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 bees Delocks. 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 move 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 a pretty
fair Yes, I'll be down. When did you are 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 that 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 walked
through to the bathroom. So we're playing. Jonathan greg and his band are
all at the bar drinking. They come back, all their guitars have 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,
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 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 rehearsal studio, Yeah, 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 bands tonight, 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's 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, and 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 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 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, you do. You
run into it where someone will has anyone ever come up here 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 for 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 Jimi Hendrix out of 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 there's something in the 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. Our friend DJ Steve is in the chat room,
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 the 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. Plane. 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 the 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. They're 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's still going strong. That 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 I have been late eighties, sir, 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 Racodesk are 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 A and R or anything.
Everything was recataloging. Yeah. And the final straw for me was there was
a bank Gallant Drunk. Gallant Drunk were Morrissey's boyfriend and his pals, and
Sire Records convinced my boss that we should put out two albums by Gallon Drunk
because they were going to tour opening for Morrissey and we were going to sell
fifty thousand copies of each album and that Conrad had to put them out in
five days, meaning 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 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 the 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 Phillips 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 Rycho
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
who 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 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 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 CHPT, I'll ask you some questions and
look, i'm so 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 be at a juice 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. But AI not only remembers it, but he's learning
it and teaching itself that. 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 going to 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 I think it
might have been at Facebook or Meta or whatever you call it. Now did
you see Listen, We've talked about it on the show. These these two
AI bots or computers, they were talking to each other. Do you know
the story I'm talking about that 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
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 go. Our friend Mike Doyle is on the line.
High 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 differ you know, remedies for what your ailment
is, et cetera, et cetera, and hours it could save and all
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, um says hey, we should pause here for a moment um,
that worries me. You know what I mean, I say, all the
cop he's worried. Sure, oh yeah, there's a lot of people,
a lot of people were 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 he'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 downloaded 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 the 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, we're all be dead, and
the lawyers will an they'll be AI lawyers probably. Yeah. Yeah, we
don't need all right, Well, good talking to you guys, and Jenny
if I don't see you, happy Happy Mother's Day. Oh, thank you
so much. That was nice, very nice. Thanks for the call.
Mike 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 Napster and everything everything becoming digital and the effects
that that had on the music industry just really just changing it foundation. 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. Ye. 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 SiGe of 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've said years ago, wouldn't it be great to
have, for instance, another led Zeppelin album when they've all passed away?
Well, I will help us do that. Interesting, I'm not talking about
great event. Let's just think of that. Let's thinking the same thing,
don't we already have that, so 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 that 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 seen was in the Senate being at a
committee meeting. I talk about this on the show. We're talking to him,
they go, how do you make money? It's like 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 technology 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 yea,
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
true Frank zapp Or 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'st an all originals album by Best de Luxe.
Yes, and I thought it was hilarious that we would stop the album with
a song called song number nine. 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 two 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 uh, this is a track
called beer, and this is from the band bees Deluxe. We have Conrad
War in studio with us. Uh, let's give this a spin and then
well I we'll continue our discussion. Here we go. I want you,
but I need a beer. I need you, but I won't a bear.
It's cold outside, but I need to be I like you, but
I need a beer. I remember you that I want a beare. It's
stalk outside, but I need to be time. I really need a beer.
I am longer. It's talking here. Oh that's great. That is
beer from bees Delocks. What a cool song. Jenny is here at the
news desk. I am it was awesome. Yeah, yeah, And on
the couch. We have Conrad War from bees 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 drumma and Jim Gilday is the bass
player and he sings as well. Oh okay, so it's a four piece
of three vocals, gotcha, gotcha? So you take turns on the lead
vocals. It's mostly me because okay, because I'm a whack joke. And
we tour 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 your tour dates
online. Actually, um at bees DeLux dot com. Is this site?
Right? Um? Yeah? I like the website. Who does the website?
Did you do that? Yeah? Do you build out? Yeah?
I'm kind of a website nerd. So I noticed. Yeah, I like
the designer, 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 obviously. H So you brought us uh this single Nitro
uh and it's got industrial espionage the instrumental version. I should let me put
if you put the camera on me, I've got them right up in front
of my computer. Oh. Perfect, Yeah, cameras nobody told me.
Cool. Oh, Mike Doyle, Mike is calling us back. Hey Mike,
Hey, sorry, say 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 instrumentals in that song are
off the chats. Man. I don't want him to get too big of
a head. The singing was good, but the instrumentals were off the chats.
No, right there with you under understood the start. That was excellent.
That's all I wanted to say. Thank job, it was excellent.
Thanks Mike, all right, thanks Mike, all right, very good.
Yeah. I was going to 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
my 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 like. So for
instance, Nitro the Green Man, he's actually called Anxious Man. It is
by this wonderful artist name Wendy Brusick 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 begged her 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 It 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 because 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
yeah, whereas the CD you can make fifty right, right, and a
cassette you can make ten, yeah, and an you can't make yeah cassettes.
I was, um, 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 hiss. I don't know they've got cassette
place in their cause, yeah, 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 Vito 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 u 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, um, 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 well, it's immensely portable. But the two that you missed
that went away like the dinosaurs were the mini disc Sony, which had a
bubble memory so you could jog and it wouldn't skip, 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 out 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 artist said, 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 seed Equality sound on it. Okay? Was that?
Did that ever make it to the United States? I had to make
those damn things that rycauld is no kidding, yeah, because I don't even
remember those are remember the mini discs? I don't remember, but I don't
remember those digital comeback to stow that boat in flames 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 indexing on that stuff,
you know, oh yeah, it was just it 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 laser discs. 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, laser discs 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
may be one 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 little boxes. Get 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 Netflix 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, uh,
you know, streaming has really changed a technology. It's as charge 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,
no, kid, ain't. 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 de Locks. How long is the because I assume
the lineup has changed over the years, right, occasionally we'd 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 a 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, you're all pile into
a van. Yeah. We we we borrow either borrow a VW Bus or
a Ford Transit or rent a Forward 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 and 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 and we'll buy it back when it's finished.
Of course when it finished, they couldn't buy the invagory back. Yea.
So now they're charging us four hunderbucks a day for a four transit. Wow,
so we're gonna have to do this on roller skates. Yeah. Yeah,
that's 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 gonna tour anymore. It's gotten Steve Steve Eis 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 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 Rolling Stones played, they would make twenty five to fifty
bucks ahead on merchandise, okay, because people would go in and they'd buy
the two hundred dollar leather jacket, right right, yeah, and that's where
they made the money back. So, which is kind of unusual 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 survide. Now.
Yeah, if you look at something like Bad Bad Hat, they when
they go up and down the country, they're selling T shirts to pay for
gas and pizza. M M, 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 she's 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 band 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 a band doing Bo
Diddley songs. They were in Greece. They got a deal. They cut
a song called Walking on Sunshine Katrino in the Waves. Yeah, that's that's
Bo Diddley and Kimberly Rue is playing. Oh no kid, 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
branded 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 you can overexposure would kill you in anything? Yeah? Yeah,
because that was their only hit, right, Katrina in 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, that's it 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 you in a way that the super collectors would want. Okay. So
we had a release called Yiktodosa, which is by Zapper and it's called it
stands for you can't do that on stage anymore, Okay. 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, So it
was really about that kind of packaging. On One spooth 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 and then
shuffle them and distribute them. 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 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're the one who 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 he 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 Rykodiscus, an original artist, and
he formed a band called Sugar Okay, 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 okay and printed
the name of the band on the copple 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 publish. Yeah. Interesting.
Um, so, I mean, 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 him? 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 Robbi Kreeger of The Doors. If you're not 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 boss,
a very nice guy named Don Rose, and he had a desks 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 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 too 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 sign with orsol artists or whomever they signed with the label and
U 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. Yeah, I've got tracks and warehouses in London
at E M I 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 band called The Planets. They headlined CBS.
They were huge, and he cut an album. They were one of the
first buyerracial 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
and 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. And from the artist perspective,
it's it's bad luck or good luckpenning on your timing. Yeah, right,
seriously, I mean when you remember if you listen to Nora Jones,
now you go, it's good. But her album came out when there was
nothing like it, right, the true Yeah oh 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 it 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.
And yeah, I remember a meeting of bands 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 signed to a major label. It
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 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. About 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 bees Deluxe, and you can find
our website beast Deluxe dot com. And our next show is a no cover
show matinee at the Porch Southern, the Southern What's It Cooled Porch Southern Fair
and Duke Joint in Medford, Okay. 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, oh, no, I'm kidding. Yeah wow.
And we're on Instagram and Twitter and mastadon and all those things. So she
was at she was at late the the Grammys or something like that, and
she was begging Bruce Springsteen to stay on mat and a she goes to bed
at seven in the evening. Yeah, 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 bizelos dot com. And uh, Conrad, this has been wonderful.
Thank you again so much, my friend for coming in. 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.
Uh. 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 shorter track called blues for Cameroon, lose
for Camera 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 and 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. H Jenny, did you want to plug
anything, your website or anything. Absolutely. You can check me out at
Gencoffee dot com, j E. N ncofi 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 B's Deluxe