Rock and roll, Chicago. Rock and roll, Chicago, my hometown. When I was born in the city, grown to rock the city, Chicago.

Chicago, rock and roll, it's all the best around. One, two, go. Paul Martin.

Try it again. That was all, it was something. I didn't even get the beginning of that.

It was all scramble. OK. Hey, this is Paul Martin.

And Ray the Roadie. For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. This week, we're continuing our series on horns that, horns, ah, fuck, was that horns rock? Horn bands.

Horn bands rock. Fuck. Horn bands that rock.

Take three. Well, Ray, it was great talking with those guys. Yeah, it was.

Man, they did some traveling in the days, man. Wow. Yes, they did.

Yes, they certainly did. They, ah, they, ah, I don't know what else to say. So tune your podcast station in sometime, whenever you want to do this.

It was going really well, and I just fucked it up. Maybe we can just splice that. Maybe we can cut that out.

That was going well. Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie.

For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Welcome to our year in review, 2020 year in review. The holiday special of 2020.

What a year. Yes, it sucked. So thank you, and good night.

No, we're really here. We're not bugging out on you. No, no, no.

We're here, and we still had a pretty good year, considering nobody else did. That's right. At least we were still getting shows out there.

But fortunately, we're able to do that remotely and not have to get together to do this. Thanks to the power of Zoom. That's right.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. We were able to start Zooming our meetings and our interviews, and it worked out pretty good. It's not too bad.

Not at all. It'd still be nice to be at our studio at the Rock and Roll, Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. Yes, it would be.

And hopefully in 2021, we will be there. There's been a lot of work going on there. Our studio is really coming together really nice there.

Thanks to Ron Romero and everybody at the museum. We're going to include some bloopers in this year in review. I think they noticed that, Paul, from the start.

Yes. Well, 2020 was kind of a blooper itself, so I think that it's appropriate that we do that. Exactly.

So that's why we started this show with a blooper. So we started out on January 7th. We had Freewheelin'.

Now, if you remember Freewheelin', Eddie Kammerer, Brian Sarna, and the rest of the guys got together and put the band back together. It's what they could of the band, anyway, and played for Kevin Fabishes, who was their sax player, who was also the sax player in the Dancing Noodles, played his benefit party because Kevin passed away last December. Yes, that was a great show.

The boys did a good job getting together, short notice, and putting on a great show with a lot of their own original songs from way back when. It's kind of tough to put that together, as well you know. Songs you haven't played in a while, they just don't jump out of your guitar.

No. But then we moved on and we kind of brought a theme for January after that for a couple of shows. We did some beach music with Johnny Ressler and the Beach Bum Band.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. That warms my cockles. Oh, wow, that's good to hear.

Yes. Good to hear your cockles are warm. My cockles are very warm.

And then we had Easy FM, who is a yacht rock band, so it kind of brought us back to... Peaceful, easy feeling. Yes, that's right, that's right. Sitting on the beach, trade winds blowing through your hair.

I'm sorry, Paul, I shouldn't have used that analogy. Trade winds blowing past your body. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

I'm used to the bald thing now. Okay, good. Then we had Joel Hoekstra, guitarist extraordinaire for White Snake, for Night Ranger, for Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Joel was a lot of fun.

And Joel's also in Cher's band too, her traveling show. You're right. I forgot about Cher, I guess.

Yeah, and Joel's from right here in Orland Park, Illinois, and has done very, very well for himself. Unfortunately, Trans-Siberian Orchestra didn't get out this year, but they did do a video of the band. I think it was on the 18th.

They had a big special thing going on where the band played, but it was a previous video. And then we had, starting in February, we had Burning Bridges, a local band, and they were a lot of fun. As a matter of fact, we've got a couple of clips we'll play right now from our Burning Bridges outro.

Well, that was Burning Bridges. That was Burning Bridges. Yeah, you got it, man.

And Bob had some stories. I wish we could have got some more of them, some more out of him. Yeah, we had, I don't know if we should use that word.

What? I wish we could have got some more out of him. What? What? Okay, let's start over. That was Burning Bridges, and it winds up Bob and I did cross paths somewhere.

Apparently, many, many times, different venues, different places. Yes. But the 70s were a rough time.

For, well, for some of us, maybe. Hard to remember a lot of the things that happened in the 70s. For some of me, maybe.

Some of you, that's right. For most of us. Yeah.

Most of us. But, yeah, that was great reminiscing about some of those old clubs, you know, the old Thirsty Whale, Haymakers, Beginnings. Yeah, I don't think we talked about that on air, though.

Yeah, we did. Maybe it was afterwards. Was it afterwards? Yeah.

I'm sorry you brought some up. Okay. Okay, we'll get us out of here.

All right. Now, after that, that was kind of silly stuff, wasn't it? It was a little bit, yeah. But after that, we- Not embarrassed whatsoever.

No, no. We had Electric Avenue. Electric Avenue is a band, and I guess they're also called Acoustic Avenue because they also play acoustics, sometimes play some acoustic shows, too.

That's right. Ergo, electric, acoustic. But that band includes Ron Romero, who is the curator, the founder of the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum.

He's the man. Yes, he is. Yes, he is.

Ron's doing a great job out there, and hopefully that place will be open this coming year. Most definitely. Then we went on to the Millennials.

The Millennials are a young band, a young, young band of some teenagers, some kids in their early 20s who are now, who love playing rock and roll. They love playing the old stuff, playing some Mario Speedwagon, and they play some original stuff, too, and they all learned at the School of Rock. Yes, they did.

That very impressive group of people, I'm telling you. They just don't want to play. They want to learn more and to grow within the band and stuff, and they got some great ambition there, and I think they're going to do very well.

Yes, and here's a little clip of an outtake. Most of these outtakes are these blooper reels, I should say, are from our intros and outros where we just couldn't get it. Because we never make mistakes during the interview.

Right, because our mouth doesn't work right. Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the roadie.

What? Okay, you paid attention to that? I am. Okay. Because it was like, Ray the roadie, that's right.

Okay, fine. Hey, this is Paul Martin. For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Okay, then we moved on to Tafoya, Mike Tafoya. Do any of you remember the boys, the bees? I don't remember, whatever. What else? Lost Boys.

Lost Boys. Tafoya's Lost Boys, correct. Mike Tafoya was a fun interview.

We did that one at the museum as well. Yep, he came down with Craig Cederholm, his drummer, and had a great discussion with them. Dick B. Andy, the Dick B. Andy film.

Now, we didn't talk with Dick B. Andy, did we? No, we did not. We talked to the producer of the Dick B. Andy film. Pam Entzweiler, police.

And she talked about that. And I don't know if the movie, has it come out yet? Is it a documentary? No, not yet. They're still, they're getting close though, I believe.

I think they're getting really close to releasing it. Well, it should be an interesting film, a documentary once it comes out. Yes, it will be.

Everyone loves Dick B. Andy. Oh, yes, yes. Have you ever heard my story about my wife and I getting a picture with Dick B. Andy? You did.

I posted it on Twitter. It was my wife and I was on one side and Dick B. Andy was on our other side. I think we talked about that once before because that's when the band opened up for the Buckinghams at CD and Me.

Oh, yes. And Dick B. Andy was there, and I got my picture taken with him too. You're not the only star.

Right, but I posted it on Twitter and I said, my wife between two old dicks. Oh. Yeah, I got some comedy coming up here.

Yeah, you do. We've got some comedy coming up here. Yes, we do.

Yes, we do. Next up after Dick B. Andy was C-130. Unfortunately for this band, they were just getting underway.

Their singer, the lead singer in the band is Mike Lorver, who is also the traffic copter guy for Channel 5. And this band was just getting off the ground and it never took off because of the pandemic. Unfortunately, they weren't able to perform anywhere. Yeah, that was done.

That interview was released on March 10th. And unfortunately for them, I don't think they ever got to play, did they? No, they had some gigs scheduled and they all canceled. Well, hopefully they'll get together and get back out there soon.

Then remember we went down to the City Winery. Yes, we did. We saw the Freddie Jones Band.

Yes, we did. We did that interview remotely. We went back to our old ways and used a portable digital recorder for that.

But we saw Freddie Jones there at the City Winery, put on a great show. Freddie Jones Band is originally from the Chicago area. Correct.

And their front man is Marty Lloyd, who's been with the band since day one. And we sat down backstage with him actually and did the interview. And that was actually the show that night was actually their second to the last show before they quit performing because of the pandemic.

They left Chicago and I believe they went to Denver to the City Winery there to do a show. And the Denver show was the final show they did all year. Well, the pandemic was in full swing by this time.

It's March 24th and we released Midnight Special. But I want to make it clear that we had a bunch of podcasts, a bunch of interviews already lined up. And we did several of these until the first or second week of April.

We had these lined up at a time which we did at the Rock and Roll Museum. Correct. And this was all just starting at that time.

We weren't in full-blown pandemic. We had Midnight Special. Midnight Special band, we talked with them.

They were a fun band, good band. And then we talked with Midlife Crisis. Midlife Crisis.

Oh, we had a little mid theme going on, huh? Midnight, right, and then Midlife, right. Yeah, I see where you're going. Oh, wait a minute.

That's where we were. Forget it. We got an outtake that we've cut from the Midlife Crisis interview.

Let's take a listen to that now. Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie.

For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How's things going today, Ray? The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Is that what you said? The podcast? Fuck you.

We're meeting today with Joe and Jay. How you doing? How you doing? So that was Tom and Mike and Joe and Anthony from the band Midlife Crisis. Midlife Crisis.

I think I'm better now. Are you okay now? After talking with them, I'm much better. I feel much better.

Good, good. I think you just had a bad called senior moment, though. You know what? Again, we talk about how hard it is to come up with a name for a band, and we're just coming up with them left and right.

I should trademark them or copyright them. We got noise going on here. Yeah, noise at the museum.

That's always fun, isn't it? It sure is. Something got beyond our control, right? Yep, definitely. The guy was mudding the walls or painting.

Yeah, he was mudding, I think. He was mixing the stuff up in a bucket, and we weren't even there. And what do you do? Our last episode, which we actually did this episode, I remember it was on like the 16th of March, and we did Rosie and the Rivets, who was a rockabilly band, with Frank Canino and Christine Mukalakma with Rosie.

Nice save there. And this was our last interview before the pandemic actually hit. It wasn't released until the 7th of April, but we had a fun time talking with Frank and Christine, a.k.a. Rosie.

Then the pandemic took hold. And we panicked. What are we going to do? Yes, but we never missed a beat, I tell you.

No, because I said, hey, Paul, guess what I found? And Paul said, what, Ray? And Ray said, an app called Zoom. And Paul said, what's Zoom? And I said, it's a software package we can use to record interviews. And here we are.

Yeah, we're still doing them via Zoom. Yes, we are. We're doing this one via Zoom.

We are, because we're keeping socially distant. But it took us a little bit to figure Zoom out. So let's listen to that.

I don't see that. Oh, there is a record. Oh, okay, yeah.

So this isn't, I'm going to record it. Please request recording permission from the meeting host. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Okay, I said, if it tells me again, I guess maybe you've got to record it. I am recording it.

Okay, all right, you've got my permission. All right. Well, our first Zoom interview was with Ryan Onesti, who is the owner of the ICATA Theater.

And there's a new theater in Des Plaines that he's going to be opening. He was planning on opening, but I don't think they're open as of yet. But it'll be a music venue as well.

And Ryan is involved with the Italian American Hall of Fame and all kinds of good stuff. Yes, he is. And, you know, it just shows it's just not the bands, the entertainers that are being effective.

It's the venues too. If they can't have any performances, they can't open up. It's a terrible thing.

Yes, it is. But then we moved on and we tried something a little bit different. We tried an interview with a couple of guys from different bands.

And they're all leaders of those bands. And we talked with Mindy Miderosian of MNR Rush and Tom Dixon, Cadillac Groove, and Jose Rivera, the five guys named Mo. And it was on managing a band and what it takes to manage a band and what it takes to keep all those guys in line.

Definitely. That was a really popular episode too. We had a lot of good feedback on that.

A lot of people listened to it and really enjoyed it. Yes, it was very informative. Yes, definitely getting into the backstories of the bands.

I mean, when we interview them, you're learning a little bit more about the bands. Now, this covered how you're running the band, which is pretty interesting. And then, of course, we had – well, first we'll play this.

Everyone was looking for masks. Everyone was looking for masks by the end of April or by the middle of April. And Ray found a place on the internet.

I did. How are you doing today, Ray? I'm doing great. I just got an order of masks in, all different colors.

It's very cool. Wow. Yeah.

Where did you get that one? From your neighbor lady? Masks R Us. Oh, nice. Yeah.

It's www.masks.rus. Same day shipping. No, I'm joking. I don't want people trying to look it up and say, man, you said you can get masks out there, and I can't.

Okay, so there really is no Masks R Us. But it was interesting. But now everybody's got masks now.

Right, but it was a crazy time. I mean, masks became a hot commodity. Toilet paper became a hot commodity.

Paper towels became a hot commodity. I just – I'll never understand that, that part of it. The masks are one thing, but paper towels and toilet paper, I just don't get it.

Well, people were making masks out of toilet paper and paper towels, I think. I suppose, I suppose. But I'll tell you one thing.

Back in the old days, when I needed some toilet paper, man, I spun that thing like I was playing on Wheel of Fortune. Nowadays, though, when I need it, I'm pulling it like I'm cracking a safe. Well, okay, so then we moved on to the Sunshine Boys.

Now that Walter Matthau and – who was the other guy? Jack Lemmon. Jack Lemmon. No, it wasn't either of them.

The Sunshine Boys are a band out of Chicago with Dog Julen, who you may know from another podcast, the Steve Dahl podcast. And our podcast. We did an episode with Dog last year.

That's right, we did. And, yeah, Dog's also with Poi Dog Pondering and was with the Slugs. And so he's got a band with a couple of girls.

Vicki Schimmel and – I don't remember. Frida Love Smith. Frida Love Smith, that's right.

They've got a lot of great original music. They've got a couple of albums out now. They're really, really good.

Definitely go to their website and buy a CD. And then we moved on in May. We started with Kimmy Hayes.

Kimmy now is or was starting to play on Broadway in New York City as a guitar player for the show Six. Unfortunately, that has been curbed too. For quite some time.

Thanks to COVID, right? I've heard that even Broadway, there's no definite plans on when they're going to be opening up those theaters. We kind of had a theme going here with smoking guns because I'll tell you why. We had smoking guns and then we had Micah Quino.

Micah Quino has played with Kimmy Hayes and smoking guns. So we kind of tied the three in. Was he smoking or guns? He was smoking.

He's a smoking great guitar player. And smoking guns have a smoking great guitar player of their own by the name of David DeColla who wasn't able to be there in our meeting. But we did talk with Artie Specht and Robert Brose and Jim Bankey, the other three members of Smoking Guns.

That was a fun interview. And Micah Quino, as I said, was a lot of fun and just a great guy and a great guitar player. And he really has some interesting stories and some interesting background.

Definitely. I mean, he plays country. He plays jazz.

He plays rock. He plays blues. Anything.

Anything you need him to play, he can do it and he does it excellently. Right. And he's played with Jim Pederick and his World Stage.

And he's played with the Cornerstones of Rock. Actually, it leads us into the next interview that we had. So these are all kind of tied together here.

This was kind of a legendary interview too. It was our 50th episode. Yes, it was.

Yes, it was. And that was with Carl Gianmarisi of the Bucky Gams. We talked to Carl for, boy, a good hour, and he gave us some insight into how the band got started and just a great interview and a lot of fun.

Good, good guy. And they've also played with the Cornerstones of Rock. And so has our next interview, which was Dave Zane.

Dave Zane has a band called Bigger Picture Band. He has a band called Zane's Way, and he – Plays for the Buckinghams. Plays for the Buckinghams.

This is all tying in. And played on the Cornerstones of Rock. Right.

So you see how that all worked out. Isn't that pretty cool? How come I didn't see it when it was happening? I don't know. In our interview with Dave Zane, Ray had a little mishap.

Oh, sorry. A cicada just landed in my mouth. Oh, yeah.

No, that was – The chocolate-covered ones are good. The chocolate and they're great on the grill. Yeah.

They are great on the grill. Sick. All right.

Did you work the bugs out, Ray? I did. I did. Everything's fine now.

Okay, good. Thank you very much. Good.

Well, then we got away from our theme there that we had with a tiny bit of Giants blood. Tell me about them, Ray. These guys are a glam-punk-heavy rock band from Chicago, and they got some interesting music, and they just came out with a new – well, not just recently, a short time after our podcast.

They came out with a video, and the video was done to one of their songs, and the actors in the video were all dolls. Barbie dolls. Barbie dolls, but they were dressed up in the same outfits these guys wear on stage, and it's cool but kind of creepy.

Yeah. It was very cool. It was very cool and well done.

Oh, for sure. Whoever did that, very talented. Then we moved on in June.

This was all in June, and we moved on to Scott May, who also is part of the World Stage thing and is part of Cornerstones of Rock, and he plays with the Ides of March, and he's a keyboard player with the Ides of March. Since 1990. Wow.

Scott May, Scott May, great, great, great guy and a great interview. He didn't think he was worthy enough to have an interview, but it wound up he was. He was.

It was a great interview. Very popular with our fans. Then we moved on to the Crop Puppies.

The Crop Puppies are a band that I've known, let's say, but first we'll start out with the Crop Puppies, but playing this intro was one of Ray's great ideas to play some. Ray gets confused on who we're interviewing sometimes, so this kind of explains it, self-explains. Well, if you'd be clearer sometime.

You know I don't listen to you all the time. I am so excited that we're going to New Orleans. Wait, wait.

I got the wrong one. What was that? We're going to New Orleans for a sausage boil you said. I am so excited.

Okay. That was way distorted over this. Was it really? Yeah.

And then you were like way in the background. I can hardly hear you. Oh, shit.

All right. Well, the Crop Puppy. The Cajun.

He thought we were going Cajun. That's right. New Orleans, baby.

But they don't play too much New Orleans stuff. As a matter of fact, I don't know if they play any, but I've known these guys for quite a few years, probably close to 15 years. And they're a great fun band from Northwest Indiana.

And I'm proud to call them my friends. Me too. Everyone's my friend.

That's right. And then we moved on to Rockabilly. We had a Rockabilly star.

Rockabilly sensation Everett Dean. That's right. Everett Dean.

And we talked with Everett. Actually, we had to talk to him twice because I think I screwed up the first interview. I think I erased it or something.

That's right. And that's right. We had to call him back and eat crow and say, would you please do another interview? And he was very cordial and said, no problem.

And we were able to do another Zoom interview with him. And then we, from there, we had Sean and Charlie. Sean and Charlie.

Now, if you don't know Sean and Charlie, they're a Southside band, Southside couple of guys, who just, who love the rock and love to play some Irish music too. They do. And I think, I believe Sean was driving home from work when we started the interview.

Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was in his car.

Yeah. That's not a quality. Wasn't that good.

Not that it's that good using Zoom, but I mean, a studio would be better, but it was, it was interesting to have him driving and talking to us. I hear, I hear bells. It's my other phone.

So, and then from there we moved down to Lights Out Chicago. Yes. A UFO tribute band.

That's right. Lights Out Chicago. Not London, Chicago.

And you went and saw them, didn't you? I did. I saw them at, at an establishment in Crestwood, which will go nameless unless they want to advertise as a sponsor for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. But yeah, I did go to see them.

One of the few places that was having some bands. Yeah. In September.

Right. It was an open air stage. It was, the place was open.

It was outdoors. And so there, and everybody was being socially distant and had their masks on and all, and they were able to play outside. So they're very good.

I mean, outstanding. And then shortly after that show, they were doing another show where they were doing the entire 1978 concert that UFO did here at the amphitheater. They were playing it song by song from start to finish that I didn't get an opportunity to see, but I'll bet you, it was fantastic.

Did they get to do that one? I believe they did. I believe that I believe, cause that was also an outdoor gig. Very cool.

And they were one of the lucky few, lucky, lucky few bands to get out there and play this year. Yeah. If you're able to get one or two in, you are lucky, you know, it's like, it's true.

Sure. We talked to Joe Cantafio from, what'd you say? Cantafio. I was, it's Cantafio.

I always mix it. I mess it up. That's me.

You know what I mean? I have not mastered the English language yet. So give me some time when I grow up. Let's listen to find out.

Joe Cantafio of Jade 50s. I think it's Cantafio. We'll find out.

I screwed up his name. So now I know it's Cantafio. Joe, Joe was with Jade 50s, man.

That was a really hot band back in the day. Yes, they were. Yes, they were.

They were, they were playing quite a bit and, and just playing all over the place. If you see any of the old entertainer ads, you'll, you'll find Jade 50s in, in almost all of them. Every, they played everywhere and they almost became like a standard to go by, by the, the amount of people that they would draw to a place, to a bar was crazy.

And that, that was like a standard. The, the club owners would use, you know, what can you, you know, what, what kind of people, how many people can you bring in? Can you bring in as many as Jade 50s? But, but then we had one, then we had one of your favorite bands or, or the, the, the leader, the, the founder, the founder man of a Poi Dog Pondering, Frank Orrell. Yep.

That was a great, that was a great interview with Frank. I was looking forward to that. I've, I've been a big Poi Dog Pondering fan for many, many, many years.

I've got every single one of their CDs, albums, even the newest one that just came out. And I really enjoy their music. It's, it's quite eclectic.

It's hard to pinpoint what it is. It's electric, eclectic, eclectic means it's a different lot of different stuff. As in the podcast, Frank said, these albums he made just depended on his mood, whatever he was into at that time.

That's the kind of music he wrote. And he wrote all that music, which is phenomenal. As of now, I believe he's on the road now.

He sold his place in Chicago and he's going to go ride this pandemic out by traveling around the country and visiting friends. I think he's out West right now. I know he told us he was going to do that, but I didn't know if he had or not.

Yep. He's, he's on the road. So we won't be seeing him or Poi Dog for quite some time or anybody else for quite some time.

But yeah, that was a great interview. If you're a Poi Dog Pondering fan, definitely check it out. Then we went on to the band revival.

We talked with them. They were playing too, weren't they? If I recall. They did have a few, they did have some outdoor gigs scheduled and I do believe they did play them, but not that many, not that many.

And Joe DiGiacomo, he, he just joined the band recently. He hasn't even had an opportunity to, to play that much with them. Yeah.

Joe DiGiacomo has done a few of the Jimmy Hood things though. An evening at Hood's. So, so then, then we're pretty excited because we get our, we got our first true sponsor.

I mean, we, we've always had the road to rock radio as a sponsor, but the, but the intern for their sponsorship, they, they play our podcasts every Monday night at 6. PM central time and road to rock radio. Dot net. Road to rock radio is proud to welcome Paul Martin of M&R rush and the dancing noodles.

And Ray, the roadie, the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Paul and Ray, as they bring you weekly interviews from bands that have rocked Chicago. It's the rock and roll Chicago podcast.

Monday night at six on road to rock radio. We've got our next big sponsor. GHS strings out of bell Creek, Michigan.

They decided to sponsor us and they've been sponsoring shows and they're sponsoring this show today. They are. Okay, good.

They are still our, they are still our sponsor. Yes, they are. Yes, they are.

So any, any guitar players out there help them out by going in, bang your next set of strings from GHS. This is Paul Martin and Ray, the roadie. And we're here to talk to you about GHS strings.

That's right, Ray. Whether you play electric guitar, acoustic or bass, or even banjo, mandolin, or ukulele, then GHS has the strings for you. GHS strings are easy to play with a rich, full balanced tone available in many different gauges.

Great for all musical styles. So if you play, play with the best, play GHS strings. I tell you, we kind of went with a, we kind of went with the drummer theme there for a while.

Didn't we after that? We did. Yeah. It was a whole, a precautionary series.

We had, Mike Arturia, the Loved Spoonful, a Chicago boy who's done well for himself, now lives in Minnesota. And, and he's, he, he was a great interview. He was very interesting.

Yeah. He's played with a lot of, a lot of internationally acclaimed artists, you know, like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Del Shannon. And like you said, now he's a full-time member of the Loved Spoonful and has been since 1996.

And that's quite an impressive resume. And then, and then we, we played a, we, we decided to play some past performances, which we, we started with Tommy Shekel, who was, was a drummer for the Buckinghams for years. And then, then played with Paul Revere and the Raiders, now plays with Paul Revere's Raiders.

Tommy, so we interviewed Tommy the year before it was episode seven. I believe it was episode seven. but we had a lot of, a lot of people requested that.

They asked if we would replay it again. And we said, sure, why not? So, so we did. And Tommy Shekel, Tommy Shekel was a lot of fun, boy.

When we interviewed him, we talked for four hours. It was a lot of edit, a lot of editing on that one. That's right.

That's right. We did. And it was a, it was a ball.

And that four hours went like nothing. And then, and then we went out to it on the drummer, our third drummer in a row, which was, well, well, first of all, he's kind of internationally known. So Ray thought he'd be international.

Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Raimondo the roadie. Oh, your name is Raimondo now.

Yeah. I'm trying to become a little more international. I see.

I see. And why is this? Well, we do have an international audience. Oh, I see.

So I can be Pablo. You could be Pablo Martin. Pablo Martin.

That's right. Okay. So, so who are we? This is Pablo Martin.

And Raimondo the roadie. For the rock and roll Chicago podcast. I think.

Yes. Yeah, I think. I don't know how to say that in a different language.

Well, I'll have to, I'll have to look it up on my iPhone translator. How do you say rock and roll? Rock and roll. Chicago podcast.

I still think I'm going to change my name to Raimondo. Okay, good. Good.

I'm going to stick with Paul Martin. It's easy. Okay.

Pablo, my team, you know, just a little tough. Pablo Cruz. Oh, that's taken.

Yeah. That's already taken. Pablo Picasso.

No, that's taken. But, but, but our international artists that we, that we interviewed was Todd Zuckerman of the band sticks. Yes.

That was a good, a good show. Todd was very cordial. Let us interview him.

He seemed as excited about the interview as we did. Yeah, he, he came for us from his home, his drum studio in his basement down near Austin, Texas. And it was, it was a lot of fun interviewing Todd and getting some of the behind the scenes stories of sticks.

Most definitely. And there were, and there's definitely some good stories. So listen to episode 62 episode 63.

We talked with the Brooklyn charmers, who is kind of led by Colin Peterick, the son of the great Jim Peter. That's right. Then Brooklyn charmers are a Steely Dan tribute band, which that in itself is amazing.

You got a, almost kind of like the millennials, you know, they're young guys that are doing a tribute to Steely Dan. You know, this is a music from our era back in the day, you know, right. And not easy music to play.

Definitely not to reproduce either. Not at all. Not at all.

And they do a great job of it. They do. They do.

I mean, you can, if you sit back and close your eyes, you may not be able to tell the difference. And they've also got some, you can go to their, to their website and get to see some videos of them or, or even on Facebook, they've done some live shows. Some streaming live shows.

That's right. Trying to get, trying to keep bringing the music to the people. That's what we're doing, right? That's right.

We are. Then we had another past performance with Mark Dawson, who is, who is the bass player for the grassroots. Also played in dreamer and street kids, street news boys, right? Chicago boy right there.

Then episode 64, we're closing in on our last few here, right? Oh, drum roll, please. Boom was the animation. Animation is a rush tribute being from Chicago.

The band has actually been together for quite some time, but they've got some different members now and, and they're doing a great job out there. They're playing the music of rush. Yep.

And they sound really good. Again, another band that's not that easy to play. True.

True that. Indeed. And they get into some deep tracks.

And then we moved down to the outfit, the outfit. Tell us about the outfit, right? Well, the outfit is a fairly new, it's a newer band. They've been around since 2018, but they've gotten some great billboard spots.

I mean, their, their first single they released in 2018 hit 34. And the billboards mainstream rock chart, which is like unheard of. And so their music, I mean, people like them all over the place.

And it was great to talk to Mike Gorman again, who we talked to last year, who used to play with Pez band. Right. So Mike is still out there rocking and he's playing with the outfit and they are a rocking rock band.

They got Marshalls on 10 and it's, that's what it's all about. Or 11. 11.

Could you go to some, some go to 11. Some of them do. And then we, then we kind of went country on it.

We kind of went country on you. We had the hillbilly rock stars. And, and nothing, nothing.

Derogatory or mean. About somebody like says, but we got off on a tangent on our intro. And I think we actually scrapped it.

I believe we did. But here's the outtake from that intro. I'm just, I'm cooking up some vittles right now.

And then I was going to have some people over later on. We're going to go sit down by the fancy eating table and have some vittles. I reckon that's pretty good.

It's I reckon it's going to be real good. Okay. Why are we talking this way? Today's episode is with the hillbilly rock stars.

Oh, I see. So, so you're just, you're just assuming that hillbillies talk that way. Don't they? No, no, not hillbilly rock stars.

They don't. Oh, well, I mean the name hillbilly implies, you know, you know, eating by the fancy eating table. You know, that's usually set right out there by the cement pond.

Cement pad. That's right. You're talking about the Beverly hillbillies, right? I sure am.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Grandma, what was her name? I don't remember.

I forgot her name now. Jed. Jed.

Granny. It was just granny. Granny.

It was granny. That's it. And Jethro.

Jethro Bodine. I don't think we're going to be seeing any of them today. Talking to any of them today.

No. Ms. Hathaway may be there. Possibly Ms. Hathaway.

Yeah. Mr. Drysdale. Wow.

Why don't they have a name? Oh, goodness. We're not speaking with any of those people. Yeah.

You know what other hillbillies there were? I remember the Andy Griffith show. Remember that family of hillbillies that came in and they're playing on his porch. I remember.

I remember Green Acres. That's right. That's right.

And he used to have to climb the pole to make a phone call. You've had co-junction with the three daughters. Yeah.

I guess there were three daughters. There were a lot of shows back then. The country bumpkin stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. City folk were enamored with that stuff, huh? They were because they never experienced it.

That's right. I mean, they would take drives out to the country just to look at a cow. Yeah.

I know. We got a little silly there, didn't we? Yes, we did. But that's me.

I'm always silly. But the Hillbilly Rockstars are a great, fun band. We actually both went and saw them.

Well, I don't know. It was in September, I think, wasn't it? August or September. Yeah, they were playing.

Again, everybody, they were playing outside. We were not indoors. Socially distanced.

Masked up. We were outside in Orland Park in a parking lot. In a big old parking lot, let's say.

And everybody brought lawn chairs and socially distanced. But they're a fun band. And who all did we talk to in that band? We talked to several guys, didn't we? Yeah, we talked to a number of the guys in the band.

I forget how many we had right now. But there was three or four. Three or four.

Three or four. Good. Four other band members were in there.

But they're a fun band. I actually know the Hermanator, the drummer, from years past, from working with him at the Blue Chip Casino. So it was fun talking with him again and with the whole band.

And they also have some original material out there that you can listen to. Just look up Hillbilly Rockstars with a Z. A Z? It must be something with the Zs. Because, not the Zs, with the Zs.

Ah, the Zs. I thought you were talking about a disease. I'm like, come on, dude.

We're just coming off a pandemic. No, no. Because Smoking Guns is with a Z, too.

It must be something with that country thing. I don't know. Could be.

Could be. They like that zippity-doo-dah. And then for our last couple of shows of the year, first we talked with Dave Calzareta of Maggie Speaks and of Magnificent Events.

Yeah, that was a good interview. I mean, that guy has done a lot with these bands. You've really got to listen to this episode, episode 67.

I mean, he tells us how this whole thing started and how it's just grown and blossomed. And now he's doing the same thing out in Arizona this winter, where he's setting up a company like he has here to put together bands to play events, corporate events, and mega events. Something like that.

I don't know if it's going to be the same company or just a wing of that company, but he's working hard in Arizona trying to set up the same thing there. And then a final episode. Final episode.

A final episode of the year, besides this one, was episode number 68. It was the band Heartache Tonight, the Eagles tribute band. That's where I was trying to learn Hotel California.

Oh, yeah. God, that song goes forever. Good song, though.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good song, though.

But yeah, that was the last one for the year 2020. That was 38 episodes, along with a couple of past performances. So they actually made 40 episodes for the year, including this one, which will be 41.

That's right. So I hope you enjoyed them all. If not, I hope you enjoyed me, at least.

Well, yeah. Everybody enjoys you. And Paul.

Everybody enjoys Paul, too. Well, we're happy to bring him to you. We have fun.

This whole thing started when Ray came to me and said, we should start a podcast. And I said, podcast? What's podcast? But he says, I get this idea to put this thing together. We could talk about bands from the 60s, the 70s, all the way up until today.

And so I said, well, that's a good idea. So we started doing that. And it's been fun.

It's been fun getting behind the scenes and learning some of the backstories of these bands and some of the backstories of these musicians and finding out all about them and trying to keep their names out there, especially we had no idea there'd be this pandemic going on, but trying to keep their names alive and keep them out there and keep their name alive. So this is the end of our second year doing this. And I believe I started asking you about this probably about two, two and a half years before we actually got it underway.

About two years before, yeah. Yep. You had to really think about it, but I think you're enjoying it.

Oh, yeah. I'm enjoying it, but it took a while to get it all together, too. Sure.

Sure. And it's still a work in progress. It's a work in progress every week.

Every day it is. Every day it is. I think about it every day now.

That's right. That's right. Thanks, Ray.

Thanks. I want to tell you thanks. You're very welcome.

What else would you be doing? I don't know. Locked up in the house. Everybody's quarantined.

It gives us something to do. I've got to clean my basement. Then do that.

Well, I can't. I'm thinking about some hot cats. Oh, okay.

Well, have a beer. I can do that. Not hopefully, but 2021, you'll be seeing a lot more episodes coming up.

We've got some things in the works that we hope you're going to enjoy. And we hope you've enjoyed our shows for 2020. Thanks for listening, everybody, and have a happy holiday.

Have a safe New Year. And we'll see you on the other side of 2020 in 2021. See you next year.

Happy New Year. I'm going to say the joke about the guy who walks up to him. He was driving down a country road.

He sees this beautiful horse on a field. And he goes and knocks on the door. He says, I have to have that horse.

And he says, he looks beautiful. And the farmer says, no, he doesn't look good. He doesn't look good.

And the guy goes, no, he looks beautiful. He says, he doesn't look good. So he pays him money, takes the horse, and comes back about a week later.

He says, you sold me a blind horse. I told you it didn't look so good. All righty.

You guys can catch Paul at one of your local comedy venues. Check out their schedule during these trying times for musicians. Paul's doing some stand-up.

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.