Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike.

Hello Hollywood Mike, how are you today? I am ecstatic. Great, how come? Well, for the past couple of days, I have had in my possession a Fuchs Overdrive Special II, a Fuchs amp. And I've been kind of experimenting around with that whole Mystic Dumbletone.

And this ODS II from Fuchs is supposed to be a pretty kick-ass amp. How did you acquire this? Well, I can't say. I mean, I can say, but there's a person that's interested in selling it.

And he trusts me enough to say, here, check out the amp, hold on to it for a couple of days and give it a shot. That's really, your day rates much better than mine. Why is that? Well, to put it nicely, I installed two water closets today.

Two water closets. Also known as toilets. Yeah, that'd be toilets, yeah.

Yes, my good friend, Ed Kammerer from the Dancing Noodles in Chicago 6, he's a plumbing wizard, came over and assisted me in the, or I should say I probably assisted him in the installation of the said water closets. Right, right. Okay.

Yeah, that doesn't sound nearly as fun as my day. No, no, definitely not. I've been messing around with that.

I'll tell you what, this Fuchs, man, it's got a great sound and a great tone to it a little bit, but for my preference, it might not be gritty enough. I'm trying to get a little more growl out of it, but if you want that dumbbell, that Robin Ford tone, man, it gets pretty damn close. Does it? Yeah, so you'll figure it out.

I mean, it's got to be perfect. I mean, it's like a $3,500 investment, so yes, you got to make sure you don't want to make a $3,500 mistake. Yep, that's right.

So who we have in studio tonight? Well, tonight we have Derek Caruso and the Blues Fuse. How you doing, guys? How y'all doing tonight? Doing good, good. Fantastic.

You know, speaking of amps, I'm playing a $100 Peavey made in Meridian, Mississippi, made in the United States. I'm trying to bring them back. I learned the Peavey trick from some older cats like Lindsey Alexander and my friend Corey Dennison back in Indiana, some Blues guys that I know from the city.

They got me playing these Peaveys. I have 15 or 16 of them at my house, all different models. Right, right.

You know, Corey plays around here quite often. I've run into him from time to time. He's a pretty cool cat.

I learned a lot from him. I was just having that conversation about Peavey amps. I can't remember who it was we were talking to, but man, yeah, there was a time where their parts department was fantastic and that's kind of changed a little bit now.

Oh, sure. So finding newer Peavey things, that work are getting kind of difficult. But man, if you have the older stuff from like the 80s, I'm talking 78 to like 88.

That's all that I have. All those 16 are models like the Bandit with the Western logo on it. Stereo Chorus 400.

None of them are tube amps. All of them are solid state. I have a bunch of tube amps.

I have some old Fenders, Marshalls. They don't like the weather as much going from summer to winter to summer to winter. These solid state amps, they don't mind at all.

Whether it's cold, warm, they're just electric and they always work. Right, right. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I believe in you. One of my first guitar amps was a Peavey and I swear to God, that thing got dropped off the top of a van several times. I believe that.

They still work. Still work. He turned right on.

But they were heavy though. I mean, but they were heavy. They were solid state amps, but they were heavy.

They felt like tube amps, but the cabinet, the wood in the cabinet was so thick. It's worth the haul. It's worth the carry, I promise.

Yeah, absolutely. And the new amps nowadays are the size of a pedal board. Oh, wait, they are a pedal board.

Yeah, I don't think I can ever go into that route. I don't know. I'd like to try one once.

That's a little sacrilegious to me, but man. Yeah, I'd like to try. I want to see what it sounds like.

Yeah. Yeah. I need to have something behind me.

Yeah. Even if it's small. Right, right.

So tell us about yourself. I know you're not the, you're not from Chicago. You're from Indiana, right? That's right.

I'm from Indiana. I'm from a little town right next to Gary, Indiana called Hobart, Indiana. Hobart.

See, I told you it's Hobart. It's Hobart. They won some state championships in football back in the day, and that's how people learned to the Brickies.

But yeah, I graduated in 2008. I lived there for about 28 years, and then I moved to Hammond. Right.

I'm right on the border now because I was playing so much in the city of Chicago that I wanted to cut down the commute a little bit, and Hammond is right there. I can walk to the state lines a couple blocks, and I really like it there. But I'm just a little Indiana kid, man, trying to make my way on the new blues scene.

We have a CD that we're going to release. I thought I could do it this year. I couldn't get it out.

It's been a work of art. We went to this place in Memphis, Tennessee called Royal Studios in January and recorded it down there, and we're working on mastering and mixing it up here, and we hope to have that out in 24. We already have one CD out, but all self-released.

No agents. How long ago was that released? The first one is called Mine and Theirs, and it's half traditional covers and half original. This one's all original.

When was the first one released? The first one was released in May of 21. Okay, so not that long ago. Not too long ago.

How does a young man from Hobart, Indiana get involved in playing the blues? My dad. I found some blues records when I was just a little kid in the closet, and one of them was B.B. King live at Cook County Jail, and the other one was Stevie Ray Vaughan Couldn't Stand the Weather. I didn't know what they were.

I pulled the discs out. Luckily, I didn't drop them and break them and shatter them. Now I know.

I have over 2,000 vinyls of my own, but I didn't know what they were. I worked a whole summer to go to a garage sale block away, and I bought one of those. You guys might remember these.

They were plastic with two little plastic speakers, a rubber band basically to turn the turntable, but I bought it for $8 or $7, and I get it home. The needle barely worked, and man, I had to find out what was on those records. I had to know.

And what was your impression? It immediately stuck. Yeah? Spoke to you right away. Yeah, it spoke to me immediately that there was something about the music that I wanted to be a part of, and I didn't learn until later on that it was kind of going away a little bit.

You know, it has its resurgences over the years, but it seemed like it was going away a little bit, and then once I realized that, I really knew that I had to keep it going, even for anybody that's younger than me, people that haven't even been born yet. I want them to know what that music was like and what it sounded like to the best of my ability. I'm not claiming I can go note for note for some of these guys, but I try to keep the spirit and the traditional style of the Chicago blues.

Right. Excellent. So what was your preferred genre before you discovered these blues records? Oh, man.

You know, my mom listened to a lot of tapes, and she liked The Pretenders. And I found my dad's tapes, and I didn't find any blues tapes. I found Genesis and Steely Dan.

So tapes were in. I didn't have the CD Walkman because we couldn't afford that. I had a tape Walkman.

And it wasn't Walkman either. It was whatever the Kmart brand, or Avenger, you know. And I just listened to these tapes.

And then I did eventually, the first blues tape I found was George Thorogood. And I think it was Destroyer, the album. I can't remember.

No, it was Maverick. And I played that tape out. I broke the tape.

Played it too much. Now, you know, we're kind of splitting hairs here when it comes to blues. But, you know, blues musicians understand.

There's Chicago blues. There's Texas blues. There's St. Louis blues.

There's Memphis blues. There's all, you know, they all have their distinct personalities. So you found Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas blues.

You found B.B. King, Memphis blues. But then you fell in love with the Chicago blues. Does that have something to do with proximity to where you lived? Or did you discover other artists after that? Mr. Buddy Guy.

That's who. Once that train started rolling, I mean, it was like a dream to get to play there. I played one time with him.

He was in the band at this time. Noah Edmondson is our drummer. I've been playing with him for over 20 years.

Matt Cartwright's our bassist. Me and him have been playing together for five years. And I played one time on the original Legends stage.

I watched that video on your website. One time. And then me and him have played on the new stage, headlining Saturday nights.

On the one that's on Wabash, 700 Wabash. Right now, you can go there. You and me can go, all three of us, all five of us, we can go there and have a beer after this there.

And see live blues. And it's been a goal to play there. And it's been an honor to play there.

They've welcomed us in. They let me have my CD release party there in May of 21. We sold 200 discs.

And I mean, they stayed till they started like, okay, it's 1.30. It's time to go. Let's go. Come on.

We got to shuffle some people out of here. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, the rumor is this is the last January that Buddy's going to be playing his club. From what I understand, he had some illness on the road. And I'm sure some of it was fatigue.

The guy is a touring machine. Oh, yeah. Right.

It makes me tired just watching. If he's not sitting at his own bar, he's someplace playing. I will say this.

The very last time we played there in April, he was on tour in Australia the day before our show. Me and Noah thought, no way he's going to be here. He's either on a plane or he's at home taking a shower and a relaxing massage.

Take it easy. Right. He walked in the door.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I saw him and I went up to him and I'm like, how was Australia? He's like, it was fine.

Yeah. I'm home now. Yeah.

No kidding. Yeah. I think he met the club.

Right. Oh, right. Oh, you know what I'm saying? He's like, I'm home now.

So I'm good. Of course he did. Yeah.

Every time I played in there on a Saturday night where he's headlining, he does it with a lot of artists. Let's be honest. Oh, yeah.

But if he likes you, he does it. If he doesn't like you, he won't do it. Right.

But if he likes you and that's dude, that that's enough for me right there. The first time I ever met him was at the old club, the original club. And I was a young man myself.

Geez, I was in my early 20s and I had a bunch of people in town. I worked for a company. It was in Kansas City.

And they said, well, we have to go to Legends. They all heard about Legends. Of course, they all knew who Buddy Guy was.

And I said, sure, let's go. Let's go hang out. Didn't know much about what was going on there.

Well, it was a Monday night. You know what goes on there on Monday night, right? It's the open jam. Yeah.

And I had been in hard rock bands and heavy metal bands and all kinds is just a singer. And I never really played guitar in front of anybody before him. And there's Buddy sitting.

He used to have his little corner seat right next to the front door. He still got it. He drinks his cognac right there.

Yep. And he's wearing this, he's wearing this dark red suit with matching red Homburg hat and everything. And I walked over to him and I said, you know, I practiced what I would say in the mirror about a thousand times if I ever met you.

But all I can think to do right now is genuflect. And he and that's exactly what I said to him. And he asked me my name, shook my hand in the whole bit.

He went like this and his bartender brought over a couple of Heineken's and said, we talked for about 10 minutes. He says, are you going to play tonight? I said, no, I've never played in front of anybody. And I said, if I was going to play, I'm not going to play in front of you the first time ever.

And he goes, have you ever played here before? I said, no, then nobody's going to know if you make a mistake. Get the fuck up there and play. That's what I'm talking about.

That's exactly, that's exactly, that's exactly the way he is. I'll never forget that. So yeah, amazing.

So a lot of your music influenced by him, kind of like his sound. Absolutely. Yeah.

The third time I played there on a Saturday night headlining, the MC comes up to us and says, Hey buddy wants to come up and sing one, go into a slow blues and see, but don't say anything on the mic. Just let him come up. Right.

Okay, cool. But play one more song. In the green room before the show, we had never played this together with instruments.

We learned one of his songs, pretty gutsy move. And he's there. We knew he was there and now he's watching and he's going to come up there.

We decided to play this song called hammer and a nail. And after the show, he came up and sang with us. But after the show, when I was talking to him, he said, man, I've seen a lot of guys cover my stuff over the years.

Lots of guys. I have never seen anyone cover that song before. Wow.

Not that one. That's a weird song. I've never seen anybody cover that before.

And you guys did an amazing job. Wow. That's awesome.

The boss said it was all right. I was like, man, dream, dream come true, man. Oh my God.

Well, I think you guys need to play us one. Yeah. Yeah.

You guys want to hear some original music or what? Yeah. Give us one of the originals. We love original music.

Okay. We don't have to worry about copyright then. We should do this album.

Yeah. The new album, not the old album. We should play some new stuff.

Right. You're listening to the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Hi, I'm Rick Anthony.

I'd like to thank my radio brothers, Ray the roadie and Hollywood Mike for allowing me to tell you about my podcast, the someone you should know podcast. We spotlight musicians, authors and interesting people. And we like to say we're making a difference one artist at a time.

The podcast is heard twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. And you could check it out on your favorite streaming platforms and on the web at someone you should know podcast dot com. That's the someone you should know podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time.

Where is where's your amp positioned right now? It's towards the wall. Okay. Away from every microphone.

Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha.

Gotcha. It'll it'll it'll pick it up. Okay.

Let's do this boogie. That's what I want, baby. That's what I need.

Just a little drink of your love. So sweet. Just a little sip.

Just a little sip. Just a little sip of your love. So sweet.

That's what I want, baby. That's what I need. Just a little sip of your love.

So sweet. That's what I want. That's what I need.

Oh, yeah. Very nice. Very good.

Very good. Thanks. Little, little mixture of a little Chicago, a little Texas in that one there.

A little more that's right to it. That's a Billy Gibbons for sure. Yeah.

I was about to say ZZ Top. Yeah, absolutely. I saved the Chicago for the second.

So yeah, yeah, sure. Very good. Yeah, that was good.

That was great. That's great. Let's see.

Where do we leave off before we went to the listening? We left off talking about buddy guys and buddy guys. You've played there several times. Yeah, yeah.

What was the first place you ever played? The first place I ever played was in Hobart, and it was a place called Rosie O'Grady's, an Irish bar. I heard it was 16 years old. Definitely wasn't supposed to be in there.

Yeah. But my dad, who taught me everything I know, ran the show. He booked the shows.

He bought the gear. He taught us how to play all the instruments. Wow.

Everywhere. And man, he drove the bus with all the gear in it. Wow.

To every show. Yeah. So you were doing the blues back then.

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, for my seventh grade talent show, we took members of the band and actually did a Blues Brothers like review.

Nice. I didn't play any instruments because I was Elwood. And then I had another guy that could halfway sing who was Jake.

But we had the horn section built out of the jazz band from the middle school. And my dad on drums, our neighbor, his name was Jim McClellan, another guy I learned a lot from when I was just a little kid because he was our neighbor. And him and my dad were friends because they were like, hey, we both used to play music back in the day before we had kids.

That's awesome. And then they started hanging out. And once we took hold and wanted to play more, every day he would bring home some gear.

Every day it was like parts to a PA system, bass amp, this old guitar, this. I mean, it was always something. And man, we had a heck of a setup in my bedroom.

There were two twin beds and two dressers in there and not much else, just gear stacked to the to the brim of the room. Right, right, right. So your dad, your father was obviously a musician as well.

Yeah, he played professionally. He graduated in seventy six. So he probably played professionally from seventy nine to eighty three or eighty four.

And then I had me in eighty nine. So he got married, settled down a couple of years, married and then had two boys, me and my brother. Yeah, right, right.

And did he pretty much play blues as well in the same type of areas or did he? No, he played classic rock. He played in a disco band. He loved blues.

Don't get me wrong, but he never played in a blues band. Found a tape of them recorded on one of those old little Phillips handhelds with the little eighth inch jack microphone that you plug into a tape of him playing in Michigan City. And I had it digitally remastered.

And like enhanced slightly and I had it tracked out jailbreak, like, you know what I mean? Thin Lizzy, they did the baby's ZZ Top, of course, you know, a bunch of stuff. And I got it back to him and he got to listen to it on his Bose stereo before he passed. Oh, wow.

He's been gone a few years now, but he he got to listen to it before, you know, any of that. When he went into the hospital, a man, he was like, wow, it takes me back. Yeah, because it was a tape and it didn't sound very good.

But a friend of mine in Indiana, Glenn Reyna from a band called Rocking Horse from back in way back in the day, helped me digitally remastered for him on Father's Day one year. What was the name of your dad's band? You're going to laugh. No one's ever heard this word uttered in the studio, I guarantee you.

I know it sounds weird, but I'm telling you the truth. Brigadier, Brigadier, Brigadier, like the general. Yeah.

I mean, I've heard the word before, but the name of the band was Brigadier. Yeah. Three piece bass, drums and guitar.

And he played a white rickenbacker through a giant acoustic bass amp. He was playing bass primarily, but when he was in grade school, all bets were off. Right.

He played drums. He played piano. He played horns.

He played like whatever he could get his hands on. Right. Then later, after having kids so many years not playing them, I started to bring over horn players from the band and that.

Right. He would ask for new reeds and show them how to play stuff. Wow.

He hasn't played a horn in. I don't know. Wow.

He's like, no, no, no. It's like this. Hang on.

Let me show you. Your armature is not right. Hang on.

You got to have it like and I'm just like, wow, it boggled the mind of me. I didn't remember that. Yeah.

And he would. And so after, you know, he kind of stepped away and let the kids take the reins. Once we got to 21, you know, we started handling booking all the shows, the contracts, everything.

He would come to a show every now and then. Every single time I would get him up. Right.

He always wanted to play drums, though. OK. Well, he's a great drummer.

Great. Great drummer. But every time he's like, yeah, I'll play some drums.

Yeah. And man, I didn't hesitate. Every single time he came out to a show to get him up there.

Right. Right. I loved him so much.

Right. You know, we don't have ghosts in the studio tonight. A couple of members of the band are in here.

Obviously, we got a bass player and a drummer in here. So they're kind of sitting off to the side shouting out. So if you're hearing anything like that.

Yeah. The ghosts usually don't come in and talk. Your dial.

Don't adjust. Yeah, they don't. We just rattle and make noise over there.

We hear them. But you guys never hear them. Yeah.

Yeah. Because we know what to look for. Right.

We know what to look for. So. So in high school, putting together a band and you were in your teenage years still in high school thinking, all right, I'm going to put together this blues band.

How difficult it was it to find other guys in high school to say, yeah, I want to do that blues. I was blessed because my brother was there for me. And he was like, he was like, you know, he played bass primarily, but he was also multi instrumental, just like me.

I can play the drums. I can play piano. I can play guitar, bass, whatever.

He was also like that. OK, so and then I got a couple more guys from high school and Noah was one of them. Now, he wasn't in high school because he's eight years older than me.

OK, but but his dad and and my dad knew each other. OK. And his dad also played music professionally back in the day and had sons that played.

So that's how we hooked up, you know, way back when I was in high school. So I had that, luckily. And then I just had another guitar player that I went to school with.

It was like really into Stevie Ray Vaughn. His name is Phil Hardesty. And we graduated the same year and went through college and band together since like sixth grade.

Right. Right. You know, and I actually got to play with him for the first time a couple of weekends ago and over five years because of covid.

He has two daughters now. He's a radiologist at Rush. OK.

Yeah. Right. So he doesn't really have a whole lot of time to like play and do shows and that.

I mean, I still work a full time job, but it's nothing like that. But I can't let my plan go. Sure.

Absolutely. I've been doing it now. I mean, first time I picked it up, I was like 13, 14 years old.

Right. And I couldn't get enough of it. Sports.

Nothing mattered. Video games. Forget about it.

Yeah. Nothing. Like I just didn't want to do anything but listen to records and play guitar.

That's all. Oh, yeah. No, I totally get it.

Well, give us another one before before we run out of time or get too complacent here. I love the music. Let's hear it again.

I kind of want to do an original song, but but it was Carrie Bell's birthday the other day. And as far as Chicago harmonica is concerned, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Carrie Bell, Junior Wells, Billy Branch. You know what I mean? I mean, that number, that's the godfathers of of of Chicago blues, in my opinion.

Harmonica. Yeah. There's a lot of guitar gods out there, but I have always wanted to play harmonica.

Yeah. And I can play it enough to be dangerous and sound very terrible. You know what I mean? I just can't get that.

I just can't do what they do. And I appreciate I know that I know that all too well. So let's go to be.

Let me see if I can do it like Carrie Bell used to do it. It's hard. It's hard.

I don't have a harmonica, but I could try to get the soul right. I said it's easy to love you. But it's so hard, so hard, so hard to leave you alone.

I said it's easy to love you. But it's so hard, so hard, so hard to leave you alone. I can't be satisfied.

Until I hold you, hold you in my arms. You're my all day steady woman. And honey, you're my, you're my midnight dream.

You're my all day steady woman. And honey, you're my, you're my midnight dreamer. I tell you, sitting here with Mike and Ray about the best place right now that I ever seen.

Hang on, I got one more thing I want to say. You're my bloodstream, baby. And honey, you're my, you're my bone marrow too.

You're my bloodstream, baby. And honey, you're my bone marrow too. Now that's deep.

Honey, you know I love you. What in the world are we gonna do? Oh, hot damn. Hot damn that damn tamale.

There we go, man. I love it. That's Terry Bell.

I absolutely love the sound. I do. I really love that.

Is that a Gibson? Nope. Nope. Just something you just threw together, huh? Epiphone.

It's a late 80s Epiphone. I found it in Pontiac, Illinois. Always wanted one.

Could never afford the Gibson one. Couldn't afford it. Tried.

Couldn't save up enough to get it. This one, the guy wanted $250. I called him.

I'm like, what's wrong with it? Neck break? He's like, it plays like absolute garbage. Okay, I'll take a chance on it. I went out there.

I gave him $200. I was like, dude, the drive. He's like, fine.

No case. He had a Stratocaster nut where the Gibson nut should be. For people that don't know guitar, that's the string saddle at the very top by the tuners where you tune the guitar.

I put a Gibson nut in it and that's all. Nothing else. He was never able to intonate it because it wasn't right.

He had a Stratocaster nut on a Gibson. These pickups, this is a P90 and a DiMarzio. They were already in there.

That's not how it came from the factory. It probably just came with two gold humbuckers because this is a 57 Carina copy. It's wound through the back like a Telecaster.

The other ones have an A1 tuning bridge and it just ends right here. This has more bite, in my opinion, tone-wise. It's a much sharper sound.

I hope he didn't buy it from this guy named Pauly Martin. I think his name is John. Why, did Pauly have one? No, Pauly has a Flying V right now.

He's got a custom-made one. Pauly, he's one of our partners on the podcast. He lives in Pontiac.

Oh, that's true. The case cost more than the guitar did. Yeah.

For a form-fit, hard-shell case, it cost more than I spent on a guitar. You know what? But that's blues, though. That's blues.

Blues guys have been making the best out of whatever gear they have for decades, 100 years. That's blues. That's what it is.

They used to play with four strings. This is what I have. You read some of these guys, they taught themselves how to play guitar by pulling a couple of wires out of a window screen.

You know, wrapping it around a nail. That's the way it was. That's fantastic.

Now, Ray, do you play a little guitar yourself? I play a full-size one. Yes. I got a jam with you guys one time, both of you guys.

You guys should have brought your guitars, too. Maybe we could have done a little... Well, I'll tell you what. After this, I'll tell you how we can possibly do that.

Definitely. Absolutely. What do you got coming up show-wise? I mean, today's December 12th.

Sure. Are you guys familiar with the Midway Dance Hall? The Midway Tavern and Dance Hall? It's a blues club in Elkhart, Indiana. I'm sorry, Mishawaka.

Anyways, it's all the way outside of Mishawaka. I'm playing there January 27th. And then I also have another show at Leroy's Hot Stuff.

I know Leroy's. Great tacos. December 29th, we start his New Year's Eve weekend.

He has a whole weekend, a big bash on the 31st. But we're the first band on Friday night. We usually start the weekend off for him when he has a big band.

I mean, a big weekend, rather. Yeah, we got that going on. And then this Friday, we'll actually be downtown in Greektown at our little favorite spot.

We have a residency at a place called Spectrum Bar and Grill, right there on Halstead in Greektown. Lindsay Alexander used to play there for years. A bunch of people have played there, but we have a little residency there, and that's this Friday from 9.30 to 2 in the morning.

Wow, 9.30 to 2 in the morning. It used to be 9.30 to 4. Wow. And then after the pandemic, we were off for a couple years.

Then they wanted to have us back for less money. Yeah, right. I'm like, dude, inflation, gas, less money, what do you mean? Less, yeah.

We will take a fraction less, but I'm shortening the show immensely. I'm not doing the seven hour show from 9 to 4. Not doing it. And he said, fine.

And then now, since that's been about a year now, every show, he keeps saying, I'm going to give you guys full pay. Yeah. Haven't seen it yet, but it's coming, I hope.

And we'll give you the full show. No, no, no. See, and that'll be the secret.

I won't give him the full show. I don't want to go back to 4 in the morning. I'm telling you, getting back home to Indiana was like 5 plus in the morning.

Sun's coming up in the summer. Days started. And I'm like, man, I really would like a nap before I go back to work.

There is absolutely nothing worse to me than pulling into my driveway after a show and you hear the birds chirping. Matt and Noah know all about that. It's tomorrow already.

So socially, where can people find you if they're looking for you? Just right now, we have a YouTube channel. If you search Derrick Caruso and the Blues Fuse, there's a lot of footage on there. Stuff from Buddy Guys, concerts we've done that have been fully produced, like with video and audio people and that.

And then also on social media under Derrick Caruso and the Blues Fuse. On Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, not Twitter, not Instagram. I'm not going to lie to you guys.

I know everybody says I'm 34. I'm an old soul. I'm old school.

I don't do none of that. I never had an agent. I never had a press kit.

I booked everything that I've done by going to the place and talking to the person in person, not via email. I've sent thousands of emails. And you have to.

And that's why I use social media now as a platform to let people know I'm not posting which bagel I had this morning. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. All righty, guys.

Well, thank you very much for coming out. Really appreciate it. Great talking to you guys.

Sounded great. You all sound real good. Plus the two quiet guys.

Yeah. I revoked their microphone privileges. I love these guys.

I want to thank Noah and Matt for coming all the way out here to the Rock & Roll History Museum today to hang out with Hollywood Mike, Ray the Roadie. Man, I love you guys. Thank you guys so much for having me.

Awesome, man. Thanks for coming. Anytime.

And there's Derek Caruso and the Blues Fuse. Wonderful. I absolutely loved it.

Loved the sound. Loved it. They sounded really great.

I'm a blues guy. I love the fact that they're, I mean, he's a relatively young cat and he's trying to keep the blues alive and he's playing it pretty traditionally, too. And he's been doing it since he was a kid.

A kid. Kids don't like the blues. No, they don't.

But here's one that did and made something out of it. So that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed talking to those guys.

So as always, thanks for listening to the Rock & Roll Chicago Podcast and check us out every Tuesday for another exciting episode. See ya. I'm Christy from Crime Cave Podcast.

I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons of Snapped back in the mid 90s. I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time. With each episode under 20 minutes I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years.

Join me in the Crime Cave. The Rock & Roll Chicago Podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of M&R Rush.

The Rock & Roll Chicago Podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show. The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.