Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray LaRodi for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey, Paul. How's it going, buddy? Good.

Good. Good. Good.

Good. What do we got on tap today? You know what? I'm feeling a little Christmassy. Are you? I am.

I don't know why. I just got this kind of like Christmas feeling, little yuletide stuff, kind of classy, you know? Classy or classic? Kind of classic. Yeah, maybe classic.

Yeah? You know, that would be a blast, too, so. Well, I tell you, what a coincidence that you say that. Really? Yes.

Today we have Classical Blast. Holy cow. Check that out.

Who would have thought? And they're doing some Christmas shows, as a matter of fact, coming up soon. They are. Yes, they are.

The Dark Side of the Yule, the way I understand. Yes, it is. Yes.

Should be a good show. Yes. Yes, it will be.

And their regular Bach to Rock shows are unique and different, too. They have a violinist. They have two violinists, actually, and a cello player.

And it's rock and roll played classical style. It's something to see. It sure would be.

So what do you say we get to them? We get to them and find out what they have to say. We talked with Barbara Wiegand, who books the band and who manages the band, along with Bill Cynar, her significant other, her husband, who is the bass player, and Dave Kelly, who is the drummer. Let's see what they have to say for themselves.

And away we go. Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie.

For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Joining us today are Barb, Bill, and Dave of Classical Blast. How are you guys doing? Really good.

Tired and crabby. Welcome to the club. So tell us a little bit about the band.

Barbara, I know you booked the band and managed the band, and it was your idea to start the band, wasn't it? It kind of was. The band started when I was contacted by another local group that was kind of short-lived. And I got a phone call one day from the band leader, and this happens a lot, because I manage some other bands, but bands are often looking for people to help them get gigs.

So I got this call one day from this guy I didn't know, and he was trying to convince me to take them on. And I really was not interested in taking on another band. But he told me their name was the Vampire Orchestra, which I thought was very intriguing, and that they had a cello and violin in this rock band.

So I thought, well, that's interesting. So I went there to see them, kind of snuck in the back door thinking, okay, if I hate this, I'll just sneak out the door again, and they won't even know. But I actually loved it.

I loved the idea, and the cellist and the violinist blew me away. So I started talking to them and agreed to kind of work with them, and kind of quickly discovered that the band leader was not somebody I could work with. But I loved the idea.

So I convinced the cellist to come along with me and kind of rework the concept, and that's how it got started and became Classical Blast. I see. That was Pitar, correct? It was Pitar.

Yes. Very cool. Yes, Pitar is a great, well, he is a great cellist.

He is a great cellist. He lives in California now, so yeah, he left the band about a year ago. And so now how did things develop from there? Well, so we started out just doing what the other band was doing, classic rock music with classical instruments.

They were all just straight up covers, and it worked really well. People were kind of blown away by the fact that they were playing this classic rock music with instruments you wouldn't expect, because there was no guitarist in the band. All of the solos, all the rock solos, were done either by cello or violin.

And oddly, one of the first groups of people that kind of embraced the band were bikers, which was so weird, but they were doing this classic rock music from the 60s and the 70s. I'm showing the back of my shirt. I own Horror Social Club.

That was one of the biker bars. I know. See? All right.

And so they really started giving the band a lot of support, and that's kind of what just kept going from there. So we really just started doing classic rock covers, and that's what the original album has, that's what it features, is just the straight up classic rock covers. And that's, which album is that? That's the classified album, yeah.

And this is, now I understand, Bill, you were added to the band a little bit later, correct? Yeah, actually, Barbara also runs the Caring Arts Foundation, and we do hospital gigs, performances, and arts and different things. But then I started using Petar for, me and him would go and do duos at these hospitals, and we really started to play well together. And then after a while, he said, how come you don't play with us in Classical Blast? And I just actually never thought of it.

He says, you know probably half the songs. And so then I started to consider it for some reason, and never considered it, you know? And they were rehearsing in your basement. Right.

And they didn't have a bass player, but I assumed the cello, because I did go to see them, and just the cello alone sounded bottom heavy enough that I didn't think they really needed a bass player. So it kind of threw me off at first, and then it probably worked out good, because at first, the first time I met Petar, I think I remember him saying something like, because I kind of say strange things right off the top, you know? And I probably went to the first gig, and I probably said, yeah, you guys suck, or something like that, you know? Smiling, but he might have taken it seriously or whatever. Fortunately, he got to meet me through the Caring Arts Foundation, and we got to do gigs, and we got real close that way.

Joining the band was so easy and smooth, because I knew him and I knew all the other guys well enough at this point, since they were rehearsing at my house anyway, that it became real easy. And I remember my first gig, there was no pressure whatsoever. I felt like I could stop playing on the cello, but just keep doing his job anyway.

I felt like I could do no wrong, and it was a pretty easy transformation. Now you play guitar as well. I play guitar, right, I was playing guitar with Petar.

Yeah, yeah. At the hospital gig. I don't know.

It might have sounded like that today, but it didn't. Now, Dave, let's get to you. Okay.

You were added to the band as, I assume you had another drummer, actually. Yes, for the first album, actually. So, Dave came into the band just before the second album was out.

I was actually, I'm a drummer first, but I was a sound engineer at an Irish pub, the Ballydoyle, and I was running sound for Classical Blast, and I was running sound for Our Gang, and I just loved to work my way on stage just to break the monotony and sit in on a few tunes. I'm not sure, whose idea was it to invite me to audition? Was it yours or Petar's? Well, I think it was both, actually, because I had that idea right away, but then he also met you, and he had the same idea. Because he sat in on one song with Our Gang, and I instantly went, hey, what's this? Because you don't expect sound guys to fit in that well, especially with Motown style, you know? And yeah, instantly he felt really good, so I put that word out, but then Petar met him also, and so it was... Yeah, I was impressed that I knew the intro filled a brick house.

Right. I think that got me this gig. When he came down to audition, we hired him before we even did the first song.

We start jamming before we even get to the first song, and I'm already yelling out, he's in! That's cool. We didn't even need to go over any Classical Blast tunes to know better. It was a good ego boost.

So now, besides doing sound, were you playing with someone? I played random gigs. I'm a jazzer, originally, so I was just playing gigs whenever the phone would ring. Yeah, I can kind of tell by the way you played that you were weird.

Yeah, yeah. At the time, the most steady work I had was doing sound, so I was looking for a nice, stable gig that could take the place of that sound engineering. Right.

So tell me now, who's in the band now? Well, we have a number of new people in the band. I think one of the hallmarks of the band is that it constantly evolves and progresses. We try to take advantage of every opportunity, good, bad, or otherwise, and make sure that whatever the next iteration is, it's a step up.

And I think we've done that both musically and with the band members. And I wouldn't say the band members are... It's not always that they're better, but they approach things in a different way, and it contributes to raising the quality of the band as a whole. And that takes a long time.

That took a long time to find our new players, yeah. Yeah, it did. So two years ago, we changed singers, and Sophie Munroy came into the band.

She's the singer and guitarist currently. And then a year ago, Pitar, the cellist, and Jimmy, the violinist, left the band at the end of last year. And Pitar lives in California now.

We're not really sure what Jimmy's doing. So we have new string players, and we actually decided to put three in the band instead of just replacing them with two. So we have Scott Daniel, who's a young guy, an incredible violinist.

He's a master's student at DePaul. Kelsey Vanderwaal is the new cellist, and she has got some serious credentials. She's played with John Legend and J. Cole and some other people.

And then Greg Hurt is the additional violinist that we've added to the group. I met Greg at a Jim Peterick party. I just happened to be standing next to him and started talking, and then I found out he was a violinist.

So I told him about Classical Blast, but I already said we already had a violinist at that time, right? And then I got his number and called him like a week later because I needed someone to do a hospital gig with me. And he said okay, and he shows up and he takes this piece of wood violin and makes it sound so good. And I was like shocked, like wow, just taking that bow and he made that wood resonate like you wouldn't believe.

So then I said maybe he should be in Classical Blast also somehow. Not to mention we have a couple special guests for Christmas. Oh yeah.

Katie Gillen. Yep. The lovely, talented Katie Gillen.

Yes. No, she is lovely. She's very talented, you say? Yes.

Very talented. And lovely. And lovely.

That's who I just did that hospital gig with earlier today, with Katie. Now that's your Dark Side of the Yule, correct? Yes. Yes.

And Phil Bolzano also comes in and adds keyboards to the Dark Side of the Yule show. Do you know who he is, Phil Bolzano? Yes. Yeah, we were talking, you mentioned him earlier.

Keyboard player from the band from the early 80s, Tantrum. Tantrum, right. Now I know you played in Tantrum.

I was going to ask you about that. And were you an original member of Tantrum? Yeah. Were you? Yeah.

Now how long did that band last? If you don't mind me getting off track here a little bit. Well, it lasted until we finished our third album. And the record company went out of business, maybe because of us.

Well, I found out in the 80s a lot of record companies were going out of business. Yeah, that was back when they used to actually support a band. Oh yeah.

You know? Yeah. It's called Ovation Records. And yeah, so we thought we had something.

And we might have, in hindsight, if we would have had some better songs mixed in with our own originals. We were writing them all. In hindsight, I was thinking if we could have grabbed some from someplace else, that might have helped us do a little bit better.

But no, we were getting a lot of airplay on The Loop and XRT. And so we thought we were going somewhere, but evidently not. There are still some Tantrum fans out there.

Oh yeah. There is, but... I saw a post recently about something about Tantrum. And I thought about you, because I knew you had played with Tantrum.

We had that Haymakers reunion like five years ago, whatever that was. Yeah, this was just something a month or two ago. Oh, really? Yeah.

I think I saw a concert ticket for Tantrum on Facebook. And I looked at it. Now I see the year and everything, but I think it said $2.

Okay, times have changed. Now, did you write in that band too? Yeah. Because I know you do some of the writing for Classical Blast.

Or most of the writing, if I'm being honest. So far. Not because I'm the most talented, but because, I don't know, so far I've been doing that.

Because you've got the songs to put out there, right? It's the most free time. No. And actually, Garb writes a lot of the lyrics.

Brilliant lyrics. I was going to get to that. You both write together, right? Yeah, that's kind of a new thing.

I think that came out of Bill's frustration. He needed somebody to write lyrics for his music. He's a very prolific music writer.

And he has written some songs with Jim Peter, who was doing the lyric writing. And so, he was developing all this music for this band. And he was frustrated that he couldn't find the right person to write lyrics for the music he was putting together.

So, I think he asked me one day if I thought I could do it. And I said, I don't know, I could try. And so, it's been working out.

And a new Christmas show won right now, right? Yeah, we have actually a brand new one that's on the Christmas show. They haven't performed it for anybody yet. So, it hasn't been recorded either? No, it hasn't been recorded either.

Well, professionally, I recorded it down in my own studio here. Just enough for everybody to hear how it goes. And we matched it with Shepard, Me, O God.

And it's a very moving piece. You've probably heard it before. Once you hear it, you'll probably say, oh, I love that.

That's very cool. Now, you do a lot of that mashup with the band? Yeah, endless. Mostly mashups.

Every song is a challenge. Not only a challenge, but it makes you really like it, too. Because I was just looking over this list to the Dark Side of the Yule songs.

And I realized I look forward to playing every one of these because they're so interesting. They're not just a cover of something. That's a big challenge, to find a classical piece that blends well with your original music or with another rock song.

This is what we spend our time on. I think ideas come from all different crazy places. Because I think inspiration is everywhere.

But this new song we're performing on the Christmas show, Bill had been working on this piece of music, and I had written some lyrics to it. But we hadn't quite figured out how it fit into the show yet. And then we were at a funeral.

It was actually Joe Crispino, the original manager for Tantrum. He passed away about a month or two ago. And we were sitting in church at his funeral, and we hear this beautiful piece of music that's often played in church called Shepherd May O God.

And Bill leans over in the middle of it and says, I love this music. Could we do this with something? And so I just shrugged my shoulders and said, I don't know. And then later, I was thinking about this song we had just written, and I realized, oh my God, those two pieces of music kind of fit together.

So that's what we did. We put them together. But there's all kinds of crazy ways ideas come about.

You never know when something's going to work. So Crispino's still managing me every day. Yes, apparently.

And then we also have a song called Pray For Me, too, that, again, I think we said, hey, this is a cool song. What do I do with it? How do I use this? And then we realized it's perfect for the Christmas show, as opposed to the regular show that we have, or for me to try to get some other band to record it. Now, when you guys do your Christmas show, obviously you rehearse for that and just do certain songs for that, and then you do your regular.

It's entirely different music from their other show. So their regular show mixes classical and rock music together. The Christmas show mixes Christmas and classic rock music together.

And they're entirely different, two different shows. They don't really overlap. So most of the Christmas show, which is Dark Side of the Mule, features music on the Dark Side of the Mule album.

And then we've added some other things to it. The cool thing about that album is actually the number of different people who perform on it. Which is how we got the idea to use special guests on the show.

So what happened is we had recorded that whole album with the original singer from the band, who was David Cav. And he ended up leaving a few months before the album was going to be released. And we felt it was awkward to... It was all recorded, it was all dark.

But we thought it would be awkward to release a brand new album with a guy who was no longer in the band. So we were trying to figure out what to do about that. And I thought, well maybe we could just bring in some guest vocalists and have them each do a different song.

So I started listening to each song and thinking about who do I know or who can I think of that might be right to sing this song. And so I started looking at different kind of iconic local vocalists and I just started contacting them. And I didn't even know most of them.

One of them was Kathy Richardson. Another was Wayne Baker-Hooks, who sings perfectly. Warm by the heart Takes the chill of the night From my heart Since you led me that way On a cold winter's day Just to get... Not any of these people.

I just sent them emails and asked. I figured, well, all they can do is say no. And they all surprised me by not saying no.

So they thought it was a cool idea. They listened to the music and said, sure, I'd love to do this. Chris Connelly sounds great on there.

Yeah, Chris Connelly sounds absolutely amazing. He sings Sound of Silence. I had heard Disturbed's version of Sound of Silence and really liked it, but I wanted to not do that.

That had already been done. So I thought, well, who else can sing both really low like the guy on Disturbed, and higher and still make that sound cool? And I thought, David Bowie. David Bowie does that.

Well, I didn't know David Bowie, so... He wasn't available. He wasn't available, yeah. So I started to look up David Bowie tribute bands and came across Sons of the Silent Age.

And Chris Connelly, who used to be in ministry, had this band. And he sounds just like David Bowie. He's from Scotland, you know? So I called him and he said, yeah, that sounds interesting.

He just... Is he here in town? He lives in a park. Oh, really? I could be... Right. Yeah.

And he put his own flavor on it, too. He did a great job. Yeah.

And then we had a gig at Wire for our CD release party. And Chris came in and sang that. They all came.

Kathy came. Wayne came. They all came.

Oh, really? Yeah. That's very cool. When was that? Two years ago.

Which singer was it that sent us the email saying how excited he was after he heard it? Chris. That was Chris? Yeah. Because we were like, wow, we got Chris on this.

And then for him to say something really good in return was really cool for us. I think for him it was how... Because we matched that song with Silent Night. And he didn't hear them put together until I sent him the track.

And he was very impressed by that. So we have a great producer, Dr. Ka. And he's very opinionated in a good way.

Right. Well, it's good. He's not afraid to tell you you suck.

Right? Yeah. So the Doc Said to You Tour is getting underway pretty soon, isn't it? Yes, it is. It is.

They're rehearsing very hard because all the new players don't know any of this music. So we're in the midst of rehearsals. And the first show is going to be December 1st at 210 Live in Highwood.

In Highwood, yeah. And then the next show is the following Friday at the Joliet History Museum. And then they have a show in Valparaiso, in Galena, and at the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, Michigan.

Have you been to the Acorn? We have. It's a really cool place. Yes, it is.

It's a great little venue. Yeah, I've been there a couple of times. And it's very interesting.

Very interesting. Right. We like those intimate concert shows.

Yes. What's the one we just did in Hobart? That was at the Hobart Theater. That was a really cool little place too.

Tell me a little bit about the record label you sang with. Toucan? Toucan Cove. Toucan Cove.

It's an indie label. They're based in Seattle. But the president company lives in the Chicago area.

I think Barrington. Okay. And he's a friend of Phil Balsano's.

Oh, okay. And Phil actually introduced me to the record company president. And we met, and he liked the idea.

So it was with the second album, Metamorphosis, that they took us on. And they actually handle all of the online sales, the distribution for any digital material. They handle that for us.

Everybody make a note of that. Phil Balsano, we need to talk to him. He's on point here in every aspect.

Right. Yep. So tell me, Bill, getting back to you, about your days as a survivor.

Wow. I don't know if I can say that on air in front of my wife. No, it was... Protected title.

Right. It was a very exciting time to play those kind of gigs. Right.

Did you tour a lot with them? It was kind of on and off. Because I was doing a lot of sessions with Jim before Survivor got back together. And then Frank would call me, and I would tell him about what's going on.

And I felt like I was kind of the guy that put Jim and Frank back together. Intermediate. Right.

And so when that did get back together, it was kind of fun. And we did some European stuff. And we did a lot of television shows.

That was kind of cool in Europe. What year was this? I have no idea. Like late 80s, maybe early 90s.

It was more early 90s. And then when the Too Hot to Sleep album came out, because we put a lot of effort into that. And Grunge came out at that time, I think.

And we were expecting kind of like the old days when you got a new record out, especially Survivor, you got a lot of airplay. Right. I think I remember hearing one of the tunes a couple of times on the radio, and that was it.

And I was kind of shocked that we put in all this effort and months of rehearsing and then going to New York and recorded this right track recording studio and this great producer and all these things. And then it kind of came and went really fast. Now with Jim and Frank, you both in the band? Yeah.

And I got to play with the drummer from Brian Adams' band. Mickey Curry. And so it was a definite highlight.

But then all of a sudden, no airplay. Did you help write any of the songs in that album? No. It's kind of like telling Lennon and McCartney, I got a song.

Yeah, let me add to that. Yeah, let me add to that, right? Yeah, then after a while, I was doing Our Gang at the same time. Right.

Then after a while, the gig started getting less and less, and then I just drifted. Now you talk about Our Gang. I know, Barbara, you manage Our Gang, right? And how long has Our Gang been going? A long time.

Maybe 28 years or something like that. It's been a long time. Were you an original member of Our Gang? Pretty much.

Yeah. Myself and the lead singer. Right.

I know you've written some stuff with... Robert Davis? Robert Davis, yes, yes. Yeah. I've got Robert's album, and I know you were on there quite a bit, right? Yeah, and for a while there, we were starting to perform those live.

Then after a while, we started having to use subs, and then subs aren't going to know your original material, so we would stop doing it for then, and then we kept thinking, well, we'll... And then after a while, we just forgot to do it. Yeah. I even forget my own songs if I don't play them.

So after a while, we were not even doing them anymore. Actually, it was through Our Gang that I got involved with artist management, with band management, because... Which is Arts Warrior, right? Yes, yes. Which is your company, correct? Yes.

And Bill was already... I wasn't involved with the music business other than early on on the graphics side. When I used to work for the Illinois Entertainer, I used to do a lot of graphics for them, and then for a lot of local bands back at that time, in the very early days of the Entertainer. But then I got a job at the Tribune, and it was a pretty all-consuming job.

I ended up to be the creative director in the marketing department, and I was really busy with my career. All during the time Bill was playing with all those other bands, with Our Gang and Survivor and all those, I wasn't really involved with the music business at all. He had a different manager for Our Gang, and that guy, I think they fired him, and they felt like they really needed somebody to help them market the band, and marketing is my thing.

So he asked me, do you think you could manage a band? He said, you manage artists at the Tribune. And I said, well, it's probably not so much different, and I don't think I could do any worse than that last guy, so I'll give it a shot. And that's how I started doing that.

And after I started managing Our Gang, I was always getting musicians call me, or other bands call me and ask, could you manage us too? And I was still working at the Tribune. That was just like a side thing I was doing then. And so I kept turning them away.

I'm like, no, I can't. I have a real job, and it keeps me really busy. But then after I lost my job at the Tribune with pretty much everybody else around 2002, I thought, well, maybe I should stop turning them away.

Maybe I should turn this into a business. And so that's what I did. We're very lucky to have Barb.

She holds us together for sure. Thank you, Barb. You're welcome.

Now you manage the two bands, Classical Blast and Our Gang. Anyone else? Yes. A classic rock band called 1976.

They do classic rock from the 70s. Guitar Azul, which is an amazing flamenco. They're actually the only all-original band that I work with.

They play only original music, and it's fabulous. And then Phil Bolzano's band, Swing Forward. There's that name again.

There it is. You should talk to him. We've actually been friends since Bill and Phil were in Tantrum together.

They were all at our wedding, and we've been friends ever since. And Phil, in fact, is the president now of the Caring Arts Foundation. So yeah.

It's a full circle. Yeah, it all comes full circle. Tell me about Caring Arts.

Caring Arts. Caring Arts has been around since 2000. My family had a lot of experience, unfortunately, with cancer.

My mother died of breast cancer. My brother had cancer, and my youngest nephew had cancer. All completely different types of cancers.

And those things all happened in pretty quick succession. So at some point, I think my family felt like maybe the universe was trying to tell us something. And so my brother had been doing some fundraising kind of in memory of my mother.

And then he got cancer himself and couldn't continue to do that. So the rest of us jumped in to sort of help him with that. And then my nephew was diagnosed with cancer.

And so we decided we wanted to do something more, and we wanted to formalize it. So it started out under a different name. It was called the Strike a Cancer Foundation originally because we were doing bowling tournaments just to raise money.

We weren't actually doing any programming. We were giving all the money to other organizations. But we decided we wanted to get a little more control over things and formalize.

And we knew we were never going to cure cancer. We didn't raise enough money to do that. But as a family of artists and musicians, we knew that those activities made a difference for people.

And it's so simple. It's like taking a pill, but it doesn't cost anything. And it's something everybody carries inside.

And so we started doing art-based programming. Which we think is very therapeutic. And in fact, it is.

So that's how it ties into the music. Yes. And so we started using the people around us, musicians around us, artists around us, and started going into hospitals.

And the musicians perform for the patients. At support communities like Gilda's Club, we have visual artists who paint. Or it's really the patients who paint, but we facilitate that.

And I was at a facility yesterday in Aurora, painting with 10 ladies who are dealing with cancer. And for those two hours, nothing else exists. They forget about their pain.

They forget about their cancer. They forget about all the crazy things they're doing. And we're living in that moment, creating something.

That's very cool. It's so powerful. It's amazing.

And the coolest thing is, hardly anybody was doing this. Art therapy was just beginning to infiltrate into the hospitals when we first started. And now some of our biggest supporters are doctors.

Because they all realize how powerful it is. So it's pretty amazing. That's awesome.

That's very cool. You want to tell them about that part, the doctor from Rush? His party? Yeah, so Bill performs at Rush. He was actually there this morning.

And he used to perform there with Pitar, the cellist. So it was, I think, their first time there. And I usually go with them on the first time in a new hospital.

So they were performing in the reception area at Rush. And it was all going very well. And I'm sitting off to the side.

And this very imposing looking gentleman in a white coat is standing off to the side with his arms crossed. And he's just staring at them. And all of a sudden, he walks up to them.

And he says, who are you people? And how do I get a hold of you? Well, they thought they had done something wrong. So they just immediately pointed at me. Pointing to you, sure.

Yeah, go talk to her. I'm just a musician. So he walked over.

Just playing a gig. And it turned out he was the chairperson of the oncology radiology department. And he wanted to get them in his department, too.

Oh, very cool. And at his retirement party two years ago, he invited them to play for his party. Very cool.

And he started his speech. Well, this is after everybody came up to talk about how all the great things he's done. And they went on and on.

And then he finally comes up and speaks. And the first thing he talks about is... He thanks the musicians. Yeah.

And he comes and he starts thanking me and Pitar. And he points to us. And the whole room is looking at us like, what? Who are they? This is how you start your speech? And we were literally starting to walk out of the room.

And we heard that. We were shocked. And along with everybody else was like, who are these guys? But he recognized the power of the music.

And it's pretty amazing. The music is very powerful. It is very powerful.

Every performance we do, there's endless people coming up to tell us how soothing it is or how much they appreciate it. Or nonstop. So it's such a win-win for us.

Do you have anything in the works now for any new CDs or anything you're working on? Well, we have a lot of new music. We haven't started actually working on a CD because it seems like the last two years, right about the time we'd be able to do that, we have to bring in some new performers and they have to learn all the music so the band can work. And so we've never really gotten to that point.

But we hope maybe in the next year. I think we have a good start on both classical and rock mashups. A bunch of new songs.

We've actually taken some songs from the first CD and put some classical music into those. Which that CD didn't feature that. So that's something new we're doing.

Christmas is kind of our focus right now. Maybe after Christmas. Well, thanks guys.

How do we find Classical Blast? We're on the internet? Yes, classicalblast.com. And there are all the shows. The upcoming Christmas shows are listed there. There are ticket links for all those shows.

The show in Galena, which is the second time we'll be doing that show, we're self-producing that one. So there was a button to buy tickets for that show. But there's links to all the theaters.

And there's videos and bios. And everything you need is at classicalblast.com. And on Facebook too? Yes, we're on Facebook. And your foundation? Is there a link to that somewhere? To what? To your foundation for the Caring Arts? It's the Caring Arts.

It's caringarts.com. People interested in that can look there. Yes, thank you. So come to hear us do a couple of mashups like Carol of the Bells mixed with Game of Thrones theme.

Nice. We mix Dance of the Sugar Plums. Staying current with the Game of Thrones theme.

Right, it's so cool when that kicks in. Tchaikovsky with Metallica. Right, then we go on to Enter Sandman.

That's the perfect match if you ask me. Yeah, absolutely. They're really fun.

Those mashups are surprising for people. Because you start with something that Bach would have played and then all of a sudden they're playing Metallica. No jingle bells.

No, no jingle bells. Thanks guys, appreciate it. Our pleasure.

Take care of yourself. Awesome, thank you so much. Broadway Classical Blast is an interesting group, aren't they? Yes, they are.

Christmas is around the corner. Is Santa here? Santa's coming. I hear him.

It's going to be a dark yule for him. The dark side of the yule. That's right, the dark side of the yule.

They've got shows coming up. Quite a few Christmas shows coming up. One of them, right around the corner from where we are at the Juliet Historical Museum.

That's right, the Juliet Historical Museum. Right around the corner from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. Where we also have a studio for our podcast.

Where we're at right now. We're there right now. And we're also on RoadToRockRadio.net every Monday at 6 o'clock featuring one of our podcasts.

So go to classicalblast.com and you'll find out and take your loved ones to one of their Christmas shows. It's quite interesting. It's a mix of classical music mixed with rock and roll.

Christmas music. And it's tied in with Christmas music. It's very cool.

It's a very cool show. Get out there and see it. Hopefully we'll see you guys out there.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon. Rock and roll, Chicago.

My hometown. Where I was born and raised. Go to Rock in Chicago.