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

How goes it, Ray? Going good. Still virus-free. Thank goodness, as well.

Yeah, still under house arrest. Yes, yes, we're on lockdown over here. Yeah, my dog doesn't talk to me anymore.

He's like, why are you here all the time? Why are we walking two and three times a day? Yeah, he's tired of hearing your BS, I'm sure. No, I'm sure he is. I'm tired of it.

I turn on Zoom, and I Zoom myself and have a discussion. So what do we have going on this week? This week, we've got something a little bit different from our usual interviews. We hooked up with three band leaders to discuss what it takes to run a band and how it's affecting them now.

We hooked up with Jose Rivera of the Five Guys Named Mo, Tom Dixon of Cadillac Groove, and Marty Martirosian of MNR Rush. It was nice of them to join us. And let's see what they have to say about managing a band and being the leader of a band and having control over all those guys.

Some interesting stuff coming up. Enjoy. Welcome to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Today, we're dealing with a little different subject than normal. We're dealing with the subject of managing a band. I know the thought of being a band leader can strike fear in the heart of many musicians because of the self-expressionism and the freedom that they might have or they may lose by being a leader.

But today, we're meeting with three band members who have taken on the role of managing their bands. We've got Jose Rivera from Five Guys Named Mo. How are you doing, Jose? Good, Paul.

How are you guys doing? Good, good. We've got Tom Dixon from Cadillac Groove. How are you? Great to be here, man.

And Marty Margarosa from MNR Rush. Hey, Paul. Hi, Marty.

Hi, glad you guys could all join us. So let's start off with, does a band need a manager? And if so, why? Wow. I always figure that democracy is excellent for ordering pizza, but if you actually wanna get anything done, somebody's gotta be driving the bus.

And it certainly, you walk a little bit of an edge, making sure that you don't step on toes of people you don't wanna certainly become a dictator by any means. But someone's gotta basically be able to say, this is what we're doing, this is the direction we're headed. And the only way to really keep it all going in one direction, otherwise it's gonna scatter and you'll never get anywhere.

Somebody has to be a boss. It's not a democracy, as Tom said. It's not a democracy.

It really isn't. Yeah, I agree with everything those guys just said. And the facts are, is if we didn't have a leader in MNR Rush, there was no way that we would have been able to survive how many decades we've been together with the same guys.

I mean, and so I totally agree with these guys. Someone has to do all the nasty stuff that you do as a musician leader. Is there an advantage to self-managing a band, being a member of the band and managing, or is it better to have an outside manager? I'll go first on that one, Paul, as it's dear to your heart, right? We've always managed ourselves at MNR Rush, and that ended up being me.

And we did that from our whole career except about one year, where we gave it up to a manager who will go nameless. And it was right after we were negotiating a record deal and it kind of fell flat. And the reason why it fell flat was because of the economy at the time.

This company, which was a subsidiary of Atlantic Records, this guy was ready to sign us. We had the deal. We negotiated that deal.

And then he came out and seen us play live. And then he put a bombshell on us saying he loved us, except he's not gonna sign us. And the reason why he wasn't gonna sign us is because the economy went to heck and he was filing bankruptcy.

And it was one of the last straws for MNR Rush to say, hey, wow, we gotta try something different. And we went to a manager. And that manager, I don't know, that was probably a year, year and a half, ended up really making the band do some things that we really didn't wanna do.

And the bottom line is stole about $30,000 from us. And that was really where we as a band said, no more. And ever since, we basically self-managed with me leading the team.

Kind of an ugly story, huh, Jose, Tom? I understand totally what Marty's saying is absolutely right. As I said before, someone has to be in charge to make the tough decisions and to do what's necessary to keep the band moving forward other than just showing up and playing. And when it's time for a break to go sit down in a corner, there's just more to do than that.

There's so much more to do to that. Not just in the music, but promotion, blah, blah, blah, mailing list, ta-da, ta-da, pick one, merchandising, all the, it's a business, that's the thing. It's a business.

And I don't believe a lot of musicians, although they know it is a business, don't act so much like it is a business when they have to be keeping in the back of their mind that it is a business. And you don't always get a deli train and a dressing room at these gigs. So you just gotta be ready to be flexible enough to respond to any situation that comes up in order to make the show successful and entertaining.

And I think that it just doesn't, it just doesn't happen. Fires don't go up in clubs or promotions don't happen at the festivals or concerts in the park. It has to be done, it has to be done.

So Wayne, if you leave that up to the venue, 90 times out of 10, it's not gonna get done. So it's upon someone in the band to do that, sad to say, but it is what it is. And if you want it done, it has to be done.

If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it yourself or else it isn't gonna get done. And in some cases, not every case, but in some cases you can't rely on your band mates to do that for you. Sad to say.

I've got a question. After spending 28 years in the fire service and like working my way up the ranks, how do you separate your friendship with the rest of the guys and being a manager? Well, I can tell you what I do. You try to be friends and you are friends, no doubt about it.

But I think that you also gotta know where to draw the line. And owning another business as I do with employees, you have, again, being able to draw that line, but also be sympathetic and not sympathetic, but also understanding where they're coming from. With any decision that's made with the band, I have the final decision, but I do ask for input from the other guys to get their take on it, what they think, what they wanna do.

If this is a good thing for them, if you think it's a good thing, you don't think it's a good thing, if they don't, I tell them why I think it's a good thing for the band, why I think it helps us move forward, why it helps us make us be more successful than what we are. And quite frankly, what we're all up against, getting the name out and getting the promotion going so we can get butts in the seats. That's what it's about.

It's sad to say, because again, go back to being a business, although great musicians, we have great musicians in each one of our bands. Unfortunately, it's how many butts you put in the seats as opposed to the musicianship sometimes. How about dual managers? How about somebody, two guys in the band taking care of business? Well, I can say that in Cadillac Groove, we do that on some level.

Scott Evans, I rely an enormous amount on Scott Evans to kind of be the musical director, effectively. I mean, he's kind of my field general. When we're playing, he's in charge of that stage.

He's in charge of what's going on, he's in charge of, he's the go-to. If the club owner wants to bitch because the band's too loud, or if people are coming up to turn in requests, whatever it is, he's kind of the go-to guy. I mean, plus, I mean, obviously, sitting behind the drums, it's pretty hard to be the guy that's gonna be that guy.

But there's something to be said for making the drummer the leader of the band, I think, you know, that, I mean, they're the smartest guys in the band, typically. Absolutely, absolutely on that, Tom. I agree with you, absolutely.

Why did I know that was coming? I knew that was coming. Well, I'm a percussionist, so I guess that counts somewhat. Yeah, yeah.

So you get a little, you get a half point for that. Also, you get into that a little bit. You barely get in by being a percussionist.

You know, that's good. He's beating on something. Tom, what you said, what you said is really more or less like delegating authority.

Maybe some guy takes care of, one guy's a music director, maybe another guy takes care of T-shirts or something, but you're still the leader. I mean, you would be considered a leader of the band. Oh, no, absolutely, absolutely.

I, you know, I depend on him for a lot of things, and he certainly is my sounding board, and we do an awful lot of discussion as far as where we're headed, or does this make sense, or we know if we're talking about direction issues, or, you know, music, or whatever it is. But yeah, in the end of the day, you know, it's my decision. It's, you know, it's my name on the bottom line, you know, and I'm the one that's actually gonna answer for it at some point.

That's true. Now, the thing about us, what we do as well is that I also have, as Tom said, he delegates some of that work. I do do that as well, don't get me wrong.

I have Slow Mo, he's in charge of setting up our PA, doing the sound, making sure the sound is right on stage, and Paul Townsend, our drummer, also helps in that capacity with Bob to get that done. So there is some of that team spirit going on, and some of that delegation, it does happen. Yeah, I mean, at M&R Rush, it's like it says, we have, everybody has what they're supposed to do.

Like, for example, you know, with us, is John McFarland kind of takes the lead on a musical director. Paul is in charge of the crew and equipment, and keeping that under control. You got Carl, who does a lot of, used to do a lot of the marketing things back when we were living off the band.

And you have, you know, Jeff, that has the production in the studio when we record. And then you got Roger, who is as solid as a rock, that he keeps us all, and we all get passionate about our decision making. Roger comes in and says, well, let's think about this again.

You know, so everybody's got their role. And that's the only way it gets done. But the bottom line is, and I kid about this all the time, is there is a democracy up to a certain point, but then when the hard decisions have to be made, I get two, three, four votes, you know, in that democracy over everybody.

So, but that's the only way it will work. And again, it is a business, you know. The way that we're put together is we're not a bunch of jobbers, you know, just coming in, you know, plugging in and playing and leaving.

Everybody has ownership in the business, has a role in the business. And we believe it's, you know, what makes us whatever you want to call successful. And also, you know, what's nice is we are business friends.

Friendship brought us in the band to begin with in music, but all through the years, it's the business and the leadership that's kept us together. Because we're just like a marriage. It's not perfect.

You have to have those nasty conversations once in a while when some people, you know, just go off the rails a little bit, but it's up to, in my opinion, up to the leader to pull it back together, so. And when it comes to choosing songs, do you guys have your input there or do you leave that up to the rest of the guys in the band? It is something that basically everybody brings what they want to do, but it's my call whether or not it actually gets added to the list. Because I feel that that's one of the most important pieces that the leader of the band has to kind of maintain.

And that is the general vibe of the band or the general kind of image or the general sound of the band, you know? And the only way you can do that is have one person kind of in control of what that playlist looks like. Yeah, and M&R Rush, you know, it's kind of, it's evolved. Now, you know, where we're at in with our musical careers is we do about 10, 12 shows a year.

That's all that we elect to play. And in there is that there's a lot of input of what we play from everybody. The formula is we do about, you know, 50% original and 50% a copy.

And everybody has input on that. And which is always a challenge, right? We start out the year. Okay, everybody submit what they want to do off our albums and or off other people's albums.

So you got six guys, you come in with 60 copy tunes that they want to do. And then you whittle it down to about, you know, doing about eight of them. And it's always fun to have those kind of, not heated discussions, but intellectual discussions on how it fits, you know, is it right for us? Are we doing it well? I mean, as you guys know, sometimes, you know, you want to play a tune, right? And it just doesn't come off right, right? So, you know, that goes into it.

But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, I'm the one that's, hey, Paul, what do you think of this? Do we really want to do this? Hey, John, what do you think? And it takes a lot of time. And then we come up with the right decision. We do with the Moses pretty much, everybody has input as songs what we'd like to have played.

However, I have the final decision. And to echo what Marty was saying, we also mow it up as we like to say, it isn't going to sound so much, I try to make it sound so much as a record doing our cover tunes. But we try to mow it up where it sets itself apart and gives it a little bit of its own life, if you will, through how we do it.

But also more important so is the flow of the show going to what Tom had mentioned. The fact of where that song lies within the set of tunes that you're doing, not to kill the vibe that you have already established and built up. You don't want to come up and have the people going ape on the dance floor.

And then all of a sudden you pull out a ballad or something that's wacky, that just kills the vibe. It's just a kiss of death. And yet I'll have, I'm old now and then, they'll look at me and whisper a song to me in the middle of one or during a lead or whatever.

And I'll go with it sometimes, sometimes I won't based on what the room is. And then as the leaders of the band and the front guy, I try, I'm always trying to read the crowd, read the room to see where that vibe is at at that time. So you don't, again, you don't want to kill the vibe that you got going.

You've worked so hard to get there. You don't want to knock it out, but it's a fine line. But we also try to focus on other songs that not so many other bands are playing as well.

And even if we mow up some that some are playing, we try to make it different enough where it doesn't sound so much the same. But- Do you play without a set list? No, we use a set list. I have a set list for everything.

I have it numbered. So I even call out a number. They can reference a chart number if I think we have to go to that chart.

What about you, Tim? We always kind of say that we have a suggestion list. And, you know, as you guys both know, Paul and Ray have certainly been out to enough shows to know that you got to kind of keep your head on a swivel a little bit at a Cadillac groove show. Because even you may start out playing, I'm a man.

And before you know it, you're in the middle of funky town or something, you know? So it's kind of, I mean, being that we're a completely cover band, we don't do any original stuff, you know, it's up to Mike, our lead, our front guy, and Scott to kind of read the crowd and kind of pick where we're headed. And it's oftentimes, the first set's pretty standard. We stick pretty rigidly to the first set.

After the first set, it's a crapshoot where it's going to go. Is that because the alcohol kicks in there, Tom? Or is that- It has been known to affect some things. As well as when 25 or six to four has to go in the beginning of the set, because otherwise there's no way he's hitting those notes.

In the M&R Rush Camp, you know, we do have a set list, but what we do is we'll do audibles, you know, us all being sports jockeys and stuff, you know, guys that turn around to me and say, what if, what if, and then it's up to me to call the audible. But, you know, that happens every once in a while, too, just because of the feel of what's going on in the situation, right? Tell us a little bit about the way you book shows or your negotiating skills, your negotiating tactics, as you might say, for negotiating contracts and booking shows. So our strategy, like it says, is, you know, now when we came back together 17 years ago, we decided we were only gonna play so many shows.

And we kind of wanted to make sure that the shows were the right for us, you know, with certain things being available. And so we came out with, hey, let's try to do two theaters a year, you know, small theaters, you know, two to 400 seat theaters, let's do festivals, and then we'll do one or two clubs. So we kind of stuck to that formula.

But when you do that, it limits you a little bit of getting your schedule together. We throw that also in the booking part of it is, we, the bass player Roger lives, you know, in Indianapolis, which is two and a half hours away. So he's put a request, okay, that we wanna play just Saturdays, not Fridays, not Sundays, not Thursdays.

So that goes, as Jose and Tom know, goes into the equation of making it harder. And then the bottom line is we try not to play places that are too close to each other every other week, so that we can, you know, get as many people coming out to our shows as possible. As everybody knows, that is not an easy task anymore, the last 10 years of getting people to go and see live entertainment.

And God knows how it's gonna change, you know, with this virus thing, you know, it's gonna take a while. So that all goes into the thought process of booking the band. And that's always been there.

I mean, when we first started out, I booked the band back when there was, you know, lots of booking agents in Chicagoland and the Midwest. And we never wanted to give up that 10, 15% percentage to book the band. So I did that, and I've done that the whole time, so.

Jose? We're a little different than that, obviously. We work a lot. We've always worked a lot.

We were doing 100 shows a year for, gosh, 25, 26 years, until I backed it down to 70, 80 last few years. And quite frankly, I take my hat off to Tom and his band, Cadillac Groove. Tom's a, he's taken that title, I've never had one, I don't think I've ever had one, but I was told that we work a lot, a lot of times.

But I think Tom has just done a miraculous job with his band and booking his band as much as he does. But we try to do pretty much the same thing. We try to not to do it too close together to other venues.

We play a lot of clubs as well, still, along with the concerts in the park, the festivals, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't do a lot of weddings, but we do have several, and usually there was a mohead getting married, and they insist on having us there, and so it works that way. But, you know, it's just, and it's other side of that, is that I have three guys within the Mohs that rely on us for income.

And so I take that very seriously too. So sometimes it can make you, cause you to make maybe a decision you kind of probably would have regretted later, but you had to do it, I did it because I knew they needed the dough. So the starving musician is a starving musician still today.

Okay, and that's why they tell you, don't quit your day job, right? So it can be difficult, and it's a fine line that you walk. What you gotta qualify, you gotta pick and choose your venues, but anymore, as Marty indicated, that a lot of people don't come out, or they do and they don't come out. The cover charges, the reduction of cover charges has made it somewhat of a different to many of the venues, but, and not to mention, the crowd's getting older, man.

That's the other thing. You know, they say, well, we used to start, I remember starting at 12 o'clock, you know, sometime doing a show, when we were headlining. And you used to do a 10 o'clock, 10.30, 11.30 shows.

You guys remember those. It's just, you know, but now if you say even nine o'clock, oh my God, that's so late. And of course, I have a response, a smart ass response to that is, well, don't go to bed at 7.30 at night, and get up at three in the morning then, okay? And they go, oh, yeah, that's funny, Jose.

But it's, I make it as a joke, but it's very true. So we have, as bands, as local bands that we are, the hard part is just having a venue each and every weekend, if, in fact, that's what you're trying to do. We try to do that.

So, but with that said, you know, we're in our 33rd, 34th, 33rd year now together with us, and we're not getting any younger either. But I gotta tell you, since this layoff, I'm going crazy. I gotta get out there again, because I was thinking we were playing too much, but now I'm thinking I'm not playing enough, and so there you are, you know.

But we gotta be careful, we are careful about it, but we also don't want to turn away something if we know there's a long-term benefit down the road for it. How do you deal with, how do you deal with the club owner or the promoter who says, well, you know, the crowd wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. You guys didn't bring enough crowd, or, you know, I'm gonna have to short you 500 bucks.

Well, that's never happened, because I throw them with bodily harm, okay? And guys have phoned me off people before because of that. Not that it's happened a lot, but it has happened. The place, first thing, in checking a venue, we try to pick venues that don't solely rely on the band for a draw.

If they're solely relying on the band for a draw, we'll take a pass every time. And if they have some, I know we're in trouble when I get there first, because I'm always there first. When I get there and the people that work there say, hey, we're so glad you guys are here.

We hope you have a god people coming. When they say they hope a lot of people coming, I know we're in trouble. And my response is, well, mine are coming, are yours? Okay, and then I look to see how well they promoted the gig, how many they promoted the date.

You know, you gotta do more than just do Facebook and put it up on a real small marquee and then spell your name wrong at the same time. You know, you can't do that. And it's happened more times than I care to think about.

So, you know, I look for places that have somewhat of a following as well, and is willing to do what it takes to promote. One of my famous Hosea-isms is, why does Coke advertise? Why does Budweiser advertise? Because they have to and so should you, okay? So, and that's the biggest hurdle I think bands have to get over that play clubs are the fact, and lounges is the fact that the venue just doesn't promote at all. They solely rely on the band.

I mean, Tom, you can probably weigh in on that too, no? Oh yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I mean, we have a tough time oftentimes because we got such a big band. I mean, there's 10 of us now in the band and that's a lot of mouths to feed, you know? And, you know, and occasionally, you know, I have had, you know, club owners wanna short us.

We haven't really had to do it yet. You know, I think there was, there's been a, maybe there's been one or two along the way. I can't come up with too many.

You know, typically we just don't end up back there. You know, it's certainly possible that it's not a Cadillac groove room, you know, that we have a certain vibe and we draw a certain crowd and some places we don't do well at. And I think it's because, you know, our following is that 30 to 50 crowd that, you know, doesn't want their feet to stick to the floor in the bathroom.

You know, they don't wanna, you know, they're not looking for quarter beer night. You know, they're looking for good beer, good food, you know, and at a starting time before 10 o'clock at night, you know? And so we can find those kinds of places. Unfortunately, live music is in a situation to where a lot of places just aren't having live music anymore.

And, you know, so you either got, you know, really big places that I can't fill. You know, I can't put going to Joe's on Weed Street or something like that and put enough people in the place to make that work. But the small clubs that have bands, I can't do it.

They can send everybody home with alcohol poisoning and not have enough to pay a 10 piece band, you know? So, yeah, it becomes tough. It becomes tough. Well, what's interesting hearing you guys talk and it's, I got a couple of stories.

The reason why that when we came back, and again, it has to do with who, what age we are, like Jose said, and, you know, clubs themselves are hurting. Like Tom said, some clubs, you know, wanna have bands, but they rely on you to bring everybody in. I mean, those are all the reasons why we regrouped here 17 years ago.

We said, we definitely don't wanna play a lot of shows and we don't wanna play bars because it's just, it's a tough racket, you know? And it's no one's fault. It's not the band's fault, not the club owner's fault. So we elected, you know, not to do a lot of shows, you know, 10 to 12 shows and not really play a lot of clubs, okay? But when we were living off it back in the day, when we were doing 250 shows a year, we would play anywhere that, you know, that had a stage.

We would set up, right? And the one story that I have about a club owner and being challenged, we were in Iowa. We were supposed to play, look at Paul's laughing already. Burlington, Iowa.

Burlington, Iowa. And put it in perspective, the, in front of this place was a strip joint, just so you know. And we were playing in the club behind.

Real nice club, real good production, great stage. And again, this is back in, I don't know, 1970s. Did you make John dance? Did you make John dance there or what? Yeah, there you go, there you go.

And so we were supposed to, it was funny, I remember this like yesterday. We were supposed to make $1,200 a night, two nights. So for $2,400, we were supposed to play three 60 minute sets, okay? And when we, you know, we got there, the crew got there, we had a sound check, we're all excited, you know.

Beautiful club, beautiful club. And the guy says, hey, I hope you bring some people here. You know, that was like Jose said, the first, oh my goodness, you know.

Yes, a death. All right, so we're supposed to go on, I think we were supposed to go on at about 9.30 and play in three 60s, right? With a half hour off. It's 9.15, we're in the dressing room.

We look out, there's two people there. Two, two people, all right? So I give the old Gipper speech, right? All right, guys, you know, this is, you know, this happens to everybody. This happens to all the big guys, you know.

We gotta go out and be professional and play our show. So we played 60 minute set. There was two people there.

We didn't lose the two people, right? We go in and do the next set, two people there. We go in and do the last set, two people there. So we didn't lose the crowd, right? So now it's like, okay, it's time to get paid.

And this was a real progressive club back then. Paul, I don't know if you remember this, it had like nine or 10 TVs in it, right? It was like, whoa. So I go get paid and the guy says, hey, I'll pay you tomorrow.

And I'm like, no, you gotta pay us tonight. You know, we're all sleeping in two Motel 6 hotels. You know, we need money.

We had to give, I had to give everybody their $7 per diem for being on the road, you know. And so the bottom line is he wasn't gonna pay us. And cut it short, is I had to threaten him with the crew that we would bust or rob every, or take every TV in the place for our pay, okay? And it ended up that he ended up giving the money to us that night and then we ended up pulling out.

But anyway, that was a nightmare. When I hear of a club that doesn't understand what it's all about, not to advertise, not to have their own draw, and then hope that the band brings it in. That's, you know, that was back in the 70s and it's still in 2020, the same.

Oh, yeah. I remember that story, Marty. But the, I remember at the end of the night, he did pass, we went to our hotel room and we asked if we could, he expected us to play the next night.

And he asked us if we could come, we asked if we could come in during the day tomorrow, on Saturday, the next day, and rehearse a little bit. And he said, sure, he said, I'll have a janitor here, just come and let him know that you're coming in and you guys can rehearse. Well, because the club didn't open till four o'clock in the afternoon or five o'clock in the afternoon or something.

So we went in at nine in the morning, we packed up all our gear, loaded the truck, and we were halfway back to Chicago before I'm sure he ever realized that we were gone. You know? You paid by cash or check? Oh, cash. Definitely cash.

Those two people were drinkers. Hey, the bottom line, Tom and Jose, we didn't lose those, that big crowd of two. You kept them, buddy, you kept them.

You did your job. You always, it's good to keep your audiences riveted. So that's funny.

Good story, good story. So when it comes to communication with your bands, I know you guys talked about, you know, having different guys do different things and trying to keep in touch with everybody, keep everybody in the loop, but what about dealing with some egos? We don't have any egos in the Cadillac room, which is kind of nice. Yeah, you're afraid the guys are gonna hear this, right? I don't think it's too much egos with the, it's not ego with the Moe's.

It's just, again, somebody having to pull rank and being the boss and making a hard call, man. That's what it comes down to. Now, if someone's being a jerk or something, I'll check you in a minute.

Okay, I have no problem doing, and the guys will tell you that. In fact, sometimes I may have even gone over a board on that a couple of times over the years. But with that said, they usually tell me to calm down, Sarge.

That's what they tell me when they do that. But I said, I got Sarge, when Sarge has his foot up your ass, okay? He's doing what I'm asking him to do. I'm doing it for a reason, okay? Not doing it to pick on you.

I'm doing this for a reason. It's a decision made for a reason. Everything I'm asking you to do within this band is for the reason and for the best interest of the band, not Jose, the band.

When I expect you to go on handout flyers after the first, within the first break and not go and sit in the corner or go to the bar and have a drink, when I am asking them to do that, there's a reason to go and thank these people for coming, give them a flyer, talk about the next date. You're being personable. You're not being an ego maniac.

You're not being that jobber musician that wants to come in and just come in, plug in, play and leave. You know, you're part of the group. It's a team sport in that respect.

So how do you guys network? With other bands or with? I hate other bands. I just don't like them. Or network with different agents or? Oh, don't go.

You know what? We can't go there, Paul. We can't go there. We won't work anymore.

Go ahead. No, I think the thing I've had in my experience and speaking with Marty and Tom here as well and, you know, Terry Canning and Jeff from Strung Out, you know, we've been able to put a couple of good shows together with the three bands, with M.R. Rush, The Noodles, The Moes, Cadillac Groove, Strung Out, The Moes. I mean, we have good, I like to think a good working and friendship relationship going on.

And it's a lot of fun when we do that, man. I have a blast and the time just flies by. I don't think we can do that enough.

And unfortunately, and maybe sad to say, I will see that may be the road we may have to continue to go down the road based on what's going on in the industry. You know, putting together rock shows, so to speak, at venues that can hold the rock show and also put butts in the seats and also painting musician what they're worth as far as what they're trying to do and what they're trying to perform on stage. I don't know if that is going to go that way, but it's kind of seems like that sometimes.

Or else why would all these other national acts be doing the same thing? Yeah, I know. I think you're right on something there, Jose. I mean, it's all relevant, right? I mean, let's face it.

It used to be where the bands that we admired, right? You know, and classic rock bands used to go out and sell tickets to 15,000 people to come see them. You know, they sold 25 million records and here they are, you know, 30, 40 years later, you know, they're the same people. They're playing just as well.

Maybe a lot of them are playing better than they used to in the day and they can't sell 15,000 seats by themselves. You know, it's more like 3,000, 3,500, and even that's tough. So now you have, you know, people coming together, right, on a national level.

Let's say, you know, let's say Styx, REO, and someone else playing a show, Survivor or something, right? And playing halls that are trying to sell 6,000 seats, right? I think it's all relevant, you know, with a local and a regional scene is that, you know, yes, you know, with this latest event of what's happened in the world, I mean, it's changing and it's rocking the whole world in business and the entertainment world. So as we sit here today, you know, talking, we don't know what's gonna happen locally, right? I mean, you know, some great venues, right? Like CD and Me, right? That you can get 1,200, 1,500 people there, you know, and bands do that by themselves. I don't know, will that happen again? So it might be where, you know, we'll have to come together and like three of us do a show to get that venue filled, right? And to like kind of pay enough so that you can, you know, you can pay, you know, the gas money that we all earn by playing music, right? So that's very interesting how you say that.

And it's quite scary, to be honest. I believe it's gonna come back, but when and how, who knows, right? I don't know. I think that the other thing about that, and you hit it on the head there too, Marty, was the fact like a CD and Me or pick one of those kinds of places, they have the One Band of Jaws, all those people there, those are 20 somethings too, okay? And they start later at that, like I talk about that later hour, that what we start at, even when we were at CD and Me, we started early and we had to and it worked out, it was great.

So you gotta take all those into equation and take that and try to come up with the formula that works based on time, your demographic, who you're trying to get, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and also the right mix of music to go with that venue. You gotta sell the package of the music, hence the Legend Show, hence the South Side Rock and Soul Review Show. It's gotta have a theme, it's gotta do, you gotta sell the sizzle just as much as the band, as the venue, as everything else you gotta do.

Again, why does Coke advertise? Why does Budweiser advertise? We have to do the same thing. And I don't think you guys do that enough. The working bands do it, but the non-working bands don't do it.

I mean, Marty, you and Tom both, I'm sure, have people coming up to you all the time saying, oh gee, Jose, can you guys book us too? You know, that kind of thing. You know, you guys, do you know everybody? You got, well, I work for those connections. I did my duty, you know? You gotta do the duty, you gotta pay your dues.

So, you know, but I do believe that the package and the wrapper, how it looks moving forward is gonna mean everything as we get out of this crisis. Well, I'm gonna tell you something, Jose. I mean, you said something and I'll let you know.

I guess it's time to announce it here. I'm retiring from my day job that I had to get. I didn't make any money and had to work for 30-something years at it.

And then I'm gonna start a production company called Marto's 7 Productions and I'm gonna start managing bands and booking bands. How about that? I like it. Just kidding, Jose.

I mean, but you never know, do you? Man, hey, we're in this all together, man, you know? We're all in this together, I think. And I think we can get through this. I just think that we just gotta be ever, you know, use good judgment and think of it as a business moving forward and how we promote ourselves and our bands at these different venues if there are any venues left to do that at when it's all done.

You know, a lot of the summer stuff, Tom's had stuff canceled, I've had stuff canceled, Marty, you've had summer events and concerts in the park and such been canceled. So, and then there's talk that they're not even coming back till 2022 in some cases. I think that's a little long.

I think it's a stretch, but you know, you can't believe what you read in the media or on Facebook, obviously. But I think that it does cause concern and you have to be conscious of it, I believe. So how do we overcome that? You know, that's the thing.

And I think a discussion like this, having you guys on and doing what you guys doing to the podcast, it helps that, it's gonna help other bands that are out there listening to this. Well, you guys definitely don't need to start a podcast. We've got that covered.

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Doing a good job, Ray and Paul on that too.

We really appreciate it too. You and Paul do a hell of a job. So thank you.

I got one more question. What about merchandising? I know, Tom, you guys have got everything from stickers to T-shirts to everything else. And I know I'm gonna rush this too.

You got wristbands and just about everything else. How much do you feel that that really helps? I'd actually, we have done kind of a roundabout thing with that. We started out, we thought we were gonna be selling a ton of merch.

And in all honesty, we sell very little. We don't push it, we don't have a person. I mean, I don't have a horse in a stable that I can go sit at a table someplace and say, here, you're the merch person and sell stuff.

We end up for the most part, giving an awful lot of that stuff just away. It just becomes ways for me to get Cadillac Groove out there more places. And so, I mean, we do sell some T-shirts, but everything else we come up with, whatever it is, it's really about just giving people something that they're going home with, because I'm hoping that they come back and that they'll bring their friends, right? That's my whole game.

And so anything I can give them that they're gonna take home, that maybe they think about Cadillac Groove next time they're looking to go out near live music, that's really all I'm doing with it. Yeah, I think that, I gotta tell you, I think that Tom and Marty both do a very wonderful job when they're merging, merchandising. They have, like I said, a lot of stuff.

Marty's fortunate enough to have a staff with him that he works with that has the sales, that has a table set up that does sell the merch. And I envy that. I would love to have something like that.

The most have T-shirts, the most have- I'll put a plug in for it. You can put a plug in for my wife there. All right, thank you.

My wife, Kim, does a lot of that. Paul, I appreciate that very much. Hey, Jose, we pay her real well.

I think it's like, he pays us $10 an hour to do it, I think. Oh, wow, wow. That's something.

Well, you know what I think? And to echo what Tom said, I think I'd given away more shirts, more hats, more koozies. We even had ice scrapers that we gave away, okay? Fly swatters, if one needed, okay? Most fly swatters. We gave so much of that stuff away, it wasn't funny.

And it's all about getting the name out there, hoping they'll come back to see it like Tom had indicated. But it's a necessary evil to have those. You have to have that stuff.

And of course, you guys know as well as I do, it's free advertising, remember that. No, I know that we are personally responsible for an awful lot of beads hanging from rear view mirrors. So... Yes, you are.

I saw that. That was a great stroke of genius. Your Mardi Gras thing was very, very smart on your part.

I agree with that. You guys do a great job. Both you and Mardi do a fantastic job on your merchandising.

I wish, I hope I can get to be like that someday. Well, Tom, I know your idea of selling, giving away the band was, I thought, an ingenious idea. I don't know who came up with that.

That was actually our Barry player, Kevin Gothard. That was his idea. He said, wouldn't it be cool if we held a raffle and they could win us, you know? And he was in a band before that did it.

They just sold tickets for a buck and see what would happen. It was just kind of a goofy thing they did. He said it worked out pretty good.

And then we decided that we would like to do it, but be able to raise some money for a good charity. And so that's how we came up with the 100 Club of Chicago, which is just an amazing organization that comes alongside families of fallen first responders. And I mean, they are a fabulous organization and we'll probably be partnering with them for a lot of things.

And that's who got all the money, you know? So, but yeah, that was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it. I guess next summer, I will be playing a graduation party for the woman that won the band and we're probably gonna raffle off the band again, you know? And who knows, maybe we're just gonna go and do yard work for somebody someplace.

Or something. I don't know what the hell will happen. Great idea, Tom.

We'll mow your lawn. We'll mow your lawn. That is good.

And we'll sing while we mow. Yeah, you know, and maybe do something like, you know, first prize is the Cadillac Groove, second prize is two Cadillac Groove shows. Oh, wow.

Wow. That was a very cool idea that you guys had. And what you did, you raised some money.

You raised some good money though for the 100 Club of Chicago, I take it? Yep. Yeah, we did. We did really well for them.

Speaking of that, how has social media helped you guys in this whole process of managing a band? It's everything for us. I kind of suck at it though. I'd like to say that, you know, I do good with the Facebook stuff, but when it comes to the Twitter, Instagram and everything else, you know, our website's great.

You know, Scott Evans put that together for us and did an awesome job. And I'm pretty happy with our Facebook stuff, but I really don't know how to maximize the other avenues. And I would love somebody to kind of come alongside me and give me some guidance on that because I don't know how to do a lot of that.

And what is your website and where you at on Facebook and what have you? Yeah, CadillacGroove.com is our website and Facebook slash Cadillac Groove. So we're easy to find. It's like getting gunk stuck to your shoe.

You can find us easy, but it's hard to get rid of. Jose, how about you? No, well, you can find us at FiveGuysNameO.com and you got to spell the word five out. You'd be amazed how many people think we're the hamburger place.

It's unbelievable. But yeah, you got to spell it with a five and then O is with an E, not just the O. We have two Facebook sites. I'm pretty much like Tom and we don't do much on Twitter or Instagram or any of that.

But and also we had, I asked the guys that always carry flyers on them to hand to perfect strangers when they run into them and you talk to them. I mean, if you're not have a flyer in your pocket, you're fine. Okay, so fine.

So it's, it works out, but I'm kind of like Tom, very limited in my abilities on the internet and with creativity, even graphic design and all that jazz. I had my beautiful wife helped me as much as possible and or a couple of other people that helped me. Roman's helped me out quite a bit with some of our stuff, but it's super important.

You can't do enough of it in my opinion. It's like, it's part of promotion. You can't have enough.

Marty? Yeah, with that MNRRush.com with two Rs, M-A-N-D-R-R-U-S-H.com. And Facebook is just spelled out MNRRush. And what we have is, we have a big staff that works on that. We pay lots of money.

It's amazing. And that guy is your partner in Rock and Roll Chicago. We, I think we have him on retainer, I think for about $200,000 a year.

Oh, yeah. Our website and Facebook stuff, you know, so I appreciate that, Ray. Now with everything going on in the economy, I was wondering if you'd take a, maybe a hundred percent cut in pay to get us through these troubled times, right? I'll see what I can do.

I'll see what I can do. Publicly, I do want to thank, you know, Ray does a lot of that for us and really appreciate it, Ray. Thank you so much.

So you guys, yeah, you're also on Twitter and Instagram. MNRRush band, yes. And so where are you guys going to be playing pretty soon? Oh, wait, nowhere.

Only in reruns on Facebook with the videos that I've been posting. Yeah, I can give you a list of our most currently canceled shows. There you go.

Tom, have you got that list in your back pocket? You keep saying it. Hell yeah, I do. Right there.

There it is. There it is. All right.

Well, thank you. Hold it closer. I want to see it.

That's all companies trade secrets. Can't have that. Well, thanks guys.

We appreciate you joining us. And I think we've determined that having a band is basically having a small business, right? Yes, it is. Yep.

Very much so. Very much so. Thanks a lot, guys.

Hopefully we'll see you guys out and about really soon. Yeah, thank you, Ray. Thank you, Paul, Marty, Tom.

Great seeing you guys. Always good talking to you. You and Paul, Ray and Paul, great job on the podcast, man.

Thank you so much. It means a lot to us. Thank you so much.

Same here, everybody. And I hope everybody stays safe and healthy, man. And we'll get out of this thing.

God bless America. Okay, so there you go. There is some words of wisdom from three guys who have been doing it for a long time and know what the hell they're doing.

So if you're out there, if you're out there ready to start a band, hope you'll listen and take note of everything that they said. Yeah, that was really interesting. Real enlightening on what really it takes to run a band.

It's, you know, a lot of people think that the bands just get up there and just play and have fun, screw around. It's a business. It is actually a business.

It is, it is. It's a small business or a big business, depending on the size of your band and how much work you do. But just getting everybody in order, in line to rehearse and to be at shows and sound check and then to take care of all the finances and everything else that comes along with it is certainly a task at hand.

Yeah, plus dealing with all the BS that pops up once in a while too. Oh yeah, and there's plenty of that, I'm sure. Yeah, we heard all about that.

But yeah, I might have a couple of new bands that I can do some social marketing for. There you go. I may have found myself a job.

Well, you might need it with this COVID-19. Sticks around too much longer. Yeah, I can do it all from home.

That's right. As we both are, keeping socially distant. Alrighty, well, thanks for joining us, everybody.

And we will talk to you next week. See you next week. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.