Episode 005 JIM VITALE: From Eight-Tracks To Roofers And Riffs

A great song can feel effortless, but the best ones are engineered for impact. We sit down with master songwriter and guitarist Jim Vitali to build a ten-song mixtape and use it to reverse-engineer what makes music stick: economy in the lyric, a hook that earns its repetition, and performances that sound like real people in a real room.

Starting with The Beatles’ “Ticket To Ride,” we talk about how a title works like a headline, how groove choices become part of the melody, and why “less” often hits harder than “more.” From there we jump to Tom Petty’s “Listen To Her Heart” and the craft of a three-minute rock song, plus the way a band can turn simple parts into an unmistakable record. The conversation keeps widening into roots rock, Americana, and gospel, touching Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Band, Lucinda Williams, Wilco with Billy Bragg, the Black Keys, the Staple Singers, and Bob Dylan’s “Visions Of Johanna.”

We also get practical about the recording process: demos, deadlines, budget reality, and how top players and a clear producer can “tear up” an arrangement to find the best version. Jim breaks down bridge writing, including the idea that a bridge answers the song’s question, and we connect it all to his own track “You Can’t Let Me Down” and how it came to life from an old notebook line to finished studio take.

Subscribe for more deep music conversations, share this with a friend who obsesses over songs, and leave a review if you want more episodes like this. What’s one song you think every songwriter should study?

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Transcript

Episode Introduction And Mixtape Rules

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome everyone. This is an episode of My Register. I'm Giovanni Blanco and I have the honor of having uh Master Songwriter Tubador guitarist Mr. Jim Vitali. Thank you. That happens?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

That's me. That is you, man. That is you. That is me. Now you tell me. Yeah, that's what you put in the tax for over here. Now we just funny you said that. This is this is that week. It is the week. We start doing it. We're done. But Troubadour. It's always that thing, like, really?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Oh, it goes over there. Line item B. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

What can I write off this year?

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Oh, there's plenty.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

There was plenty. There will be plenty more.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Thank you for being here, man. This is um Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, man. This is uh we do this thing. It's uh we put together uh a mixtape of ten songs that mean a lot to you. And I like to approach this as side A and side B, and we'll just jump right

Beatles Songwriting Economy In Ticket To Ride

SPEAKER_02 1:08

into it. Side A begins with uh classic. Uh Ticket to Ride by the Beatles. Yes. Tell me what the significance of this song is for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Wow. Um Ticket to Ride for me is a lesson in economy in songwriting. So you have the title, right? Which is like a headline. Like, okay, so what are the columns going to be now, now that I've got the headline? And the phrasing of it and using it over and over the way they do is a hook. Yeah. Right. Um, but again, there's an economy, it just verse, chorus, and then the bridge goes like bridges do somewhere. Yeah. You know, it's a very bluesy bridge for them, in my opinion. Um, among the bluesiest things I've ever heard them do. But uh there's a spirit to it, you know. It's it's kind of a downer, but they're they're they're they're really honking with it. They are, you know, it's like, well, I can't quite get together with this this love interest, but I'm kind of happy to shout about it. Yeah, you know, and kind of work, you know, it's well kind of like a blues, you work it out, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

But to me, it's it's like it's it's a feel, it's an economy, it's not, you know, typical two, four feel, you know, and um there's just so much in there that that that builds an atmosphere, and there's not much to it, but it all works.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

And funny because it's like uh in doing a little research, um This is allowed, right? This is allowed. This is not a shill. This is actually refreshment. No, we'll do a little quick sip. Salute.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Salute, compadre. Um so uh what I read was it was mainly a John Lennon tune, and he kind of sat down with uh Paul, and Paul uh did a little something. McCartney McCartney did a little something, although Paul McCartney said that uh it was a three-hour session for the entire song that they worked on. Um but the thing that Paul McCartney came up with, uh, which to me is one of the signature things in the song, is how to play the drums in that part. Yeah, that you know, that whole it's like it changes. I mean, that's that's like such a definitive part of that song that it's like identifiable, you know, and then it goes to more of a 2-4 in the bridge.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

And then it yeah, you're right. Yeah, Paul, it's it is a bit melodic, the way it moves around the kit, you know, tone to tone. And that's that's all Paul does. I'm sure if you if you call him, he'll end up to the phone melodically somehow.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Different every time, you know, creative.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah, John is good for the she's leaving me.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

And yeah. Well, he you know, he had more of a gut bucket thing to him overall, but his his melodic sense wasn't half bad. Oh no, no, no. If I fell comes to mind just so you know.

Tom Petty And The Three-Minute Punch

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Moving along side A, um listen to her heart, Tom Petty.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Oh wow. You know, uh growing up as I did in Ohio, you know, Tom Petty or just about anywhere, Tom Petty's everywhere, right? It's like the air, right? And you don't consider it so much because it's there, it feels great. But as I got into playing an instrument, which is guitar, and then later got into writing songs and trying to do all that. Again, it's the economy and the turner phrase that he uses in there throughout. Um, and the band is just cooking. Mike Campbell, you know, one of my all-time favorites. And uh again, it's it's so solid, you know, listen to her heart and keep coming back to this idea. It doesn't matter what's going on, doesn't matter what you're trying to do and take me out of orbit with this love interest, it's gonna work out. Right. And it's just it's a it's a stomp.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

It is, it is. I mean, it's uh it's funny because it's um and it's just his second album, you know. And uh oh yeah, you're right, second album. It's yeah, yeah. And and uh and he was such a had a such a strong sense of who he was already as an artist, as as as we know now the entire career, and we can feel it out. But at the same time, it's like such a to me, it's it's like uh the the birds thing is so like just for for in the foreground. And like it just like so so uh it's it sounds like you know, like whiskey dipped birds.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Yeah, um, southern fried birds, yeah, yeah, you know. Um yeah, they were so big into that. And I uh I mean I've had my phases where I keep revisiting birds and different eras of the birds, yeah. So the classic original lineup, you know, with and without um oh, Gene Clark. Okay, right, and also uh with and without um Clarence, you know, on tele and all that, you know, every everything. Just there's there's a particular thing about it. But yeah, that it's sort of super energized the way they do it. And I can't say enough about the band, the way they did it, and Mike Campbell is always you know, my touchstone, my go-to. Like, okay, what would Mike do? Because his tone, his feel, the part, it's it's it's a rather simple part, but there's little nuances in it, and you can you can never imagine a different part than whatever he plays on the records. No, no, no, no. You know, and I think they were a big fan of that in particular, is like getting a song and sort of transforming it into a record. Like anybody can make a recording, but not everybody's gonna make a record.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yeah, they always they worked hard at uh at adding the the guitar hooks, like the sort of the look the the the melodic hooks in there that were kind of not necessarily uh so it seems. Yeah, well actually, you know, the they they s they sold this sort of like bar band kind of vibe, right? But but underneath, like it was always like this other stuff.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

And I've I've come to find um that in the history of that band, you know, particularly with Tom, you know, there were a lot of songs under the bridge before they cut that first record. You know, he was right. I can imagine.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

I can imagine. Always writing. You know, whenever they say it takes 10 years to to write your first album. No, you tell us that's what's been going on.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

And also Mike Campbell. Yeah, you know, the things that he wrote, arranged, presented, shaped, um, you know, and everybody in that band.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, no. Tension. You know, you know. Um, I have one more thing to ask about this. Oh, yeah. I got it wasn't until it was really weird because it was just um wildflowers.

unknown 8:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

And it was just like and it was just a song like it that hit me when I was uh I was uh at the time I was married and I was leaving. She was from Wisconsin, and we had a fight, and I was driving back from Wisconsin through like snowstorms through to Connecticut, and my car, I couldn't see. It was just like there was no visibility, and I just had the radio, and I had to pull over way to the side of the road because I was afraid of getting hit. It was like three o'clock in the morning, and I remember the DJ saying, This is the new the newest single from you know Tom Petty. Uh it was just uh It's good to be King. And it just like I was so depressed and so it was such a dark, and I was just like this storm, and that song just like completely blew my mind. And the next day I just went to a record store and got the record, and I'm like, okay, and then I went back, you know, whatever, you know, because it's full moon fever and all like all this stuff like that. There were big kind of uh it was always good with a hook and a song and and uh I even like that record that that wasn't that popular, the one that was like uh with you're jamming me that was like the in-between uh southern accents and um, I can see I can see the cover now. But it's a fun that's a fun record. I wanted to ask you in particular, maybe and maybe we can touch on the Ticket to Ride uh as well. Do you remember when you first heard like listen to your heart? Or or or or even your first encounter with Tom Petty and what you thought? Sorry. Like in your life. That's what it was. I got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

If you want to no, no, you're good, you're good, you're good. Oh, the first time hearing that. I mean, I was the Beatles thing, I was very young. I mean, barely walking. Uh I have siblings that are quite a bit older than me. They were then, they are now. And that song title, by the way. Yeah. Right? Write it, get it down. Um those records were in the house. And and I you know, the playlists on the on the stations. Yeah, you know, you're driving about, wherever. But those are the things, fortunately, that I gravitated toward, because there were a lot of it, you know, um, those songs, that kind of music in the house. You know, we had some jazz, but we had a lot of you know, blues, RB, a lot of Beatles, things like that, you know. Um, even my parents were into it. Um, but uh Ticket to Ride, I don't remember the first time. Um though I would say probably right around junior high school. Um, or maybe it was high school, I can't remember, but all of a sudden one day it meant something more. Like, but there's something interesting in particular about the way this song does what it does. You know, I didn't play anything then, I didn't start playing until I got into college. Um in earnest, as they say. But um uh listen to her heart, uh, that, all those songs. It's just the the thing that really blew my mind one time was that I looked at it uh on a label. You know, it's got the who wrote it and BMI or Ask Cap, whatever. And it's only three minutes long. Yeah, even with that, you know, they're jamming out to the end the outro to the hits at the yeah on the outro. It's three minutes. Like you gotta get up and say your thing like that. And I thought, really? It's like three minutes long, and then you go back and you look at the Beatles sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, ticket to ride's probably right around there. Most of the early stuff was Yeah, 230, 20, yeah. Sub-3. Yeah, you know, you know, they were just they just did it. Yeah, it's like here's here's the idea, here's the idea over and over again. The weird thing about their songs to me, especially the I think more the earlier songs, like through somewhere in '65. Okay, there's this, I don't know, there's a cadence to it. I don't quite know quite how to describe it, but it's sort of it's so catchy, it's like Christmas carols. Like you can't get out of the way of a Christmas carol.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

And when you listen to the hook on I Wanna Hold Your Hand, you know, that summation, which is all they're playing are ice cream changes. That's right. On that, you know, going around. So they're sort of supercharging this thing that came before them the way that they would do it. And you're just like, what is going on here? You know, and it it's hard, it's it's hard to put into words, you know, how it works and what it is. It's amazing. But um, I don't remember the first times. Um, they're just all time.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

All time, all

Eight-Track Nostalgia With CSNY

SPEAKER_02 13:12

time. Um, number three on side A is uh Crosby Stills, the Mash and Young on the Way Home. Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

It's a four-way street. You know, um talking about making this list, and sometimes it's like leaving you know, children off of the lifeboat. But this song for me, okay. I'm back in Ohio in the house that I grew up in, full finished basement, that kind of scene. Yeah, yeah. And with panel walls.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Real yeah, no shag, but there were there was there were rugs throughout. You know, tastefully done, I must say. Tastefully done. Um uh oh yeah, on the way home. So my father uh was a jeweler and a watchmaker, coins, you know, all of that. And um he would travel quite a bit, go to flea markets, set up. So as a kid, I'd be darting about, looking at you know, all these different whatever, you know, every every row was every table was something new.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Oh, like Joe, Kung Fu Grip.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Yeah, right. Yeah, big time, big time stuff. And you know, you'd find things, and I saw that there was this thing of uh I came, there are eight tracks. Oh my god, right? And there it was, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, Four Way Street, and I thought, well, okay, I know. Bought it, I think, for a buck fifty, right? And then somehow found one of those uh old stereo receivers that was like the built-in A-track, yeah, radio cassette, A-track, you know, with the turntable. Okay, so now I can get this thing operational, and you'd put it in and it would bounce from channel to channel, the four channels. Yeah, yeah. So I'd be in that basement listening to this on these uh, I don't know what kind of speakers they were, but uh they're actually pretty good. It wasn't like Radio Shack, and I'm not bumming out on Radio Shack. Yeah, they might, you know what? Actually, no, funny enough, they were Sirwins, Sirwin Vega. But um actually, those weren't mine. It's a long story.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

But so I'm listening to this. This is this is what this is the stuff that I want to get to.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah, well, it's like you know, you've got to find these things and fashion them together so that you can hear this, you know, media that you bought, this A-track, that was, you know, partially, you know, the the label had some water damage to it, so it added to the allure. Yeah, right. But you put it in, you know, I'd put it in and you'd be in the basement.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

It's definitely not water, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Oh. Wow. Can we cut that? Can we edit that up? I don't know. We're gonna keep it PG here. But um, you know, I'd be in the basement as, you know, a kid 12, 13, 14 years old, you know, and you, you know, you try to catch up on sleep, put in the eight-track, it's going, and I'd just fall asleep. Yeah, you know, in the basement, everything's darkened, you know, it's the nice, it's your cave. And you'd wake up, there'd be another universe, this other channel that had clicked on while you're conked out. And over and over, and this would just wash over me. You know, one of those uh albums, that and the radio, everything, you know, that I could get my hands on, because that was just that was the thing for me, sound. Anyway, that song is really the one out of all of them. You know, there's something about it, it's it's really it's like you can really feel them together, um, which the whole album is. I mean, they sound great, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable how how uh patchwork that album is and how their sound is the only thing that isn't. They just like sound perfect together sometimes. All these songs and all these bits, and it's like they're just you know older songs. I think that was like a Buffalo Springfield song. Like he I think probably Neils. Yeah, yeah, Neil Neils. It was Neil Young's song, but when he was in Buffalo Springfield. Oh, yeah, yeah, that era. So it's just like another, you know, everyone had these different songs, and at the time they were so everything was contentious between them, and they were like basically on the I think they broke up before the album came out, actually, even.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Yeah, that was it was quite combustible that combination for various reasons.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

But the their their uh their sync, they're like sort of unison thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

That's like they just locked in beyond all three prongs into the wall. And so much of that album is live.

unknown 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

It's like, you know, so like it's just Chicago's on there, Black Queen. I love Chicago. Yeah, I mean Graham sounds great. Those other guys were holding him back. He does, but that there's there's a there's like a sweet melancholy to that song. Yeah, you know, and it always it's a very uh it it I always think about that in the autumn. Yeah, right, which is a favorite time of year for me anyway, but to me that's got very much of an autumn thing. Um, yeah, that's that song. Just I love it. That's awesome. And it always takes me back to that that that time and place. That A-track. Yeah, as as they say, the formative years where where the damage is accruing.

The Weight And Learning Roots Music

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Side A continues, and we have song number four, which is the wait by the band. Ooh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Yeah. When I first heard that, it um, you know, growing up, you you know, college radio, right? And you'd hear things. I mean, I was quite young, eight, nine years old, we're talking, and you'd hear something on the radio. And at first I didn't know what the music was, but I liked it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I started to notice it sounded a little bit like these rock and roll things that I would listen to, like Led Zeppelin, and you know, whatever. And it turned out to be blues. So there was some station, I can't recall the station.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Where what what's what city is this? We'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Uh I'm growing up in I grew up in Canton, Ohio. Canton. Canton. I don't look Cantonese to you. You had to ask.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Anyway. Um like Southern Cantonese. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Kind of, you know, off a beaten path. Yeah, other side of the track. That side attracts. Right. Um, the weight. So I start, you know, and you know, certainly you hear different things. You hear country music, you know. The funny thing is about that station, it was college radio, so it wasn't dedicated to that format. Oh, yeah. Some days you turn it on and think, okay, I'm what's this news thing that they've got going on? Which where's the music? Yeah. The other stations. And then you realize as you come along. But anyway, you hear that, stopped everything, stops you in your tracks. And it's all together, it's all these things that that I knew and was finding out about, you know, discovering. And it was all right there, but I didn't know how like you you could feel it, but you couldn't really point to it. Yeah. In the song, you know, there's this sort of call and response that's happening, and then you know, different people singing different verses, but the voices come together. It's sort of like uh people praying in unison, you know, together. But yet you hear all these strains of this this different music, just just you know, little bits of it, you know, traces of it really. Oh, you try to identify it and it's gone. It's something you you see something else in the fabric, some other thread to it. But smells something else. Yeah, it's really something.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

And you know, if you write it out on paper, you don't necessarily know it's it's not you miss it a lot, especially because it's that song, since it's such a you know, uh hand-like where it repeats the parts over and over and over, and they're not necessarily complicated. Yeah. But then you get somebody who's like the Leonhelm, Lemon Helm, who's like such a you know, not the easiest drummer to follow, to like be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Well, as he said, he's more of a folk drummer.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Yeah, yeah. But he's like folk, like New Orleans folk.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Oh, yeah. You know, his his syncopation, his independence. Yeah. That he would play with and sing. And sing, and sing, yeah. Really keeping that top line going, man. But and then they had weird ways to come together and harmonize, like the top line. Top wouldn't be the top in the chorus, the top, you know, the highest chorus sort of switch. Weave the way that they just came to do it, you know. But it was it doesn't sound like really anything else. And it's no, it's crazy, man. Each time you hear it, for me, it's a moment. Like, okay, for this amount of time, this is what I'm doing. I'm gonna listen to that song.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

I just I remember um having heard that song quite a bit on on like classic rock radio, whatever. And being uh in high school um at the time where like the Grateful Dead was having this sort of resurgence in the late 80s, and they were like touring again heavily, and all like a lot of my friends were into the dead, and I didn't quite get it at the time, and still maybe a little bit, but uh I do I do get it now. But um I remember we were just hanging out, you know, kids after school, whatever, people having fun, drinking, blah, blah, blah, goofing on, goofing around. And they were playing Grateful Dead songs, and the weight came on in the tape, like in a mix. And I was just like, who that was it? Like, what's this? Yeah. Like, oh, it's the band. I'm like, you know, then the whole like uh who's on first routine. Oh, yeah, what band? The band.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

The power of the hoodoo. Yeah. The voodoo that you do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Um, and uh that was uh, you know, uh I went head first. I'm like, okay, I need to find out everything about this spin.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Oh man, yeah. It's it's that. Um and it seems, you know, it's it's like the jumping off point because who knows what other kind of freaky thing they got into, you know, just stuff from the fringes of wherever. Yeah. But it's stuff that they knew and experienced and they recombined it the way they did it. So it's magic.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

I mean, I think that they're not that dissimilar to the Beatles in the sense that they did their time as a band. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Like the all the stuff with uh off the boards, man. Just everything right there every night, you gotta line it up and somebody wants to start a fight or mess with you somehow, or you know, whatever. But you're you can't do it that much and that intensely unless it's you. Yeah. Right? It's it's beyond meaning something to you. Of course it does, but it's just you're gonna do it no matter what.

Band Chemistry Built By Repetition

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Have you ever had a situation where you were in a group or in a band where there was a sort of that syncopation of of having that only comes from playing repeatedly over and over like a a certain period of time.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Yeah. Um there was a band that I played with in Columbus. It was more of a roots rock band, blues, you know, I should say roots music. Yeah. Um, blues, a lot of jump blues and swing, you know, so that sort of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, dum, boom, boom, boom, that and playing off of that and thinking about horn lines instead of how a guitar player would play, right? Um, those those sort of you know, the stabs and the things that come and go and those arrangements, but you know, affected by a guitar primarily. Um, so learning that uh that band, uh Big Dave Schindler. Shout out to Big Dave. Big Dave Schindler, who was the guy that started that band and playing the doghouse. At Beef's Egg Charlie's in Canton, Ohio. Yeah, oh psh. Yeah. Where would it be uh in Canton now? I don't even know. So everything's changed, right? Um but he he put it together. He was the singer and the doghouse guy and does both amazingly well. He was always the guy to try to catch, you know. He I think he was always the best at his chair in that band. But we had a great time. I mean, we played paladins, we played, you know, Hollywood fat stuff. Um, but uh at a at a point, it just had its own inertia. Yeah. And we knew what everybody was doing. We were all developing, you know, um, as one does. But I think for me, more formative and getting into that bag fully, you know, what it is to just groove and not fill and not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, bowl of noodles, table three. Sometimes sometimes, yeah, sometimes just playing the uh the melody is enough. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Melody's always.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

But yeah, there and there, there have been different combinations that uh I've played with, you know, maybe one or two shows or um, you know, limited number of shows or just one-offs where the combination of people worked, and then you're like, where'd that go? Everybody's scattered to the four winds doing their thing. But it's great when it happens. Yeah, you know, and I and I've been lucky, like I think I hope many people are so many great musicians that I play with, including you. I love what you do, and you know, uh gonna go out on a limb here and tell you people he does a lot for this community of freaks and musicians here. He really does. And and elsewhere, I see it's like, okay, now you he's back in New Jersey. Now he's it's like witness relocation with music. But seriously, um, I see a lot of people like everybody here in town. Yeah, you know, here in Nashville, all kinds of towns like that with so much talent in them. And um I'm absolutely floored by it. And it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody who's stellar, it's just somebody who's solid and really likes what they do and that sort of transmits.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

I, you know, it could be somebody playing the most basic cowboy chord on a guitar. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

I mean, you just said it before. You know, sometimes you just have to play the melody and that translates to people as well, man. Sometimes it's like you just have to play certain colors of your soul, you don't have to play them all.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

I mean, come on, how many, you know, how much furniture can you put in any room? Look around. Seriously. Oh, that's enough. But these are you know, well-curated pieces. Yeah. And I like that for this. When people talk about booking bands, I just have to get this one off my chest. It's like, yeah, I'm a curator. Like, what are you making hands? You're booking a you're booking a band. You're booking a night. That's that's that's what I'm saying. What is this? The Louvre? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're curating, you know, like we're gonna have a showing by Jackson Pollack. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

This is the barf inn.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Come on, man. Like, here it is. Here's your spot. Get up and play, have fun, get out of the way, let somebody else do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Curating. No, I'm a rock and roll crossing guard. That's what I call it. Ooh. Yeah. I'm just basically let's keep it moving. Let's let's move people, let's let's play over here. Let's make some more noise over here. Let's, you know what I mean? You're like the guy at the airport. Yeah. Wrong runway. With all of this, uh, you know, the core for me is not just necessarily talking about the music. It's really about like how where it found you, like how it changed you. You know, because it's like we we love music. You know what I mean? And we can talk forever about the things that are so magical about songs and you know, artists, but to me it's like, wait a minute. Like you said, that story about uh Ron McEwen. You know what I mean? So, yeah, you know, you took this one trip once and you stumbled on this one record, and that's that's And then lost the record. And then lost the record. But now forever you have that the whole the you know, you have the the readings in your mind because you remember that one time you listened to it. Kim, my wife, she got me uh a book of Rod McEwan poetry for my for my birthday that she and we just like it's one of those like half jokey, half real.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Yeah, and immediate oh no, it's real. It's real, it's real for us. But I immediately, you know, having some wine and whatever, did a reading from the voice. Oh yeah, intoning Rod. So I'm reading this and it's just a cold read, right? And there were points where it was like he he wrote that? Oh man, that's let's just say that some of these lines are invasive. I'm gonna leave it at that. But it's Rod, Rod McEwen, and if you dig it, you dig it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, finding the music and it finding you, I think that's a great way to put it.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah, it's like you know, where where the meeting happened, where where where the actual like uh I can't get away from it. Yeah, let's talk about song number five on side A.

Lucinda Williams And The Nuanced Groove

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Uh Lucinda Williams Ooh, I lost it. Wow. Uh you know, when I first heard that song, it first of all, I think it's one of the best vocals of hers that she's ever captured. Um, and by that I mean it's just she's connected to something, something's really special on that one. But in the end, it's just this root-down jam, sort of like a Neil Young thing. Um, but again, like Neil Young, it seems really straightforward, but there's really cool nuance to it. And when you look at the meter and what she's saying in the song, how she's, you know, those turns of phrase, man, it's it's so good. And you can listen to it every time. And the band, you know, the band that take to me sounds like it was just in a bar, you know, before they opened the doors. And it's the band that's played there for the last five five months, Thursday through Saturday, every week. You know, and one guy's got like the mustard stain on his shirt, and you know, she's the cigarette must like, you know, it was a cigarette at some points, just hang and and it's yeah, you know, I think I lost it. Let me know if you're gonna call. You know, so casual, but it's just such a such a cool, like just kicking out the jams. You know, and it's this thing about you know, my interpretation of it. I think, you know, I mean, sometimes I write songs out. Do you remember what year this album came out? Ooh, good call. Don't know. Uh, but you know, it's that that that point where you're thinking, all right, I'm I'm into this person. Yeah. I'd like to know you know, give me give me something to work with here. Am I in, you know, if this is gonna happen, it's not gonna happen. But it's a way to do it, you know, it's the story that's been told more times than you can count in a song and whatever else movies. But the way, you know, it's it's her point of view, her her turn of phrase, and you know, just the feeling of it. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Was this the first song of hers that you ever thought like you kind of made you pay attention to her?

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Or no. Uh what is it, World Without Tears. Okay. Yeah. That one. That one has more of um, I think that gets more back to those bits of what makes the band the band. Yeah. Um that's a little more uh churchy, a little more gospel-y, you know, and it's and it's it's it's beautiful, just ever so slightly rough hewn, right? But it everything, you know, and of course the band that she's playing with is great. It's funny because it's it's uh so sympathetic in into what she's doing, how she does it.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Knowing you and knowing um your album, uh Love and Fate. Um this song of hers is the one that I would it was not a surprise for me that you picked up. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Because of the sort of, like you said, the the feel of the music, the sort of the the sort of uh almost laid back, but not completely loose, not completely like falling apart necessarily. You know, just yeah, it's like uh like they're kind of on the edge of the tracks.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

But uh like when you set an amp, you want it just fixing to explode. Yeah, you want to hear the buzz, you want to hear the little buns, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

You gotta hear it, you gotta hear the yeah, the the filament get weird. You want to hear the heat. Um but uh the sort of the the the the you said the turn of the phrase, the whole chorus reminds me of several of your songs. Like where that's like, you know, where that's like um this idea, like I lost it, and and uh like what what she lost is kind of like sort of like this part of herself, and and it's not necessarily like, you know, but she talks about it like she left a hat behind or something.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

And and it seemed yeah. No, it's not it's not literal, it's more like I'm sort of hoping that I'm losing it, but I'm gaining a little more like hey, you over there.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

It's very usual. But uh it's it's it it's part of that magic. So we flip the tape to side B. And uh we begin. And there's that thing where you have to sort of rewind it. Make sure you start at the beginning because it's never exactly uh let's just pretend that we were talking while the tape was playing and it ended. We just naturally have to flip it over, unless it was uh one of those auto-reverse. Uh but side B begins with California Stars. Oh man. Yeah. Wilco Billy Bragg.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Hey, who put that on that list? That's a good one. Uh California Stars. Oh, actually,

Recording Under Deadlines And Rewrites

SPEAKER_03 35:53

you know what?

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Before we go, before we go, I wanted to ask you a question because uh um in in trying to find more about the these songs, oh yeah, with I Lost It, I didn't know this, but she had recorded oh, is it Car Wheels on a Gravel Road? She had recorded the whole entire album before. Yeah, it was like the second version of the album that she recorded with a different producer. She had initially worked with Steve Earle. And Steve Earle said it was one of the most tedious, boring recording sessions he's ever done. And somehow and she felt it was too polished. She felt it was just like too clean. I see. And then she went with um Bruce Springsteen's keyboardist, Roy Brenton. Is that yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Um I didn't know. And that gave it more of a band feel. But it's kind of crazy because I feel like that's something I want to touch you with you upon uh real quick, because as a songwriter, somebody you've you've you've uh you released an album a couple years ago and you're working on new material. Like how often do you find yourself recording a demo or even actually recording a song and going, that's not right yet, or that's not ready. And then like finding that it's like adding or recording with a different band or a different studio, different producer.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Oh, right. You mean in in recording it or writing it? In recording, mainly in recording, recording. Well, you do like a demo, you feel like it's close enough, or two things on this record. Um, because of the budget and the lack thereof. Yes. And also time constraints. I was touring as a side man on a show. Um had to write in between, you know, being home, you know, downtime, and then coordinating everybody else who was on a bus of some sort, right? So that was madness. So we we went in, they had I was writing under a deadline, I had the dates set aside, and they got the acoustic only demos maybe seven or eight days before. Recording. Yeah. And they did their homework, of course, and they showed up maybe honestly. If I'm being honest, it could have been great without them having the they could have walked in cold. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it would have been great because that's they are those players, you know. Um, but of course, you know, I was a side man on that tour that I was doing on that show, but that's being on the clock. When you're the artist, you're on the hook. So of course your your monkey mind is saying, okay, is this gonna be right? This has to be this. How is this gonna sound? I didn't have the the convenience of that. We had in two the first two days, we did four songs, I think it was, and then we did two, and then everybody later that week, like uh Dave Sutton, speaking of Lucinda, he was off again on tour with her playing bass. And um Jeff Young was uh gonna go back out with Jackson Brown, you know, things like that. But we knew because they they wanted to do the record and they were doing it on totally sweetheart rate. You know, they they they knew what I was trying to do, and they're like, all right, man, we're in. We just want to do it and figure it out. But because we're doing that, can you make it a full album? So I'm like, all right, yeah, yeah. So we're gonna write the other songs the other four, and we had another date, like five.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

We can record several.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

I tried to make it a little, try to sweeten the pot, you know, for them. And I appreciated it certainly. But I had like five weeks to get another four songs done, going in and out of town, and I got it done. That sometimes you just need that little deadline.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

You're like, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 39:45

There is no not doing it. Yeah. Um, yeah, getting back to that. Is it ever done? No. Did I have the convenience to try things over and over again? You know, and I was singing live takes, you know, because I wanted to bring that energy to the performance. Uh, my my feeling is always, you know, having played with a lot of people, played for a lot of people, and doing what I do also on my own, in my mind, it's pretty firm. The person who's calling everybody together, you're the hub, you have to have that excitement and that energy. Then they, you know, because that in effect tells you kind of where the ceiling's gonna be on the goodness, the goodness ceiling. So if you're, you know, kind of going at it like, well, I think this is right. The ceiling's gonna be relatively low.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

It gets and it gets shorter, keeps getting shorter.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

But if you're just out there taking cuts, going for the parking lot, yeah, they're gonna go right along with you, you know. And uh that's what they did. They were amazing. And there were points where you know, I was trying to catch up with them performance-wise, and the songs were brand new, so I didn't really know how to lean into them and little things like that, you know. And we made some audibles certainly right there as we were recording. And it was great because we would uh Shane Soloski, and you know Shane, yeah, yeah. He produced and engineered the record and did a dynamite job. Um, there was a thing he talked about called, he called it the tearing up of an idea. So I would have like a main riff, uh, like on a song like America's Road, which is on the record. And it worked throughout as I had arranged it just on acoustic, right? You know, no, but I knew it was going to be electric, right? And at some point somebody said, That's a great, you know, it's a cool riff, but what if it started the song too? Which I would have I might have thought that's too much, but you know, or somebody would say, can we double this or we can cut that out and just go instead of this, you know, four bars of a suspension I'm trying to do, just go right to the the bridge. Yeah, yeah. It's good. And you know what? They were I would my my response was always, let's try it. Yeah. And the clock's running, you know, plus the the my battery's wearing down too, you know, because I'm trying to keep everything straight. So many hats on. And you know this is it. You've got to get it. Yeah, yeah. Whatever you're gonna come away with, that's what you're gonna put out. There's no there is no take two. Well, I mean, there were there were multiple takes of some songs, but it wasn't like we were gonna go back and reset up everything and get sound. No, that wasn't gonna be it. Or that we were gonna block out, you know, seven days or six days. That's not it.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

It's a fun weekend.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

I think I think they'd I think they'd get bored anyway. Yeah, yeah. They're too good, you know. So yeah, uh you always want that. But I think also for me, the idea is to have the song in as complete a form as possible. In fact, it should be complete, and then how you arrange it, like we'll say, okay, just that's good, just do the chorus twice here at this point, or that's one too many times to do this, blah blah, take that out, things like that, you know, or a little more tempo, a little slower tempo. Um, but I think I think you owe it to the people, you know. This is me. You want to have everything complete, and then they can bring the best of what they can do because they have the most clear picture, right? They will always add to it. You know, but I I also that's too much guesswork for me. Like, well, I've got this idea. Like, yeah, everybody's got ideas. We're gonna cut songs. You're gonna put out a you're gonna put out an album. We're not cutting ideas with songs. That's right. Let's grab the cowbell and away you go. But yeah, that's that's that's what I try to do. But as far as writing them, you know, I I'll set it down and walk around, you know, the table a little bit. I always have stuff spread out so I can see it and um you know, just move it around manually and start editing that way. A lot of pieces of paper. And uh sometimes I'm walking around the table, you know, like Monk would with the piano. I'm just sort of thinking about it. Of course, I don't have that dashing hat that he would wear, but um, that kind of thing. And I don't think you should it's good to re-examine it. You know, the the the best case scenarios you come back to and go, that's solid. I can move on. Yeah, yeah. But there's always that extra little thing. I'm always trying to get it to where not that it's memorable, but it's memorable because it sings well in a particular way. I mean, I think that for me, that's like a big one.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

That's a big one because it's because you gotta be able to sing it. You have to like, you know, and when you sing it, and sometimes when you sing it in front of people, different things happen to you and you oh yeah, subconsciously reveal things about it that you didn't find before. Oh, if there's if there's any hole in it when you're when you're in front of people, it's like uh But that's where like the I feel like sometimes in a good way instinct might cover for you and show you something that you didn't think of before because you were thinking in writing format.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

You know what I mean? Where your skill could will take over in real time, in real time, and you go like, oh, that actually sounds better than what I thought would go there.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Well, you get that momentum, you know. There's this it's sort of uh I call it sphincter action. Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Like this on stage, you're like, Oh, don't mess up, don't miss.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

Well, yeah, you don't want to be thinking about putting the right emphasis on the right syllable, right? You want it it's just you know, like syllables. Yeah, you want you want the song to feel to you like it's existed forever. Yeah, yeah. That's that's the trick, you know. And also do whatever you hope the song does. I mean, you write them, and sometimes you know what they are, and then sometimes you like I got a vague idea, but I like it. Yeah, do it. You know.

California Stars And Chorusless Tricks

SPEAKER_02 45:54

So let's talk a little bit about side B, California stars.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

We uh Oh yeah, we're back to that.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Talking about Wilko We segued. We segue, we segue, we guess. But we're setting this up. It's a great song. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes you have to rewind the tape and go back a little bit and go back. What was that? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

Um the turn of phrase, you know, like to lay my heavy head on a bed of California stars, you know. There's a sort of prosody to the melody, you know, of California stars. You know, the stars are up there, so it's kind of doing that. It's got that arc to it, and then um he tells you what he wants to do, and then he sort of tells you why. So in the arc of the melody, you know, and like the lower the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. California stars, you know, he puts the tag on it, and I, you know, it's a it's a different sort sort of song form, you know, it's not a typical verse chorus, verse chorus. It sort of melds together, and you can't really tell where it seems like it's one chorus, really. That's over and over again, which is a pretty good trick. Yeah, yeah. The only other song that comes to mind like that in a way is uh Maggie May.

unknown 47:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

There's no chorus. Yeah, you know, but there's the great man.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

The chorus is always the first line of the verse for me. It's like Maggie, like the hold of every time he comes around again in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Shout out to Rod, which was my first concert. Oh, wow. I was four years old. Remember the older siblings I mentioned? Yes. Yeah. My sister Anita took me to see Rod Stewart, and I remember the band and him, and I remember the glow sticks, and I remember all of these soccer balls being launched off the stage. So this is like late 70s, early 80s. Yeah. And well, he still does it. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what I it kind of came to it. You know, and as a four-year-old, you're thinking, yeah, I'd like to I'd like to get a little bit of this in my life. You know, Captain Kangaroo, Rod Stewart. It's kind of a hard right turn, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

But yeah, California stars.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Do you think I'm sexy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

I see the possibilities there. Um, but no, this song, and again, it's it's if there's a sleight of hand to what they're doing, in my opinion. Um it almost seems like it's not a song. And yet it's a great and unforgettable song to me. And uh because I don't want to tell people what to think or how to you know listen to music or anything like that. But uh, yeah, and it's it it feels it feels good.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

You know, I think most of the songs it's it's I I remember when the song came out, and this is this is the song, this is from for me, it's the standout song, and it's because of that. It's because it's so kind of the the easiest song on the record almost, and it's like an oddly uh um and even the slide part, you know, it's like, hey, can you just do like anything?

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Okay. We'll see. And then, oh, you know, look, we're done with the session. That's that's a keeper. Yeah, wrap it up. Like, oh, okay. You know, it's so cat again, they're just falling off that barstool, you know, as they're playing.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

And crazy about this is like this was um I think it was Woody Guthrie's daughter, right, that asked Billy Bragg to take some of his lyrics is like these are lyrics that were just kind of lying around and whatever. Like, could you make something with this and whatever? And it's that song. It took three the whole album. The whole album is good. I did not know. Yeah, Woody Guthrie uh songs, basically or or pieces or or you know, lyrics and fragments. Fragments, and that's you know, to for me the idea of that that they like saw a sheet, some lyrics printed, like written out, and then those guys came up. The actual the local guitarist came up with the music for this one.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

And and uh Oh, is that the fellow who's the late great? That that uh sorry that I can't recall his name. Yeah, we'll we'll post it.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Um The Forever Great. But yeah, he died young, like at 45 or something like that, 40. Oh no. Yeah, yeah. Um, I can't remember his name either. But um I just I love that idea because also we were talking about these session guys who come in and add their flavor.

How A Sideman Shapes The Track

SPEAKER_02 50:34

And you've we were just joking about how last night you were just a you were a session guy at a side man at an event, and uh um have you ever been put in a situation where you're working with somebody who has something that's kind of like halfway there or an idea, and you come in and kind of uh push it in a certain direction.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

Mm-hmm. Yeah, there've there have been some times where I've shaped it a little bit by what I was doing. I don't know that there are really a whole lot of times where I told somebody specifically, hey, you know, you're missing the hook here. You've already got it, you just have to don't put that thing in there, you know. I I try not to do that. Yeah. Um, and I try to honor, you know, I whatever, whatever they're presenting, I take it at face value, like this is what they want to do. So I'm gonna try to find the best way I can do that within it. Um, and sometimes the uh the call is to say, I don't know if I really have a part there. Yeah. In fact, Mr. Jeff Young did that on one song that was gonna be on the record. Um, and uh he said, I I really this is a particular kind of rock and roll thing, but I really don't hear keyboards on it. And I said, Okay. You know, and as a matter of fact, that song did not make the record. It's in the can. It might come out in some way. Yeah, yeah. But I the other thing was it was a little too far, it was a little wide of the mark considering what the the other songs were. Yeah, yeah. You know, it didn't fit all together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

All right. Are we

Black Keys And Modern Blues Pop

SPEAKER_02 52:19

moving on? Moving on, side B, song number two, gold on the ceiling. Oh, yeah. Black keys. Black keys. I like I like how you jump in uh via different eras and decades.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Well, you know, in in the Rolodex of uh inspirations, like we like we said, it could on a different day it could be different songs, right? But these songs for today and for now, um I I just think they kick ass, you know, and what they do, and uh I think the writing, first of all, is really great. I think the way that they play together is unique and really great. Uh certainly you can see what the influences are, but they're making it their own. Yeah. Right? They're not trying to, you know, like some people they get into that trip with the blues, you know, and they're wearing pork pie hats or, you know, they want to wear like overalls and go like really, you know, like Mississippi or whatever, and they've never been out of the city.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Right. You're from Philly.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And which is fine. You know, people have to do it the way they do it, but I like, I prefer, I like both. I like people who really know and cherish that kind of plane, and certainly I've I've given I've given it my best at times to really get into that bag and to learn, you know, like the voicings and um the different, I suppose, uh sort of subgenres of blues, you know, the different stripes of it, country blues, jump blues, uh probably, you know, somewhere between jump and those classic Chicago ensembles are my favorites. Because it's just sounds, it really does sound like a band. Yeah. And each band had its own way. Yeah. They had their own way. It sounds like there's rules in there of some sort, and they had their own way to make them up and satisfy them on the spot.

SPEAKER_04 54:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Depending on, you know, who who was the band leader, who was in the band. You know, um there's and I think these, I think the Black Keys have a lot of that into what they do, but the songwriting seems to be going forward, like gold on the ceiling, right? It's great hook. Yeah. I I couldn't think of any sort of blues lyric that's like that. Yes. You know what I mean? Now, maybe there's a form where you're repeating certain things, but you know, it's not like they're trying to talk about bull weevils and they couldn't even identify a bull weevil on a page. You know, and again, I'm not I'm not down on people like that.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

There's a there's a place to like you're like basically saying like the hardcore hip-hop and you've never left like Beverly Hills kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Like the the cold, hard streets of Bel Air.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

I like the idea that somebody's taking what has come before. Yeah. And they certainly pay attention enough to it to make it important to them and show you that it's important. But it's their own thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

I think too, um, I was a fan of theirs from the very beginning, um, thanks to college radio, because I heard something off there from one of their first DPs, and I was like, you know. But it was clearly when it was just them recording, it was just them too. And then they released Attack and Release, I think it was called, but it was produced by Danger Mouse. And Danger Mouse was the person who was just like, guys, let's like make the beats a little bit more straightforward and funky and add some bass and add some, and all of a sudden their songs, like you said, kind of had this the thing that they were kind of um heavily influenced by, all of a sudden became something more of now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Um so altogether they were the idea mouse together, giving it the tearing up of the idea, like what they already were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

So it's like, you know, like they like uh looking at the credits the two main guys play what they play, like guitar and drums, and Danger Mouse played bass keys and some programming. And it's like that's like the that organ that's in that song.

SPEAKER_03 56:41

It's like everything. Everything. And and you know what? It's not overdone. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

I mean, that's but they're like really they're they're really smart about doing kind of like short to the point songs, you know.

SPEAKER_03 56:56

It's not easy to write a pop song, and it's not easy to write a good pop song. It's not easy to write to figure out what your voice is and then have something that you can present as such. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I mean, they've clearly, you know, knowing just a little bit about what their their deal was early on, and it's just the two of them. No, totally just in a vehicle, probably not even a van at some point, you know, early at the earliest stage.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

El Camino.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

And also they are from Akron, Ohio, which was oh, I don't know, depending on which part of Akron you're solidly 40, 45 minutes away from my front door. So shout out to them. Shout out to LeBron. Keeping it local, y'all. Keeping it local. Yeah. Uh, but anyway, um LeBron doesn't have an album out that I'm aware of. Anyway, uh, and I don't think these guys have a good jumper, but between them. The drummer's pretty tall. But they know their lanes. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 57:55

So everything works out.

Staple Singers Gospel That Informs Rock

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Um, number three, side B, staple singers. Oh man. This may be the last.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

This may be the last time, you know. Um, you know, getting back to like well, they call it Americana now. Yeah. I call it rock and roll. But roots. Yeah. Sort of, you know, just putting patches on the elbows of the same jacket, I think. But hearing that, you know, hearing those voices pulls a lot together for me as far as the things that I've heard and really been turned on by. When I was really young, I mean like three, four years old, there would be, I think it was reruns, um, Sunday mornings, you know, local affiliate. And it was the Reverend Cleophys Robinson. Cleophus. Right? With his, you know, it was full gospel band, choir. I mean, the real deal. And this would be on television. I'm like, wow, this is great. You know, and of course they would have these pilgrimages that they would sponsor, you know, you could for whatever. And I'd ask my mom or my dad, I'd say, can I go to the Holy Land with Reverend Cleophys? You know, because he seemed like a good guy and they were having a good time. No, you can't go to the Holy Land this week. Yeah, seriously. But songs are so good. Oh, yeah. You could, well, you know, like a performer knows, or like just an audience member, you know, when somebody's into it. When they're when they're delivering whatever it is, they're gonna get up on their chair, shout the truth, and that's it. Right. But this song, you know, when I first heard it, it brought around that. And then, you know, when you listen to when I listen to stuff like, you know, Stax Records or some of those early uh not the earliest Aretha Franklin sides, not like the gospel stuff, but more like the hits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the You know, Chain of Fools, the Alabama recorded stuff. Um, or you know, interestingly enough, the other thing it brings to mind, and I mean I just I love it for what it is. I love their performance of it, and it's you know, you could listen to it all day, right, on a loop. But um the way that Pop Staples would play guitar, and we know that tremolo and everything, and it sounds, you know, the the touchstone for me in my you know bucolic um suburb, right? Where we where we lived. It was in Sia Canton. It was really nice. It's still quite nice, actually. Um, same neighborhood, same everything. Well, the people were different, but you get the idea. But this, you know, like you you can hear John Fogarty and where he's getting where he what what what's informing him? And that's a buzz to me. Like, okay, John Fogarty, that band, Credence, yeah, Clearwater Revival, sounded like it came out of like the moss and the mud, you know, in Mississippi. But they're a Berkeley band. Like, okay, how's that happen? But then you do you you put this together with the way Pops would do it, you know, and there would be like sometimes the uh like the Roboto Beginning, you know, like midnight special that um uh Credence did, or something like this, and you hear that intoned in the same way.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Yeah, it's just it's just kids trying to figure out like the sound of somebody else, and that's what that's or that people they're just turned on by it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

I mean, to me, it's it's I wouldn't say it's uh straight away it's a copy or a rip-off. No, definitely not but it's just it's an it's an inspiration, and certainly John's voice, John Fogarty's voice. Wow. Um, but yeah, this song, there's just so much to it. You know, the way that they're singing, and it's you know, it's yeah, it's such a straight up gospel song, you know, almost no instrumentation, yeah, it's all like except those voices, and it's wow, you know, really something.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

Reminding me of the Sam Cook stuff, the gospels. Yeah. Yeah. Um I hadn't I hadn't heard that in a long time, so it was cool to revisit.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

A friend of mine, Kevin Smith, who is a native son of Chicago. Um I've long known these stories, uh knowing Kevin. He's actually his grandfather who brought Sam Cook along. You know, the solstice and all that, you know. Which you know, we're talking about Chicago, we're talking about the staple singers, we're talking about Wilco. Right? There's there's a lot going on there. Coming back around.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Yeah, um with Jeff working with Mavis.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

Yeah. In fact, you know crazy. Um uh what's the song? Bring it back home, bring it on home to me. Yeah, yeah, sound good. Right? With the the call and response. You know who the low who's the low response? Who is it? Lou Rawls.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

No way. Way no way. Way. Oh yeah. Well that I knew before I knew Kevin. Kevin, I love you wherever you're at, man. So you'll never find he does the the he's yeah, he's on there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

Yeah, as good as good a yeah as you're ever gonna get in that register. Can we put a little more 700 hertz on that? But we don't need to, it's Lou.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

It's Lou, it's Lou. He's got the bottom covered, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

Oh man, yeah, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

Wow. Oh man, I'm texting somebody about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

Yeah, I just just just my aside on that. It's too bad it's only 10 songs.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Only 10 songs, only 10 songs. We're getting close to the end, y'all. Um, say it so it so song number four, side B.

Dylan Lyrics As Cinematic Observation

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

Um Visions of Joanna. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

The the okay, for this song, the way he does a sense of place and what's going on, and to my way of thinking, it could be several things, or even quite a few things, depending on who's listening. Yeah. But the idea that he's this observer, or maybe he's also a participant in a love triangle, right? And he's observing certain things happening, and there's these offhand, off-handed ways that he sets things up for you. You know, like the heat pipes just cough in this room, the country music station plays soft, but it's really nothing to turn off. You know, that those are the kind of lines you hope you find somewhere in the pages, you know, when you're writing, like I could fit that in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

You know, you know, I mean it's funny because that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

I think of when I think of this song, I think of like I think that I think how many verses, you know, like I wonder who that like that um uh my one of my uh there's many favorite uh Bob songs I have, but um uh what is it? Uh Masters of War. Well, that that could be a favorite, but um uh Desolation Row. Desolation Row.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

I mean that's like Beowulf with acoustic guitars, right? More than peace. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

But you know, I mean, not to get, you know, uh keep on taking this. High-minded about all of this, but for me, you know, and Bob, you know, was an acquired taste over time. Yeah like I knew some things and I liked some things, which by the way, I'd seen Bob Dylan live when I was still in high school. Uh I was talking to my father the next day, and he said, Well, how's the show? So I was great, it was this, it was that. We walked straight up to the stage, no one stopped us, you know. I was right there, I was maybe, you know, 30, 40 feet from Bob. And he looked at me and said, You were that close and you didn't shoot. My parents, they really weren't into the nasally country thing, right? Yeah to Mr. Mr. Dylan.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

It's like my favorite Bob Dylan song is the shortest one.

unknown 1:06:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

You know, like that kind of joke. Yeah, no. Oh man. I I I love Bob Dylan, but it's a song for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

And and you know, like anything, uh well, you it's an acquired taste, kind of like port wine. You can't just open the bottle and go to it. You have to know how to work with that bottle.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:38

Yeah, it's I mean it's it's also And what it is. It's not the like b good good comparison with the bottle, because I feel like this is the kind of song that you have to drink the entire bottle.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:48

Like you can't just have a glass.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

In moderation, in the song is a bottle. A more a more considered consumption, shall we say.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

But um I th oh the thing is like we were we were we were being high-minded and literary, but to me it's like I remember the first time I heard the song, I thought it was just like, oh, this is like Holden Caulfield in his 30s, like catcher in the ride, like that guy, like what happens to that guy once he's got like some sort of life experiences.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

That's it. And I mean, in sum, I would say to me, eventually I came around to this idea, which is that somehow in how he writes and what he the way he writes, he's chronicling the human condition, right? But it's it's hard to explain what that is. It's not straight away. No. You know, there's a um there's quite a lot going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

There's a certain, I mean, there's a certain magic to the like that he does this sort of like you can tell he's hurt and broken, but he keeps a distance from that. Like he doesn't like he doesn't like outright, uh like it's just all in the descriptions of what he says and the observations of you know, the the how he talks about Yeah, the syntax is more it's like you know You you're you're kind of distant and hurting here. Like you're kind of like I feel like a weird, like uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Well he's he's he's giving all the signs and where to find it, but he doesn't really want to point the sign at him. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right about that to some degree. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

It's not like it's all like it's sort of like and people would say like it's mysterious or it's whatever, and it's like or like vague in a way, you know, and I don't think it's vague at all, but I think it's just like he's completely like laying all the clues away from him.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

Yeah. Like over there, what was that? Uh throws a rock in the tree, squirrel.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

Yeah, it's not me. Do you remember? You said it took a while, especially with your parents not really liking him.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:02

Well, I mean, that was I mean, I I wasn't that rebellious in in some ways, in some ways I was, but uh, you know, it was all good natured. Yeah, yeah. You know. Um, I I think they they were they were really cool with music, you know, uh, as far as what they liked, you know, my mom. Uh she loved like, you know, the wind cries Mary. Yeah. Songs like that. Uh one time I brought home uh a record from a friend's house, my friend Dennis, who I grew up with, right? One street apart, right? And uh like me, he had old older siblings who had a lot of outside, too. A lot of this, a lot of that, right? So one day I came home with this record that I borrowed because I'd heard it over there. I liked it a lot, and it's got an electric chair on the cover, it's electric light orchestra, right? And I'm, I don't know, 10, 11, whatever, this old record that I've got. What's come here, what's going on with that, right? I said, Well, it's this. So they looked at each other and they it became some of their favorite music. Yeah, right. And uh, I can't remember the name of the song now, but it's all it's like that really thrashing acoustic number of vibrant and um it's not uh telephone line. No, they like telephone line too, right? Because it's a beautiful song. They were into that kind of they like melody, yeah, right. So if they let's put it this way, if they bought art to frame, they would be buying more of like the bowl of fruit. Yes, they would not be buying, you know, whatever. That's right. Yeah, that's not um, wasn't necessarily their thing. But um what was the song? I can't remember what it was, but it's there's that intro with the backwards and all the other craziness, you know, sort of like a verite, yeah, and then it it hits, right? And it's it's more, you know, it's got like that uh organ arpagio, and then it just the the acoustic takes over, right? Not really any proper vocal to it, and I think it's probably Melatron. I'm not a music geek, so don't pay me, don't pay that anymore that I would actually call that out. But I can't remember the name of the song. It's a great song, but that's I know the album. That was one of my father's favorite pop songs, you know. And they were like like like early Chicago, like CTA stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would always talk about Danny. Oh, the drummer. He was listen to how that guy plays. It's really vocal, it's expressive. You know, wow. And you know, my yeah, yeah, my dad was one of those guys, he wouldn't he didn't have any extra words. He just said exactly what needed to be said. Man, he was he would go on clocks. We can't add seconds. Right. That's right. Um, but he would go on at length about certain music. Yeah, you know. Um, of course, you go on about Hank Williams, too. Like, yeah, that you can't bring that in the house. No. That just wasn't their thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, whatever. But um, they liked a lot of stuff, man. Blues, RB, like old RB, you know, stacks, some Motown stuff, stuff like that, you know, Buddha Record stuff.

Why Bridges Matter In Songwriting

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

We've come to the moment for the last song on side B, and it's one of Jim's personal songs that he's written called You Can't Let Me Down. Oh, yeah. Why this song?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:34

Um, I think it has a lot of elements that we might have touched on with these songs. Yeah. But um, I I don't know. I mean, I like I say, today's the day I'm picking this one. Tomorrow could be another one, who knows? But I like the song. Um, I like the bridge in the song. Yeah. I try to focus on bridge writing. Not every song needs one, but if you're gonna do one, you know, it's like a chorus. You want the chorus to be memorable and sort of transportive to whatever it is, you know, expressive and transportive. And you want a bridge, like all bridges, literal and otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

You want to make a personal rule.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:18

Oh every song needs a bridge. It's just some songs, that bridge is just optional. Ooh. Like ever I feel like every song needs a bridge. Like every song, because it's like whatever the the purpose of the bridge is. Oh man. You need to you need to always ask that question. And sometimes that question doesn't need to be heard.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:38

Yeah. And are you are is the listener gonna fall through the bridge?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:42

Like down to the alligators like the trapdoor.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:45

Like you had me until you put that that bummer of a bridge in there that doesn't fit.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:50

Um, but that's why I feel like always it's like the whole I mean, it's I I I saw an interview with Sting that and and I always thought of this in my mind, and and he said that um the bridge answers the question of the song.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:06

The summation.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

Yeah, yeah. Basically, whatever the whatever you're you know, you're presenting in the verses and you're kind of like uh stating in the chorus, whatever the conundrum is, whatever the situation is, your bridge puts you at a place where you say what you feel about it. Oh wow. You know what I mean? Like, and it's just like when he said that, I'm like, of course, yes, I get that now. Almost like a Greek chorus. Yeah, like hey, you're the chorus. Like you that you are. It's like it's not like it's like like how do you how do it's like none necessarily doesn't necessarily resolve, but it's just more like like almost like what's the personal what's your what's your uh the payoff. The payoff, what's your investment in this, what's your what what's the reason? But it doesn't have to be there. Like, you know, like I said, it doesn't like you know, I I always had that rule that like I always I always have a bridge, I always think about a bridge, but uh I don't necessarily always put it in.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

But yeah, I feel well, you know, I mean, um a lot of these songs that I've mentioned and the writers of these songs, you know, they they wrote great bridges often, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Um tell me a little bit about the the bridge. I love the chorus in the song, by the way. This is this is what I was saying, like we're going back to I lost it, the sort of the humor of it, the sort of like the tone where it's just like yeah, well, that that hook, that that chorus line.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:37

Um, you know, I mentioned earlier that I was writing things under a deadline, and there were some set of songs. This was actually in that uh last set of songs that was four that we did in a day. Like the beds, you know, and then I'd go back and over to guitar stuff, and then any vocal that wasn't a keeper or do background vocals, you know, just try to figure it all out a little better. And um, and especially since I can't do that as a sideman, it was my uh indulgence. Okay, I'm gonna take a little bit of time here and maybe just dial in the tone a little different or whatever if I if it needed it. Right. Um, but this song, so I'm I'm I've got to be back in the studio with Shane, um, you know, who produced and engineered the record. And at his place in Van Nuys, actually. Not far from you. Beautiful downtown Van Nuys. So I had to be there like about one o'clock that day, and we were gonna go over some overdubs and maybe try to finalize some mixing on some stuff that we'd already done for the record. And I'm I'm locked in, I'm trying to write songs, right? And that day the roofers were over at the house putting the roof on the new roof on. The old bits had been taken away like like two days before. And yeah, Kim was coming by. You know, I'm at this one place where I always write, and stuff's everywhere. Notebooks, you know, bins that have other notebooks, the whole deal. And she said, Don't you have to be at the studio soon? You have to leave, right? I said, Yeah, I've got to, but I've got I'm looking for something here. I was actually writing a different song than this. Um, and when I get stuck on a song, I tend to just start something else. So I'll start booting through all the pages I have set out. And this lyric, You Can't Let Me Down, I'm already here, which is the whole bit of it. That was in an older notebook, and I know this because for a long time I've only written in purple ink simply because that's what I just like the way it looks visually on the page, right? I use just plain uh paper, no lines, and it just I like to see more of it, so I keep writing, right? That's the idea. Anyway, so I'm looking through this notebook, and I'm like, yeah, I gotta find something else to do, and I'll come back to this other song. And there it was in black ink, so I know it was older, yeah, quite a bit older. You know, some spiral notebook, which I don't even use now, which also is a tell. And apart from anything else on the page, you can't let me down, I'm already here. I actually remember where I was when I wrote that lyric, when that lyric came to me years before, right? But I looked at it and I just happened to have the cable at that position, and this thing just the whole thing, the hall of it. Now, the crazy thing is I got excited about there's something about it, right? It just jumped off the page at me and started into playing, hit record on the trusty phone, right? So you can hear the racket of these guys. They're like 13, 14 feet above me going at it, right? And I'm you know, like the very big, like it's the big bang moment where this thing enters the world, and with all these roofers. Of course, the song has nothing to do with roofing, but it became you know, like there was different things I thought about the song, like, okay, I'm gonna enumerate all these things that somebody has done to me in this relationship. And I nah, I don't have enough time for that, right? And uh, so it became it quickly became this thing. I didn't finish it then. All I got was the chorus, what became the chorus, and so the the body of the song, the chords, because it just sort of Okay, the vibe, the song. Yeah, like it's somehow it push-pulled between a minor and a major, like the the verses are minor and the verse is major. Yeah. Um so I thought, well, this is this is really something. And I listened to it on the way to the studio, right? I thought, yeah, I I like this. And I played it for Shane, and he's like, What do you you know, what have you been doing? You're not usually you don't cut it this close. I'm like, yeah, well, I was doing it. I said, you know, I think I like this song, and what do you think? And he said, finish it. We have to record that. And you know, Shane, he's he's gonna cut right to whatever he's thinking, he's not gonna put any polish on it, just straight, straight truth. But the way he reacted is okay. So in the next few days, I finished the song, you know. And uh the funny thing is, on the song I was working on that day, which is um America's Road. Okay, that song is a song that I'd sent to my buddy Adam Moyer. He's a filmmaker, known Adam for a long time. And uh, you know, every once in a while he'll say, What are you working on? And I'll say, Oh, I've got this, you know. So I sent him this acoustic, this partial acoustic demo of that song. It was mostly done. And I said, you know, check this out. And he calls me up. He said, No, you there's something about you have to finish that. He said, In fact, if you finish that, there's this film I'm working on, and we'll get it in the film if you can, you know. So, oh, okay. So the wheels start to turn, like, well, I have these other songs that I have finished or partially finished. Um, let me get this sorted. And okay, so who would I okay call some of the usuals and some of my heroes, you know, that all said yes. Amazing. Yeah, oh I hats off and drinks up to these people. Amazing, all of them. And uh, so I'm gonna get this song. Um, it's gotta be in a movie, you know. It's two hands on the rim, slam dunk, right? It's gonna happen. Well, wouldn't you know it? In the mixing stage for me on the song, um, America's Road. Let's say there was a bump in the road uh from my friend's film. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:51

Normal things happen. Well, it was just one of those things, and it did not have anything to do with him. It was one of those, really? Well me to send somebody out to to talk to this guy? No, okay, everyone. It was one of those, like, really. Anyway, um, that's a that's maybe too much of a reveal. But America's Road was the impetus to like, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna make a record. Yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't I make an album? And that got the crazy really going in my head, like, okay, we're gonna do this. And I started looking, okay, what are the other ideas and what's this? And then after I finished America's Road in quick, quick succession, I remember it was um You Just Say So, uh, Don't Think At All. Okay. Which was one of those things I started, I don't know how it was almost like watching a film, as they say. You know, if somebody else did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:46

Yeah, when it when it when it kind of the whole thing plays out.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:49

Wherever I thought I needed it to go, I could find some lyrics, or maybe in the on the moment think of a lyric that okay, shape it this way, throw that in there, whatever. But it just it was completed probably in I'd say that song front to back, two hours, you know. But like uh Diane Warren told me once, you know, all that all the stuff that you're not using, all the bad stuff, all the sort of second-tier stuff, that's the stuff that gets you to the heroes. That's the stuff that gets you to the winners.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:20

You know, I remember she she was going out, she's like, Yeah, my first publishing deal was crap, right? But that's the thing that got her to understand publishing and move forward. The point is it's never gonna be perfect, and you you you just have to jump in and start swimming. You're gonna get somewhere, you won't run out of gas. No, no, no, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:38

And and but sometimes though sometimes those bad ideas with time, it means something else.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:44

Yeah, you you do this to it, and oh, now it's that perspective. It was a cat, now it's a dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I see it, it works, right? Yeah, but she was you know, clearly inspiring, you know, to hang out and talk with a little bit and hear her. You know, I love she's absolutely real about what she is and what she does. And few people love an F-bomb like Diane Warren.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:11

Surprised they haven't landed in a song.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:13

And I I gotta tell you, I I I give I give mad respect for anybody who is that at ease with themselves. Yeah. And it just like, I'm gonna tell you how it is. If you don't like it, you don't like it, but I'm gonna tell you how it is. You know. So the song, you know, once I You Can't Let Me Down, I I got the idea of what it was gonna be. It was gonna be that person who keeps coming back into your life, right? It's that phone call that happens in the wee hours, and you're thinking, Yeah, I know that number, I'm not gonna pick this. And you pick it up. You pick it up again. And it's not so bad at first. And then it's just a mess. You know, and you're left you're left there wondering. That's the song, right? That back and you, you know, go ahead and try, but I'm already here, I already know what to expect. Yeah, yeah. You know, but whatever. Um, but that that song was so much fun to make. And rather quickly, when we were running it down in the studio, you know, everybody uh really for the first time, and I didn't know what they were going to bring to the table. But we we straight away started to say, all right, it's gonna begin this way, and then little little by little things will bleed into it. And it just right there, you could feel it in those basic tracks, it blossomed. I think we did maybe four takes of it, you know, and maybe two or a breakdown just to see, yeah, we've got enough happening here, or no, we could pick it up a little more here and add this, whatever. And it was just amazing to me, you know. But that's that's more to do with them, what the players were doing, and certainly Shane, he would find certain things um that people were doing because we're doing this on the fly. Yeah, and kind of like, hey, that thing that you were doing. For instance, uh Mr. Jeff Young at the keyboards, there was one figure he started to play for part of the bridge, and Shane said, No, no, no, no, that's all the way do that. Right? Don't just because sometimes you're sort of trying, you're feeling, you're playing, whatever. And this song came together that way. And then when I was doing the overdubs with the guitars and the background vocals, it was I I mean, it just came together because everything worked so well, you know. Everybody found their little area to be in and to have their thing, whatever they do, however they do it. And it just worked, you know, so well. And uh I, you know, I can't say ever enough about them and what they did, those players, you know. I thought I felt like, you know, this is I'm just lucky to be in the room. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:05

You know, I wish you the same experience and an even better one for the next album, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:13

Oh, it's gonna be better. And it, you know what? I I already have the plan, the basic plan for it, and I know that I'm gonna, you know, record with Shane again. Awesome. Yeah, it's just we have like a telepathy from from that experience and him going, you are in the weeds, get out of there, get out of there, get out, get get May Day, May Day out of there. Right. So I know where that line's gonna be. And like, okay. And that just, you know, the whole thing together puts me in a place where I can be a lot more prepared and relaxed with it. Because it was madness. I was, you know, like I was saying, barely home enough to get it written, to get it organized, and making phone calls, you know, handling. The money making moves like Lebowski would. Yes. Yes. And uh not unlike the Lebowski. Hey man. You know, I met the real Jeff who isn't his name's not Lebowski, but I met the guy. The actual inspiration? The guy. The guy who was act who was integral, believe it or not, in uh Sundance with Redford. Really? Wow. Yeah. He's hard to describe. I mean, when I met him, it was just hanging out at this place, you know, trip in Santa Monica. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Still there. Uh a friend of mine, uh, his name is Robin. He is at the time neighbors with this fellow, Jeff. Who had long hair and was given to maybe questionable sweater choices, you know, outer wear choices. But sweetheart guy, very on top of things, very intelligent, and uh really cool to talk to. Not because of what he is in that inspiration. Yeah, but but um he obviously inspired it. Yeah, quite, quite, quite a, quite a dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

Quite a dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:14

Quite a dude.

Through Lines And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_03 1:29:15

Yeah. So that there's there's 10 songs.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:18

Your greatest hits, man. Thank you so much for being a part of this. I mean, I really, really appreciate you uh coming here. You coming here and uh letting it all out and uh and telling me uh about these particular songs. And um I always love getting the list because um I feel like I have an advantage point of being the sort of the first spectator of the list and going, uh I see the through lines, like I can see the connections, I can see, you know, like the the, you know, that whatever the the serial killer map, you know how they do the like the streets and whatever. Like I can do like the the Oh the evidence board. The evidence board. I can totally do like okay, this to this and this to that, and this back over here. Or maybe like uh a roarshark of sorts, a ven Venn diagram, see butterflies. Looks like a lot of ink. Yes, I don't know. A lot of overlapping circles, let's say. Oh yeah. Thank you so much, man. Really, it was a pleasure. Thank you, Gio. Thank you.

Sturgill Simpson And Pushing Country Forward

SPEAKER_03 1:30:21

Oh, by the way, I didn't pay attention at the whole time. I thought that was a Sturgis. Oh, no. It's Sturgil Simpson. Sturgil Simpson, yeah. He's one of my favorite uh in in the new Vanguard.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:34

Uh uh alt-country gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:37

Sturgil and Eric Church. I really like how they they're pushing it forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:45

And this guy in particular, man, like every the last three or four albums he's put out, each one has been completely different.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:50

I mean, great songwriting across the board, but pushing it forward, pushing the form, and even like Eric Church's uh sonically. It's like, wow, dude, this is this is really stepping out you know, the usual country bag, and it's great to hear.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:07

It's it's important, man. It's an it's important for to have to have these, uh, even if they're gonna be on the fringe, elements that kind of uh show some sort of evolution, you know, and some some present day uh uh influence. Well there's that, but I think they they're really it's them, it's them.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:25

Oh, truly them.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:26

I mean then they're they're they're inquisitive, they're like exploring, they're trying new things, they're they're kind of uh expanding.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:33

Um and that's that's you know, they're not staying in the same rut. They'll eat the cookies, but they won't use the cookie cutter. No, they won't. Yeah. They won't. They got the lumpy cookies that are all kind of fresh and hot from the oven.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:45

Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, a cookie cutter is a good thing, but it's not it's not as special. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:52

Okay. We don't like the cookie cutter, but we love the cookies, y'all.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:56

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:57

We love the cookies. You gotta use that. You gotta use that.

Goodbye With Cookies And Rocksteady

SPEAKER_02 1:32:04

That's a good one. All right, y'all. Be good. Migrate assist next time. Rocksteady.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:11

Rock. Wow, how cool, man. That was great.