Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How you doing Ray? I'm rocking out to some electric Avenue. That's cool.

That's cool. You know what? What? We have electric Avenue today. No.

The band Electric Avenue. No. No.

And Acoustic Avenue. Really? Yes. I don't think I get their music.

No. We've got two bands in one. Two in one? That's right.

Oh, man. Do we got to pay for two then? No. Just the one? Yeah.

We're paying for them both. Oh, God. There's no money in the coffers, you know.

In the what? In the coffers. What's a coffer? You know, the coffer. Is that one of your words of the day? Excuse me.

Oh. I'm a coffer. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that one of your words of the day? As a matter of fact, I think it was the other day. A coffer.

A coffer. C-O-U-G-H? No. C-O-F-F-E-R-S.

Okay. The coffers. The coffers.

Boy. So we got Electric Avenue and Acoustic Avenue. There's going to be a big traffic jam, man.

Yes, there is. It's going to be one hell of an intersection. That's right.

Well, let's get to it and see what they have to say. Hey, we're meeting today with Jimmy Herter, Dean Schultz, and Ron Romero of Electric Avenue. How you guys doing today? Doing just great.

Andy. Great to be here. Good to have you.

Good to have you. Good to be here. So tell us a little bit about Electric Avenue.

How long you guys been together? Wow. We've been together. Acoustic Avenue started, what, nine years ago? Unbelievable.

Yeah. It was nine years ago that, uh— Today. Today, right? No.

Nine years to the minute. To the minute. And it was in Joliet, no less.

I know that Ron and I first played together in Joliet. It was a Pauly's Pub. Pauly's Pub.

Pauly's Pub. Yeah, in 52. That was our first gig together, me and Jimmy.

Pauly's Pub. Why do I know that name? Maybe because your name is Pauly? Well, maybe. Maybe that's what it is.

It could be the one in Chicago Heights, too. Oh, maybe. There's a Pauly's in Chicago Heights.

Is there? Yeah. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. That's my old stomping ground back there.

Yeah, so nine years ago. Wow. Who would— It still seems like just yesterday, you know? And we still like each other? Yeah.

That's amazing because nobody likes Ron except me and Dean anymore. I don't think that's true. No, I know.

I'm just joking, man. I like Ron. See, I got three friends.

Now we got three friends. I'm vacillating here. So you started out as Acoustic Avenue, and you're still doing Acoustic Avenue, correct? Still playing, yeah.

Oh, yeah. We got some great gigs. You know, it does slow down in the winter a bit, you know, but— It does for everyone, I think.

Yeah, everybody has to slow down a little bit. But, oh, yeah, we had some great gigs. We're back out in Morris, you know, our old stomping ground there.

And, you know, Ron's from Coal City, so— Big city of coal, yeah. Big city of coal. So, no, we have a great new place we've been playing out on the patio when the weather's nice over at the Chop House.

Chop Shop in Morris, yeah. Chop Shop in Morris. That's nice to be back over there, you know, and we can actually— You know, our friends like coming out there and stuff, so we can pack the place, so to speak.

Yeah, when we started the band, we were doing steady gigs like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays. And Acoustic Avenue had over 300 gigs a year at one point. Wow.

So we were pretty busy. But that's, you know, mostly because we were doing the steady weekdays. And then we'd play wherever on the weekends.

But, yeah, so we still go out to Morris. We played Joliet a lot. We were in Mokina for a long time.

We kind of traveled around. I noticed you were the house band in a couple places. We were, yeah.

We were the house band at Chapin's in Morris for five years, at McBride's for five years. We were playing every Tuesday night at Jenny's 191. Oh, sure.

For like what? Mokina. Five years for that thing. Five years we were doing that.

I really miss that gig. That's actually our magic number. At five years, the company's sell out and we're gone.

There you go. Tick tock. Tick tock.

They like us every week for that first five years. But, man, that fifth year, they're sold. What actually kind of scares me about that is this August I'll be in the band five years.

So I guess my time is up. That's actually very true. Well, there's a new club out there now.

Yeah. Jamisons or something? Jamos. Jamos Live, yeah.

Yeah, the big bands are playing there on the weekends. But, you know, like the big high infidelity and, you know, the circus. Yeah.

Yeah, they're a great band. Yeah. So we moved on.

When we add a drummer, we call it Electric Avenue after much thought. Not much. You know, not too much thought.

So every night we get a request for that Eddie Grant song, you know. That we never learned. I want to walk down to Electric Avenue.

We never learned it. So now when you add a drummer, you add Heath Chappell. Chappell.

Boy, nobody's better than Heath Chappell. He's the greatest. One of the greatest drummers.

And it shows, man. He's working all the time. If he's not doing two gigs a day, it ain't a normal day for him.

So he plays with some other bands, right? Yeah, he's playing with Jake Eppner's band, the Backdated. Oh, hello. Oh, I know Heath.

Oh, yeah. Heath's heart is really into jazz and plays a lot with Steve Hashimoto. Okay.

And a number of great jazz players in Chicago that I just don't know their names. Well, this is the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. We don't know much about jazz, right? No, right, yeah.

When it comes to jazz, it's jazz. What do I know about jazz? Yeah. Exactly, you know.

That's what we call his wrong notes. Everybody played it a different key. Jimmy never plays a bad note.

Yeah, Heath Chappell's just a joy to play with. He's a real deal. You know, the drummer is directing the band, and Heath will lead you.

You know, if you're unsure if the chorus is coming up, don't worry, because Heath's going to go doo-doo-doo. He'll put you right in it. Right in there, man.

He's one of those guys because, you know, over the years we've played songs. We've got our standard set list that we play, but once in a while, we'll get that crazy, hey, why don't you guys try playing this tonight, and we'll do it for the first time on stage. And he's one of those guys that if one of us know the song, you don't have to turn around and explain to him, here's how it goes.

Right, right. He knows how it goes. He knows how it goes, yeah.

Yeah. I was impressed with Heath when I first, I mixed him at the Blue Chip. Oh, sure.

With Backdated, right? Yeah. Yeah, he'll play jazz, he'll play the who, he'll play whatever you throw at him, and he knows it. Right.

He knows it well, so. And I mix there from the side of the stage, so I get to watch your drummer quite a bit, and I'm always impressed with the good drummer, the drummer who is driving the band and stuff, and that's why I remember him. You know, the other thing that I like about him is that he doesn't come in with the old Ludwig Octoplus, you know, with all the million of drums.

He comes in with a real small, it's a jazz kit. A small kit. And, man, he makes that thing sing.

Yeah, a little four, five-piece kit for Heath, and he's going to make it sound like, you know. Like a rock show. Like money.

Makes it sound like money. So would you guys consider your genre of music that you play? It's classic rock, baby. Yeah? That's what you got to say.

You know, I say we're a Chakra Khan tribute band. That throws them off. Yeah, I bet it does.

But it's classic rock. You know, we know it's 60s, 70s, 80s, and some of the newer stuff. Nothing from this century, but, you know.

No, no, there is a few. You have a few, that's true. That's true.

Actually, Ron's pretty good about learning a few newer songs here and there. You know, we might have one country song that's actually on the charts, you know. That's been the fun thing about this, though.

Like I said before, we'll go play a gig and somebody will come up and say, do you guys know this song? And one of us will say, I kind of know it. We'll play it. Right.

And, you know, learn it. And then we'll go back and play it the next time. Or you learn it on a break and then go back and play it the next set, right? We've done that before.

Yeah, yeah. We don't actually wait until breaks. We just do it.

Do you? That's great. That's awesome. Yeah.

Well, our New Year's show, somebody wanted to hear a particular Billy Joel song, I think is what it was. Or no, it was an Alton John song. And on break, I went to the bathroom and I had my cell phone up on the urinal.

And a guy walked in. He goes, what are you doing? I go, I'm learning a song. He goes, really? And he got out there and I could see him from the back of the room giving us the thumbs up that he liked that we pulled it off.

That's pretty tough with no keyboards. It was real. Alton John or Billy Joel, either one.

See, but our secret sauce, I guess, is Jimmy here. Our secret weapon. Yeah, Jimmy.

Jimmy's a great multi-instrumentalist. He plays flute. He plays guitar.

And when the keyboard part comes in. Don't you hate those guys? I hate them. But I'm glad he's in our band.

But he's one of those guys where there's keyboards, you know, he fills. And between him and Dean, those guys just, you know, they fill it really nice. They're pretty good for guitar players.

Speaking of piano, yeah, I've been playing a lot of piano lately. And that's why I haven't seen you guys is because I'm down in the basement playing the good old acoustic piano for hours on end since I've been doing some dueling piano shows with my buddy Steve Costagos there. So I'm really trying to catch up, you know.

Okay, so Jimmy, tell us what else you do besides electric avenue or acoustic avenue. I'm a realtor. Well, I meant musically is what I meant.

Well, you know, I'm sorry, but I can't just, I can't make it on, you know, $18,000 a year being a musician. Right, right. That much? Well, you know, I have, I've been in a couple other bands.

The other two guys have been making $3,000, just to let you know. You know, my big band that I was in was the New Invaders, a great 60s band that often copied, never, whatever. Never duplicated.

Yeah, never duplicated. Often duplicated, never again. Often duplicated, but I don't know.

What I mean to say is that the New Invaders, 60s style, has inspired a number of groups to start their own band and get out there and wear the exact same shirts that I wear. And that's actually how Jimmy ended up in the band is because I was a big fan of the New Invaders. You know, they're, instrumentally, they're one of the best bands.

Vocally, everybody in the band sings. And I think I called Jimmy to do a sub-gig with me. And, you know, we became fast friends, and we kind of carried on the band and everything.

Yeah, our bass player for New Invaders actually took a month's vacation in the summer. Ron came out and subbed on bass for our leader of our band. So, you know, we get involved with each other's projects, as I think we all do that.

And it's a good thing. So, Ron, tell us about your history in the band, besides being the curator or owner of the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum. Founder.

Founder. Wow, that's me, huh? Yeah, so we started with the... Curator's a fancy word, isn't it? Yeah, it's a really fancy word. I think that was on my calendar this morning.

Yeah, we didn't talk about his calendar at the time. Yeah, so, you know, I was working actually downtown. I was actually playing with the Jimmy Sons from Shadows of Night for a while.

And we were doing more and more gigs, and then I was picking up more gigs besides the gigs with him. And I left the job downtown Chicago and started doing this full-time. That's why there were so many gigs at 300 Gigs, because, you know, I've got to pay the bills.

And so I started the band with a couple other guys, a couple of guys touring members from Herman's Hermits at the time. Oh, okay. And they were in the band for a couple of years, and then because of their touring schedules and other interests, you know, we were getting subs to keep me employed, basically.

Were they based out of here or out of Chicago area? Generally the Midwest, yeah. Yeah, okay. And then, you know, Jimmy came in and did some gigs with us, and he added so much more vocally, guitar-wise, and he also plays flute and a few other instruments.

Part of Acoustic Avenue was always having the rotating players, you know. Yeah, exactly. Whatever gig we had, we could be bringing people in to fit the bill.

Right. And that was probably out of necessity, too, because I was doing it as a living. Right.

So when the guys would go on tour, I'm like, I can't stop working, guys. I've got to get a sub for you. I'm sorry.

So but then it eventually became, you know, what you see here. Dean has been with us for five years now, like he said. We're going to start paying him after this year, right? Yeah, after this year we're going to start paying him.

Finally, finally. So you're going to keep him after five years. Well, I mean, he's an important part of the band.

He moves the gear for us, and he books the job. Drives the bus. Drives the bus, yeah.

No, actually, Dean is a, you know, he came out and saw us one time. We asked him to sit in with us. We knew some of his other bands that he'd played in.

And he came in and sat in with us. And it was just that we all hit it off, you know. And I hate to say this, but I don't.

This is my favorite lineup of the band since all the nine years. Everybody's tight. We're good.

You know, everybody's brothers. We work together. There's no headaches.

It's just we have a good time. That's good. And they got someone to give you the high notes now, so.

Yeah. Ah, I see. He's quiet when he talks, but he does hit those high notes.

So, Dean, tell us about your history. Oh, geez. Your rock and roll history.

My rock and roll history. Back in the middle and late 70s, I decided that I was going to be a rock star. So, I went on the road with a band called Sin City.

And that. Were they from Vegas? No, they were from. Absolutely.

Had to be one or the other, right? Absolutely. And then I came back and Plan B started. You know, got married, started having kids and that stuff.

And then I got into a band called Emerald City. I kind of hung around the cities for a while. And that's when, that's I think when our paths crossed a little bit.

Sure, sure. Eminar Rush and Emerald City. And then after that, I spent about 35 years in a 60s band called Bullwinkle.

Oh, okay. And then when that finally, finally, you know, ended. I had a chance to go out, like we were talking earlier, to go out and hear bands.

And these guys were playing Tuesday nights at Jenny's, which was about eight minutes from my house. Oh, okay. And so I'd show up and got up and played a couple times.

And then they had another member that couldn't hit the high notes. And he moved on and they asked me to join. And it's been about 500 gigs later.

Yeah. Here we are. So you guys are keeping busy.

Yeah. You know, like Jimmy said, it's wintertime now, so we're kind of involved in other projects. Museum's taking up my time.

I know Jimmy's playing a lot with the dueling piano stuff. Dean's at home practicing. Yeah.

What else are you doing? I was healing. I had surgery in December. So we're looking towards March, starting to hit it again, get back out there.

Kind of chomping at the bit. I'm going through a certain separation anxiety from these guys lately. Yeah.

Yeah, we're going to start going to jam nights pretty soon, you know. There we go. That was always a fun thing when people would say, why don't you come to our jam nights? It's great exposure.

You know, the gigs of people, hey, come out and you'll get great exposure. I'm like, well, we're booking about 300 gigs a year. How much more exposure do we need? Exactly.

Yeah, so, I mean, we carried over into Electric Avenue. I think the idea was to have the nucleus of the three guys. We carried the vocals.

We carried the guitars, the bass. And then it was a good way for us to sell the product, so to speak, multiple ways. You can hire, you know, one of us, two of us, three of us, mostly three of us.

And then if you wanted something a little more with drums, we'd add that in there. We actually formed that into a horn band besides, too. But it's based around us three guys.

So what do you do, more Electric Avenue or more acoustic? Probably acoustic. Yeah. Certainly.

It's a lot easier during the week. You know, it's an affordable package to offer somebody on a weekly ongoing basis. Right.

Where, you know, during the week we fill the time or we don't charge as much as we do on weekends. We make a little more tip money and stuff like that. And it's a steady gig for us.

Now, since we've not been at Jenny's, we've not been doing any weekly things. And I think we should probably look into that again. That's my thought.

It seems like we could find a place that we could do one night a week. Because those Tuesday nights, the steady thing really was joyful, you know. It was.

I miss it. I really miss having just one night a week where we could get together, especially maybe on an off night, you know. Sure.

Tuesday, Thursday. For us, it was like the guys getting together like a bowling night. But, you know, we're musicians.

And the good thing about that is we get to hang out with our friends to do it. So, you know, we built up a good following. We built up a good friendship and, you know, hang out with everybody.

So we kind of miss that. Do you guys have anything original at all? Well, we all have original music. We've never brought it onto the stage as an everyday thing, you know.

Things we've done originally has all been more in the past, you know. So we don't have anything currently together. If we were to do some original stuff, I'd like it to be something that we all sit down and put together.

Something new. As a group. Yeah, you know.

I have my stuff and it's great. And Ron has the songs and he has some really cool songs and stuff. And Dean as well.

We all have stuff. But, you know, sometimes you don't want to try and educate people, you know. We're out there to have fun and, like I say, we just don't have anything current.

So we'll probably start another band and we'll call it Original Avenue. Just kidding. Right.

We'll get nobody out. We'll get nobody out. So do you have any favorites that you guys do? I mean, are there some songs that really you just love playing? I get a lot of mileage out of my Led Zeppelin songs.

And I just can't put them down because they really do, like I say, we get a lot of mileage out of them. You do Led Zeppelin acoustically? Yeah. There's some hard rock in Led Zeppelin we do acoustically too.

We can do a nice version of the Rambl'On song, which starts like an acoustic. Now, Dean was telling me that you guys actually don't necessarily play acoustic guitars. You use electric? Oh, yeah.

When it gets to Electric Avenue, we got the electric guitars swinging. And by the second set of Acoustic Avenue, we both have instruments that are electric guitars with acoustic stuff in it. They're easier to play and Jimmy's getting old.

Got blisters on my fingers, you know? Yeah, the electric slash acoustic guitars that sound great. God bless technology these days. You mentioned what songs we like.

My personal favorites are anything that we do the three-part harmonies on. I think that's one of our strengths. Everybody sings, everybody plays.

And when we add Heathen, Heath adds that fourth vocal too. So it's good to hear the vocals. Again, we get a lot of mileage out of doing California Dreamin'.

And I ain't ever doubting for a while I'm gonna say only to you If I can see you in my world We do an awesome version of Nowhere Man, three-part harmonies, with all the backgrounds and all that stuff. We're doing it nice. In My Life, we're singing the backgrounds on that.

You can hear people playing that all the time, but are they doing the backgrounds? you know so really yeah absolutely around the three-part harmony is is the thing and we got the high singer for it. Mickey Mouse over here. Nice.

And you take something like the Mamas and Papas it also gives Jimmy a chance to get in the spotlight with the flute you know he plays the flute solos and stuff too so little difference in the instrumentation too. Any Jethro Tull? Yes absolutely can't have a flute player without Jethro Tull. Oh yeah anytime you break out the flute it's like hey play some Tull man.

It's like Freebird. Freebird on flute. No problem.

I bet you could do it if you needed to. Oh absolutely. I can play Freebird on 10 different instruments including okay.

So Rod do you play stand-up at all? I used to back in the 80s I used to play some some stand-up stuff I haven't touched one well actually I take that back we went into one of the stores up north my wife and I and there was one in the store and I got behind it I started playing at it and she looked at me she goes you got to get one of those again oh then I told her the price and she said forget it. So we need food this month. Yeah right exactly but I'd love to do that cost is pretty high and the other thing is I hate taking gear like I don't want to spend two or three hours moving gear to do an acoustic gig.

Right. Travel light. My motto.

We got it down to where you know we usually arrive an hour half hour to an hour before a gig and we're set up and ready you know we're up right on time but after all those gigs you learn how to set up and tear down real quick. Definitely. Travel light.

Make money. That's our motto. So what kind of bass do you play? Mostly Fenders.

Yeah mostly Fenders and the stuff I play now is my Franken Fenders you know I get body from this bass and I get a neck and I put in my own choice of Fender pickups or pickups in the Fender and and then I just you know that's what I like doing. What about you Jimmy? What do you play? I have a couple of Gretsch guitars that I really like. Nice.

A couple of Gretsch electrics a 57 reissue a duo jet and then my my. I like the duo jets. I have my country gentleman a la George Harrison that I bought to be you know to play in a Beatle band when I went to Malaysia with this Beatle band and in 92 and I thought I'd never I thought I'd probably wind up selling it after that I that was my main guitar for a lot a lot of my gigs but just yesterday I took out that Strat I took out a Strat that Dean found for me this Eric Johnson Strat and I'm going whoa I miss this guitar.

How about you Dean? Mainly my main guitar is a Gibson ES-335. Oh nice. Covers up the mid section really well and then I've had a local guy.

I noticed that when I saw you last week or two weeks ago you were playing a Strat in your mid section was Yeah Dunlap it was hanging over. Dunlap over the big guitar. I was covering up the top two strings I mean it was just sad.

He's getting skinny now. A bellybutton I like that. There's a local guitar builder that has built me some Telecasters and his name's Frank Gatto and they're just they're just marvelous instruments and I bring those out then I also like I was telling you I bring out a which has 37 different guitar sounds very well so I can do anything during the country tunes I'm playing banjo you know I mean I play acoustic guitar with a 12-string guitar sitar yeah I mean it's always it's kind of a it's kind of a nice utility instrument to to have it especially with you know some of the songs that we do right yeah it's kind of fun with the acoustic stuff we kind of fill in as much as we can Jimmy's got a pretty cool telecaster too that that is an electric obviously it's a telecaster right but it's got the how do you say the piezo piezo? It has piezo saddle pieces on it.

It's an acoustophonic kind of thing so it sounds wonderful over a PA. It sounds like a just a thick acoustic guitar but it's an electric and he can play you know much easier to play with that. Because I'm old.

I'm an old man now and my finger's it. Now do you, now y'all sing you said right y'all sing yeah do you ever bring out a piano Jimmy or no? Travel light, make money. I gotcha okay I'm with you there.

I said that to everybody for so long it was like we were gonna travel light and make it easy for you know no stress we'll just get there set up the PA and there's no backline we're not plugging into amps we're plugging directly into the PA system. Nice. And you know we bought a pretty decent PA over the years and so travel light make money.

So we can hear any of this three-part harmony today or? Nope. We travel light but we're not making money so they're thinking about it they're like we could pass the hat I guess. Well we have a crowd here today so.

Yeah that's true we if it was a little warmer we could set up out on the sidewalk you know you'd be surprised uh playing on the sidewalk. Oh that wasn't it. There's the crowd.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. This podcast is not recorded in front of a live studio audience. They don't know the itch.

Oh sorry. So you've got some shows coming up uh soon you said correct? We do have a Moose Club gig coming up on March 28th. Which Moose is that? It's uh the Moose.

Joliet? Joliet. Joliet. Okay.

Yeah we were we played uh the Moose circuit. Yeah I like that. Lockport the Joliet.

Where were we up north? I forgot where that was but we were up north and did. Oh yeah we had the St. Charles. St. Charles Moose.

We played the Croatian Club for New Year's which was was turned out to be very nice um gig and it's it's good to be over at the Croatian Club here. I tell you when I when I uh saw you saw you you were there visiting uh Lockport and and I worked at the Joliet Moose. Yeah.

And they packed people in. Oh yeah. They're they're packed in so I mean it's a built-in crowd.

Yeah absolutely. Yeah I think so. Yeah you know we we do a lot of that stuff.

We were actually the one thing we didn't mention we were the house band at the Aurora Hollywood Casino uh for a while too. So the funny thing is we booked it as Electric Avenue and you know as we mentioned everybody has other gigs. Everybody has jobs.

Sometimes you can't make it. I think we had 32 subs that came through. I had to send out 32 1099s to people um as subs and we booked it as Electric Avenue every night.

But the nice thing about that was with getting new talent in you know there was never any practice. We met on stage and played and but the cool thing was that somebody would come in and bring a whole slew of new songs and you know we'd have to follow them to play and so you learn a lot of stuff that way. Playing with these guys too because I got to tell you you know the trick to being getting better is playing with better musicians.

Right. So playing with these guys you got to keep up with them and you know I got to learn all that stuff. Rehearsal? What rehearsal? We don't rehearse.

What rehearsal? You're as good as who you're playing with so you know always you always you always uh reach up to you know what the next guy's got you know. So it sometimes it's challenging and we challenge each other and hey let's try this on okay or or an audience you know somebody from the audiences have a request and we'll step up you know and get it done. Just head over to the bathroom and go over to urinal.

That's right. This is the song of the year. We've done that many times just where somebody calls something out we just play it you know we just kind of fake it.

Just give me a key right. That's right. Pick a key we'll do it.

That's the other thing is playing with these guys and some of the other guys that we play with. You know you learn a song and then somebody gets up and says well you know that's in D but I want to do it in G tonight. So it makes you think and you have to learn how to do that kind of stuff.

Crazy stuff but it's good to play with these guys you know. A true musician who can do that. Who can do that.

Yeah and I hang around with them. I'm learning a lot from these guys though but you know we've and it's been cool because a lot of the gigs too you know we get hired to play at all sorts of different things. You know we've been further out in Indiana and Wisconsin and oh playing you know some kind of a political event or something.

You know just some kind of party or something. We end up going you know traveling around as well too. So Ron tell us about the museum here.

What's what's the latest what's the latest happening towards the museum? Well let's see today we got there was some news that Robert Feeder had put us in his blog and we got all sorts of response from that. We had calls from ABC News. They want to do an interview as does some of the other radio stations.

WRXT and who else? The River. Some of the newspapers have been calling us up today. So we're starting to build up some steam here on the project and just plugging along.

Membership has been incredible the last three or four weeks. We're getting a lot of new members from as far as Washington State, Florida, Texas, Kentucky, Wisconsin, even Cleveland, Ohio. Now you guys are also on the cover story CD from the museum.

We are yeah. Which song did you guys do? We did tell them Jimmy. Bend Me, Shape Me.

We're the Bend Me, Shape Me guys. We have Heath Chapel on the drums there with us and we have the very distinguished horn players. That's right.

From the Buckinghams. Nice. Chuck Morgan, Carlo Isabelli and who? Carlo, sure.

And we had a college student on saxophone and I'm sorry I don't know his name but it's on there. We had a sub that day. It's usually our buddy Kim Gessner.

You can make this beggar a king, a clown or a poet. Good morning at Joliet Junior College. They have a great program now for digital audio where DAW and being taught by Professor Dave Nuccio over there.

They have a. Oh yeah, that's right. Dave was playing the keyboards on that. Studio equipped by Sweetwater.

They're keeping it up to date. Our engineer Isaiah was amazing. He really knows that software.

It's the Pro Tools software that Joliet Junior College teaches. They have classes in a couple of other digital audio wares but they're mainly in the Pro Tools. Very good.

So where can we find you at as far as social media? We're on Facebook for sure. You can see Acoustic Avenue or Electric Avenue out there. Don't get confused with the Acoustic Avenue from Germany because we once in a while get each other's emails.

I got something in Germany the other day. I don't know what it meant. So we're there.

We also have a website. You guys are great. That's what it meant.

Being German, I read it and it just said the bass player is really hot. Yeah. And Dean, you got to stop sending that stuff to me.

Anyway, I'm just kidding. And that Dean guy can really sing high. Or not.

Yeah. So you can go also to Acoustic Ave Band or Acoustic Ave.com is what it is. I think it also resolves that Electric Ave Band.com grows the same website.

You can see some different demos in here, some stuff in there, too. And what about the museum? Museum. So maybe we'll do another one of those CDs.

We'll get some more people involved for this year. We'd like to put out another one of those CDs. That was kind of cool because there was, what, 13 tracks or so that people donated all about Illinois music.

And of course, American Breed, the Bend Me, Shape Me was guys from Illinois. And I handed that off to a couple of guys from American Breed and they liked it. So that was a good thing.

They didn't say they didn't like it. So I did not know that. Yeah, that's cool.

Lee Graziano is a drummer from the band. He was here at one of our events and he's become a good friend of the museum and of us as well. And I gave it to him at a meeting one time and he took off.

And a few weeks later, I saw him. He said, I listened to it. It sounds great.

So I'm like, yes, that's all I want to do here. Actually, Jimmy Herter's on that CD twice. Oh, yeah.

Because his band, the New Invaders, did a song on there. Actually, the song right before us on the CD. Sunday.

Oh, double dipping. I see. Yeah, that's right.

I'm making twice as much money. Yeah, we gave him a raise because he did it twice. Zero is twice as much shipping and handling.

Yeah, the New Invaders have a cut on there. It was actually Ron recorded it live at I think it was it. Oh, I don't know.

It was a veterans event in Blue Island for the BLE post number 50. Anyway. Yeah, it sounds great as well for being a live recording.

Of course, you get so much easier to sweeten that stuff these days. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

It's awesome. All righty, guys. Thanks a lot for coming out here today.

Well, Ron, you're here all the time. So thanks for having me here in my studio. And we thank you.

We thank you for the use of the studio. Yes, we do. You mentioned Sweetwater.

We should give them. Somebody did mention Sweetwater. We should give them a shout out for this because the gear that we're using for the podcast was actually grant from Sweetwater for us as well.

Very nice. Very nice. And we like their candy when we buy stuff.

Oh, yeah. That's the best part of buying stuff. I'm ordering stuff, some stuff today.

Well, thanks, guys. Thanks for coming out. Well, that was a bad electric avenue with Ron, Jimmy and Dean and some fun guys.

Yes, they were. Boy, they're keeping busy with both of them bands. I don't I don't mean like a mushroom, like a fun guy and a fun guy, like fun guy.

They're fun guys. Exactly. Exactly.

Not not not mushroomy at all. Not. No, no, no.

They're they're they're performing some fine music. Yes, they are. You know, and we got to we got Electric Avenue and Acoustic Avenue.

What an intersection. And there was no Rex. No, no.

It came out. It came out without a hitch without. Oh, no hitch.

There we go. That's a good one there. But yeah, them guys are staying busy.

They've got other other things they're doing besides Electric Avenue and Acoustic Avenue, too, it seems like. So yes, yes. And Ron Romero, of course, is involved here with the with the Rock and Roll Museum, Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet.

And we do a show. That's right. And we want to thank Ron and the museum for providing us with this beautiful studio to do these shows and bring you these podcasts.

Yes, sir. Make sure you check out their radio station, the Road to Rock Radio dot net, where they feature us every Monday at 6 p.m. They feature one of our past podcasts. So check it out.

Check out the museum. Check out the radio station. Some great Illinois music and become a charter member.

Definitely become a charter member before you can't be a charter member anymore. That's right. OK, thanks for listening, everybody.

We'll see you next week. See you next week.