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. Hey, and this is Hollywood.

How you doing? Lousy. Yeah, tell me about that. See this hand? Yeah.

Got 20 shots in the palm of my hand yesterday. Wow. Yeah, it was not pretty.

Did you pay for it? Or was it by request? I guess it was by request. Yeah, by request, and then you paid for it. But I got that Dupuytren's contracture stuff.

You have to say, you have to say Dupuytren's. Yeah. So I'm supposed to take care of it.

Freaking French. The funny thing is I go back Friday, I go back Friday, and he's going to numb the hand because he has to pull the fingers back to break the cards. That should be interesting.

That's going to be wonderful. I'm stocking up on bourbon. Yeah, yeah.

So if anybody's listening, you know, you can always send bourbon. Medicinal bourbon. Medicinal bourbon.

I saw something today that I, when I woke up this morning, I never thought I would see. So I walked into a convenience store and the guy working behind the counter was Indian, speaks Hindi, speaks Hindi. And barely, you know, doesn't speak a lot of English because I go to the store quite often and all I've ever heard him say was, hi, and here's the price.

And sometimes he doesn't even say that. Like if he doesn't know how to say, you know, the number 30, you know, he'll just point to the cash register so I can see what it is. Right.

Yeah. I walk in and he's watching television and he's got Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte in Cape Fear in Hindi. Oh, geez.

He's watching and they're speaking in Hindi. Now, I have to say this first because obviously I don't speak Hindi. Right.

So when I say blah, blah, blah, I'm not making fun of the language. I'm just saying that's what I hear when I hear somebody speaking Hindi. We know Robert De Niro is, you know, he's exaggerate.

He's got these exaggerated facial expressions as it is. Now, imagine Robert De Niro on camera and he's like, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, with all the Robert De Niro facial expressions and stuff. And I sat there captivated for like 15 minutes with this guy watching Robert De Niro speaking Hindi.

I can't stand dub movies. A couple of weeks ago, I put some movie on and it was dubbed like in French or something, but they were speaking in English. I turned it off.

Those are so hard to watch. I can't stand it because I keep looking at their mouths and nothing, nothing falls in place. Yeah, no, it drives me crazy.

But the worst thing, the worst thing was Nick Nolte because, you know, you know, Nick Nolte's got that kind of gravelly voice. Yeah. Now, whoever was dubbing his voice had the gravelly voice, too, but he was like, oh, my God, it was hilarious watching that.

But anyways, well, we might as well get on, get on. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Tonight we got some guy named Paul with Salt-N-Pepa. What? Oh, no. I'm sorry.

It's Paul and the Shaker. That's what it is. Uh oh.

There it goes. See, this isn't fair. I haven't heard that one yet.

This isn't fair. I mean, it sounds like a whole crowd, but they brought a chick with them. Yeah, just one.

We got to get. Yeah, we got to change that just a little bit. Just one.

Is that all you guys do? You attract one girl? We only have one groupie. That's all we got. So now you're a groupie.

Well, why don't we go around the table, introduce yourself, tell the people who you are and what you do in the band. Yeah. All right.

I am Paul Sartori. I guess I'm the leader of the band. I do a lot of the lead vocals and mostly play guitar.

Did you choose the name? That's a story. But yes, I did. Okay.

You want to go next? Yeah. Tom Wenzel. I play guitar and sing some stuff.

Whatever Paul throws to me every once in a while. Yeah. So yeah.

Cool. Paul actually plays guitar, bass and now keyboards. He's expanding what he does.

Dabbling. Dabbling. Yeah.

I do what I can. He's trying to be like his older friend, Gary. That's right.

Learn from the best. I'm Gary Phillips. I play whatever Paul needs me to play in the band.

You know, next job am I playing? No, next job I'm playing keyboards, keyboards and guitar. The one after that might be bass, you know, so it's just whatever. He's like a Swiss army knife.

Okay. So any glockenspiel? I can see it's on the keyboard. It's a sound.

It's a sound. We have it. So what is this? Like you guys just okay.

What are you going to play tonight? I think I'll play bass. All right. What are you going to play? I'll play keyboards.

I mean, oh no, it's all. No, it's kind of just how the band evolved. Yeah.

It just depends on the gig. He's got, you know, we got some, uh, he does solo. He does duos.

He does three piece, four piece. Yeah. Five piece.

So six pieces. So who are we missing tonight? The other three guys. No, there's more than three.

How many shakers? Like 10? Probably like 10 shakers that, you know, we, we kind of have between the different events. Uh, there's probably about maybe six of us that are kind of regularly on a lot of the shows. So I get that it's, it's, it's Paul and the shakers.

You can have whoever's standing behind you and it's still Paul and the shakers. I kind of understand that a little bit. Yeah.

I mean, it, you could equate it to, I know some of the, you know, the other bands like it'd be like, so-and-so and friends, you know, something like that. Um, it's not like I have a bunch of random people coming up to the shows to play with me. It's same, same guys and stuff.

But, uh, we got so busy and eventually over time, uh, a lot of the guys in the band, it usually kind of started with the drummers actually. Um, they were in multiple other bands and we'd get demand for more shows and like, we couldn't take them cause they didn't do it like, Oh, if you got somebody to fill in. So then I have somebody fill in and it might be someone else we knew really well.

And then sometimes we'd get busier and then I'd say, okay, let's just keep us start rotating some guys around. And we're all kind of doing the same music, keeping up with it. And, uh, and then like I said, the last couple of years, things really blew up and we had some big demand and I needed to ask a couple more, uh, people to join in.

If I want to take on some more opportunities. Are you three the main, main core? They're a part of it. Yes, absolutely.

So when did it all start? What year was this? So the actual Paulie and the Shakers, probably around 2014 that I branded my band, that name. Um, I, it was really just a trio, uh, at that time. And it was that for probably better part of like a decade, maybe almost.

Um, until I ran into these guys and then I started expanding when it was still a trio. It was basically, uh, myself, one of our, uh, other main basis. And then, uh, we had, um, three drummers, but really two that were just kind of alternating.

Cause like I said, they were all in different bands and they couldn't do all the events. So that's kind of how that started out. Um, and I always kind of wanted to do something a little bit bigger, but I just didn't know the people that were talented and could, you know, contribute, you know, to expand it and make it bigger and add, uh, more pieces.

And, uh, then I ran into these guys a few years ago and then it kind of changed the game. Right, right. So then what's the story? What's this funny story about, uh, where the name came from? Cause it seems obvious to me why it would be called Paulie and the Shakers.

Yeah. So, uh, I could tell how I picked it up afterwards, but you guys could tell where that name came from. Anytime now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just shout it out. We're in a band called Johnny and the Shakers and that started in what? Early, early eighties.

Yeah. Like 82 maybe. Yeah.

Pretty much fresh out of high school. Basically we started playing and, um, the all, you know, back then, uh, the high schools and the, uh, yeah, yeah. You're, you're doing the, uh, kind of Lee's PJ flirty.

Yeah. The fabulous showcase lounge, you know? Oh yeah. So how did you meet? So, so then is that how you met Paulie through the guy that you guys were playing with? Um, well, that's not really, that's when the original band started as Johnny and the Shakers.

Um, and, uh, the drummer, Jeff, his uncle, uh, was born with the, with a bad heart. Okay. And by the time I met him, I met him, I grew up in California, moved here midway through sophomore year in high school, met Jeff, uh, at the bus stop.

And he saw me when we're moving in carrying a guitar case and he said, he played. Yeah. And so we started getting together and doing stuff.

Um, but that time he had already had multiple surgeries on his heart. Um, fantastic drummer. Fantastic.

Um, yeah. And he, he passed in his mid mid twenties. Um, and we continued after that with various forms of the band.

Um, and decades later, this guy contacts me via messenger. Hey, are you so-and-so that used to play with my uncle, Jeff? Would you be interested in playing my dad's, uh, 70th birthday party? Right. It was Jeff's brother, his, his father.

Um, and that's how we kind of hooked up. That's how we connected. That's how we connected.

The name though came because it was like in around 2014, my grandmother's still alive. It's going to be 98, 98 this month. And, uh, she pulled out these old flyers from Johnny and the Shakers, which my uncle was in.

And I was, like I said, our band, we were much more even amateur at that time. And I saw this, that's a really cool, cool ass retro name. And I'm like, I really liked that.

And we did a lot of, they had like the, they're kind of like set lists and all the hits they did. It was all the same stuff from like sixties through that current at the time. And I was like, we do all the same stuff.

I'm like, this is awesome. I'm like, I really liked that name. And I didn't know any of these guys at the time.

I didn't even know if they're still alive, anything about the group. And I said, uh, I'm going to use that name. I said, you know, it's, this was like 20 years ago at the time or longer than that, 30.

And I'm like, I want to use that. I really like it. And instead of Johnny, I said, I'll use Pauly, you know? And I just, I literally just.

So before, before you met them, you started. Yeah, that was 2014. Yeah.

And I just met these guys just like three, four years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause we, we were in a band called the vinyl surfers, me and Tom and that's, we used to play at the studio that we were talking about earlier. And, um, you know, Paul contacted us and to play this party.

And now how, how did you know to reach out to them? Did your grandmother give all this information? It was literally like their, uh, like their, what'd you call it? EPK, their, their, their, their promo kit. It had like their names, their references, the places they played at. It had their song lists and had their names and what they played the lineup of the band.

And I'm like, Oh, this is really cool. So I'm like, let me check this out. Cause what happened there wasn't at the time.

I really didn't check it out. I just figured I said, I like this name. I'm going to, I'm going to spin off that.

And later on, um, my dad, uh, he was turning 70 and we were throwing a big party and I said, boy, this would be really cool. We're going to have like all the family, their extended family. And I'm like, I wonder if these guys are still around.

Like, cause I wanted like music and I didn't want my own band. We were hosting the party. I'm like, I want some outsiders.

And, and I was looking around. I'm like, I wonder if these guys, and I Facebooked and I found Tom's name and he's like, Oh yeah, we're still playing. And gave me some info.

I looked it up and I said, you guys want to come do this party? I'm paying, you know? And, uh, sure enough, they came. It was, it wasn't still, it was the vinyl surfers at the time. Is that the band? That's the band that plays.

Okay. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. And, and so we had them out, they did the party and I mean, it was a daytime party on a, maybe it was a Sunday or something. It wasn't anything like crazy atmosphere, but it was awesome with live music vibe.

And I was like, wow. And you did some songs. Yeah.

Yeah. He asked if he could do a couple of songs with us. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. I mean, cause it was like, these are the guys that were playing with my uncle decades ago. I'm like, how cool is this? You know, I'm like, this is for me, like it was very meaningful, you know, the whole experience to, for myself, for the family.

And so, uh, I was really ecstatic about them to be there. And, uh, after that, I was just like, man, I'm like, this was great. I'm like, I'm like, you guys are playing out.

I want to come see you guys, you know, like, let's connect. And, uh, I came out, I saw them when the studio was still there and their band was playing there. And, uh, I think we did a couple of open mics.

I joined Tom at, and, uh, and then it was one of those situations where I had a last minute event come up. It was like a private party, local. And, uh, my basis was like out of state and I think one of the other drummers couldn't do it.

And so I, I was like, and I even told the client, I'm like, yeah, I don't have my group. They're like, don't you know anybody? Like, it doesn't matter. Like, well, you know, we just, as long as, you know, you guys are playing the hits we want to hear in that, like, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I'm like, that's not really what we sell to people, but I'm like, I'm like, if you want to go into this knowing that's how this is. I'm like, sure. I have some people I'll ask around and I call them up and I'm like, uh, do you guys want to do a gig tonight? And, uh, yeah, it was, I mean, these were all like staple songs that, you know, all the singalongs.

And so like, it wasn't like anything too, too wild to kind of jump in on, maybe a few, but, um, that's how it started. And then they came. Yeah.

I didn't know a lot of it, but I, but I remember your set list though. Cause I I've seen you guys at the studio. You guys played some pretty, you know, I mean, popular music, but not necessarily what I would consider to be the most popular stuff.

Yeah. We did some off the wall stuff, XRT ish kind of stuff. Exactly.

That that's a good explanation. It was more like an XRT kind of a, kind of a cover band, I guess is the best way to best way to put it. Well, that's good.

Is that still what you guys are doing? Because the stuff that I found on the internet, like I looked up all the videos that you guys doing a bunch of blues. Is it, is it, and that's most of the videos that are on the internet that I've found from you guys is like sweet home Chicago was one that kept coming up a lot. That is like a staple that we do almost at every show.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially like, cause when we do expanded pieces too, and we have like our keys, we have a sax player.

It's a, we have a lot of fun. It's kind of just like a, almost like a jam song. And it almost all the time we actually get a really great response from it too.

Yeah. It's crazy how people love that song. I had, I had someone, uh, nobody, nobody plays it right, but everybody loves that song.

Yeah. Yeah. We, we had somebody tell us, uh, one of the eight, one of the agents years ago, when we first started, we did a show and we packed the venue.

It was one of our first shows. And somebody made a comment. Oh, you, you played sweet home Chicago.

I'm like, yeah, we did. And everybody loved it. Did you see the people dancing? Yeah.

And they're like, Oh, I can't believe you are playing that like that. Well, we do. And it works.

That's exactly right. Whenever Eric Clapton is in town, he wants to play that song. And it's, I saw an interview with buddy guy where he's like, I am so sick of that song.

Every time Eric Clapton comes, he always wants to play sweet home Chicago. I said, why do you want to play that stuff? It was, it was great. Yeah.

Good interview. But no, you're, you're absolutely right. Every time I go someplace and see a band that at one point or another, they play bits and pieces of, of sweet home Chicago.

We're, we're not a blues band though. Not, not what we're doing. We're all over the place.

Yeah. We play a little bit of everything. Well, that's good.

Good. Good. So when was the first gig that where you guys actually had more than a 12 day or 12 hour notice and you could get together and you could rehearse and say, okay, we're going to, we've got a gig guys.

We have a real gig. He said, rehearse. Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to offend you. No, I mean, after we're playing out so much, it's kind of rehearsal on the fly. This new song, everybody here's the PDF of the chords and then we'll all listen to it.

Yeah. Mostly pull it off. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. No, what, what, what kind of happened is after, after we kind of did this expanded Pauline, the shakers, when we added the few extra pieces here and kind of brought in some, some extra talent, uh, I, you know, obviously we, we got together, we started doing some rehearsals.

Hey, this is all the different stuff we're doing. Uh, because set lists, I really cater to every type of show. There's private events that could be fast bars, uh, anything.

So like really, and people have different preferences. We want to hear more eighties, nineties, sixties, more country, this, that, and okay. So then I will customize each set list to kind of fit what the client wants.

And so that's why, you know, it just started introducing, Hey, these are all the, the, the baseline stuff we're going to do at most shows. And then, you know, we trickle in other stuff as time went on more, um, private stuff or are you doing the probably more public right now, but the demand in the last couple of years, there's been way more private events we've done picking up. Yeah.

People, the last two years, I mean, I've, I just constantly getting hits for private events where they are just coming to me. I'm not even doing any reaching out. And, uh, it's, it's been a good problem to have.

I've had to the last year we've had to turn down more shows than I can ever imagine just because we were booked already. Right. Right.

So you're accepting all bookings and you, cause you mentioned you're, you're kind of changing your set list depending on what kind of stuff you want. Absolutely. I mean, you'll book a country bar and we've played before an all country show.

Oh really? Yeah. I'm not, I don't ever. And I tell them that it's not like our specialty.

I don't, I would never advertise this as like a, a core country band, but if you need like three hours of music and you want to play all the normal mainstream stuff, yeah, we could definitely pull that off. And it's going to sound good. Everybody in the band is super talented.

Yeah. Well, good, good, good. Excellent.

Well, I'll tell you what, I think it's that time for us to take a quick break. No, no, I think I'm okay. Okay.

Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm over 50 now. It would take me way too long to pee.

So I'm going to hold it till I get home. Alrighty. We'll be right back.

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 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 the bus stop blues.com, where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple podcasts, or any other major podcast platform. Hop on board the bus stop blues where the blues never stops rolling.

All right. We are back. And for the first time tonight, we have Pauly and the shakers.

I could see one, two, three, you take your hand and come with me. Cause you look so fine that I really want to make you mine. You look so fine that I really want to make you mine.

And one, five, six, come on and get your kicks. Now you don't need money when you look like that. Do you honey? Big black boots, long brown hair.

She's so sweet with her. Get back still. I could see you home with me.

You were with another man. Yeah. I know we ain't got much to say, but I'll let you get away.

Yeah. Are you going to be my girl? I could see you home with me, but you were with another man. Yeah.

I know we ain't got much to say, but I'll let you get away. Yeah. Be my girl.

Be my girl. Are you gonna be my girl? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all. Forgot the ending of it. Jet.

Jet? Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's a band that I wish, I don't know what happened to them.

It's like they had this great album and then they fell off the face of the earth. They're called One Hit Wonders. Yeah, but they were- Something like that.

Or Bone Eaters. But yeah, they were so much better than that. They were pretty good.

Yeah. And then that was it. Yeah.

I don't even remember. I don't think I ever remember the second one. It was the, it was, it was, that was on their first album.

Yeah. They had, I think one other. Was it called, was it called Get Back or something like that? Well, well they had a song that I've done many times was Cold Hard Bitch, right? Yes.

Which the intro to that song, every rock and roll song should sound like that. That's a great, that was a great song. And I liked that whole album.

And I don't think I ever heard of another album from them before, you know, after that. Yeah. I don't think so either.

From Australia, I thought, right? I think they were from Australia. I think so. Yeah.

But man, I wish they would come up with another album. Yeah. But I mean, it's been, it's been so many years now since I think that's, you know, I, I, I hate to think about it.

That, that song's got to be 12, at least 12 years old. I think it's more than that. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. It is awesome. Garage rock.

I'm thinking, yeah. Cause I'm thinking about the time, my time in Cadillac Groove and we were playing it in a band prior to that. I was in a band called Forget Hannah and we were doing it in that band.

So yeah. Holy crap. Yeah.

That's a generation ago. Yeah. It was a generation ago.

Holy crap. Yeah. Wow.

It sounds really cool when we're doing it on electric. Well, of course. But it was, it's kind of fun doing a different twist.

Transfer that one to acoustic. Yeah. No, that's pretty some, that, I mean, everything they do is pretty hard driving guitars.

It's kind of, kind of tough to do it on acoustic. Yeah. I was, I was watching your fingers and I was like, yeah, they're, they're, they're getting sore right now.

So what did you do before the whole Pauly thing and came around? I know you're always Pauly, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it was, it wasn't that many years.

It was probably less than five years before that I was still doing a similar group of, we were actually called under construction. That's how I started out. It actually started with my wife.

Even prior to that, we were doing kind of a band. It was with a few family friends and we were just kind of getting things going. But then, you know, we started having kids.

You didn't tell them what your wife played. My wife was the drummer. Oh, nice.

Oh, no kidding. You should have heard playing the tambourine. Yeah, it would have been better than me.

That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we were doing that for a little while. And then, like I said, as things kind of progressed with family life, I had my brother-in-law jump in and he was just getting started on drums himself. I knew how to play guitar, but very basic fundamentals at that time.

I was trained, I grew up playing trumpet since grade school. And I could read sheet music and everything. And I was in a concert band, marching band, and in high school.

And that's when I met my wife and she was playing the drums. But then, like I said, after that, I said, you know, I just I said, I want to play, I want a guitar. I want to play out.

And so I just picked up the guitar, got some friends who knew how to play. And we just started playing. And then a couple of years later, less than that, we were playing out at local venues.

And we didn't even know the name of the quartet at that point. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that was pretty quick.

Yeah. Were you good at the trumpet? Oh, I was like third chair trumpet. When I was in high school, I was there.

I was there for the girls. Well, yeah, of course. And plus, you had to go to high school.

Yeah. And it was an easy class where you didn't have to do the other stuff like math. Right, right, right.

Because, you know, if you suck at the trumpet, you're playing it wrong. Oh, God. I apologize now.

That's a dad joke that Scotty Evans says every single time. Carlo takes the trumpet out of the case. You know, Carlo, if you suck at the trumpet, you're playing it wrong.

Classic, classic. How about you guys? Your backgrounds, where you came from. Okay.

I just started playing guitar, like, you know, 14, 15 years old. Something like that. You know, taking lessons at a local music store, you know, things like that.

And then, you know, I just started, you know, playing with some friends, mostly at that time, like heavy, heavy rock. That's all I wanted to play. And then the guy that we were talking about earlier, the Johnny and the Shakers singer, Johnny, he gave me a call.

And I met him at something else. And he invited me to kind of play with these guys. And Tom was already in the band.

And he goes, he goes, well, we already got two guitar players. He goes, you want to play bass? I said, okay, I don't have a bass though. And he goes, well, I got a bass.

I got a bass. It's like a South Park episode. So that was it.

You know, I started playing bass with them. And then, you know, and I've been playing with this guy off and on since probably like 1980 or something like that. You know, yeah, we've been in all kinds of different bands together, different configurations and things.

Right. Yeah. I remember, Tom, when you were playing at the, when you come to do open jam at the studio, you would always be the guy that everybody, you know, open jams always turn into blues jams always.

But you'd be the guy that would get up there and play like creep or something, something more pop. I guess that's more your thing then. Yeah.

Yeah. I've always been gravitated toward melodic stuff, you know, pop and poppy. Yeah, I started playing when we were living in California.

I was born here, but we moved out there after the Oklahoma tornadoes. Tornado. And we were both close to there.

And my mom freaked out and we moved out there and lived out there for 10, 11 years. And then the earthquake scared us back here. Right.

But I met a guy in, I don't know, seventh, eighth grade that was taking guitar lessons and he invited me. It was a program called FAME, Famous American Musicians and Entertainers. And one of their spokesmen was, uh, uh, what's his name? Chet Atkins.

Oh, no kidding. And they would play reel to reel before every, every class. It was a class set up.

And part of the deal was you signed up for a year's worth of, I think it was biweekly lessons. And as part of that, you got a guitar. So, um, yeah, I did that for a year and, um, discovered that I had no interest in reading music.

I have a severe, severe problem reading music, but my ear is very, very good and a lot quicker. And I started picking stuff up once I learned the basics. Right.

I started learning, you know, just off the radio and records and all that stuff. Right. And, uh, moved out here and, uh, met, met these guys.

Yeah. And the rest is history. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We were playing, we were playing in bars before we were holding up the drink, I think.

Yeah. Well, we, you could do that back then. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I played my first gig in a bar. I was 17 years old.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a place called Huggin' on Higgins in Huffman Estates, right across the cornfield from Poplar Creek Music Theater, which is not there anymore.

Oh. For, for, for, for you youngins in the room, Poplar Creek Music Theater was very similar to the outdoor theater over in Tinley Park, whatever they're calling that, whatever they're calling that today. Cause I still call it the world.

I still call it, I still call it the world music theater or whatever the heck it is. Poplar Creek and the overflowing toilets. Remember that place? Oh gosh.

Yeah. Yeah. Guys would be lined up at the sinks because it's.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, the crazy thing about that is you could, you could be like, you could be on like Higgins or golf road or any one of the main access roads that would go to it. And it was, it was literally down into a dust bowl. You could see all the roads just kind of converging.

There's this dust bowl and there's Poplar Creek, right? Perfect name for Poplar Creek because half the time it was underwater. It really was. But yeah.

Yeah. Interesting times. No, it's no longer there.

But one of these days I'll tell you the story about how I heard Elton John. I think Elton John was one of the last people to play Poplar Creek. And I heard him across that cornfield sitting on the steps, steps of that same bar, which was called Huggin' on Higgins, because my friend was driving us there and he got into a car accident and we were stuck there, immobile, couldn't move anywhere and had to wait for our parents to come pick us up as we heard the concert starting across the cornfield.

That's how I saw Elton John was from the steps of Huggin' on Higgins. That's right. Well, it works.

But anyways, so what's, so what's an evening of music like for you guys? You guys play a little bit of everything. You're kind of eclectic. So give us, give us an example.

Everything. Yeah. I mean, really, we, we, most shows we, we probably take everybody through pop, rock, country, maybe a little spice of disco funk.

I thought he was going to say Spice Girls. I didn't tell the guys yet. That's coming up.

That's worth the price of admission. I think these guys can do some Spice Girls. He's whipped out some, some T-Swift.

A couple. Tell me what you want. Yeah, we've done Taylor Swift, a little Pink Pony Club.

Oh no. See, I thought we could be, I thought we could be friends. I was thinking we could be friends.

And now then you could come out with the Pink Pony Club. He does not say no easily. Well, you know, if they want to throw some, uh, throw some bucks in the tip jar, you know, I like to oblige when we can.

Well, yeah. You got to put some soul in the bowl. Yeah.

Pink Pony Club. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely. Those aren't mainstays.

Those are very seldom in between. But once or twice. Yeah.

Or, you know, or occasionally if I'm doing a solo show at a wine, a wine bar or something like that, and I'm just doing acoustic, it's real easy to throw in stuff like that when they have those kind of oddball requests that just come out. It's weird how many people like ask you to do like female artists. I know.

Yeah. Wait a minute. That actually happens to me a lot.

And you're like, no, I'm not even going to try. Yeah. But although we do have a female singer now, so we can do some of that stuff.

But yeah. But when I'm doing solo stuff, it's like, hey, can you do some, you know, play that Dolly Parton song? Yeah. Really? What about my voice tells you that I can do? Yeah.

The exact same thing. I can't tell you how many times we've had to say, what? That's what you think I'm going to play? Yeah. Take your pants off a little bit.

What else do you guys have prepared for us tonight? You said you got a couple more. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We could do. Are we prepared? Are we prepared? Yeah. We're just going to do something.

We got a we got a classic 80s cover. How about listeners choice? What are our options? Oh, we got to give you options. What's our options? Well, we were thinking about, yeah, the cure.

A little to cure. No, I hate them. You hate them.

Oh, OK. All right. Truth be told, I'm sorry.

I'm sure they're good guys or whatever, but I wouldn't walk across the street to see them for free. How about some Tom Petty? OK. Tom Petty is good.

Tom Petty sounds good. Let's go with that. All right.

Sounds good. Got to grab my guitar. Oh, OK.

Let's take a let's take a little break. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. All right.

We're back. And so listeners choice, everybody, we chose a Tom Petty song. Let's check out some Tom Petty.

Promises. She couldn't help thinking that there was a little more life somewhere else. After all, it was a great big world.

Lots of places to run to. And if she had the time to try and cheat. What little promise she was going to keep.

Oh, yeah. Oh, all right. Take it easy, baby.

Make it last all night. She was an American girl. She stood alone.

Felt the rain. Yeah. She could hear the cars going by.

4-4-1. Waves crashing on the beach. Left the one desperate moment there.

Regret back in memory. God, it's so painful. Something that's so close.

Still so far out of reach. Oh, yeah. Oh, all right.

Take it easy, baby. Make it last all night. She was an American girl.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Who scheduled a colonoscopy on Friday the 13th? It's intentional.

Wants to see what happens. That's what you get when you don't see your program. For three and a half years, is that all you need? Yeah, that's what happens.

The day after that, I did have a solo show at Banging Gavel at the Vogue House in Tinley Park. And then, like I said, this is a big month for acoustic shows. It is on the following weekend, the 20th of November, Grand Duke's Restaurant in Downers Grove.

Tom and I will be there doing a duo show. And then on Black Wednesday, which is the 25th, the day before Thanksgiving, we are at Mug Shots in Homer Glen. Nice, okay.

I think we have a five-piece arrangement there. That evening. Our horn guy is coming.

Yeah, we'll have a full arrangement. We've got a horn guy. Keys and then a horn guy.

And then we're at Quigley's in Naperville at the end of the month. It's that following Saturday after Black Wednesday. And believe it or not, this is kind of a slow month for us.

This is actually a slow month for us. Summer was unreal. Over ten shows a month.

Wow. Yeah, things are starting to slow down a little bit. I'm welcoming that as we're coming to the end of the year.

And what about social media? Are you guys on Facebook? We're on Facebook. Pauly and the Shakers. And we're on Instagram.

Not as big of a following on there. We have a website, Pauly and the Shakers, spelled out, paulyandtheshakers.com. Really on all the platforms, I keep everything posted. All the events that are upcoming, our schedule, and more details about the events.

Web and Facebook primarily, but Instagram. You can also find us on TikTok even. Oh wow.

I started trying to promote on there a little bit. Good. Excellent.

Alrighty guys, well thanks for coming out. This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

We enjoyed the tour of the museum. We'll see you out on the road. Take care.

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.