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. How's everybody doing? I'm doing good. How are you doing? You know, this has been a rough week already and it's only Wednesday.

Is it? Yeah. Why is that? I woke up on Monday morning to extreme pain in my face. Remember the old joke? Yeah.

Is your face hurting? I kept my mouth shut. I didn't say anything. I went to the dentist and between Monday and this morning, I had two minor surgical procedures in my mouth.

Oh. So I'm on a lot of painkillers right now. Oh, okay.

Well, I'm glad you could make it. You know, here's the crazy thing. In my entire life, I've never had any major dental work done ever.

The only thing I've ever had done was I had my wisdom teeth extracted and I lost a tooth here. But that was because a fastball came in a little too high and tight when I was about 16 years old. And here I have to have two procedures in one week.

So I'm a little loopy if I forget all your names. Yeah. You have an excuse.

I don't. Vicodin is my friend. You got any onion oil? Yeah.

Well, I'm sure everybody's hearing another voice in the background there. Oh, yeah. And tonight we have joining us, libido funk circus.

We have Desiree Harris and Jeff. Just Jeff. Just Jeff.

Like Cheryl. How are you guys doing tonight? Very good. Very good.

Glad you can make it out. Thank you for inviting us. It's a good time.

So we started having a conversation before we walked into the studio, which was I found very interesting. Your your musical pedigree goes back to when you were a youngster, starting with your parents. Why don't we start with how you got into doing all this stuff? Yeah, I, I, I grew up kind of from a young age watching my parents play.

They, my dad was a drummer, my mom was a singer. Jeff and I kind of live a very, I guess, I don't know what, how do you want to call it? Similar. A similar life.

Similar story. Similar story. Yeah.

Kind of like parallel lives. Anyhow, my, my parents met my, my, my dad and mom were in a band together. And then they had multiple, multiple bands, varying degrees of success in the different bands and different conglomerations.

But you know, once my, once, once the beautiful lead singer came into, into the band, my, my dad, you know, kind of put her on lockdown and it was a smart man and he, and he married her. And then they, you know, they, they had a, they had a professional life as musicians for, for a while until, until my dad started to realize he needed to do something more with his life and he eventually left to go into real estate. But they did have some regional success here on the radio, on the charts with their, with their band, Raintree.

They had a single called Face the Autumn that did really well here. And they, you know, they toured around a little bit regionally and I guess that's kind of the story. And then I joined up with Libido when I was early, gosh, what year was it? 2004? 2004.

I think so. And that's how him and I met and eventually we got married and have been doing, I've been doing this with them for almost 20 years. Yeah.

It'd be 19 years. 20 years almost. And, uh, Who was the founder? I am.

You are the founder of Libido Funk Circus and you guys have been around for how many years? We started in September of 96 and it was just as a, uh, just to play a party for friends. We were, we'd never been in like a cover band or anything, um, myself and Jason, the lead singer and the drummer at the time, who's still the drummer, Dan. We were, have been in band since we were in high school together and we were basically pursuing the rock and roll dream thing like everybody and, uh, never thought about doing covers.

And at the time we had a band that was on a small label, you know, could go either way. No, not a lot of money there, but we were about to, we could go on a regional tour on this and our other guitar player basically, who was married, first child came along, kinda, we were all like brothers. So it kind of like, we just decided that whatever the path would be, would be, you know, but from that, like a couple of friends of ours, one time we were just talking and we all were, we practiced at this studio called Metropolis with a bunch of other musicians and people and a bunch of girls we knew kind of were like wanting to do, but they were like, you should do like a party and play like seventies music and stuff and fun, you know, and being a bunch of single young boys, we were like, yeah, let's try to be fun.

And we were, to be honest, we were, I was going down and seeing this band called the Aphrodisiacs a lot at the Cubby Bear back at the time. And it was just, I couldn't believe that all these people would show up every week to watch these guys play like the same 15 songs and all these girls were there and it was so much fun. So that's kind of like, we're like, we could do that.

So we learned like 10. Didn't you call them too? Yeah, we tried to hire them to play a disco themed party at the studio cause we had a huge soundstage there. It was one of the nicest soundstages in like the, the suburbs and stuff.

They were, they said how much they cost and I had no idea. I'm in an original band, so I had never heard that you could, I making, I didn't think. And when they came back with the amount of money that they said they needed, I was like, oh man.

And we were like, we'll just do it ourselves. And we literally learned 10 songs, got some seventies disco clothes and went through a seventies party and it was so much fun. Some people asked us to do it again and we did.

And then I called up a booking agent and I said, I have this thing with these people and we started getting gigs and all of a sudden it kind of became like our side job. And here we are. And they were dumbfounded at the time.

Someone was paying us to do this, we were just having a, at the time we didn't take it seriously. It wasn't like a professional business or ran like that. It was really different back then.

Yeah. It was raw. It was a bunch of single boys drinking and partying and having a good time and, you know, trying to be rock stars in a cover band thing back then, not, you know, and getting paid like a hundred, 200 bucks and being, Oh my gosh.

You know? So that was how it started. And then over the time it just kept growing and growing and it became our vocation for everybody. It became, we, we never stopped playing original music or writing and we've had minimal success with stuff in that.

But this abled us to just not do anything but music our whole lives. Like so myself and my two best friends that I was in high school with have been playing music together since high school and making a living at it. So that's kind of how it all started.

So out of there's, there's six of us in the band right now, um, out of the six, three have been in it the entire 27 years. Wow. That's pretty good.

So that's our, our him, our drummer, Dan and our singer, Jay. And that's because, you know, these guys grew up together, like we learned how to play together. It's like I used to pick my drummer up, he didn't have a driver's license and we would sneak, I'd sneak him out of his house on Wednesday or Friday night after he was supposed to be home for curfew.

Cause he's like a year and a half younger than us. He'd come home from band practice, you know, and, uh, tell his parents he's home, say good night, go outside, go down to the basement, walk out the patio back door. I would pick him up.

We'd go back to practice and practice till like four in the morning. And then, you know, and that's kind of the way we were since we were kids. You might've just revealed that to his parents.

Yeah, it was okay. He's going to get grounded now. Come on man, I'm 45 years old.

So has, um, um, you know, I, I, I love the fact that we have a cover band, um, here, here tonight. Um, a successful cover band that's been around for a long period of time. So I'm going to ask you a couple of these questions, um, cause I have this conversation all the time with people.

So as, as working with or playing in libido funk circus allowed you to be, I guess, financially dependent from having a day job or any other kind of part-time jobs, this is, this is your full-time job, your full-time gig, you're running libido funk circus. Yep. Um, there's been with it, I've also booked other bands and managed other bands and over the years, as I've got on this experience and stuff, took on other bands and nurtured them and actually put bands together from scratch, which in itself was, you know, sometimes successful sometimes not, but for the 90% of our, since I've been 25 years old, libido funk circus has been, yeah, has been able to create being in this band.

We've been able to create a financial, good living for everybody involved, which so, you know, I'm very happy. I'm feel blessed basically. Right.

Just blessed. I mean, it's just, Yeah. There's some of us who choose, you know, a couple, a couple of members who have a, you know, a side thing here and there, like Jay has his own, uh, communications company that he, he can set his own schedule and, you know, do stuff like that during the days.

Um, but for me, him, uh, our bass player, uh, Dan. Everything has been music. Yeah.

It's all, it's all pretty much, libido has afforded us to, it is our living, you know what I mean? And it's, um, It's a hustle. I mean, sure. Of course.

Right. It's like with any other job. Cause a lot of, you know, that's the big people are always like, Oh man, that must be, you know, it is so much work, just as much work as any other job that anyone else would do.

If you want to do it like other people, you know, if you want to make a living at it, it's not, you know, and that's sometimes hard for some people that they just think it's all fun and games. Cause they see that. Cause that's what our, part of our job is, is to bring that we're the people that are kind of helping facilitate everybody's good time.

Right. So they assume that that's what a job that is, which it is. I'm not saying it isn't a great job.

No, it's all the behind. It's all the, it's all the behind the scenes stuff to keep it, the wheels moving. The actual performance is 20% of the, of the job.

Was there ever a time or maybe there is right now, but, um, was there ever a time where you had more than one version of libido? Like you had, you know, at any given night, there could be libido funk circus playing on the North side of Chicago. And then there could be libido funk circus playing at 115 Bourbon street or anything like that. No.

And the reason is because it's been brought up to me at times, many times, uh, the reason there wasn't was because when we heard of what libido funk circus was supposed to be, and is it's kind of to have a personality that can't be replicated and it morphs and changes when there's member changes. It's like an organic living orgasm that way. You know what I mean? But I didn't want it to be a situation where it's nameless and faceless people up there.

So it's just a name and there could be 10 versions of it and it doesn't matter who's there. You know, there's a certain vibe and we try to play the arrangements in the music. Like there are songs, the most we can without getting away too much from an original to where people are like, I don't like that or know what this is, but we try to inject as much of our own personality into it, you know, as we can sort of, right.

That makes sense. We haven't, it hasn't been the, you know, let's clone ourselves and make more money and do this and do that because it's not kind of how we developed it. I mean, everything that he said, plus, I mean, I think we, we sort of pride ourselves on, on the tightness of the band, you know what I mean? And you lose quality control when you're not there on the premises and you know what I mean? You could put a, you could put a good band together, but I guess it's just, we, we prefer to be a unit, you know what I mean? And that, that be the band, like, you know, who you're getting, you know, who the people are.

It's not like you go, you show up and, and it could be any, any player or any sort of stable of players, you know, which is fine. That's nothing wrong. That's how you choose to do it.

But that's not how it is. We try to, it's weird to say it, but we're not a jam band, but we try to have that or like a lot of nights, like our set list is constantly live. It's what I, what's written on a piece of paper and what we play isn't what happens, right? It's all in the moment, you know, songs can be, you know, it's constantly changing.

We, we try to have, we try to have, our repertoire is probably 12 to 14 hours that we can, so it's constantly, you can see three nights in a row and it's completely different. You know, I try to, cause I just kind of always came from that school of like, I like those kinds of bands, you know, where it wasn't the same thing every night. There's certain things that we have to do every night or little bits and creative things that we've put in our show, you know, but otherwise than that, there's kind of like the spontaneity, but it's because we're all so used to each other that we can do that.

Right. You know what I mean? Right. And you have to, you know, the best bands are the bands that play off of the crowd.

You know, we, you know, we call our list a suggestion list. It's not a set list. This is just a roadmap to get us to where we need to go.

Yeah. And if you see a vibe is happening, you know, people are digging this style of music tonight and you have tons of it and that's not what you would on your set list. Why not go that way and go with them and see what happens through that's kind of what we do.

Him and I go, we try and make, map out our set list for the, for the night. Usually it's usually pretty last minute right before we're about to leave the house, but you know, we'll, we'll put something together and he was like, babe, don't, you know, don't take so much time on it. You know, I'm just going to change it anyway, depending on what the people are feeling.

Right. Right. You know, cause I'll stress over it and like, well, no, that doesn't make sense there.

You know, you know, you know, it's just a roadmap, just let's just, you know, we should, and this is a good place for us to kind of stop maybe and back up a little bit. Cause I know who you guys are. I'll tell you a little bit more about that later because about 20 years ago I was in a band and we actually opened up for you one time.

But but I guess where was I going with this? I have no clue. I had a total flashback there for, I had a total flashback there for a second about who we are. It's probably, there you go.

There you go. Thank you. I hope your experience was good.

I think it's the Vicodin is definitely kicking in because as he said that, and I said, yes, that's where I was going to go with that. I forgot it again. About who we are.

Don't make me laugh. That's actually killing. Yes.

So I know who you are, but there's, we probably have a lot of listeners cause we do have listeners around the world actually that probably have no idea who you guys are. So why don't you give us your, your 32nd elevator pitch about libido funk circus and let everybody know who they're actually listening to. You can do that.

You're doing so well. I don't think so. Okay.

I'll do it. We're just, we're just, we try to be like the ultimate party band. To just to facilitate, you know, a good feeling in a room, you know, and we're a cover band from the Chicagoland area that does dance rock and dance and rock music from sixties to now.

And we do, you know, we, we try and present it as, as a show. We have three, it's a six person band with three dedicated lead vocalists who don't play any instruments. So that's two females and one male and three players.

And it's just a, we try and just be the purveyors of the party, of the good time. We do everything from backyard parties to, you know, black tie galas, I mean, and everything in between. So clubs, fests, weddings, just all kinds of, all kinds of events.

Yeah. And then we just kind of in going through it, you can hear how the band started with it being just strictly a disco tribute band. We've kind of gone back to the roots of that.

And this year we create a separate entity for this strictly disco. So we have libido funk circus, and then we now have the disco circus. So it's sort of like what we call our offshoot band, which is, we wanted a separate entity.

So it was identifiable. All the same players? Same players and more. Yeah.

Oh, it's an augmented band. So it has more players than libido funk circus has. And it's debuting actually next week and we're in Bourbon Street next Wednesday, the 22nd.

Yeah. And then we're doing Rock House on the March. So we got Bourbon Street, March 22nd.

That's a free show. And then we have March 24th at Rock House in West Dundee. And then the one after that is the Vixen on April 1st in McHenry.

And that's a full, like, that's a put together show that's, that is a show in the fact that it's not really changing. It's like, kind of like a choreographed, like a theater show that we put together to kind of just capture that vibe. And it is going back to what we started from.

But then at the same time, being very tooled after 20 something years of experience doing that, really tooling in a show of, of just the best we can have, like trying to deliver like a very authentic 70s feeling, fun experience for people. We have character names and, you know. Is it the same look? Same, you guys dressing the same? That is that we do in libido.

And it'll be the way it's more like how when libido first started for the first, probably I would say until around 1999, we were strictly like a disco band. And then, you know, things have, you know, fads change and things were for us to stay viable. We had, we started adding in 80s.

And that was, that was when I joined. Right. And then she joined.

And then we decided we used to be all boys. And that was a different vibe as a boys club, as a totally different vibe. And over time, when we became perfect, looking at it as a professional thing, we had morphed.

That's when we were like, you know, a female vocal also would add a lot in that and then we we brought in Desiree and that opened up. That just changed everything. Once we had the female vocal and broadened out.

And believe it or not, back then you didn't see male female fronted bands like that often. Right. You know what I mean? Like, so it was like, oh, you have a male and a female.

I mean, that just kind of just because either or most of the time, right. And though you would think that there would be a lot of that, there wasn't on our scene at that time. So people when people see you in the disco circus.

They'll kind of know it's you, but it's different. It's a little bit of the same and a little bit different. You know what I mean? I mean, we have we have a horn player.

We have a sax player in that band and we have a percussionist. And they're they're just we're so excited about them because they're they're they're young and they're hungry and they've never really done like this type of a band before. Well, I don't think the Joel's ever been in a band yet.

He's mostly just like a music teacher. And so they're they've got that young, great energy. That's the energy that wears you.

It's nice to be fused with that. Because sometimes when you've been doing something for a long time and you get older, you don't have that same youthful and when someone around you has it, it lights that back up a little bit. And, you know, it's fun and all these things and you get just inspired and they're very inspiring.

So I'm curious, in Libido Funk Circus, you said you've got six people, you've got three dedicated singers and three players. What are the instruments? This is guitar, bass and drums. Guitar, bass and drums.

Wow. Nice. OK.

Makes it real simple. Yeah. So so back to my story, I'm not even going to remember the name of this place, but there used to be a very promising place on Route 30 in Plainfield, close to the Louis Juliet Mall.

And they completely leveled it and tore it down. And the property that it was on is now like an auto zone and like a little strip mall and stuff over there. But this place was great because there was an indoor swimming pool that you can rent out.

There was a big bar area with a big vaulted ceiling and then they had a big outdoor patio. And the place may have even been called something like the backyard or something like that. But there was a big fire pit in the middle of it.

It was there for about three years and they had to close down because the local residents, I mean, there were literally houses within 50 yards of the property. They were complaining about the noise. So the two brothers that owned it had to close the place down.

Well, about a year before the place closed down, I was in a band called Static and we were a we were a hard rock band. I mean, we did stuff like Tool and Stone Temple Pilots and Metallica and stuff like that. And they hired us and we played from five to seven.

And then Libido Funk Circus played from about eight to midnight. And we decided we're going to stick around. We're going to see what this band is all about.

We had absolutely no idea the kind of music that you played, because here you guys come walking in to like this hard rock crowd. And everybody in that place did an about face. It's like they turned their concert T-shirts inside out or do whatever the heck they felt they needed to do.

And next thing you know, all these headbangers were jumping up and down, bopping the 1970s disco and 80s pop and all this stuff. And this had to have been, I want to say this was like 1999 or 2000 or some time around. Had to be before me then.

Yeah, honestly, I honestly I can't remember. But but we opened up for you guys and I actually got to see this transformation of this crowd. That was that was pretty unique to hear that point of view from somebody else.

That kind of stuff. And someone says that, you know, that's funny because you because they would tell me stories of like, like before I was in the band when they were just doing the disco thing and they'd go to these like biker bars and, you know, and they'd show up and we'd be freaking out that they were going to kill us and we'd be so intimidated. And then we would come out and we would we would play the handful of rock songs or Tom Petty songs that we knew to just because.

And then later, everybody would be like the biker guys or biker ladies. You'd be like, you know, why didn't you just keep on playing the Bee Gees? Yeah. And, you know, we were just because, you know, you can't judge a book by its cover of what people are going to enjoy.

You know, we were we were the ones that were we were all intimidated and scared. We were like, they're going to hate us. Yeah.

No, you know, my favorite places to play nowadays are like South on I-55 out in the area like Streeter and Pontiac and places like that. Yeah. And and gosh, we absolutely love playing there because for some reason, booking agents just automatically assume that because, OK, we're out in the middle of cornfields and that's literally where a lot of these places are.

They just automatically assume, well, we're just going to send all of our country and Western bands and stuff out there because that's what they want to hear. No, I can't tell you how many we've been hired to play barn weddings. We play like three country songs in the band that I'm in.

They want to hear the Stevie Wonder and the Earth, Wind and Fire in Chicago. And they want to hear it. And we got a four piece horn section.

They want to hear all that stuff. And some of the best gigs that we play are the people that don't get that music sent out their way on a regular basis. We used to play festivals and like Streeter, Flanagan.

What's the other one? Pontiac. Pontiac was a huge town for us back in the day. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we played some of those towns and we'd be like one of the only bands like that that would play those towns out there.

And it was great, though, because they didn't have the it's not oversaturated like it is here. And those people love the same music as everybody else. And they go off.

Yeah. For some reason, they just you know what I mean? Like they don't have the same sort of like they're just they're not inundated with it like here. We have so much of it, I guess, though.

But it's just some of the crowds, you know, it's even different when you play a south side crowd versus a north side crowd. You know what I mean? And so and then then it's just completely different when you go to like, you know, I guess what you call, you know, Central Illinois or the Booney Towns or whatever. And they they're their vibe is just it's just all out.

You know, it's fun. It's great. We love going to those places.

Have you guys ever played the Clocktower and Streeter? Not the Clocktower. No. What a great time that is.

It's like the center of their town. Oh yeah. No, we did.

Streeter Fest. Yeah. We played it a few times.

Yeah. And they've got the two walls, you know, the two, I don't know, three or four story buildings. And they've got these things, the murals painted on these two adjoining buildings that make you feel like you're in the center of like New York or something like that.

And the whole town of Streeter just comes out. And what a fantastic time that is to, you know, to bring that kind of music out to the folks. They just absolutely love it.

They get up and they dance and they party with us. It's just a great time out there. It really is.

Really, we had a we there was a bar out there in street that we play was 15 years ago, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I had to be back then.

And we cultivated a really strong fan base out there just because of this one bar. And it was small. It wasn't it wasn't no stage.

We would just set up in the corner because we you know, it's not doesn't work. We don't discriminate. It's you know, can be a great bar, can be a big stage or it can be a little and it can be a great party either way.

Right. Right. This was yeah, we cultivated that fan base out there.

And then and then we started playing in Ottawa and we've been playing Ottawa for a very long time. And like you said, though, you know, we were really well known out there. And those small town bars can lead to weddings.

And we've gotten so many weddings and so many corporate events and so many, you know what I mean? And because that's they don't hear of as many bands or if we make an impact, you're the go to band, you know what I mean? But yeah, no, this summer, we just booked a there's a new place out there that opened, I think, last year. They wanted us last year. Actually, it might they might have been there a few years now, but Getano's Vault or something.

It looks like a really cool place. So we're going to go back there this summer as sort of like a reunite, reunite with our Streeter people and do an outdoor gig there in August. So that's looking forward to that sort of like getting back to being actually in Streeter.

Right now. Right. So who does your bookings? We do.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what we do during the day is that's the hustle of our day job.

Yeah. Super fun. Now, now, are you guys are you guys old school? You visit the venues in person and talk to people or do you use social media? Occasionally we will, but a lot of it is, you know, check it out online and, you know, do some research, see what you can find, see if it's a place that would be good for us.

There's yeah. But occasionally for up and coming musicians, because, I mean, we've got a fantastic musician, you know, group of musicians in this area here, a lot of young people trying to get their bands out there. How are people responding to you? Are they responding more to emails or they're responding more to phone calls? What's the how's it how's that going for you? Booking.

Are you asking our fan base? I'd say for booking for from the booking point. Yeah, we're trying to we're trying to help out the the 21 year olds that are trying to get something off the ground. You know, I started doing this when I was 18, like booking my I've always been the person in the band that's booked it.

And it's weird because since covid and or after covid, it's the landscapes are really different. It seems like just with people like it's hard to get a hold of people in every format. This it just seems this is like the new normal.

It just seems to be where and people don't like to get back to you. And so don't get discouraged because it happens to us all the time. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no, no doubt about it. Even the people you do business with on a regular basis, it's like it seems like everybody is just we're just all like taking our time when it comes to, you know, getting your time or everybody is just swamped. It's like, you know, yeah, and I don't know if people are swamped.

I mean, you know, I have a day job where I've got to be in contact with people and build relationships all the time. And people that I've known for 10 years, you know, won't pick up the phone, won't answer an email. It's got to be across the board.

It's not. Yeah, it's not just the music. Right.

Not just the music business. You know, you know, Covid's had that effect on a lot of different things. But you know what? I mean, I think when you were saying as far as like, you know, helping out the young and, you know, as far as communication goes, honestly, like text and messenger seem to be the way most people like to.

Yeah. Yeah. Nobody likes to be on the phone.

It doesn't seem like anyone wants to pick up a phone, you know. Right. And the email thing has been hard.

You know what I mean? So it's I think it's easy for people to pick up their phone, look at their Facebook messages and just, you know, kind of like quickly respond or, you know, if you have their number, they'll text you real quick or so. I think as far as that goes, that's that's probably the route, you know, I've sent a lot of stuff out to because even us, I mean, still, you know, for as long as we've been around, we get surprised by how many people still haven't heard of us. You know what I mean? And it's like.

Or new people take over positions and they don't know that the same scene as everybody else. And, you know, so it takes a while. They don't know who you are, whatever.

And it's in that, especially in the festival world and in corporate worlds or anything like that, because those those people change quite a bit, you know. Right. And I've had a little bit of luck recently with with just going through Facebook, you know, or Instagram or.

Absolutely. And I, you know, I've had people tell me that, you know, you know, mainly people in their 20s and early 30s, they say, oh, I don't use Facebook. That's that's the old person's social media.

But not every gig I've booked this year has been through Facebook Messenger. Yeah. And and I think there's a tie in a correlation because a lot of bar owners nowadays are 30, 32, you know, they're in the early 30s.

Right. These are people that are in the workforce now and they're managing bars. And if they're not on Facebook, where are they? They're on Twitter or Instagram, whatever else that they're on.

But, you know, I failed to see how I can use those other formats as a successful way of booking the band. You know, how do you tell who I am by sending you a snapshot, you know, a picture or something like that? Right. Yeah.

Interesting. A lot of them I'll find, too, if they get that far with them and they don't know who you are, then most likely they'll be like sent then when they'll be like, send me some links to video and stuff, then, you know, then you hopefully you're in or you're out at that point for like the youngsters. But I mean, and having good promotional materials, your presentation from the get go, because everything is presentation.

If they don't know who you are, haven't experienced you. So, like, especially for people starting out, I would say presentation because you only got one shot at, like, your first impressions and everybody's attention span is very short now. Right.

Oh, yeah. And it's got to be easily accessible. Well, and the one thing he taught me, too, I'm I'm I might have been a little bit of a procrastinator in my in my previous life, but he he's being married to him.

And so he's taught me, look, if they respond to you, you got to get right back to them. If they're doing it now, they're doing it now. And you've got to be counting on the spot.

Right. When they're booking their calendars, you know, it's not I'll wait for a week or two to hear from their book. They want to get it done.

That's that's right now a lot of the people that when they're dealing with it, they want to just deal with it. Right. Some people are and then you get those people that they they don't want to deal with it so much that they'll actually do their whole calendar for a year, which I don't think is the smartest business move.

But that's just because they don't want to deal with it. And I get it because it's if that's not your, you know, I think sometimes the bar owners that are actually booked their rooms and stuff themselves, it's like that's probably the last thing they actually really want to be dealing with. Right.

You know, with all the other things that they have to deal with as a bar owner. But, you know, and not to mention, you know, you know, if we had to guess what's the average lifespan of a cover band nowadays, you know, you can book somebody in January and you're hoping that they're going to be there for you in May, but they could have broken up in February. You know, you never you never know.

You know, how did how did I get ahold of you? Messenger or email? Email. Email. Yeah.

Yeah. And we're pretty much glued to that, you know, every day. So for the podcast, I use Messenger and email.

Right. Right. Yeah.

So anything else going on other than other than Disco Circus? Do you have any other bands you're managing right now as well? We're managing right now. No, we can't. That that that part of my life kind of burned me out for that side of the business of managing other musicians.

It just wasn't a great experience for me. And I had I might have had too many at once, too, but I had because at one point I had like 10 different artists that I groups that I was managing and actually managing all their personalities, too. So it was so I haven't done that in a long time.

And we I don't think we'll do that again. I don't think, you know, I like I like booking bands and getting work for bands, but actually helping manage them and stuff of that nature is like and you know, because like I said, we put together a handful of bands ourselves or we handpicked musicians and, you know, and like other people have done and had success with. But for me, it didn't work out so well because the musicians that I picked in the bands, they might have they sounded great in there and that was going well, but nobody got along.

Right. And that was like that was part of it in the beginning that I didn't and I should have with all my experience, but didn't think about how hard it was to take five strangers, musicians. Right.

And put them in a situation. Also, too, I think part of the fact was that some of them were just starting out. Yeah.

So they weren't professional musicians already or, you know, already have haven't been in wedding bands for their their whole lives or stuff like that. So and it was like, oh, my God. Yeah, I was kind of doing like a rock and roll school with these guys way before, you know, they've all gone on to have really successful careers.

A lot of it's not it. You know what I mean? But at the time it was like, oh, our heads were where it was very stressful. Right.

Right. Right. You know, it'd be different if you had some somebody that was established and you bring a new one.

You can get my whole thing. Right. My whole thing was I was trying to like take musicians that had never really done it and kind of take care of everything for them.

So all they had to do was be the artist and have fun and, you know, kind of give them all this advice. And it didn't work out. So just, you know, and I was like, OK, you know.

Yeah. So, no, the focus right now is, you know, obviously propelling the libido forward. You know, we have goals that we want to reach for that band and project and different, I guess, sort of caliber of gigs and stuff like that.

And then the disco circus getting that off the ground, because what we didn't what we didn't realize is that having it be a separate entity, you still have to get the word out about it. You know what I mean? And people it's causing a little bit of confusion. They're like at first when we put the announcement out, it was like, well, what happened to libido? You don't have this libido.

Is it now you're just going to do disco? And, you know, I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like libido is still there. This is just going to take, you know, a couple of dates, you know, every quarter or what not.

You know what I mean? And and we still have libido. So it's it's also too with the I just lost my train of thought. Oh, with Mike it in.

He slipped me. So how many shows do you play a year? Probably around 120, I would think. You know, on average, you're going to add another 120 with the circus.

I don't think I could handle that. No, but I think that's about our average is about a 120. I think no, I think the idea isn't to maybe add more, but just so that maybe we can work smarter in our older age a little bit, you know, and just to have, you know, like we're hoping that the disco circus is kind of something that's more of like a theater and big festival or corporate, you know, act and libido funk circus will continue to be our everyday like workhorse, you know, for everybody and see what happens.

Like, I have no idea what will happen with the disco circus. It could be something that does a lot more dates than I'm expecting it to do, or it might not do as many as I'm expecting it because you can never tell how the public is going to handle it. You know, even it being the same people doesn't mean that they're going to, you know, it's like there's a lot to say for branding, I guess, you know.

I think the time is right for the something like that, though, you know, like when we had the oldies from the 50s, we were listening in the 70s, we were listening to that, you know, in the 80s, we were listening to some 60s stuff. Well, yeah, I think the I can feel it in the audience when we're playing that material in LFC, I can I could feel that it was it was going across all age groups, you know what I mean? Just like it did before. So it's getting this new life.

The old people that grew up with it and the people like my age, our age and then above us, they all that's they love that. But then there's there is like even my son, who's 20, I get they're in tune with that music again. So I feel like it's time again that, you know, everything has that.

Well, they hear they hear it from mom and dad. That's what mom and dad are playing. So they hear it at home.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's time for like that's the scene loves tributes.

And I think, you know, that this scene could have another good disco tribute and have, you know, it's about timing because it's been a while since there's been a dedicated, just full blown show like that around here. You know, we haven't done that like this since probably 2001 or something like to the level that we're really trying to do it at. Right.

Right. Maybe never at this level, really, to be honest, because we're trying to really own it, you know. Right.

So I've been I've been really excited, fascinated, really, to see the reaction of that type of music with the younger generation nowadays. I've been playing more and more shows just a few weeks ago. The crowd was half 20 year olds.

And the band that I was in was up there, you know, playing stuff from the 60s and the 70s and a little bit of the 80s and the whole bit. And all those twenty two, twenty three, twenty four year olds were rushing right up there in front of the stage. And they knew the words to all of the songs, which was great, you know, because I think I think the younger generation, I think they're all getting tired of dubstep.

You know, how long can you listen to that same beat over and over and over again? Right. And they're just they're tired of hearing music where it sounds too perfect, where it's missing the human performance, which is never, ever going to be perfect or grunged. It sounds like my son's 20.

He'll be 21 in November. And he he for the longest time he was complaining about the music of today because it's just like he just he just didn't a lot of like that dirty sort of rap stuff like that, like depressing kind of rap style that was going and he was like, Mom, I can't I don't know how my friends listen to this and do it anymore. And meanwhile, he's playing, you know, Tragedy by the Bee Gees downstairs when he's taking a shower.

And he loves Frank Sinatra and he he's got a whole Frank Sinatra thing going on. And I don't know where that came from, but you know, his music taste and he can't stand like I mean, granted, he is also a huge Kanye fan. Right.

You know what I mean? But he doesn't like metal at all. Like, no, everything is hard. Like, I love metal.

I mean, I grew up with metal. But a lot of the just I don't want to I don't want to down it, but I don't love the rap music or hip hop stuff that that I don't quite get. You know what I mean? He he doesn't get either.

Right. You know what I mean? And he was like, it's just it's just such a downer. Like, why do they always want to listen to such depressing stuff? Yeah, we were saying, see, I listen to all kinds of music.

It just depends on my mood. Yeah, for sure. It's not always rock and roll.

It could be could be Frank Sinatra. I love Frank. But last week, one day in those driving along, he had a country station and they're playing some good songs.

And all of a sudden, it's like hip hop country song came on. And I'm listening. I'm like, did I change the channel or something? It was the weirdest thing.

I mean, hip hop and country. But it makes sense that that's a place that it should go eventually. You know what I mean? Because of how country morphed into kind of country is kind of like just to me that modern country is very pop rock.

Yeah. You know what I mean? With just a little bit of twang in it or the instrumentation. Just it's it could be rock.

Very easy. Oh, yeah. So it makes sense that they would.

It's funny because there was a TV show that I was watching, too, where I think it was Nelly did like a hip hop version of a country song. It was awesome. And I was like, whoa, that was really cool.

You know, it's like it was shocking to me that and I was like, well, that kind of makes sense in a weird shouldn't make sense kind of way. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a lot of things have gone that way.

Like the past several years, the CMA Awards have all of the performances have been collaborations with a country artist or rock artist or country artist and a rap artist. You know. Yeah.

And I'm sitting over over here going, well, why can't we just let the country music stand on its own? You know, and the same thing happened to rock music back in the 90s where the guitar solo became an endangered species because you had to have the guest rapper in place of the guitar solo. You know, I mean, that's been going on for for a long time. I think I'm kind of over that, you know, just like, man, you know, I used to listen to what is on satellite radio, coffee house covers, and I just got so tired of people taking fast tempo rock and roll songs and turning them into some lover's lament.

You know, bullshit. She's just, you know, rock that song out again. You know, why are we doing that stuff? Why can't we let the genre stand on their own? But, you know, we're we're mixing it up.

I think it's coming full circle again, because, you know, like I said, my kids are young. My kids are, you know, 19 and soon to be 21. And they're listening to, you know, my son's learning how to play guitar now and he's learning how to play simple man.

You know, they're actually learning how to play guitar to rock and roll. Well, this is great. It's the whole thing about like with the TV shows and the commercials and all that stuff and those tick tock things, it's letting all these young kids hear like like how Metallica has this whole resurgence with like 12 year olds because of the Stranger Things.

That's like, you know, we have our nephew is is like he's like 13 and he's all infatuated Metallica, but it's because of this. And it's great. I mean, it's it's cool to see that like people that young are into music that was like, you know, it's getting on 40 and 50 years old.

These artists have been around, you know, so I think that they're finding new ways to reach those generations. That's how they're getting it. It's not like the way we got music off.

I don't think it's the radio or or videos. It's like the tick tocks and the TV shows and the commercials, you know, which and they start knowing that music. It's cool.

And which all these artists, they keep selling those catalogs to other all the classic artists are selling other catalogs off. So I'm sure we're going to start seeing all the classic artists in every commercial that you can, you know, think of, you know, every commercial, have a Bruce Springsteen song pretty soon. I mean, they, you know, got to make that money somehow.

Yeah, they're getting up there and there. Who do you leave it to? And maybe none of their family wants to have anything to do with that. So you take the money.

Yeah, that's why they're selling their publishing now. Like didn't Bruce sell, sell like half his pub or all his publishing for half a billion dollars? That right. Yeah.

I mean, I just that's amazing to me to think with all the money he's already made at this point in his life, that all those songs he wrote, he half a billion dollars. That's amazing. Right, right, right.

Our song I posted something on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that said now that Generation X is all old and everything's broken, REM should sell the rights to everybody hurts to like bare aspirin. It's perfect sense. Exactly.

Or a million drug commercials. Or a million drug commercials. That's right.

Because that's all you see is either insurance commercials. That should be the one running the one song running behind all the all the prescriptions. That's right.

All the drug ads. Everybody hurts. Right.

We got whatever. Everybody hurts. So we've got something for you.

You know, so where's the best place for people to find you and see your and see your schedule of events or your tour schedule as it would be? You can always go to libidofunkcircus.com or, you know, it's at libidofunkcircus on Instagram or Facebook, and then you'll also be seeing from from our libido page. We're also posting a lot about the disco circus to try and bring attention to that. But they also do have their own pages.

It would be at Disco Circus Band on Facebook and Instagram or Disco Circus Band dot com. And the websites are actually undergoing a revamp. So those will you'll see new websites pretty, pretty soon, probably within the next month or so.

I'm trying to get with the times and, you know, revamp everything and get our digital marketing in order. And it's always changing the social stuff and and all that good stuff. But, yeah, at libidofunkcircus.com or at Disco Circus Band.

Yeah. And the websites. But we try to make it pretty, pretty easy, pretty consistent, you know.

Very good. Thank you guys for coming out tonight on such a it's actually a nice night. It is a nice night.

No snow, no rain, no nothing. Yeah. But thanks a lot for coming out.

Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Well, how about that? Libidofunkcircus slash Disco Circus. Yeah, no, that was great. That was great.

I absolutely loved that. I love to have a seasoned cover band, you know, here where we can ask them the questions and help out other people that are trying to figure out how to make this happen. The poor and less fortunate and how to make the how to make themselves more successful through the experience of those that came beforehand.

And yeah, I think we learned a lot about who these folks are simply by having a simple conversation. Yeah. And you've learned when and when not to take Vicodin.

So, yeah. Before your podcast is not a is not a good time to take Vicodin. That's right.

So, yeah, that was a great time. It was fun talking to them. Make sure you guys get out there and check them out.

They're going to be all over the place. Hundred and twenty dates a year with another hundred and twenty dates of a disco circus. You watch you.

Mark my words. Two hundred and forty a year. It'll be hard to miss them.

Yes, it will be. So until next week, thanks for listening. Check us out next Tuesday when we come out with another new podcast.

Now that we're doing video, I'm going to wave goodbye. Bye. I don't know where I'm waving.

Bye. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of M&R Rush.

The Rock and 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.