Speaker 1: Hey, this is Cameron from Vancouver, Canada. Welcome back to
Shirley Fans. Over the next couple of weeks, my friend
and former college roommate and fellow Tesla fan Jason Colin,
along with his friend and podcast partner Dee Graves, whom
is usually on the right side of these battles, are
going to compare the raw soul and hard rock of
two great bands and two great albums, The Black Crows
Shake Your Moneymaker versus Tesla's the Great Radio Controversy, admittedly
one of my favorite bands and albums from back in
the early nineties and still to this day. So it's
time to hang tough. This ain't no flight to nowhere.
We're on our way to paradise and that's just the
way it is. Plug it in, crank it up, and
let the battle begin.
Speaker 2: Hey, Shirley Fans, we are coming at you live today,
just a couple of modern day cowboys, bringing you a
new episode every week and getting better every show. So
if you love songs like we do, hang tough with
us as we travel up Heaven's trail, discussing each of
these songs track by track, making magic and telling it
the way it is that's so good man from that
last episode.
Speaker 3: True, thank you.
Speaker 4: You know, days go by and live drags on, but
the podcast keeps on rocking. So hey, you know, people
don't know this, but a lot of times we build
these matchups in advance.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: And this matchup, the Black Crows versus Tesla was supposed
to be last year, celebrating nineteen eighty nine. Yeah, but
one of those that kind of got moved and it
got pushed, and then it got and then we're like, hey,
black Crows is nineteen ninety, so we can celebrate nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: So we have.
Speaker 4: Literally been waiting over a year to complete this matchup,
and this week you try to throw me a curveball
and say.
Speaker 3: Hey, what do you think of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So we we okay, So welcome back to the
Shirley Podcast. Everybody. We're here for an episode on Tesla's
great radio controversy. We are compared it from last week's
episode to the Black Crows, Shake your money Maker, and
I got done with the Black Crows, And in my
mind for that whole year, I was thinking that Tesla
was much more of an acoustic bluesy sounding kind of band,
because that's just my memory, I hadn't. I mean, I
loved them in the nineties. We covered their songs in
my band. I've got a story that I'm gonna telling
here in just a second. That's, you know, a great
moment with Tesla. But in my head, they were much
more of a bluesy acoustic sound like Black Crows were right.
Speaker 4: You were brought up on five man Acoustical Jam, is
what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, that's what happened. I was just like, I
guess my memories kind of were really mostly inspired by
five Man Acoustical Jam, which also came out in nineteen nineties.
It did, and so it it like this one the
great radio controversy are right there on. I mean, I mean,
we think about the singles were hitting their thirty five
year anniversary for just about all of them. Sure, yeah,
for sure, same time as Shake Your Money Maker came out,
And so when I heard this album, I was like,
whoa this. I mean, first few songs out of the gate,
I'm just thinking, this is like, it's like hard rock, metal,
hard rock. Man, it is not the bluesy stuff I
was expecting at all. Now you get a little further
into the album and that changes. But I was like, oh, dude,
I'm sorry. I made the mistake. We need to do
five men acoustical jam. It's nineteen ninety and you're like, no,
we've been prepping.
Speaker 1: I have been.
Speaker 2: I prep it way way more in advance than I do.
If I prep as much as you do, I get
overloaded and then I just it's a mess and eight
hours long and it's terrible. Yes, so I'm happy that
we're doing the great radio controversy. We'll touch on the
five man acoustical jam a little bit, undoubtedly as we
go through this. But yes, we're here today talk about
something that we've been anticipating for a while.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you how you got into Tesla,
how you discovered them. But before we do, Yeah, we
need to give a shout out to We've got a
couple of new Patreon members. I want to give a
shout out to. We've got our new friend, mister Mark Myers.
Mark Myers, executive producer for today's episode. He's a pastor, yes,
said he incorporated our Lady Lady Lady Matchup song podcast.
Speaker 2: Really to his sermon, Yeah, I'm really curious as to
how he made a sermon out of that, and I
texted you and I was like, had we called that
lady on lady action that I wanted to, he probably
would not have been able to issue in his sermon.
But Mark, thank you.
Speaker 4: Yes, we are honored to be preaching if you will
here at the Shirley can't be serious podcasts. Yeah, and
we also need to shout out Rich the Union guy.
Speaker 2: Rich the Union Guy. Hi, Rich, thank you so much
for joining our Patreon family. Texas back man, I hit
you up, give me a text. Let's hear from you, man.
Let's here go And guys, if you want to be
one of our Patreon members, it's very simple. All you
have to do is go to patreon dot com slash
Shirley Podcast. You can sign up for free and get
involved in some of the conversations we do, polls and
stuff like that, and then for as little as five
bucks a month, you get access to all of our
one hit Wonder episodes and other kind of novelty songs
that we do, which are really some of our our
most fun episodes. And if you decide to be especially generous,
we'll start sending you gifts with your name and the
Shirley you Can't Be Serious podcast logo on it and stuff.
Speaker 4: Speaking of the Shirley Can't Be Serious logo, how's the
merchant store coming?
Speaker 2: I am working on it. Etsy decided that it didn't
like us, So I'm given. I'm given the preferbial signs.
Signs everywhere there's signs that Etsy means we don't want
to do business with you. So I'm gonna I'm opening
a Shopify account. I'll do it, okay, So tell me
how did you get involved in Tesla? Like, how'd you
find out about them? So in the nineties, I was
we were doing cover songs, right, I was in a band,
and we were covering all kinds of things that were
popular at the time, including the Black Crows. I mentioned
that our very first show, our very first song was
hard to handle at the end of the show, came
out in the middle of the audience and with our
acoustic guitars and did she talks to angels and patients
by guns and roses. But I had been playing guitar
for a while at this time, I mean a few
years anyway, And I'm a guy who likes classical music.
I was raised on not just bugs, money, but hooked
on the classes. I really I got into classical music
quite a bit right, and I hear this thing on
the radio that I'm like, this sounds like a classical guitar.
This is I'm not used to hearing this kind of
thing on the radio. And it was love song by Tesla,
and I was like, I've got to find out how
to play this song. So I went on a mission
to find out how to play this song. Ended up
getting several of the albums, obviously, including the five man
Acoustical Jam. Then I got very lucky. One evening, I
had a buddy who was working at a bar. This
is back when Tesla was kind of on their downslide,
just maybe a yearish before they broke up, and so
they were playing smaller clubs and he was bartending at
this club and he's like, Hey, do you want to
get backstage for the Tesla show.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: So I brought my guitars with me. I was like,
I'm going to get my guitars signed. This is going
to be great. I watched the show. It was fantastic.
They you know, at the as they're closing out the
first part of the act. The second part of the
act is they all go sit up front on the
stage and do their five man acoustical jam. Yeah. Bit
it was kind of like the best of both worlds there.
And then I went backstage and you know, waited. There
were several other people back there waiting, some of them
very hot, the rock star lifestyle, right it is. And
Brian and the drummer Troy came back at that point,
and they're not very cool, Like Brian was kind of douchey,
like yeah, you know, just kind of sarcastic and not cool.
When I was trying to talk to him about stuff.
I kind of understand now after having read his book
that he's dealing with some issues and struggles and stuff.
But you know, okay, we all maybe he had a
bad day. Well I won't fault him before that, of course.
Then they leave and a little while later, Jeff Keith
and Frank Handon come back and I've gotten the first
two guys to sign the guitar. I get Jeff to
sign the guitar. I get Frank to sign the guitar,
and he's like, hey, man, hang out and play if
you want to play. And I was like, are you
kidding me, And so I had my twelve string there
with me, and he you know, talked to a few people,
and then he came over and sat down with me
and we sat there and played guitar for an hour
and a half, like he had just done this full show.
And he sits down and plays with me, and we're
playing Tesla songs to start, you know, and then he's like, hey,
play me something that you wrote. And I was like okay,
and I'm like playing some chef and he's like, okay,
slow down, slow down, and he's listening to it. And
then he starts playing lead over a song that I've
got and I'm just like, that is amazing is being
blown like, and I'm like, after an hour of this,
I'm like, man, you're it's so kind of you to
spend this much time with me and just hang out
and be so cool. I just really, you know, this
is amazing. You're a great guy. And he's like when
I was young, I met Eddie van Halen and he
sat and played with me for an hour or so
after his show and was super kind. And I said,
if I ever am this big, I'm gonna be nice
like Eddie was, and so he was inspired by Eddie
Van Halen to do that.
Speaker 4: It's like, just like Eddie Van Halen's your guitar granddaddy.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, yeah, six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's incredible. No, that's amazing story.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's been an amazing story my entire life
until yesterday when you called me and said you blew it. Dude.
Speaker 4: Okay, I did call you. You you answered the vone. You're like, hey,
I'm You're on speaker and I said, d you blew it?
Speaker 2: You blew it? Yeah, I had no idea what you're
talking about.
Speaker 4: So what we found out later by doing our discoveries.
Tesla hired the replacement for Tommy Skio, their other guitarist,
the other one other than Frank Hannon. They found him
on my Space. His name's Dave Rude.
Speaker 2: Good guitarist.
Speaker 4: But you could be touring with Tesla today.
Speaker 2: Well, you said, you told me at the time that
he had played with them backstage, like that he had
done the exact same thing that I did. Yes, and
then they're like, hey, come join the band, and I'm like,
what I know? When was this? You're like two thousand
and four I'm like, okay, Well I missed that by like,
you know, eight years, So I'm okay, and I was
your timing was off? Yeah, yeah, I mean I was.
I was nineteen at the time that I played with him.
Speaker 4: I mean chicks and drugs and money, fame.
Speaker 2: Yeah, could have had it all, could have been a contender,
but a bum.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, that's a great story.
Speaker 2: Well how about you. How'd you get into these guys?
Speaker 4: I mean I discovered him on MTV basically, I Love
Song was my entry point, and then I went backwards
to Mechanical Resonance and I absolutely love Mechanical Residence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see here.
Speaker 4: Mechanical Residence. Great radio controversy. Five men Acoustic Jam was
very important to me, and then Psychotic Supper when I
got to college. You know, people forget about Psychotic Supper
after listening to these guys talk. It's like universal that
that's their favorite Tesla album.
Speaker 2: All these guys.
Speaker 4: That album was released in that same pocket of time
in late ninety one, with Nevermind and Usual Illusion and
the Black Album from Metallica and No More Tears and ten.
We just had a ton of great music and it
tends to kind of get Forgotten. But that's a great
album with great songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely it does.
Speaker 4: All right, enough about us, I mean, let's talk about
these songs, man. All right, well, let's dive in. So
just to quick overview the album, go ahead. The Great
Radio Controversy is the second album by Tesla. I was
released in February of nineteen eighty nine, and the term
the Great Radio Controversy has to do with this battle
between Nicolette Tesla and Thomas Edison over whether radio should
be profitable or free. I don't really tell me about.
Speaker 2: So this is more about the who was the inventor,
because Marconi is the guy like Edison had taken a
lot of Tesla's ideas. Tesla worked for General Electric, and
basically Edison would take Tesla's ideas, patent them and then
make them his own. He was notorious for like, once
he's gotten the patent, he's soon anybody who tries to
do anything similar to what he's got the patent on. Right,
So that's part one, But part two is Marconi basically
does the exact same thing with Tesla. Tesla has essentially
perfected the radio to where it's a genuinely usable thing.
I mean, it's got a long history but genuinely usable thing.
But Marconi rushes the plans to the patent office and
files first, and for the longest time it was like, oh,
Marconi was the inventor of the radio. But it turns
out there was a lawsuit over it, and the court
found that Tesla was the legitimate guy who had invented
the radio, and that was the Great radio controversy.
Speaker 4: If you want to know more about the Great Rio
controversiic go listen to the song Edison's Medicine off a
psychotics Ever. Yeah, that's the extent of my knowledge. But
as I understand it, Tesla died penniless, and essentially he
is the model for the crazy mad scientist like long hair,
dirty thing, your nails, penniless.
Speaker 2: He wacky. He was wacky, like, for example, mechanical resonance.
That that comes from a theory of his, that like
everything has a resonant sound like a vibration, right, a resonance,
and that if you, if you, and the entire earth
has the resonance, and so if you played something at
the right resonance, you could literally split the earth. So
inter just just a theory of his, Yes, bad scientists stuff. Yeah,
have you seen the Prestige? Maybe David Bowie plays Nicola
Tesla really yeah, it's got it's a it is a
Christopher Nolan movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that may I may need to rewatch that one.
Speaker 2: That's a great one. It's got Christian Bale and Jack
Hugh Jackman in it. I need to go in Scarlett
Johansson in some skimpy laingerie. Yeah, there you go. All right, Okay,
are you ready?
Speaker 4: First song on the album, Let's dive in Song number one.
Speaker 2: Hanged Tough. Here we go.
Speaker 5: Oh, sorry, I knew what she knew.
Speaker 4: Something weird is going on there.
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry about that, everybody. Another nineties throwback for you,
needles scratch.
Speaker 4: I believe that's Hanging Tough.
Speaker 2: All right, here we go Song number one from Tesla.
This time hang Tough.
Speaker 5: It's more like it.
Speaker 4: Whoo kicking ass and taking names. I mean, what a
great kickoff song. It's got that bold bass intro. Yeah,
it's it's the perfect like, welcome to this album. We're
gonna kick your butt for the next seventy minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've got some amazing like speed metal lead
in there. The brilliance of two guys who were equipped
to play both lead and rhythm guitar so that they
can bounce back and forth off of each other, or
in this scenario, play the exact same thing at the
exact same time. Sometimes just builds that big round sound
with the power metal behind it. It's it's great. I
love it.
Speaker 4: This was the second single released April of nineteen eighty nine.
This video was directed by our man Nigel Dick never
forget his name right. We've talked how many times we
talked about it? Allow a bunch he did a bunch
of those videos in the eighties. So here's the deal.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: He did shout Mother's Talk, Everybody Wants to Rule the World.
He did Sweet Child of Mine, Welcome to the Jungle.
He did do They Know It's Christmas? By band Aid.
Speaker 2: I believe he also did like hit Me Baby One
More Time? Too right?
Speaker 4: It did Hit Me Baby one More Time?
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 4: He did down in a Hole by Alison Chains. Oh nice,
he did Patience, He did Rocket by def Leppard. The
guy's done everything. The cool thing about this video is
that like that bass part in the video, Yeah, you
have a little boy who's like playing with this, like
Telegraph Machine and it looks exactly like the album cover,
which I think is.
Speaker 2: A really cool nod. It's fantastic. So it's funny you
mentioned def.
Speaker 4: Leppard, right, yeah, oh yeah, Okay, So these guys they
started off well, I mean, Brian was in a band.
Speaker 2: Called Rage at first. Yes, he's the guy that was
playing in bands the longest as a continuous member of
this band. I mean, you basically got three core guys
who are always in Tesla, right, but there's some ins
and outs throughout that process. But Brian and Frank the
other guy who's Frank Cannon, who's in the Brian.
Speaker 4: Wheat Frank can your buddy, Frank Cannon, My buddy, Frank Cannon, Right,
my birthday buddy too, Right, he's both of us. October third,
Steve Rayvaughan also October third, by the way, Tommy Lee
also October third. It's a heck of a band, you guess.
Speaker 2: We can just call ourselves the Libras and d and
the Laborers. So Frank and Brian in nineteen eighty one
they go to see a def Leppard show, right, what, yeah,
the High and Dry tour, right, yes, And this is
how different things were in that in those days, right
number one def Leppard wasn't pour some sugar on me
big yet that's right, but still not bad. I mean
they still got they got Mutt Lang producing their own.
They're doing a big tour, yes, and so Frank and
Brian and this guy named Gosh I think it was
Henry or something. They all go together and then after
the show, Frank has to leave because he's only like
six ten years old or whatever, and so Brian.
Speaker 4: Mom's gonna ground me if I don't get home.
Speaker 2: Brian and Henry are hanging out by the tour bus
and outwalks Pete Willis and Rick Allen the drummer yes, yes,
still has two arms. And they walk out and his buddy,
Brian's buddy is like, hey, guys, and they're like, hey,
I got some weed and they're like oh yeah. They're
like yeah, you want to get high?
Speaker 4: And he's like, yeah, we're staying over at the holiday
and he tells him.
Speaker 2: Where the where they're staying in the hotel room and everything,
and they go up and they hang out with those
guys and get stoned. I mean, can you imagine any band,
any of def Leopard's significance, going, oh yeah, our hotels
over here, these guys we just met three seconds ago. Head,
we've got some weed. Yeah right, wow were there? Yeah?
And then five years later they were opening.
Speaker 4: For them on the Hysteria tour and that was the thing,
the biggest time, I mean it was the def Lepper
was ruling the world at that time. Yeah, so backstage two,
I mean, leading off incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know I heard Brian Wheat talk about Frank Hannon.
So Brian Whet was in this band called Rage and
he had it, you know, some of his buddies and
they played keggers.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that the buddies' names were Larry, Stacey, Nick,
and Wendell.
Speaker 4: On guitar once again lost to the sands of time,
but he had been hearing whispers of this kid named
Frank who is like fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: It could really play the guitar well. So they were
practicing in the back of like an ice house, like
an ice factory. That was their practice space. And the
guy who owned the place says, hey, my girlfriend's son
plays guitar and he'd liked to come jamming. What And
they're like okay, and he's like they're like, does he
have any experience? He's like now, he's only fourteen, and
they're like what, yeah, whatever, you know whatever.
Speaker 4: Brian is kind of a nobs kind of guy, right, Yeah,
you didn't have time.
Speaker 2: He'll tell you to f off if he wants you to. Yes,
that's right. And so they're like, yeah, okay, whatever, because
the guy is letting him use the space to practice in. Right,
So he says, Frank rolls up in a forty seven
Chevy Classic looking like a freaking gangster, right, and he
gets out of the car and he's this skinny blonde
kid and when they hear him play, all of a sudden,
Brian's like, well, Wendell's out, Frank's in. Yeah, and that's
how fast it was. And you said, you said that
what his thought was when he saw him play. Yeah,
he said.
Speaker 4: I looked at him and I said, this kid has
been touched by God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how good he is. He got out of
the forty seven Chevy with a Fender Stratocaster and a
Marshall amp And in Brian Wheats words, if you had
a Marshall amp back then, you were a bad mother.
Speaker 4: That's great man, that's great. So that's the beginning of Tesla.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I mean, little by little, those guys dropped
off Rage became not Rage anymore. They started another band
and they called it earth Shaker, and they need a
new singer. And these girls say, hey, we heard this
guy singing like karaoke or something, and he's really good.
You should come. You should let him come play with you.
So this is Jeff Keith.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's kind of legendary around here.
Speaker 2: He grew up in Oklahoma.
Speaker 4: He graduated from Idabella High School, which is little bitty
town in southeastern Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was in he was I think he was
in Texarkana for a while because he mentioned that. I
remember him mentioning that during the concert I saw back
in ninety five or ninety six, whenever it was.
Speaker 4: You remember the last time we talked, talked about Texarkana, Texas.
No smoking the band because that's where they were going
to get the six point beer.
Speaker 2: That's all right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So anyway, he's thirsty dummy. So Jeff Keith Oklahoma native,
and I might as well tell this story now, but
he played a show in Oklahoma City and I bet
you a mill bucks. It was a day before or
a day after your fort Smith show. But he lost
his class ring during the show, right, and he's up
there singing doing whatever, and he goes whoop, falls off,
and he tells the crowd He's like, hey, guys, I
lost my ring.
Speaker 2: Will you guys give it back to me?
Speaker 4: You know, And instead of most hard rock shows either
getting pelted in the forehead with it or somebody just says,
no way, I'm stealing this Jeff Keith's ring, they pass
it back to him.
Speaker 2: Oh nice.
Speaker 4: So the concert I was with with Patreon memmer Cameron Eckert,
he mentioned that story again and said, that's why Oklahoma
people are the best, Because I lose my ring. You
guys passed it up handed back to me. Other places
I got hit in the forehead with it.
Speaker 2: By the way, since you mentioned Patreon member, I will
just say last episode when we did The Black Crows,
we did our own little introduction there that was not
the original twice as hard that you heard entering that episode.
That was me playing a guitar built by Patreon, remember
Kevin Davis, along with Patreon member Gotier Pirozac playing bass
and drums and mixing it all together. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you guys very much. Not only are you
Patreon members, your band members too. That's so cool, man,
that's so cool. Before we move off of this song,
I want to just make a comment about the video.
So number one, these guys are still pretty new in
the MTV realm. The drummer Troy always looks like he's
going to the gym. So he's wearing shorts, like he
clearly got this from Rick Allen. Rick Allen's like, I
don't have time for leather pants.
Speaker 2: I'm wearing shorts, right, it's hot behind the drums.
Speaker 4: It's hot, and I'm wearing a T shirt and shorts
and that's it. So Troy's looking like he's going to
the gym. Jeff Keith is wearing his signature jeans with
the handprints on them that reappear and become a little
bit more iconic during the Love Song video. But when
I read the comments on YouTube, people were like, I
was a cancer survivor. I played this song to inspire me.
My marriage was on the rocks. We played this song
to inspire us. And I know for a fact I
lived in Oklahoma City in nineteen ninety five after the bombing,
this was the first song that the local rock radio
station played after nothing but news coverage of the Oklahoma
City bombing and saying, hey, Oklema City hangked off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the yeah mentality of never giving up. And
it's great because Jeff Keith would write the lyrics for
these songs. These guys got lumped in with the hair
metal guys, right, but they weren't right. They were They
were absolutely not. They weren't wearing the black leather like
you said. They're wearing their jeans or their shorts or shirts.
They they got their hair teased up, just like Axel
Rose did for the first video, but after that they're like,
we're not doing that now. I can see with Frank
and Tommy Skio that they got the long hair they
look like and they play like those guys too. But
these lyrics they have more meaning than you know, girls
at the strip club or doing heroin or other stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, generally positive lyrics, which was kind of unusual
at that time.
Speaker 2: Well and Brian said that that Jeff Keith is just
always that positive guy, like always the look on the
bright side, How do we have fun? How do we
make this good? That kind of guy and he just
seems like a genuinely great dude.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album, Yeah, is a song called
Lady Luck.
Speaker 2: I struggle with whether he's actually talking about a real
female or if he's just talking about luck, luck and
good luck and the fact that he didn't get to
get any.
Speaker 4: When he says, how do you do she said, I don't,
I don't. This song was the song they led their
shows off at the Residency in Las Vegas. Right, look,
what a perfect song to lead off in Las Vegas? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 4: I listened to a podcast this week and a bunch
of call in Tesla fans. A lot of people had
this in their top five song of like all time
favorite Tesla songs, which I found interesting. It's not a single.
It's a great song though hard rocker.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I wanted to get back to Jeff Keith real Quick
born in Texarkana, grew up in Idabel moved to northern
California after he graduated from high school. He drove a
septic truck. Oh right, he drove a septic truck. He's
talking about this. He said, we're number one job. Well,
he said, we're number one in the number two business. Uh, huh.
But he he would pop in tapes like cassette tapes
and sing.
Speaker 2: To Fogat was his favorite. There you go. Yeah, and
five Man Electrical Jam.
Speaker 4: Makes perfect sense, right. He was in f f A
in high school.
Speaker 2: Future Farmers of America, Future.
Speaker 4: Farmers of America, and that was his That's the direction
he was going. And now he's like a multi.
Speaker 2: Rockstar, rockstar. Yeah. I like this song too. It kind
of is a sandwich song for me though, because I
really love the first one and I love this next
one coming up? Can we jump into this one? Let's
get it, okay. Third song on the album, Heaven's Trail
or No Way Out? You know, I freaking love this summer. Oh,
I love this song. It is a banger, dude. So
this is another one that was on the Five Man
Acoustical Jam album. This is the second one or third,
because the first one it's kind of a mashup of
coming at You Live and truck sh Yeah grateful dead, right,
But this one. I love this. I love it electric,
but I love it acoustic even more. Listening to to
him playing that slide on the guitar sounds fantastic.
Speaker 4: You know, when I watched the video. So I love
the song too, and the version on five an acoustical
jam is amazing. But in the video for the studio
version of this song, Frank Hannon, it's so cool.
Speaker 5: He moves.
Speaker 4: He plays two different guitars like he's got he still
has one strapped on while he's playing another one and
it's the intro and then when it needs to go electric,
it gets after it with the other one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this is one of their signature songs. Now in
the video they have like signs that say no machines.
Speaker 2: It's kind of their mantra.
Speaker 4: In the studio, it's it's raw rock and roll. They
don't like double tracking when they're on stage. They're playing
live guitars.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: They're kind of critical of people who have a lot
of stuff going on in the background that's not really playing.
And I'm thinking to myself, they're kind of describing def Leppard,
and I am the biggest deaf Leppard f But def
Leppard was hugely instrumental in their career, dragging them around
on the Hysteria tour. But def Leppard plays tons of
effects like on rocket and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Sure, and they're and they're a brick by brick Lang
style of album too, that's right, which these guys are
definitely not now this and this is good. This is
a good segue because we're talking five men acoustical jam
and that kind of concept. Right. So they are at
the Bammis, which is the Bay Area Grammys, right, and
they do an acoustic version of love Song, you know,
on stage for the crowd, right, yes. And so there's
a lady in the crowd at that moment named Queenie Taylor,
and she owns a club with Boss Skaggs. Remember Boss
Skags Toto episode all of that, Yes, right, They own
a club called Slims. And she sees them do this
acoustic version of love Song, and she gets a hold
of their managers, who we'll talk about soon, and she's like,
I would love for them to come and do like
a whole hour and a half set at Slims. And
so their their managers are Peter Minch and Cliff Bernstein,
and those guys will be huge, we'll talk about them
in a second. But they were motivational in the right
way at the right time, okay, Yes, And so when
Peter Minch comes to them and is like, they want
you to do this full hour and a half set.
Rian we just like, no, we are a rock band.
We're not going to go do acoustical music. That's ridiculous, right,
And Peter Minch is like, yeah, you probably can't do
it anyway, and they're like, we aren't going to do it,
and so they put together the hour and a half
set that ultimately is so popular at that location that
they start doing it in multiple locations. They record several versions,
but the one that we end up with is the
one that they did in Philadelphia. Now, don't you even
worry in Philadelphia, right, We're just talking about tours at
this point. But then the song Signs, which is originally
by five Man Electrical Jam, it comes out as a
single and it gets a lot of airplay, and so
the radio company is like, hey, we want to do
a full record of this. Let's listen to Signs.
Speaker 6: Really quicks a lot of big people.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're talking about one of the big songs
of the nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's obviously very raw, right, this is a
concert song. And when it became so popular, they were like,
we want a full album and we're gonna take it.
We're gonna produce it. We're gonna overdub some stuff, and
they're like, no, no, this is We're not gonna do that.
If you're gonna make this an album, we wanted to
be completely the way that it was. Well. As it
turned out, the best show that they had that they
thought they had to pick from was this Philadelphia show.
But for that set, somehow Brian Weat's bass did not
get recorded. Everything else got recorded, but not Brian Wheat's bass, okay,
and so they're like, we gotta we gotta have you
come in and overdub it. It just has to be
that way, right, Yeah, And he's like this is kind
of cool. He's like, Okay, I'm gonna do it, but
we're not gonna stop and start and re record. We're
gonna start the tape. I'm gonna start playing, and I'm
gonna play it straight through just like I'm sitting on
stage the way they did it. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 4: By the way, the motivation of their managers to use
that psychology, it reminds me of Smoking the band. Every
He's like, oh, that's great psychology. Why don't you just
say something about my mother, your mother is so ugly.
You guys probably aren't good enough to pull this off,
and oh yeah, watch us. Yeah, and it becomes five
an acoustical.
Speaker 2: Jam, it becomes Sigence, becomes one of their biggest singles.
I would never have heard of the song except for them.
Most people think it's their song.
Speaker 4: And they began to realize that they were not rich
rock stars.
Speaker 2: They were poor rock stars. Like they were in debt
because they had spent all these money on videos and
tours and all of this other stuff, not realizing that's
all their money, Like all the money they make for
their concerts and their album sales is going to pay
for all of these things. So they weren't really making
very much. The five man Acoustical Jam pulls them out
of debt and makes them successful and lets them keep
on going. Oh that's cool, Yeah, I love it. By
the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's another song that I want to talk to
you about here in a minute, where they have basically
claimed it was by another artist. They covered it and
it has really since become theirs.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, talk about that then. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album is a song called be
a Man George Thurgood eat your heart out.
Speaker 2: Tell me you don't want to start clapping your hands
over your head on this one.
Speaker 4: I mean we're sitting there, we're just bobbing our heads.
Speaker 2: Such a good song, great crowd song, super smooth slide
on the guitar. Again, I mean, this kind of brings
it back to what I was expecting when I first
started listening to this Again this, I mean, who else
was playing other than George Thurgood and the Black Crows.
Who else was doing this? I can't think of anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So wanted to bring up Jeff Keith again about
him making the band. Okay, so you know he played
a karaoke bars. He was introduced by this girl whatever,
and they bring him on stage and he's so inexperienced.
He doesn't know how to operate the equipment. He doesn't
know how to hold the microphone.
Speaker 2: Never been on stage in his life, right, Yeah, And
so he's singing, and so Brian we thinks this guy sucks. Yes, yeah,
so he he would be so far away from his
microphone that you couldn't hear his voice. And so the guys,
you got guys who are running the board who are like, well,
we got to turn it up. Well, when they would
turn it up, that caused more feedback, so it's just
either getting all this squelchy feedback. You can't hear his vocal.
And after the show, Brian goes to Frank and he's like,
we gotta get rid of this guy. He sucks and
Frank is like, no, no, no, no, man. There was
one point and one song where we both leaned in
and sang the lyric at the same time, and I
heard him singing and he was amazing. We just got
to teach him how to use the microphone. I love it.
I love it. You know.
Speaker 4: Wed has called him since the best rock and roll
singer since Steven Tyler.
Speaker 2: That might be a bit of a stretch, but it's.
I mean, he's good. He really, he really is good.
Speaker 4: He's got that real strong rasp. Yeah, and I don't
know how he does it all these years, but him,
he's still out there kicking butt man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Okay, we're ready for the next song on the album.
Next song on the album Lazy.
Speaker 2: Days, Crazy Nights, a song about being a rock star.
Speaker 4: So this to me is the undiscovered gem on this album.
Speaker 2: That's great. I love it. I love Frank's chord choices
on so many of these songs, and this is one
of them.
Speaker 4: Fantastic, It bangs, it's got that kind of darker tone
to it. I saw a video on YouTube, I don't
know if it was an official video, where it was
kind of a fan made video. It's behind the scenes,
but it's also a live show and they're doing things
like they're in the swimming pool, they're riding a roller coaster,
they're playing and it just looks like a life that
you would love to.
Speaker 2: Have, you know what I mean, Yeah, the rock star
lifestyle when it's good. Because when it's good, it's really
really good. And it's bad, it's awful.
Speaker 4: Well, and it turned bad for these guys.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: The video is also clearly shot on a VCR handheld
recorder right right, it looks like it's you know, I mean,
it looks like it's nineteen eighty nine. I mean, it's
just how things look. So love this song. It's underrated.
I don't think people will appreciate this one as much.
At this point, I was going to say the band
had become city Kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, city Kid was
their name for a bit. They get their management, they
get Cliff Burnston and Peter Minch in there, who are
also managers for def Leppard, right.
Speaker 2: They basically they are working with them, but they realize
they need a lot of work, right, and so they
holler at a friend of theirs named Ronnie Montrose. Yes,
that Ronnie Montrose. Yeah, I mean, and they're like, hey,
we want you to work with these guys. See what
you can do to build them up and make them
polished instead of the kind of rough edged thing that
they are right now. Right, And so Ronnie gives them
a lot of advice, brings them a lot of different
songs to choose from, and one of the songs that
he brings is from a band called pH D out
of Britain. Okay, this comes from Ronnie Montrose. Ronnie Montrose
is the one that suggested this. Okay, very good, And
so he says, I think you guys should cover this song.
It's called Little Susie's On the Up. He's on the up. Now.
I thought, when I got this little bit of information
that I'm gonna blow Jason's mind. So I sent you
the video for the pH D song of the Little
PhD version of Little Susie's on the app Right, and
you respond back and you were this is this is
the musical savant that I I co host an episode with.
He's like, yes, I believe that was the fifth video
played on MTV. I thought you were gonna have never
heard of it, had no idea, and you were like
given me details that I didn't even know. Yes, thank
you very much, man, thank you very much, thank you.
I appreciate that. Let's listen to the PhD version of
that song really quick.
Speaker 7: Okay the way now before are we trash on PhD
too hard?
Speaker 2: Right? Because that is not at all the song that
not those guys went on.
Speaker 4: I mean that the pH didn't last, but those guys
went onto place with some major major artists.
Speaker 2: But I mean, you've got this again. It was the
early stages of MTV and they had an actual music
video that was a story, not just a band up
on stage singing a song. Now the story involved a
woman pulling an egg out of a saxophone. But why,
I don't what, huh?
Speaker 4: Super early MTV? Right, right, they're showing what they've got,
which is nothing. The beer commercial guy leaves his stage
job and goes through X music videos at night, right,
that's right, And so so Ronnie Montrose brings them this song, right, and.
Speaker 2: They obviously make it their own. Let's listen to that now. Woo.
That kicks some major boute right. I mean, they totally
have made it their own song.
Speaker 4: They have confiscated. This is now belongs to Tesla.
Speaker 2: Absolutely does like even more than Signs, I would say,
because this, I mean Signs still sounds pretty much like
the original version. Just nobody really heard that one. But
this one, they've they've rocked it up. They've changed the
progression a little bit, they've changed the melody a little bit,
and they've absolutely knocked it out of the park. It's amazing. Now.
What you may not know is that Ronnie Montrose dealt
with a lot of difficult things later on in his life.
They all kind of remained friends with him, even though
he was kind of hardcore on him, and he would
occasionally see them and he would kind of give them
a hard time of you know, I brought you guys
a little susie, you know, like you owe me a
flat screen TV or something, you know, And so he
ultimately he got cancer, was dealing with that, had to
fight that, would still go and play live shows from
time to time, and at some point Brian Wheat gets
wind of you know that. Ronnie's like, hey, you guys,
you owe me this flat screen TV. And so he
says to Frank, hey, let's buy him a flat screen TV. Well,
this is back in the days, like the early two
thousands when the plasma TV's were ten thousand dollars, right,
big and heavy, Yeah, big and heavy and yeah and
so but they he buys it for him, doesn't tell him,
buys it for him, drives it ninety miles over to
the show that Ronnie is doing, you know, somewhere else
in California. Knocks on the door and he's like, wat,
what are you doing here? He's like, come here, I
want to show you something. He's like okay, and so
he comes out. He opens the back of the truck
to show him the TV. He said, Ronnie Montrose literally
broke down in tears. Oh man, that literally broke down
in tears. Oh that's sweet story.
Speaker 5: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's just it's nice. A lot
of us go through life with the John McClain line
in our head of how you feeling Roy pretty pretty fun, appreciated,
and so sometimes people will do something that just sound
expected and it means you mean something to them, And
to get those moments where you do feel appreciated is
a wonderful thing. Side note I had that happened to
me in December. Guys that I work with bought me
what Frank Cannon showed up to his first audition with
a Vender stratocaster and a Marshall amp.
Speaker 4: And you played twice as hard last week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sure that that was one of the two
guitars that I've played. Yes, it was, thank you, D's Bosses.
That was very very nice. Yeah, very nice. Next song, yep.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album is called did It for
the Money.
Speaker 2: So I just gotta say I love the way the
intro to this song goes because you start off with
this guitar chord progression that I'm like, oh, it's another
knocking on Heaven's door, no woman, no cry song, okay,
and then it's like boom boom boom, just kidding yeah,
and then and they're wailing through stuff. I was like, oh, nice,
nice bait and switch. Guys, you had me with that. Okay,
here we go, here's the same old three chord song
every nos. Yeah, no, they blew it Away, blew it Away.
This is a great song.
Speaker 4: It's another rock song.
Speaker 2: Did she do it for love? No, she did it
for money. Yeah, which, by the way, you told me
a story today about some kind of hard times that
Jeff Keith experienced after the band broke up, and I
had to think, I wonder if this song ever got
played in the rotation when that was going on. You're
gonna tell that story.
Speaker 4: So after they broke up in nineteen ninety six, you know,
they formed some solo projects, they did some stuff, but
really grunge had kind of killed this rock and roll thing,
and so they were just doing what they could and
Jeff Keith, in order to make ends meet, got a
job djying at a strip club. Rock star Jeff Keith going,
all right, everybody, get out your dollar bills.
Speaker 2: Kandy Cinnamon, diamond sugar. But I think that did it
for the money. Have to be a song you would play, right,
This is a This is a stripper song. Why wouldn't
you is this? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, this is a stripper song, all right. By the way,
before we move on from this one, yeah, these guys
like the Beatles. When the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany,
to get in their ten thousand hours playing their songs. Yeah,
which is what honed them as a band, which made them.
Speaker 2: Super successful, speaking of strip clubs.
Speaker 4: Speaking of strip clubs, Yeah, Tesla spent three months at
a US Army base in Guam, in Guam where they
played six nights a week, five sets a day. Yeah, played, played, played, played, played.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really honed them as a band. They
became good in that time and got some good food apparently.
Oh was that right? Yeah, I guess, and he was
as he disclosed it, he was like, I'm not gonna
say his name so he doesn't get court martialed or whatever.
But they made friends with one of the military guys
who would steal stuff like steaks and lobsters and stuff
from the military rations to uh to take over to
get them to cook meat.
Speaker 4: I heard Frank Hannon on a podcast and he was
with Mark Goodman. Mark Goodman MTV VJ the first one
of the first group beings of MTV VJs, and Mark
Goodman was recalling the early days of MTV, saying, as
we know MTV was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but it was
not on in Manhattan, New York. I mean New York
City didn't have MTV right, and so he could walk
down the street and everything was cool. And so Frank
Hannon spoke up and said, you know where MTV was Guam,
because that's all we watched in Guam. We just watched
nothing but MTV MTV. So I thought that was funny. Yeah,
next song is called Yesterday Is Gone. As much as
I want to play a boys to men's song right now,
I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 2: I just gotta tell you the music on this is
really unique. Like you got a very very fast, shuffley
drum beat. I can't I can't tell you another song
that I can think of that sounds anything like this song. Okay,
I mean, it's just it's got a different I mean,
it's obviously still very rock. It's got great guitars, but
it's unique. It's different than most songs that were coming
out at this time.
Speaker 4: It's kind of speed rock, but yet the chorus is
not sped up. It's just kind of slower, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the the guitars obviously are more heavily distorted,
but it's almost it's got almost like an early ZZ
time vibe, except faster. Yeah, I mean, I don't know
it's it's a great it's a great tune, very unique.
I don't know that it's like it's I don't think
it's a single kind of song because it's not hooky,
like it's not and the chorus is good, but it's
not something you're gonna sing to yourself later on. Right,
it's just kind of it's a good one to just
listen to and just be like just rockskuys are really
getting after it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you talked about owing Ronnie Montrasse a flat
screen TV.
Speaker 2: You know who else they really owe a beer or more? Too?
Is Jack Russell of Great White. Oh yeah, he's the
one that turned on Tommy Zutat to him.
Speaker 4: Yes, so tom Zutat who discovered Motley Crue, discovered Guns
and Roses, signed these guys, and.
Speaker 2: Signed these guys before he signed Guns and Roses, that's right.
So he had been at Elektra yes when he got
Motley Crue, obviously, yes, and then Tesla was the first
band that he signed once he moved over to Geffen,
which was a brand new label at that point. As
a matter of fact, Mechanical Residence was the first successful
album for Geffen Records really yeah, and I mean they
had Aerosmith, but you know, Done with Mirrors was not
a particularly good album. That's right. This was so Tesla's
first album was the first successful album for Geffen Records,
and obviously Tommy Zutat is a part of that process,
and he was heavily involved until he did sign that
new band called Guns and Roses, and then they didn't
see him so much anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, hey, at least they got him on board. Okay,
So for the record of tom Zutat, we have now
covered Appetite for Destruction, We've covered Once Bitten twice, Shy
by Great White yep. We are now covering Tesla yep.
And we've covered Hotley Crue twice. Yeah, and and Girls
Girls Girls, Girls Girls Girls and Doctor Feel Good. And
there's some pretty great stories there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely go check those episodes out. They're all fantastic.
Speaker 4: All right, hit stop on your tape player, kick it out,
flip it over for side two, and we're going to
be making magic.
Speaker 2: Okay, what are your thoughts? This is not the song
you start side too with? I agree with you, Yeah,
I this one is I mean, it's a it seems
like it should be a good song, but it doesn't
grab you. It doesn't. There's to me, nothing that reaches
out and grabsh you about this one.
Speaker 4: This is the first song where I'm kind of like.
Speaker 2: Eh, yeah, I'm this might be I don't know if
it's a skipper, but it's definitely a filler. For sure.
It's filler.
Speaker 4: And why in the world would you not start the
second side off with the next song, which we might
as well just move on and talk to him.
Speaker 2: I'm fine with doing that. I'm totally fine with doing that.
Before we get there, though, I did. We started talking
about Ronnie Montrose and and I told a story there,
but we've mentioned that, you know, Brian Whet's first band
was called Rage. Then when he got rid of basically
everybody except for Frank Hannon, they started a band called Earthshaker,
and that was the guys that I mentioned earlier. And
then ultimately they became city Kid. But once they got
to that stage, and Ronnie's like, this is city Kid
sounds like lover Boy, And so if you want to
be a pop band, then that's fine, but otherwise you
need to change your name, right, And so they kept
trying to think of names couldn't come up with anything.
It was actually their manager, I think again Peter Minch
that came up with this, and he said, what do
you guys think about the name Tesla? And they said,
what's a Tesla? Yeah, and so he explained to them,
you know, who Tesla was, and that this kind of
relationship with Edison and Marconi and all this other stuff,
and they're like, okay, sounds pretty cool. But they the
guys had no idea who he was. Was a this
is a manager call, and I think a fantastic one. Obviously,
the name has become very popular since the nineties for
various reasons. Yeah, it has.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know that's interesting because they have so many
songs that seem to be calling back to this Tesla.
Speaker 2: Edison absolutely onto the idea. Yeah, he actually bought them
all books. He bought them the book on Tesla, whatever
the I remember the name of it is, and he says,
there's going to be a quiz and whoever gets a
hundred on the quiz gets a hundred bucks. Yeah, none
of them made a hundred bucks. But he again motivation,
read the book, and so they did. They did. They
read it, and so that's where you get Edison's medicine,
and you get the names like mechanical resonance and.
Speaker 4: Great controversy there all right, next, I mean, come on,
let's get I'm.
Speaker 2: Dying pushing you off and you wanted to jump in right?
All right, here we go.
Speaker 4: This song is called the Way It Is.
Speaker 2: That's the way it is. It's the way that it
goes better stuff. We're gonna listen to the whole thing.
Oh man, it's so good. It tell me about your
tell me about your thoughts.
Speaker 4: So I've got the football in my hand and I've
got it back. If there were not for a game
changer on this album, this would be the spike the
football best off.
Speaker 3: It's the Way.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you this. I love the song,
have listened to the song for years. As I pulled
into your driveway, I was listening to this song and
because of other music that I had been listening to
earlier in the week, this week, I was like, huh,
so I'm gonna play you a song by led Zeppelin.
You tell me what you think.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's the.
Speaker 2: Sun with both beautiful songs and I'm not gonna say
it's a copy, but no, no, no, I gotta think
it was inspired super super similar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's kind of like when we talked about the
song Hysteria, Yeah, and the talk what was the Pink
Floyd song that.
Speaker 2: Was, oh yeah, yeah there was, Yeah, I can't remember
which write.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Goodbye Blues now that one's pretty well note
for note, but yeah, but.
Speaker 2: This one, like the chords are slightly different, but.
Speaker 4: It's the sound, the pace, the melodies all very similar,
but both.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, beautiful songs in their own Yes. And I don't
know if I said it. That's thank You by led
Zeppelin by the way.
Speaker 4: Okay, the way it is is rocked up though, but man,
such a great.
Speaker 2: Solid love it.
Speaker 4: The video for this, I don't know if you've watched
the video. So this is at the height of their powers, right,
this is like the I think.
Speaker 2: This is the fourth single released. This is in.
Speaker 4: Spring of nineteen ninety. But they it's like the radio
DJ starts the video, he's like, all right, everybody, you're
coming in to see the Tesla concert. If you bring
two cans for the homeless, you get in for free.
And it's in Sacramentos, their hometown, right, and so everybody's
there bringing cans for the homeless to watch the Tesla
concert and it's just it obviously doing great things, feeding
the people, putting on a So you mentioned this band
is from Sacramento. This was I mean, Sacramento is known
for being the gold rush town, right, but it was
it's also you know, at this at the stage that
they were growing up there, it's a very much a
working man's town, right, right. And all of these guys
are very blue collar kind of kids. And the name
of Brian Wheat's book that I've referred to a few
times is called Son of a Milkman. As it turns out,
you know, you've heard that old joke about you know,
the milkman game to your house, And yeah, that's actually
what happened to his mother, and she got pregnant, and
he is actually the son of the milkman.
Speaker 2: The milkman knocked his mother up. Yesoo who Yeah, And
he says he can remember that his brother came and
had bought a record player, and he remembers the very
first time on this record player that his brother had
probably bought with money he got from stealing stolen bike stuff,
hearing Paul McCartney play. And if you've ever seen Brian
Wheat play, especially on the five man Acoustical Jam. He's
got a very unique looking bass. It is the exact
same type of bass that Paul McCartney would play most
of the time whenever he was playing for the Beatles.
It is a Hoffner style bass. It looks kind of
like a violin the way that it shaped, you know.
So he said he was so entranced by Paul McCartney's
voice because the album that he was listening to was Revolver.
I remember that, right, Revolver is the album. Well, the
first song on the album is tax Man, but the
album that he had gotten had a scratch on it
so that one couldn't play the first song. So immediately
went to the second song, and that was Paul McCartney playing.
And so he said, had the record I had a scratch,
I probably would have been in love with George Harrison's voice.
But because we skipped to the next song, I got
Paul McCartney.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I wanted to bring this up. Brian Wheat
eventually marries Sandy Soirea. Now I was talking to our
buddy James Buckley on the way over here. He claims
that the Sorea song on the Shocker soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Shocker the movie. Yes, classic cinematic greatness.
Speaker 4: Hey, Wes Craven's Shocker. So it's Sorea and Steve Lucather. Okay,
And the song's name is Timeless Love. And he is
spiking the football with me. He says, this is one
of the greatest ballads of the nineteenies. And I was
telling him Sirea had a song called Love Has Taken
Its Toll, which I absolutely love and I would never
get to talk about it because it's not a big
enough hit.
Speaker 2: People don't know it. But I'm dropping it right there. Okay.
Then I love this song. It's a good song. I
love it. It's a good song.
Speaker 4: I hate to be done with this song. I absolutely
love it. It's the second best song on the album. Next
song on the album is a song called Flight to Nowhere.
Speaker 2: Now the rock song about being a rock star.
Speaker 4: This is about drugs, It's about the whole lifestyle. I think, Yeah,
this is another rocker. It's a good song.
Speaker 2: Okay, speaking of drugs and booze. Yes, you know that
their first opening act. They opened for David Lee Roth. Right, Okay,
so he apparently like I mean, they're obviously a young
man at this point, and they didn't really talk to
him very much, and it would be a situation like
when he was walking the hall, they tell everybody else
to get out of the way and could make way
for Dave Davis coming through. Right, And I'm gonna sidetrack
here in just a second. I just heard this story
about from Henry Rollins said he was going in to
do some sort of podcast interview or something like that.
And as he's going in, it's like nine in the morning,
David Lee Roth is coming out, and David Lee Roth
is wearing like this full fur like road right, and
Henry Rollins the first time he's ever met David Lee Roth,
and he's like, oh my gosh, I'm Dave. You know,
I love your stuff, grew up on your music, love
it and Diamond Dave. David Lee Roth opens up his
coat and it's like lined with beer bottles. He's like, hey, man,
you want to be here? And Henry Rollins doesn't drink,
doesn't do drugs, you know, He's like, no, nine, am, man,
I'm pretty cool things. David Lee Roth says, what's the matter?
You got school tomorrow, And so that's my lead end
of this story. At some point while they're opening for them,
they get a call and it's like, David wants to
see you, and it's one he wants to meet you
up in his hotel room. And so they go up
to meet David Lee Roth in his hotel room and
when they walk in, he's laying down with two incredibly
beautiful women whose panties are on the floor in between
them and him, and he propositions them and he's like, hey,
Pete Angelus, and I would like to manage your band,
Pete Angelis.
Speaker 4: We just talked about him last week as the manager
for the Black Cross.
Speaker 2: He was the one who made the Black Crows, who
they were taught Chris Robinson, how to be on stage
in a big arena, how to dance across the stage.
He made that band. He took them to where they
needed to be. He's the guy who directed the David
Lee Roth videos, directed those first three Van Haleen video.
He's an amazing dude, right, and I have to think
this is just before all of that, right, this is
when they're just early getting started. This would be eat
him and smile, you know, co residence time. So had
they said yes, Pete Angelis might not have been available
to do the Black Crows. Wow, how about that? Yeah,
but they said, uh, now we got a couple guys already.
Speaker 4: Thanks gosh, Hey, you know I sent you a deal
this week. Yeah, Tesla was friends with the Black Crows.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: In fact, Tesla did an early MTV Unplugged date with
the Black Crows, like together, and I heard him talking
about this. They so they were buddies. But they said
that they think they smoked out MTV, like MTV had
not seen that much marijuana smoke in one setting ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's saying something. Yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting
that these guys were friends. Yeah. So yeah, And just
a couple more songs. We're gonna have to decide between
these two bands, of these two albums, which one's the best.
Let's get to it all right.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album hold on to your Hats,
boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, you can't play it
here is the song that introduced both Jason and I
to this band, and.
Speaker 2: To this day is my favorite Tesla song. The songs
called love Song. So listen the whole song go on.
I could listen to that song over and over and
over and never get tired of it. You have this
beautiful classical style of an introduction. I mean talk about
we've we've just had rocker, rocker, rocker, and all of
a sudden that yanked the rug out from underneath you.
And you're listening to an acoustical guitar playing finger picking
classical style music and then they come in nice and smooth.
I mean, it's such a smooth transition from that into
this incredible power ballad. I mean, game change, amazing, game changering.
This was my intro to Tesla.
Speaker 4: It was your intro testa and I'd venture to say
it was a lot of people's intro to Tesla. The
intro is fantastic. It slides into a verse that's beautiful.
It gives you this wonderful chorus, and then it like
ramps up at the very end with the love Will
Find a Way part. The guitar solo is one you memorize.
I mean it it is arguably a perfect song. If
there can be multiple perfect movies like Raids of Lost
arc and Back to the Future and The Godfather, then
I would say this is one of those perfect songs.
I mean, it's absolutely one of the Best Songs of
nineteen eighty nine and a brilliant power ballad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is another one that is on the five
man Acoustical Jam and they do it, of course, completely acoustically,
and it's still amazing except the guitar solo. Do you
remember that part that they pull out the la.
Speaker 4: They're like, we can't do this whole thing. They lay
into that electric.
Speaker 2: Guitar, so fantastic.
Speaker 4: I want to talk about the video for a second,
because the video is nearly perfect as well. Okay, So
this was shot July seventh, nineteen eighty nine, so think
how hot it is fourth of July weekend, right, So
they had a concert in Sacramento, and a local radio
station KRXQ in Sacramento had a contest awarding backstage passes
to the fan who created the best banner.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: Now, the banner had to say KRXQ tesla and love song.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: And so when you watch this music video, that's why
they have all these people there, got these love song
banners in the crowd. Fantastic, and you got people like
on people's shoulders, and it just really takes me back
to a time because you've got cute girls and you've
got you know, the guys all got their shirts off,
and everybody's having a blast and it's hotter than you
know what, July fourth weekend. There's no phones. Of course,
everybody is engaged in what's going on, and it is
just it looks like a blast. So if you're a
young person and you're like what was like in the eighties,
out of concert will be four phones. This is it. Yeah,
everybody was engaged what was going on the show.
Speaker 2: And you know, you you told me this story. But
I'm gonna retell it because it's it's it's it's it
almost takes away from the song. But this is such
a good song that I just have to think. I'm
not gonna call it that. I'm not gonna say that
takes away. It's it's what opened everyone's eyes. Okay, Sure,
So the song was a very slow burn and it
was only getting played on the album oriented rock radio.
That was it, right, It had not crossed over and
it was like starting to kind of plateau a little
bit even with that. Gosh, but Cliff Bernstein and Peter
Minsch were also managing the Rolling Stones. Yes, and the
Rolling Stone were involved on their steel wheels tour.
Speaker 4: Right, which they had recorded in mons Rat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, which we talked about on our dire
Straits episode too long ago. And so they they saw
that this song had the potential to break the band,
but also saw that it wasn't quite breaking the band yet.
And so what they did was they said to the radio,
like the chart topping radio, you know, your top forty radio.
They said, hey, we'll give you two tickets to the
Steel Wheels tour that you can give away to your fans,
but we want you to play love song. I love it.
Brilliant management. It is rightant management.
Speaker 4: And you know what, in fairness, this song is so
good that it merited that and it did break the
band absolutely, so it just needed a little push over
the hill. Yeah, and here we are talking about one
of the best songs of the late eighties.
Speaker 2: Yep, this I put I put this management decision in
the same category as Pete Angelis saying, Okay, now to
talk about how bad the beer is, because we're going
to get your contract renegotiated after I get you on
the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Speaker 4: If you want the details of that story, go back
to last week where we talked about the Black Crows.
By the way, love Song reached number ten on the
Hot one hundred. Now, none of these songs are radio
like top forty hits except this one.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: Okay, so it reached number ten, and as you said,
it was released in August, it didn't peak until January.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a long time, right.
Speaker 4: So number ten Love Song pops out at number ten
deserves better, way better in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: Number nine two to Make It Right by Seduction. Number
eight free fall In by Tom Petty. Okay, that's a
great song's classic. Yeah, just between you and me, Lou Graham,
remember that one.
Speaker 2: Not really, we're trying to Luke Graham foreigner, right, it's yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3: Here's all right.
Speaker 4: Number six Rhythm Nation by Jenna Jackson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big one in the day. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Number five Downtown Trained by Rod Stewart.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Number four Everything.
Speaker 2: By Jody Wattley.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 4: Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure that's a boob. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Pump Up the Jam by Take My Tronic Pump Up Jam.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty iconic song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the number one song this week in eighty nine.
How am I supposed to live without you Michael Bolton.
Speaker 2: Gosh, when your best song tops out at ten and
Michael Bolton is in the number one spot, that kind
of hurts. Oh, I have a different shirt on. Hey,
you have the same shirt on haircut. I have a
different shirt on. What happened? What just happened?
Speaker 4: Right now the for the first time in the history
of the Shirley Can't Be Serious podcast, we forgot to
include a song as we were going track by track.
Speaker 2: I really can't. I feel like maybe you're editing software
accidentally edited out. I really feel like we talked about this.
Speaker 4: So this is what happened. I'll tell you this is
DA was truth. I have my stack of notes and
for each song I have its own page.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well the wind blew and there they went, and when
I gather them, I guess I left. I lost one
and it was a big one.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah again, I'm just like, man, I could have
sworn we talked about this song. I did have that
moment where where you were like, okay, last song, and
I thought of myself, wait a minute. I thought we
had two songs, and then you're like, no, we got
two more songs. And I was like Okay, then we've
got it. But we didn't get it.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about the song Paradise.
Speaker 2: Dude, we're idiots. This song I don't know, man, Yeah,
I mean, gorgeous intro.
Speaker 4: It reminds me of Home Sweet Home, you know, with
that piano and wailing guitar.
Speaker 2: But it's I mean, you're not gonna agree with me,
but it's better. I like.
Speaker 4: I like Paradise better than Home Sweet Home. It's it's
so beautiful. The guitar is so emotion I love the
piano in it, and then when he comes in with
the lyrics, it just brings it all home.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
Speaker 4: The my sweet Paradise and the strong keyboards and it
actually it's a ballad and then ramps up into a
rocker at the end of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so fun.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: The funny thing about this is I was mowing the
other day and I was thinking to myself, I really
was thinking about deaf Dave because he's not familiar with
Tesla at all, and I'm thinking in my head, I'm like,
you know, if Dave will just give Tesla a chance
to get to side to on side too, you've got
love song and you've got the way it is and
you've got paradise, and I'm like, wait a minute, we
didn't talk about paradise. So anyway, Dave, thank you. You
were the you were the spark that triggered the memory.
This song is an amazing song. I love it. I
actually love the five men acoustical jam version of this song.
The studio version is fantastic, but there is a reality
of that stage version, that audience singing along. They're singing
along the hold me close, hold me tight.
Speaker 2: It's incredible, man, it's incredible. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4: Well, there you go, ladies and gentlemen of first in
over five years of doing this, we missed a song.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that. We brought it back. We got it
in just in time though. Okay, and now we're turning
you back to your regularly scheduled program.
Speaker 4: Okay, last song on the album, there we Go. The
song is called Parties Over.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 4: It's a rocker, man.
Speaker 2: It is a great closer. It's a great closer. It
really is, and I mean perfect name perfect into a
concert if you're at the concert. Yeah, And so to
tell the listening audience the little behind the scenes here
you accidentally pushed a different button whenever we're going to
listen to parties over, and it was modern day cowboy, right.
So that reminded me of one more story that I've
got to tell. So, before they came up with the
name Tesla, as they were still City Kid and they
were trying to think of a new name, they were
hanging out with Chrissy Hind of The Pretenders. Yeah, Brian
said she was the coolest chick. He said she would
try to help them think up band names, but she
was like always thinking of the dirtiest, nastiest band names.
And she said, imagine this modern day cowboy by the
new band Dog's Balls.
Speaker 4: All right, I gotta drop a little nugget on you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: Culturally, yes, the term turn out the lights the parties over?
Uh huh was popularized by do you know this?
Speaker 2: No Down?
Speaker 4: Merrit, a former quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. On Monday
Night football, when a game got out of hand and
it was clear who the winner was going to be,
he would sing turn out the lights the Parties Over,
which he got from a Willie Nelson song called the
Party's Over. Okay, all right, as we go into final judgment.
Keep in mind, it doesn't matter who gets the best
of who, it doesn't matter who hurts who the most.
It really is just the way it is.
Speaker 2: Okay, nicely done, Final judgment time. Yep. So here's the deal.
Speaker 4: I've really been laboring on this because going through the
Black Crows album last week, there were no skippers in
that album, and there were some amazing songs. And then
I go through this Tesla album this week and I'm like,
all rock, I mean, killer fun songs, and then you've
got a couple of game changers for me, like the
Way it Is love song. I think Hank tof is excellent.
So I asked myself, what's the better album? And I
think the answer to that question is Shake Your money
Maker is the better album. But I can't overcome my
nostalgia for Tesla and Great Radio Controversy, and so I
asked myself, Yeah, it's the best album, but if you're
walking out the door, which one are you grabbing? And
I'm like, if I'm walking out the door, I'm grabbing
great Radio Controversy.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay. D So when we started, when we had
just talked about this, I had no doubt in my
mind who I was going to be picking, right, zeroed out,
like I owned this album, I owned the five man
Acoustical Jam, I owned Psychotic Supper, I had them all right,
song and Emotion Blew Me Away. I love that song, right, yeah, yeah,
I love those albums. I had heard the singles off
of Shake Your Money Maker, and obviously we played those
in the band as well, but I never owned but
I never owned the album, and so I thought, okay, well,
you know Black Crows are great. But so before listening
to the albums, in my mind, the winner was going
to be clear, Like Frank Cannon was a guitar hero
of mine that I ultimately got to meet and I
got to play guitar with, and it was a fantastic
moment in my life. You know, I've been saying, don't
meet your heroes after my lou f Igno experience, right,
But then I think about Frank Cannon, I'm like, no,
go ahead and meet your heroes, because sometimes they can
be completely awesome. And I was confident I was going
to pick Tesla, no question about it, except that then
I listened to all of Shake Your Money Maker for
the very first time, and my mind was blown, Like
it is a flawless album. Every song on there is good,
and a few of them are just blow your mind fantastic.
And I got a new favorite song out of the
mix twice as hard. I loved it, loved it, and
so early nineties D would definitely be picking great radio controversy.
My musical taste have changed in the last thirty five years,
and I still love this album. But if I'm walking
out the door, I'm grabbing Shake Your Moneymaker. I love it.
I love it.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic. I don't think there's a wrong answer to
this one.
Speaker 2: Now. I cannot say that I would say the same
if we were talking about five Man Acoustical Jam. I
might pick that one before I picked Shake Your money Maker. Oka,
it really might. It's a tough call.
Speaker 4: Well that was a huge album for me as well. Yeah,
all right, Well, we want to hear from you guys,
which of these albums is your favorite and why and
reach out to us.
Speaker 2: We'd like to hear from you. Yeah, let us know.
Is it Shake Your money Maker? Is it great radio controversy?
How does five Man Acoustical Jam fit in the mix
for you?
Speaker 4: Let's talk go what we have next week Okay, what
we got next week? D This is gonna be exciting
because we have Rambo versus Commando, Arnold versus Stallone. In
the summer of nineteen eighty five, it was huge. These
guys battled it out at the box office. You haven't
seen either of these movies. I am so anxious to
hear what you have.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be breaking my serrated knife cherry if
you will.
Speaker 4: That's right, Hey, Stilone versus Schwarzenegger doesn't get any better
than doesn't.
Speaker 2: It does summer of eighty five, and you're gonna get
my genuine first time reaction for this. So be sure
and wait. It's gonna be so fun. Thank you guys
so much. We'll see you next week.