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 this here is Reverend Hollywood.

Hello, Reverend. I am forever Reverend Hollywood. You are.

And can I ask for your blessing, please? Yes, you may have my blessing. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, God bless you. So what's going on? What's going on this past week? This past week? Well, I spent some time in Minnesota. Do any walleye fishing? Not fishing, but eating.

Eating. Okay. I did get that Copper River walleye, I know it.

I was really happy about that. Yeah, you know, they say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But... Could be.

It's probably the chest, though. Could be. That's what I'm thinking.

How you been doing? I've been doing great. You know, your Sox finally won one. Finally won.

Well, they swept, was it Detroit over the weekend? Did they? Yep. Yeah, but they won one today. Yeah.

The Cubs. PCA, baby. I mean, I thought I was watching the same game like two days in a row.

I was like, are we watching a rerun? Because both games started and ended like pretty much the same freaking way. Yep. And then today they decided the Cubs is kind of like, I don't care.

I don't give a shit about baseball. I can't watch it because I don't have any of those apps. Yeah.

I don't have Marquee. I don't have Chicago Sports. And I'm not paying for them.

I refuse to pay to watch a hometown team. My son needs to have it. So my son's paying for it.

And I was like, you want to pay for it? Fine. But I'm not paying for it. No, neither will I. Yeah.

And if the Bears go that way, I guess I got to find something else. Oh, God. If the Bears go that way, it's going to suck.

I never saw a Sox game or a Cubs game. Only games I've ever watched. I watched when they won the World Series.

We have not. Only games. You speak when you're spoken to, sir.

Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess I read the flyer wrong. Okay.

Just hanging out with buddies. You know, I guess that's a bullshit. Yeah.

No, we invite you to listen to us banter. Yeah. For a little bit.

Yeah. So we might as well just tell everybody who this is. It's Tommy Joe.

Oh, it's not Tommy John's. It's Tommy Joe. No, Tommy John's just died.

Did he really? Yeah, just the other day. 83 years old. The actual Tommy John.

Yeah, the actual Tommy John. Who's famous for the surgeries and shit. The Tommy John surgery is actually in the dictionary now.

It is. Wow. Well, we got Tommy Joe.

Yeah. And we also have Dave. We have Dave.

Dave, my brother. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Yeah. Howdy. Man.

I like it. But you know, but I heard that Tommy Joe isn't a dictionary. Oh, wow.

We're starting right off the bat with this, aren't we? Well, it was your idea to have beers beforehand. Yeah. What's going on, man? Everything is good.

Good to have you back. Happy to see you guys again. You guys both look pretty, a lot older.

You look good. Yeah, how's the Batmobile running? Batmobile is great. Got that going on a lot.

For those of you who don't remember, you know, Tommy Joe is the guy that had the Batmobile. For the three of you that listened to the podcast. Yes, yes.

Three. Wow. All three.

Moving up. We're up to three. Exactly.

You still doing that with the Batmobile? I still do that. I still marry people dressed up as Batman. That's awesome.

And then we have the Batmobile all around the country. We bring it, the wife and I. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

I was looking for, I had a Batman shirt and I was going to wear it. So I wore all black, you know, so I can be the Batman. It's nice that you mentioned it at least.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, it's pretty cool. That's what we remember to punch it the most. Yeah, exactly.

Right. Yeah. So obviously you're here for another reason.

You're doing some different stuff. Tell us about what's going on. I do a one man band, Tommy Joe Musical Show, where I'm playing guitar and drums at the same time.

And I do an acoustic guitar set and I can do an electric and a bass set. So I can play all three at once. And it's been great.

I mean, I'm getting booked five nights a week. You're playing guitar, bass, and drums. Singing and drums, yeah.

Singing all at the same time. Yeah, and I'm getting tons of gigs. And you know what's great is the tips.

I'm getting like a hundred dollar tips and I got four this year. And I'm like, wow, it's just amazing. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And no one even tells me like you'd think someone's going to say, hey, I'm going to give you a hundred bucks. I'm just looking in my jar. I'm like, wow, someone gave me a hundred dollars.

They just casually dropping in or like a plop. There it goes. It's awesome.

Well, no, that's pretty cool. I mean, I would imagine somebody playing guitar, bass, drums, you know, and singing all at the same time is going to get some kind of tips. Yeah.

And they think it's fake. Sometimes they'll grab my neck and it just stops the music. Everything stops.

And it's like, you know, it's like, oh, well, it's a robot. Yeah. Thanks.

Asshole. Somebody really comes up and just grabs the neck. I've had that happen twice.

Yes. Because they're like, you're not doing that. You're playing their tracks.

Yeah. You know, if you touch my guitar again, I'm going to hit the beat. And it's like, you know, that's why I bring my brother.

Yeah. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I'm doing that. And I do a playing a band called Southside Boogie. They've been around for 20 years.

Just all blues music, hardcore blues. Yeah. And yeah, we've been playing all over around the city and stuff.

And Dave is in that band with you. Dave just joined that band. He's actually playing keyboards.

He plays the old Hammond. Yeah. The old Hammond organs.

A real Hammond? Well, you know, it's the new ones, you know, that are it's the new ones that are like five pounds. Yeah. The keyboards, not the real Hammond.

But they got the Leslie. It's got the Leslie and stuff. They've got that sound, though.

They really do. Because my keyboard player has one of those as well. It's pretty cool.

I mean, it's kind of like the standard. If you're a keyboard player nowadays, you have to have one because. Oh, yeah.

It does get close enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They're beautiful. It's a great sound.

It's a unique sound. And you don't have to haul a Leslie around with you. A real Leslie.

Yeah. Would you? I have a portable Leslie that I brought in. I pulled out my back.

So now I just I use the one that's in the in the Hammond and that's good enough. Yeah. Wow.

So what made you decide to do this? You went from the Irish band, which I thought was cool. Yeah. I like the band Gotham Ramblers.

They're still around. They changed the name or something. But I just wanted to do something different.

I was just tired of doing covers and stuff that just are done the same way and stuff. I just want to do something unique. And this is definitely unique.

And it's a challenge. And it's not easy to do. My hands bleed when I play.

Wow. And it's not an easy thing. And I like the challenge.

I like the money. Being solo, I make way more money. Oh, my God.

Of course. And if anybody's interested, the Gotham Ramblers are episode 207. Yeah.

Nice. So I would suggest you listen to that and then come back and find out where we're going with this one. That's right.

And just measure their dickness. Are they were they dicky then or dicky now? You know what I mean? That's what I would do. Listen to that and see if they're they seemed a lot nicer back then.

But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean. Views expressed by the guests of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. But he was talking about himself.

I was talking about myself. Yeah, yeah. OK, not you guys.

He's not in the band. There's not as much dick in the band. Yeah, you guys are wonderful.

Yeah, but he showed us a video of him playing. So he's got his guitar and he's strumming the guitar with his thumb. Right.

So yeah, yeah. Thumb pickers. Yeah, thumb pick.

And in the same hand, he's holding a drumstick. And it's the snare is close enough so that when he strums down on the guitar. Yeah, it's downbeat.

Yeah. That he hits the snare drum and plays the drums at the same time. But I can also do the hi-hat like, you know, one, two and three and four and one.

You know what I mean? So where does the bass come in? So that's a different guitar that I use. I have a machine gun guitar that's set up with bass pickup and guitar pickup. OK.

So then I could do all the different bass lines and stuff. But you really got to pick the right song to do it with, you know. But God, I have so much equipment that I have to move like for my solo shows.

It just gets it gets ridiculous. So if anybody wants to see that video, check our Facebook page out. I'll post it on.

All right. Yeah, that's cool. It's pretty.

And see if you thought the same thing that I thought, because I'm thinking to myself, he's got the stick in one hand and the thumb. He's doing this and his foot's going like that. And I'm thinking when his wife leaves the house, his jerk off session.

It's like there was three people there. He was like, I was all over myself. Like when he was a kid, right, Dave? You hear him through the walls in the bedroom.

Yeah, yeah. That's where he got his rhythm. Well, if you know my wife, she hates everything I do musically.

You know, I started playing violin two years ago. And oh, God, she just hates it. Really? You know what I mean? I'm doing violin shows now and playing mandolin.

And so why does she hate it? Like, because I do it too much. Yeah, I can. And it's a special day today because we're celebrating five happy years.

And you and your congratulations here. Yeah. Well, congratulations.

That is a milestone. We got married in 1996. Wow.

That does take balls because it's only been five years. And you're going to say, yeah, honey, you're on your own for our anniversary. I'm going to do this podcast.

Wow. No, I totally get that because my wife is not a huge music fan. She likes what she likes.

And it's not the music that I prefer to play or listen to. So we kind of got that fight going on at home. Has your wife ever destroyed one of your guitars? No, she has not.

Really? She has not. I mean, she could if she wanted to, but she knows there's a lawyer that comes along with that. So my wife took one of my guitars and smashed it on the wall.

And it split in half. And we still have the dent in the wall. So I bought a real expensive guitar because of it.

To get back at her. And she knows it too. And I want to show it to you right now.

Yeah, yeah. This guitar, I had it in Germany. OK.

And I play in a band called Monk 9. We wear the costumes. And we were in Hamburg and the police stopped us. And they came up to us and they said IDs.

But I didn't hear him. I heard him say papers. Yes, right, right, right, right.

Nothing against the German people. But these police, they look like Nazis. Like when you watch a film, they still look like Nazis.

Their faces is chiseled and stuff. So the guy asked me what's in the bag. And I said, well, you can open it.

And he opened it up and a look of horror came on his face. And he looked at me like, you motherfucker. Like it was anger.

And I looked at him with a smile and I got a makeup and a costume. And I said, open the case. Yeah.

And he opened it up and a big smile came on his face. And then we took pictures. Why was he angered? We took pictures with the German police.

Let me show it to you. I mean, why was he angered? Because because you told him to open it and he was like, no, I told you to open it. Oh, is it the machine gun? The machine.

You saw part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it like freaked him out.

Oh, I totally get that. So it's an ukulele. It's custom made.

It looks. May I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'll take a picture.

Oh, yeah. It looks like it's a gold and black M-16. Yeah.

And it's beautiful. It's it's a work of art. It plays great.

There's like no nicks on it or anything. It's perfect. And that kind of cool.

Oh, wow. I expected this to be really heavy. It weighs like three pounds.

Three. It's super light. And it's a ukulele.

Yeah. Gosh, I'm afraid to hold it. It costs seventeen thousand dollars.

Wow, that's pretty cool, actually. Yeah, isn't that fun? And who signed it? The guy who made it. The guy who made it.

Yeah, he's dead now. OK, is it did you did you like shellac or spray? No, no. Because that'll wipe off.

Yeah, no, I didn't, you know. I just play it pretty much as I did it and stuff. So, OK, so so you tell the guy to open the case and his name was Mika.

So it's a great guy. So this guy gets halfway through the case and he sees it and he and he's pissed. Oh, yeah.

You're carrying a gun. Yeah. He thought it was real.

And you had to convince him. Open the thrusted away. It's not.

Yeah. Oh, my God. And then we took pictures with him.

Yeah. So I'll show you pictures. You could post them later.

I could totally get that. Wow. Wow.

That's pretty cool. It's cool. Yeah, we're cool and stuff.

So I've got like four different machine gun. Do you know how close you came to dying that night? Oh, probably. Right.

Have you been to Hamburg? Oh, yeah. I've been to Germany many, many times. It's one.

It's my favorite. Yeah, it's crazy. Like it's kind of like Wisconsin Dells.

Yeah. Except you can die there. Yes.

You know what I mean? And then it's like you walk around the block and you see houses, right? With picture windows. Right. But they have red lights in it.

And there's ladies that are in their underwear. They're going like, come on. It's the red light district.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, the Beatles, when they would play there, John Lennon would always say, like at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, all the freaks would come out. The transvestites.

Right, right, right. And, you know, all the weird people. And when we were playing there, it was like two o'clock in the morning.

Yeah. You see all the freaks. Yeah.

And it was like, wow, it was so cool. And you're walking down the street in costume. Yeah.

So you were one of the freaks. Oh, yeah. We were one of the freaks.

Yeah, definitely. Interesting. How long ago was that? We went there in 2019.

We were there. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. That's a pretty cool story. I can imagine it.

So where do you fit in in all this? You're playing keyboard. You're in the blues band and the whole bit. You know, I've been playing the Hammond for about 10 years and I've been just retired and I needed something to do.

And Tom said, why don't you come try with us? And so I go in there and I just play a little bit underneath them while they're doing their shtick. And it just, it satisfies me. We don't tell them what to play.

I don't want them to listen to the original versions. Just do whatever you want. Do whatever you want.

Tell me the key. And then I can just, you know, Just kind of noodle around. Yeah.

Just in the background. And it just kind of sets a base, you know. Who was the first musician in the family? I was.

Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. Yeah.

And so when did you start playing? Organ lessons like 50 years ago and it didn't stick. You know, I was a Wurlitzer and 10 years ago, I got, well, you didn't know how, you know, I was playing sheet music, you know. Because so the only formal music lessons I ever took were organ lessons.

Right. I was like in third, I was in third grade. I saw, he's heard this story a thousand times.

My friend Ricky, we were going to a recital, a little Catholic church, Our Lady of Grace on the north side of Chicago. And my friend Ricky gets called up to sit down at the organ and he's playing this song. And I was like, oh my God.

And I went home and I was like, mom, Ricky can do it. I want to play the organ. Like a week later, this Wurlitzer is in our dining room.

Really? And I took organ lessons from like third grade to eighth grade. And like you said, it didn't stick. Yeah.

And I stopped taking them. My mother said, you can stop taking them. And when you're done with eighth grade.

Right. So I stopped immediately. And then I picked up guitar later on in life and the whole bit.

But yeah. So two keyboards. I just do the one.

I do have a two at home where I can practice with my pedals with my foot. Yeah. But he's got like five or six.

The Wurlitzer though. I mean. Oh, the Wurlitzer.

Yeah. Yeah. The wooden pedals.

Yeah. The whole bit. And you had all the little colored buttons like.

And the rhythms with the bossa nova. I actually just saw one just like the one we had at a resale shop for like a hundred bucks. I bet you if I could.

I bet you if I could come up with a picture of it. It's probably the same organ. Yeah.

So close. I still have mine. Wow.

So much. And it works? It still works? It needs. A new amp probably.

No, it needs a little just electronic cleaning because I can play one day and it'll be perfectly fine. And I'll go back down to the next day and I'll hit a key and no sound or it'll just kind of. Or I'll hold the key down and it'll kind of go like, you know, kind of thing.

Yeah. So it probably just needs some little electronic work or something like that. Did you, did you do it to pedals? Did you get.

I did all that. Yeah. I was, I was working the foot pedals and the little vibrato on the volume swells.

We had a guy named Mr. Gillette that taught us when we were kids. Mr. Gillette. And he would always smoke a cigar.

Yeah. And he would go outside to light the cigar, but he'd smoke it inside our house. And one time he went outside to light it and boom, it blew up.

It was a trick cigar. Oh no. And he came back and you remember that? He came back into the house and it was like, Oh, one of his students had put it.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God.

Isn't that great. He'd write his own music though for us. He'd sit there and write the music out while we would pretend to play.

I'll never forget the name of my teacher. My teacher was a guy, his name was Norm Lesser, Norman Lesser. And he's, he's, he's probably dead now because he was probably like 70 something back in 1975 or whatever it was, but he loved to drink buttermilk.

And my mother, I know. Yeah, I know. And my mother found out that he liked buttermilk.

She offered him, she's like, would you like something to drink one day? And he's like, Oh, sure. She goes like, I got water. I got Coke.

I got buttermilk. And he goes, Oh, buttermilk. So, so my mother had, my mother had buttermilk for him.

Like every single time. Oh God, that's amazing. He's sitting right here next to me and we're talking and all, but you imagine this guy, he's drinking, he's down in buttermilk and you're talking to this poor guy.

It was like talking to a, it was like a smelly foot contest. Like this crazy stuff. So what kind of stuff are you playing in this one man band? I do some originals.

I do a lot of originals. Yeah. Okay.

I've got a song called sexy spaceman. It's got like lots of hits on that one. It's kind of a danceable thing.

It's about William Shatner. Yeah. It's about the Mr. Shatner.

It is actually the video features him. Yeah. The video features.

Oh, that's great. I've played with him before. He's a cool guy.

William Shatner is a great guy. Just an amazing guy. So, so I know he was at Lollapalooza this year.

Yeah. I didn't see it, but with his band, but yeah, he's, he's just a wonderful guy. What does he play? He sings.

He sings. And if you ever listened to his music, he doesn't even actually sing like the right phrasing and stuff. Of course not.

But he told us, he goes, he thinks he's a better singer than Elton John and stuff because he's an actor and he can, you know, he's more responsive with the way it should be. And that's the way the song should be. She packed my bags last night.

Yeah. And he believes it. The thing is he believes it, you know, and he's an interesting cat.

I was at a subway with him in Malibu and it's his favorite restaurant subway. And he's like, Tom, look at that guy crossing the street. Look how he's walking.

I have to remember that walk for a role. I must remember it. And it was cool.

We were sitting by his pool and he was telling us about when he found his wife. He found his wife in the pool. In the pool.

And he said, that pool is so big. When you jump in it and you jump out, it takes 20 minutes for that water to be calm and flat. Right.

Wow. And he said, when he saw her, it was totally flat. He goes, he knew that she was gone.

Oh, wow. Yeah. That was craziness.

Yeah. I don't know where to go from there. No, that sucks.

But he's cool. Hopefully Captain Kirk comes back. He might come back for a little, some more Star Trek.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, you know, that would be really cool to kind of, you know, what they're doing with like Marvel and doing all these alternate universes and crap like that. It'd be really cool to see something like that.

Well, he wants to be the first woman captain. He wants to be the first woman captain. William Shatner does.

And now he can be. You know what I mean? Would that be star training? No, I see what you're, I see. He want, you know, why not? Yeah.

So he's like. It's like if our president, just think if Trump came out and said, I'm a woman now. Yeah.

You would, we would have to accept it, right? You have to accept it. So it would be the first woman president. Yeah.

You have to accept it. Yeah. There you go.

Why not? But no, I can see. No, but you could totally do that because, because what Marvel's doing like, okay, anybody can be Spider-Man now. Right.

Anybody can be Iron Man now. Right. So anybody can be.

Did you see the new Spider-Man? I have not seen it yet. Fantastic. I've heard, I've heard a mixture of, I've heard something.

I've heard either love it or you hate it. That's what I heard too. When I think it's going to be, it's going to be like the, the last Batman with what's his name? Yeah.

Yeah. I know the actor. What's his name? Yeah.

The Twilight guy. Yeah. The vampire, the vampire vampire guy.

Yeah. When I first saw that movie, I hated it. I didn't like it.

And then I saw the second time I was like, okay, by the time I saw it, like the third time and, and I started to understand and realize that this is really like old school Batman. This is the detective. This is the detective books.

Right. And now it's like one of my favorites. Who's your, who's your favorite Batman? Oh, Christian Bale.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those movies were great.

You can watch them all. Did you ever get into, um, Harry Potter? No. Now see, I hate all that fantasy shit.

I saw them all. But they're great. I saw them all.

Oh my God. They're great. I saw them all, but I didn't, but I, but it's like, I don't need to see another one.

Yeah. Yeah. I liked them.

Did you like the Harry Potter stuff? Yeah. No. And the Lord of the Rings.

Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't handle the Lord of the, they just walked around too much and ate.

That's all they did. Walk around, eat, walk around, eat and complain. Yeah.

Just complain. You know, kill, kill an orc. Okay.

Time for second breakfast. Yeah. Yeah.

It's yeah. I just rewatched, uh, Mad Men. Mad Men is great.

That's a great series. But great. I never got into Mad Men.

Oh, that's fantastic. I, there's, that's, there's two things that all my friends watched and I just couldn't get into it. Mad Men was one and The Walking Dead was the other.

Walking Dead. Great. Four seasons.

Great for four seasons. Yeah. Oh, and then they come back.

Rick came, you know, Rick is the hero and we don't know what happened to him, but then they rescue him. Right. Yeah.

And he's got to have an electric car. Now they have an electric. It was just so ridiculous.

They, it was embarrassing. So, well, you know, you think about it. I was so upset.

I punched myself in my own vagina. That's how upset I was. It's an apocalypse.

It's an apocalyptic story. Where are they getting the technology to build an electric car? Right. Right.

And it's like, you know, and there was one scene where I don't care about whatever you want to do or believe in, but there was one scene where they're chasing this Muslim guy. Right. Yeah.

And Muslim guy's hiding behind the car and the guy's got a gun chasing him. And the Muslim guy's, you know, the Quran says, he's like shouting different thing. And I'm like, wow, they're trying to teach us.

Don't teach me shit. Just kill fucking zombies and shit. I don't, you don't have to teach me shit.

But even the original Star Trek. Yeah. They, they were like that too.

You know what I mean? But don't teach me shit. Yeah. Entertain, entertain me.

I want to see that guy shoot that guy. And I want to see his head explode. That's all I'm paying for.

Yeah. Did you see there's this, there's this black comedians and they're, they're fucking great. And they do this thing where it's apocalypse, right? The zombies are coming after him.

They're like, oh shit, come here. And the zombies are like, oh, they, they don't like black people. And the black guys are like, what the fuck? That little kid, the zombies rolling up the window, stay away from the back.

And the black guy's like, what the hell? And then there's a black party. And all these black people are having a party. They're like, hey, come over here.

Yeah, they don't fuck with us. And they're having a party and shit. You got to find it.

Cause it's absolutely great. It's like all these white zombies are like terrified. That's like, that sounds like a key and peel thing.

Well, yeah, it was, oh man, it was great. That's pretty amazing. You have to watch it.

Yeah. But the best show on TV, and I've been watching it for 20 years, General Hospital. Oh, Jesus.

Best show on TV. They have sex, they have violence, they have sex and they have violence and it's great. And, and they're all screwing each other.

They've screwed. Everybody has screwed everybody. Oh yeah.

And it's just, the writing is fucking fantastic. Yeah. James Franco, you know, the actor James Franco.

His mother is a big fan. So he was on the show playing a villain and he was great. Yeah.

I mean. He's got that look. He's, James, he's got that look.

Yeah, yeah. See, I would have blown my brains out years ago. Yeah.

Except I have to wait for the next day to see if Sonny, the gangster, the lovable gangster is going to be okay. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh, is that show ever going to appear? Is that still on? That's still on. Oh yeah.

That's gotta be one of the last ones. Yeah. I think Guiding Lighter, there's another one on Journal 2. That was all my children.

Yeah. I, you know, I used to go over to my grandmother's house all the time and, you know, I'd walk through the door. Hey grandma, shh, I'm watching my stories.

That's what the old ladies call them. I'm watching my stories. Yeah.

Yeah. Leave me alone. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Were you into Game of Thrones? Yes. Game of Thrones.

Yep. Religiously watched it. But you know what? The, the, the, the spinoffs? Not so much.

How, were you happy with the ending? Game of Thrones? No. I mean, they could have been so. So much better.

So good. Who was the guy that was doing his sister? Jamie? Yeah. Jamie, Jamie Lannister.

He was doing his sister. And they had, they had a brother that was a dwarf, midget, whatever. Right.

I don't want to say it. Okay. Played by Peter Dinklage.

She hated the midget. She did. And the way they killed them was so ridiculous how they died off.

They should have had it where she was going to kill the midget and Jamie, the brother who loved his sister, but he loved his brother. He should have killed her. Yeah.

They could have did so many cool things. He killed their father. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He killed the father. And I'll tell you what, the, the, the, one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen. One of the, and it really wasn't a monologue because he's talking to his father, but when his father puts him, puts him on trial and he chooses to go do this trial by combat thing.

But before that, he does this five minute speech and that speech was one of the best things I've ever seen in cinema. Yeah. I mean, you've, you've felt the venom and the sting and every single word that came out of his mouth.

Peter Dinklage, he's freaking awesome. And he kills his father. Yeah.

And he, and he ends up killing great, but if you haven't seen this yet, so they remade toxic Avenger. Oh wow. And Peter Dinklage is the toxic Avenger.

Wow. That was amazing. It's on Hulu right now.

You have to see it. Yeah. I mean, that, that, that game of thrones went against everything.

I mean, the first episode you had that dude that was the hand. Yeah. And they kill them at the end.

It's like, well, they killed everybody. Yeah, they did. And it's the best thing that ever happened for a what's his name? God.

Oh, the actor. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely. What's his name? The Thrackeys.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Aquaman.

Yeah. Yeah. Aquaman.

A lot of people say I look like him. Why can't I think of his name right now? Jason Momoa. That's it.

That was the best thing that happened to him. He's got those skinny arms. They killed him off.

He takes his shirt off and his arms are really skinny. They kill him off and he became a superstar. How about that? That was the greatest thing ever.

When they killed the King, King Jeffrey, that King who was a little prick on the show. The way they killed him was just wonderful. I mean, it was like, like Walking Dead was so great.

We would have Walking Dead parties and we would stand up like certain, you know, certain parts. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, like when that guy was going after Rick, some guy's going after Rick and Rick has got his head down and Rick bites his dick. That was fucking great. He bites his fucking dick.

I mean. Oh my God. That's crazy.

But then, you know, they got that new one, you know, Negan killed. The one girl's husband in the in the series, Negan, the bad guy, kill someone and now they're buddy, buddy now. Oh, geez.

So it's like, how does it how does that work? I don't I've I have no idea. We could do this. We could do this all day.

We could. But I think this is a good time to stop and take a little break so that we can get some music. And find out if he's really a musician and not just a movie critic.

That's right. So we'll be right back. Take a break.

You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier. Get ready for the Bus Stop Blues.

The show that takes you deep into the soul of the blues with classic hits, road stories and live jam sessions. Hosted by blues man Kevin Purcell and me, the one and only Road Bill. The Bus Stop Blues is two hours of nonstop blues, banter and badassery.

Check out the Bus Stop Blues podcast at thebusstopblues.com where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple Podcasts or any other major podcast platform. Up on board the Bus Stop Blues, where the blues never stops rolling. And for the first time tonight, Tommy Joe.

I have no idea what he's going to play. I mean, it could be anything at this point. It could be anything.

Yeah. All right. Give us something, Tommy Joe.

When you were here before Look in your eyes Just like an angel Your skin makes me cry You float like a feather In a beautiful world Wish I was special So very special But I'm a creep I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here I don't belong here Give you a quick version. Yeah. So you combine those songs all the time? Sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. A little bit, right? They're fun.

Well, it's a kind of a refreshing take on it because every time you ever hear anybody cover that song is, I'm a creep. Yeah, they drag it out. Right? Yeah, you know.

Yeah, they drag it out. I mean, and everybody comes here. How many times have we had? You took us by surprise because every time.

How many times have somebody come in here and say, oh, let's do creep. And one of us goes, no, no, let's do something else other than creep. Yeah.

Because it's time to put that one in the same category as wagon wheels and Tennessee whiskey. Yeah. And then we get into the creep Nickelback debate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What songs are you like sick of hearing? On the podcast or just in general? In general. Well, those that we definitely have mentioned.

Don't stop believing my journey. Oh, God. You know, Dodds, anything by poison.

Wow. Interesting. Anything, anything about poison, really? And I'm trying to think what else is on the list, right? There's all kinds of stuff on the list.

Yeah, the stuff that everybody plays all the time. I do wagon wheel, but people want to hear it. You know, you know what? People want to hear it.

And I do wagon wheels because it does have a really cool story behind it. You know, people don't realize, you know, nobody realized that Bob Dylan wrote that song. Yeah.

Right. And then and Bob Dylan never finished the song. He didn't.

He would he would stop it at the end of I think it's the third verse. Yeah. He finished it enough.

Right. He finished it enough. Yeah.

And then he gives it he gives it to old crow medicine show. Yeah. And an old crow medicine show says, you know, it needs to be finished.

We need to resolve this. And they added that final verse about, you know, heading south out of Roanoke. Right.

Which, by the way, if you if you follow those directions, you would have to go around the entire globe one time to end up where you do, because if you follow if you if you headed west out of Roanoke, you're not going to end up in where you're supposed to end up. Even that they said that we did it because it rhymed. Right.

And that, you know, they did something with it. It wasn't great, but people heard of it. And then they gave it to Darius Rutger, who turned it.

It just exploded when Darius Rutger recorded it. Right. And Bob Dylan gave everybody that touched that song songwriting credit.

Wow. Which was which I thought was really cool. Yeah.

Very cool. So it's like, oh, yeah, I'll I'll. Yeah.

Are you? I'll play any Irish songs. Any Irish songs you guys are sick of? I don't know if when I'm hearing an Irish song, I don't know if I'm hearing an Irish really, unless it's Dexys Midnight Runners. I know your number one hated song.

What's that one? Tennessee Whiskey. Oh, yeah. What about what about A.I. music? I bet you're not into A.I. No.

Are you talking about people who write just you know what? I have a real problem with that as a musician. I want you to listen to a song. It's by a group called Fake Music.

OK. Sure. And it's a Pearl Jam song.

OK. And it's called Even Flow by Fake Music. By Fake Music.

And it's it's just amazing. I mean, it's like it's got horns and stuff. And it's like you just want to jump up and down.

OK. So you're talking about the guys that really say, yeah, they'll say take they'll say take Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath and play it in the style of 70s disco. Yeah.

There's some cool. There's some interesting. I mean, you know, it's like it's not going to go away.

You know what I mean? No, it's not going away. And it's like if you're in the studio recording something, you got to hire a violin player when you could say, hey, you know, let's use A.I. for the violin. You know what I mean? And you're going to ask it's going to you can tell it kind of what to do.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like that in a way. Well, you know what? If somebody is going to do some if you're going to do that, like I'll use that as an example.

If somebody loves the song Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, and they're doing a maybe an acoustic solo thing or it can be a full band, they're going to say, but we're going to do it in the style of 70s disco and they want to do something different and they want to get a hint from A.I. how to make that happen. And then they go out and they do this different thing. OK, that's that's fine.

That's cool. Or I have a problem with A.I. because I know there's a lot of them around and I'm not going to say who they are, but I know there's a lot of people around who are saying I'm an original artist. I write all my own music.

But all they're doing is they're going to Songer and they're having Songer write a bunch of songs for him. And they're going out and performing them, passing them off as their own creations. Yeah.

And that I know that I have a problem. Now, I know I see that. That I have that I have a problem.

And I do have a problem with people who will use A.I. to create instruments in their live performance. It's the same thing as playing the backup tracks, because the musician in me is thinking, OK, there's a horn section in this song. I don't see a horn section up there on stage.

I know a trumpet player and a saxophone player and a trombone player that would have liked to have had a gig. Oh, yeah. They would like to have had a gig tonight.

Yeah. Hire them. You know, I do a lot of I do a lot of acoustic shows and you see acoustic guitar players, you know what I mean? And what's my goal? I want to have fun.

I want to entertain. I want to make money. You know what I mean? So when I'm when I'm playing guitar, you know, I'll do different things.

I'm doing the drums and the guitar and people will dance and stuff. But like for country stuff, I use a backing track for what Country Girls Shake It For Me, that song. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's other songs. And when I use the backing track, the ladies dance. Yeah.

And when the ladies dance, I get more money in my tip jar. Yeah. So it's kind of like it's I look at it like entertainment.

I look at us as like, what's the difference between us and football players or any kind of sport? It's all entertainment. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to entertain me sitting on my couch or wherever.

And that's all that's all that matters. Yeah. You know, when the electric guitar came out, people were like, well, that's not a real instrument.

Yeah. That's not a real instrument. Yeah, yeah.

And we all play electric guitar. Yeah. But they said it's not a real instrument.

You know what I mean? So I think A.I. But what you're doing, I'm OK with what you're doing. Yeah. Because you're not you're not passing it off as something that you created.

Oh, yeah. No, of course. Of course.

Everybody knows you've got a backing track there. Yeah. You know, it's like karaoke.

Everybody, you know, people who sing in karaoke, they write the songs. People know that. I get that.

It's the people trying to pass off. Yeah, I get that, you know, personal creations. And I know people who do that.

And there's I'm not even going to say the app, but there is an app because I investigated this myself. I went to the app and I said and I remember I was sitting in a bar and I said, write me a song about falling in love in New Orleans. Give it a country feel, a little bluesy, moderate tempo within three minutes.

It came back with three songs. Right. And you get to pick the one of the three that you like.

And if you pay one hundred and twenty dollars, you get three fully written songs. And along with that one hundred and twenty dollars, it includes the rights to the song. That's amazing.

So you can go out and perform it and tell people that it is your song and you can record it. Because this this company, these people that created this app are relying on the fact that you're going to do it, you're going to do it, you're going to do it. And a thousand people are going to do it.

And only one person is going to record an album. And that's where they're making their money. They could give a shit.

You know, yeah, that's amazing. But then I found out then I found out that there's a lot of this stuff. The way it works is they're they're taking like five second samples from a thousand songs that are already created.

Yes. So really, you're robbing from like a thousand. Yeah.

And you don't own the rights. You don't own the rights to it. Yeah.

A lot of these you do not own the rights. You can't. So that's what I use.

That's what I have the problem as somebody that sits down and writes music and does this. And then you're going to just go to your phone and say, write me a song and then tell people you did it. That kind of pisses me off.

But yeah, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now. No, I hear you. It's kind of I use it for flyers and stuff for band flyers.

Oh, sure. Oh, it's great for that. It's nice.

It's nice for that. They all kind of look the same. But yeah, I definitely dig it.

You know? Yeah. No, there's a lot of cool stuff with with with AI. It has its uses.

Yeah. Just not customer service. Three fucking hours on the phone with Comcast AI bots today.

Well, well, well, first, sir, let me let me ask, why are you calling today? The final thing I said, can I just schedule an installer to come out? Oh, sure. Is this for the Wi-Fi? What the fuck have we been talking about for the last three hours? I keep him on the phone for as long as I can. I keep my wife loves it.

I'll be I'll start talking about stuff and stuff. And the guy's like, there's this scam where they call up and they say your TV service. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. And he goes today, do you got your remote control? What does the bottom code say? And I said, it says, fuck you. And he started swearing at me.

Fuck you. No, you fuck. You know, it was like, it was great.

My wife is like loving that today. How do you like I'm going to change the subject. How do you like all the Beatles stuff coming out? Are you Beatle fans? Yeah.

Like all the different mixes and stuff. You know, I haven't listened. I can't call myself a Beatles fan.

I like some of their songs, but I'm not a huge Beatles fan. I want you to when you were done here and go on YouTube, type in Beatles revolver. Okay.

Watch the revolver video. Okay. Now George is in the middle.

He's looking at John and he's giving John like dirty looks like, like this, like, like this. Right. And then he looks at Paul and the Beatles, Apple tried to get rid of this.

He looks at Paul and he says this, John smells like shit. He smiles at Paul. And then he looks back at John like this, that dirty look like this.

And the story is that was when Lennon was 10 days on heroin and he had shit in his pants. I mean, when you watch the video, it's just, it just amazes me. Wow.

You know how cool that is. Holy crap. And a lot of people don't know, like, you know, McCartney and Lennon, they got back, they got together in the seventies.

They recorded. And it's on YouTube. It's called a toot and a snore because Lennon is going, Hey, it's going around.

Do you want to sniff? Cause they're doing cocaine. And he was talking to Stevie Wonder who was there. And, uh, it's called a toot and a snore because they're doing cocaine, but it's boring as fuck.

Right, right, right. And it's recorded great. The whole time Lennon is just like freaking out saying, why is everyone freaking out? Relax.

Let's just play. Cause everyone's freaking out because the two of them are together and Paul's playing drums and it's a one-time listen, but it's so cool. But yeah, I'm, I'm so in love with all the, I love Apple music, Apple music.

Yeah. They have that thing called, um, Atmos. Yeah.

Yeah. I've heard of that. Freaking.

I have a, I have a $40,000 sound system, which is just, I have a 12 foot screen. And when you're listening to this Beatles stuff to stuff from 64, 65, every speaker has something different. And it's so clear and perfect.

I weep. Seriously. Helter Skelter takes 17.

You play it. I'll weep. It's just freaking amazing.

Wow. The quality. And you listen to some of the newer stuff and it doesn't like the Taylor Swift stuff is mixed so bass heavy because people listen to it mostly on their phones.

And you don't have, so it's like, God, a lot of the new stuff is just, it's mixed. That is so true. Everybody's listening to music on their phone.

And if it's not bass heavy, it's that tinny crappy little sound and stuff. That makes sense. It's all mixed for that.

It's geared towards how people are listening to it. And they're creating it on GarageBand. Yeah.

Really? Yeah. And it's like, no kidding. So what are you writing these days? I write.

You mentioned some original stuff. I write a lot of, uh, like I learned a lot of danceable stuff. Yeah.

So, and I'll write some sad, slow songs and stuff, but I like the danceable beats more electronica and stuff. That's why I was actually looking into the, uh, the AI music just to see how that would be to create stuff. But I love this stuff that's more danceable and very current, very different.

You know, I don't really, um, if you listen to popular music, the guitar is dead. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Except for country.

For country, it's different. But for most people, the guitar is like, my kids don't listen to guitar music. Yeah, I know.

And if I'm, if I'm teaching some kid guitar, they want to learn stuff that's 30, 40 years old. Right. You know, they don't want to, there's no new guitar heroes.

That is, that is the crazy thing. And that's why these guitar stores are disappearing and stuff. And it's, uh.

Yeah. So if you want to be current, you, but, but country is different. Country is more rock now.

Yeah. Yeah. And you really have to look for the guitar music nowadays.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to go underground.

You got to find underground bands. My daughter's 23. She listens to real heavy, heavy guitar.

I don't know what that's even called. Right. But, so it does exist.

I mean, kids are, kids are listening to it, you know, in some form. You know, I've turned so many young kids onto the band dirty, honey. You ever listened to dirty, honey? No.

Oh, man. You've got to listen to that. They're, they're a combination of, I don't know if I can even describe their singer can sound like Robert plant if he wants to, but he can also sing lower.

So it's, it's almost kind of like black crows meets if black crows recorded an album and Robert plant produced the whole thing. Are they from around here? I have no idea where they're from the west coast. Yeah.

Okay. They've been around for about 10 years or so. They've been around a while.

And then there's another one, Greta van fleet. Oh yeah. That guy definitely sounds like Robert.

Yeah. But you know, I like, I like dirty honey's music a lot better. Just listen, listen to dirty honey there.

I like the dead South. Have you heard the dead South? Oh yeah. I like them.

I like dead South. And if you, have you heard of cross Canadian ragweed fantastic band? Yeah. The band is called cross Canadian ragweed.

Have you ever heard of a band called die Antwood? Yeah, I have. They're from Africa. They're a few years old, but they got some funky beats, man.

Some really cool stuff. I mean, just stuff. That's why that was talking about that AI song.

Yeah. You know, it's like, um, yeah, we're real. It's called real music.

So it's, we know it's fake and it's a Pearl jam song called even flow and it rocks. It's got horns and stuff. And it's like, it's amazing.

It's like, and I think pretty soon, you know, the next great movie that we see is going to be made by some kid in his bedroom. Like you don't need actors anymore. No.

You see all the new Star Trek stuff with William Shatner. You see all this new stuff. Some of the, you know, Star Wars is shit now.

Yeah. You know what I mean? They fucked that up. But there's some people that are making new Star Wars stuff with like Mark Hamill.

Yeah. He goes and visits his mother's grave. I mean, it's like, it's, it moves you.

Yeah. Well, have you seen the, have you seen the thing? It's been out for a couple of years now where some fan made a video, like you said, on his computer where Batman shows up in the Star Wars universe. Oh, he's fighting Vader.

It's like he saved Superman. I mean, it was so good that they, it went viral and it was so good that it was like, oh my God, they're going to infuse the Star Wars universe with DC. This is going to be awesome.

I can't wait for the movie. Yeah. Yeah.

That was incredible. And Vader's mask is broken. That's badass.

He's badass. Yeah. I mean, he's in outer space.

Yeah. It's like he can do anything. Batman.

Yeah. He's cool. So before we run out of time, I want to hear, I want to hear an original.

I want to hear original. Yeah. Before we get there though, where can people find you on social media? Okay.

So I'm on Facebook, Tommy Joe Musical Show. I'm also on Instagram, Tommy Joe Musical Show. YouTube, Tommy Joe Musical Show.

I have lots of videos out. One of my videos got like 130 likes today and I just posted it, which is kind of cool. And I play all over, play all over Indiana, Wisconsin, Wichita.

I'm in lots of different places. I see you all over the place. Yeah.

So I play a lot and it's fun, fun stuff. And then my band's Outside Boogie, the blues band. We play all over too.

You can find that online. Not just here in Chicago. You're all over the place.

We play all over. So it's cool, you know. Awesome.

Cool. Cool. Alrighty.

Well then take us out with one of your songs. Do you want to hear, are you going to play one of my MP3s or do you want to hear something live? I want to hear something live. Yeah.

With a smile and a grin She said she's gonna feed me And there she starts to feed me Tell her to shut up and let's begin Then we dance Then we sing Then we talk about nothing Then we dance Then we sing Then we talk about nothing Talk about nothing Talk about nothing Sitting on the floor Just looking for some love Smoking down my local avenue See a pretty lady She wanted my baby Mmm tell her that it's something I can do Then we dance Then we sing Then we talk about nothing Then we dance Then we sing Then we talk about nothing Talk about nothing Talk about nothing All right. Yeah. It's Tommy Joe, everybody.

Tommy Joe. Thanks for coming over here. Dave, you got to calm down, Dave.

You talk too much, man. I'm sorry. All right, man.

We'll catch you all next time. Thanks a lot. You guys are awesome.

Thank you. Thank you. 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.