Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie. For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

How are you, Ray? I'm wonderful. How are you? Good. Mr. Wonderful.

Mr. Wonderful. That's right. Yeah.

You're dead to me. Yeah, there is Mr. Wonderful in there. That's right.

I'm out. I'm out. I'm out.

Because of that, I'm out. That's right. For that reason, I'm out.

That's it. And if I do remain staying here, I want it in perpetuity. That's right.

You want it in what? How many people learned what perpetuity was? I don't know. Just from that show. I bet you most people didn't even know what that word was until they watched it and said, what? Yeah.

I haven't looked it up recently. No. But I know some bands that I think are going to go on in perpetuity.

Is that right? Yeah. There's a few of them out there that I think will be around for quite a long time. And I'm probably going to, there's probably going to even be some new ones popping out too.

Probably. Probably. I know what you're talking about.

You're talking about the Maggie Speaks of. Empire. Right.

Maggie Speaks of Empire. That's right. That's right.

We were fortunate enough to speak with Dave Calzaretta, founder, performer, businessman extraordinaire. The guy's busy. He's older.

He's very, very busy. Of Maggie Speaks and of Magnificent Events. And yeah, he's got a lot going on.

Yeah. Even during the pandemic. Yeah.

Most people are just sitting still and taking their time. He's busy working. Yes, he is.

Let's go see what he has to say about what he's been doing. Oh, so many months. Okay, let's do it right now.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. Today, we're speaking with lead singer and former, excuse me, and founder of Maggie Speaks and the owner and founder of Magnificent Events, Dave Calzaretta.

How are you doing today, Dave? I'm doing good. Is that foreshadowing of former? No, no. I can't read my own handwriting is what it is.

I can't read my own handwriting is what it is. Something I don't know about yet. Yeah, pretty much everybody's a former now because nobody's playing.

Yeah, for sure. So tell us about your roots and how you got started in the business and how things got started. I know your dad played music, didn't he? Yeah, absolutely.

So I come from a musical family on my dad's side. He had a singing group called The Highlights in Chicago in the mid to late 50s. And they were a doo-wop group similar to the Four Aces and the Four Lads and the Crew Cuts and the Lettermen and groups like that.

And they had a record deal with Bally Records. So my dad and my uncle were in the group along with a couple other of their neighborhood friends. They had a song called City of Angels that went to number 16 or 18 nationally on the Billboard charts and then number three in Chicago.

Well, Elvis Presley had number one and two at the time. And so music was always kind of in my life and I always sang. But in grade school, I was an athlete and it wasn't cool to be in chorus and all that stuff until eighth grade when the basketball team came to me and said, hey, we're trying out for the musical this year.

I said, okay. And we happened to be doing a junior high production of Grease. And I got one of the lead roles and I had three solos in it and just kind of really kind of fell in love with performing.

And it was kind of interesting because all of a sudden at that age, it became very cool to sing. And, you know, so I started playing in bands in high school, played bass guitar more out of necessity than anything else. I thought you were a bass guitarist.

Yeah, I basically in high school, you just gathered any musicians that knew how to play anything and, you know, started a band. So we had two guys that know how to play drums. So we used to rent a bass from, you know, the local music store and I had a good ear.

So I kind of listened for the parts and pick them out and kind of taught myself and then I teach it to the spare drummer. And after a few months of doing that, you know, the light bulb went off and said, hey, why don't I just do this myself instead of learning it and teaching it to somebody? So I started playing bass, you know, and then, you know, did that all through through high school with various bands. And you try to get gigs anywhere you could, you know, the just say no rally in the, you know, in the community or the high school battle of bands and things like that.

You know, then I went off to college at Indiana University. I joined a fraternity, so I led our serenades and there was something called How You Sing that was a big, you know, like production show that you did with, you know, I paired with a sorority for, so I was a leader for that. Played in a couple of pickup bands there.

And then, you know, after, after that, I, my degrees in accounting and I have my CPA and passed the CPA exam and stuff. So I started as a financial analyst for General Mills in Minneapolis. Played in a little band that did like a couple gigs there.

And then I moved back after a year and got a job doing intellectual property, financial consulting and wound up answering an ad in the Reader, I believe, or the, it was either the Entertainer or the Reader for two brothers looking to start a band. One played guitar and keys and sang and the other played drums. And they said they were looking for a singing bass player.

So I went and played with them and we had a good time, decided to start a band together. And we were deciding on names and, you know, when you're 24 years old in 1998 or, you know, we were big Simpsons fans and South Park fans. So we were kind of down between Maggie Speaks and They Killed Kenny for our names.

And so we wound up, wound up with Maggie Speaks. I literally lost a coin flip for whose number went on the bottom of our demo CD to get bookings. So I became the booking guy because I lost the coin flip, not because I won.

You know, we started, started performing, doing anything from little three-piece acoustic shows all the way up to, you know, we've had different iterations of Maggie Speaks, you know, where we'd have six guys, five guys, you know, and then we had some turnover and we're down to three guys at one point. And, you know, so different iterations over the years and everything, but now, you know, Maggie Speaks has been around for 22 years and played close to, you know, probably over 3,600 shows during that stretch of time. And we replicated and started other bands, you know, within our brand.

So we have, you know, Spoken For and Final Say, Shout Out and Enough Said. And then we started our big band, Talk of the Town, where we can go up to 15 pieces with multiple singers, horns, strings, et cetera. Are any of the original guys that you've played with, the twins or the brothers that you said, are they still involved with it at all? No, I'm the only original guy left, but Blake Cooper, our drummer, has been with me for 20 years.

And then I was fired as bass player about six years into the project but retained as the lead singer and front man. And Sean Somers has been, you know, with us for, you know, for gosh, 16 years probably. And then our guitar player, Sam, he was for a while, he was the Grover Cleveland of the band that he was in from 2004 to 2008 and then 2012, you know, so he's on his third four-year term.

And then Nicole, our female singer, I think has been in the band since, you know, probably for about nine years now, so. That's Nicole Varga, right? Varza. Varza, I'm sorry.

She's a Northwest Indiana girl, isn't she? Correct. Yeah, I know Nicole. I've had the opportunity to work with her a few times.

But as a matter of fact, I've had the opportunity to work with several of your bands. I ran Sound at Blue Chip Casino for many years. Oh, sure, yeah.

But now I noticed that you've listed in some of your videos, you've listed to Shane and Blake and as owners. Now, explain that to me. Yeah, I mean, we started the, you know, when I started the band and stuff, I mean, we basically are just partners in business of that.

I run the business side of things and they kind of run the, in a restaurant fashion, they handle a lot of the back of the house stuff while I'm running a lot of the booking and marketing and front-facing stuff. And now with some of the other bands with Shout Out and Final Say and Smoker 4, now you've obviously had the opportunity to hire many musicians. And how many can you tell me that you've probably hired for those bands? I mean, have you got a fraternity of people that come in and out and play when they need to play? Yeah, I mean, all of those bands have a base of five people in them.

So there's, you know, a core of 25 musicians that, you know, work for me. And then, you know, when we expand to the big band format, you know, with keys and horns and strings, you know, it expands past that. You know, it's hard to say how many.

I mean, you know, over the years, over the year, we may have 50 different musicians that work for us depending on the need. And then a lot of times we'll have a lot of, we do a lot of customization at specialty shows where, you know, we'll bring in specialists that play certain things really well if we're doing a theme show or something like that. Is that where the celebrity sit-ins come in? Yeah, that's one of them.

I mean, I started working on that program late in 2017 and it, you know, developed quite well where, you know, there's a host of, a host of singers out there that, you know, maybe had four or five, six hits kind of thing and, you know, perhaps it's not as, you know, financially feasible for clients to fly in their whole band and stuff or maybe they're not looking for a full concert from that band and they just want the short attention span blast of like, you know, hey, here's Mark McGrath's four big hits from Sugar Ray and then let us carry the rest of the night. And so we've had a really good run and I've built up quite a network with, you know, working with different singers and former lead singers of just, you know, bands that I grew up sitting in the crowd for when I was a teenager at major stadiums and so it's been kind of cool to get a chance to perform around the globe with these guys and develop the relationships and friendships with them. And with Magnificent Events you've managed to book some big shows as well, too, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I think, you know, kind of the highlights throughout time Lionel Richie was one that was, you know, really kind of a crowning moment for me that getting to book him at a private event, Barenaked Ladies, Kobe Kole, Big and Rich, you know, I've had a really great opportunity to work with lots of great bands and KC and the Sunshine Band, the Spinners, the Temptations, groups like that. Now with the Temptations, I know you've had a personal relationship with the late Richard Street, but can you tell us about that? Yeah, I mean it's probably one of the most unlikely of friendships that you'll ever hear about in the history of the world, but back in 1987-88 my dad was watching a HBO special called Temps and Tops and it was about to come on and it was about the Temptations and Four Tops and he said, hey, why don't you come and sit down with me and watch? And I did, I was 14 years old at the time and I said, Dad, you know, I really like this music afterwards and my dad was always one of those people that is my best friend and the greatest dad in the world. Just lost him in January and stuff, but you know, he found out when they were coming to town and so he took me to Poplar Creek to see the Temptations and they had a part in their show where you could jump up and sing, you know, they'd pick six people from the crowd and jump up and do a verse of My Girl with them and I kind of filed that in the memory bank and stuff and then the next time they came into town they were at the Erie Prom Theater and so we went again and you know, I kind of, I have this weird photographic memory and so we kind of went to, they went to the song before, you know, I'd remembered what it was and told my dad, hey, I'll be right back and he thought I was going to the bathroom and he said, next thing I know you're on stage with them and singing and you know, the five people you know, were not very good and I was just up there going just please hold down the note, please hold down the note and you know, so I wound up singing with them and you know, I was kind of the novelty act, I was a 14-year-old, you know, 14-year-old kid in a predominantly African-American auditorium that night and you know, it just, it was really, really fun and really out of left field and so every time they'd come into town, I would go and I would jump up and sing with them and I developed a relationship with Richard Street that was in the group from gosh, 1971 to 1993 and you know, won a Grammy for Papa was a Rolling Stone and was one of their, you know, main singers and you know, so that lasted all through high school, kind of lost touch a little, you know, this was all before cell phones and email and stuff and you know, lost touch a little bit during college and then when I got out and came back, you know, I started getting into music and I started doing bookings and I was booking for 115 Bourbon Street and they wanted to do a big, you know, 10, I think it was either a five-year anniversary at that point or that, you know, I'm pretty sure it was their five-year and so, you know, just through Googling, well, I wasn't even Googling at the time but just through, you know, surfing the internet, I tracked down where Richard was because he had left the Temptations and he'd started his own group of Temptations and I found where he was and, you know, booked him for that and as he flew in from the airport, I went to pick him up and he didn't really, I was dealing with his manager and stuff so he didn't know it was me and he got off the plane and I had the sign that said Richard Street at the airport in O'Hare and he looked at me and goes, man, is that you? And I'm like, yeah, Rich, that's me.

He's like, man, I haven't seen you in years and so he kind of just became, you know, I called him my West Coast dad and my mentor and, you know, whenever I'd have him, you know, I became pretty intimately involved in booking his calendar and, you know, would do probably 15 dates a year at least with him and anytime he came into Chicago, he's like, don't put me in a hotel, I'm staying at your house and bounce my kids on his knee and they call him Uncle Richard and stuff and, you know, it evolved into where he played at my wedding and I sang at his wedding with some of the other temptations and then when he passed away, he actually passed away on my birthday, which I also shared with his wife. We had the same birthday and, you know, I was a pallbearer at his funeral and stuff like that. So, I mean, it was just a really strange, unlikely, you know, to watch a TV show and go, I like that and I'm sitting in Northbrook, Illinois and to become, you know, one of my best friends in the world is just, it's kind of surreal to me, so.

Yeah, I know you had a relationship with him. I worked for a little bit with KC Audio and remember working, I did actually backline for a couple of shows that you did and that they did with Junior Walker's All-Stars 2 as well. Oh, yeah, for sure.

But that's a great story. It's a very great story. Now, to get back to Maggie Speaks, tell us about, tell us a little bit about the band about Maggie Speaks and tell us a little bit about the energy that you guys provide.

I know you play festivals, you play weddings, you play clubs, you kind of do it all and you played, like you said, around the country and around the world, I guess, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we kind of built this up, you know, at the beginning when we first started. I mean, we just played whatever we wanted to play and then as you did live shows and started observing what was working and what wasn't working you know, we just, we felt a lot better when we were doing interactive, like, dance shows where people could get out on the floor and populate it as opposed to, you know, and so we just really became known for trying to build medleys and string together and, like, I hate dead air.

Like, if I have, if I have three seconds between a song and, you know, my musicians sometimes get frustrated with me because three seconds to me seems like standing in line at the DMV. So, you know, we, we've learned to, you know, build shows and string them together so that it just doesn't give people an opportunity to leave the dance floor and we, we've really catered our set towards what's going to engage the audience as opposed to, like, well, what's my favorite thing to play? You know, so we started out in the nightclubs and then, you know, made the natural transition to festivals and we would play colleges and stuff so those people would see us and they started asking us to play their weddings because they said, you know, well, you were my band at college. I don't want the band that played my parents' wedding to do mine.

I want to do what's right for me and so we would do that and then, you know, we had some corporations that came to see us at some of the nightclub shows and, you know, we've been fortunate now to have, you know, kind of a who's who of the Fortune 5 for sales incentive trips and stuff that we've been in 13 different countries and 33 different states at this point, you know, and we've played in Shanghai and in Rome and Sydney, Australia and Venice and Monte Carlo and Barcelona, Istanbul, so we've had some pretty great, you know, dream clients that have allowed us to see the world performing music and, you know, it's been really great. 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 balance tone available in many different gauges. Great for all musical styles, so if you play, play with the best, play GHS strings. The other bands came about from basically a need where you guys couldn't perform for a lot of your clients? Yeah, I mean, we, I started spoken for in 2006 because Maggie was doing 200 shows a year.

We were getting 20 calls on a Saturday and, you know, a Hall of Famer in baseball goes 3 for 10, you know, and hits 300, right? Well, it's not really hard to go 1 for 20 and so we were just realizing that we kind of came around at the right time on the market where, you know, the only other options were big orchestras with 15 people and that just wasn't what people were, you know, younger people were really listening to at the time and so it was an opportunity for us to penetrate that wedding market as a small band that also had some public cachet with, you know, playing high-profile clubs and festivals and stuff, so it created a different energy and, you know, we were finding that if we were already booked, our clients were asking us, you know, well, who would you recommend if you can't do it? And, you know, because I want something like you and I, you know, I said, it just dawned on me, it's like, well, I don't know why but there isn't something like what we're doing right now. So, you know, as a business person it was simple supply and demand that if there's more demand than supply then you need to create more supply while I could have waited around for somebody else to figure out what I was doing and do it or I could do it myself so we hired five, you know, at the time it was four but we hired, you know, replicated our concept and hired guys and to work for us to basically do, you know, the whole concept was that each band does the same song, same arrangement, same instrumentation so that if we were booked, you know, the clients had another option. So we started Spoken For in 2006 and they wound up doing close to 100 shows in their first year and then we got a call in early 2007 from Eric Ferguson's wife from Eric and Kathy at The Mix, you know, 1019, the morning ride DJs and his wife said, hey, you know, I've seen your band and you play all the stuff that Eric plays on The Mix and it's his 40th birthday party, I'm throwing him a surprise thing, will you play it? And I said, yeah, sure, you know, it looks great, what's the date? And they told us a date in January which got me even more excited because normally those are great to fill with private parties and I happened to look at the calendar and both bands were booked and I was like on the phone with them and I said, shoot, you know, in my head and I said, we can do it.

I said, well, you know, I said, Maggie's booked but we've got our other band that we own and she said that would be great and I called my partners and both Spoken4 and Maggie Speaks were booked and I called them and I said, we have to start another band and we just started one and I said, well, we need to start a third one and I figured what better way to launch it than to play on, you know, Eric's birthday where he'd be talking about it on the radio for the week after. So we started Final Say. The band had its first gig before it even had any members in it and existed so, you know, that was kind of a neat transition to building and selling concepts before they, you know, before they actually existed and, you know, and then we went for a number of years with the three bands until I think about 2014 when we found that there was, you know, I think what happened was during the recession of 2009, we actually really thrived during that time because we were right sized for it, you know, we were only four and five pieces at the time and so, you know, corporations that used to hire, you know, Kenny Loggins and Jimmy Buffett and Earth, Wind and Fire, you know, couldn't get caught doing that kind of stuff because of perception at that time, you know, I always remember watching the executives to AIG after laying off 4,000 people walking out of a sales trip with Jimmy Buffett playing, you know, with cameras in their face, you know, saying, how come you hired Jimmy Buffett for a million dollars but fired 4,000 people? So corporations started hiring us during that time because they still wanted to have events but we weren't going to land you on CNN, we would fly under the radar and I think in any crisis, and this is what we're seeing now with COVID, it's what we saw with 9-11, it's what we saw with the financial recession that during any crisis there's opportunity that comes from that and, you know, what comes out on the other side isn't always what went into it beforehand and it looks different on the other side and so I think a lot of companies realize that, you know, their employees responded better to a dance variety corporate band than, you know, a bunch of 20-somethings watching Earth, Wind & Fire who's fantastic but it doesn't resonate with them and so, you know, we kind of moved in that direction and really were right-sized for 2009 and then, you know, once that recovered, you know, we were able to create a couple more bands and then I think even still as the economy surged, we finally got into the big band market which we resisted for a long time because we were realizing a lot of our high net worth clients that we were developing wanted the visual and the grand show of having 15 people on stage so we were, you know, we were losing that business to other bands they were like, well, if you had more people we'd hire you but, you know, so we kind of found a niche there as well and then that aspect of it has really taken off and, you know, and one thing, it's a puzzle piece, one thing leads to another and that's what led to our celebrity sit-in model is realizing that it's way more effective to have, you know, Ski Bug Jerry from Journey come in, you know, formerly of Journey come in and do, you know, six big Journey songs and then let us do the rest of the night and crowd's happy because they saw one of the real guys doing the real thing and then they get to see, you know, but they don't have to sit and listen to one thing all night because social media and YouTube and anything tells you people's attention spans are shorter than that right now, so.

So, you literally put these bands together, these are not bands that existed and you just brought on board, you actually hired the musicians and put it together. Correct, yeah, we would go out and we would, you know, as you get more known in the industry, you know, the community community becomes smaller too and you know who all the top-level guys are and, you know, having work is what trumps everything basically, you know, musicians, you know, musicians need to work and so if you have the work, you're able to work with a high-quality, you know, high-quality group of people and so we would just go out and we knew what chairs we needed to fill and, you know, sometimes we'd do an audition and, you know, but it was always a, you know, typically a non-advertised audition because, you know, you have to weed through a lot of hobbyists and, you know, skill levels if you just throw an ad in the paper and basically, you know, we would view it as almost like a headhunter recruiting firm would go about finding an executive, you know, they don't sit and post something on indeed.com if they're hiring a CEO they use a search firm and that's kind of what we became, you know, when it came to musicians. Maybe I'm in another dream Dreaming about you being gone Sinking the river and watching birds Sinking the river as I learn Uh You don't have to be beautiful to turn on me to your body baby and I still don't You don't have to be You don't have to be cool I just want your extra time and your kiss Alright everybody! Watch your heart Baby I got it Around the world stuff came from through the corporate through the corporate world correct? Yeah absolutely um you know we did our first our first big travel corporate client was uh Mopar the parts division of uh Chrysler before the auto collapse happened and uh you know one of their executives saw us at the cubby bear and came up to me after being at the cubs game all day and watching us play and said I'm gonna take you to Denver I'll call you on Monday and I was like yeah yeah here's my card you know thinking this guy will never remember 8am came Monday morning and my phone rang and I was summoned out of bed with an offer to to go play the Mopar mile high nationals and you know it went really really well and they started uh using us for other other performances and um you know traveled us to you know Cabo San Lucas and uh I remember sitting there with the corporate entertainment producer you know with the produce you know the uh the external producer for Chrysler and I said you know we were sitting on the beach and I said to her I said how do I get more of you and she goes what and I said oh not that's not what I meant I said you know I said I like you know I like the fact that we get to fly to cool places and play cool shows are there more people that do what you do and hire bands like this for other companies and she really helped me get networked uh joining some industry associations and wandering onto the board of directors and getting to know that community of you know producers that you know work for big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big It's just Maggie Speaks that does those final saves, spoken for, and the other bands do it as well.

Yeah, I mean, all of our bands have pretty much traveled, and a lot of our clients will have multiple casts of 16 out, you know, our Talk of the Town big band. So I think pretty much everybody that's been in our organizations has got to participate in some of these travel trips, and most of the times we're building custom theme shows for them where we have, you know, a disco night or a country night or whatever. So it's a great opportunity to be creative and write a show and be part of the company's production team of, like, how do we take your idea and craft it and support it, and what people do we need to, you know, we're not going to bring an R&B singer in, you know, that if we're doing a country night, we're going to find the right guy to pair with that and stuff.

So, you know, we've had a great opportunity to give a lot of musicians the opportunity to see the world, and it's, you know, I'm really proud of that. So now when, I know you're constantly updating music and learning new material, and if you want to learn a new song, how do you work it with all the bands? I mean, does Maggie Speaks learn it, and then they send it, you send it off to the other bands to learn, or does somebody from another band, for instance, suggest something? Yeah, I mean, there's not a super formal process to it, you know, we try and keep our eye on the charts and the radio waves to hear, you know, what's popular, and, you know, sometimes we'll just send an email around saying like, hey, we're, we're adding this to the catalog, please make sure you guys all are prepared for that. And then a lot of times, you know, we'll get requests for weddings and things like that, that maybe not all the bands learn, but some of them have to learn or one of them has to learn.

So it's an organic process of, we, you know, we do our best to share information between bands, you know, we do, you know, regular, you know, monthly band leader calls, you know, where we have all our guys on the line, and we talk about, well, hey, what's working for you? Oh, I played this Bruno Mars song, well, great, you know, you know, should everybody be playing it? Yes, you know, and we'll circulate it around that way. Have you yourself ever written any material or written any original material? Yeah, it's not something I've done in a long time, but I had three original songs come out in a movie called The Hard Easy, a couple of my buddies from high school, it was their first feature film that they produced. And it was an HBO DVD release.

And I, they, you know, they had, it was, it was kind of cool, it was writing by assignment in that, like, they had placeholders in their movie of like, actual songs that, you know, they budget wise, they couldn't afford the licensing for. So, you know, the opening scene they had, wouldn't it be nice by the Beach Boys, which, you know, would have blown their whole budget, and then some, however many times. So I, you know, I wrote a, wrote a song that kind of had that feel and that the, you know, I think I had 78 tracks of vocals in it, you know, I just tried to capture the essence of the spirit of that song.

And, you know, they kind of gave me direction on what they needed. So that was kind of neat. The movie had a pretty good cast in it.

It had, you know, Bruce Dern and Vera Farmiga, Gary Busey, Peter Weller from RoboCop, Henry Thomas from ET, David Boreanaz, you know, probably Nick Lachey was in it. So it had some, some names. You know, it was, it was a great experience.

You know, I enjoyed it. And I think I'd like, you know, I think I'd like at some point to write again. I find that I do it best by somebody telling me what they want me to write as opposed to, you know, I'm feeling or whatever.

And, you know, but I just honestly have been so busy since then that I haven't really gone down that path and, you know, maybe something in the future. Well, how are the bands and magnificent events for that matter, surviving COVID? And have the bands been able to play at all this summer? Yeah, I mean, this is obviously an unprecedented time and the most difficult time. I tell people that, you know, we were, this industry was the first domino to fall and it's going to be the last one to be set back up because, you know, we rely on mass gatherings for the most part in close proximities, you know, and a lot of indoor stuff.

And, you know, basically everything, you know, whether you sit on the side of science or politics or whatever, with all of this stuff, you know, that's neither here nor there. But basically we've seen, you know, our shows decrease by 90% and stuff this year. Maggie Speaks has been doing a lot of virtual galas and stuff where we've done a bunch of shelter in place videos for galas that have gone online and they want to do, you know, a couple songs to kick off the gala, one in the middle to energize it, one at the end to wrap it up, you know, that kind of stuff.

So, you know, we've been able to do probably, you know, 15, 16 different videos for people just to keep out there. During the summer, there was some, you know, some smaller festival work and I picked up my bass guitar for the first time in 16 years and did some trio, acoustic trio stuff with Dave Carl and Jimmy Riley, who Jimmy used to play for me and has his own band now. And Dave plays in Final Say and our Eagles Tribute Band as well.

So there was some patio work. Everything's kind of shut down again, but I'm actually in the process of building up a duplicate of the operation out west right now. So I'm coming to you live from Mesa, Arizona, as we speak.

And things are a lot different here and a little bit more open. So, you know, like I said, any financial crisis or world crisis, like there's... My dad and I always used to say that in life, you know, we like to look at it as that there's obstacles and not barriers. And so, you know, during COVID, I've been able to take the time to create, you know, my whole career, I've always said, you know, making changes was, for me, it was like trying to change the bus on the tire, the tire on the bus, excuse me, while you're driving down the highway.

Well, you know, with COVID, the bus is pulled over on the side of the highway. So, you know, I've created a group called Radio Gaga during this time, which is going to be absolutely phenomenal. We've been able to get three shows in with that.

And I'm just producing on that and I'm performing in it. But it's a tribute to... It's not even really... I mean, I guess you could call it a tribute to Queen and Lady Gaga. And it's, you know, the storyline is in an alternate universe where rock stars are immortal, Freddie Mercury and Lady Gaga meet, become the best of friends and take their show out on the road together in a Vegas-style production.

And so that's been really fun. I was able to create a new Fleetwood Mac tribute called Bold Dust Dreams, and we had three shows with that. And then, you know, we're creating something with Maggie Speaks called Retro Music Revival that we're currently in the process of getting video film for.

And that's basically taking modern pop songs and doing throwback arrangements from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. So that's kind of neat. And then I also decided to... I've always wanted to expand the operation out west and never had the right person to do it.

You know, and the numbers never made sense if I had to relocate somebody and things like that. And, you know, during COVID, I thought, well, what if that person was me? So, you know, I'm in both places right now, you know, flying. I'll be flying back and forth as needed, but I'll be starting operations up out here as well so that when this comes back, you know, I'll be twice as strong.

That's great. I know you book a lot of venues in the Chicago area, too. I know a lot of them have been closed or some of them partially opened, and I know it's a tough time for everybody, but it's good to see that you're staying busy.

How does someone find you on Facebook or on the internet or website? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've got maggiespeaks.com. We've got maggievents.com, which is the booking side of things. maggiespeaks.com, we have a new website that was created.

And so, you know, we're on all the social platforms with Facebook and, you know, we've got some Instagram presence as well. So, you know, if you just Google Maggie Speaks or Google Magnificent Events, you know, we'll pop up in various forms. Well, thanks.

It sounds like you keep it busy. Thanks for spending some time with us today, Dave. Yeah, thanks for taking the time.

Appreciate it. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for, you know, giving an opportunity for musicians to be heard in a time when there's silence.

So that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to keep some things alive and continued success with everything that you're doing as well. All right, guys.

Thanks so much. Thank you. So that was Dave Calzareta of Maggie Speaks and Magnificent Events.

And Dave's a busy guy, isn't he, Ray? He sure is. He did not, this pandemic did not stop or slow him down one iota. I like the one comment that he said that this is, this pandemic, this business of music, music business and music industry with the first, how do you put it, the first domino fell and the first domino to be set up again.

That's very true. Very true. That's exactly.

Nobody's working. And first domino to fall, last one to be put up. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. And hopefully it won't be much longer. Hopefully we've got some killers, vaccinations.

Vaccinations. Yeah, they're common. So why don't we take this show on the road? Why can't, why, how can we never travel abroad? Sure, let's do it.

Because we interview people from Chicago, that's why. We can interview them from elsewhere. We could be in Stockholm and Zoom interview them.

Well, we don't want to go to Sweden. Sweden's got, Sweden's got a rate to get, it's going through the roof up there. Yeah, we can go to Antarctica.

Okay. I don't think there's much. Greenland.

Down in Greenland, yeah. All right, nice one. All right, you go ahead and book that.

Let me know when you get booked. I will, I'll get us on a 737 max. Okay.

I'll write you that. One with no COVID on it. No COVID, that's right.

That's right. We just take our life in our hands any which way we can, huh? Yeah, but your luggage flies free. Oh, there you go.

And there's nobody in the middle seat. All right, that was fun. Thank you once again, Dave, for joining us.

And everybody out there, don't forget you can find us on the Road to Rock radio every Monday night at 6 p.m. They feature one of our podcasts. Give it a listen. All right, thanks for listening, everybody.

We'll see you next week. Next week, every Tuesday. Okay, thanks for listening.

Bye-bye. 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.

The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed.