I'm pissed off at this defense attorney.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: This is what occurred and we need to deal with this in therapy.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And if that was the case and I would have attacked it right away, we could have dealt with it.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: We could have put that behind us.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I could have released my frustration and anger and potentially not held onto that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have held on to that for the next six or seven months, however long it's been.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So a lot of the frustration is my fault.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: You know, the last couple of weeks I've blamed myself for a lot and I've really started to look inward versus outward.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I've started in a small group which is getting me back into faith and Christianity and sharing with them and trusting a little bit.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It has got me looking at my actions and taking some responsibility for why I am where I am, not to minimize the things that have occurred, but to shed light and put weight on the way that I handled them.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: How does this influence you?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Great, aaron, I'm glad that you're looking inwardly outwardly that's a really mature thing to do.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you for doing that.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Now move on with life.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: How does this relate to you?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: No matter what your situation is, you might have a hand in it.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: No matter what your situation is or how you feel, others have wronged you.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It's a relationship.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: You're angry and frustrated because of the relationship you had with a series of events or a singular event that occurred in your world.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: My advice get help right away.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Take a proactive approach, not a reactive approach.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: My son is going into EMS EMT, first responder, firefighter, paramedic and he came to me and said dad, I, I, I want to talk to your therapist.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Can you get me on board?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Because I want to take a proactive approach to my mental health, not a reactive approach.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: He's seen what happens on the reactive approach.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: He is smart enough at not even, you know, a real full day into the job to recognize the importance of therapy and positive mental health treatment.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So that's what I know.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I'm looking inwardly, I'm growing, I'm maturing.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: God's got me where he wants me and we're going to move forward.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's enough.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about a bank robbery.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So let me tell you about a bank robbery in progress that I was able to roll up on and catch in progress.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Here's what I got, okay.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, it is a Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting at a coffee shop in my town with my computer.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get away from the office and I decided just to go sit in plain clothes and take care of paperwork while drinking a coffee, people watching.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So as I'm sitting there, I have my radio and I hear a bank robbery come out about three or four blocks away, and I know patrol is out there.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So patrol is going to get it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And, uh, I just wait.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: If it's a real bank robbery, then they're going to call me and I'll respond.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: However, I get a call from my partner and she says hey, did you hear the robbery come out?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I did.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: She's like you're the one, you're the only one, that's close to it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: All the patrol officers are on the other side of town handling another call and I'm like, oh shit, detectives don't get to actually handle bank robberies in progress.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do I do?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I've got a gun, I guess I could use it.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So I go up and I tell the people at the counter I'm like I'm a police officer and I need to leave my stuff here because I'm going to a bank robbery.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, whatever, we'll watch it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So jump in the car.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Now my car.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about that.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: My car is about a 2018 or 2019 Honda Odyssey minivan.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It's pure white, blacked out windows, but when I turn on the lights it lights up like a Christmas tree.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I could sneak up into the bowels of hell with this car.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Look like any old soccer mom until I turn it on.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: So I leave the parking lot, I drive the three or four blocks and by this time, about two minutes three minutes has elapsed since the bank robbery, armed robbery alarm.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So as I'm approaching the bank now you have to understand as I'm approaching the bank, the bank is about a block and a half up on my right, right on the main road that I'm on, and as I'm approaching, lo and behold, a guy comes running out of the bank and I'm like you have got to be kidding me.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: So he runs out of the bank and he takes a right.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So now he and I are going the same direction.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: He's running on the sidewalk, I'm driving on the street, I slow my roll a little bit and I'm watching him and he runs down.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He takes the first left that he can across onto I believe it's second street.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: He takes the left onto second street and as he's running he's got a brown paper bag under his arm and I'm like no kidding, I'm about to catch a bank robbery in progress.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: So I put out on the radio.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, I got a guy running out of the bank Got a brown bag under his arm, hispanic male adult, brown jacket.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: He's going to be running eastbound on division.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: He's taking a northbound turn onto second street.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And can I get some other units?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So the world, we're responding, we're responding.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I start to hear sirens coming.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So this guy, he runs about half a block and he kind of slows his roll and by this time I'm pacing him.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going super slow.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I don't have any lights on.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: He sees me and he stops and he puts his back against the wall and he's just standing there like you don't see me.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm like shit.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: He knows we're onto each other.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: He's onto me.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: So I do a U-turn and I hit all my lights and my car lights up and I jump out.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm in plain clothes, throw a vest over me that says police and I pull out my gun and I start giving commands Police department, get down on the ground, get down on the ground.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: He didn't understand maybe my words, but he definitely understood my actions and he understood the gun.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: That part got his attention.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So he gets down on the ground.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I am yelling at him and best I can, in broken English and really bad Spanish.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So he lays down and he puts his arms out and by this time patrol officers are arriving and I'm like, wow, I just caught a bank robbery in progress.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: So he, uh, the cops show up, the real cops show up in uniform and they jump, they go up there, they handcuff him and he's got his brown paper bag sitting next to him on the on the ground and I'm like, hey, he came out of the bank Robbery came out and he's running away.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: We need to get a unit to the bank just to verify.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe we can get an identity, get them over here to give us a positive ID.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: That paper bag that sit on the ground is what he was holding under his arm.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: He discarded it whenever I started to point guns in his direction, and so they opened up the brown paper bag.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Inside the brown paper bag was a, a styrofoam container filled with tamales.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: So turns out in hindsight this was not a bank robbery suspect.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Uh, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: He uh had went and got tamales.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: He went by the bank to get some money.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: He was trying to run to catch the bus, which is where he put his back against the wall.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: That happened to be a bus stop we were at and uh, I could not get him out of handcuffs fast enough and dust him off and send him on his way, because he was the Tamale robber and I got a ton of crap for that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Um, they were sending me pictures of Tamales.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Tamales were all over my cubicle and anyway.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So that's my bank robbery in progress.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: It's the only time I got to be a real cop as a detective and anyway, it was a lot of fun for a second, until it wasn't All right.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: So passion number three live music.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: You guys, this show is called Murders to Music for a reason.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Music is a part of my life that has been in my world.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: This is a little bit get to know Aaron a little bit in the get to know the band series.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Music's been a part of my life that has been in my world.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: This is a little bit get to know Aaron a little bit in the get to know the band series.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Music's been a part of my world since I was five years old.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I started playing drums.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: At about 13 I started my first was in my first band.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: At 14 we started gigging and I've been playing live music ever since.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: At 13 years old I started working with the school district to do lighting and sound production at the various auditoriums in our community.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So I would do lighting and sound from everything from a talent show at the school or a lecture at the school to assisting with lighting and sound and production on major concerts Reba McIntyre, little River Band, nitty Gritty, dirt Band, sawyer Brown Obviously there's a lot of country in our town so I got to work on a lot of those shows and meet a lot of those people.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So that was a lot of fun for me but it got me into that world and my entire you know.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: And then I started DJing at 16, which was more entertaining.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Live production, lighting and sound, getting up and making people happy with music that is what I really love to do.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: As I worked my entire career as a police officer, I was in bands.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I played music, entertained, made people happy.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It was my relief, my therapy, my way of getting away from the darkness of my real world.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that when you are doing live music, you owe it to yourself and to your audience to do your absolute best job.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: That means be prepared.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: That means know your music, show up on time, be professional, go above and beyond, give them more than they're looking for.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Anybody can go put $5 in a jukebox, play a dozen songs and have music in the background.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: When you're entertaining, your job is to entertain.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It's to interact.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It is to be one with the crowd.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It is to make everybody in that audience feel like you are their friend.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: There's a personal connection.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Whether that personal connection is eye contact or a conversation on a break, or handing out a business card, or giving away a shirt, or whatever it may be, your job is to connect and interact with that crowd at every venue you go to.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: That's what makes you a professional musician.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: That's what gets you invited back.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: That's what gets you more money.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Musicians should not play for free.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: They should not play for a free meal.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: A low budget and a free meal should not get you anything, because all you're doing is lowering the bar and the standard for live music.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Live music there are thousands and thousands of hours that go into playing and being ready to perform live, and when I say ready to perform live, I mean by the time you show up, you know the music.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: You don't show up having to practice on stage before you hit the downbeat of the song.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: So what I want to do is I have a very high standard for live music.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: When I do it or when my people do it.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: We don't screw around.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: We're professional and we bring a great show.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: We bring great sound, great lights and we bring a great show.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: What I want to talk about are some of the things that you should not do as a musician that we often see people doing in this world.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: First, noodling If you don't know what noodling is, if you're a musician and you have a guitar player that's constantly doing their thing and playing their little lead lines and their little licks, now.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: There's no other music going on.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It is simply a quiet stage.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Other music going on.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: It is simply a quiet stage.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: You are getting ready to start the show but the guitar player won't stop practicing the lead line to whatever song they didn't have time to practice at home.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That is obnoxious.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: That is unprofessional.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Don't do it.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Make sure, or the drummer.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the drummer.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: The drummer's back there tapping and banging and clanging and making noise when it's supposed to be quiet.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Shut up.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to hear you, nobody cares.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: You should practice at home.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Sound check you need to do a sound check.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Do Do your sound check early.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: So when you're preparing for an event, you need to make sure you get there early enough to get set up, establish your place on the stage.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Make sure you can sound check when you don't have a house full of guests that are trying to eat dinner and you're up there trying to tweak and adjust volumes and levels.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Get your sound check done early.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Volumes and levels.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Get your sound check done early.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Don't show up, play your first song and sound check during the first song.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: That is unprofessional.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: It's not how you do life.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't show up and give a speech at a graduation.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Having never practiced before, you would know what you were doing before you stepped up to that podium.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: There's no different here.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Part of that is coming prepared, making sure that you have all your stuff your music, your notes, your lights, your songs in your head.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Your iPad is charged all of that stuff.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you this because I've had the opportunity recently to go out and see some live bands and the stuff that I'm talking about right now.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: If you're in the music world, if you're not in the music world, maybe this will bore you.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: But if you're considering hiring a musician, listen to all the stuff that should go into this before that musician ever steps up.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: That's why you're paying.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Them should be a decent amount of money for a good quality, professional musician.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Pretend like you've been to the dance before.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Pretend like you have played in front of people before.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Don't show up wandering around aimlessly, kind of like the bass players do.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Don't do that.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Show up.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Pretend like you've been there.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Get yourself established.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Be polite, be professional.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Do your job.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: If you wear glasses on stage and you're in a dark room, you look like an idiot.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Stop, take the glasses off.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Let's get real.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You're not in Hollywood.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: You're not playing in LA.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You're not in Nashville, tennessee, with 10,000 people and a bunch of light shining down on your eyes.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: No, you're playing in a little Tennessee with 10,000 people and a bunch of light shining down on your eyes.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: No, you're playing in a little bar in the middle of nowhere for a crowd that well, by this time they're not going to remember who you were because the professionalism isn't there.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Don't wear glasses on stage.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: You don't need them.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It's not sunny.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Let people see your eyes.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: People connect.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: The eyes are the window to your soul.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Let people see your eyes.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: People connect.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: The eyes are the window to your soul.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Let people connect with you when you're singing.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I get it being in that moment and being in that song, and I'm not saying closing your eyes is bad all the time.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But don't sing every song with your eyes closed because you can't connect with the audience, you can't make it a personal experience and you can't make them feel like friends if all you're doing is in your own little world with your eyes closed, singing your heart out, or hiding behind dark sunglasses that you think look cool but they don't.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Starts and stops of your songs.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Starts and stops of your songs.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, if you're out there listening to bands and you're like man, I really like to have this band play at my wedding, at my birthday party, at my reception, whatever it may be.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Listen for their starts and their stops.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Are they clean?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Are they tight?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: By tight I mean everybody stops together, everybody starts together.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Make sure that the devil is in the details.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Make sure that if you've heard the song Hotel California and you know Don Henley goes after singing a little special part in that song, see if they do that, Are they here hearing the details?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: If you're hearing the song Wild Nights by Mellencamp, do they do the little bass Whenever the hi-hats go and they're together, do they do that?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know If they do great and if they don't pay attention to the details, because if they can't find the details in that part of the song from the music, what kind of uh, what kind of show are they really going to bring to you?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And is it going to be worth the hard earned money that you went out there and worked for to pay these people a thousand dollars, $2,000, $5,000, $900, whatever it may be?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't waste a penny on unprofessionalism.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Waste a penny on unprofessionalism.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Mix musicians, guitar players, please set your levels.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Let the sound engineer get a good mix, and then don't creep by.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Creep.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: It means turn your volume up because you think people can't hear you and then a little bit later you turn it up a little bit more and a little later you turn it.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Before you know it you can't turn it up anymore because you went from giving me 50% to a hundred percent and now all we can hear is a screaming guitar or a screaming keyboard or whatever it might be.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Stop set the levels.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Let the sound engineer, who's mixing the room, who's actually out front listening, let them do their job.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Their job is to mix it and balance the room.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: But if you flood the room with your guitar or your keyboard or your electric drums or whatever it might be, then nobody else can hear anything else.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Then nobody else can hear anything else and you're taking up the sonic space that everybody else should have and people probably think it's annoying your audience.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Drinking while playing this is a hot topic.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I personally, I'll have a drink, I'll have a glass of wine or a beer so I can cheers.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I won't have a beer, because then I'll belch and I can't sing, but I'll have a glass of wine so I can cheers people.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: But alcohol, pain medication, drugs a lot of those are central nervous system depressants.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: That means that it's going to slow you down.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Means that it's going to slow you down.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You might think that you're on point, but your bandmates know that you're three beats behind.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You can't multitask when you're drunk, when you've been drinking.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Your ability to multitask that's why field sobriety tests make you multitask.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Stand on one foot, foot flat to the ground, hands down at your sides.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Look at your outward toe, count aloud 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, and so on.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Do you understand?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's making you do multiple things at once.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: If you are trying to hit your cymbals and your kick drum and your snare drum and each limb that you have except one if you're a guy, each limb that you have is doing a different thing then there's no way you can do that.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: If you're impaired by alcohol or drugs or pain medication, everybody else notices except you.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Just don't take it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, if you're going to change tempos in a song, have a reason for doing it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: This is drummers, drummers, I'm a drummer.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: We can talk.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: If you have a reason to change a tempo in a song, change it, but find your tempo and hold it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think everybody should play to a click, because a click is a metronome.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: A metronome it keeps things sterile.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: It makes it sound like you're in a studio.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Music should be a living, breathing art.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It should have some fluctuations in a live performance environment.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: It should speed up, it should slow down a little bit.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: It should go with emotion and feeling, and I'm okay with that to a certain extent.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Motion and feeling, and I'm okay with that to a certain extent.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: But when you take a song from the tempo of staying alive staying alive, staying alive to super freak, super freak, super freaky, a hundred versus 137 beats per minute, when you do that, it messes up the dancers, it messes up everybody else's vibe.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: The vocalist can't get all the words out.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Again, if you're auditioning a band for your venue, your party, your wedding reception, are they speeding up and slowing down?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Are they staying together?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Do they sound like a freight train, just back and forth and slow and up and everything else?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe, maybe, not.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Pay attention.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: If you're a sound guy, you can boost the mids a little bit.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: That'll help cut through the music.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: So if on your EQ and you can do this at home, if you guys have an EQ, you have high, low, high, mids, low.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: If you were to boost the mids a little bit and maybe drop off that low end a little bit, roll off the highs a little bit, those mids are where your vocals are going to sit and that is going to cut through the mix so everybody can hear it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: So it's just something to consider.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: When all they hear is, people want to leave because that's obnoxious.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: They don't need to hear every low note, and sometimes we think that low notes are awesome and they are, but you got to have a balance.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: You've got to have a balance in the music from highs to mids to lows, and then your vocals need to be heard.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: If people are going to sing along, it's not going to be singing along to thunder.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: They're not going to sing along to that.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, they're going to sing along to the vocals.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Don't stop a song because you didn't practice, because you didn't show up soon enough to get a sound check in, because you didn't do your homework.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Now you're one, you're click one, two, three, four and you're in and you don't know the song.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Don't play three bars and stop because it sounds unprofessional and crappy, just like playing a song you're not prepared for, don't do it.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Just stay away from it.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: The audience doesn't want to hear you start and stop songs all night, because that screams you're unprofessional, unprepared and probably shouldn't be getting paid for the event that you're at.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Finally, people's standards are very low.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So all this stuff that I just spoke about not doing it happens every night in every little bar across America, and if you want to be a part of mediocrity and just sit in that rut of crap, then by all means continue down your path, however, and you'll probably get paid for it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: You'll probably get some free meals and a couple hundred bucks here or there, but that is not professionalism.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Step up your game.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Learn from your mistakes.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Look inwardly versus outwardly.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe the fact that dance floor isn't packed has nothing to do with the people in the audience.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe it has everything to do with you your fluctuation of time and tempo, you don't know the songs, your lead lines are missed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so this has just been a couple of things.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: When I talk about music, when I talk about the passion in life, you've got to have a passion for it.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: In law enforcement.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I was an advocate for everybody, but specifically children of crimes and homicide victims.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: You have to do that with a passion if you're going to get that job done and you're going to do it effectively.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: You have to have a passion for music.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do that with a passion, if you're going to get that job done and you're going to do it effectively, you have to have a passion for music.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do it and you're going to gig, have a passion for it.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: If it's worth doing right, if it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing right, just like anything else in life.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Just do it.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Stop making shitty music that sounds bad because you're unprepared and taking the money away from the rest of us who are willing to put in an honest day's work.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Now, that's just a little rant, because I've got to listen to some live music recently and while some of it was good, some of it was not.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: So it's just some food for thought and some tips.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I shared my bank robbery, I shared my recap of therapy and I shared my email address of murders2music at gmailcom.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: All right, so before we get off here, let me tell you what I got coming up in some future shows.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: First, cops in Christianity.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to be interviewing myself I won't interview myself, that'll be weird, but they can ask me some questions Another police officer who's a very strong Christian he's been around the block in military law enforcement, been involved in lots of stuff, but he's also a very strong Christian and he really leads the faith to the people that he's on the front lines with today by writing Bible sermons and devotionals and just really being a light for God in a very dark world.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: For me I couldn't do that.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I had some real struggles and that's what we're going to talk about.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: What is it like to be a cop and a Christian?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Those are very challenging worlds, very opposites at some points.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about it.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You might not like what I have to say about it and that's okay.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I don't really care.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: It's the way I feel.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to have a victim interview.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: The victim interview is going to be with a young lady who is one of the strongest ladies and victims I ever dealt with.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: In fact, she is the strongest victim that I ever dealt with.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: This young lady endured years and years and years of trauma and abuse, things that would shut the normal person down.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear about her strength, her courage, her wisdom, her tenacity and her resiliency as she works through the process of meeting yours truly, and her resiliency as she works through the process of meeting yours truly.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I was a conduit at the right place at the right time, because that's where God wanted me to be there for this young lady.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear about the outcome.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: It might be good, it might be bad, either way.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear about the fallout of family.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear about destruction of people's worlds and lives, but then how all those pieces kind of like Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again In the following weeks.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: You're going to meet Jeff.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Jeff is my bandmate.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: He's my partner in Double Down and I met him on Farmers Only and he's a great dude.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: He's actually not on Farmers Only, he's actually a hobo, but he plays music with me and he's pretty good at it.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to talk about.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: We're going to meet Jeff.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: What makes him tick?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I can tell you this is the happiest man I've ever met in my life.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I have never seen him had a bad day in 10 years of being his buddy, one of my best friends.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: You guys are going to get to meet Jeff Jobert.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about Mighty Oaks and the First Responder Resiliency Program two separate programs.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: If you guys are in law enforcement first responders, fire, medical, military these are programs that are based out of California, that are relatively inexpensive, but you can go it's a live-in type thing for four days and five days, I think.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: They attack everything from the spiritual side to the scientific side, to meditation, to yoga, to coloring, to what did God and what did Christ say about pornography or money or coveting that type of stuff, the things that some of the things that we work for.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: We don't work for the pornography, but sometimes it seeps into our world and what is God saying?
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: You're not the only one that has struggled with that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about those types of things.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And then, finally, I'm going to talk to you about my Dateline episode, my Dateline episode.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I was on Dateline.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: There's some good, there's some bad, there's some ugly and there's some regrets from that experience.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about those things.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Please continue to tune into future shows and, you know, keep doing your messaging me murders to music at Gmail.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: You can text me through a lot of your podcast apps.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Please rate the show.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Find the way to rate it.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Take the extra 15 seconds to navigate to the five star rating and give me a five star rating.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Help those algorithms to continue to the five-star rating and give me a five-star rating.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Help those algorithms to continue to boost.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: This.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Last week was the largest download week that I've had since the inception of the show, and I want to thank Mr Scott Walden for last week's show.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: It was an amazing show.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: It's got a lot of downloads.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: So thank you so so much.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You guys all continue to do my part.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: You continue to do yours, follow, like, subscribe, download, share with friends and hopefully you're getting something out of this.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: So until the next show, my name is Aaron and that was the Murders to Music podcast.