Hey, welcome everybody. It is that time again, Happy Monday. It's
Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM in glorious downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. Also on
Comcast ninety seven if you're in Manchester, and hello to all of our online
listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website
Matt Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options, social media links,
contact and folk show archives, etcetera, etcetera. Today is Monday, May
eight, twenty twenty three, and I'm not alone. Hello, darlings.
Jenny is here at the news desk. I am present on this glorious day.
Yes, the fun is shining. Yeah nice. We're having some very
nice weather. Oh and it's supposed to be here all week. Very got
very windy out though, I don't mind a little breeze. Very windy downtown.
Well that's because we have the tunnel. Yes, the wind tunnel.
Yes, that is that is true. Um. Coming up on the show
today in the second hour, we're gonna be joined by members of the band
BS Deluxe. Do you know? Do you know? How many are coming
in or do you not there? They sent us a bunch of songs.
Yes, yes, but they're uh, they're they're not strictly an American band.
They're British slash American. So it'll be fun a little international flavor,
if you will. Mm. So we get international flavor, but we don't
often get it in studio. Yes, yes, so that'll be nice.
So that'll be coming up in the second hour today on the program. I
like their sound. I'm looking forward to it. Oh, absolutely absolutely.
Um. Also, just a little programming note, um so uh, because
we're not going to run it on the show today as as originally promised,
but I did share it out on social media and it's up on the Matt
Connerton Unleashed I'm sorry, Matt Connerton dot com. Rather, but we also
shared it out on social media. So the um Eric Pilcher's classic film review
that we were supposed to run Friday and then Eric had to delay it to
today. We just I did not to run it on the show, but
but it is online. The reason for this, and it's actually the first
time that we've run into this and I had to kind of break it to
Eric last night. But he was very, very professional and as I knew,
he would be in very understanding about the quandary I found myself in.
But the film that Eric had chosen for this particular review was American Pie and
uh, the nineteen ninety nine film starring Tara Reid and uh, I can't
even remember that. Jason Biggs and whoever else is in it, I don't
know. I can't remember name any of the other names, but um,
And you know, it's funny. When I saw that on the on the
list, I had some ambivalence about it. I was like, hmmm,
I don't know. And then I thought, well, you know, he's
he's reviewed other sort of what you would call coming of age, teenage,
high school uh uh films before and it's never been a problem, you know,
like uh fast Times at Ridgemont High for example. But but something in
the back of my mind was a little concern. And I had seen the
movie, but I had seen it like back when it came out American Pie.
Yeah, it's okay, it's not. I don't think it's as great
as people make it out to be. I never did, but and I
didn't see it in the theater, but I saw it on DVD eventually,
so maybe not when it first came out, but a couple of years after
it might have been. There's a whole series of them. There's like four
of them. I think I only saw the first one. But it's okay.
Um, there's a there's a very famous scene in the film that people
talk about. But anyway, but something in the back of my mind said,
m this one might be a problem. But no, I'm sure it'll
be fine, and uh, you know, Eric sends me the review and
then of course I listened to it and I if there's anything in it that
I am not comfortable with going out on the air on the show, I
just set it it out myself. So I sometimes, although it's rare that
I have to do that, but occasionally I'll trim something down, you know,
like if, for example, if it's a violent scene in a film
where there's you hear the sound of gunfire and it goes on for a while,
I'll actually trim that down, like like I'll leave a little bit of
the gunfire in it so you hear it so you get the gist of what's
happening. But if it's like, you know, three minutes of people shooting
at each other. It's like, ah, I cut it down, you
know, just so I'll make little edits. But when I got the American
Pie review so again, I remembered it as being one of those coming of
age high school movies. I had completely forgotten what the specific premise of the
film is and the pact that these male high school students made. And and
then I'm I'm like, okay, so, and then I'm I'm listening to
the review and I find myself editing like little bits of dialogue out of some
of the scenes. I was like, jeez, I don't know, like
there's no there's no swears. But it was uncomfortable enough, but it was
it was like, yeah, I think this might be a little much.
And then I found myself I was editing so much. I was like,
well, this scene ends up being meaningless with all that I'm taking out.
So finally I just uh. I messaged Derek online. I said, I'm
sorry to do this to you, man. I know you work hard on
these, but I'm really uncomfortable with this one. If if, um,
you know, if we were on at night, you know, if instead
of four to six, we were on, you know, I don't know,
eight to ten or nine to eleven or something. It would have been
fine, but for afternoon drive. I just imagine somebody, you know,
driving in their car listening to the show, taking their high school daughter to
soccer practice or something, and hearing the review and I was like, ah,
I don't know, I think this one might be a little much.
I mean, you know, there was no again, no real inappropriate language
or anything in it, but just but the concepts. I was like,
this might be this might be a little much, so too much on you.
Yeah, so I should have And by the way, I take responsibility
for this because and I told this to Eric, I said, when I
first saw that on his list, you know, because he usually sends me
a list of what he has coming up. When I first saw it,
I felt a little bit like, m I don't know about that one.
I should have. I should have, you know. And then I just
kind of shrugged it off, like no, I'm sure it'll be fun,
but I should have thought that through a little bit more. And he apologized
and he said he should have thought it through more too, and I said,
no, no, no, it's on me. I could have said
something. And fairness though, we're having an awakening when it comes to this
kind of stuff in our society. I think things that were acceptable when we
were kids are no longer acceptable for good reason. Yeah, for good reason.
So sometimes I'm not surprised when something pops up and we think, oh,
yeah, that's that's really bad, bad taste. I don't want to
encourage ex behavior. Well, I don't think having having integrity, journalistic interogrity
is a good quality. Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's anything
you know, it's just a silly comedy. I think it's fine. I
don't. I don't think the film is in bad taste. I'm not making
any say it was a bad taste. That's not what I meant. I
mean that we're gonna have stuff like this come up there. We're acceptable when
we were kids, but they're not acceptable now. Yeah. Well, I
don't. I don't think the film. I don't think the film is any
less acceptable now than it was then. I mean, geez, look what
we saw in that television series we were watching last night, that Pete Davidson.
That was pretty that was pretty edgy. Yeah, that was definitely edgy.
Yeah, So we weren't encouraging young people to do high school students.
Sure go yeah, sure, um no, but I don't. I don't
think of it that way in this case. I just thought of it as
some of this dialogue. I was like, this might be a little much
for Afternoon Drive, you know, like I said, if we were on
at night, that'd be different. But so but you know, I mean,
it's a great review. Eric does a great job. It is a
very popular segment on the show. So if you do want to hear it,
it is online and available. And like I said, I did share
it out on social media and it's on my website as well. And uh,
and of course he will resume his schedule his regular schedule of reviews this
Friday. So so so if you want to check that out. But I
believe our friend EASYG is on the line. Hello, Yeah, I have
to agree. I've seen a movie too. Is kind of yeah, probably
not the best of the showing in four to six range, you know what
I'm saying. Yes, I did agree with that. Anyway, it's about
wrestling now you're you're wrestling, Um, uh yeah, you know about wrestling
now. Ums, I've been sick man, you know. Comment, Um,
that one the one to what this is going to be a belt just
for Raw. So they'll do tonight, They're gonna you know, triple threat
match, and then that guy will go on to the tournament on the twenty
sevens. We don't really want to talk about, but it's you know,
overseas and then and then three guys are gonna go and SmackDown and then that
guy's going to go to the uh the finals against the guy from SmackDown,
I mean, a guy from Raw, which doesn't make any sense, right,
if they're gonna have it of a raw belt, why do they Gus
went SmackDown, He's lost. So in other words, what Easy is saying
is the the tournament. I know what he's saying, the tournament for the
world, the new World Championship that's supposed to be exclusive to Monday Night Raw.
Yes, part of the part of that tournament is taking place on SmackDown.
So that's a little goofy. Yeah, you know, I got to
agree with you there. Yeah, I'll tell you what though, it's hard
to argue with success. I mean, they're that company is having uh it's
probably the hottest it's been in twenty years, and w is going overseas and
duets tournament there. I mean to a show in London or someplace overseason.
They're still like a ton of tickets. Yeah, they're aw doing pretty good
too, Yeah they are. They have a show in August at Wembley Stadium
and it's up to I think I think they've passed seventy thousand tickets for Wembley
Stadium. Yeah. The wrestling business is probably the healthiest it's been in two
decades. It's it's huge right now. Oh, it's really amazing. It's
good to see as I watch you last on Saturdays and I finished on Sunday,
and I a question for you that rock Lesner Matt so I do Cordy
always had to win that because they don't want me to look like closing when
he lost to uh, the head of the table, Roman Rains. I
knew it was going to win, but it was a match. It was
during the match that the turn buckle you know, was gone, and then
um uh yeah, brock Lesner hit it. And I don't know if it
was real blood because the show Blood on on WWE, but maybe it was
because with pay per view, And do you think that was really blood or
was something else? Probably really blood. He real blood. He probably really
cut himself. But from what I read today online it was intentional. Jenny
and I were wondering about that while we were watching the event. But from
Onloo on w W anymore, Well, I guess with pay per view,
right, so different. The thing is, well, the thing is,
uh, from what I read online, part of why they might have done
that, why they might have made an exception and done blood, is there's
a that's a bit of a tradition in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is known
for blood, bloody wrestling matches, so that might have been kind of Yeah,
so that might have been why they tried to why they decided to do
that there. Yeah, historically, Yeah, knew it was super because he
wasn't gushing. If he'd actually slammed his head there, and really it would
it would have been a nice gusha. Yeah, nothing bleeds good like the
head m Yes, as we all know, I have a feeling I'm a
feeling that Roman Roman, the h Cody Rose is gonna win that belt.
I ever feeling. Oh I hope not. It'll feel like a consolation prize.
He needs to beat Roman Range. Yeah, yeah, I say,
I don't know, if he doesn't get the belt, who are they gonna
put it on Broglesner? Maybe it could be. Did you watch Backlash?
What about Osmos almost almost south Rollins actually got a good match out of the
guy. Yeah he did. Yeah, what's up with that guy? You
know, he keeps getting these big titles, he keeps getting these big matches,
and you know they're gonna lose. I mean, is gonna lose.
You know, I always say the bigger they are, the bigger they fall,
right. Really, yes, he he never lost for years and years
and years, but there's really no, there's really no there's really no reason
why you would lose. Eric Pilcher in the chat room says Puerto Rico,
home of the greatest pro wrestling miscarriage of justice ever. I assume he's referring
to the murder of Burder Bruiser Brody. But we'll ask him when he calls.
He's trying, he's gonna call in after you. Eric the Bruiser Brody.
That's where he was murdered in Puerto Rico in a locker room. M
hmm. Sorry, you don't know that, you don't know that story.
Yeah, Bruiser Brody, he was more he was look it up. Look
it up. Yeah, he was murdered in a wrestling in a locker room
at a wrestling event. Oh that's not good. No, no, not
normally generally murder, Yeah, yeah, murder is usually bad. Okay,
it's bad. Did it catch the guy? No? I think it's uh.
I think it's a situation where everyone kind of knows who did it,
but it was never Uh, he was never convicted. There was no convict.
I don't know if he was even charged. Wow, what was the
rustle? His name? I believe it was the promoter who was running the
event. I don't remember all the particulars though. There's several different there's several
different stories about what went on, and and it's hard to even know what
the truth is. I know Tony Atlas, Oh, this would have been
in the seventies. Yeah, the oh yeah, they brought back that guy,
you know, the Apple guy last night, I mean Saturday night.
I know why you brought him back for his grosses this day and age,
you know, Carlito, it clicks. I don't know why he brought came
back. This has s been somebody's face. I thought that was dumb because
it was cool because it was in Puerto Rico. You'd be you don't like
people's face too. Carlito is Puerto rican He's a big star in Puerto Rico.
That's why they brought him in. I didn't know that. Yes,
yeah, you just don't like it when anybody from the past comes forward.
You always have like nothing nice to say. It's true, it is.
He's a meanie. He's a yeah, don't be agist. He's a big
agist, Martin, Are you such an agist? Easy? I don't know.
But the oldest all that pay of view, I didn't think was that
good. Oh, I thought it was excellent all. I thought it was
greatly Yeah, you watched the same thing. My opinion wasn't wasn't that good?
That's my opinion. Belt change, well you do it from we knew.
Yeah, the you know they weren't in the looser belt there, the
est and then the other lady that you do their first title defense. You
they were going to take our belt off. Oh rihah ripley. Yeah,
yeah, true. She was the first tittle offense. You know. It's
like when when the guy, the guy from the e w there he put
his first belt on the line, Well, he doesn't do it very often,
but he knew there wasn't gonna lose the first title defense on the pay
of view jaff Yeah, it was his first title ofvent. You knew he
wasn't gonna lose. No, he'll keep that belt for a long time.
The triple be you call it the eest like you're saying for the longest time.
And rock Less and they're both they're both good for business, yes,
but we'll see what happens to uh brock lets Hi. I think him and
Roman, him and um one other guy, Cody Roads is gonna be in
the triple tart match. I don't see why they want to be. I
don't see why they would be. Why do you think that? Because they
planted on a good show last night and eventually they're gonna put the belt on
Roam, gonna put the belt on forty Roads. But why would they be
in a triple threat match? I don't even understand. Because Monday night and
they're gonna have a triple tart match and the winner goes to the uh that
event on the overseason. Oh you're saying, oh, okay, I got
you that Champions, So you're saying Cody Roads and brock Lesner will be part
of the triple thread match. I get it, I think, so,
yoh, why not? I don't know the other guy's gonna be why not?
Why not? Yeah? What? Anyways? Overall, I thought I
thought the payview wasn't the best. Well, we thought it was talking all
right, bye bye, all right, lamb that door. I went,
I'm out of here. We we enjoyed the pay per view, but Eric,
but it wasn't pay per view. Well, I'm sorry, Premium live
event is what they call it now. I'm still used to calling a pay
per view. Oh I I just it just dawned on me that we paid
for that. That's what, and that's what. Well, that's yeah,
and that's what they used to call those papers. Yell right over my head.
Phone line is open, Eric Pilcher, if you'd like to call in
at six three two five O six Z seven. I saw that you were
trying to call one what's up? Still one line? It would be fun
to have more than one line. I want to bring a bunch of people
on air. That would be fun. No, wouldn't it be probably?
Yeah? Probably not well annoying, wouldn't wouldn't be uh, it might not
be fun. We should say hello everybody in the Facebook live chat. Oh,
actually, we'll go ahead and grab this call. Hello sir, Good
afternoon, Matt and Jenny. How are you good? How are you ducky
Oh I'm doing well. Um. I just wanted to take this opportunity to
apologize on air. No no, no, no, no no no.
You do not owe anyone an apology. Well, yeah I do, because
because you know, I should have went with my gut when I was watching
it, and are so many like things that I mean, I still laughed
at it, but at the same time, Jenny brought up a very good
point was acceptable in nineteen ninety nine. Now there are some things there that
you're like, oh, well it's funny. Yeah. I I should have
pumped the brakes on it too and been like, hey, Matt, uh
we need a point and b well, it's all good. It's all good,
Like I said, I mean, I posted it, I shared it
out and it's on the website and so people can people can give it a
listen. I thought it was an excellent review. Um yeah, yeah,
I mean, And that's the thing is, I also wanted to just be
just like, because in media there's always this thing when something like this occurs,
and I've seen it where the audience thinks that, oh, the creator
has an issue with the person who said we're moving it here, and I
wanted to take the opportunity to say, absolutely not. I totally understand and
it makes perfect sense. Yeah, yeah, No, I knew you would.
You were. You were very cool and professional about it when I when
I expressed my concern, which I knew you would be, so no,
it's all good. Yeah. I I was just like, oh yeah,
and I loved what you said that sometimes when you're a creator, you you
have to take a risk, and yeah, you do, but let it
be a calculated one, right right, And this like I should have listened
to my gut when after I watched it Tuesday nine, I was like,
this is going to be a tough one because this isn't just simple naughty words
that you're editing out. This is other things that you're cutting and yeah,
yeah, well so yeah, I I just wanted it to be publicly known.
I totally agree with the decision. It makes perfect sense, And next
time I will listen to my somewhat large stomach when it says hey, let's
let's pull off. Well. By the way, if it makes you feel
any better, Art and Love, who I strongly suspect is from Greensboro,
North Carolina. In the chat room, says Eric. We say that's okay.
We heard the man said, so there you go. The man,
well, I appreciate that, thank you, and I would never want to
do anything to jeopardize what I have being able to contribute to your show and
WMMA, oh my gosh, oh of course. Yeah. Oh and by
the way too, we did have some American Pie on the show recently anyway,
because we played President is it soon from South Korea when he performed part
of American Pie at the White House during his visit. Oh the Don McLean
song lovely just what the world needs right now. Oh it's actually pretty,
it's actually pretty cool. It sounds like you didn't see it. No,
I did not like working eleven thirty two eight. Now I'm pretty much out
of a loop until I get home. Yeah, yeah, and digest everything.
But working in a retention department for a cable company, there are things
you choose just not to look at because you're like so wiped. When you
get home, you're like, okay, let's watch something stupid. Oh look,
two and a half Memory Runs are on. Now, why aren't you
at work right now? I'm on launching lunch. You're spending your lunch your
thoughts. That's so sweet. Yeah, well, I I wanted to kind
of chime in and get let it be known that I do apologize for it.
It should have thought better of it. And yeah, yeah, well,
like I said, accepted, but also completely unnecessary. No, no
worries. I know it was. I would sate was unnecessary, but to
me it was, oh, all right, well it's all good. And
what's the uh I don't have in front of me? What's the review for
Friday? Yet? I don't have the schedule raining day? Oh yes,
yes, yes, I love that movie. Probably the movie that changed everyone's
opinion of Denzel Washington. I mean, because really, until that point,
he had only played good guys. That's true, that's true. Yeah,
that was a guy that you could be emotionally vested in. Yeah, that's
that's true. And then he plays this cop and just does an amazing job
with it. And yeah, I mean, Ethan Hawke ended up winning.
I believe he won the Academy Award. For Best Supporting Actor for that film,
and it's like, without Denzel, he doesn't win. Whatua Oh yeah,
I mean Ethan hawk Is is very good in it, but yeah,
Denzel, I mean it's Denzel's movie, and yeah, he is. He
is truly remarkable and he's one of my favorite actors anyway. He's just one
of those Oh you can't take your eyes off of him when he's on the
screen, you know, he is also so he does such a great job
navigating through political stuff too, and doesn't do it in a way where he's
blowing off the question, yeah, but does it in a way that makes
you think, Like there's this video of him online where someone brings up,
how did you decide to direct Fences because only a black person could direct Fences?
And he goes, No, anyone could have directed it. He goes,
You've got to understand there's a difference between race and culture. And he
does such an amazing job of putting it in perspective where he's like, could
someone else have directed Good Fellas? Yeah, they could have, but would
it have been as good as Martin Scorsese doing it? No? Why?
Because that's Martin's culture, right, right, that's what he was around.
So there's more that they can add when it's culture. Yeah, he really
challenged the person asking the question to think outside the box right on what they
believed, right right. It's an amazing video. When I get back to
my work desk, I will find it and send it to you. Yeah,
I'd be curious to see it. Is really it made me. It
made me think, yeah, like and then you're like, he's really a
million percent accurate on this. Yeah, yeah, please, yeah, send
me that. I'd like to check that out. Yeah. He and he
does stuff like that all the time. Yeah, he doesn't. It's just
so awesome how he does it. Like it's not condescending, it's not rude,
but you're like, you learn something, And I've learned something from every
interview I've seen of him, by the way, and what in the guts
he showed when they filmed American Gangster. He the Frank Lucas, the guy
he played in that movie what was a drug kingpin murdered people? Denzel Washington
sat across from him in a room at a table and said, I will
not glorify you. I think you're a horrible human being, but I am
doing this role so the glorification of people like you will end. You have
the moral fiber to talk to someone like Frank Lucas like that, right,
Like I've never I've never heard of anyone talking to a reputed gangster like that,
right right, And Denzel did it. Yeah. Um. By the
way, Art and Love said in the chat room, we say, Denzel
Washington is a good actor. He did good movies. Hashtag Matt and hashtag
Eric. He is, he is in. And the thing is is there
are movies that he's been in I've never seen. And people are like saying,
like, if you ask people what's your favorite Denzel movie, you have
like fifty people in a room, you might get thirty different answers. Oh
yeah, yeah, like Bone Collector, never seen it, Glory, never
seen it, Yep, I've never seen seen Glory. Devil in a Blue
Dress, never seen it, mo Betta Blues, never seen it. Those
are films that people are like, he was amazing in this. Yeah.
Yeah, he sent a lot of movies. I tried to watch Fences and
I couldn't just too too much. I've not I've not seen that. It's
a great film what I saw, but there's so much emotion in it,
and it's so powerful it's overwhelming. Oh okay, but yeah, so yeah,
he really is a great one. Yep, yep, absolutely all right,
and we're still on for Wednesday. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
I am doing research on what has happened to our good buddy Tucker.
Thence he posted his video basically being a mark in playing himself to be the
victim in all this. Of course, there's good money in that. There's
there's no money in Mia Colpa's here. Yeah, there's always uh oh you
know it's part of the grift. Oh yeah, but there's no money in
saying my bad. I guess no, no, there is not cool.
So yeah, Jenny, you have anything to add? Nope, nope,
I'm just over here, all right, one of my business. Well,
I've pickn up enough of the show's time today. I am going to enjoy
my Philly t steak here on National Chief Steak Day, and you guys have
good rest of the show. All right, Eric, thank you for the
call. I appreciate it. Hey, thank you, and I appreciate being
a member of the WM and H family and everything you allow me to do
on your show. Thank you, sir. Oh you got it. All
right, Eric, we'll talk to you soon, all right, bye bye,
all right. That was our friend Eric Pilcher And uh yeah, he'll
he'll be calling in Wednesday for some media talk and we're making that a regular
segment. And then of course on Friday, the review is Training Day.
Have you seen Training Day? No? Actually, really good, really good
movie. If I did, I forgot, Yeah, you'd remember if you
saw it. That necessarily you say that all the time, but you forget
my Swiss cheese you're Swiss cheese memory. Yes, yeah, Training Day is
not you'd you'd remember if you saw Training Day. Been kind to my brain,
you'd you'd remember, you'd remember if you'd seen Training Day. Oh wait,
m is that with Paine Pain? No? Is it a comedy?
No, it's it's a dark film. Oh, then it's not what I'm
thinking of. And he plays uh uh he and uh Ethan Hawk his partner
in the film. They're both undercover officers and uh, but death about an
assault. Denzel is very corrupt and uh really and and and Ethan Hawk is
is very sort well that's why, like Eric was saying, you know,
it's the first time that Denzel had really played a bad guy. Yeah,
the movie could never definitely never seen it ever seen him be a bad guy.
Up to that point, he'd always been the hero. Yeah, he's
he's the bad guy in the movie. And Ethan Hawk is kind of the
young, idealistic, you know, the new partner who doesn't know what he's
getting into being Denzel's partner. And it's it's it's an excellent film. I
think, um, if you'd like to jump in six three two five six
seven six three two five O six Z seven coming up in the second hour
today we have Bees Deluxe is going to be with us in studio Bees,
so we look forward to that. But if you'd like to get in with
a call before then. Oh and we do have a call, and uh,
looks like our friend Shannon is on the line. High Shannon, good
afternoon, How are you good? How are you okay? Wasn't didn't he
played with a cameo inette movie? In Training? Yeah? I don't know.
I believe he was in a wheel chair. Oh is that in Training
day? Yeah? That might be. That might be Shannon. I haven't
seen that movie in a very long time. I think, yes, you
are correct. Oh, Jenny made an appearance Doctor Dre made an appearance.
Uh, Eva Mendez, Tom Bird bergeron Berber m Sorry, Cliff Curtis,
Uh, there may be some more here. And oh yes, there's quite
a few people in this movie. Yes, I didn't know how the other
ones. I'm which snoop. Yeah, yep, you are right. He
is up there on that top row. Okay, that was that's a good
movie. Yeah, all right, Shannon, Well, thank you for right,
thank you for the call. Yep, take care, all right,
bye bye, all right, that was our friend, Shannon. That does
open up the line for you. Six zo three two five six seven six
three two five six zero seven. By the way, our friend Marco Muller
or Mueller, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. It's got the umlats
over the U because he's from the band Factory of Art. But I see
who we interviewed recently on the show. But I see he is in the
chat room. Nice to see you. We'll say hello to everybody else in
here too. Melanie Lyle Liberty from the Great State of Vermont joins us in
the chat. Hello. Also, easyg who we talked to on the phone
earlier, says hi to my peeps. Melanie says Hi, Eric, I
think we'referring easyg my friend who has not defriended me yet. Oh that's good.
I mean he will eventually, I assume, righttop. Miriam Banish also
joins us in the Facebook live shot. Hello Miriam, Terrible Jenny, I
see you're in there. I'm everywhere. Art and Love said hello. Hashtag
Matt and hashtag Jen we say, and we are a pop singing girl group
Art and Love from Greensboro, North Carolina. No, yes, and then
don't say well, and then aren't I've said we say that is so true?
Hashtag Jen hi. Hashtag Eric Pilcher, we say. We hope you
tell a story of an eighties movie is Hiding Out nineteen eighty seven, starring
John Cryer and Keith Coogan. I don't remember seeing that one on the list.
I've never even heard of that movie. I'm not clicking in my head.
Nope, nope. Jay Fat of course is in the chat room.
Good afternoon. Melanie was very excited about the wrestling conversation. That's as she
loves that. She does well. We talked about wrestling something from Joy all
the way. Yes, she does, she does love it. She was
very excited Ronda ferverro is in the Facebook live jat and says, howdy from
Sonny Southern California. Hello, Ronda, it's a good thing they're having some
sun, I guess. Yes, Yes, California has been beat up.
Yeah. Yeah, that a that a harder winter than we did in some
ways. Incredible, Oh very much though. Yeah. Art and Love in
the chat says we are friends with Karen Edmonds. She is from Greensboro,
North Carolina, and now she lives in Winston Salem, North Carolina. We
say, today is our friend Karen Edmond's birthday. We say to wish her
a happy birthday. To Karen Edmond's send her a birthday card to her,
we said, hashtag Matt and hashtag Jen. We say, if you both
can, happy birthday. Yeah, that's about as close to a card as
you're getting. Yes, pretty much. Yeah, I thought I'd put a
little effort into it, though there was a little. Yes. Our brief
discussion of murder being bad usually Melanie said usually bad. Can you give examples
of when it is good? Yeah, no, murder, murder's bad.
She's asking us for those examples. She's the one that's the horror flick.
I know, right, you should be telling us what it's acceptable. Yes,
art and love in the chat says we say. Ricky Martin is from
Puerto Rico. Hashtag Matt and hashtag Jen. He is a recording singing artist
now. He was twelve years old back in the eighties boy band Manudo?
Yes, yes, and who did he play on General Hospital? I can't
remember, Miguel. I can't remember that character. Oh really, you don't
remember on General Hospital? No, it's not clicking. That's how we first
became famous, you know, beyond Manudo. I wonder if that was after
I was paying attention less? Um, oh probably yeah. Melanie also said
in the chat room, Uh, you're killing me. Oh that was probably
you know what I think it was? No, that was she said that.
You know what I think it was is when the wrestling talk wrapped up
and we moved on to another subject, she was very disappointed. So she
was like she was like, no, no, cry, it's okay,
we can talk more. Um, I'm I'm convinced I'm not saying this person's
name right ever. But hello to uh Doari Nordeen Facebook live chat. Yes,
my buddy, Oh that's someone you know. Yes, Okay, am
I saying that name even remotely correctly? Yes, I think so. Oh
good. We've been friends for a number of years communicating with one another.
Oh good, he's in a very warm, sunny place. I think he's
in Morocco. Oh okay, very nice, very nice. Jay Fed said
in the chat room, maybe I should start doing the movie reviews. Oh
my goodness. Now, now, now I'll step on toes. Jay Fed
also said, I think Eric Pilcher should write an official apology letter to the
station and to the listeners said, oh my goodness. And Melodie says,
I concur I am totally upset. Oh you're always upset, Jay Fed said,
and disappointed, and Melanie said, shocked, disappointed, and upset.
I'm going to need to go lay down for a while until I can compose
myself for Wow, my goodness, take a deep breath, Dolin, You'll
be all right. Jay Fed said, I will send you my review on
training day. Matt, you decide which one you use. Stop it.
Oh my goodness, now there will be none of that. Oh my goodness,
separate you two. Jay Fed also said, shall I come on the
show on Wednesday so we can tell Eric together. I'm taking over for Wow,
you're aday he's getting he's getting in there to froze's brain too far.
Wow, you know he likes to dunkin ice water. Oh, Art and
Love says, Yes, we say. Ricky Martin a k a. Miguel
on soaps ABC's General Hospital. Yes see, I only really watched it when
I was young, and it was on the TV when I would come home
from school because when I got older, I had after school sports and stuff,
so I was never there to watch it. So Sonny Corinthos, yes,
I remember him, played by Maurice Bernard. He had he was he
owned a record label with oh I can't remember her name. He was a
mob boss. Yes, he had a record label and Miguel. They signed
Miguel. I'm not remembering this record label thing. And they also signed Ned
Quartermain, but he had a different name when he was performing and they were
the two, so they had Ned Quartermain and yes, I do not remember
this. Yeah, Ned Quartermain and his leather pants. It was a different
side of Ned Quartermain. You have leather pants, I do. There's somewhere
you should wear them. There's somewhere in a drawer, somewhere. I think
I might know tucked away. I will find them. Well maybe six zo
three two five six h seven is a studio line six three two five six
seven. Um, there was a I'm sure will Eric had referred to this,
um this, Uh, well Tucker Carlson of course. Uh. There's
been a lot of a discussion recently media on media figures like Tucker Carlson and
why Stephen Crowd or another example, Don lemon of and others. But so
there was this text message and I'm sure this will come up again on Wednesday
in my conversation with Eric Filcher. But there was a text message, and
I've been dying to talk about this on the show. Is a very long
text message that Tucker Carlson had sent to one of his producers at Box.
And some people are saying they think that this might be the reason that he
was fired. I don't think it is. I don't think that has anything
to do with it. But I just it's it's been interesting to see the
different reactions to people in media to this. I've seen some people like who
is it? Oh? Matt Walls from the Daily Wire he really likes Tucker's
text message because it shows such great introspection and you know he's really it shows
what a thinker he is and how he thinks about things and these issues.
And of course people on the left are saying, look at out racist Tucker
Carlson is with this text message, and they're kind of reducing it to that.
The truth is, it's very long. It actually ends in a sort
of a positive It ends on a somewhat positive note and an introspective note.
I know what you're saying by that yet, but the way that we get
to that is really kind of not good. There's some things that goes go
on in this guy's head on his way to the way that he ends a
text message. So I'm just gonna read. If you haven't heard this yet,
I'm gonna read the whole thing. It's long. I don't think I've
ever in my life sent a text message this long. But apparently he sent
this to somebody at Fox when he was still working there. Okay, here's
what it says. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of
people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an
Antifa kid and started pounding the living blank out of him. It was three
against one at least jumping a guy like that is dishonorable. Obviously, it's
not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob
against the man, hoping they'd hit him harder kill him. I really wanted
them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in
my brain and alarm went off. This isn't good for me. I'm becoming
something I don't want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being.
Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I'm sure i'd
hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn't gloat over his suffering.
I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves
this kid and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don't care
about those things, if I reduced people to their politics, how am I
better than he is. So by the time he gets to the end of
the text, he arrives at a good conclusion. You know, you shouldn't
root for the suffering or murder of others, because that makes you bad if
you do that, And you shouldn't, as he put it himself here,
you shouldn't reduce people to their politics. But the way he gets to that
ultimate conclusion is scary. A lot of people have seized on the this is
not how white men fight. Seriously, that's line that I have issues with.
That's the one that everyone's looking at and saying, Look, how racist
that. Never have I ever discussed something like that, And I think I
must put these were white these were people. Yeah, he discussed something that
you see, you tell what you see. But for him to go to
that length to specifically say white people, yeah, with his brain playing around
with because it's certainly not the same world. Mind? Does I mean is
he? Is he trying to say expect white people? What does that mean?
Even? What does that even mean? What what white people? Yeah?
I don't know, Uh I mean? Is that? Uh? Is
he saying he'd prefer that they fought like on January sixth, where they had
weapons or something, and that's that's how white men fight? Is that what
he means? Or maybe he just wanted to drive a car through a parade
of people, you know, it's the only thing they could take out.
Yeah, you know, so people teeky torches to go with it. So
people are really seizing on that comment, and rightfully so I seized on it.
Yeah, Oh of course, yeah. I mean that's that's the one
sentence that jumps out of this whole thing more than anything else. So yeah,
it's a pretty big deal sentence. It's yeah, I mean yeah,
no, people don't think why you know, that's not where your brain goes,
right, right, Yeah, But I was really bothered too, because
well, they'll go on, go on, well now, and the other
thing that's really alarming here Again, he ends the text on a positive with
a positive conclusion. If I reduce people to their politics, how am I
any better than they are? That's good. But in addition to the racist
comment, some of this other stuff, like when he talks about I mean
again, I'm glad he got past this part in his mind, but that
this was even in his mind to begin with is disturbing. When he said
I really wanted them to hurt the kid, I could taste it. Yes,
Then somewhere deep in my brain and alarm went off. Now again,
Okay, deep in his brain and alarm went off. That's good. I'm
glad that alarm went off. And see somebody get beat because their politics.
I'm glad. Alarm Well, I'm glad the alarm went off in his brain.
That's good, but that he even needed that alarm to go off in
his brain, that he had a moment where they wanted him to kill him
and he said, I could taste it that. Yeah, what is that
like? That's psycho like I've never in my life thought, I mean,
it had these kind of thoughts. I don't know that you could taste to
somebody's death. I know. Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti Deformation League flat out
says that as far as you know, if this isn't news to him,
that Tucker Carlson is a white nationalist period. He did mince words at all,
not at all, and I and I would have to agree he certainly
sounds like one. Yeah, so when you listen to some of the ways
that he talks about people on the other side when they're you know, when
this protest is something going on, he refers to people as animals, you
know, he calls them, uh, mass terrorists. You know, he
uses all of these words to describe the other side. But he doesn't want
to mix judge people by their politics like he's he incites it, right,
he encourages it. Well, he benefits from it in terms of his career.
So yeah, you want those much coming in, you know, you
need those food buckets to commercialize or what have you, because you know that's
under his area of the world. I mean, the dude's got some darkness
in them to have those kinds of thoughts while watching someone getting beaten up.
I mean, seriously, how can you watch something like that and take joy
in it? A lot of people can. It's it's uh, you know
a lot of people have something like that in them though, where it's like
if they don't like somebody, they're fine with seeing them beaten it. It's
very it's scary. Do you know where we saw that the worst people are
scary? Where Floyd? Oh, George Foy. When George Floyd died,
everybody people were were justifying it with he was a bad guy, he'd gotten
arrested, he had a past. Well there's always yeah, and he deserved
it. There's there's always that narrative that comes out, uh from some people.
Yeah, they'll they'll find a reason to to somehow justify it. And
the man was murdered, oh yeah, in front of us, in front
of people. There was a there was a medical person they're going get off
from, you know, check them, check them, check them, wouldn't
listen to anybody. And there were there's these these these white nationalist groups seized
onto that and and claimed it as a as a success, as a here
we finally won one. They saw this is a good thing. Let's that's
what That's what more people need to do, you know, just beat people
up. Well what what what happens is the play that they run is they
find something, uh, you know, they find out that he had a
criminal record, and it's like, uh, it's like gold to them.
It's like as once once they once they realized that, then uh you know,
they're they're they're very happy. Then they have what they need. Oh
you've been arrested. Ah, I hope they beat the crap out of you.
That's literally It's like, then why do we bother talking about trying to
reduce for cidivism and trying to let people better their lives and be different.
If you're going to judge them for that one crime forever right and use that
as justification to violently beat them to death. Yeah, I can't fix you.
I don't know what's wrong with you. You're lacking something in humanity that
I just can't see. Yeah, you know, it should never be that
way. We should We're supposed to be a civilized society that you know,
we have ways of dealing with things that are supposed to be conversational based.
Ye, not fist fist fighting and hitting people over the heads, are crushing
their throats, choking them to death. This is not okay, crushing a
police officer in a door. Yeah, you're in an insurrection. Yeah,
things like that every time. Yeah, that's the vision, and that guy
is seered into my head. That's not how white men fight. I don't
understand why that happened. But according to Tucker or women for that matter,
where isn't the vast majority of all of those on June sixth? What were
they January six? Yeah, yeah, January six? What were those vast
majorities there were those? They were light skinned folks. Yeah? Oh,
dare say white people? Is that how they fight? Oh? I get
it, I get it. This is how we fight. We take an
American flagpole with an American flag on it and beat the crap out of a
police officer with it, and we take the police officers shield and try to
crush him in a door, or better yet, we scream get his gun,
kill him with his own gun. Do you remember that with um the
police officer that ended up having a heart attack because he was beaten so badly.
He remembers people screaming getting get his gun, kill him with his own
gun. Yeah, that's how. See, this is how white people treat
police officers, I guess, And this is how white people don't fight.
Well, we are, we are approaching the top of the hour, and
I see we have a guest in the hallway. So so we're gonna go
ahead, We're gonna go to break. I'm gonna play I'm gonna play a
song from Bees Deluxe called Flat Earth Conspiracy, one of their one of their
great songs. Perfect. So we're gonna give this a spin, and then
we'll show some love to our amazing sponsors, and then we'll be back with
Bees Deluxe in studio with us in the second hour. There is plenty more
to come of Matt Connerton Unleashed, Don't go away. Yeah, that's the
sunfly around while we sit still, And that's true. Moaning a green cheese
that it sicks me wide. People killing the diner and we won the world
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WMNH rip the Novels. Welcome back everybody. We are in our number
two numerow Doose of matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of
wm n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire.
Also on Comcast ninety seven if you're in Manchester, and Hello to all
of our online listeners across the Nation and around the globe. You can go
to my website Matt Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options, social
media links, contact and folk show archives, etcetera, etcetera. Today is
Monday, May eight, twenty twenty three. Genius. Here at the news
desk, president and accounted for, and on the couch we have Conrad.
How do you say your last name? Is it? Where war? Like?
In Second World War? War? Conrad War from the band be is
the Locks? How are you welcome? Very well, thanks for having me.
Yeah, yeah, we've been playing some of your stuff on the show.
And now you're not from these parts originally? Are you? I consider
myself from Brooklyn, but I'm actually from London. Okay, Now, why
do you consider yourself from Brooklyn? To live there for a while. If
you're brought up in England, everything is easy. You know. People go
to sleep in the middle of the day. They don't work, they don't
do anything. They just crown people. Oh. But then when you moved
to America, suddenly you find you've actually got to work and meet people and
find things and do jobs. And so I moved to Brooklyn and New York
and I found it was a Baptism of Fire. Yeah, so immediately it
was like being in New York for six months was like six years in university
in England. Wow, it's much much harder. So are you so the
lyrics to hang Fire by the Rolling Stones, that's actually accurate? Pretty fair?
Yes, I'll be down. When did you so, when did you
come to the United States? So? I was in New York in the
early eighties, Okay, I put an ad in the Village Voice, and
I got a drummer at a bass player, and I auditioned for Hilly at
CBGB's on a Monday night and he said, you guys are all right,
come back tomorrow. And then after that he says, you guys are right,
come back on a Wednesday. So and after six months we worked our
way up to playing on Saturday night, two sets in between the headlining band
Oh wow. Yeah. We opened for Dogs of War, which was the
name of Living Color in those days. Oh no kidding, Yeah, fantastic
band, Oh wow, and hr from Bad Brains Oh wow. So we
missed the early section with the Ramones and Talking Heads, but we got in
like the second wave when bands were still really interesting but didn't quite go Billboard
okay. Oh wow, that must have been a great time to be there.
It was awesome. Wow, that's that's amazing. Well night, we
were playing with Jonathan Gregg and the Lonesome Debonairs, and I don't know if
you remember CBS, but the stage was to the side of the walk through
to the bathroom. So we're playing. Jonathan Gregg and his band are all
at the bar drinking. They come back, all their guitars. It gone
out in the back door. Oh my god. You had to nail things
down and hold them in your hands. Yeah yeah, Oh jeez um.
So you were there when did you say? So? Early eighties? Early
eighties? Okay. Then my girl got a job in Boston, so I
went, all right, I'll move up to Boston and then started all over
again. Yeah. And then we had a couple of kids and I had
to stay at home make sure they didn't put forks in the electricity, and
then started up again. So I put together Bees Deluxe here in Boston.
Okay. What was what was the band called when you were in New York?
That band was called Invisible House. What's the cool name? I like
that? Now? Where does the name bees DeLux come from? What does
that mean it's a combination of a pub in London and an amplifier that I
used to this day. Oh no, kidding, Oh cool. Well I
had to come up with a name very very fast because I was in a
bar with a friend of Michael Maurice and he said you should play here,
and I went, I don't have a band. He says, well,
I'm going to book you. What's the name of the band? Yeah,
so we played the next Friday. Oh, there you go, there you
go. Yeah. I have a friend Mike Laughlin, who used to be
in a band called simply called something because he was he was on the spot,
he was he was supposed to play somewhere and they didn't have a name
for the band yet and he's called it something and and actually stuck with it
for a while. So listeners should be where Because I have a neighbor in
Jamaica Plane who started a band and he called it hot Dog, and I
went, you an idiot. If people go on Google and search for hot
Dog, they're never gonna find you, right, So you've got to do
something that's yes off center, oh yeah, oh absolutely, And and and
also too, something that you can be reasonably sure that somebody doesn't already have
right, Um? Yeah, so that makes sense. Um, I mean
did you how quick did you have to come up with that? Like?
Did you do a search online to make sure there wasn't already a band somewhere
called NOL We were in the US, the studio on the phone booking it.
Yeah. Yeah, so that's it. That's great, that's great.
That's very rock and roll. Um cool. So what was what was it
like, you know, starting in the music scene in Boston in contrast to
New York? Was it? Was? It drastically different in some ways?
The scenes are were and still are very different. Yeah. In New York,
many of the clubs are four banks to night, back line provided bring
one hundred and fifty people or we'll never book here again. And they're like
sausage factories. Yeah, they just churn you in and churn you out.
Yeah, and some are better than others. Some have actual people who care
about music. Boston, we tend to play gigs where we played for three
hours. Okay, so we're playing in a room where the management and the
bartenders like us. They'll tell their friends and once the customers have seen us,
once they come back for the next one. Yeah, you know,
So we play anywhere from dive bars like Vincent in Worcester. I mean,
if there's forty five people in there, it's packed. Yeah, Yeah,
it's great dive bar. And then we'll play Boston City Winery, Haymarket Lounge
where they're very tony, you know when they serve meals and people sit down.
Yeah, so there's a range, but we'd like to play it on
our own, because that's that's why you want to play. Is you want
to play as much as possible. So you'll do a three hour Yeah,
take a break in the middle and run out for a cigarette or something.
But if you're only playing for forty minutes, you've barely got the plane off
the ground, right, right, m You've got obviously you've got a lot
of originals, and we've been playing some of them today, But you also
have quite a few covers, I would imagine, right. So our philosophy
is to play covers that aren't played by everybody else, Yeah, and reverse
engineer them so they're different. Okay, So we'll take a song like Damn
Your Eyes by Edna James, and we'll play it in a different key and
a different tempo and a different field and then move, get rid of one
chorus and put a break in there instead. Oh, and then and then
stretch. So a lot of what we do is improvisational. We don't really
know where we're going to go until we've hit it. Yeah, do you
do you run into it where someone will? Has anyone ever come up to
you and said, hey, I really like that song, a certain song,
and they assumed it was one of yours, but it was actually a
song that you There was a cover that you took in reverse engineered exactly that
we played the two hours at the House of Blues when it was at Harvard
Square and Cambridge. Yeah, and the couple came up to me at the
end and he said, you guys are really good. You should play some
covers, and we've been playing easy type Jimmy Hendrix, DA James, Freddie
King, Albert King, you know. And they liked the tunes. Yeah,
but they didn't know that they'd heard them before. That's funny, yeah,
yeah, because you know, subconsciously they h there's something in you know,
in the backs of their minds that's going to connect with that because they
have heard it before, but they don't know what it is because they don't
recognize it. That's interesting, that's really cool. Um our friend DJ Steve
is in the chat room. He says, Hi, you're getting some oh
some glitching. Oh okay, nothing I can do about that. Um Rondo
Favero says, Living Color excellent band. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
You said, what were they called Dogs of War before they were Living Color?
That was the sort of a hidden name. Oh okay. You know,
like window Stones played some Morgan's Cove. I don't know what they called
themselves, but they played to fifty people there. Yeah. Yeah, you
said you live in Jamaica Plaine. Yeah, you ever play the Midway Cafe?
Yes, as much as possible really? Yeah. Yeah, And they've
opened up. They've got the room next door as well. So now now
there's a horseshoe bone. You can get behind it and in front of it.
Oh okay. They got double to space. Then when I used to
play in a long long time ago. Oh okay, I used to do
back when I did a lot of promoting, I used to do shows there,
like for a while. It was like once a month at the Midway,
but it was but they didn't have that other space So it was small,
it was cool, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, it
was still going. It was a long time ago. It's probably not even
the same same owners now. Um, but I think it's Jay Balona and
Dave quit. There were two brothers. Oh, I'll be damn so Davis
still. I remember Dave. Jay is the serious one and Dave was the
Nutjobe. He and I would go up on the roof and throw bottles at
cars going pars. Oh my god. Yeah, Dave is the one I
would deal with there. I remember Dame. So he's still there. No,
Davis Davis vanished, but Jay is still Oh Dave? Okay, So
yeah, yeah, I don't think I ever dealt with Jay. I don't
think I ever met Jay. I think it was all Dave Davis van What
do you mean he's vanished. I haven't seen him for a while. Oh
okay, but he's not actually missing, is he? No? But I
don't think he's working that room. Oh okay, Okay. I was afraid
something had happened because I have good I have good memories with Dave, and
it sounds like you have some good memories with him as well. Definitely,
although not necessarily the best thing to be doing. But um so, so
when did you When did you uh end up in Boston? That have been
late eighties or yeah, late eighties, early nineties. I got What happened
was I got a job because my my then girlfriend got a job as a
night science fellow at MIT. She was a science journalist. Okay, I
got a job. I was in design. I got a job at Rychodisc
as production manager. So I went to Salem every day on Pickering Wharf and
I dealt with Frank Zappa and his wife Gail, David Bowie, Yoko Ono.
All the releases that we put on Raychodists were repackaged artists who were fed
up with their major labels. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, very
familiar with racodeskare Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah. How long How long
did you do that? Um? I'm guessing four or five years? Okay.
I sort of quit because I got fed up with the fact that they
didn't an R or anything. Everything was recataloging. Yeah. And the final
straw for me was that there was a band called Gallon Dry. Gallant Drunk
were Morrissey's boyfriend and his pals and Sire Records convinced my boss that we should
put out two albums by Gallant Drunk because they were going to tour opening for
Morrissey and we were going to sell fifty thousand copies of each album yea,
and that Conrad had to put them out in five days, naming me.
Yeah. So I mean I didn't kill myself, because I'm still alive today
to tell the story. Yeah, but I put out these albums and they
were horrible, very horrible. We killed us of doing it. So I
went to the bus and I go, I can't do this anymore. You
know, it's like operating on a corpse. Yeah. I was gonna say,
I've not even heard of Gallant Drunk, right, be thankful? Yeah,
Wow, that wasn't been a great experience. It was. It was
a lot of fun, really fast moving, and a lot of great artists
and yeah, and very nice to do things that were good for the industry.
So, for instance, we started banned the box. You're probably be
too young to remember this, but when they switched from vinyl to CD,
everything came in twelve inch long boxes. Yes, I do remember that.
Actually, waste of cardboard and printing and money. So we started this movement
called band the Box. Oh, and we got that kicked out. And
then I was working with Phillip's DuPont Optical in Minneapolis, and together with them
I invented First of all, I invented see through jewel cases, and then
I invented the green dye that we put in Raychodisc. So when you looked
at the disc, you knew it was the raycho Disc album because it was
green, okay, lime green? Oh wow. And as soon as we
came out with the first releases like that, you know, everybody from the
country was calling me, how did you do that? Where did you get
that done? Yeah? You know, like Geffen Records were mad that they
hadn't come up with it? Really, Oh wow? Did you did you?
Did you sell them the technology, the recipe? No? I told
them to get that's awesome. Wow. If you're just joining us, we're
talking with Conrad war from the band Be's Deluxe. But he's also been pretty
well steeped in the music industry in other ways too. This is a cool
surprise because I love talking about this stuff. So where did you go?
So after you left Rycodisc, where did you go? Then? Well,
what happened immediately after that was the Internet came out. Yeah, Raychodisc went
under and they got picked up by Island Palm Palm Records Island and they drove
it into the ground. And now it's moved to Rhino on the West Coast,
and Rhino managed it as a back catalog. I don't think it's an
active label. But I went and I was designing books and magazines and CDs
and posters, and the Internet came out and the editor gave me a little
floppy disc said you'll like this, Conrad. It's something called Mosaic, and
I put it into a computer and I went, I can see the code.
This is desktop publishing, but from computer to computer. So then I
stayed awake for two weeks learning how to how to write code and how to
write director and flash. When it came out, yeah, oh wow.
So I was doing that during the day and then playing at night. Yeah
oh no kidding. Yeah, um yeah, so you've you've lived through all
the all the changes um in the U and the one that's coming up now
is AI. We're all going to live through that. Yeah. Any uh,
any predictions on that, because I know, I know some people are
concerned that musicians are going to go away. I'm not scared of that.
But we are in a point. If you remember, when cars were first
invented, somebody had to walk in front of them with a red red flag.
No, yeah, when people first had cars, I didn't know that
you had to have like a servant walk thirty feet in front of you with
a red flag. Oh wow, watch out, there's a car coming.
Oh no, I didn't know that we're at that stage with AI because when
I talked to AI like chat GPT, I'll ask you some questions and look,
I'm sorry my database stops two years ago. Yeah, or I'm sorry
that's an invasion of privacy. I can't tell you that, or I'm sorry,
we don't know. So it's early stages. My son was talking about
this with me earlier actually, and he's in favor of a lot to pass
that if you're interacting with an AI, it has to be known to you
that it's an AI. Yeah. So it is already doing good things.
So, for instance, doctors who are too much overworked with paperwork, they
can say I've diagnosed my patient with X, and they'll write to the AI
engine. They'll say, give me three different treatment plans for a patient with
X who's thirty two years old, you know, a white male, and
the AI engine will come back with three reputable treatment plans and the doctor would
aild to choose from that, and that saved them, I don't know,
two hours in books. Yeah, yeah, because they can't remember all of
that stuff, right, but AI not only remembers it, but he's learning
it and teaching itself. Fat Okay, are you concerned though about it going
too far? Like I mean, people are, Like what my son was
talking about is he's tried to interact with some of the AIS that people are
talking about. I think there's one that's on TikTok maybe and that he found
it concerning how they could take become one side or another like he's he said
he interacted with one that was uber uber left liberal, but then there was
another one that was uber uber right conservative, and he's worried about AI in
those worlds. It's just like the Internet, it'll give you back what you
put into it. So that now there's a new class of job's called The
job is called a prumpt engineer. That's somebody who knows how to talk to
AI. Okay, there's a new job, trumpt engineer. And the point
of that is the AI itself doesn't care if you're a Republican a Democrat.
Right, It's gonna answer the question pending how you ask it. So you
just have to be It's like being scared of guns. Guns are dangerous,
but it is possible to handle one without it going off. Yeah, and
AI is dangerous, but it's possible to handle it without it going off.
Yeah. There was this story I think it. I think it might have
been at Facebook or Meta, whatever you call it. Now, did you
see this the We've talked about it on the show. These these two AI
bots or computers, they were talking to each other. Did you know the
story I'm talking about. They were talking to each other and they came up
with their own language to communicate with each other, and they ended up getting
disconnected because people were like, we don't know what they're saying to each other.
They seem to have their own language, and for all we know,
they could be saying, you know, let's kill all the humans and can
take over. So that's just like what my parents used to say, is
go upstairs, find out what the kids are doing, and tell them to
stop it right there. Our friend Mike Doyle is on the line. Hi,
Mike any man, I'm doing good. How are you very good?
Thanks Jenny. Nice to hear from you. Nice here. And I apologize.
I just turned you on and I heard the discussion about AI, and
I didn't catch the gentleman's name. Yeah, this is a Conrad War He's
from the band B's Deluxe. And we've really been talking, been talking about
music and the music industry and so forth. But we we took a little
bit of a side street because AI. A big subject right now is how
is AI already beginning to affect the music industry? Okay, what do you
think, Mike? Yeah, I apologize about because I thought you were simply
discussing AI, and I understand now you have it, you know, with
music and everything. My only question was I heard a great discussion about a
week ago, and it was about the many, many, many positive things
that can come out of AI. Like you were just like you were just
mentioning about the doctor and the how many different you know, remedies for what
your ailment is, et cetera, et cetera, and hours it could save
and all of it. But then they went to the discussion about the negative
part of it, and then how horrible the negative part could be, um
in in cloning people, making people guilty of crimes they didn't commit, um,
you know, things like that. And it was a really good discussion
that and the experts were saying that, yeah, there's a really really dock
side to it, and there's a really good upside, which is why everybody
has a little bit of trepidation right now, is to sure, you know,
we want we want the good, but how do we stop the bad?
Right right exactly. Yeah, it's it's uh and it's it's a subject
we'll be uh discussing for many years to come. Obviously, as it continues
to advance, it seems like it's it's definitely here. It's like the moment
came. You know, we've been hearing about it for so long, and
now it's like, oh, it's it's here. We've got the chat.
And I know you don't like, I don't believe you like musk. But
when a guy who when a guy who had his hand in the start of
somewhat creating it, says hey we should pause here for a moment um that
worries me. You know what I mean, I say, all he cop
he's worried. Sure, oh yeah, there's a lot of people, a
lot of people were not. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's something
we want to proceed with caution with certainly. Yeah, all right, Well
I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know he had crushed into music
with it. Yeah, but it was shrinking. Here's an example, Mike.
There was a record released on the streaming networks by two artists that was
created by AI, and the two artists named in it had nothing to do
with it, and the record companies went ballistic because it download it got download
it like half a million times in two weeks. Yeah, and they had
to shut it down. But the point was somebody using AI had made a
song that sounded like these two guys yep, and it was a hey yeah
two hip hop artists. Yeah yeah, it's pretty amazing. So think of
it, think of the think of the lawsuits. Well, yeah, the
lawyers come, we'll all be dead, and the lawyers will still be around
the law they'll be AI lawyers probably. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need
all right, Well, good talking to you guys. Continue and Jenny,
if I don't see you, happy mother, Happy Mother's Day. Oh,
thank you so much. That was nice, alright, very nice, thanks
for the call, Mike. All right, that was our friend Mike Doyle.
That does open up a line for you. Six three two five six
seven six three two five six zero seven And we're talking with Conrad war from
the band Be's Deluxe and um yeah, so uh yeah we are we are
an uncharted territory. And this is so this is probably the next big the
next big transition in the music industry, right, Like first was the Internet
with naps, stir and everything, everything becoming digital and the effects that that
had on the music industry just really just changing it foundationally. This is this
is the next big change potentially right right, and it should be used creatively.
So for instance, Charlie Christian used to play guitar in an acoustic band
and he had the idea of sticking a gramophone needle into the body of his
guitar like a hypo syringe. Yeah, and that made the music come out
of the bell of his gramophone and people were horrified. And then you know,
the war pedal came out and people were horrified. Yeah, And then
pro tools came out and all these musicians are going, oh it's sick.
I prefer analog. I want to be on two inch tape or the Beatles
Saget Pepper was done on an A track. Why are you used in pro
tools? Because you can because you can move a beat or change its pitch
this much. And AI is going to be exactly the same thing. People
are going to be able to do things that we hadn't done before. Right,
And I said, years ago, wouldn't it be great to have,
for instance, another led Zeppelin album when they've all passed away? Well,
hey, I will help us do that. Interesting, And I'm not talking
about great even, let's just think of that. Let's thinking the same thing.
Don't we already have that? And also you could get a movie.
You could say, well, let's have Bill Murray with Marilyn Monroe in a
movie, right, because it's possible now right? Right? Yeah, so
you sound you sound positive about it. I think the technology moves forward,
we have to keep up with it. Right. My theories that government people
and politicians don't know how to regulate this stuff because they don't understand it.
Right. If you remember when Mark Zuckerberg was was in the Senate being at
a committee meeting. I talk about this on the shows. We're talking to
him, They go, how do you make money? They don't understand anything
about this. Oh, Conrad, I've talked about that so many times on
the show. How I get I get so nervous when you know, when
government tries to interfere with that anology or the internet or anything. And I
use that as an example. Yeah. I tell people, I say,
if you have confidence in these people to actually regulate this stuff, I can
I can fix you. Uh, just go to go to YouTube and just
look up either yeah, Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey when he went and testified
before a committee. And just listen to the questions that these people ask,
and you begin to realize they're they're gonna be voting on things that they have
no idea what the hell even they're doing. They don't know. SAME's Truff
Frank Zappa when he went to Washington. Oh what for the PMRC thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they just don't get it, right,
Yeah, yeah, that is so true. Well we are let's um,
let's play something. Well, well we've been playing some of your music.
We'll take a break and we'll play I'll let you pick the song This
is the album Voice of Dog. Correct, this is the current album that
Ivan f that's an old original album by Best Delars. Yes, and I
thought it was hilarious that we would start the album with a song called song
number nine. Ah. Yes, and it tries people mad, I go,
that's the point. Did I What did I play at the beginning of
the show? I think I played that one already? Are you were playing
Flat Earth Conspiracy when I came in? When you came in, Yeah,
at the beginning of the show. Though, at the top of the show,
I played something at two and I think it was out. I think
it was a song number nine. Um, let's see what about Probably our
biggest hit live is a song called beer. Oh beer, all right,
let's now is this about Is this about any any particular person or is it
just about beer? Both? Okay? And only took three minutes to write,
Oh really, Who's who's it about? Or? Can you or can
you say? Is it a political person? No, it's a romantic person.
All right? We would you rather leave it at that. As far
as the explanation, I think that's enough. All right, let's give this
a listen. So this is this is a track called Beer and this is
from the band Bees DeLux. We have Conrad War in studio with us.
Let's give this a spin and then we'll continue our discussion. Here we go.
I want you, but I need a beer. I need you,
but I want a beer. It's cold outside, but I need to be.
I like you, but I need a beer. I remember you that
I want a been. It's dark outside, but I need to be.
Don't I believe with you? I need a den. I am and I'm
all a bedtarted here And oh that's great. That is Beer from Bee's Deluxe.
What a cool song you're listening to Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live
from the studios of wm H ninety five point three FM in Manchester, New
Hampshire. Jenny is here at the news desk. I am that's awesome.
Yeah yeah, And on the couch we have Conrad War from Bee's Deluxe and
uh yeah, that's that's a great song. Um now that's you on vocals
right and guitar. Yeah and guitar very good, very good. Now who
else is in the band? Carol band plays keyboards, sings vocals and plays
harmonica. Okay, Paul Joviny is druma and Jim Gilday is the bass player
and he sings as well. Oh okay, so it's a four piece with
three vocals, gotcha, gotcha? So you take turns on the lead vocals.
It's mostly me, okay, because I'm a whack Joe. And we
took from Maine. We go to Rockland, Maine, and go down to
Miami and Florida. We go up and down the East coast. Okay,
yeah, yeah, yeah, I was looking at your tour dates online.
Actually, um at bieslocks dot com is this site? Right? Um?
Yeah, I like the website. Who does the website? Did you do
that? Do you build that? Yeah? I'm kind of a website nerd.
So I noticed. Uh yeah, I like the design. I like
the layout and um and you also brought Jenny and I a couple of let's
see, so there's um so you're you're still putting things out on CD.
Yeah obviously. Uh so you brought us uh this single Nitro uh and it's
got industrial espionage, the instrumental version. I shouldn't let me put you put
the camera on me. I've got them right up in front of my computer.
Oh perfect, yeahs to me Cable and you're actually broadcasting also on Tomorrow
radio in the UK. Cool. Oh, Mike Doyle, Mike is calling
us back. Hey Mike, Hey, sorry, So you know I hate
to call more than one. I had to say. I had it on
the station, I hadn't changed, and I was sitting at the light listening
to that song. And let me tell you that was awesome that The medals
in that song are off the charts. Man, I don't want him to
get too big of a head. The singing was good, the instrumentals were
off the charts. No, right there with you under understood the vocal start.
No, that was excellent. That's all I wanted to say. Very
job, it was excellent. Thanks Mike, all right, thanks Mike,
all right, very good. Yeah. I was gonna ask him if he
if it made him want to have a beer, but it sounded like he
was in a hurry. But yeah, no, that great, great song.
Yeah. So now the artwork on these is really cool. Actually,
let me put the camera back on. People watching online can see the artwork.
I want to see gorgeous self. Who does who does this? Uh?
The artwork on these is really cool. Well, I think they're awesome.
We do the graphics, but we commissioned the art from people that we
liked. So for instance, Nitro the Green Man, he's actually called Anxious
Man. It's by this wonderful artist named Wendy Bruceick b R U s I
C K. Okay. So she found us playing in Cambridge and became a
fan, and we looked at her artwork and we'd begd it to do that.
So she's done the artwork for our next album, which is still being
mixed. Okay. And the other one called Wherever You Hide is an EP
and that's a photograph by my daughter Zoe. Oh wow, Zoe took that
photograph in a sculpture park somewhere. That is very cool. I like it,
isn't that nice? Yeah? That is Yeah. And we'll for people
listening who obviously can't see, well, we'll take pictures of these and put
them up on social media so you can see exactly what we're We'll do that
after the show so you can see what we're talking about. But yeah,
that's that's very cool, very cool. Um, Now are you are you
putting out? Are you doing anything on vinyl? I notice vinyl is uh,
well, it never went away. But now I think, if I'm
not mistaken, I think twenty twenty two might have been the first year where
vinyl actually outsold CDs. I write that too. I'm not sure. I
believe it really well. One reason I don't believe it is as there's a
Vinyl shortage rule materials. I didn't know that. So obviously there's a lobbyist
or there's a there's a PR engine going behind it, probably to build it
up again. Yeah. So the cost per entry for Vinyl is hard because
you've got to make a master, a master that you cut, you know,
so whereas the CD you can make fifty right, right, and a
cassette you can make ten, yeah, and an eight track you can't make.
Yeah, cassettes I was I was shocked when Jeez must have been seven
or eight years ago, now maybe not that long. I was on bandcamp
dot com and I realized that that people were starting to put out cassettes again.
I couldn't believe it. I mean, you know, obviously just kind
of as a novelty, I guess, but I don't know. Maybe some
people like the sound of tape hisss. I don't know, before they've got
cassette place in their cause. Yeah, a pencil on the tape, just
swinging it around, trying to get it thrown wind back up again. I
don't miss tapes, no, But I think I want a CD player now,
Yeah, like I really think I want to have a CD player again.
Yeah, I know I have one. We actually have one here.
I think Rob as a Veto is the only one who uses it for his
show. But um, and my you know, I have a MacBook that
has a CD player on it. But um, but uh, yeah,
I was amazed to see that cassettes sort of come back. And I actually
I used to work for a retail chain. I worked for Strawberries, and
then of course it got bought by a trans World and became Fye. But
I remember cassettes. You know, one of the things that's interesting, and
you might agree with me, it's it's it's um interesting to see over time
what technologies go away and what technologies stick around, and to try to predict
it. And sometimes sometimes you know, people aren't always right. And cassettes
are an example of where I thought those were going to go away at least
five years sooner than they did, and we still had them when I was
working at that job. We had them much longer than I thought, and
I thought we would have. But my theory at the time was that it
was because of the auto industry, because people still had cassette players in their
cars even though CDs had been the dominant medium for so long. And then
eventually cassettes went away, but cassettes stayed stayed around a lot longer than I
would have imagined. But um, well, it's immensely portable. But the
two that you missed that went away like the dinosaurs were the mini disc Sony
right, which had a bubble memory so you could jog and it wouldn't skip.
Oh okay, and you could record on it so you could record,
you know, speeches at college and go to sleep in them. Yeah.
And then Phillips came up with another one called Digital Compact Cassette, which was
essentially a cassette sized dat oh, and that went down the toilet really fast
because they tried to gouge back more of the royalties from the artists. This
is Phillips really in Germany, Okay, so and the artists, no,
you can't have it if you're going to take that much away from me.
We're not going to put our albums out on digital compact cassette. But the
idea was to have a cassette that had CD quality sound on it. Okay,
um was that? Did that ever make it to the United States?
I had to make those damn things that Ry could do, no kidding,
yeah, because I don't even remember those. I remember the mini discs,
I don't remember, but I don't remember those digital compact set that. Wow,
that boat inflames really fast? Yeah yeah, huh interesting. I mean
I remember the old dat recorders. Yeah, those were great because I remember
you could bring those to a concert and record and the quality would be amazing.
Right, But but indexing on that stuff or you know, oh yeah,
it was just it was for engineers, not people. Yeah yeah,
yeah, yeah, but yeah. And the other technology too that went away
quickly, from what I can recall, is because we actually had these when
I first started at Strawberries, we had these, but it was it was
at the tail end, was a laser disc. Oh yeah, you know,
so you got this this movie basically on Yeah. Yeah, they were
huge, and it was like it was cumbersome. And then you know,
of course, as soon as CDs, I mean as soon as I DVDs
rather started coming out. LaserDiscs went away pretty quickly. But I remember people
would come in wanting to order them, and they would take forever to get
them, you know. And do you have little libraries on the street here
in Manchester. I don't know if any of them they maybe want in Manchester,
but they do have them around. So they're all over in Jamaica.
Plane. And when I opened them up, they're full of DVDs. Oh
yeah, you're talking about the lit them up on the street and you put
you put a book and take a book out. Yeah. Yeah. And
in my neighborhood people are getting rid of the DVDs because of the streaming industry,
because the nets and an Apple and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah,
um. That's another thing that's been in the news lately too, because
of the writer's strike and you know these writers. You know, streaming has
really changed a technology. It's as change as everything. Streaming has really changed
the way a lot of them get paid and so forth. Yeah, get
ready to be flooded with reality shows. Yeah, okay, that's what happens.
To take your clothes up, run out in the street, that's what
happens get a series. Yeah, so now Bees Delos. How long is
the because I assume the lineup has changed over the years, right, occasionally
we lose and find a player. Yeah. How long has the band existed?
I mean it's been decades, right, I think we've I think we
put out something about eight years ago, the Demolition Tapes. Okay, um,
so, but as the current lineup hasn't been together for a while,
is it pretty stable or yeah? This one three or four years and we've
we've done thousands of miles together. Yeah. So we take terms driving,
okay, and the mythology of this is that when I'm driving, it rains.
Yeah, when anybody else drives, it's fine, right right, Yeah,
y'all pile into a van. Yeah, we we borrow either borrow a
VW Bus or a Ford Transit or rent a Ford Transit. Yeah. But
COVID almost killed us on that. Yeah, because if you remember, before
COVID, you could rent a van for I don't know, one hundred fifty
two hundred bucks a day. Sure do unlimited miles, so we'd be cool.
Yeah. Yeah, And then all the when COVID hit, people like
Enterprise said, okay, let's sell our inventory. Yeah, and we'll buy
it back when it's finished. Of course, when it finished, they couldn't
buy the imagery bank. Yea. So now they're charging us four hundred bucks
a day for a Ford transit. Wow, so we're gonna have to do
this on roller skates. Yeah. Yeah, that's uh, that's one of
the things that I hear the most now from from anybody who does any any
level of touring. It's so well they're actually In fact, there's been national
artists who have said, no, we're not gonna We're not going to tour
anymore. It's gotten up. Steve Weis says, you weren't playing in Europe
anymore? Really, Yeah, it costs him too much money. Yeah.
Yeah. The travel is the travel, the truck, in the hotels,
all the overhead is now higher than the ticket. Yeah. And it always
used to be that the ticket price didn't get you your money back. Like
when The Stones or the Talking Heads played in New York, they would break
even or lose on ticket sales because Ron Delson would take it from them,
but they would come back into the black on t shirt sales. And I
think like the Rolling Stones played, they would make twenty five to fifty bucks
ahead on merchandise, okay, because people were going and they'd buy the two
hundred dollars leather jacket, right right. Yeah, and that's where they made
their money back. So, which is kind of unusually because you think rock
and roll is in the T shirt business oh very much so yeah, but
they pretty much are. And that's how indie bands survived. Now. Yeah,
if you look at something like Bad Bad Hat when they go up and
down the country, they're selling T shirts to pay for gas and pizza.
Mm yeah, no doubt. Well, my my all time favorite band is
Kissed, and of course kiss happens to be the most heavily merchandise band in
history. You know, Um, I'm not even sure. I think the
Beatles might be number two, but but kiss is the most heavily merchandise.
Then it's like, uh, you know, they they actually sold off their
publishing back before before a lot of artists were doing it back in the uh
jeez. I think it must have been around nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one because
they cashed out on the on the publishing. Yeah. Um, and uh,
but you know they make you know, touring, they sell so much
merch you know, it's like, uh, that's where the money really is
from. I have the worst example for you. Yeah. I used to
be friends with a bank called the Soft Boys, which was Robin Hitchcock and
a great guitar player named Kimberly Rue. And the band split up. Robin
wanted to go solo and Kimberly started up band doing Bo Diddley songs. They
were in Greece. They go to deal they cut a song called Walking on
Sunshine Katrin the Waves. Yeah, that's that's Bo Diddley and Kimberly Rue is
playing. Oh no kidding. So he's in England. I'm still slightly in
touch with him. I walk into a store and I find a toothbrush that
when you press it plays walking on Sunshine. I'm going if that isn't the
lowest wow version of merchandising a rock and roll band in the universe, I
don't know what. Yeah, yeah, that song, though kind of transcends.
It's a great song, you know. To be honest with you,
I never liked it, I remember, but I think part of it was,
you know, when I was a kid, you know, I couldn't
turn on MTV without seeing the video, right, like, oh yeah,
you can Overexposure would kill you in anything? Yeah, yeah, because that
was their only hit, right, Katrina on the Waves, I think right,
I don't remember another that's it. I don't remember another song. Yeah
yeah, but he was great in the Soft Boys. He played like Hendrix.
Yeah, listen to the really early stuff. So like I want to
destroy you now with when you were at rycodisc, was there any merchandising going
on there or or because they were no. But what we did, and
I think most labels do this, is we would package in a way that
the super collectors would want. Okay, So we had a release called Yektodosa,
which is by Zappa, and it's called it stands for you can't do
that on stage anymore. So they'd be like five double albums in a box,
hand painted. Yeah, so if you bought all five, you got
the box. So that's kind of merchandising, but it's really upselling to persuade
people. Don't just buy volumes one through two, five volumes one through five,
and you get this extra thing that makes sense, you know. My
favorite actually was not Odgen's Flake by the Small Faces, which came in a
circular tin like a tobacco tin way before Public Image, because Public Image did
metal tin box as well. Okay, so so it was really about that
kind of packaging. On One spoof that I came up with was we did
an album with NRBQ called Honest Dollar. Yeah. I got a thousand dollars
from the bank and I send it to the band and I said, I
want you to sign every single dollar bill and then send them back to me,
and I'm going to put them into CDs. Oh wow, and then
shuffle them and distribute them. Yeah. So if you're an NRBQ fan and
you bought one of those, you might open out up and find a dollar
bill and they're signed by the band. Oh wow. Oh that's pretty cool.
Yeah yeah. Um oh, well, is that is that kind of
the the most unique idea that you would So who would think of that?
I mean, that's that's I assume that was your idea, right you I
came up with that? Is that? Is that the most unique idea that
you would come up with? I had had another one that it didn't quite
take off in the way I hoped, But um I introduced Bob Mole to
my boss, and Bob really hated Virgin Records because they had nothing but session
players working for him. And the session players you've probably met session players,
but they're very serious and they're in there to make a dollar and get out
of you. Yeah. Yeah. So he's a good songwriter and a great
guitar player, and he just didn't like that. He wanted to be in
charge. Yeah. So he agreed to sign with Record Discus an original artist,
and he formed a band called Sugar and the first album he did was
Copper Blue, which is to take on police. Yeah. So I got
with Phillips dupon an optical and we made a copper CD case and printed the
name of the band on the copper on the outside. Oh wow. So
and that's like a super limited edition. Yeah, oh wow, that's pretty
cool. Wow. Do you um? Now? Do you do? Are
you involved in the in the industry side of things now or or you just
focused on the music. I just played a guitar, Yeah, yeah,
Do you miss it? No? No, no. As I said,
you know, the more you get embedded in the record industry, the more
you feel like you need a shower. Really yeah, And I suppose it's
like that in the film industry and the advertising agency and publishing. Yeah.
Interesting, So, I mean it was there a specific thing that I'm so
curious? I mean, was there something specific that made you feel that way
or was it just kind of over time? I got two albums. I
had cast my net and people knew who I was and they would send me
demos. Yeah. I got a tape from Robbie Krieger and my boss wouldn't
put it out really, yeah, it was just it was an instrumental album
by by Robbie Kreeger at the Doors if you don't recognize, Oh, yeah,
yeah, it was a great album. When they wouldn't do it,
they said, we can't sell that. I go, we can sell that.
They wouldn't know. And then I got another tape from a guy whose
name I can't quite remember yet, but he was He was a student of
Bill Brazil's in San Francisco and he was playing world music really early before world
music really existed. Yeah, and I took it to my very nice guy
named Don Rose, and he had a dext the size of yours, this
deep in CDs and DAT tapes and cassettes. So because I worked there,
I could get it to the front of the pile. Yeah, And he
listened to it, and he came down the next day and he said,
Conrad, this is this is awesome. This is the best I've ever heard
of this genre. And I said, great, let's put it out.
He said, no, nobody's heard of him. Huh. So my heart
kind of broke because I go, Okay, So here's the record industry executive
who has the power to introduce a new act, to put out original music
and chooses not to. Yeah, and I'm guessing it's like that everywhere.
Oh I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. And there's um yeah, and
you know, there's so many horror stories too about you know, like bands
they signed with orsol artists or whomever, they signed with a label, and
you know, and they sign whatever however many album deal. Then they record
something and hell, maybe it's even happened to you, I don't know.
And they record an album and then the label decides not to put it out
and they shelve it for whatever reason. And then the band is like,
and they don't even own the master recordings of what they just did, and
this label says, no, we're gonna shelve this for for which could be
for any number of reasons. I've got tracks and warehouses in London at em
in places, no kidding. The one that comes to mind knows is there's
a really good guitar player in New York called Binkie Phillips. He was in
a bank called The Planets. They headlined Cbees. They were huge, and
he cut an album. They were one of the first buyer racial bands too.
They had had a black guy in the band and three white guys.
Early rock days in the eighties. Yeah, and the album was phenomenal and
it went to the label and Ted Templeton said, we've got van Halen,
we don't need the Planets. And it was just like if he if he
just got the tapes there six months earlier. Yeah, and that that just
blew him up. And why wouldn't you eat? And yeah, you've got
van Halen? But so what, why don't you want another? You know
what I mean? Why don't you want to know? Because record companies can't
market the same thing twice in one month. In the book publishing industry,
it's called review driven. A book company like Double Day will have twenty books
out a month. Yeah, they'll promote one of them. Okay, so
why do they put the other nineteen out they go just in case, yeah,
and they say those books are going to be what's called review driven,
okay, but they're not going to push it, okay. So it's up
to the author to go out and find a public system, get on Good
Morning America. But in the record business it's really specific. It's like,
we can do one girl singer, one boy band, one heavy rock band,
one reggae band. That's it for the next two months. Okay.
I remember watching an interview with Tori Amos talking about that shoot the difficulties.
Well, we already have a female right, oh, we've already got a
piano player, you know, and just what they wouldn't put her on.
It's insane. Yeah, yeah, that's why. And from the artist perspective,
it's it's bad luck or good luck, depending on your timing. Yeah
right, seriously, I mean when you remember, if you listen to Norah
Jones, now you go, it's good. But her album came out when
there was nothing like it, right, the true yeah oh yeah yeah,
so the critics went, it's just wonderful, right, it was like a
dose of fresh air. Yeah yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, And I
remember that too because I was working for Strawberries when when Norah Jones I hit
big and yeah, you're right, I remember that. And of course now
we you know, we live in a time where you can, you know,
you can put things out yourself on the release of yourself online, and
it's a it's a completely different world now. I mean, record labels still
exist obviously, but um uh yeah, but it's funny too. You know,
people there's still people who think that, you know, if if I
get signed to a record label, you know, all my problems will be
solved. Yeah. I remember meeting band that have been signed in Utah and
they came up to New York. They got a cheap apartment of Staten Island
for ten bucks a night and they're all working this way to send barbucks.
Yeah yeah, you go. You signed to a major label, he says,
yeah, we got no money right right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah it is. It can be a dirty business, sets for sure.
Yeah, so I can I can see why you got disillusioned with it.
Um listen, Oh, this has been a wonderful Conrad. We learned
a lot and we went in some directions I wasn't expecting, which is always
a nice surprise. Um, you know, I love talking about the music,
but other aspects of the music industry too is great. Um, but
we do want to make sure people know where to find you online, your
your band, uh bees DeLux and if you have any shows coming up in
the area that you want to you know, we have listeners online from all
over, but any any specific shows you want us to know about anything at
all, social media, whatever you can. You can find us on Facebook
as Beast Deluxe and you can find our website beast deluxe dot com. And
our next show is a no of a show matinee at the Porch Southern the
Southern what's it Cooled Porch Southern Fair and Duke Joint in Medford. And it's
a matinee okay. And we released a video of Jamie Lee Curtis begging us
to put out a matinee show. Really yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah,
And we're on Instagram and Twitter and Masdon and all those things. So she
was at she was at late the Grammys or something like that, and she
was begging Bruce Springstein to stay a matinee. She goes to bed at seven
in the evening. Yeah, yeah, So we cripped the video and put
our name in there. It's brilliant. I love it. I love it
all right, very good. And the website, of course is beslocks dot
com. And uh, Conrad, this has been wonderful. Thank you again
so much, my friend for coming in the Thank you Jen and Matt,
thanks for having me absolutely and we will we will end the show with one
more of your songs, but I will let you pick. We played beer.
We opened the program today with song number nine, and then of course
we played umu flat Earth Conspiracy earlier. I think I'll let you dodge the
longest track because that you'll get mad at me if you play, but play
a short track called Blues for Cameroon, Blues for cameraon my favorite football team.
Okay, um oh there it is yep. Oh, by the way,
flat Earth conspiracy? What? Why? Why is it called that?
Did you listen to the lyrics? Yeah, but I was. I was
distracted doing other stuff while I was playing Is it? I mean? Is
that literally? What it's about? It's written in response to all of the
nut jobs on the internet. Nice. I will revisit that song later in
the weekend. Play it again now, yeah, yeah, yeah, no
kidding? Very cool? All right, but we will end with Blues for
Cameroon. Uh, Jenny, did you want to plug anything, your website
or anything. Absolutely. You can check me out at Gencoffee dot com,
j E N n c O fei dot com. Look for my writings on
the Mighty, and stay tuned for more information on my battle with the health
insurance companies. Yes, yes, all right, very good, All right,
so we're gonna end with this, Conrad, thank you again, and
this is Blues for Cameroon from the band Bees Deluxe