Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. What's up, Ray? Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Why? I'm just wondering. Oh, what's up with you? I got a new book.

Did you? Yeah. I got a new book, too. Did you? I did.

I got a CD, too. Awesome. Yeah.

You got a new dog, didn't you? I did get a new dog. Yeah. Shout out to AJ.

AJ. AJ. Yeah, my wife and I are both history nuts.

So we named him after Andrew Jackson. Oh. Oh, very good.

I was thinking Persinski. Oh, it was actually Persinski, my favorite, my wife's favorite white sex player from the past. So does.

I was going to name him Pauly, but we've already got one of those in the house. Yeah. You know, you'd have to come running every time you heard, you know.

Yeah. Pauly. I do.

Pauly, quit shitting in the kitchen. It's not me. Believe me.

No. That's right. Well, that's cool.

That's cool. I'm sure since he's named after a baseball player, he probably chases his ball then and retrieves it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yes, he does. Cool.

Very cool. So what's on tap for today there? Well, we've got that. We're talking to a rock promoter or show promoter, I should say, author and all around good guy.

Bud Monaco. Buddy Monaco. That's right.

But if you're if you're a Southside musician, then, you know, Bud Monaco. That's right. For sure.

Yes. Been around a long time with SoPro. Yes.

He's president and founder of SoPro Music and he's a record producer. He's an author. He's a he's a little rock show promoter, blues show promoter.

Quite diversified. Yes, he is. Yes, he's done a lot in his tenure in 10 years and more like 30 or 40.

Oh, OK. I thought you said 10 years, more like 40 years, at least longer. I see.

Fifty years. Well, I'm sure he's got some stories to tell. Yes, he does.

Yes, he does. Let's get to Bud and see what he has to say. OK.

How are you doing, everybody? Welcome to the show today. We're speaking with with a rock promoter, a producer, drummer, emcee, a hockey referee, right? Hockey referee for 40 years at the Illinois Hockey Hall of Fame. I know him as Buddy.

You know him as Bud Monaco. How are you doing, buddy? Hey, buddy. How's it going? I'm doing great this morning.

Paul and Ray, thank you for inviting me out on the show. It's a pleasure. And you guys are doing a great job out here with this.

Thank you. Keep on rocking. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I know you've got a show that you've got coming up at the Beverly Arts Center on April 16th, and we'll get to that. But let's start out a little bit of history of Buddy, of Bud Monaco and find out how you get started in business and how things came to fruition now.

OK, back in the mid 60s or so, I started playing the drums and made a couple of neighborhood guys formed a band. We were called the Fascinations. We played two or three gigs at some small auditoriums in grammar schools.

And eventually I got drafted into the Army in 69. When I got out in 71, I started going to Southwest College, which is now Kennedy College or I'm sorry is now Daly College. And I met one of some veterans and some other college guys that were looking to start a hockey team.

So I had experience with hockey and organization as I was a sergeant in the Army. And these guys didn't have no control of nothing. And then I took over the meeting, set up and created a hockey club.

And we started originally practicing at Rainbow Ice Arena up on the north side, Lawrence and Clark. And while we were there, I met up with a guy that was managing that ice rink, the Rainbow Ice Arena. And I played hockey against him back in the 60s when I played in the juvenile league there while I was in high school.

And he suggested that to raise some money for the hockey team for jerseys and ice time that I should maybe do some kind of a concert with a live band and collect money at the door. And I said, sounds like a good idea. I'll look into that and see if I can locate a place to do this show sometime in the near future.

And he says, no. He says, I don't want you to look for a place. He said, I have a place right here.

And I says, you mean like out on the ice? And he says, no, right in here in Aaron Russo's Kinetic Playground. And it turns out that that whole building that housed the ice arena was the house, the original Rainbow Ballroom from back in the 20s and 30s. And Aaron Russo had started doing concerts in there in the late 60s, had Led Zeppelin and the Winter Brothers Band and a host of other bands until he quickly outgrew that room and took over the Aragon Ballroom and left that room with the stage and all the lights intact.

So I meet up with Tony Wilson and Eddie Davis, who were going to Southwest College with me and were friends with my younger sister. These guys were a little younger than me. And they had this band that was pretty popular around Marquette Park and 69th Street.

And the old Lithuanian neighborhood, 67th and Western. I hired them. We brought a small PA system in.

We went in there. We wound up having about 1500 people show up at that show that night. We called it the Rock and Roll Ice Skating Party.

And it was so successful financially and performance wise that my partner, Red Rose, and I decided that this was what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. And here we are about 50 years later. And that's exactly what we did.

I proceeded to work with local bands and promoting shows at VFW halls and local high school auditoriums. And eventually we started doing shows at the Countryside Civic Center, which we were drawing up to 1500 people. We worked with some of the great bands of the era, The Hounds, Stevie Starlight, The Jet Band, Gene Stranz and Carl Sears, killer rock and roll band with vocalist Richie Hasdra.

Now, back in them days, you had the North Side and the South Side. Well, we really had the South Side going and there was no big concert venue. The only venues that were going was the Aragon.

And they started doing shows at the Illinois Chicago International Amphitheater. We were doing these smaller level concerts with locals, but we were really drawn to the rock and roll crowd was there to be had. You just had to get out and promote it.

And eventually, with all the success we had in the mid late 70s, some of the rock and roller guys morphed into being blues players and we got to know some blues cats. And my first blues show was at Joliet College with the famous Lefty Diz, the iconic elder statesmen of Chicago blues. And along with the great harmonica player, Segal Swall, Corky Segal was the played opened up for Lefty Diz.

And from that day on, we continued to do blues. And along with who became one of my closest brothers and friends, Jody Noah, we started doing the Thanksgiving blues reviews, which was we brought in a dozen blues blues players. And we did a stage show similar that I designed it after a Cab Calloway show from the 20s and 30s.

Where there would be a core band and then individual vocalists and saxophone players, et cetera, like Ruth Brown and the greats from those days, Josephine Baker, they would show up and come out and do their own performance and do a segment. And throughout that show, eventually Cab Calloway would stroll out on the stage with that big long white suit, suit and a long chain and a big red hat and doing his mini to mooch song, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi Ho. And back in the day, this was monster stuff in the East Coast and it morphed into the Midwest.

I guess it would have went to California. I don't know the history of it all on that, but it was big time. And that's how I designed the show.

So I have a core band with two, three guitar players, drum, bass, keyboards, and I bring in a harmonica player, which was Jody Noah originally, along with Bill McFarlane and Chicago Horns and other special guests like Lefty Diz and Casey Jones and Lonnie Brooks, all famous iconic blues players, unfortunately, all passed away now, although the Chicago Horns are all still intact, but they're getting up there in years just like myself and like my friend Paul Martin over here. Yes, Paul and I have been through some trying times with our own medical history, but we're still alive and rocking. Yes, we are.

Thank goodness. So anyways, through the years, we promoted 37 annual Thanksgiving Blues Reviews featuring the royalty of Chicago Blues. And I handed Paul a list of some of the great players that perform with us, which are too many to mention right at this point.

Maybe at a later date, we can come back and discuss that. But for 37 years until the COVID hit and we've been dormant for the past two years and also alongside that for 30 years, we did the SoPro Music's Easter Parade Blues Reviews on every Easter weekend. But back about 10 years ago, we dropped the Easter show and just stuck with our Thanksgiving show.

While the COVID was going on, my dear friend and brother, who is actually my brother in law, Tommy Biondo, one of the great bass players and musicians and entertainers of Chicago in the Midwest and actually internationally known when he played with the great theater band on Spirit Records and most recently with his band, The Wrong Boys. Tommy unexpectedly passed away in a year ago, September, now going on 14, 15 months ago. That was a shame.

I know. I knew Tommy pretty well. Just heartbreaking out of nowhere.

We won't get into the specifics, but Tommy's gone. And I was talking to him about doing an interview with us. Oh, with The Wrong Boys and him and Goose and Joe Izzo and Rob Martin.

Sure. Sure. Great band, The Wrong Boys.

They were top. That band, if they would have been now, actually, Tommy and Goose, Steve Stasek, they were together back in the 70s with a band called The Ants was when I first met Tommy and Steve. And through the years, they both morphed through another half a dozen different bands or more.

And back, let's see, it would be in the mid, maybe late 90s. Goose and Mo, Mo Dogg, Tommy, they hooked back up and brought in Joe Izzo on vocals and and Rob Martin on drums. Rob played with Scraps.

OK. Back in the day. Well, you know, right, right.

Rob Martin. I know Rob Martin. Sure.

No relation to Paul Martin, I don't think. Right. Anyways, they've been performing for 20, 25 years, maybe more as The Wrong Boys.

And they had a great following and they put on there's some, you know, outstanding veteran musicians, to say the least. Well, Tommy's passing. I've done numerous benefits and tribute shows for past brothers and sisters, musicians and that have left us.

And I had my hands tied because the COVID had all the restrictions out and there was nothing open to promote it. So as the days and the years went on with the COVID, limited rock clubs in Chicago area, which used to be one on every block before, that had full stages and sound and lights are very limited. Well, anyways, looking around, trying to find a venue that would hold two to 400 people was a challenge.

And eventually I hooked up with Dan Jacobson, who is the general manager and operations chief of the Beverly Arts Center, Chicago's South Side on 111th and Western. And so your company, SoPro, has been around for many, many years. And you've done tons of shows, tons of shows at different venues.

Is this your first time doing something with the Beverly Arts? First time at the Beverly Arts. Something new for you. And I've always wanted to do a show there.

I've seen a couple of shows there years ago when I was with your band, Paul, the Dancing Noodles at their 30th, 35th, 35th anniversary. And prior to that, with Frank Livingston's Cashmere Band, the tribute to Led Zeppelin, an evening with Led Zeppelin and also with M&R Rush, three or four shows they played there that IMCD shows. And I was like standing on that stage saying, oh, man, I really want to do a show.

It's a great little theater. It's a beautiful little theater. It's like a little mini auditorium theater.

It holds 390 people, which is kind of limited for the size of the stage. The size of the stage is a full professional theater stage that's 60 wide by 45 or 50 deep and a full proscenium overhang with multiple curtain drops. Just outstanding, beautiful venue.

So you've linked up with them. This is where your show will be at April 16th. This this show will be performed and produced on April 16th, a Saturday at the Beverly Arts Center, which is 2407 West 111th Street.

We are calling the show the Tommy Biondo and Billy King Tribute Memorial Concert Event featuring So Pro Music's 38th Annual Thanksgiving Blues Review Band with special guests, Joey Marabelli and Shannon Freer, vocalist, along with Tony Wilson and Nobody's Business and Tommy's band, The Wrong Boys. Now, I've been getting that static, but questionable people that are questioning my sanity, which is not new to me. And we are calling this the 38th and the 38th Thanksgiving Blues Review, but it's on Easter weekend and people are saying, well, is this an Easter show? But we stopped doing Easter shows 10 years ago, OK? And I said, look, we would have done our 38 show, 38th Annual Thanksgiving Blues Review back in 2019 when Covid hit.

Well, for two years plus now, we haven't been able to do the show. So the next show for our Thanksgiving Blues Review will be as 38th. Well, I wanted to do it in November, but the Beverly Arts Center, because of the Covid and also the Bourbon Street Place and numerous other locations were solidly booked because of all the cancellations the year before from Covid, from September.

They were all already booked, took the next time. So all these places were booked up out through January. So I decided I said, well, OK, let's just let's move out of the winter and get into the spring so that we don't have any weather problems.

And I chose that April 16th date. Well, unbeknownst to me at the time, that was the Easter weekend. So it's not an Easter parade, Blues Review.

It's the belated 38th Annual. But it's not annual because we got juked two years by Covid. Thanksgiving Blues Review.

Now, will you do something come November? I hope to, but I don't know that we can afford to go into the Beverly Arts Center to do that because of the expense. We are bare. My partner, Red Rose, and I are borrowing no expense here to pull the show off for Tommy.

And I did mention I need to go back here about it being a Billy King tribute memorial show. Back in December, late December, word reached me from Billy's wife, Karen, that Billy had passed away. Billy King is one of the classic, vintage, iconic blues players of Chicago.

Been around guitar player, guitar player, extraordinary. He's been playing on our Blues Review shows for the past 25 years. I met up with him back in the 90s and I had a slot open up one of my shows.

I brought him into one of our summer Blues Reviews and he was a lock ever since. Great, extremely talented blues guitarist, a crowd pleaser. He works a crowd as good as anybody from the stage.

He gets the crowd into it during his segments. We're highly regarded and favored by always our sold out crowds wherever we did it. We've done this show in about 20 different nightclubs and venues throughout all these years.

It was a tragic loss and nobody, nobody, we didn't know that Billy was sick, but he had been sick for a while. Well, I got this Tommy tribute going, OK? And here's my other brother and friend and music partner, Billy, who passes away. And I got this giant show going.

It's not a benefit. It's a tribute memorial show. And I says, well, we'll call it the Tommy Biondo and Billy King Memorial tribute show.

I couldn't, you know, I didn't want to have to do another show for Billy. You have to do a salute to both of them. So I added both of them.

I added Billy to our show. And I had a medical situation back in December that I told my fifty five decade long partner, my graphic artist who designs all my book covers and my promo and artwork and tickets, Boris Bowden, that I says, listen, by the way, if I don't make it out of that operating room, you'll be sure to add my name to Tommy and Billy. I said, and the show must go on.

And everybody got a kick out of that. And Boris says, you'll you'll you'll talk like that. You'll be just fine.

Well, I am just fine. And the show will go on on April the 16th. Now, your name on it.

Right. Well, with that, you're without my name as a memorial. Right.

My presence will be known. So pro name is on it. The so pro presents in concert, of course, as I mentioned, the Tommy Beyond All Billy King Tribute Memorial concert event with featuring the Sopro Blues Review Band.

Now, quickly, I can give you a rundown on the performers that are on my blues review. I mentioned the other bands, Tony Wilson and Nobody's Business and the Wrong Boys. My dear friend Bobby Dunn was supposed to do the opening scene with my sister's granddaughter, Sharon Shannon Freer.

But unfortunately, Bobby has some medical situations, medical malfunctions that are preventing him from playing on the show. So my dear friend and my producer of my own personal music projects, Joey Marabelli, will perform an acoustic song with. Shannon Freer to open the show.

Now, the performers, the blues review performers that are playing on this show are some of the royalty of Chicago blues, featuring Joey Dreida on guitar and vocals, John Falstrom, bass player, Grant Nebergall, drums. Grant was Billy King's drummer, by the by the way, Frank Anastas on guitar and vocals, Harry Zurbis on keyboards, along with Wolfman, Greg Schlecht Nettler on keyboards, Doug Lee, the Detroit harmonica man, harmonica and vocals, along with his Doug Lee's Family Blues Band featuring Eddie Nese on guitar and the iconic present godfather of Chicago blues, the veteran blues king of bass, Robert Stroger. Also, Mike McEwen on bass, Rob Davis on drums, Bill Shackford on keyboards and another iconic elder statesman of Chicago blues, the great Chainsaw DuPont on guitar, along with two so pro music recording artists that we've been recording together for 40 years now, France Marie and Victoria Tallarico, the two golden songbirds on vocals.

Now, also, which will be performing throughout throughout the Blues Review will be the great and iconic and national and somewhat internationally known Bill McFarlane and the Chicago Horns, also so pro records recording artists, Bill McFarlane on trombone, Kenny Anderson on a trumpet, Hank Ford on saxophone and Tony Ferraro on saxophone. Paul, Ray, jump in here and give me a break. I told these guys before I said, I hope they got a lot of tape and a lot of time because we could carry this conversation about about so pro music that is covers 50 years of Chicago rock and roll, blues and jazz.

And we could talk about this till Thursday. And that would just be the first five chapters. Well, tell us a little bit about that.

We understand you're an author and you've got a couple of books out back in somewhere around 2012, I kind of laid back off the music business, which my partner, Red Rose, and I were doing 24 seven. Three sixty five, we were living the dream, OK? Well, it got to a point as we got aged, you know, and we got older that well, being on a rock club floor, just like you, Paul, the noodles, the dance and noodles used to play three or four dates a week, which is now maybe two or three days a month, if that much. OK, it just gets to be as we get older, we can still perform and produce and promote, but we can't do it seven days a week.

Right. OK. Hanging out in the clubs and drinking and I know that, you know.

So anyways, we kind of kick back in what we call ourselves semi retired. But how's Red, by the way? Red's doing fine. He's had a few medical issues like yourself and myself, but he's healthy.

Well, and we've been still hanging in there, rocking and rolling. But tell Red, we said hello. I will tell him that I get him to tune into this, your podcast here when you read.

Eventually, I started writing. I've been a writer. I've written a lot of music, a lot of lyrics through the years with my military music dedications, which were honoring the American veterans and present day warriors from World War Two through Korea, Vietnam and the present Iraq, Afghanistan wars.

I've written a lot other of material songs, and I started a couple of books years ago, but being on a rock club floor all the time, and I just didn't have the time to deal with it. So back in the somewhere around 2010 or so, 12, I wrote my first book, which was a 700 page biography of my two years in the Army, which my overseas tour covered. I spent in Panama in the Canal Zone and it's very interesting about Army history and basic and advanced infantry training and all the Army stuff and all the events that took place in Panama, which some of them people are still saying, I can't believe you guys did this.

Do you actually did that or you did this? I said, it's all true. OK, no holds were barred and I didn't make anything up. So after that, I got this writing thing going.

OK, I figured out how to, you know, structure a book and structure writing. And my next book was called Riding Easy Rediscovery of America, which was a similar parallel storyline to Easy Rider with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. And now I got the groove.

OK, I got this writing thing down pretty good. And I wrote some good story there and ride easy. And I wrote my next book, which was called Tone King, which actually I started writing that back in the late 70s, 80s.

I started taking notes and writing about the music business. And Tone King story takes a young guitar player named Jimmy Shreds, who forms his band, the Full Shred, Jimmy Shreds and the Full Shred Band from the depths of the basement and garage, the basement depths to the garage startup of a band who eventually become the biggest, most famous and richest rock stars on the planet. And there's a couple of special twists in there that I won't give up right now, because when people have read it, they go, where did you come up with this? How did you tie this in with rock and roll? Well, read the book and you'll see how the the parallel, how how it was created.

OK, it's a great storyline. And it's the life says fiction is it's it's fiction based on real life. OK, the real life is my own life in the music business, as well as yourself and as well as Ray.

OK. The trials and tribulations of climbing out of the basement and getting into the small clubs and and VFW halls and stuff and then into the nightclubs and then into the concert stage and then record deals and photographs and record labels and merchandising and national and world tours just just exploded. You and I, Paul and Ray, to the first half of the book, we pretty much lived that life, OK? Right.

We just never got over the hump and became the most famous and richest rock stars on the planet. OK. But we had a great time doing it.

And no, no regrets about our careers. We gave it our best shot. OK.

The record labels didn't want to hear those few originals that the Dancing Noodles did. I had musicians and other bands that had great material, like the Jet Band, Gene Stranz and Carl Cera and Richie Hasda that they wrote that we were so close to record deals. We were right there.

We were out in California, in New York with Clive Davis and David Geffen and the monster major cats that were looking at us. But the music business and the publishing business, which I learned in the past 10, 12 years, those owners and and publishers and lawyers, not to be crude, but both the music and the book businesses, those guys all come from the same pile of poop. They are not nice people.

And if you don't know them or have the money to run with them. Tell us how you really feel, bud. And oh, I'm sorry, Clive, if I offended you.

You are a good one, though, Clive. Some of the other guys in your business were not so pleasant to deal with. It was just such a run around.

Now, we had limited income and we'd go in and spend eight, nine thousand dollars at Chicago Recording Company. OK, for instance, to do three classic demo songs. But they weren't demos.

These were songs that were ready to go. OK. And we get in the door and get an interview at one of these big time record labels and we bring it to them and they play the music.

And I remember these guys are millionaires. They got 20 other acts. You know, they got Van Halen.

They got Led Zeppelin. They got Aerosmith. We're just some, you know, a needle in the haystack to them at the time.

OK. And they listen to three songs and they go, oh, well, you know, these sound pretty good, but we need three more. And I'm like, what am I going to get another nine grand, you know, to make three more? You know, we don't have our own studio.

We got to pay for this ourselves. You want to pay for that? We'll do as many songs as you want. If you like this, cut us a deal.

Right. Didn't happen. So eventually I got out of that end of the business of trying to get record deals because we had respect in the clubs in these in some of the smaller concert halls of doing local, promoting local music.

And we were making a good living at it. So we just stuck with that and played our hand out and got out of the big end of the music business without big money. And I'm talking hundreds of thousands in order to put a band on a road.

Yourself as an independent promoter, a band manager, a record label, make your own record master, print and press the albums, you know, at the time and promotion. The radio stations, other than WXRT and what was the station that did the local Chicago rock album? Here's the loop, the loop, the loop. OK, they did that album.

Other than those two stations, none of these other major stations anywhere in the country would give a local band, even if they were doing original music, of course, no covers. So we take you exit one, two, right? Yeah. KQX and one to KQX, another one.

Very few that would even give it a give it a spin. Right. OK.

And so there was without the record labels behind you, the and it's a well-known fact there was some big corruptions within radio stations and record producers, distributors. Oh, yeah. OK.

There was a game being played that the feds came down on that. Yeah. The feds came down on all that 30 years ago with Rico statue and stuff and put a lot of people in jail for crooked politics and and and money operations.

Anyways, we had a successful career. My partner, Red, and I and all the great bands that we worked with counting you and your crew with the dancing noodles. Paul was a marriage.

So anyways, after Tonkin, I got off the track of that kind of novel and I wrote a military novel called Eternally Mortal Soldier, which the title tells you that I had a mortal soldier who fought in six wars, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. Any readers, I'm not giving the whole story away, but any readers that just read the title will know that my guy, my main character, Sergeant Duncan Cloverhill, is an immortal, as we've seen on TV programs, the Highlander in programs of such where this guy gets killed and he shows up 100 years later, 10 years later in a different place, and he's still alive. Well, the same thing happens with Duncan, Sergeant Duncan Cloverhill.

Some of the people that read it said, where do you come up with this stuff? He says, well, it's it's fiction, but the battles and the times and the eras and all the intricacies of the story are all real. It's just fictional that this guy's going to fight in six wars over 200 years. So then I got into writing some short stories.

My first short story book was called Six with Six Short Stories. And my latest one was called Six More with Six More Short Stories. I'm presently working on six plus, and I'm having a great time writing it.

I spend my mornings and sometimes afternoons writing and the rest of the day watching reruns of NCIS and and Castle and then late night, the the the the network TVs. So so you're not slowing down at all. No, I'm not slowing down.

And this show, this this upcoming Tommy Beano, Billy King Tribute Memorial Concert, I've really got wrapped up into, you know, putting a big show together again, which I had done, you know, a couple of times a month. Bigger shows, of course, and there was a time like at Harlow's and Haywires, the nightclubs. Throughout one month, we had like 10, 12 bands playing throughout the 30 day period that we were handling and working with and not actually booking, but more so promoting than booking, but we handled all the booking direct.

We didn't go. We rarely went through booking agents because early on, the booking agents are from that same pile that the the book publishers and the music industry guys are from. But I do got to say, and I'll mention this in case he's listening.

Joey DeMarco was one of the few guys that wasn't one of those guys from that pile, OK? He was because he was a true rock and roller, right? He was a great bass player, played in half a dozen great bands for 25, 30 Risk, and he did that Led Zeppelin tribute presence, I think it was called. And a couple of other bands. Joey's name has been mentioned quite a few times in this podcast.

Great. Good friend. Good brother.

Always right on. Never, never had a problem with him over percentages of booking fees and club dates. Spot on guy.

But I believe Joey's retired now. I worked with Joey numerous times at some venues that he was the exclusive booking agent. And with him, I had no problem going to him and giving him his kickback.

But other joints that had an exclusive booking agent, I went right to the owner. I said, here's the deal. I'll come in here and I'll put 300 people in your nightclub.

But I'm not going through that booking agent. I do you directly. You don't have to pay me nothing.

I'll collect at the door. Win, lose or draw. It doesn't cost you anything.

And I never had to show out an extra dime. You know, I always turned out a decent profit. You can't because you push your shows.

You promote them. You got to promote them. You can't just bands would just go in and get hired.

And they didn't do that. We did promo. We printed up these posters here and mailing cards.

I had a mailing list. And nowadays, of course, we had the Internet and the Facebook thing. I have to say I have at least 25 or 30 people, including musicians and other friends and family that have posted this show on their Facebook pages.

Right. So, you know, we're covering, you know, thousands of people. I only wish that with my mailing list and so pro press release email that a thousand of those people would be standing out in front waiting to get in after the first 400 tickets are sold and sold out.

And then I would have to I would go outside and say, OK, folks, we're going to do another show tomorrow night, you know, step up and buy some tickets or we'll get you in. But anyways, we're looking for a big success on this show on Saturday, April 16th at the Beverly Arts Center. And this is one of the premier venues in Chicagoland.

I'm just very honored to have the ability to do a show in here, which I've been looking to do for years to also to be in the presence of all these great musicians I've been working with over five decades. Of course, Red and I, we could promote, we could promote a dog show. Well, I guess that's pushing it because dog shows are pretty popular these days.

But we could promote a band. We could promote a concert. But it's the musicians that make the performance without the players like yourself, Paul, the rest of the noodles with Terry and Brian and Jimmy Hood and your horn section.

Eddie Cameron, Ed Cameron, Eddie Cameron. You know that you guys are legendary. And all these players here have made careers out of their music, but never got rich enough to retire on their careers and all work jobs and raise families.

But everybody says, well, that guy is really good. How come he never made it? Well, all of these pro players that I mentioned, including yourself and the rest of your band, along with Tony's and the cashmere band with Frankie Livingston and in his crew, they are as good as anybody. Now, people argue the point that, well, they ain't as good as Jimmy Page or Brian May or Eric Clapton or Freddie Mercury.

Well, actually, if you know the music like you do, Ray and Paul and myself, you can hear that what Joey Drada or Doug Lee or Robert Stroger. Well, he's pretty famous. This is true.

Other than the rest of them are gene strands. All right. These guys are as good as those players.

They just didn't get the break. Right. They weren't in the right place at the right time.

And they didn't have money behind them. Right. Some guys didn't need money.

They just got to break other guys that had money behind them with a manager that had a disposable income that he could spread money out on these bands. They got breaks. There's tens, hundreds of thousands of musicians compared to the few thousand that make it.

Right. So it's just a matter of not getting a break. Back to my point, get back on point.

These musicians that I've been working with without them, these shows wouldn't be possible. It's their their extraordinary performances and musicmanship and quality of showmanship that sell this show out for the past 38 years. Oh, OK.

And my heart goes out to them. Red and I love all these players. We thank them for being part.

I say our show, but it's our show. They've included us all of our show because without us promoting, without them performing, there would be no show. Right.

That's my story. And I'm sticking to it. Very good.

Very good. Well, I understand you got other projects you're working on, too, right? We're going to know that. You talking to Frank Sinatra that I mentioned? Yes.

OK. I, I started working on a project as a on a whim one night after a was not a dare, right? Yeah. Literally, it was after a enough's enough show that Joe Jammer opened up for.

We were chips enough's apartment. OK, now, Chip and Jammer, they didn't know each other. OK.

Jammer's been was long gone in England and traveling the world. And Chip was on his own spaceship. OK.

Well, I bring these guys together. Now, I didn't bring them together. We wound up together at chips after the gig, which I think was it wasn't Tommy's place yet.

It was a joint before Tommy's place in Blue Island. And if any of you folks out there know Joe Jammer or chips enough, you know that if they're if either one of them, let alone both of them are in the same room, don't even try to get involved in a conversation because you're not going to get a word in. Right.

These two guys are incredible conversationalists, as they'll call it. Well, they start talking about, well, I played with this guy. I played over there.

I was in North Africa. I was in Hawaii. We played up over in Japan.

You know, it was just this machine gun conversation between these two guys. And one of them says to the other, you know what? We should do something together. We should record a song together.

And I'm sitting there and both of them turn and look at me. And I says, oh, of course, look at me, because neither one of you has got a pot to pee in or a dime to spend on a recording studio. You're going to look at me and my partner read to come in and finance a recording session.

And they both looked at each other. They went, yeah. Anyways, I said, OK, let's put something together.

And I took some suggestions from them. Not that particular night, because we were too blasted and too whacked out. And this is like four or five o'clock in the morning, folks.

And I'm not ashamed to say we were loaded. Let me tell you, we had it. We had it going on.

So through the next couple of weeks, I said, you guys, give me some suggestions on the songs you want to do. Well, they come up with some bizarre songs. I think one of them, Chip, said something about, well, we should do an ABBA song.

And I said, ABBA? I said, what does ABBA have to do with Enough's Enough or Joe Jammer's Music or So Pro Rock and Roll? We do. I said, they're there. And he looked, he goes, well, I think it'd be cool.

I said, OK, you're out of the choice making. And then Jammer, I forget what he come up with. Some other bizarre thing, I don't know, some English band that nobody ever heard of that he knew when he was living over there.

And I said, OK, that's it. I'm going to spend my dough on this. I'm going to pick the song.

I always had a thing for Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra's Mack the Knife. OK, so I said, let's just go in and let's do a version. We're going to keep it in the same frame as Bobby and Frank did.

OK, we're not going to change it around. We're not going to rearrange it. We'll just play it pretty straight as they did, except that our new modern age with the new technology, it's going to have a little more food to it, you know, a little more guitar, a little more drum hit, you know.

And these two guys went in there along with Jerry Frank on drums and Chip on bass, jammer on guitar. Chip's vocalist, Donny V, played piano and it just turned out great that the rhythm track. And then we brought Perry Daniels, the great Perry Daniels, said to do the lead vocal, right? Because if anybody is going to get close to Frank Sinatra, this is Perry Daniels.

Perry does a Frank Sinatra thing with a piano player in Nashville these days. He plays on the riverboats down there and all the high end hotels and him and this guy do a duo. He also has his rock and roll band that he does, too.

But Perry could have been the next Michael Buble. OK, when he moved down to Nashville, he was writing music and performing and a couple of the studios down there. And he met up with this guy who record label guy who heard him sing and heard him do the Frank Sinatra deal with his piano player at some casino or boat or whatever.

And the guy offered him a deal to come in and make a jazz album, a big band jazz album, more bad, more a big band swing than jazz. Right. Right.

And this guy put a band around Perry of all these great Nashville jazz cats, big band cats, and he did an album. They recorded it. I promoted their first show here in Chicago at the joint down on Huron and LaSalle.

This was about 10, 12 years ago. And this guy had Perry playing in Vegas at the casinos and hotels. And he had him out in New Jersey at the hotels and casinos.

And the album was doing good. And if you know Michael Buble and Harry Connick Jr. This is the style of doing it. Perry was right there with it.

I mean, it was bold. It was the bomb, you know. And then he had him in New Orleans where they have the casinos and the bars.

And then out of nowhere, this record guy stopped doing the records and got out of the business. And Perry's big band career was just like gone. And I was like, Perry, what happened here? You were on the track.

You were headed there, you know. He was going to be opening up for Harry Connick and Buble. And there are a whole lot of those guys out there.

Right. Reaching that kind of stardom. Right.

There's thousands of them playing casinos and nightclubs and old time. Crooners. Crooners.

Exactly. And he was like, buddy, I don't know. I says, OK, keep doing what you're doing and catch the next train.

He has such deep deep. And it shows them. Curly whites.

Just the jackknife as old Mackey made. And it keeps it. After Mackey Knife was such a great production and performance by and produced by Chips Enough, it was just like, boom.

OK, I'm just turning you guys on to this disc now. You listen to this and you'll see what I'm saying. These cats and Jeff Lewis did a masterful job of mixing and engineering at the Star Trek studio.

And so after I says, quite familiar with chess work. Oh, I know that Jeff is quite the engineer and producer. He's not just an engineer and a studio guy.

And a great guitarist who is partners with with Paul Martin here in the the great M&R Rush Band, along with Marty and the rest of the crew. Anyways, so I said, let's do another song. Let's build this project with late 50s and early 60s.

You know, golden oldies. So I decided I'm making a choice. I'm spending my money.

I'm going to choose a song. So sure. And I choose staggeredly.

Lloyd Price is staggeringly. And we knocked out another great performance. OK.

And now now my my mind is set on getting these songs in. This was a time back 25, maybe 30 years ago. This has been going on for three decades.

Piece by piece, a little side project that I could get this onto the TV commercials, which started using music, modern music in their commercials. Sure. OK, for every song.

And I'm saying, well, I can get one of these songs, you know, songs like this, you know, piece of meal would fit into this and movie soundtracks. They started, you know, well, of course, back in 69, Easy Rider was the first to really use modern music as a soundtrack. Right.

There were individual songs in the movies, the 30s and 40s, like Casablanca played again, Sam played again. Sam was the title of the song. Songs like that were individual songs that were placed in those movies, but they weren't soundtracks.

Soundtracks were generally orchestrated music more than songs. So anyways, we moved on and we did a town without pity. Gene Pitney, but we changed that around.

We took it from Gene Pitney's slow to to to beat, you know, and we moved it up to a jump for four feet. And Frankie Capek played guitar on that one. And and Perry did the vocals again, background vocals with Heather Peters.

It turned out great. We kept on going. We did we did what I call a be my baby medley, which contained six of the old famous girl songs.

And then we did a version of Peggy Sue and we rearranged it into a reggae song called Reggae Sue. I at the time, I hired Rocket Rock and Glenn Julian, Clem Julian and and Raphael Merriam from the famous Gazay reggae band. These cats are all from Martinique and West Africa.

Original Rastafarian cats. And they did a version of Peggy Sue as Reggae Sue with a full reggae beat, and it just turned out incredible. Then my next one was a Dion medley featuring three of Dion's songs, Runaround Sue and Ruby and two of his other great hits.

And it turned out great with Joey Passy doing lead vocals. And we had a great time with that. Presently, back to your original question, working on a Frank Sinatra medley.

Now, people that I've mentioned this to say to me, Frank Sinatra, hardcore rock and roller for 50 years, for 60 years. Actually, maybe a few more and blues guy and jazz guy, but not so much to jazz other than with the Chicago horns, but definitely to rock and roll. Frank Sinatra, I says, well, where's that coming from? I said, well, we're doing is we're going to take we took six Frank Sinatra's cuts.

Chicago, Chicago is and the theme from New York, New York. And the way you look tonight and a couple of others, we segmented them into two, two and a half minute segments. And what we were doing with it is we're taking Frank's.

Big band swing sound, and we're taking a rock and roll sound, not to coin it or put it in a category, but let's say Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, the high rock and roll. And we're squeezing it together down and we're having to rock and roll meet the big band swing in the middle. OK.

And some people looked at me and I go, you got to be kidding. That it's impossible. You can't combine those two.

Well, Joey Marabelli, the arranger and my producer for this project, he rearranged this. I take these visions and I feed them off to these musicians like yourself or Joey or Chips Enough or Pat Doody, one of the great musicians. I said, here's my idea.

Make this work musically. And I give them the music and the lyrics that I want to use and an idea. And they create this music.

Well, Joey Marabelli took this and within like three days, he sends me a MP3 file and my whole vision of the six songs patched together in a medley, which are about two and a half minutes long. I was just like, there it is. And I've played this for a few people that have questioned my sanity about trying to mix Frank Sinatra with Aerosmith.

And they go, I'll be damned, buddy. You actually done this. I said, well, I came up with the vision, but Joey Marabelli made this happen.

And it's coming out great. We can't wait to hear it. And presently we've got a drum and a bass, John Falstrom on bass.

And we've interviewed Jen. What a great bass player. Oh, yeah.

Great. He's been on our Blues Review shows for 30 years now. He was one of the originals and Tommy Salazar Jr. And drums.

Tommy is a hard rock player. And you can hear his style of drumming on here, which we didn't have to. But we somewhat needed to put a harness on this wild horse drummer, you know, to say, OK, we want we want rock here.

But, you know, you don't need John Bonham or what's the guy's name? Yeah. Yeah. Just to bring this down.

But we want those hits in there. And this kid just morphed right into it. And just recently, Wednesday night, we finished keyboard tracks with Carl Mosier from your band, M&R Rush.

Carl has performed on previous tracks on our Mac project, which is I'm calling it presently a working title. And our next move is Joey Marabelli's guitar and lead vocals. And then we'll bring in France Marie and Victoria Tallarico, along with John McFarland, your other partner.

And then our rush to do the background vocals with Joey Marabelli. OK, so we got it all laid out. And the track we have so far is just incredible.

So and when I get finished with that, I'll be sure to get a copy. You guys. Sure, sure.

So let's talk about the show one more time. OK. And it's Beverly Center, April 16th, coming up April 16th.

That's correct. Saturday night, April 16th show for Tammy Biando, Billy King Tribute Memorial Concert event, right? Featuring Sopro Music's 38th Annual Thanksgiving Blues Review Band and special guest Joey Marabelli with Shannon Freer, Tony Wilson and Nobody's Business. And by the way, Tony Wilson was on my first show at that Kinetic Playground.

And we've been partners and brothers and music partners since 1970. I got to say, it might have been 72. OK, in case anybody's out there checking my reality and my figures.

And of course, Tommy's former band, The Wrong Boys, along with the Royalty of Chicago Blues, Sopro Music's Blues Review Band. And Showtime is at 530. We got an early start and tickets are available through the Beverly Arts Center website or through Sopro Music's website, which is www.sopromusic.com. And you go to the events page and follow the links and you can pick your own tickets out, but they're moving fast.

We've got a good sale of tickets already going. So be sure you get in on that and get your tickets before we're sold out. And we'll be sure to promote this on our website, too, on our page.

That's definitely appreciated. On our Facebook page. Like I said, I got a lot of fans out there that are doing the Facebook, a lot of musicians that are performing and other friends and fans that are posting on Facebook.

And I actually had one of my old buddies I grew up with who most of that crew are not rock and rollers. And he sent me a text back with the cover picture of that promo on my promo cards. And he said underneath, he says, Is this you? And I text him back.

I said, Of course, it's me. Yeah. I said, Who else would it be with my Sopro Music logo on there? You know, any other buddy that has the name of Sopro Music? And he writes back.

He says, Way to go, bro. Anyways, we hope to see all you folks out there. And I want to thank Ray DeRody and and Paul Martin here for having me on their their podcast, Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Two outstanding brothers. Love you guys. Thanks for having me.

And I look forward to being back. And we'll talk more about some of the other Sopro and Bud Monaco. Sounds good.

Sounds good. Operations. All right.

Thanks a lot, buddy. Thanks for joining us. So that was Bud Monaco.

But but he's a good guy. Yes, he is, man. He's got some stories.

Yes, he does. Started out playing hockey and and it's led to his music career. Yeah, he's kind of from my neck of the woods.

He's hanging out in Marquette Park. Yep. Beautiful Chicago, Illinois.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

At the Peace Bridge. Those of you from the area would know what the Peace Bridge. I don't know.

It's Peace Bridge. Yes, I know. It's Peace Bridge.

It was a bridge over the lagoon. It had peace signs on it. And that's where people hung out.

All the hippie people. Oh, OK. Yeah, I didn't.

I didn't. I went by there. I didn't hang out there.

No, I wasn't a hippie. No, no. You are now, though.

I am now. I have converted. I have.

Yes. So you got your hair. Yeah, well, I got my hippie hair and I got my Nehru jacket on today.

Yes. Is that part of being a hippie? Yes, it is. Is it kind of look like the mamas and the papas get your beads and my beads? Your tie dyed shirt.

That's right. You look very fashionable. That's right.

Or I'm or I'm going to a Grateful Dead concert one of the day. So so buddy has some great stories there. He did.

And and he's got he's got a show coming up and April 16th at the Beverly Arts Center. The BAC, for those of you in the know, starts at five thirty five thirty sharp. So don't think you're going to get there at eight o'clock or nine o'clock.

And why it'll five thirty. Yes. So presents the time of the end and Billy King Tribute Memorial concert event.

We're so pro, so pro music's 30th annual Thanksgiving Blues Review Jam with a plethora of musicians. Yes, yes. That you will enjoy, including the Chicago Horns.

Yes. So Saturday, April 16th, be sure and get your tickets. And now you go to Beverly Arts Center's website and find out to find out more there or go to so pro music dot com.

They've got a link there to the tickets. I call the box office at seven seven three four four five. Thirty eight.

Thirty eight. That number again. Seven seven three four four five.

Thirty eight. Thirty eight. Call right now for you, for your tickets, for for this time behind on Billy King Tribute Memorial tickets are going fast.

I was great talking with buddy. Yes, it was. Yes, it was.

And again, we'd like to thank the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum and Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois, for providing us with this spectacular studio for our podcast. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

It's always fun to come down here and it's moving along quite splendidly. Yes, it is. It's hanging dry.

Well, today, as we speak, that's right. Pretty soon you'll be able to come and visit the museum and maybe even catch Paulie and I in the studio doing a podcast with some famous Chicago musician. So I say very good.

And you can wave to us and we probably won't wave back. We're too cool for that. I'll wait.

Well, OK. All righty, then. Thanks for listening.

And everybody, we fail. Oh, you're. Now, you got to get those.

You got to figure them buttons. I'm going to make little stickers for you to put on those buttons. So you know what? What special effect is what? Yes.

Yes, I keep hitting the wrong one. You do. You do.

So all righty, we'll see everybody. Well, we won't really see you, but we'll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music that's played on this podcast. The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed.