Here's Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey Paul, you like candy? I do. I do.

I like candy. I like candy too. There's all kinds of candy I love.

What's your favorite candy? I like Pez. You like Pez? Oh, I love Pez. I love the little things that the Pez comes out of and stuff.

They are so cool. It's awesome. It's really good.

It is very good. It's not like Charles and Chew. No, no.

You know what, we're interviewing Pez Man this week. We are? Yeah, by what a coincidence. You know what? That's probably our payday.

Oh, I see where you're going with that. That's probably going to be our payday. I see where you're going with that.

I am going with that. I don't care what you say. I'm going with that.

Next week we interview Charles and Chew. All right, Charles and Chew sounds good. Maybe Milky Way.

Maybe Mr. Snickers. You know, maybe the M&Ms. We can do all the M&Ms.

Okay, I think you're getting out of control there. I am a little bit out of control. All right, let's get to this week's interview.

with Pez Band. Pez Band. Let's go.

All right. Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie.

With the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. This week we're meeting with Mimi Bettinas and Mark Gorman. Mike Gorman.

Mike Gorman. Sorry. That's okay.

You're about to be called worse, right? Chicago's very own Pez Band. How are you guys doing? Good. Real good.

Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us.

What's going on? What's going on? So let's start off with the early days. And tell me how the band first got together. Well, we first got together out of high school as a jam band.

Right. We were jamming together. Actually, I met him at the young and tender age of 16 years old.

I knew his sister before that, when we were junior high. He dated my sister for a couple of weeks. I don't think they were called dating.

It was more like hanging out on the playground. Yeah, going to the playground. But he was a great bass player back then.

In fact, he was better than all of us. He's not that good anymore? Not that good anymore. Not that the band would come to hell.

Old age? I don't know. And we were playing together since back then. Wow.

The late 60s, that was. 1860s. And the band got together.

It started out as a little jam band. It had movable members every couple of weeks. We had a different drummer.

We had a different... Mike usually played bass. Black Pudding. Were you in Black Pudding? Briefly.

Yeah. Black Pudding with Dave Green. Dave Green would play drums.

Anyway. So that was the thing back then. Had a little jam.

Right. And then... I know. Yeah.

You remember this stuff. Because you guys are from... We're from the South Side. I'm sorry.

We're from Oak Park. I'm sorry. So out of that, the band started to call us a little bit more.

And we called it Pez. Only because I liked the letter placement. P-E-Z.

Right. That's kind of cool. Nobody does that.

That's pretty different. And I also liked the candies too. They were like hop head pills, but you could eat them.

Right. And then after that, well, then it became Pez Band. You know, let's make it something that only means us.

Right. It only represents this bunch of people. And that's what Pez Band.

And so this was 19... This is about 1970. Yeah. Okay.

So by 71, you guys were pretty established. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. In a sense. And we went out as four peeps initially.

So it was me, and Mike, and Mick, and John Paston was on guitar back then. And we played for about a year together. And we played pizza parlors, and little banquet halls, and little events like that.

And then one winter, Cliff came in. We had known Cliff... We all went to high school together. Right.

Both Park High. All dupers. And Cliff came in, and we got him into the band.

I see. So do you still keep in touch with Mike Pazin? John Pazin? Yeah, I do. John, yeah.

Yeah, we... He and I have traded slots so many times. Yeah. Like when he left Off-Broadway, I joined Off-Broadway.

Right. Then he was in Pez Band, playing bass. Well, I was going to say, because I know you were part of Off-Broadway too, correct, Mimi? Yeah, in the 90s, I played with them.

Oh, okay. We started out Black and Blonde, about 1991. Sure.

And Cliff and I did a lot of writing and a lot of recording. We did some pretty good stuff. And we did some studio work.

And we had a different drummer. We had Randy Antlep with us at the time. And then Kenny Hark narved in.

Mike Arturi was in there? Mike Arturi was the first drummer, yeah. He was in there for a while. I don't know if you know who that guy is.

He used to be Chicago Bass. Now he's up in... Yeah. He works out of Red Wing, Minnesota.

But he plays like in the Loving Spoonful. Oh, yeah. And some of the projects he does.

Okay. So, yeah, we had kind of a roundabout, different guys. And then when Black and Blonde, then it came down to be Rob Harding, me, Ken Hark, Mimi, and Cliff.

And so we were going around to try and book it. And a couple of the guys who were buyers were like, why don't you just call it Off-Broadway? It'll be a lot easier to sell. We said, okay.

Yeah, and it was. It sold a lot better and we got a lot more money. So we went with that for a while.

Going back to Pez Band, you released your first album just called Pez Band in 1977, right? Yes. And I know... Now, who was doing the writing then? Mick and myself, yeah. I did most of the writing.

Yeah. I had my hand in a lot of that stuff. Right.

You know, the way the writing went was somebody would come with a chord progression and then I would come up with the melody and verse and so forth. So, yeah, that's the first record. Well, I know a lot of... A couple... One of the songs, Hold On, it's got a McCartney influence.

You sound like McCartney on it. Yeah. It's got a McCartney influence and a lot of it is a Beatlesque.

Yeah, I remember that show. I thought that song was so absolute, so corny. But the people, you know, the producers and the record label said, well, now we're going to put it on.

Now, what label were you on for the first album? We were on Passport, ABC Passport. Right, okay. And, you know, we had done... The group had done quite a bit of recording and demo work before that, before, you know, we signed, because we signed, we really signed in 76.

Right, that's when we... We started recording. We moved out there. We moved to New Jersey in 77 and by April, we were flying.

Yeah. It was gone. You know, the record was pressed out in May.

We were in Washington, D.C. Oh, yeah. So things that year of 77 were really flying. Right.

And you worked with Clarence Clemmons, I know. Yeah, Clarence Clemmons was on there. The giant, giant guy.

Randy Brecker. Yeah, the Brecker brothers were on there. Larry Fast.

Oh, okay. Was a synth guy. Synth guy, right, yeah.

And, you know, we really balked all this stuff. When they brought us in, and they did, they said, I'm an Indian. It was really kind of the first time we had done professional recording stuff.

We had done demos and it was all kind of on our own. Right. And we'd done home recordings on the Tiac 4-track.

Right. I got pounds of tape back there like that. We used to record on South Michigan Avenue and there were all those studios down there.

Right. We had some guys CXC and Well, this was one place was Unique Audio which had been in business forever. And I think they were kind of on their last legs.

These guys we knew. Said, well, we'll take you in here and we'll record. But it was just us.

And by the time we started doing that first record, they were like, okay, well, we're gonna bring in this thing and we're gonna have horns, we're gonna have all this stuff. The passport records he's talking about. Right.

This 77 record. Yeah. And it was a little, we were a little, uh-oh.

Yeah, so, you know, they bring us in and there's strings on Please Be Somewhere Tonight has a string section. Strings? Yeah. We're a rock band.

Right. And we play marshals on Los Paulos. What are you doing? Yeah.

But We went with it because it was like, well, okay, maybe, okay. Well, you were probably a little naive at the time too, right? I mean Oh, yeah. You know, if they told us to if you, you'd be better if you stand on your head and play this and you, we'll get a great recording.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm only 25 years old.

Right. Okay. And, uh, but that, that's how that went.

And you know, that, that year was, was monumental for us. So things were just going at a breakneck pace. Right.

So, you know, we hear the mixes. Okay. All right.

What's next? Yeah. How were sales of that album? Did the album sell well? No. No.

Didn't sell very much. None of the records sold very much because, um, there wasn't a lot of money behind it because the records were done for a very low budget. It was a very small label.

See, Passport was sisters with Sire Records. They were like this. Okay.

They both had the same distribution, but Sire had a little bit more money and they had the talking heads. And I remember going up into the office with this and, you know, here's the latest record from Sire and it was, uh, Psycho Killer. Yeah.

That's got to say. And I thought, what? Yeah. Yeah.

This is awful. You know, we had babies called outside. Yeah.

Sleepy someone and, you know, we had these big hard records and Psycho Killer. I ain't gonna keep it. I ain't gonna keep it.

I'm running to you now. Babies called outside. The daughters of Manhattan.

They were. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And so, you know, what happened? Well, we opened for them. We opened for Blondie. We, uh, we, and we shared bills at Max's Kansas City because it was all connected.

And since we lived in New Jersey at the time, we were playing in New Jersey in New York. Yeah. We were 30 minutes from the city.

So we played all over the place. And then we went up and down the coast. And that was, you know, it was really great.

We had a great couple years there, three years. I like gas grill myself. You like grill? Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good tip.

Which was actually a place. You know. Oh, it was? It was an actual place, but it was just a bar.

It was called the Gas Grill. Right. And we would pass it all the time going home to our little rented place.

But, you know, back then, and then still maybe today, but all the bars out there, they had like a cheap beer, 25 cent beer, and they had a grill. And you could order a hamburger and fries. And it was really great for us because for a few bucks, we'd get tanked and fed.

Right. Yeah. That's where I matter.

That's where I matter at the old gas grill. She came up to me. She came up to me.

Can I dance with you? Well, she said, stay, stay. Won't you stay every night? Take me to your bar. So, you know, I picked up the title from there, you know.

So I made it about, you know, some girl that I'm... And I had a girlfriend out there. You know, I met her and pretended to meet her at the gas grill. Yeah, I'm going to meet you at the gas grill and everything's going to be wonderful at the gas grill.

Yeah. We're going to have children at the gas grill. Did you say you were out there for like a couple years? Yeah, about almost three years.

Okay, but now, 78 came around and you did Laughing in the Dark. Yeah, and that actually was 77. Oh, that was... So, I mean, that year, that first year, it was just like, here you go, guys, and bang, off we went.

So you recorded it at the same place out there? No, then we... We recorded it at a place called Moulin Rouge in London. Oh. It was owned by Ian Anderson, and they had a really... It was his own freestanding building in a section of town called Fulham Broadway, and it had its own little parking lot, and they had a kitchen, they had a lounge, they had like a mixing suite, they had a big studio room, then these big other lounges, then the hash smoking area, laughing laughing laughing laughing Which, one of the guys who ran it was an original roadie for Jethro Tull.

Wow. He said, let's go over here. laughing And then we'd watch in the news, do you know what an MP is? A military prisoner.

Member of Parliament. This guy's an asshole. laughing laughing There you go.

laughing And so it was a really cool thing. We were there on Thanksgiving, and the cook that worked there full time, this girl, did a full traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Wow.

Because they don't have Thanksgiving dinner. So she studied up on it, and it was like for 14 people, just laid out, and we're like, oh my God. I thought he'd be a big ass hero.

Thank you. laughing And, you know, we saw some characters come through there. The guys from the split ends came in there checking the studio out, and they were walking around in green iridescent suits and their hair going like this.

It's 12 in the afternoon. Hello, hello, hello, hello. And what's his name? The guy from Genesis, he was in there.

One of those guys, Alex Harvey had just left, Oh, Alex Harvey. Alex Harvey, yeah. He looked bad.

The engineer was like, oh, what a weird dude, man. He was not a good guy, not a bad guy. He didn't talk at all.

He just stayed in the studio room. Wow. And kind of like, ooh.

But then when it was time to sing, he was great. Yeah. Wow.

So, what about Laughing in the Dark then? Did you have, did you come back to the States then? Or did you tour over there? We played one, we played over there, but we didn't like, tour. We played a place in London. Okay.

And the people from, there's so many Americans in London that we were running into these people from New York. Like the girl who sold shirts at Barney's. Yeah.

And I'm like, what are you doing here? Oh, I come here about once, you know, twice a month, you know, just to look around. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Wow. So, but that's how that went. It was, it was a great year.

Yeah. You know, we, we moved to New Jersey. We did our first genuine LP.

We started touring all over the place. In January we were on a plane to London. Wow.

And then, then we came back to Jersey and then we promoted both records. We did in-store after in-store all up and down the East Coast. Yeah.

We did a TV show. We were on the, on the Today Show. Right.

It was all kinds of great stuff. We played malls. We played malls.

We played everywhere. People would be like, it's the middle of the day and we're playing. Yeah.

And that's, that was to promote the record. Right. Now that was, that was four of you in the band, right? That was four of us.

That was the four of us. Right. The, the four piece made the headway.

Right. Right. And now you still talk to Tommy? Yeah.

He, he's, you know, he's, everything's fine. He's just, he's just not really into this stuff. So, he's like, oh, that's fine, guys.

And he said, as he told me, he said, I have a quiet, peaceful life. Yeah. I want to keep it.

He played the loudest of all of us. And, and I emailed him and said, you know, Tommy, you know, people want to get this reunion thing, you know. Would you be interested? He said, well, I am, but, you know, I, I really can live a real quiet, peaceful life.

He owns a, a sound installation. Right. And I saw him probably 15, I can't remember where it was, probably 15 years ago.

And he was installing something somewhere. And I just happened to walk in there and, and talked to him for a few minutes. And, but, but he was off doing his thing.

Yeah. He's fine. But he, he wasn't, he wasn't into all this.

You know, he was like, when the first time that the Japanese label wanted to rerelease, this was like 10 years ago or more, wanted to re-release some Fez Band stuff. Right. He called me up and said, do you want to deal with this? And I'm like, well, okay.

And, but, because we were, Mimi and I have always been in touch, but the band wasn't really in touch too much. So, I started talking to the guy, Hiroshi, Hiroshi. And, I said, yeah, Tommy, just wasn't, he's just like, no, you know.

Yeah. Well, that's, that's what he likes to do. Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah. That's just the way it goes, but. So, well, first of all, I'm laughing in the dark, you know, you'd stop, wait a minute, which is a great song, you know, and, and, and, and that one seemed to start to catch on, didn't it? Yeah, that is a power pop classic, that one.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. David and I are going to re-master that record.

OK. Probably this summer we're going to get to that and stop, wait a minute, that's top on the list. Yeah! This just has that kind of sound to it.

It's, you know, it's a marker. It's a marker song. Right.

And when we, man, when I go back and listen to some of the stuff we did back then, I can't, one thing, I can't believe how fast we went, how the tempos we did everything at. It was the 70s. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Yeah, that's how everything was. Yeah, yeah. Now, they'd be compared to the Knack and the Cars and stuff like, I mean, does that bother you? Or, it does? It bothers me.

It bothers me. No. I think it's all guys in the same age group who came up with the same stuff.

Yeah. And they all came up with the same stuff. Well, you see where it bothers you because you didn't get the popularity that they got.

Well, you know, the problem is that- Which is a shame, I mean- Yeah. Yeah, it's- Well, it's a money thing, you know? Right. Those guys had money behind them.

Right. We didn't have money behind us. Like I said, our budget was very low and it was not gonna be expanded upon.

And I think one of the things that really irritated me was the look that we had, that Pez Band look, that black and white cover, that was ours. And then everybody copied that. The Knack, Cheap Trick, all those other, they all came after what we put down first.

Right. And I don't mean to sound conceited about it- No, no. But that's the way it was, you know? Right, sure.

Well, I've never seen you guys at Southside at Harlow's. I mean, when you play Harlow's- I remember that place. Oh, yeah.

It's a cleaner's now or something. I'm thinking if the walls of that place could talk, what stories it could tell, you know? But- A lot of nice Southside chicks down there. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Yep, it sure was. And speaking of that, now, are you guys, I know you did a show at the Arcata. Yeah, as a three-piece- Two years ago, that was the three-piece Pez Band with Jon Pazner.

Yeah, so Jon was playing bass with that. Oh, okay. Oh, he was? Okay.

Have you got any plans of playing it and doing any shows or anything? We talked about it, but for one time, he's not interested. Right. Mick, the drummer, lives in Tampa, so there's a logistical thing there.

And then it would be, how much do we want to spend to put it together? Because it takes money to put it together. Us here. And we don't want to be rehearsing down here, and we're gonna need help doing it.

Right. So we've talked about it, but I don't know, we kind of just left it because it's just like, well- A friend of mine, we have a guitar player that will fit in, a fella named Ned Babb, who's worked with me before. A great guitar player, he's blonde.

He's taller than Tommy, but he- He can fit the bill. But the band would need a couple of weeks of rehearsal, and there's a lot to go into it. Oh, sure, sure.

So- I don't know. Right now, it's kind of off. Nothing in our plans right now, right? No.

That's a shame, because I know there'd be other, I think he has to have a good craft. I mean, you really could be packing some places, I know that. Right around here, we probably would.

Yeah. You know, Fitzgerald's or something like that. Right.

Well, the name, everybody knows the name. I mean, we were talking on the way up here, and I mentioned, I says, you know, back in the late 70s, beginning of the 80s, you guys were the shit. I mean, Pez Band was the band out there.

I mean- Yeah. You guys were setting the level for everybody. I mean, everybody knew who you were.

Everybody wanted to go see you, you know? And then you kind of just like, went away. Yeah. Yeah, that's how it went.

Yeah. And a lot of those people from back then, it's hard getting people out to clubs now. It's hard getting people to come out.

And like, I'm doing dates with, in this band I'm in called The Outfit, we do dates with these heavy rock bands. And the opening band's like, we'll go to like Fort Wayne or Eau Claire or something like that. And we're playing with like bands like Soil and Fah.

And their crowds are younger. And they get them out. And the old people come and they want to have some fun.

So that works. And I also like meeting up with, then there's gonna be another couple of local bands. And the farther down the billiard, the younger they get.

Oh yeah. And one kid's like, hey mister, your bass sounds really good. Thank you son, don't you have some homework to do? Ha ha ha ha ha.

But it's hard to get people out. Oh, you're not old enough. That's it.

It's hard to get people to come out, you know? Yeah, it is. And there's not that many venues anymore. That's another thing.

Yeah. I mean, you look through some of the posts on Facebook, or a lot of the old entertainer posts. And there were, I mean, bands were playing five nights a week, six nights, seven nights a week.

Yeah, yeah. That was how it went. You could go see Paz Band on a Tuesday somewhere or something, and the place would be packed.

Oh yeah. The Arcana Show, that was the last time you guys ever got together. That was the last show we ever did.

Yeah. Well, they had the trio going. Right.

And that, they took it, it was really good. And they took it to Japan, and did some other dates. And at one point, Kenny Hark was playing drums in it, because Mick couldn't make it.

And that trio was really good. The thing, going to Japan was really exciting. The Japanese power pop fans are like, you have never seen.

I was like, whoa. Yeah, yeah. They just slam the stage, and they sing along.

I mean, they sing along with every song. Right. You know? The accordion.

I was like, hey. Yeah. Wow, this was too much.

Yeah, that's great though. I mean, there's such a need for that, or a want for that. Well, there's a big power pop scene.

They take it to a different level, though. It's like power pop punk, almost. Some of them.

And they're really raucous, and they're really genuine, and they're very into it. Well, that's, and Japan made Cheap Trick. Yeah.

I mean, locally, yeah. We all knew Cheap Trick, as they're from around here. And we all liked them.

But nationally, they really didn't get much recognition until they went to Japan. Right. Otakon.

Japan was crazy about it, and Otakon came out. Then they went crazy here, and on other countries. Yeah, that was it.

So tell us about Cover to Cover. You started to tell us before we started recording about Cover to Cover, and that we've got to remix. And with John Pavletic, and he brought in a tape deck, and we rented a house in LaGrange.

Well, that's the initial recording, yeah. The initial one. Yeah, in 79.

So was that with Passport Records, too, or no? Yeah, that was the last. The Passport Records. So you did all three of them with Passport, right? Passport was three LPs and two EPs.

Okay. That was the deal. Right.

So our last deal, we ran out of money in the east, so we left New Jersey, we came back here, and we started recording Cover to Cover. I see, okay. And now you've just remixed it, and recently, So yeah, I had the two-inch tape right here, because I archive everything.

Right. Everything. Those cassettes right there, it's all live Pest Band stuff.

Wow. So that's another record there. Yeah.

And so I took the two-inch tape and I went down to Wall-to-Wall Studios downtown, which is now gone, and they baked it and digitized it, and took it over to John. John was down in Brookfield, in Lyons, and said, you know, what do you think? And he went after it, because that was his baby. Right.

And it was done at his studio, he was very involved, he did Cover to Cover, he did 30 Seconds Over Schaumburg, he's done all kinds of stuff with me, all kinds of solo material. But that record was really his little baby, and he took about eight, nine months, you know, mixing it, remastering it, it was just phenomenal. And it sounds great.

It does, it does sound really great. ♪ Go to Columbara, it's on the way ♪ ♪ When you see this town, you'll want to stay ♪ ♪ Lots of crazy dancers, and fireworks fly ♪ ♪ When you see these guys, you'll wonder what it takes ♪ ♪ To ride in the African night heat today, just can't wait ♪ Now this is Jem Records, right? The remix? Yeah, so the way it got out was Marty Scott through Facebook, and he called me up, you know, why don't we do something again? Eh, well, I don't know. And Marty Scott was who? He was Jem Records.

He was Passport Records too. And he's still in the business, and Jem was an importer. Ah, I see.

And that's how he got started in the business. Like, it's like college guys, they would import cool rock stuff, mainly from England. And then he got started this label, Passport.

But he's kind of kept Jem going, and then now he put a label called Jem. There's Jem Imports, and then the label called Jem. I see.

And it's all, and he's got some new releases coming out. Lots. They, it's, I gotta hand it to him, man, to be able to make a go of it.

In today's world, in the market. So Marty said, why don't we do something, you know, it'll be a 40-year anniversary at 79, and it'll be really good if we put something out. Right, right.

I said, well, okay, you know, the record's almost done. I sent him some mixes, and he said, well, it sounds great. There's no money, but we can do a little deal with Marty.

Right. With Marty again. And we released it, yeah.

Yeah. So off it went, and it's gotten some great reviews. People really like it.

And, you know, it's on the internet radio charts. Right. And we're very proud of it.

And it sounds really great. John did just a bang-up job on it. It does sound great.

I've listened to it a whole while. It's so punchy. A few times, yeah.

Compared to, have you listened to the original one? The original's great. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it sends out anything with the original. And are you saying you're going to remaster the other albums too? Yeah, well, the first Paz Band record, John has remastered that. Okay.

That's done. That's done. That's in the can.

Now, laughing in the dark, the original tapes to that can't be found. We don't have them. All we have is the Japanese import.

So we have to take that, put it into Pro Tools, and do weeks and weeks of EQing and adjusting and timing. And I don't know if we can make it sound quite as good as cover to cover, but it might be close. See, with cover to cover, we had each track.

We had the overheads, the bass direct, the bass live. Each, all 24 tracks. Right.

So it... Now, the EPs, do you have the masters of the EPs? I have 30 Seconds over Schomburg. I have that, which is, I have that one here. But we don't have Live at Dingwall's.

That's another one that probably could be remastered. And you mentioned Internet Radio. I know, excuse me, I know Boris, Bob Borden.

Right. Plays his stuff quite a bit. I know he's been playing African Nights quite a bit.

That song sounds so good. Yeah. He also got a hold of what's considered a black and blonde song.

And I saw it on one of his charts somewhere in there. You said what you said. You said what you said.

I sent it to him. Okay. Yeah, I sent it.

He messaged me and said, you know, do you have... I remember the song that you guys did. It was the early 90s. Yeah.

And I said, yeah, I have it. I have a bit and I sent it to him. Cool.

Now Boris used to see you at Harlow's as well. Yeah. That's where Boris used to hang out there.

Yeah, he was the guy that was in there seven nights a week too. Really? Oh, yeah. I want to mention Glory Sarna who helped us set this up with you guys today.

And thank her for getting us in touch with you guys. Well, thank you, Glory. She's wonderful.

Yeah. Yeah, what a gal. Yes, she is.

Yes, she is. So where can we find you now besides on the internet radio and stuff? But I mean, you guys have a Facebook page. You can find us shopping at Jewel.

Yeah, we have the Facebook page. We have officialpazband.com Okay. It has Stella Blue on there and it has an ad for the record on there.

And I have a website popmusic.com which all my soul stuff is on. And the record can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon. Right.

It's got a lot of distribution. So it's available. Do you have any hard copies or is it just... Yeah, it's hard copies.

It's hard copies, okay. Yeah. Now you talked about your original stuff or your solo stuff.

Has any of that been released? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I've released a lot of it, yeah. I'll give you some.

I have a whole box of stuff. It sells. It's on CD Baby.

Right, okay. But yeah, you know, my stuff gets played around. It gets in Sweden and the UK.

And it's just under Mimi Patinas? Yeah, Mimi Patinas. That's it. You got anything going on, Mike? Yeah, I'm playing in a band called The Outfit which is on Pavement Records.

And they got one record out. They got one single up in the Billboard Top 40 to 36 or 38 last year. Still Top 40.

And then we're putting a new record out at the beginning of next year. And we play dates. We do our own shows.

We play like The Rock House in West Dundee. Right, thank you. And I don't have any copies, but I'm glad there are hard copies.

And if you got an address, I'll send you one. All right, all right. We'll talk about that afterwards.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So what kind of music is The Outfit? It's like two guitars, bass and drums, hard rock.

Okay. And the titles are like Vikings. Wolves.

Dragons? Pardon? Dragons? We're getting to that. You got to jump on the Game of Thrones? Yeah, yeah. One of the cover songs we do which we're going to put out on the record is Midnight Moses.

And it's by Alex Harvey Band. Oh, there you go. Alex Harvey reference again.

One of our encores is God Save the Queen. But it's played, everything's played, it's like Les Pauls and Marshalls. Loud.

Yeah. Constantly. That's the Sex Pistols version, right? God Save the Queen.

She ain't no human being. You know, I had a question from Glory's husband. He wanted to know what happened to the old Tiger Top Les Pauls that she had.

There's one of them there. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, unfortunately, I sold it. Oh. And this is what I had in 1973.

Yeah, that's probably what he remembers. That's it. It's a 58.

Oh, wow. I know. I feel the same way.

You weren't thinking of that at that time. I had three Pauls that I got rid of Everybody's got that story. Well, it was good talking with you guys.

Thank you so much. You too. Thanks.

Thanks for having us in and talking about this. And hopefully, maybe we'll get to see you guys soon somewhere out there. We'll never know.

Something might come through. We'll start a GoFundMe page. Fund our one date.

We'll plow through that money. All right, you guys. Thanks a lot.

So, hey, Brad, that was a lot of fun, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. You know who else likes Pez? My girlfriend, Stella Blue. Oh, does she? She loves Pez.

Oh, my God. Yeah, does she love Pez Band, though? She loves Pez Band, too. She loves them, too, but she loves that Pez.

That was a lot of fun. Great hearing from Mimi and Mike. That was a ball.

Yes, it was. Yes, it was. It gave some good insight into the band and what they were doing back in the 70s and early 80s.

Yeah, it's hard to remember what happened in the 70s, but they were right on the spot. Most of us don't remember that. Maybe hard for you.

It might be a little bit hard for me, but some of it is coming back. I still remember Pez, so I'm still pretty good with that. Yes, yes.

And as long as you remember Pez Band. I remember Pez Band. So be sure to check them out.

Go to their website. Theoriginalpezband.com. Their Facebook page. Their album is on Amazon and iTunes.

Cover to cover. That's a great album. Pick it up.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it. You'll definitely enjoy it. So until then, I guess we'll see you guys next week, huh? We'll see you next time.

I'm going to go get some Pez right now. Okay. Bye-bye.