Ep 236 Mixtape Junkies

Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And it's your man Hollywood here.

Just flew in, huh? Yeah. Your arms must be tired. Yeah, you beat me to it with the freaking dad jokes.

I already was starting with the dad jokes. We're going to have a podcast. We're just going to have Ray the Roadie dad jokes.

That's it. That's what we're going to do. It's going to be a whole new podcast.

Yeah, yeah. So where did you fly in from? Asheville, North Carolina. Oh, nice.

Yeah. Are you really? Yeah. It's horrible if you're flying there.

Sorry, Asheville folks. Yeah, because I mean, it's a really small airport. So your airplane's probably going to be like 60 people on it.

We're going into Atlanta first. Oh, you're going to Atlanta. Okay.

And then you're driving over? That direction. Yeah, thank God. I waited 30 minutes for an Uber from the airport.

Wow. And they wanted $124 for a 10-mile trip. Jeez.

We're in the wrong business. Well, luckily, I wasn't paying for it. Oh, yeah.

Who cares? Yeah. But it's the part of the country that was affected by the flooding. That's right.

I mean, if you're a conspiracy theorist, yeah, it was the flooding that happened on the mountaintop. But no, we saw the whole thing. I got a chance to walk through the downtown area and stuff.

Really cool music town. Yeah. I didn't realize they had so much music there in Asheville.

Every bar you walked in had some live music and stuff. So it was pretty nice. And got to have dinner at the Biltmore Mansion.

Nice. That was pretty freaking awesome. That was free, too.

Largest house in the world. Yeah. Cool.

And we toured it. I had mixed feelings the entire time I'm walking through this place thinking to myself, this is amazing. And at the same time, this is the most disgusting, vulgar display of gluttony I've ever seen.

I mean, who needs a pipe organ in their dining room? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. First of all, who needs a 1,500-square-foot dining room and then a smaller one next to it in case that one's not big enough? And oh, let's throw a fucking pipe organ in the balcony.

Well, the small one was for the kids. That was a kid's table. The kid's table.

Yeah. Yeah. No, but interesting.

You guys should go and if you get a chance to go to Asheville, it's pretty, pretty, pretty cool place to hang out. So tonight we're going to have something a little unique. We're going to have a counseling session.

Okay. Yeah. Let's do that.

Because we got the mixtape junkies. Oh, is that what they are? We have to counsel them. Okay.

Yeah. Help them get over to stuff. You know, they'll scratch and stuff.

Although they're a band, so they're probably scratching other areas than the actual junkie. Well, let's welcome you guys. How are you doing? How are you guys doing tonight? Great.

How are you? That's not it. Which one? Wrong one. That's the one.

That's the one. The mixtape junkies. Yeah.

So why don't we go around the table like you did in third grade and tell people who we're talking to and what you do in the band. Go ahead, Paul. Okay.

I'm Paul Gere. I am the keyboard guy and do a little bit of vocal work. All right.

Grab hold of that microphone too. Don't be shy. I'm not going to be shy.

My name is Dave. I'm the guitar player. Dave, the guitar player.

That's what it says on his birth certificate. Chris Brown, lead singer. All right.

Hey there, Steve Schneck, bassist. Rocco Marcello, drums. All righty.

He's sitting, although for those who can't see, he's sitting all the way back. They pushed the drummer all the way in the back of the room. And didn't give him a microphone.

They didn't give him a microphone. That's right. As a standard.

Yeah. So let me guess. Your name kind of indicates, because I mean, let's see.

First of all, I don't think anybody made a mixtape past, what, 1990? So is your music pretty much kind of shoved into that era of like the 70s, 80s and stuff like that? Is that how it goes? Very much so. Heavy 80s, heavy 80s, a little bit into 70s, touch a little bit into the 90s, but not too much. But primarily, I like to think of us kind of left of center 80s, if that makes any sense.

Some people go, what's left of center? Well, I think we're not doing your typical Journey, Bon Jovi, REO. I mean, we do some REO, so I can't say that. So nobody comes out to listen to you guys then, because that's all anybody ever wants to hear.

But, you know, we're doing Super Tramp in Asia and The Fix. And, you know, we're trying to do things that still everybody knows. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Right. Excellent. But yeah, but a lot of bands aren't playing.

Right. Right. So who was the person sitting around one day going, man, I just want to play a lot of 80s crap.

Who was it? It was the two of us. It was Steve and I. We were in another band together and got to know each other and weren't playing what we wanted to play. And so we're like, hey, let's let's build what we dream about.

And here we are. Yeah. So what, seven years later, almost seven? Yeah.

Yeah. It all started during breakfast. So we had breakfast and we talked about it.

Hence the Super Tramp album cover. There you go. Breakfast in America.

Exactly. Absolutely. And we just kind of added people one by one.

And it's been the same band the entire time. So same lineup. How long is that? 2017, I think we joined.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Nice. So you guys are all getting together and having a having a good time with it. You ever noticed that whenever anybody talks about 80s music, it's 80s shit.

But when you talk about genres from other years, they always get a cool name associated with it. You know, how come how come the 90s everything was, you know, grunge, you know, grunge was cool. And then you had nu metal and stuff.

But when you talk about 80s, it's that 80s shit. I mean, it's honest to God. Well, it was hair metal.

Yeah. You know, it was a weird time. I mean, you kind of went away from the arena rock into the hair metal stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Or anybody talks about 80s, you know, we always play this and that, you know, all that 80s shit.

You know, that's what everybody always says. And I don't understand why, because that was a fantastic era for music. Any music aficionado will tell you that the 80s was just, I mean, look at all the stuff that happened.

It's magic. Yeah. You know, what people don't talk about a lot, and let's talk about this right now, is the influence of a lot of, I guess you want to say, non-regular, let's call the left of center, like you just said, you know, guitar players.

I mean, everybody thinks of metal guitar players. You know, everybody thinks guys like C.C. DeVille from Poison and stuff like that, you know, because they had all the flash and everything. But what about these guitar players, like the guys from, what's the dude's name, from Talking Heads, you know, a guy that took the guitar and effects and just made it sound freaking awesome, where he almost didn't realize it was a guitar.

And then you had a whole group of people that came out and started messing around with the guitar. Talk to that a little bit, because I know you've got to have experienced some kind of that. Yeah.

I think you're referring to Adrian Ballew. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. I mean, I grew up, I was weaned on all the big guitar stuff, of course, but at the same time that I'm listening to Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhodes and all that, I was listening to Adrian Ballew doing all this background stuff. I'm actually my biggest influences are the studio guys from those eras because they played on so many different types of albums.

You know, Adrian Ballew would play with the Talking Heads and then would go play with some other prog rock stuff. And, you know, and then his his own original stuff has a pop element to it as well. So, you know, just if there's a guitar in it, I'm no matter what style or thing.

And that's the thing with the with what we do is there as much as we have a lot of keyboard driven stuff, there's at least a little guitar in there for me to do. And so if I'm just adding one little, you know, when we play the fix, I play one chord pretty much essentially through the whole song. That's pretty much the probably what's one thing leads to another.

Yeah. What is that like an A minor seventh or something like that? Yeah, I get a little variation, but it's basically this the whole thing. But I have it's a blast playing just that one little part that kind of helps kind of just be a little icing on the cake.

Yeah. So Paul is the icing on the cake keyboard wise. But I just you know, so he's responsible for putting all the stuff like that into the song.

Yeah, exactly. Because I got to have that. Paul's the reason that people say you guys play the tracks, right? No, we just have a great.

No, actually, not so much. Yeah. Yeah.

No. So you I mean, you do it all. It's almost like it's almost like you're playing synthesizer in a way where you've got some stuff that are programmed.

You got the specific sounds and everything in the key. Yeah. Yeah.

I go to great lengths to find the right sounds or build the right sounds in most cases. Right. Right.

But no tracks, nothing. You got nothing going on. No tracks.

Good. Good. Excellent.

Excellent. And bass. Okay.

Bootsy Collins. But please don't. I mean, a lot of great things in the 80s.

I was kind of a prog rock guy. So yeah, Raj Shetty Lee, that kind of thing. But yeah, a lot of influences.

Yeah. Okay. I told him not to talk about it all day.

And he just, I mean, done. Well, we, we learned to do the water spray bottle thing when he starts to have an opinion. See, I see that how that's, that's expanding from the drummer to the bass player as well.

That's great. That's great. Rocco and I have a support group for that.

So that's why we're having this session this evening. Right. Right.

That's, that's, that's exactly why. So Rocco, you're sitting all the way back there by yourself. How do you feel about this whole thing? What we got going here? Yeah.

I love it. Rocco has no idea what we're talking about. Cause I just, I just said in general, what are we doing? And he's like, yeah, I love it.

Okay, cool. What are we talking about? Sandwiches. All right.

You know, you guys were talking about influences, you know what I'm saying? You know, when you were talking about, you know you know, how I like what's going on. I, I really love the material that we're, that we're choosing. Um, I actually, I know most of what the, and this goes back to what Chris was saying earlier.

I know most of the material that we choose is firmly set in the eighties, but it's so left of center, you know, like, like we were talking about that. I don't feel if, if, if I tell someone that we're an eighties band, you're going to, there's a lot of meat potatoes that you would expect a lot of Bon Jovi journey, um, you know, uh, Rick Springfield, stuff like that. And that's great stuff.

It's great stuff. That's why it's so well represented. Right.

Um, but you know, I like, you know, just the choices we're making, you know, they brought up the fix. One thing leads to another, you know, um, super tramp, goodbye stranger. Right.

You know, everybody knows the songs. Exactly. You know, we, we, we try and go for that.

Oh yeah. Factor like, oh yeah. You know, I, oh man, I haven't heard this one in a while, you know, but everybody knows it.

They're not like, what's this? It's just, oh my God, I haven't heard this in so long. Right. Right.

Do you have rototimes on your kit? I mean, you have to play some of that stuff, right? I did. I did. But, uh, they, uh, they weren't paying him enough.

So yeah, they didn't last too long. Yeah, I did briefly. Cause I mean, you gotta have that do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, to do all that stuff in there.

And by the way, we could record that and then they could just put it as a track. Oh, yeah. Good idea.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you guys just kind of, uh, proved a little bit about what I was saying.

When you say, if you have a group of people, you could have 12 people in room and you say eighties music, right? 12 people are going to be talking about 12 different types of music. I mean, they could be talking about early rap. They could be talking about hair metal.

They could be talking about folk music and Dan Fogelberg. They could be talking about pop. There's all kinds of different things that fall underneath that eighties thing.

But at the end of the day, everybody who grew up in the eighties loves all of it. They really do. I mean, I was one of them.

I mean, you know, heck I graduated from high school in 88. So I was, you know, that's exactly it. So tell us the whole story.

You guys get together. You say, okay, we're going to have this, uh, we're going to put together this band and it's going to be this, this eighties thing going on. And so who was, who was your next phone call or how did you assemble the whole thing? Uh, I think our next call was either Chris or Dave.

It was Chris. It was Chris. Okay.

I trust And do Chris, do you, you, you do all of the singing in the band or do you all sing or I lead singing Paul and this guy over here, Dave jumps in on vocal harmonies. Okay. All right.

Any, you play any instruments or you're just a front man in this band? I just, I'm a front man. Okay. Gotcha.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

All right. I dabble in other instruments, but I don't play anything. I like to sing.

That's what I do. Perfect. Cool.

Cool. All right. So then I think after, uh, we went out and got Chris, then Dave and I played and another band had previously and I said, Oh, I know a guitarist that would love to do this.

So, and he was busy. So Steve contacted me. Yeah.

Um, but it's, it's, it's a domino effect because Steve said, I got this idea. Let's go to lunch and talk about it. And as soon as he described it, I was, I'm like, absolutely.

Let's play the stuff. Nobody else is playing. And knowing the musicians that he already had talked about, I think my brain was just like, I just want to play with these great musicians.

And then, uh, the question was, do we have a drummer and Rocco and I had been playing for decades in different bands, but he had kind of, you know, life gets in the way and he hadn't been playing that much. And I just, I'm like, I gotta get this guy in this band. So I contacted him and I basically told him, this is exactly what you know, I know you're going to have fun with and enjoy, try it out.

Let's get together. Let's play and seal the deal. Well, I can tell by the way you were, you were talking about it, that it was, uh, this was the one, you know, don't, don't screw this one.

You know, just to, just to put a bow on the whole thing. I think, you know, there were no cold introductions, um, putting this together, this connective tissue. So he and I had played together in another band also with Dave.

So Dave was a logical ad. Chris and I performed together as a part of a worship team at church. Um, and then, you know, Dave brought Rocco into the fold.

So, and you know, he would, Rocco was new to three of us, but, um, you know, it's turned out to be great chemistry and a really good vibe. So this is a super group. It's kind of like a Kevin Bacon thing.

It is Kevin Bacon. I love it. Yeah.

And I was just thinking about having some bacon. Oh, okay. Well, that's, that's always a good thought.

Yeah. So the, so we're all of your background. I mean, the bands that you came from, were they all similar bands or were they completely different? I actually, I actually came from an acapella background.

I was in an acapella group called Oc Rock for 26 years. We traveled all over the place, did a lot of corporate work, private parties, that sort of thing. So you go home and watch Pitch Perfect and just jerk off, don't you? All three movies, all three movies, man.

He's just all in it. I appreciate them to a certain level, but, uh, but yeah, it's really scary when you see some of that stuff is actually true. Uh, when you experience some of that.

I know it is actually. I've had a minor, um, brush with that, uh, area myself and yeah. And it's like, everybody's like a dance mom or dance dad and yeah, it's crazy.

It is pretty crazy. If, if, if, if a Lifetime or Discovery Channel is listening to this, number one, we need sponsors. Most definitely.

And number two, you know how they, they, I mean, you can consider doing like the acapella groups and see what actually goes on backstage. That would be something people would watch. You don't see many acapella groups anymore.

They used to be more or maybe 20, 30 years ago. They're still around. I actually, uh, sing with my buddy, David Wilner, who actually runs the Chicago Harmony sweepstakes.

So there are competitions that happen in the area, much like the Pitch Perfect thing. So there is that element that I see. Uh, it actually just happened a few weeks ago.

Um, but yeah, there's still groups, a lot of groups from colleges that are doing it. Um, and you still have a few pro groups right now. Pentatonix is probably the biggest thing that's out there right now.

Um, you know, and they're just absolutely killing it, but you know, there's other groups out there doing a lot of cool stuff too. Yeah. Interesting.

I don't think we've ever had anybody that had the acapella experience cause it is, it is a completely different world. Well, we need to go, we need to find an acapella group to interview. Yeah.

That'd be interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we might have to bring Armour or something. Cause you know, it can get pretty intense when you start talking to them about their rivals and stuff. Yeah.

Okay. So acapella, that's, that's interesting. So cool.

What about the rest of you guys? Yeah. Stumped. Oh, you mean like, Oh, going back to the, like, where it came from band wise.

Yeah. I mean, what were you doing? Cause I'm, I mean, I'm looking at you guys saying, you know, sitting here in front of me thinking, okay, you probably didn't grow up. I'm maybe I'm wrong, but was your life dream always to be in an eighties cover band or, or were you doing other stuff prior to that? You know, I the, the, the dream was to be like a touring musician playing for somebody else.

Let them do all the, you write the songs. You do the, just tell me what to play. I want to play.

But I played like most of the other guys in cover bands and stuff since high school. And then years ago, one of the bands that I had, the, the guys I had an original band project and we went out to LA and did an album. And when we came back, we needed to work.

And a booking agent said, you guys know a lot of tunes. Would you want to do like a karaoke live band karaoke kind of thing? And we were just like, you know, he's like, cause I can get you work. And we ended up working three nights a week for months in the start of it.

And then it just steamrolled and we were working crazy busy. So that's a stressful gig too. Yeah.

Cause that's not a laid back gig. Okay. Play this song guys.

Well, we've never played it before. Well, for us, I kind of like fell into the music director kind of thing. Cause I like writing charts for my OCDs for myself.

And so I would just give the guys the charts. It was bass drums and guitar. And by the time, you know, I finished my tenure with the guys we had 713 songs on the request list.

The only really different difficult thing was like dealing with the drunk people come up and, you know, and doing that. But so what was funny was for me, it was just like, Holy cow, I'm making a good living just playing coppers. This is okay.

Now I can do that with the with friends that I have, where we select the tunes that we want to play, not necessarily the ones that are for the drunk people coming up and saying, so now it's a win-win. So, you know, even if we're not booked three nights a week, every show we play it's, you know, it's a great night. We always have people coming up and saying, I just love this.

You're playing the songs that nobody else plays. You sound like the record. And, you know, so good.

So it's a win-win for me. Excellent. Well, I'll tell you what, it's that point in the show where we're going to take a break, take a quick pause.

Okay. We're going to have you guys warm up your instruments and your vocalizers, and then we're going to come back and we're going to get you guys play a song for us. Alrighty.

Sounds good. We'll be right back. I mean, if you're good, we'll have you play too.

Sounds good. Let's see what happens. We'll be right back.

All right. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier.

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From Chicago blues born on Maxwell Street to today's rock and roll and everything in between. 24-7, all music with its roots in Illinois. And playing a cover of one of my favorite bands ever for the first time tonight, we've got Mixtape Junkies, everybody.

Too much time on my hands I don't know what to do with myself Take it away, take it away from me Too much time on my hands Take it away, take it away from me Too much time on my hands Take it away, take it away from me Too much time on my hands Take it away, take it away from me Now I'm a genuine genius I can solve the world's problems without even trying I've got too much time on my hands Taken away with my sanity I've got too much time on my hands Hard to believe such a calamity I've got too much time on my hands You know, you guys say you're normally keyboard driven and stuff, but I think you just found yourself another possible gig, you know, going around doing this stuff acoustically like that. I mean, that's a, that's a big thing nowadays is to, you know, you know, take stuff that people don't normally don't hear acoustically and just fricking do it. I don't know how long your fingertips will last playing solos like that, an acoustic guitar.

I haven't had a chance to like to actually play guitar for the week or the past week or so. It's how my fingers are dead already. Yeah.

Oh yeah. No, I totally get that. Yeah.

No kidding. No, that was really good. I love sticks.

So, so I mean, that's, I mean, you guys said you play like left of center. I don't know. I thought that was right smack dab in the middle of it all.

Really? That's, that's pretty cool stuff. You just don't find many bands that are playing that, which is why I think we say it's left of center. Yeah.

Do you know why? It's a rhetorical question. I know why. Because most bands do not have three part harmony like that.

That was a fantastic job with the harmonies. And if you can't harmonize like that, then don't even attempt playing a stick song because I mean, you know, you're going to end up saying, well, we put our own spin on it and the spin is we don't do the harmonies. Wow.

We can't do them. So we're not going to. Yeah.

Right. Right. No, that was really good.

I enjoyed that. That's pretty cool. So you, do you tend to be more of the rock and roll part of it or I'm assuming no, because you guys got a keyboard player.

You can do all kinds of stuff as well. Right. We can do all kinds of stuff.

And honestly Paul is our secret sauce. There's absolutely no question because he comes into rehearsals, even songs that we've never played before. He comes into rehearsals.

He comes in. I don't know. I don't know if there are many keyboard players that do that, but he comes in prepared with different things and he'll come back the next week and goes, you know, you know what? I was listening to the sound and I heard this like reedy tone that was happening over in all of a sudden it just takes it to another level.

His, his attention to detail as to what he does is just absolutely insane. Good. Excellent.

And I do think we move as we move through songs, different people are spotlighted. So we've got things where Dave really shines. You know, we do call to personality where both of these guys are just phenomenal.

You know, not many bands are going to cover that, but then, you know, we, we were working right now on a couple of brand new and, you know, we talked about different eras or labels for the period. I think since pop is another one. So we do a Depeche Mode song.

We're adding always something there to remind me, Tainted Love, you know, those are, I'm really a busy guy and Dave's gets to sit back a little bit, but it moves around as we go through sets. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and you've got the kind of singing voice that people hate you for because you're, you're classified in that, that category of people like, Oh, who would be a good example? Tiny Tim? Yes. Yeah. All six foot four of them or whatever the heck it is.

No, I was going to say somebody like Bob Seger, where, you know, Bob Seger has this kind of voice where, I mean, listen to his speaking voice, right? I didn't think for one second he was going to be able to hit the notes in that, in that song because of his, because of his speaking voice and you can hear the, you can hear the bass in his voice as well as the high end in his voice. So when you listen to somebody like Bob Seger, you know, singers are like, Oh yeah, Hollywood nights. That's a great song.

I love to sing it. And then they try it and they're like, Oh shit. That's how I usually am.

He's like, he's like the, he's like the, you know, Bob Seger's like this, got a very deceptively high voice. Yeah. That's, that's, uh, that's the thing that I was going to say about like some of the bands when you go see them and God bless them for trying, but it's like, well, we know we got to do this 80s cover song or this whatever era cover song because everyone wants to hear it.

But our, our vocalist can't really hit it. Yeah. And it's like, then, then, then either maybe change a key or try something else.

And for us, we just, we, we sit down and plan it out. We don't just be like, let's do it. We'll see if it's something that Chris is comfortable with because we don't want to kill his voice at any point during the night.

And uh, you know, and if we have to tweak a little bit, like perfect example, and this shines a light on Paul again at rehearsal, like two weeks ago, Paul just played basically I can't even play the guitar anymore. Like just four pentatonic notes. And we're like, did you just play the beginning to danger zone? And then 15 minutes later we have it in the pocket.

We're done. You know, Chris pulls it up on his phone and we do it. And we realized that, you know, Chris is like, it's just, just at the range.

All right, let's just do it down a half step now we've been playing it and it just sounds like it's in the perfect key, but it's not like somebody in the audience can be like, you know, you guys are great on that, but I noticed it was down a half step. That's the only song that we do down a half a step, all the other, I have a very hard time because I've been listening to this music for so long and I've got this weird thing ingrained into my brain. And if we change keys on something, Hey, there is a certain, there's a certain luster that gets lost.

Uh, they record things in certain keys for reasons, you know, and uh, it's cause it rings truer and not to say that it can't still be okay if it's down a little bit, but I have a really hard time when, when we change keys on stuff like that, because I've got things so ingrained into my brain. You got to give yourself a, you got to give your ears time to kind of relearn it a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Cause I played in a band one time where the guitar player just liked the sound of his guitar when it was tuned to half step down and, and it does give it a different kind of a drone.

You know, there's a reason why Stevie Ray Vaughan and you know, guys like that all, all did that. And then I started actually, you know, we have the wonder of the internet now. So you can listen, you can see bands perform their stuff live on YouTube and you're like, well, wait a minute, this Journey's playing this song in a different key than they recorded in it.

I mean, I mean, it's just a trick of the rope. As we all age, that half step down is a lifesaver. Oh, it is.

But, but, but not only, but not only, not only guys like that. I mean, I, there's new bands that do that as well because you know, I don't care if you're 20 or you're 60, right. You're playing five nights a week, you know.

Yeah. I'm tired guys, you know, and if, and if none of you guys on this stage are going to step up and sing, we're dropping this a half step and it, and it does, it does work. It does.

But no, that's a, that's a, that's a good, that's a good way of looking at it. But you know, going back to the eighties, God, imagine, can you imagine if we as artists and I'm assuming some of you guys write your own music and everything here, can you imagine if we had the same musical freedom today that they had back in the eighties, can you imagine how many people walked into a producer's, you know, you know, office or whatever and said, yeah, I'm going to do this thing, but you know, we're going to kind of do it like we're kind of a reggae band or a little bit of a punk edge. Can we do it? Yeah, sure.

Why not? Right. Then another guy would come in here and, you know, come in and say, you know, I like really like an old style rock and roll. It's going to be kind of this rockabilly swing thing, right.

Can I do that? Yeah, sure. Go ahead and do that. You do that nowadays.

And they kind of look at you like you got a horn growing out of your head because you don't sound like everything else on the radio. Yeah. Can you imagine? I mean, that's, I think that's what made the 80s.

So great. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause they're trying so many different things. Yeah. Within that area.

For sure. Yeah. Now everything's made on garage band.

Yeah. I know it is. Yeah, it is.

I know. You know what? I didn't, I didn't even realize that, but I swear to God, I got this iPhone here and it came on the phone. Yeah.

I didn't download the app. It came on the phone and I literally, while I was out of town this past weekend, I'm just sitting around listening to boring speeches. So I'm sitting in the back row looking at my phone.

I was like, what the heck is this? And I pull it up and I was like, holy crap, this is how they do it. And it was free on my phone. Yep.

Yeah. That's your instrument now. You don't have to learn to play anything.

Not mine. Not mine. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I'd like to get another song ID guys for sure. You know, for sure.

For sure. What's your favorite song to sing? Oh, wow. No.

That's, that's a hard one. Or what's the favorite song? What's your, what's the band's favorite song? Every band has one that they're like, yeah, we do that better than anything else. I mean, I love Goodbye Stranger, but I mean, we kind of have keys and stuff for that.

I bet you, you don't. We can do that. We can do the Billy Joel thing.

Yeah. We can do Billy Joel. I don't know if it's an absolute favorite, but it's a, you know, people like it.

You may be right. That never misses. Never misses.

Okay. We're about to do, we're just going to go, we're just going to dive right into it. We're about to do a Billy Joel song without their piano player.

But that's the one thing that I, that I I've, I've learned over the years, as long as you present a song and you play it with heart and you play it well, at least hopefully well, people enjoy it. The karaoke band that I had, we played Piano Man almost every single gig. People would come up.

How do you play this song without a piano? Because I'm going to play the same chords that he did on the piano. I'm just going to do them on the guitar. Right.

Yeah. Right. And that's witchcraft.

No, you can't do that. No, you can't do that. Great.

Glass breaking. Yeah, exactly. You got a bottle we can break? Yeah.

Something like that. Right. Do you start counting in? Yeah, it is.

Okay. Five, seven, three, swirl. I'm just your mind's choice madness for a while.

Now think of all the years you've tried to find someone to satisfy you. I might be as crazy as you say. If I'm crazy then it's true.

That it's all because of you. That I wouldn't want it. It just made me hate to fight.

It's too late to change me. You may be wrong for all I know. But you may be right.

Turn out the light. Don't try to save me. But you may be wrong.

But you may be right. Very nice. Very good.

Outstanding. So you guys actually picked songs that I love, love sticks. I've seen Billy Joel so many times I've lost count.

And I literally taught myself how to play the piano by buying the Billy Joel Anthology Songbook and learned how to play it cover to cover. Sweet. That's, that's, yeah.

Overachiever. Yeah. Wow.

I didn't say I can do it well. For me that was Super Tramp Paris. No, no kidding.

Yeah. I didn't send my sticker back to Columbia House in time and they sent me a live album. I still owe Columbia House money.

We all do. The penny? The penny. Yeah.

I never got my penny. That's where I realized I could play along with recordings. That was, that was my major milestone.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But gosh, I love, I love Billy Joel. I've actually won drinking money by betting people. They're like, you don't know every single Billy Joel song.

And I've had people looking up on their phone and they, things like the third verse of scenes from an Italian restaurant. Not a problem. I know all the words to it.

I know it. I mean, stuff that you've never heard of before. I know the words to it.

So God, don't start me. Don't get me started. But yeah, I love them all.

So that's great. So where are you guys playing? What do you, I guess, what kind of gigs you got coming up in June? Somebody grab a calendar. Well, today's May 20th.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We've got Valley Doyle coming up. Which one? Downers Grove. Downers Grove.

My, my favorite location. That's a really cool. We play in both.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

They go both ways. They do. Rump House is going to be coming up as well too.

Nice. Where'd you find that information there, Chris? On our website. Yeah.

Which would be www.mixtapejunkies.com. They have a website. I thought he was going to totally get them. I thought he was going to be like, yeah, you should go check it out sometime.

Yeah. And prove the hits to our website. Yeah.

Like us on Facebook, do all that stuff. Yeah. So you guys are on Facebook first.

You're on Facebook. You got your own website. And so you got any like demos and stuff on streaming services that people can go listen to and anything like that? I mean, we've got stuff on YouTube.

Yeah. Okay. But, you know, we've got videos on our website too.

And the thing that's really cool about the stuff on our website, our YouTube stuff is, once again, it's all live stuff. Yeah. We don't have any of our demos.

We don't have pre-recorded tracks that we're doing. We put all our demos together that are live shows with live sounds. So you know what you're getting.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. When you see our demos, it's like, okay, this is what you're getting. You guys got a lot of festivals coming up? Yeah.

We've got some stuff that's happening down south in, oh my gosh, I'm, yeah, Oklahoma's happening. We're going to be at The Last Fling is happening. You know, so we're still working on other things that are coming in.

We often play at the Bolingbroke stage if you guys have ever been there. Love that place. Dave Tomski runs that place and it's phenomenal.

They've got a bunch of great crew there. I love working with them as well too. But yeah, that's what we got going on right now.

Yeah. So throw some stuff out there. June, July.

What kind of stuff? You said Roundhouse is one of them. You have that coming up. Ballydoils is another one.

So go ahead, Steve. Oh, okay. Take it away.

Take it away. So hang on one second. All right.

So basically, I'm having a hard time seeing that. I had my eyes dilated just a little while ago. So it's really bright in here and I'm like, oh my God.

I thought he was stoned. Yeah. I thought he was stoned too.

A few days coming up. So May 30th, we'll be at Ballydoil, Donner's Grove. June 27th, we'll be at Quigley's in New York.

June 11th, we'll be at Two Brothers Roundhouse. Nice. And then we start some outdoor festivals.

We're playing in Naperville on July 27th and Johnny Cavs in August. Nice. So you guys got some good gigs.

That's good. Those are good spots. You know, we've got private parties and that sort of stuff that go on too.

You guys doing all your own booking or are you working with anybody? No, we're doing all our own booking. Good. Good.

That's the way to go. It really is. Who's the booker? Who's the booker? I do a lot of it.

Steve and I work together on things. But, you know, anybody, somebody finds a lead, I'll call. I'll send them down.

Whatever. And try and track people down that way. But usually when people see us, you know, they're like, yeah, we need to have you somewhere.

You guys sound like you'd be, I mean, you'd be a lot of fun. I can just tell talking to you guys, listening to you guys play. And the type of music that you're playing, people have to love it.

I think the real mention of it is, you know, is if we play someplace for the first time and we get invited back. Oh, of course. Johnny Cabs is a great example of that.

The Matrix Club on 59 in Naperville. We just played there a little while ago. They want us back in a regular rotation.

I've played there. That's a lot of, that's a fun place. That's a cool place.

It's a great room. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's cool. That's good.

Well, I'll tell you what, I think it's time for us to say farewell. Yes. And mosey.

Yeah. Mosey. Mosey.

Mosey. Mosey. Yeah.

Mosey is different than just easing on down the road. You're right. It is.

There's easing on down and moseying. Yeah. You got to practice moseying.

You got to. Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Oh, you could tell the difference. Yeah, you do. I'm still working on walking.

I had two hip replacements last year. I'm still working on walking. Wow.

Two last year? You know, my father had the hip replacement just a couple of weeks ago. And it absolutely shocked me how, how, how I guess advanced or far we've come along with those surgeries. It was an outpatient surgery.

An 80 year old man walks in on us at seven o'clock in the morning. By 11, he was walking and walked out of there on his own. They sent him home four hours later.

It's amazing. Yeah, it is. But anyways, let's not, we're giving away our ages here, guys.

That's right. Do that. Well, I was old when I was 10.

Alrighty, guys. Well, thanks for coming out. Thank you.

It was great having you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Well, I hope there are a counseling session. We just finished helping junkies out. Oh, the junkies.

Mixtape maniacs. Yeah. They went from junkies to maniacs now.

Yeah. That's, yeah. I mean, they both need help.

That's right. That's right. Mixtape junkies.

No, you know what? They were, I'd like to see them. I mean, they play two of my favorite artists. Yeah.

Great bunch of guys, man. Great music. Yeah.

And they sound great. Yeah. Sounds good.

They seem like the kind of band where you'd go out and you, you're going to know every single song that they, that they play. That's right. Get the people dancing.

Hopefully I can get out and see them when I'm not working. When you're not working so much. Me too.

So, all righty. Thank you for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast every week. Check us out every Tuesday for another exciting new episode.

See you next week. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of MNR Rush.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show. The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.