Latest / Troubled Men Podcast / Feral Zone 28 JAKE FLACK: THOUSAND $ CAR REVISITED

Transcript

Feral Zone 28 JAKE FLACK: THOUSAND $ CAR REVISITED · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Inside the feral zone. Greetings listeners. Welcome back. Inside the Feral Zone of the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Komen, operating under cover of darkness from Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the Clampire. Now, many of you may know the Feral Zone is a sister podcast of the Troubled Men podcast. It appears in this space from time to time as circumstances call for tonight's one of those nights. Had an old friend come in town. Haven't seen him. I saw him maybe about six months ago, but he's lived outside of the city for a long time. But he's back in town for a special occasion. So I had the opportunity to get him on and here he is tonight. He's an award winning singer, guitar player, songwriter, founding member of the Neptunes Thousand Dollar Car, the Rhodes Tavern Troubadours, King Soul. He's been performing his original songs with these different bands for over 40 years and he has six full length records out. And he's now leading his latest band, Flack. He's in town for a Thousand Dollar Car reunion, playing for the Kingpin Lounge 25th anniversary party. So without further ado, the great Jake Flack. Welcome, Jake.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: Thank you, Rene. It's great to be here. Wow, what an intro.
• 1:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You like that?
• 1:35
  Speaker B: Wow. Yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker A: You really feel like somebody, huh? Yeah, yeah, it's good to, you know, give credit where credit's due. Well, you know, you and I have a. Have always had a great rapport. Became a fan of your band. Thousand Dollar Car was one of my favorite bands to go see in town when I had a night off.
• 1:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, that was the magical mid to late 90s in New Orleans.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 2:03
  Speaker B: There was so much going on.
• 2:05
  Speaker A: It was a really fun time. We were still young.
• 2:07
  Speaker B: Still young.
• 2:08
  Speaker A: But we had some money in our pockets.
• 2:10
  Speaker B: There was a lot of places to play and a lot of people to come out to support music.
• 2:15
  Speaker A: Right.
• 2:15
  Speaker B: I don't. You know, as you said in your intro, I've been gone a while and I come back every, you know, once or twice a year. But is it still the same way where people are going out to see live music?
• 2:25
  Speaker A: Oh, I would not. I would say no.
• 2:28
  Speaker B: Or are we just. Are we just aging out of that?
• 2:30
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, perhaps we're aging out of it. You know, certain, certain bands will bring it out like Creole string Beans. Like they, they had a gig last week at the. It was like a 1 to 4 o' clock or 2 to 5 o' clock gig at. Outside at the. Or. No, it was inside at the Broadside. And I knew it would be that way and it was correct. Which is. It brought all the old faces out, you know, all the people that you don't night anymore, you know, two to five, they can make that.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: I have to say, I do appreciate the earlier start times.
• 3:00
  Speaker A: Oh, sure.
• 3:00
  Speaker B: Isn't it great to be done by 11? Like, remember when the sets used to. I remember we used to play at the Bonton. You'd start at 11:30 or 12 and play till 3.
• 3:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, 3:30, you know, that's for the birds, man.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: And then we'd go over to the Milan lounge and drink beer and get a Red Baron pizza. We called it the Cool Down Beer. So get home about five.
• 3:20
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 3:21
  Speaker B: You know, that would be hard to pull off now.
• 3:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we were. We were younger and we weren't even on any real drugs. Not any stimulants either anyway. No, but you know, nowadays. Yeah, I always see that as relic.
• 3:36
  Speaker B: That's.
• 3:36
  Speaker A: That's a time when, you know, people from out of town on drugs will. Will go to those kind of gigs, like during Jazz Fest or something.
• 3:44
  Speaker B: Right.
• 3:44
  Speaker A: But you know, for the most part, I'm not sure if young people even go out like that in those kind of numbers, you know, like. Like we were doing and that time you're talking about for. Well, slay. And you're a bit younger than me, but not too much.
• 3:59
  Speaker B: Not much.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: But yes, none of us had kids yet, but we had jobs like I said, so we had some folding money and could go out and enjoy ourselves.
• 4:12
  Speaker B: And there was like a certain amount, especially for you more than us at that point, but like a little bit of road work and you'd be gone for a couple weeks and you'd come back and you just pick right up into the scene. It was just fun to see people.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, they'll be the certain gigs I'll do where it's. Where it's like that. You know, you do a Tribe Nunzio reunion, you know, a lot of. A lot of faces from the old days. Even older than my days actually. But. But you know, then. Then you had a thousand dollar car performance. Was that during Jazz Fest or somewhere.
• 4:44
  Speaker B: Right around that, that time back in those days?
• 4:46
  Speaker A: No, no, I mean, no, just this about six months ago when you played at the Bon Time.
• 4:50
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it was. Right, it was. It was like sort of that. That window between Mardi Gras and jazz.
• 4:56
  Speaker A: Okay. But then that brought out a lot of familiar faces, that brought back a.
• 5:00
  Speaker B: Lot of the old guard. And then. And then. So this time we're back for the 25th anniversary of the Kingpin.
• 5:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, That's. That's exciting because, man, 25 years flew by, huh?
• 5:10
  Speaker B: God. And you know what? My. I can remember that's right when. When Anne and I left New Orleans was right at 2000. But I remember helping Steve paint the ceiling at the Kingpin.
• 5:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:21
  Speaker B: And I took a bunch of my Elvis records, and I said, all right, Steve, you have to put these up in the. In the women's bathroom. And they're still there. So they've been there for 25 years. So my most valuable Elvis records are still entertaining the ladies.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: All right. Nobody stole them.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: Not yet. I don't think so. I'm gonna check tomorrow.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: All right, well, that's.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Or Saturday.
• 5:43
  Speaker A: I guess that's a testament to how things really don't change much in New Orleans.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: But that's gonna be fun, actually, you know, right before I came up here to Snake and Jigs, we were having a rehearsal, a thousand Dollar car rehearsal over at Blue Velvet Studios.
• 5:58
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 5:58
  Speaker B: Tom Stern's wonderful studio here in New Orleans.
• 6:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: And I know that. I know that you do a ton of recording.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: Done a bunch of stuff there. Yeah. Tommy does a great job over there, man. It's a real, real tight little operation.
• 6:09
  Speaker B: You know, It's a good vibe. And he's got some really cool vintage, like, as. As a guitar player. He's got really cool vintage amps and gets good sounds over there.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And he's. He's someone I trust. You know, we, the Iguanas did a track on this Continental Drifters tribute record. Oh. Last year. It came out last year. And a whole bunch of different people did. Did things. And we. We recorded that with. With Tom over at Blue Velvet.
• 6:36
  Speaker B: Which. Which. Which tune did you do?
• 6:38
  Speaker A: It was a Carlo Nuccio tune called, uh, Standing out against the Fire. Yeah, I'm getting the title wrong, folks. Sorry about that. But it's a great song. And we cut our own kind of second line version of it over there. But that's so great. Once we had recorded and we had all the parts agreed upon, I said, just mix it, Tom. And then he sent it to me. I was like, could you bring this down like one DB? And he goes, well, here's one DB down and two DBs down. He sent it back to me. I was like, oh, okay, let's go with the two.
• 7:10
  Speaker B: I like that you could tell the difference. I'm impressed. Cause sometimes when I'm in the studio and they break it down to that granular level. You're like, I can't really tell.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: Well, you know, it's not that I can tell that that track is down necessarily, just the way the whole track, everything around it sounds. You know, since it is kind of an aural zero sum game, there's only so much space there. You know, if you bring something down that's a little bit too loud, suddenly everything else kind of pops out.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: That's true.
• 7:40
  Speaker A: You know, and sometimes popping out might make. Make it feel lumpy because now you're hearing too much of the edge of stuff, you know, and you might want to bring that thing back up because you give it a little bit of a masking effect, a little bit of a, you know, a summing effect.
• 7:55
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 7:56
  Speaker A: That's. That's why mixing is an art.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Mixing is an art. And I guess mastering is even an art in the show on mixing.
• 8:03
  Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's all. Well, let's go back a little bit for the, for the folks here at home or not familiar with you or maybe don't know your whole history.
• 8:11
  Speaker B: That would be the majority of your listeners. O.
• 8:17
  Speaker A: So you're not from New Orleans?
• 8:18
  Speaker B: No, I grew up in Washington, DC.
• 8:20
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 8:21
  Speaker B: And moved to Austin when I was 18.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: I'm guessing, like, let's not hurry.
• 8:27
  Speaker B: Let's not hurry it. I'm from D.C. and I'm back in D.C. now.
• 8:31
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, that's really hurrying it. No. So I'm guessing your parents are like academics of some sort?
• 8:38
  Speaker B: Yes, exactly. My father. Both, actually. I'm very fortunate. Is there any wood around here? I'm gonna knock on it. Both my parents are still with us in their late 80s, but my father was a history professor at the University of Maryland.
• 8:56
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 8:56
  Speaker B: But he was also, and I think for a while he was the Only one Division 1 baseball coach who was also a professor.
• 9:04
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 9:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. So he was, he was the assistant baseball coach at the University of Maryland for many, many decades.
• 9:11
  Speaker A: Oh.
• 9:12
  Speaker B: So he'd front load his classes in the fall semester and then the spring semester he'd be on the road with the baseball team. So he was like the best of both worlds for me. Cool. He created his dream job.
• 9:24
  Speaker A: Oh, nice.
• 9:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker A: At what point do you start getting interested in playing music?
• 9:28
  Speaker B: So I remember, I was always interested in music. And I remember my, my sister brought home like one of those, like Sears Silvertone electric guitars that some friend of hers had given her that was in like the friend's parents closet. And I was just drawn to it, and I just started messing around with it. And then pretty soon I was writing songs about the seventh grade principal. And people, like, I was always immediately trying to write songs about things I was experiencing, and I've kind of continued to do that through the whole time I've been writing songs. And so, like, I had a song about the principal. I had a song about the street I lived on, and they were terrible.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 10:13
  Speaker B: Not that they've gotten much better now, but, like. But there was, like, definitely a write what you know vibe that I think I've adhered to.
• 10:23
  Speaker A: Okay. You know, keeps it. Keeps it grounded.
• 10:27
  Speaker B: It keeps it very grounded. And it keeps you, you know, in your comfort zone, I guess.
• 10:33
  Speaker A: Okay. Right. They always say, write what you know.
• 10:35
  Speaker B: Write what you know. Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker A: Are you starting bands and through middle school, High school.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: So, yes. So we start the band. Started a band like in. In 8th grade, and then actually in. In about 10th grade started the Neptunes, which is the band that would eventually move to Austin right now.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Now. So is it. Is it you and Steve Watson that go back super far?
• 11:01
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 11:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 11:02
  Speaker B: We go back. We actually played ice hockey together from the time we were like five or six years old.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: Really?
• 11:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 11:09
  Speaker A: That's hilarious.
• 11:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. So Steve's dad was a professional hockey player in the NHL, and he was. He was very well known, and he was coming towards the tail end of his career, and he had won a Stanley cup with the Montreal Canadiens when he was like, 23. So he wound up on the Detroit Red Wings and was traded to the Capitals. And I think it was 1976 or 1977. And at that point, Washington was a total backwater, non hockey town. So it was like he was so fucking pissed.
• 11:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker B: And so they get traded. And Stevie had started playing youth hockey in Detroit. And so his mom still tells the story to this day that she takes him to the hockey rink to join a team, and she's trying to put on his equipment. She has no idea if the elbow pad is the shin guard or the cup is the shoulder pad or what. And she always describes this nice man came over and said, I grew up in Detroit and my son's on the team. Can I help you? And it was my father. So she remembers that was sort of her first person that she met in D.C. and then our families became just fast and best friends, and so we played hockey. And then in high school, junior high school, we started to play music together. And it just sort of evolved from there.
• 12:32
  Speaker A: Now, has he Always been this way. The way that he is now.
• 12:35
  Speaker B: He's always been this way the first time. And for those of you who I'm sure everyone knows in New Orleans. Sure.
• 12:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Steve's a beloved character here.
• 12:44
  Speaker B: Yes. And he's always been very animated and full of life. And like, just tonight, the rehearsal, we had a full range of emotions that, like, there was laughter, tears, there were ins. I was getting insulted for something I didn't do. He was talking about food and T shirts for the anniversary. So it was sort of like a scatter shot. It's a shotgun approach to communication. But it was always very much like that.
• 13:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker B: I remember the very first time he came over to my house, he threw my shoe out the second floor window. Actually, now that you mention it, nothing has changed in 50 years. So, yes, to answer your question, yes, he's always been like that.
• 13:28
  Speaker A: He's irrepressible.
• 13:29
  Speaker B: Yes. My very oldest and best buddy.
• 13:32
  Speaker A: Well, that's so cool, man. So you guys start this band in 10th grade. Now, do you have, like, chicks hanging off of y'? All? Are you the kings of high school?
• 13:44
  Speaker B: You know what's funny is the actual answer to that's yes.
• 13:48
  Speaker A: And I'll tell you why.
• 13:50
  Speaker B: I'll tell you why. Because we were the first band that played at a bar. And it was this bar. There's a neighborhood in D.C. called Georgetown, and there was an old bar there called the Grog and Tankard. And at that point, D.C. had this weird liquor law where 18, if you were 18, you could drink beer and wine, but if you're. You had to wait till 21 to drink hard liquor.
• 14:10
  Speaker A: Okay, so it was training wheels.
• 14:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. It made no sense.
• 14:13
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 14:14
  Speaker B: And so when we were in high school, we had the band and we got this job playing at the Grog and Tankard like, twice a month or something. And literally, I would almost say hundreds of kids were coming from, like, six or seven different high schools because it was the only bar that would let them in. Like, everyone had a fake id. It was run by these three brothers from Iraq. Okay. The one guy, Abdul, had the eye patch, and he would look at the IDs, and people would, like, put their library card and their class picture on it, just write their fake birthday. So he's waving everybody in. And so by the end of the night, you know, we would have tons of people. Everyone's having fun. And there were, like, you know, more high school girls than we'd ever seen. And, like, mostly we were too scared. We didn't Know what to do.
• 15:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 15:02
  Speaker B: You know, like, for 15, 16.
• 15:05
  Speaker A: Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker B: But the funny thing was, at the end of the night, the lights would come on and the floor would be littered with cans of Milwaukee's best, which I don't know if you had that in New Orleans. The cheapest of the cheap beer. And so what the. What high school kids were doing was they were putting them in their pockets and bringing them in because they didn't want to buy anything. So at the end of the night, there's Milwaukee's best cans everywhere.
• 15:29
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 15:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that, that, that when. That's when we sort of realized, wow, this is kind of a fun job. And. Okay, like, you can make a couple hundred bucks and get a pizza and have girls come and play music like.
• 15:40
  Speaker A: What more is done?
• 15:42
  Speaker B: Sign me up.
• 15:44
  Speaker A: Were you already like, NRBQ fans at that. At that point, or.
• 15:48
  Speaker B: We were getting. Seriously. Getting into, like, serious nrbq. You know, we crossed the line of being fanatics, basically.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: Right. Because you all kind of had that. That herky jerky approach. You had a real naturalistic.
• 16:03
  Speaker B: We had the same instrumentation with. With Pete Gordon on piano and Wet Dog. Yes, Wet Dog. And. And so I don't. He probably played at the bayou in. In D.C. sure. So we used to go see NRBQ at the Bayou mostly, but saw them, you know, 30. It's. It's sort of like the. The devotion that people would have to the Grateful Dead or Fish or something. Like, if NRBQ is anywhere better taste. If NRBQ was anywhere, we were there, like anywhere in the 200 mile radius.
• 16:32
  Speaker A: Right.
• 16:33
  Speaker B: But that was always a thrill for us to see them. And yeah, like you said, they had this kind of like, anything might happen, herky jerky, expansive repertoire that was just so appealing. And their records were so good and they had so many of them.
• 16:49
  Speaker A: Right.
• 16:49
  Speaker B: And they were so different. They would play like, a honky tonk song and then like a beautifully crafted pop song like Riding in My Car, that Al Anders and Al Anderson actually went on. The guitar player and singer went on to, like, a hugely successful career in Nashville.
• 17:04
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 17:04
  Speaker B: As a country songwriter. Right. But he had that talent in the band and had these wonderful songs. They had three songwriters and three singers.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:14
  Speaker B: Which is really cool.
• 17:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all very different.
• 17:18
  Speaker B: And all very different. But it all sounded like it was the same band.
• 17:22
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 17:22
  Speaker B: Which is hard to do.
• 17:24
  Speaker A: Right. But that's kind of where the bag that the Neptunes were basically coming out of.
• 17:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's. That's what we Were trying to aspire to be.
• 17:32
  Speaker A: So you guys graduate from high school and you wind up just moving straight down to Austin? No.
• 17:39
  Speaker B: Okay. No. So what happened was we graduated high school and Shawn Mentcher, who is the guitarist in this legendary Austin rockabilly band called High Noon, is considered, like one of the, you know, rockabilly greats, also was a Washingtonian and he was actually the Neptune's manager.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: Oh.
• 18:03
  Speaker B: And he got us to record this 45. And then he got it mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City by Greg Colby.
• 18:12
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: So, like, we would read the back of the records and all the records were always mastered by Greg Colby. So he took us to this real studio and we recorded this side A, side B and went up to New York to get it mastered. And so anyway, Sean is our men, our manager, and he's very serious about it. Like, told us we had to wear the proper stage clothes.
• 18:33
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 18:34
  Speaker B: Taught us a lot of stuff.
• 18:35
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 18:36
  Speaker B: It kind of taught us how to be professional.
• 18:38
  Speaker A: Like, what kind of stuff did you tell us?
• 18:39
  Speaker B: Well, so we were playing at. There's this place in D.C. called Fort Reno. It's a very, very well known historic place, mostly for punk concerts.
• 18:49
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 18:50
  Speaker B: It's been around for 40 or 50 years, but, like, Fugazi has some legendary shows now.
• 18:54
  Speaker A: Were, you know, were you going to see a lot of punk rock shows and stuff coming up?
• 18:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. So the. The high school that I went to, it was the one DC public school where all the Discord guys went.
• 19:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: And so my bro. My older brother was in Ian Mackay's class and my older sister was in Alec MacKay's class. So teen Idols, Fugazi, Rites of Spring, that was all in our neighborhood.
• 19:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 19:19
  Speaker B: But I was. And I knew tons of those. Those guys in those bands, but I was drawn more towards, like, melody and harmony and like, sort of instrument, you know, guys playing their guitar. Like, I was like Big Al Anderson.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: I was like, this doesn't sound like an rbq.
• 19:39
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: And I appreciated the. I. I thought it was so cool, the scene that they built on their own that became like global and. But the music itself didn't speak to me the way that other things that I was experiencing did.
• 19:52
  Speaker A: Gotcha.
• 19:53
  Speaker B: So I would. I had friends, you know, who were in a lot of those bands, but I never played punk music.
• 19:59
  Speaker A: Right, right. But I mean, you saw a lot of that.
• 20:01
  Speaker B: I saw. I saw a lot of it. Yeah.
• 20:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because it was a very rich scene, man.
• 20:05
  Speaker B: Oh, man, it was huge. And it was. It was really cool because at the time, the mayor of Washington, D.C. was Marion Barry.
• 20:13
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 20:15
  Speaker B: And who I wrote a song about.
• 20:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:17
  Speaker B: And so Mary and Barry had a summer youth employment program. So any kid in, like, we grew up in the District of Columbia up until the age of 16 was guaranteed a summer job. So, you know, you could work at the zoo or you could work in the parks Department at the summer camps or whatever. But for some reason, they threw kind of the white kids in upper Northwest Washington, which was where we were from, they threw us this bone of the Modern Music Workshop. And what that was, that was. Shawn Mencher was the director and there was about 30 or 40 kids that got paid to rehearse their bands all day and then play concerts around the city.
• 21:01
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 21:02
  Speaker B: And it was cool because you were thrown into. It wasn't just your band. It was. You had to make up a band with other kids.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: And so I was in a band with Scott McLeod, who was in Girls Against Boys, like that whole sort of D.C. discord scene.
• 21:18
  Speaker A: Right.
• 21:18
  Speaker B: We were also playing Go Go Music with some other kids. It was great. It was the best job I've ever had.
• 21:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker B: It's my first full time job. I was like, 14.
• 21:26
  Speaker A: Sounds pretty cool.
• 21:27
  Speaker B: It was great.
• 21:28
  Speaker A: And you'd go play for.
• 21:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:30
  Speaker A: And then they have kids or.
• 21:31
  Speaker B: No, no, they'd have like concerts around the city, like Dupont Circle University, District of Columbia. So they. So then we sort of got the taste of like playing outdoor concerts around the city. It was great. And Sean was our boss.
• 21:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that, that's why I have a huge appreciation for Marion Barry. And I wrote a very positive song about him later just because he gave me my professional start in music.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: Nice. Well, you're the first guest on the, on the podcast that has that story that's ever.
• 22:05
  Speaker B: That's ever paid. And he actually, he spoke. He spoke, spoke at my high school graduation.
• 22:09
  Speaker A: Set me up.
• 22:10
  Speaker B: It was. But right before that, and I'll tell this quickly because it's a good one, but yeah, we were on the, the football field in front of the. The high school and it was like, you know, it was hot, it was 90 degrees. And we're in our caps and gowns and he's like 10 minutes late, 20 minutes late, 30 minutes late, 40 minutes late.
• 22:31
  Speaker A: I just got to make a stop.
• 22:32
  Speaker B: And grandma grandmothers are like passing out the stands and, you know, the fans are going. And then limo pulls up and he gets out and he gets up and he gets on the mic and I'm not lying. This was his message for the high school class of 86. He said, I don't want you going out there in the world making babies. I know it don't feel good, but you got to wrap it up. And then he got off. He got back in the limo, and we were. We were sort of just like, all right, all right. Wow. There's our north star.
• 23:04
  Speaker A: They say brevity is the soul of wit.
• 23:06
  Speaker B: That was it. That was it.
• 23:10
  Speaker A: That's a good one.
• 23:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. I always have deep appreciation for him.
• 23:14
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Mr. Mayor. Your Honor.
• 23:18
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:18
  Speaker A: So you make this first single when you're still up in D.C. it's the Neptune.
• 23:24
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: So how does that lead you down to Austin?
• 23:26
  Speaker B: So then. So I graduate high school, miraculously. And then I actually went to college for a year.
• 23:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 23:34
  Speaker B: At the University of Wisconsin.
• 23:35
  Speaker A: Oh, all right.
• 23:36
  Speaker B: Which I loved. It was great. And Sean had Madison in. Madison. Oh, yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker A: It's a nice town.
• 23:42
  Speaker B: Isn't it great?
• 23:42
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 23:43
  Speaker B: On the two lakes. I loved it. And Sean was writing me these letters. He'd moved to Austin. He's like, oh, my. You got to get down here. It's incredible. He's telling me about all the people that he's seeing, and. And he's like, you know the guys in rank and file live down the block. And I was like, what? Cause I had all these records. So I was like, that was it. I was like, I'm going. So then came home after the second semester and announced I was moving to.
• 24:10
  Speaker A: Texas and dropping out of school.
• 24:12
  Speaker B: And dropping out of school. And so Wet Dog and Mike Middleton. Wid and me moved. Steve was still in high school, so we had a couple different bass players before he got down to Austin.
• 24:24
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 24:26
  Speaker B: And including Miles Zuniga, who, of course, is the guitarist and. And one of the two lead singers in fastball.
• 24:33
  Speaker A: Oh, right.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Miles is an old buddy and a Neptune alumni.
• 24:39
  Speaker A: Okay, Very cool.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: Is it alumna or alumni? Well, is alumni plural?
• 24:44
  Speaker A: Alumni is plural.
• 24:45
  Speaker B: So it's alumna.
• 24:47
  Speaker A: Yes. An alumna would be the.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: Okay, yeah. Okay. How about former bass player, Alumnus?
• 24:54
  Speaker A: I think that might be the. The.
• 24:56
  Speaker B: A Numb nuts.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. Former bass player.
• 25:01
  Speaker B: Former bass player. There you go.
• 25:03
  Speaker A: Because neither one of us graduated from. Oh, no, you. I think you actually did go back and graduate finally.
• 25:07
  Speaker B: I did, but not. Yeah, after. It was after a while.
• 25:10
  Speaker A: I did make it through two years of Latin class at Ben Franklin High School.
• 25:14
  Speaker B: Did you?
• 25:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but by the skin of my teeth.
• 25:18
  Speaker B: What'd you think of Latin?
• 25:20
  Speaker A: It was it was a good class for me to take. I met a lot of good people in there.
• 25:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. I took Latin, too. And the best part of my Latin high school experience was the teacher. He's one of these characters.
• 25:31
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 25:32
  Speaker B: That you just remember forever. And you quote, and he's. This guy would wear the tie and the blue blazer, and he spoke in, like, this FAUX British accent. Mr. Bigger.
• 25:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 25:40
  Speaker B: And Mr. Bigger would say, like, you turn in your homework or something. You just look at it and go, Mr. Fleck, did you bring a sword fall on it? Like, he was like, that kind of thing. So he could tell that you were, like. Even though you were sort of struggling as a student, you could tell he sort of cared about you.
• 25:58
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. He had a sense of humor.
• 26:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Speaker A: He wasn't taking it too seriously. Well, that's what I meant. When you said, did you like. Did you like taking Latin? I said, yeah, I met a lot of good people in the class. It's not the subject so much. It's just the. The. The class of. Of the experience of it. Yeah. Attracted, you know?
• 26:14
  Speaker B: Right.
• 26:15
  Speaker A: It's like when you fly Spirit Airline, It's. It's not that the plane is so bad. It's just who. Who you're flying with.
• 26:22
  Speaker B: You know?
• 26:23
  Speaker A: It's like, who would attract. It's like staying at Motel 6.
• 26:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:26
  Speaker A: Not that the room is so much worse than Hilton.
• 26:29
  Speaker B: Right.
• 26:29
  Speaker A: It's just who you're sharing the parking lot with and what's going on.
• 26:35
  Speaker B: Who's checking out ahead of you?
• 26:38
  Speaker A: Who was in the room last night?
• 26:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's what you don't want to visualize.
• 26:42
  Speaker A: Footprints on the door. You know, when you're going to your room and there's a boot print on the door already.
• 26:48
  Speaker B: So you've been on the road for 40, 50 years. What's your go to move when you first get in the hotel room? Is it the duvet?
• 26:56
  Speaker A: You got to pull the spread off.
• 26:58
  Speaker B: Spread comes off first.
• 26:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to ever touch the. That.
• 27:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:02
  Speaker A: And then pull the. Pull the sheets back, too. You don't even want to touch that blanket that's on top.
• 27:06
  Speaker B: Really. And then get the air. Get the air conditioning going cold.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And then. Then. Then you got to get the ice.
• 27:13
  Speaker B: Right. The ice bucket's the first thing.
• 27:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:17
  Speaker B: And then I. You know, once there's enough ice in that glass, you figure it's killing everything. It's probably safe.
• 27:24
  Speaker A: You know, Manny, who's not here tonight, always says, ice Is the, the best.
• 27:27
  Speaker B: Mixer ice is, you know, for.
• 27:29
  Speaker A: Because you don't need, you know, you don't need to keep it get it all complicated, you know, now Anyway.
• 27:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, we got off on ice. There is.
• 27:36
  Speaker A: That's okay.
• 27:37
  Speaker B: Nothing kills a party like not enough ice though.
• 27:39
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 27:40
  Speaker B: Yes. That's.
• 27:41
  Speaker A: Well, that's a nice thing about staying in a hotel or motel. You know, you never run out ice machine.
• 27:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker A: Just keep getting refreshing the bucket. So. So you guys moved down to Austin now at that time. Austin is very different than it is now.
• 27:56
  Speaker B: It was incredible. It was absolutely so. Right. We moved in 1987 and there was an oil bust that had just happened and so a third of all the housing was vacant. So it was dirt cheap. And literally like we moved into a four, three or four bedroom house and our rent combined was $400 a month.
• 28:20
  Speaker A: Right.
• 28:21
  Speaker B: So. And so that was immediately like we're.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Full time musicians, 75 bucks a month.
• 28:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. Never had a day job. And it was like, I think the first month we were there, we were playing at the Hole in the Wall and this guy Davis McLarty comes in and he's Joe Wheely's drummer, but he's also one of the principals at the Rock Arts booking agency. Were you guys ever on Rock Arts?
• 28:48
  Speaker A: No. No.
• 28:49
  Speaker B: So they did Joe Ehle, they did, you know, a lot of the Texas, Eric Johnson. They were doing a lot of different Texas artists. And so we immediately he signs us as he becomes our manager in our booking agency. So within a month we're on the road going around the country.
• 29:06
  Speaker A: A month of you moving to Austin?
• 29:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was like we had no idea, like looking back, we had no idea what the good fortune that we had. We just thought it was sort of a natural picture progression.
• 29:15
  Speaker A: Well, you know, that's the thing about young bands and it, it, it gives them a sense of, of overconfidence because they think, wow, that was so easy, I could do that again.
• 29:24
  Speaker B: Right.
• 29:25
  Speaker A: And that's not necessarily the case with, with bands. Band alchemy is so delicate, man.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: I think, I think the majority would not have that, that good fortune. And it wasn't cuz we were so good or we had a hit song or something. It was just the timing of it, you know.
• 29:40
  Speaker A: Well, and you had something, you had. We were entertaining sound, you know, we had a very.
• 29:44
  Speaker B: And like we had a. We were high energy 18, 19 year olds and we would jump on top of the piano and we had a sense of humor and we had some good original songs and and, and we were willing to go anywhere for a hundred dollars. We would get in the van and. And we would go and we traveled all over.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: So like all around the country.
• 30:05
  Speaker B: So we just.
• 30:06
  Speaker A: On your own or playing dates with other opening for people?
• 30:09
  Speaker B: Do both. We would do both. You know, like, so we would go to a lot of things in, in Texas and Louisiana and Mississippi on our own. But then we would get like the Plum gig opening for people in around the country.
• 30:25
  Speaker A: Going out, opening for Joe Ely.
• 30:27
  Speaker B: So we got to do that. So right after he died, like last month, I keep a spreadsheet of all the gigs I've done.
• 30:33
  Speaker A: Oh really?
• 30:34
  Speaker B: Which is kind of because I used to just have a spiral notebook and when we get back from the tour, I'd write down where we were and it's been really cool to see, like. And so then I just kind of always did it. But then I about, I don't know, 15 years ago transposed or converted everything into a spreadsheet. So searching Joy. I found out we opened for him 13 times.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 30:55
  Speaker B: Which was really cool. And it was all over Houston, Dallas, Amarillo, Lubbock.
• 31:01
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 31:02
  Speaker B: We want. We once opened for him at Tipitina's.
• 31:05
  Speaker A: Oh, nice.
• 31:06
  Speaker B: In. In the late 80s. So that was, I mean that really was an amazing experience.
• 31:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. What a, what a, what a great time to be there, man.
• 31:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean we got to play at the fabulous Thunderbirds River Fest, which is kind of a precursor to what is now Austin City Limits Festival.
• 31:26
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 31:27
  Speaker B: They. It was down, down along the river and they would have this all day outdoor concert. And so we got to be the opening act on this all day thing that featured like Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Joe Walsh, the Neville Brothers, and this band, Sweethearts of the Rodeo. You remember, I'm sure.
• 31:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:51
  Speaker B: So actually Miles Zuniga, who was the bass player at that point, was, was on the news describing how, you know, we each had a, a mobile home as our dressing room.
• 31:59
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:59
  Speaker B: And so, you know, we were playing as they were setting up the latrines basically, like from. We were in that, that key 10 to 1030 slot in the morning.
• 32:07
  Speaker A: Right.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: And then our, our backstage mobile home was going to be transferred over to Sweethearts of the Rodeo. So one of Sweethearts of the Rodeo, it was two women who were like, Right. It's sort of like an Indigo Girls country kind of situation. One of them took the sign, you know how Jazz Fest on the stage, it'll say who's playing in Sort of a handwritten sign. It was sort of like that on the trailer. And one of them just took the Neptune sign and just fired it in this trash can. Right, right. And Miles is describing that on the news. And then the camera pans to the trash can and the Neptune's side is broken in half in like a big, you know, 50 gallon Rubbermaid. Rubbermaid can. That sort of described our career.
• 32:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Visual metaphor. Well, on that note, I think we need some more cocktails here.
• 33:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Luckily we're drinking the same thing, too. I. I know. I. I came to New Orleans during dry January. I wasn't sure what was going to.
• 33:10
  Speaker A: Happen, but it looks like it's all the same.
• 33:12
  Speaker B: It's all the same.
• 33:13
  Speaker A: Nobody cares. Got that here. All right, well, everybody knows what to do. Go get yourself another cocktail and we'll be right back.
• 33:19
  Speaker C: Well, I'm smoking too much and I'm drinking even more what did you expect, girl when you walked out that door? It's not like I miss you cuz now I got no rule that's why you find me here Acting a fool. Oh well I should be down.
• 33:53
  Speaker B: But.
• 33:53
  Speaker C: I'm so high I'm like a rodeo clown well, since you say goodbye it's not like I need you I found this bar stool that's why you find me here laughing the pool. Will I walk the line some other time? Right now feels like the last day of school you find me here Back in the pool.
• 34:33
  Speaker A: And we're back back in the feral zone. Back with our guest, Mr. Jake Flack. I am Renee Coleman. Now, Jake, I know you may or may not have heard a few of these podcasts. I'm guessing that you probably might have listened to Pete Gordon's episode and Steve. Steve Watson's. Yeah, I've had a few. Now, for, For a long time, Steve Watson had one of the top 10 podcasts, you know, as far as popularity across. Really the entire. Yeah, all, you know, we've had over, you know, 380 or something episodes total.
• 35:07
  Speaker B: And between the film, that's all the people who he owes money to could.
• 35:11
  Speaker A: Be just trying to get a beat on where he is.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: Where he is. Well, or paternity suits. It's one of those.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: I don't know. That makes sense. Well, well, yeah, so. So you are familiar that this is a listener supported operation and we have a Venmo link and a PayPal link in the show notes of every show and the Facebook posts and you know, we have listeners who are, who are supporting Us and we, we do appreciate all that sponsoring our cocktails. We're running on fumes from some sponsorship last week from Mark Garrett Guarino and Andrew Aronson. So thank you, Andrew to Mark and Andrew and you can find those links and also we have the Patreon link there. You can take all the guesswork out of supporting the podcast, also the Troubleman podcast T shirt link and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Helps us a lot. Cost you nothing. And be going out soon with the Susan Cassel Band for the Big Easy Cruise. Be gone for a couple of weeks. It will be absent here from these spaces. But I may bring my equipment on the Big Easy Cruise and see.
• 36:31
  Speaker B: Some good stuff there.
• 36:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be a talent rich environment. And then we'll be back and going out in March with the Iguanas and Sunny Landreth. And it looks like I'll be playing on a lot of subbing on a lot, a lot of Sonny's dates playing with both bands. So always.
• 36:48
  Speaker B: Is any of that coming up East? Are you coming up east coast?
• 36:51
  Speaker A: Yes. I'm not sure if we're playing dc we're definitely playing like City Winery in New York. We're playing Connecticut. You know, I think we're playing a Wolf trap date.
• 37:01
  Speaker B: Oh, at the Barnes at the Barns. Yeah, yeah, I'll be out for that.
• 37:05
  Speaker A: And I'm not sure if that's a sunny date, but I think it, I think that's Iguanas and Sunny at, at the Barns at Wolf Trout.
• 37:10
  Speaker B: Cool.
• 37:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. In early March, I'm guessing. So yeah, everybody look out for those. And you can find the iguanas.com all the dates there or the Renee Coleman Facebook page. All right, well, enough of that. Back to our guest, Mr. Jake Flack. Let's first wrap up with In Austin.
• 37:28
  Speaker B: So we were on ice or something, right?
• 37:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 37:30
  Speaker B: Not the ice that's in the news, the ice that's in the drinks.
• 37:33
  Speaker A: Right, right, right, right. On the rocks.
• 37:36
  Speaker B: We were definitely on the rocks.
• 37:38
  Speaker A: On the rocks. But so Steve Watson finally follows y' all down to, to Austin, joins the bands, playing bass in the band. And you guys have a few more years there. Now at some point, Mojo Nixon shows up and, and he, he taps y' all to be his band. He's, he's moving away from just the, the Mojo and, and the, the duo that he had there with the guy was Skid Roper. Skid Roper.
• 38:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So basically what happened was after a few years of running around the country in Austin, I decided to go and finish school back at University of Maryland.
• 38:18
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 38:18
  Speaker B: And at that point, the rest of the guys hooked up with Mojo Nixon and became the Toad Lickers. Right.
• 38:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 38:26
  Speaker B: And they did that well, you know, Wet Dog and Wid. That's their, their Mojo names. I know them as Pete and Mike. Did that for, you know, 20, 30 years or something.
• 38:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:40
  Speaker B: Mojo's untimely passing a couple years ago.
• 38:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. They were still playing with him on those. They were on outlaw country cruise.
• 38:47
  Speaker B: Cruise with him. Yeah. But that was a lot of fun for them and such a great experience. And I knew Mojo pretty well over the years because every time know they'd come through D.C. or wherever I was, we would all hang out. I've actually shared a bed with Mojo.
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 39:02
  Speaker B: And that's. I'm trying to. We're. I'm still in group.
• 39:04
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 39:05
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 39:06
  Speaker A: Well, it's good to talk it out.
• 39:07
  Speaker B: I had to talk it out, you.
• 39:08
  Speaker A: Know, to name it and you something claim it.
• 39:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know what that was. I think it was. It was a Steve Watson group house situation where like you're in the bed with Mojo and there was sort of no turning back, but I, I survived, you know.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: Well, you know, Mojo is one of those guys like he, he, he has the. Or had the whole corn pone shtick. But his father was a newspaper man. He's a brilliant guy. You know, he comes. Comes from a super smart, very smart.
• 39:34
  Speaker B: Family and also a huge, huge, big heart. Nice guy too.
• 39:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker B: You know, he does the, the stage Persona was a very abrasive and, and you know, out of control. But like you say, he was very, at least in my experience, was very introspective and intellectual and friendly.
• 39:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. Sweetheart.
• 39:55
  Speaker B: Sweetheart. Right.
• 39:57
  Speaker A: So they go out. So you go back and finish your degree now. How do you wind up in New Orleans?
• 40:02
  Speaker B: So I finished my degree at Maryland because I went back because like I said earlier, my dad taught there and was the baseball coach, so I actually got free tuition. That was the pull factor.
• 40:14
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 40:15
  Speaker B: Which, you know, you know, and I know is having college age kids who have gone through that. It. It's expensive, you know.
• 40:22
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker B: And so it's like, man, so I had this opportunity and then I had a band going while I was in school. But then when I graduated, I wasn't married to Ann yet. We were living together and we wanted to sort of have an adventure And Tom Stern, who I lived with in Austin for a while, was living in New Orleans, and with Jeannie, who's, you know, that's who I'm staying with right now.
• 40:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:47
  Speaker B: Our very oldest, greatest friends. And we're like, you know what? Let's go. Let's have an adventure. Let's move to New Orleans.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 40:53
  Speaker B: Tom and I'll play music. Ann was gonna get a graduate degree at a UNO in, like, urban planning, and she got a job with the Preservation Resource Center.
• 41:04
  Speaker A: Oh, it's a great place, which was awesome.
• 41:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And Tom and I started Thousand Dollar Car. Nice. And so when we get there, that's just the two of us. And. And Tom said, well, you know, Rob Savoy and John Maloney are in town. They both moved here from Lafayette, and I had known them in the Neptunes because the Neptune's played with the Blue Runners numerous times.
• 41:29
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:30
  Speaker B: Numerous times. And I always loved those guys, and that band was so cool. Did you ever see that? Blue Runners? Yeah.
• 41:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, sure.
• 41:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker A: Played dates with those guys.
• 41:38
  Speaker B: Absolutely. It was so great. And. And so we reached out to the. To. To John and Rob. They're like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. Let's get something going. And so it happened really fast. And kind of, like, showing up in Austin and like, all of a sudden having gigs, it was the same way in New Orleans.
• 41:54
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker B: And then you start to think that.
• 41:57
  Speaker A: God is shining his face on you, don't you, Jake?
• 42:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then, and then, and then kind of like early on in that, Rob was offered the bass chair in Cowboy Mouth. How do you turn that down?
• 42:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 42:11
  Speaker B: And so he did that, and we cycled through a couple different bass.
• 42:16
  Speaker A: Well, now, I think that's when I first started seeing you guys.
• 42:18
  Speaker B: That's when you helped us out, is when.
• 42:20
  Speaker A: When Mark Walton was actually subbing. Mark Walton from Continental Drifters was subbing with y', all, and Mermaid Lounge was going. And, you know, I was playing there with the Geraniums. I was playing there with Glenn Styler, and then, you know, you guys would.
• 42:35
  Speaker B: Be playing, and Mermaid Lounge was happening.
• 42:38
  Speaker A: It was. It was amazing.
• 42:39
  Speaker B: And we were always at the. I feel like it was Carrollton Station. Mermaid Lounge. Howlin Wolf.
• 42:45
  Speaker A: Right.
• 42:46
  Speaker B: And then there was that place in the French Quarter where you came in, where I called you Swiss.
• 42:50
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 42:51
  Speaker B: What was that place called?
• 42:52
  Speaker A: I don't know.
• 42:52
  Speaker B: It had, like, a British name.
• 42:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker B: Not the Pig and the Whistle or Pig and Whistle or something like that.
• 42:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. I, I, It's. I, I can Picture the inside of it. But, but yes. And, and that's when I first met you and started coming to your gigs and then, and you know, I'd kind of like wear, wear some like blue continental pants or something.
• 43:10
  Speaker B: You rolled in and you had like, sort of like indoor outdoor cool shades and a turtleneck. And I, I, I, I was heavily into that. Robert called Bill Cosby Show, I spy.
• 43:20
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: Right. So I was like, okay, this guy's like the, a villain there. And so I just started calling you Swiss.
• 43:24
  Speaker A: Right.
• 43:25
  Speaker B: And then it kind of stuck.
• 43:26
  Speaker A: It did.
• 43:27
  Speaker B: So I, I still call you Swiss to this day because it was like you were like sort of the perfect, like, oh, here comes Swiss. Like that kind of thing.
• 43:35
  Speaker A: Well, I was so taken with it because you just, you, we didn't really know each other well, but, you know, we're.
• 43:40
  Speaker B: Right, we're, we're, it was like a perfect character actor. Oh, they're Swiss. Smoking and unfair filtered. Like Lucky, you know, the martini. Here comes Swiss, the villain.
• 43:50
  Speaker A: I remember you saying he's, he's like Robert Culp's first cousin or something. And then he said, and you immediately, off the top of your head spit out this tagline. He said, he's not from this country, but he likes it so much he might stay all night. I thought, that's so funny, man.
• 44:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker A: So, yes, thank you for that. It was, it was.
• 44:09
  Speaker B: I don't know if it stuck widely outside in other circles.
• 44:12
  Speaker A: No, I think just between us, but, but for me, I was able to, to see myself in those terms. It helped me inside it.
• 44:20
  Speaker B: I feel like he grew into that character.
• 44:21
  Speaker A: I, I feel like I did. For better or worse.
• 44:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 44:25
  Speaker A: And it was again, we didn't have any children at that time, so, you know, you could really get out on a, on a, on a limb there. And I did. And you know.
• 44:33
  Speaker B: Right.
• 44:34
  Speaker A: It was good times, man.
• 44:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. So Mark helped us out on base for a while, and then he was off on the road a lot with Continental Drifters. Right.
• 44:41
  Speaker A: Then you had Dave George.
• 44:43
  Speaker B: We had Dave George.
• 44:45
  Speaker A: Another real character, man. You guys, total character magnets.
• 44:49
  Speaker B: I wonder if, is Dave still around New Orleans?
• 44:51
  Speaker A: I haven't seen Dave for, for 10 years at least, man. Not, not heard hide nor hero.
• 44:56
  Speaker B: Real character.
• 44:57
  Speaker A: So it's that time that the Iguanas were on Margaritaville Records. You know, I was thinking, there's this band I really love. Can I, I think you should sign them. Let me, let me do a demo on that.
• 45:07
  Speaker B: Right. And then you took us to, to that cool Studio that was on the second floor of that old gas plant building.
• 45:13
  Speaker A: Well, it was, it was like a former Chiclets building or something. Yeah, it was a Mark. Mark Bingham thing that he had there right off Earhart in Carrollton. Boiler room, I think that's what it was called.
• 45:28
  Speaker B: And then we did a session there.
• 45:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, we did, did a. Did a little demo there. And Margaritaville was, as it turns out, was kind of on their. The running on fumes at that point. They weren't signing any new bands, so that, that went by the wayside and. But you guys continued to play, made a, recorded a record at Keith Keller Studio.
• 45:47
  Speaker B: That was great. And Steve came down and then he was in Austin at that point.
• 45:53
  Speaker A: Steve moved to New Orleans and was playing with.
• 45:55
  Speaker B: I got him to move here. Right. And I don't actually, you know, this might be a good platform for me to really take credit for getting Steve Watson to New Orleans, because I don't get the credit. Okay, well, I brought him here. Nice, nice. So for those of you, I apologize. And for the. The other people over here, you're welcome. Take the credit. You're welcome.
• 46:16
  Speaker A: Good work.
• 46:17
  Speaker B: I got him to Austin. I got him to New Orleans.
• 46:19
  Speaker A: Okay, well, where else do you see him, his life going? You have any other plans for it?
• 46:24
  Speaker B: I'm thinking maybe Jordan.
• 46:26
  Speaker A: Okay. Really?
• 46:27
  Speaker B: Syria. Jordan.
• 46:28
  Speaker A: Syria.
• 46:29
  Speaker B: Somewhere over there.
• 46:30
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 46:31
  Speaker B: All right. Now, Valley, he's. He's been. I saw, you know, we, we rehearsed today for the big. The big kingpin, 25th on Saturday, and he's been running on emptied. Getting all the preparation done for that.
• 46:46
  Speaker A: Right. He's. He's now he. I think during the time he was in Austin. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he kind of came up under Steve. Steve Wertheimer in the, in the club business. He got trained up by Steve who. Yeah, Steve Wertheimer is still probably working 100 hour week now.
• 47:03
  Speaker B: Number one. Number one live music venue in the United States. Continental Club.
• 47:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
• 47:08
  Speaker B: How do you argue with that?
• 47:09
  Speaker A: No, no. So, so, so Steve brought that tradition of hard work as a club owner down in New Orleans. He has the Kingpin, he has Midway Pizza. Yeah, he's. He's just.
• 47:20
  Speaker B: How many time. How many times do you think you've played at the Continental? 100 at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any good memories?
• 47:27
  Speaker A: Sure, lots.
• 47:30
  Speaker B: I did. I did tequila shots with Drew Barrymore once at the bar. That was pretty good. Continental Club memory.
• 47:36
  Speaker A: That's good.
• 47:37
  Speaker B: And then she sort of moved away. Yeah, like from You. Yeah, she moved farther down the bar.
• 47:43
  Speaker A: Bar, yeah, yeah. Let's not get. Get caught in the weeds about Continental Club stories here. You're here in New Orleans. You brought Steve Watts and the bands continuing to play here and playing a.
• 47:54
  Speaker B: Lot at Rock and Bowl. Right. Then we're, we're doing a lot of. A lot of rock and bowl. And I don't know if they still do this, but when it was upstairs and they had the two stages, the old rock and the old rock and bowl, around the holidays, they would do a lot of holiday parts parties and they would. The early band would play on the, the smaller stage and there would be like, you know, this is the holiday party for the, you know, whatever organization. And then it would be like Snooks Eagle and. And so we were doing one of those ones and then you sort of traded sets.
• 48:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 48:30
  Speaker B: And so John Gro is playing organ for Snook Seagland and he had long hair. Did you ever see John Gro when he had long hair?
• 48:40
  Speaker A: No, I don't ever. Maybe I did, but I don't remember him like that.
• 48:43
  Speaker B: And like he totally like, was like entering the scene as like the, like the New Orleans heavyweight keyboard cat, but he didn't, he wasn't really like in touch with kind of like the rock and roll side or anything. So we meet him, we're sitting at the bar at the set break and we're, of course, Steve's like teasing him. I just met him, giving him.
• 49:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:04
  Speaker B: But anyway, so we asked him to play with us and he's like, yeah, sure. And he's like this total generous spirit, like, fantastic musician. So he became, he became sort of like the fifth member of the band. And Derek Houston, of course, also was always a long time unofficial member on tenor sax.
• 49:24
  Speaker A: Another DC guys, DC Mafia, who we knew.
• 49:28
  Speaker B: Right, right. And then we got asked to play a Jazz Fest and so we asked Derek and John to play with us. And that was amazing. Yeah, that was incredible. That was our first time. We, we were fortunate to play twice at Jazz Fest and the first time was what was then called the Ray Ban stage.
• 49:47
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah. They give you free sunglasses when you played it.
• 49:50
  Speaker B: Oh, they didn't give those to us.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: I got them every. Hey, I, I would even go back on years when I wasn't playing that stage and I remembered. You remember me? I played the stage last year. Give me a. Give me some sunglasses.
• 50:02
  Speaker B: Ray Bans.
• 50:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:03
  Speaker B: And it was. I, if I, if I remember correctly, it was one of the outer Stages. It was one of the bigger ones.
• 50:08
  Speaker A: It was, it was one of the two main stages.
• 50:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So we were on that again, like that fabulous Thunderbird show. Very early 11:15 as they're setting up, but it's still a thrill. And at that point, I was. I was working at the, the Audubon Montessori School on Broadway as, like, a teacher's assistant. They called me Mr. Jake.
• 50:28
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 50:29
  Speaker B: And it was a kindergarten through eighth grade, and I knew everybody in the whole school, and they. Two of the teachers that I worked with brought the entire fourth grade on school buses to see Mr. Jake at Jazz Fest.
• 50:43
  Speaker A: That must have been a thrill for them and you.
• 50:45
  Speaker B: So that was like, one of the highlights I've ever had playing music. These, like, you know, 64th grader kids like, screaming for Mr. Jake. And at, you know, 9:30 in the morning. Okay, maybe 11:00am it was, it was so fun. And it was just sort of reinforced, like, how important music is in this culture here. Like, people talk about New Orleans music all the time, but, like, to me, that's a really cool example about, you know, you're, you're, you're exposing kids at an early age to what New Orleans culture is like. This is Jazz Fest. We had all kinds of musicians at that school. Willie Green's son went there. Camille, the guitar player for the Radiators.
• 51:28
  Speaker A: Bo Dwan. Yeah.
• 51:29
  Speaker B: His son went there. It was cool. And they'd all pick up their kids after school.
• 51:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 51:34
  Speaker B: Ruby Bridges daughter went there.
• 51:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 51:36
  Speaker B: I was like, man, this is incredible.
• 51:38
  Speaker A: Thing about New Orleans like that. That's why I can't leave. Because every street corner I go by, I have like 10 memories, and then I know other 10 memories that someone else's that I wasn't even there for. But I know the history of it.
• 51:53
  Speaker B: And you can revisit them very easily because not much changes. Yeah.
• 51:56
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 51:58
  Speaker B: But Snake and Jake's looks like it did 30 years ago.
• 52:01
  Speaker A: Exactly the same. Yeah. The drop ceiling is gone.
• 52:03
  Speaker B: So the drop ceiling's gone. There's a little more headroom and there's a back patio.
• 52:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's improved, but it's. It's incremental. It's nothing. Nothing earth shattering.
• 52:14
  Speaker B: And 30 years ago, there was not a podcast happening in the. On the corner table.
• 52:18
  Speaker A: No, no, no podcast.
• 52:20
  Speaker B: That's a sign of the times.
• 52:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we. We keep the, the set the same, and we just change the dialogue sometimes, switch it up.
• 52:29
  Speaker B: Right.
• 52:30
  Speaker A: So at some point, you guys have you. You start yearning for D.C. you want to get back around your family.
• 52:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. So for. For me, again, I'm the guy who broke up the band because we were gonna have a baby. Ann and I were gonna have our first son. Charlie was born in 2000, and we were really fortunate to have four grandparents who lived, like, five blocks away from each other in D.C. yeah. So it was like, let's make this easier.
• 52:57
  Speaker A: Right?
• 52:57
  Speaker C: Right.
• 52:58
  Speaker B: And let's. Let's raise the kids so they get to know their grandparents. And it was great because we have two sons, and both of them spent a day with each grandparent before they went to kindergarten, like, every day of the week. So it was like, you know, they got to know their grandparents really well.
• 53:15
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 53:16
  Speaker B: And it worked out well. And then I lucked in with a bunch of great DC musicians and had a band for 20 years called the Road Stavern Troubadours and also played with King Soul. So it's been great.
• 53:30
  Speaker A: And. And. Well, just to. To. To go back a little bit, when you talk about Tom Stern, I first met Tom Stern when he was playing in a band. He. I think he was still at Tulane playing with Tom Clifford in a band called the Mistreaters. And that Alex Chilton and I were big Mistreaters fans, and we would go see them, right. Just to. Two of us would go together to say. And I saw Tom many, many times, so that's how far back I go with. With Tom. Like maybe 1983 or something. But then Tom Clifford is actually from DC, right.
• 54:03
  Speaker B: He's another DC guy.
• 54:04
  Speaker A: And was he in King Soul?
• 54:06
  Speaker B: He still. And we still are together in the DC version. Okay. But just that when you mentioned Alex Chilton, I just the other day. And I've loved this record for years, but I was listening to my. I. I inherited. When my brother passed away, I inherited all his records. And growing up, he used to. He exposed me to so much great music. And we lived in a group house in D.C. together. And I always used to play the Alex Chilton record High Priest.
• 54:34
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 54:34
  Speaker B: Which you're on.
• 54:35
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 54:36
  Speaker B: I'm all over you and Doug are the rhythm section. Take it all off. Take it off. And, baby, it's a fun record. And it grooves. And I was actually just listening to that last week before you even reached out to me, and I was thinking, God, man, this is a great record.
• 54:52
  Speaker A: Oh, cool.
• 54:53
  Speaker B: And Alex Chilton, like, we got to see. You know him when. When I moved to New Orleans. I remember one time we opened for him at the Howlin Wolf, and my brother was in town and who had all these Alex Chilton records. Who turned me on to Alex Chilton. Chilton. And I didn't even know at that point that you were on them. Right. But it was. It was so full circle because I was like, oh, my God. And I have a picture in the dressing room of the Howlin Wolf with my brother and Alex Chilton.
• 55:20
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 55:20
  Speaker B: And I'm like, God, how cool is that?
• 55:22
  Speaker A: Right?
• 55:22
  Speaker B: You know, full circle.
• 55:24
  Speaker A: Well, if you want to talk about crazy connection. So, yeah, I'm trying to think of this female comedian, big, tall girl, brunette, Jewish.
• 55:34
  Speaker B: Oh, Sarah Silverman.
• 55:35
  Speaker A: Sarah Silverman.
• 55:36
  Speaker B: She's great.
• 55:37
  Speaker A: So I'm listening to Sarah. Sarah Silverman's podcast a few years ago, and she's just talking about. I went out of town when I was in college. I went out of town one weekend. Then I came back. I let a friend stay in my apartment. I came back, and she'd left a cassette tape in my cassette player, and I started listening to it, and it had all this great music that I'd never heard on it. And I didn't know what it was, but it had all these great songs. And then she said, like, this one song, Take it off, baby. She starts saying. I was like, that's my part, she said. And she's saying that she eventually realized. Found out someone said, oh, that's Alex Chilton. And she said, but I love that record so much, but I couldn't believe it.
• 56:19
  Speaker B: For those of you who are not familiar with the record, it's Alex Chilton High Priest. What's the label?
• 56:24
  Speaker A: It was on New Rose in France. New Rose. Who put it out here in the.
• 56:28
  Speaker B: U.S. probably, like 84. 83.
• 56:32
  Speaker A: That was. No, that was a record. Came out in 87, I think.
• 56:36
  Speaker B: Oh, 87. Okay. Look it up. I'm sure it's on YouTube.
• 56:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So it's. And yeah, I'm singing. I'm singing. The background vocal parts.
• 56:43
  Speaker B: Was that. You did background vocals? Yeah. I didn't know you did background vocal work.
• 56:47
  Speaker A: That high girl part. Get up, baby. Yeah, yeah. So. So it was. It was quite gratifying to hear us. Sarah Silverman singing my part over.
• 56:58
  Speaker B: That's pretty cool.
• 56:59
  Speaker A: Her podcast.
• 57:00
  Speaker B: That's pretty. Wow.
• 57:04
  Speaker A: So you've had all these bands, and we've played many shows together with Iguanas playing up. Up in D.C. one of the. You know, the Pearl Street. We played several times.
• 57:15
  Speaker B: That was cool. I like that place.
• 57:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was run by that girl, Lisa White.
• 57:20
  Speaker B: Yep. And then she moved on to Hank Deedles, which is another happening live music. Right place up there, right?
• 57:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, things are always fluid up there in D.C. but, yeah, we've played many, many shows with you.
• 57:32
  Speaker B: It's kind of a bummer about the DC Scene now is like, so many of the clubs, if you look at the calendar, I don't know if you find this probably not New Orleans, because it's such a great live music town. They're dominated by tribute bands.
• 57:44
  Speaker A: Hey, man, when we go out on.
• 57:45
  Speaker B: The road, I can't stand it when.
• 57:47
  Speaker A: We go out on the road. Well, not just. That's true. Like, if you look at rock and bowl, what really line up there, it's.
• 57:54
  Speaker B: Such a bummer for live music.
• 57:55
  Speaker A: Or look at House of Blues, the line up there, it's a lot of that. And when we go out on, like, with Sonny and the Iguana, Sunny Landreth and the Iguanas, we play a lot of these theater dates. And you look at the lineup of who's coming, half of them are tribute.
• 58:10
  Speaker B: A tribute to Foreigner, to Fleetwood Mac, to the 90s, whatever it is, everybody.
• 58:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:15
  Speaker B: And it's like, wow, that just, like, good luck trying to write songs anymore, you know, Whatever.
• 58:21
  Speaker A: People don't want it. They don't care. They don't care. They want to hear something they're familiar with that's comforting, that they can kind of rely on.
• 58:29
  Speaker B: I get it, I get it.
• 58:30
  Speaker A: But it's crazy how these trends go. But that's definitely something that's going on now. And I have friends that play in a couple of those bands, and they're very successful.
• 58:40
  Speaker B: Right.
• 58:41
  Speaker A: You actually have a really interesting job now, like your day job.
• 58:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, I work. I'm in the education department at Ford's Theater.
• 58:49
  Speaker A: Ford's Theater.
• 58:50
  Speaker B: So I've been there, like, six years.
• 58:51
  Speaker A: Where famously, our president, Abraham Lincoln, was shot 1865.
• 58:56
  Speaker B: So, yeah. And so it's really an interesting place because it's. I'm a huge history buff. I studied history in college. And it's funny, my grandfather was a big Abraham Lincoln aficionado scholar. He would take us to Ford's Theater every time he would visit.
• 59:14
  Speaker A: Oh, really? So you'd been there many times?
• 59:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. And so I just, as luck would have it, I sort of lucked into this job, and it's working. I mostly work with teachers and develop sort of history content for the website and things like that. But I've had. Over the years, I've become sort of one of the de facto historians on site. Cool. And I get to give tours sometimes to, like, VIPs. The director will say, hey, someone's coming. Can you give him a tour? So, you know, I. A couple times. Not Putin.
• 59:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 59:46
  Speaker B: I did. I got to give a tour to Johnny Depp when he was on trial in Virginia.
• 59:52
  Speaker A: Really? On trial?
• 59:55
  Speaker B: He was. He was. He. He and his wife were, I don't know, suing each other or something. Amber heard three or four years ago.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker A: She sounds like a piece of work.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. And so the director of the theater calls me. He's like, hey, do you mind giving Johnny Depp an after hours tour? And I was like, all right, sure. And I. Honestly, I didn't. I knew he was a big celebrity. I haven't seen any of the pirate movies, and I knew I. I'm not a huge movie guy, so. But I knew he was. I thought he was going to be some sort of weirdo, honestly. And it would sort of just be like, going through the motions. But I'll tell you this, he was like the most nice, genuine guy. We spent 85% of the time talking about the Continental Club, Telecasters and music. It was awesome. And, like, he knew everything. He's a huge history buff. He had a. He had two cameras. He asked me if he could take pictures. I was like, yeah, sure, I don't care.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker A: And super respectful, though.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, he was super respectful. And then he said, like, I said, hey, I know you play music and I play guitar. I said, while you're up here, I. I have a bunch of guitars if you need to borrow one. And he goes, oh, that's so sweet. I brought six.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker A: He brought six guitars.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker B: And then he's like, yeah, last week I gave Jimmy Page. I mean, Jeff Beck, a 1952 Fender Esquire. And I was like, wow, okay, we're talking about different. I was gonna loan you, like, a Japanese maid.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker A: There are levels of magnitude.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker B: But. But he was super friendly and super nice and. And we were talking mostly about music and people who played at the Continental Club, and he loved Steve Wertheimer, and we were talking about Steve. Really nice guy. And then. So I. When he left, I wasn't going to ask if I could take a picture or something, but he had a couple bodyguards, and one of them's like, hey, you want to take a picture with Johnny? So apparently I passed some tests.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker B: And then the crazy thing is, like, so six weeks later, or maybe it wasn't. It was like three weeks later, I came into work on a Monday morning, and there was the light on my phone, which Means there's a voicemail. And it was his manager saying, hey. And I, like, went to West Virginia for the weekend with the family, like, hiking or something. And it was like, hey, yeah, it's Glenn, Johnny's manager. Johnny was wondering if you might want to go, you know, to a guitar shop and show him some places. And I was like. I was like, God damn. I missed. I missed the follow up. I was like, johnny and I could have been boys, man.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, he reached back out. He wanted a second date.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker B: God. But anyway, it's cool. Like, so occasionally I get to do Stu. That's not the cool. The coolest part of the job is, like, you know how great Abraham Lincoln was and talking about his legacy. But the last story I'll tell about that is a couple weeks ago when Kiss was doing their Kennedy Center Awards. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think it's the Trump Kennedy Center. Trump Kennedy center, yeah. Right.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker A: For the time being.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker B: Anyway, I got the call. Peter Chris is coming. Can you give him the tour?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker B: So I gave him the tour.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker A: Beth, I hear you calling.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker B: And that's the guy who's sang. Beth. And again, you wouldn't think it, man. These rock and roll guys are, like, history nerds. Yeah, he knew everything, but he was so New York. Like, he was telling me about, like, how he used to deliver for a butcher. Like, and then. But then he. He had his wife with him, whose name was Gigi, and he was about this tall, and she was about a foot taller. And so I took him up into the box where Lincoln was sitting, and he goes, gigi, my heart's going pitta pata, pitta pat. It's doing triplets. My heart, it's doing triplets. It's going pitta patter, pitta patter. I was trying so hard, hard not to just, like, die laughing, but he was such a nice guy. And at the end, I said, like, thanks for coming, Mr. Chris. And he hugged me. He gave me this big hug, and my colleague took a photograph of that. So then I. I put that on Facebook. Like, Peter Chris hugging me.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker A: Oh, man.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker B: It was pretty. It was pretty special.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker A: That's classic.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker B: But it was great.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker A: Nice, Nice. Well, God, Jake, this has been so great. But, yeah, so. So up in D.C. you're still playing with your band, Flack. I saw you guys are releasing the occasional single here and there.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker B: You know, there's new music out and there's like. We're. We got a happening monthly gig at our home base, which is the Tacoma Park VFW up there. Nice. Which is a really cool neighborhood spot, I'll bet.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker A: Man, all the old timers still come.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker B: Out there smoking cigarettes and, and the young timers too, coming in and help and keeping the place open nice for those guys.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's terrific, man. And, and yeah, yeah, you have the Flack Band camp I saw. So I'll put the links to that in the show notes of the show so everybody can. Can find what you're up to.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker B: Thanks, man. Well, Renee, thanks for having me, man.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker A: It's been such a. Such a pleasure in here. I had some troubleman podcast stickers. We don't have Feral Zone stickers, but.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker B: Oh, great. Okay.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker A: You know, that's the. The real overarching brand here.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker A: Well, Jake, such a pleasure. And I am Renee Coleman for Manny Chevrolet. And our guest, Jake Flack signing off from inside the Feral Zone. Good night.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker C: They used to sell beer behind bulletproof glass. Now they carry goat cheese and yoga mats. White girls walking down Sherman Avenue. This Damn sure ain't 1992 so four one out for the corner store the Fairmont market ain't there no more A big white wave Wash that place away so four one out for yesterday. They used to have a red skin neon sign. Now they carry 50 kinds of French wine. Here comes another with a hipster beard. On a thousand dollar bicycle with just one gear so pour one out for the Cora store the Fairmont market ain't there no more A big wide wave Wash that place away. So far now for yesterday. Sam. Rock creek cola and captain crunch. That used to be called a Sunday brunch. Now it's farm raised eggs and free range beef. I can't get no Philly blunt to roll my spleen so pour one out for the corner store the Fairmont market ain't there no more A big wide wave wash that place away. So pull one out for the corner store the Fairmont market ain't there no more A big wide wave Wash that place away Sephora now over yesterday. Oh, yesterday's gone, y' all.