Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How's it going today, Ray? I'm doing good. Oh, gee, what are you listening to? Uh, come on, come on, you're messing it up now.

What are you listening to? I did. I hit the wrong button. Hold on.

Holding, we're in a holding pattern here, people. Are we interviewing Peter, Paul and Mary or something today? No, we're actually leaving on a jet plane. Okay, I'll see you.

Have a safe trip. No, we're meeting with the band C-130. Oh, I get it.

I get it. See the tie-in? The airplane leaving, flying. Yeah, but I don't know.

C-130 is a cargo plane, unless you're packed in a box or something, a pine box, then you're going somewhere. It's a lot of stuff you can put in there. Yeah.

So yeah, we're meeting with Mike, Don and Ian from the band C-130. Yes. They've just recently gotten together.

They've got a gig coming up soon. March 14th in Tinley Park. In Tinley Park, Illinois.

But they're all seasoned veterans and have been playing around for quite some time. So let's get to them and see what they have to say if they're leaving on a jet plane. I don't know.

I hope they're not through the gate yet. Let's go. Let's do it.

Hey, we're at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in Joliet, Illinois. Joining us today is the C-130 band. We have Don Lang, the bass player, Ian Shaw, guitar player, and some guy named Mike Lorber.

What? Who's that? I've heard that name before. The vocalist of the band. How are you guys doing? Good.

We're good. Thanks. Great.

Yeah, it's good to be here. This place is impressive, man. Yes, it is.

It's massive. It's going to be great once it opens. We're actually having our first Hall of Fame induction on March 29th.

I saw that. Now who, there's four, REO, Cheap Trick. Yeah, REO, Cheap Trick, Ides of March, Larry Lou, Buddy Guy, Larry Lou Jack, Dick Biondi getting a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wow. Dick Biondi. The Thirsty Whale is being inducted as a venue.

Is that still around? No, it's gone. No, it's gone. Yeah.

It was in River Grove. Yeah. Wow.

River Road. Blast from the past. Definitely.

Definitely. So tell us about C-130. Where did this all come together? We are kind of, I guess the best way to describe it is kind of like a wayward house for orphaned band boys.

We are like all in different, Don and I were in Jack Daddy and the Traffic Jam and that kind of fell apart. And then Don and Ian had done this thing called the Rum Sunday and the Toucans. And then Brian, our drummer, was in the Sam Dandles band.

So it was like all these different bands. Don has a Flying Pig Sound studio out in Bartlett in the basement. And that's always been kind of like the jam space.

It's really the nucleus for the disease of music we make. Don's done this great thing and you can explain it more for years where he'll do like a Facebook invite with a bunch of musicians and say, Hey, let's just jam. And he'll get like five or six people together and everybody picks out two songs and you have like a month preparation.

And then you just kind of jam. So I think that's really where everything started, where we would just all jam together. And then it just got to the point where, you know, a bunch of us weren't in bands anymore.

And we're like, Hey, let's do our own band. So that's kind of where it's come from. Brian Fredericks is our drummer and his dad flew C-130 in the military.

So that's where the name comes from. Very cool. Very cool.

Coming up with a band name is not easy. No, not something that's catchy anyway. And everything's taken.

Yeah. The cool names are always taken. So we have a good friend that has what's his 500 mile rule.

So if you come up with a band name, if there's nothing near you, 500 miles. So I think the only other C-130 as a band is somewhere in Asia. And their last post we've ever seen is like 2009.

So we think we're okay. Years ago, I was with a bunch of guys who were putting a band together, couldn't come up with a name. There was a map on the board.

Somebody took a dart and threw it. It was a world map and it landed on some town in Canada called Treblock. We're like, That sounds good.

That sounds like a metal band actually. Yeah. So unless we go play Budokan or something, I think.

And if we're playing Budokan, I think we can probably make them an offer for the game. They won't refuse. Yeah.

Yeah. Then you arrive in a C-130. The first video there.

Get all your gear in there. You bring your own fans. Some things are so big, you can bring everybody with you.

So how long has the band been together? This, you know, we have played together, like I said, in Don's basement for years, but the actual band kind of reforming started in about September, October. We had the four of us and then, you know, we're all in our 50s and we kind of auditioned for a lead guitarist. And believe it or not, the lead guitarist ended up being 28 and works with Ian.

So and he's kind of an old soul, Matt Powell. And so we kind of got running with that. And we actually have our first gig at the station pub in Tinley Park on March 14th.

St. Patrick's Day gig with my sister is in a band. Her name is Betsy Condon called Harmonious Jones. Her and her friend do these amazing harmonies.

And Frank Anastos plays acoustic guitar. So they'll kind of do an acoustic set first, and then we'll do, you know, kind of the harder rock with the two guitars. Frank used to be with Midnight.

Yeah, he plays with John Folstrom. OK. Oh, OK.

Yeah. So so so you mentioned you playing you playing rock and roll, right? Or what kind of music? What's your genre that you your genre of choice, should I say? We're doing anything really from like 60s, maybe through 90s, maybe like Black Keys, maybe be about the newest stuff that we do. So we've got some of them.

We've got Goodbye Better Than Ezra. We've got Santa Monica and then a couple of Oasis tunes and then like Hard to Handle by the Black Crows, some Bowie and we do kind of a punk up version of the Monkey Song. Oh, yeah.

Nice. So, yeah, that's another thing we liked we'd like to do. And over the years is take a song like we do Stepping Stone and we really kind of put the pedal down on it, where it's almost like a metal slash punk version of it.

We did one with like All My Lovin' from the Beatles. Kind of me first in the Gimme Gimmes, a little bit of a punk twist. So it's it's rock and roll with maybe one toe in punk rock.

OK. We're still kind of we're still kind of figuring out exactly where we want to, what we're good at, what we all enjoy, kind of trying to keep everyone in the band happy to give everyone, you know. Yeah.

Well, you want to give it your own spin. You know, you don't want to sound like everybody else. But it's two guitars.

And that's that's kind of, you know, where I think the basis of the band is through the two guitars. And, you know, anything that you can run through the two guitars, we don't have keys now, so we're just kind of doing it that way. I think there's a band out there called Just Another Cover Band.

Probably. There's a few of them out there. Why were you considering that name at one time? Or I think it's taken.

I think one thing that's really cool is if all five of us in the group put together a list of our Desert Island albums, there might be one or two that show up on more than one list. But by and large, it's going to be five different lists. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like we just practiced last night and we've got about 16 songs now that we've put together since September and October.

And then we were saying after this gig, hey, everybody pick one more song you want to do and then we'll just add it that way. And so really, I mean, we've all got day jobs. They're teachers.

I'm the Sky Five helicopter guy, and we're kind of doing this. And obviously, we want it to sound as good as it can, but we want it to be fun. And I think that's what we've learned more and most over time.

You really need to enjoy this. This is kind of like, you know, our middle age indulgence, you know, habit that our wives let us do. And, you know, that type of thing.

So you really want to enjoy it. And that's, you know, that's priority one. The wives are getting rid of us.

Right. Realizing, OK, you're not going to be all carousing. You're going to be with a bunch of other losers in a basement playing rock and roll.

I know where you're at because I can hear you. It just gets expensive with the gear. That's the thing.

You got to, you know, appease them with another guitar. Yes. I need it, honey.

I need it. I always just like, I just point out the purses and the shoes. There you go.

So, yeah, it's a little different. But, you know, I get it. I get it.

My younger brother is into cars and has, I think, three or four sitting around his yard and garage and has all the tools. And I keep saying to my wife, hey, I have less money invested in my hobby than he doesn't his. And all of my guitars play.

That's right. That's right. And you're going to make a few bucks.

Right. Maybe not enough to pay for it. But if we make enough to pay for the bar tab, we're doing good.

There you go. So now you two are teachers, right? Any music teachers or no? No, I'm a I'm a middle school history teacher. So I teach the hormonally challenged.

So I've been doing that for 29 years. Good luck with that. And yeah, I'm a high school guidance counselor, actually.

And I do sponsor a guitar club. That's how Matt Powell and I started talking about guitars. I co-sponsor a guitar club.

And once a week, you get together with probably about 15 students that are regulars. And they just come and pick up some acoustic guitars and we sit around jam. It's fun.

Oh, really? Yeah, it's really cool. That's very cool. So you advise them to not go into the music business.

I actually I for about five years, I worked for my dad who had a small record label called Folk Era Records. He worked with stuff like the Kingston Trio and the Limelighters, Glenn Yarbrough. And I started volunteering with high school students at a program while I was working for my dad.

And I realized that the high school students were generally more organized and more mature than the professional musicians. And that was when I realized I was in the wrong field. Oh, yes.

So how many shows you got coming up now? We've got the Station Pub on March 14th. And then I mean, we live in the Northwest Burbs. I'm from the southwest side.

I grew up in like Monk Greenwood in Oak Lawn. So I've kind of got that connection. So that's why we're playing there.

We're playing Danny's on Douglas and Elgin. Elgin, sure. Yeah, that's kind of one of our home bases.

Don, for years, ran a really good open mic there on Tuesday nights, like one of the best, most organized open mics that, you know, for years and years, he did this thing where everybody would play, sign up 20, 30 minutes instead of like, you know, some guy up there for two hours and play with his friends and you're waiting. So Danny's is kind of a home base. Don also runs a charity called the FET for the Almost Home Foundation, and they have a guitars under the stars every year event there.

Other than that, those are the two we have right now. We are looking to play possibly up in Lake Geneva at a place called Papa's Spruce that my cousin happens to own right on Lake Como. Well, what about that? With the last band we played there last year.

Really cool. We're looking around there. I think we're trying to get this one or two under our belt and then, you know, kind of push things out for the summer.

Are you doing the bookings or is everybody? We, I think I've done one and Don's done one. It's kind of whoever has the connection, you know, I think we're and that's the cool thing about this band. I don't think we're, you know, nobody really cares who gets the booking and all that.

As long as they get it, right? Yeah, exactly. And of course, you know, because it's not our day job, we're thinking if we're playing about once a month, that's something that works for us and our families. And it's probably about as often as we can get our friends to come out and have a drink with us.

You know, it goes half the crowd is like people from other bands that, you know, you're friends with. So when your demographic is, you know, committed, obliged friends and family, especially when they're all ranging from, you know, 30 to their 50s, trying to get them to come out twice a month. That being said, we got a really good looking showing for the Tinley Park gig coming up.

Look, it's going to be very crowded. So that's what 14th, right? 14th. Correct.

And then April 4th at Danny's. And it'll be there. That one we're opening up for a band from the city that grew out of the old town school of folk music, the Blue Adapters.

Okay. So they're kind of an eclectic mix of 60s and 70s and some modern stuff. I think there are some St. Lawrence guy in that one, too, I want to say.

Really? Yeah. So it's quite a distance between the two. I mean, you're not working just this north side of the south side.

You're working all over it. So, but now being from the northwest suburbs and working at Tinley Park, you said you've got a good following down there? Well, yeah, my sister lives in Tinley Park. And because I grew up in Oklahoma, Mount Greenwood, and, you know, the majority of my family and friends are still down there.

Matt Powell, our guitarist, is from Makina, which is close. So, yeah, I mean, the majority of the people that I grew up with and knew, and while I'm still connected to a lot of people in the northwest suburbs, I've been up there since 2007. You know, that's kind of where I grew up.

So, you know, and a lot of people I've been keeping in touch with. So, yeah, I mean, we can definitely draw down there. We played there with Jack Daddy in the Traffic Jam a couple of times two years ago.

You know, drew really well. So, yeah, I'm in, you know, the numbers that we've got right now. Well, you know how it is.

You put the Facebook invite out and, you know, it says over 100 and something people are going. So if we get half of that, you know, for that room, that'll be fantastic. Yeah.

But if you're playing to five people and you're having fun. Oh, yeah, sure. That's good there, especially when you're getting paid.

Yeah, this is true. Said by Mike or Matt, our guitar player. He's got he's got family from the area, too.

So he's out there and he's actually at a house inspection. He's hoping to buy a new house. So good luck to him.

Shout out. So that's why he's not with us today. Oh, OK.

And our drummer's working his day job. And now you're going to have the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast advertised for you here. Yeah, this is fantastic.

Thanks for having us. I was so excited about about this museum in general. You know, I've been to the, you know, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

And, you know, you know, there's always a discussion of like, you know, the best bands and like the rich culture of Chicago music and who should be in it down the line. And, you know, I've heard a lot of people that were associated with it. Scott Childers, an old traffic buddy of mine, WLS historian is in on this.

So, yeah, we're really psyched about it. And we got Jim Peterick is on the advisory board. Bob Surratt.

Right. He's on the advisory board. Yeah, I've worked with Bob at Channel 5. So, yeah, they got some some heavy hitters back into place.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I can see this doing really, really well.

I mean, people are really into the history of music in Chicago and, you know, the old WLS and The Loop. And, you know, you talked about Dick Bionni and the connection to The Beatles back in the day. We do have our Cheap Trick songs in the sets.

Yeah, it's there. We love it. So tell us, let's start with you, Mike.

When did you start singing? When did this all come about? It's been kind of a family thing for me. So way back, my my father went to De La Salle and my mother went to Aquinas and how they met where they were the leads in a couple of high school musicals. Then they you know, when we were in Catholic school, they would sing in like the church and choir and all the time.

So constantly music around my house. My sister sings in a band and it's just something we've always had around. And I really I've always sung, but I've never really done it in a band until about, you know, seven years ago.

OK, so it's just something I've always wanted to do. I'd pick up sing with friends, open mic karaoke, things like that or just jam with people. But just got to the point now where, you know, this is something I really want to do.

And it's a fantastic hobby and enjoy it. So it's been through our family, really, is what I would say as far as me, you know, getting into music and singing. Does anyone in your family play a musical instrument? Not too much.

Oddly enough, my sister played a little piano, but my mother still my mother is in her early 80s and can still sing her ass off. Mike, you play tambourine in the band. I play bad tambourine.

We just bought him for his birthday last month. His first real tambourine. And it's loud.

So now he's got to play it in time because you can hear it. His goal is to be the Neil Peart of tambourine. They're giving me how we're doing.

Should I stay or should I go by the Clash? And there's, you know, should I stay or should I? You got to do the double time tambourine. I'm going to sing it. May advance the count bell at some point.

We have a very unrealistic expectation. If you could do it in time now that we can hear the tambourine, it'd be a good idea. Matt just mentioned Mississippi Queen the other day.

And I was like, yeah, I'm going to bust out the cowbell. If Don, our producer says more cowbell, we get more cowbell. I know I ran sound for quite a while and and I have seen bands hand out tambourines.

And I go, oh, no. Oh, oh, no. If he gets shirt up, there's some girl who's like way off time, you know, and it throws everything off.

She's the loudest one, too. We just make some live recordings like that. And we use it in sex ed class to demonstrate why the rhythm method is not an effective.

So where'd you get your start in playing? Well, definitely my dad. He, like I mentioned earlier, is a huge fan of the Kingston Trio. And they say you own a recording studio, record label, record label.

Yeah, he for a while wrote a newsletter about the Kings and Trio. And then at some point somebody said, hey, any chance you might be able to like do a mail order catalog of some of this stuff so it's easier to find? Because this is the early 80s when he was starting it. And Kingston Trio records were not in the record store unless you got a used bin.

But they were still releasing stuff. So dad put together a mail order catalog and then got in touch with Capitol Records and went to the vaults and found a few Kingston Trio things had never been released. And as soon as he put that out, somebody got Kingston Trio.

What about the line riders? What about Glenn Yarbrough? And it kind of grew from there. He also played guitar. He has this gorgeous old Martin guitar and a Guild 12 string and a banjo.

And when I was 14, 15, I was actually really getting into heavy metal. And dad and I said, I want to learn to play guitar. I want to rock out.

You know, you missed the devil horns because it's a podcast. But whenever I say you want to rock out, you got to make the horns up. Anyway, and dad said, you know, it's the same thing.

It's chords or chords. Learn on my acoustics. And then if you want to go shopping for an electric guitar, I'm good with that.

I'll support that. OK, dad. And then the week I turned 16, at the start of the week, I went to a Metallica concert.

At the end of the week, I went to see Bob Dylan with Steve Earle opening. And that was just a head turn for me about like genre music. Dad took me to.

Yeah, that's from one extreme of the other. Yeah, it really was. Really was.

And he took me to see Jon Stewart, who had been in the Kingston trio and then wrote Daydream Believer and had a hit with Gold and like 79. I'm doing stuff with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. And Jon is this great finger style player, great songwriter.

And that that was really delightful. More like, OK, now I get it. I want to learn to play guitar.

And I started really working at it. And it kind of grew from there to different bands and connecting with Don at his school. And and now I have more guitars than I have fingers.

And that's the way it's supposed to be. Yeah. Every time you see one, got to buy it.

You got to at least play it to hear what it sounds like and how it feels and how it feels. And I really think that I justify buying different guitars because different guitars make you play differently and it gives you a different feel. And it just keeps it fresh and exciting.

Yeah. And guess what? It's your turn, Dan. Hello.

I'm an old trumpet French horn player from back in the high school days out Mount Prospect, Prospect Marching Knights, marching band nerd. Then I hung it all up for years and years. And then about 10 years ago, my my family member started up.

Oh, he plays. Rob Lane plays acoustic guitar and started up a band called Liverpool Acoustic. So he started playing Beatles music out.

And my nephew is playing guitar with them. And then they needed they didn't have a bass player. So I figured how hard could it be? There's only four strings.

So I bought myself a bass one day. You pay a bit of string to only if you can use more than one. I thought if you did EEEE, you got a gig.

So I bought a bass one day, a Martin Luther King Day off of school and took it home and put on some Paul McCartney. And I taught myself how to play listening to Paul McCartney, one Beatles song at a time. And then just kind of got playing by myself.

And I played out with with the family a little bit and then ended up meeting Ian and figured it'd be more fun to start doing kind of jams at the house. So the basement turned into a kind of a studio jam space. And that became Flying Pig Sound and really don't do open sound for other bands, but kind of more of a little close knit kind of thing.

So we just have jams and then started acquiring guitars. And then you just meet people and you meet people through people and then you do sound for a band. And usually the sound guy ends up being the or the bass player ends up being the sound guy because you can't ask the drummer to do it because he's bringing too much stuff.

You can't ask the singers or the guitar players because they're usually the air quotes here, podcast, the talent. So, yeah, the bass player brings the sound gear. Don's met so many people through the FET that he and his wife run, too, which is the charity for the Almost Home Foundation and Animal Rescue.

Yeah, right. And so the guitars under the Stars concert every year. And that's just, you know, you run into people.

Yeah, it's a great musical community. It really is. It's just, you know, when is that event? It varies when we do it.

We've started off doing it started off just in the backyard about 10 years ago. We played in the backyard for fun. Figure it's taken out of the basement, do in the backyard.

And then we got such a draw from it. And I'm really big into animal rescue through Almost Home Foundation that we said, well, let's charge a couple of bucks. And then next thing you know, we're out in Vasa Park, which is a big kind of park on the river on 31 in South Elgin.

Did that there for a couple of years. Did it at Danny's and Douglas for a couple of years. We did it at a place called Gifford's Kitchen, our 10th anniversary show.

And we we've raised over $32,000 for Almost Home Animal Rescue. So and I've got three rescue dogs at home right now. So it's and all the people in the band are dog people, too.

So and cat people. So we're all kind of animal people. So it's it's all good.

Yeah, they the story of Don and I meeting is funny, like from my wife's perspective. So he puts an ad in Craigslist for, hey, we're doing a little beetle jam. We're looking for somebody to sing Beatles.

And so I respond to it, send him a few recordings. And then I'm going to meet him like my wife's like, all right, so let me get this straight. You're going to meet a guy from an ad in Craigslist in a bar so you can sing for him in his basement.

Am I getting this right? No red flags there at all. Yeah, that sounds like a solid idea. You know, I didn't get hacked up and it works at Don's basement.

It's just amazing because it's kind of, you know, sports guys have their like man cave. Oh, sure. Yeah.

His is like the musical dream of just like, you know, drums down there in the riser, guitars all over the wall. It's just a fantastic place to hang out and jam and for us to practice. And then Ian's got another space, kind of the woodshed out where he's at in Aurora.

So that we practice too. So it kind of gives us two different. The woodshed.

Yeah. I see. It's a little barn basically in the backyard.

Oh, nice. Yeah, it's very cool. You got to have a one heck of a wife to let you do that at home.

Double income, no kids. So yeah, I've got a, I've got one five-year-old actually. I'm kind of late in the game with kids.

So, but we don't play at his house. No, but you know, my wife's been really supportive with this and, you know, I've had little excursions of things I've done over the year, like radio shows and, you know, sports casting and things like that. And she's, she's always been really supportive and, you know, really supportive with this too.

But Dan, you've got your kids, your kids are at school all day, right? I mean, you've got five days a week, right? 29 years of teaching. I figured I've had over 4,000 kids. So you guys are the name that I could actually, because they always say, if you're a teacher, the hardest part is having kids and coming up with a name that you can, you can name your own kids.

Because any name that you'd come up with, you'd think, okay, now that's a little Johnny Rotten. So yeah, it's working though. Well, you learn from the best.

If you learn from Paul McCartney, from Paul McCartney, because some of his stuff, I mean, some of his, if you listen to just the bass track, I mean, some of them are. I realized after a while, I go to an open mic to play and someone would ask me, hey, sit on a bass. And the thing I'm not any good at is the typical root chord, thump, thump, thump, thump, because I didn't learn that way.

So I'd actually go out to gigs playing these, these Beatles acoustics things. And people would come up afterwards and say, you're playing the actual Paul McCartney bass line. And I'm like, don't give me too much credit.

I don't know any better. I guess they're used to people that just go out and they'll just try and root, you know, root chord and note it and thud away. I think no matter what instrument you play though, or if you sing, I mean, the Beatles is a good way to learn because, you know, with singing, you've got the four guys singing in the huge like curve of like, you know, vocal range and all that.

And then, you know, Ringo's got such a unique drumming style. And then, you know, the guitar with John and George and Paul, especially George, you know, it's just all of those guys set the bar too high. Yeah.

I mean, instrumentally are so underrated, I think. Yeah. Well, Ringo took a beating for a while there, but I mean, really, when you listen to his stuff, it's really, really, like you said, very intricate.

It's trendsetting. It is. I mean, you know, he did so many things.

Yeah. I think because he was in an era where you had the Keith Moons and, you know, the Ginger Bakers and John Bonham later on and all that. And, you know, he wasn't that explosive, but still, I mean, did some trendsetting things that hadn't been done.

Talking to our drummer, Brian Frederick is saying that Ringo's lefty. So he'd be doing like come together his fills and other people are trying to figure out how to do it. He sounds so unique because he's going.

A lot of people don't realize that he's going backwards. I didn't know that until Brian told me. Yeah.

Ticket to Ride's the big one. And that's where that came from because he had to come over from the left side. Ian's got the best quote about drumming.

Do you remember your quote from 10 years ago about drumming? Yeah. The first time I ever sat down to the drum kit, it was the most uncoordinated I'd ever felt in my life. Yeah.

Well, like, okay, guitar players, I have to move the left and the right hand together, but they're not really moving over that much distance. It's like the guitar neck is only about an inch and a half wide. So you don't know where your fingers are going.

You sit at a drum kit and you've got all this space in front of you, and then you have to add in your left and your right leg. And each of the four limbs has to be doing something different. But in coordination, my brain hurts just thinking about it.

And the sheer endurance of it, too. People don't think about that. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's something like as a vocalist, you have to go through too. But then you think about the drumming and just the sheer endurance. And if you're doing a two, three hour set, you know, and if you're in a hard rocking band and you're going at it every song, and that's, you know.

Yeah. I just had shoulder surgery and I couldn't, I couldn't imagine playing, playing drums. Not guitar.

I can strum that. Just if you're ever not sure, take a look at the face of a drummer when you suggest playing Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll. Should we play that song? Look at their face.

And usually it's like, no, we're not going to do it. So Ian, what kind of guitar do you play? You said you have several. You have more than a bunch.

Yeah. But what's your, uh. The one I keep coming back to for C-130 is a Les Paul Deluxe.

It's a, I don't even know the year 70 somewhere. Yeah. I got a great deal on it because it's got a nasty looking headstock break.

But with the mini humbuckers, you get a little bit of chime and jangle when you need it, but you can turn it up. So I mean, just get this great classic rock tone. Yeah.

Yeah. He's really bringing some cool effects into what we do. And like, you know, there's the whole marriage of the two guitars together.

You and Matt are kind of still figuring out, but like we've talked about, we do Rebel Rebel and you got the second part of the song where it kind of like, you know, you tone your dress, your face is a mess. And then he kind of amps it up with this effects pedal and it just takes it to a whole nother place. It's very cool.

It's kind of our edge. Yeah. He's got the pedal board.

His pedal board is known as the Death Star. It has to come in a suitcase. We're still working on that.

It doesn't look real rock and roll. It looks more garage sale, but it sounds. If it works, that's awesome.

Exactly. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I used to have this road case for it.

And the road case weighed another 20 pounds. And I was like, okay, if, if I don't have to carry it up and downstairs, that's one thing I have wheels, but by the time I carry it up and downstairs, I'm like, okay, what can I do to make this lighter? I've tried to convince my wife and she's like, yeah, no way. But I really, one of my favorite bands is Wilco and Nels Klein is just this mastermind of kind of avant-garde jazzy kind of sounds and craziness with the pedals.

So I love doing that. The kind of guitar I play, I don't really manage to sound like other guitar players. I try and cop a Stevie Ray Vaughan lick or a George lick and it doesn't quite sound right, but I get to play what I want to play.

And I sound like me, which I'm really proud of. Yeah, absolutely. It makes it a tough fit for me in a cover band, which is where I love playing with Matt Powell, because he has got that classic rock tone and the classic rock licks down.

And it's kind of like, okay, we're going to, we're going to do roadhouse blues. Matt nails the solo, right? Okay. We're going to do something where we're going to, you know, I'm not your stepping stone by the monkeys where we're really punk it up.

Okay, I can go that crazy with that and really have a lot of fun. It's a good balance. At Don's, he's got an Ampeg reverb rocket.

I think it is what it is in the basement. It's one of the nineties ones at home. I've got a Victoria that I just love.

I mean, you guys have probably gone through this too. It's just, you know, the quandary of a cover band is like, do you want to try to sound exactly like the song? Or do you want to do, you know, your version of kind of sounding like that? And I think we've kind of basically worked our way into the latter. And that seems to work better for us where, you know, you're not trying to sound exactly like the song you're covering and you're kind of doing the way you do it and stepping stones, that perfect example.

So like, you know, especially without keys, it's hard to sound like the monkeys, but then we're kind of doing like a harder rocking version of it. And it's a song everybody recognizes, but then it kind of takes it to another place, which is cool. And then you make it your own, you know, there's a effects pedal you can get to make your guitar sound like keys.

I actually have that. That's the electroharmonic B9, it's a staple on the pedal board. See, see, now you can bring the keys into the monkey songs.

You're talking his language. What kind of bass do you play? I started off with Hofner's. Oh, nice.

Yeah, I started off with the real cheapy, cheapy one. And then my favorite for a long time was the Hofner Very Thin, the contemporary series, which looks a little bit like a Gibson 335. But the big thing that I'm really kind of the whole band, we seem to be more Gibson guys.

My favorite bass at the moment is actually an Epiphone Jack Cassidy. I think it's just it's a hollow body, double cutaway, and it's got a baritone switch. You can do a lot with that little thing, and it doesn't weigh a thing.

Then Treble Light, Treble Light. Yeah, yeah. And it's... Ian, take note of that.

And it just sounds great. And I love my guy, a Gibson Firebird or a Thunderbird. Love that because Matt's got a kind of a vintage Firebird.

That's just gorgeous. Although he just picked up a little four or five pound Gibson. What's it called? A DC Tribute that they're selling for about 500 bucks.

And he played at a practice last night. He's got a single P90 and a thing. This is amazing.

And literally weighs like five pounds. Wow. Which... Ian.

Of course, I played... I had for a brief period of time, I tried a Gibson RD, which is a 13 pound bass. Oh, OK. Yeah, that didn't last long.

I'm kind of... Talking about shoulder surgery. Yeah, I'm kind of a... I'm kind of the gear guy as far as that. Yeah, I mean, you're kind of a collector too, though.

It's funny, we all communicate through this like chat, you know, text thread. And here we are right now. Don's looking at another bass and sounds like every other week.

But the nice thing about it is you can flip them real often. You take better pictures and you clean them up and you could usually make a couple bucks. He's a real good details guy.

Like detail, which I'm horrible at. And so it kind of is a really good balance and like him setting up the sound and everything. And he's so good with details and little things.

I'm known as the control enthusiast. So, Mike, what kind of tambourines do you have? What did I get? See, this is what I didn't know. What did I get from him? He's got himself a high end LP and it's got the brass and the steel chimes on it.

Nice. Is it acoustic or electric? You're a dangerous man, thoughts in my head. He's thinking about how he can put it in.

He's going to pick up at it. You're going to put a pick up at it. I almost be wrong.

He's putting a pickup on a banjo. I don't know. We're just joking.

Yeah, I did like five guitar lessons. I had shoulder, you know, shoulder issues like you did. And it kind of got me to bail out on it.

And there were enough guitarists. I'm just going to sing. But it is weird getting like we're doing some might say by Oasis, which is a song I'm still getting familiar with.

And then you kind of I'm sure anybody who plays anything and it has to sing to you kind of have to get familiar with the singing of the song. And then you play a little better as opposed to like rubble rubble, which I've done for years. And it's one beat.

You just kind of keep going in the tambourine. I can't believe I'm having a tambourine conversation here, but it's a musical instrument. It is.

Yeah, no, we did these band bios that we put out on Facebook and we just kind of put the tambourine thing as a joke. And I was putting like my favorite tambourine is Susie Partridge. Yeah, I saw that.

And then there's some like dudes are all serious about it. You know, he made a comment on there that I think it was Susie Partridge, Dave Jones, and then the bald guy from the George Harrison Tribute. And we had someone point out, it got really, that's Ray Cooper.

Like, yeah, we know, we're just having fun, right? Lighten up for us. And his next goal is to get in the triangle. Look at these aged brass triangles.

And what the like... Chimes, baby. Yeah, the chemistry, the mass and the weight is, and whether or not that if you shave off like an eighth of an inch off the end of the triangle, if it has a little bit more resonance, or if you need to add that extra bit of mass, maybe, you know, my ultimate goal would be like xylophones. You'd be traveling, you'd be carrying more gear than the rest of the band.

Or maybe some bells or the water bottles. Yeah, you got it right. So empty Guinness glasses.

We could just drink them to a certain point. Guinness is the official beer of C-130. I think so.

Nice. This podcast is brought to you by Guinness. So, which is, yeah, which is why a St. Patrick's gig.

Is there one handy? Yeah. A St. Patrick's gig is so perfect for us. You know? Definitely.

Definitely. So mine would be brought to you by tequila. So where can people find C-130 socially or? Well, we all turn to Don here.

A website would be c130band.com. And then you can find us on Facebook in North America. In North America. There you go.

As opposed to the Japanese version, right? Somewhere in Asia. Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah.

So we just, like I said, we just started this in September, October. And then we have about 500 followers on Facebook now, which has been pretty cool. And, you know, we, we like to just, we're really enjoying this.

And it's, you know, like I said, you want it to sound good. But the big thing is like, we're just, we're not taking it like uber seriously. We've all got real jobs and just having a great time within, try to put pictures out of our practices all the time.

Don's doing this bizarro effects thing now where, you know. Yeah. I saw, I saw the pictures.

Well, you know, it makes a bunch of bald middle-aged dudes look better. You can only put the same picture every week of a bunch of guys in a basement. So I figured let's, if you've got to put pictures out, let's edit them, cut them and give it some kind of a flair.

So it makes it a little more interesting. No, definitely. Sure.

And we'll, Hey, we'll play anywhere. People who want to, you know, book us. And I think, I think we're drawn pretty well.

So they can contact you through the website. Yeah. Yeah.

Or, you know, Mike Lorber, I'm on Facebook. I'm really easy to find and, you know, send a message there or through down or, you know, however we want to do it. Stop by to school during the week.

If you guys are there. Biggest thing though, is it's fun. We're all having fun and we all get along.

It's five guys that, that even though we all have kind of different tastes, different interests, we all have a lot of stuff in common. And I can't think there hasn't been any drama and it's just fun. And we played last night and at the end, you just sit down and have a drink and, and, uh, it's, it's fun, which is why we're doing it.

That's ultimately it. Once it stops being fun, then you stop doing it. And there's a lot of people that are playing in bands that aren't having fun.

And I can't figure out why they do it. Yeah. Well, he goes getting away.

Yes. Well, sure. Yeah.

And drama, drama happens. Yes. Yeah.

But I mean, amazing. Like what you've been doing in the dancing noodles. We do that for so many years and just keep the band together.

I mean, that's, that's just a, that's an accomplishment. Yeah. We're going on 36 years with that.

Wow. It's crazy. A couple of us left the band for a while, but the bass player and the drummer kept it going for many years.

And it was different guys. And now, and now it's back to almost all the original guys. You guys are an institution on the South side.

You know, I mean, just growing up in high school, like, remember like going out and seeing you and, you know, people talking about you. But you, you've had obviously then lots of contact with other bands of all different talent levels. And so you, you have to have seen all the drama that you see in the bands of all different talent levels.

Those are beginner bands that have just amazing amounts of, of drama. And obviously, you know, the professionals, those are storied. I have stories I could tell you.

I ran sound at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan city for almost 12 years. And they still run it occasionally out there when they, when they're short-handed, but I've seen so many bands and it works with so many different bands and, and some of the drama I can tell you, it's just unbelievable. So if you can find a group of people that they can play together and have fun, it's you stick with it.

Yes. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate you coming in.

Oh man. Thank you so much for having us out here. This is really like a privilege to be in here before this place is really open.

And I'm like really looking forward to coming out here when it's all. Yeah. Eventually when you try and get the first floor open here and then to go up to the second floor and the third floor, as soon as there's three, three floors here, there's going to be a performance area on the third floor.

So. Well, we all walked in and we're like, Oh, and look at all these old pictures and Oh, Hey, here's some sign, cheap trick stuff. And Ooh, look at these old custom amps.

And we're, we're, we're ready to come for opening day. I'm going to get a selfie here. All right.

Selfies really do well on podcast. Yes. Alrighty guys.

Thanks a lot. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming in.

Thank you. Well, that was Mike dad and Ian from C one 30. They've they seem to have their stuff together there, don't they? They do.

And I'm telling you, nothing impresses me more than a seasoned tambourinist. Yes, you don't meet many tambourinists out there. Don't, don't, don't give Mike a hard time now.

Come on. I'm not giving him a hard time. I'm it's an honor to be in the, in the same vicinity of somebody.

So seasoned on the tambourine. Well, he jokes about it, but, but it's, it's, it is an instrument. Yes, it is.

And I think Don is working on putting pickups on there. I think so. He's he was running home.

Yeah. I think he was running home with that idea. He was writing stuff down, drawing little sketches and stuff.

I'm like, yeah, he's probably got it done already. I would imagine he probably does. Stopped at guitar center.

Got some chords. Sounds like you might have everything at home and he needs to do it. Yeah, he may, he may, but yeah, that's a great bunch of guys.

Sounds like they're going to have themselves a really good band. Got to get out to Tenley park on March 14th to the station and see them. Yes, indeed.

Yes, indeed. Well, uh, thanks for joining us today. And, uh, we'll see you next week with another fine podcast, uh, recorded right here at the rock and roll museum.

Same podcast time, same podcast channel. That's right. Right here at route 66 museum route 66.

The Illinois rock and roll museum on route 66. And don't forget the road to rock radio.net, where you can catch this podcast as well as Illinois music that you would not believe so much Illinois music on road to rock radio and catch our podcast every Monday at 6. Thanks for listening to everybody. Have a great week.