Yinz N' Roses

We chase a wild karaoke announcement with real cash prizes, then zoom out into why music feels like a real language that crosses politics, grief, and even literal language barriers. We trade stories about radio, MTV, playlists, documentaries, and the songs that carried us through the hardest and best parts of life. 
• Karaoke judging at Harrigan’s in downtown Johnstown with DJ Heidi and cash prizes 
• Only Parks social trend and why lighthearted internet culture matters 
• Appalachian gravesinger clip and the idea of music as its own language 
• Einstein’s letter about love and why music expresses emotion better than words 
• How we met through karaoke and “trading songs” as communication 
• Childhood music origins from Motown to massive DJ collections 
• Radio request lines, countdown shows, and the full lifespan of MTV 
• Soundtracks tied to addiction, recovery, funerals, weddings, and nostalgia 
• Grateful Dead deep dive and how music can help you get clean 
• Ken Burns Country Music documentary and the stories behind the genre 
• Underrated artists and what we listen to right now 
• AI music, AI flyers, and where authenticity still matters 
What are some of your favorite artists that aren't being played on the radio let us know who they are we'll give them a listen 

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Transcript

Cold Open And Time Flying

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Back road with the moon hangs low. Squad tracks where the rivers blow. UFOs flash without a care. Kill the tracks where the lot of things roll. Comedy legends, we bring in the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Episode 2 already. 2026 is effing flying right on by. If you're in the business sector, we have already run through the first quarter and it is tax season.

unknown 2:13

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Matter of fact, if you're listening to this episode on the day it releases, you better have submitted that paperwork, buddy.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

It's all right. It's like Apollo 13 when he's like, he is most definitely out of the country.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

So what's going on this week? We didn't have a lot going on the last couple weeks. No. No.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

I mean, we did have stuff going on, but not, it was just like comedy shows and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah.

Karaoke Contest With Cash Prizes

SPEAKER_04 2:44

But we have a big one. This is the biggest reveal we have ever had. Because you don't see these com so this weekend, as you know, we've judged karaoke contests in the past.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

DJ Heidi.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

DJ Heidi. We've we've done many, mostly in the Winbur area.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

Now we got one this weekend at the one and only Harrigan's downtown. Johnstown, baby. Johnstown on the map. And not only they're giving away cash prizes. Cold hard cash. Which is usually there's little trinkets, you might get a trophy, you might get a little gift card.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

But this is cold hard cash.$100 in first place?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

For karaoke?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah.$100 first place,$50 second place,$25 third place. And guess who the judges are? Yours truly.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

And we might have, we will have another guest, but we might have a guest of guests in store, a local celebrity.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

And I use that term less loosely than I usually do because they refer to us as local celebrities, which is in no way accurate. However, this person is widely known in John's town. Widely known.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Widely known.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

And uh we person or persons. Person or persons. Yes. Yeah. So we will so you gotta show up though. Yeah. Find out what's going on. Get that cold hard cash prize. So all you singers out there, you know who I'm talking to. I see you guys out there all the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

It's gonna, they're gonna, we're this I'm calling you out by name. Randy Collier, Rob Seth, Amelia Mae McNally.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Yeah, get out there and sing. Come down to Harrigan Saturday night and sing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Uh Dion, that kid that we met up in Wimber.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Oh, yeah. Yeah, any of them. Come on out. Yeah. If you've been out before, come on out. If you've been to any of these other previous karaoke contests run by DJ Haide, come on out, but also come out if you haven't.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Right. And she does a lot of fun twists in her competitions.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

These karaoke contests are so fun. It's the only thing really happening in karaoke that's different.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Right.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

Other than if you go anywhere else, it's going to be like pretty much straight karaoke. But her contests are just a different level of fun. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So even if you don't sing, come on out and spectate. I haven't been in Harrigan's in probably 20 years, so I couldn't tell you how big it is, but we'll make room.

SPEAKER_06 5:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Come on out. Oh, and Gilda Trash is going to throw in a little something, something for the crowd favorite.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Yeah, the crowd favorite slash judge's choice.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Well, no, not really necessarily judge's choice, but normally there's somebody. You know, every one of these competitions, there is somebody who may not necessarily be the best voice, but boy, do they get the crowd working.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Well, that's what I'm saying. We're going to choose who does that.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Who gets the best crowd response?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yep. And that's actually a lead-in to our main topic today, which is music. However, there was something else, just I like to shake it up. It's going to be a long discussion about music. We got so much to talk about. But what is trending in socials this week? And I love to talk about this all the time because I live half my life on socials. So you guys have heard of OnlyFans. I'm not going to go there. I don't kink shame. I don't care. I don't want to know. But some genius on social media decided to create a non-official, and I'm not calling it, it's not a parody. It's a non-official Yellowstone Park account. And it got up to a couple million followers on TikTok. And there was innuendo in the post, but it was drawing attention to the national parks.

SPEAKER_06 7:04

But it's called only parks.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Only parks, right? That's the key. That's the trend. So look up the hashtag only parks. I don't know if it's made it to the other social medias, but now there's beef. These parks are anthemorphized. You know, I can never say that word.

SPEAKER_07 7:19

Anthropomorphized.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, those things. Um, so they all have uh personalities now, and and they have there's camps and sides. But at the end of the day, like people are it's the one thing that's kind of bringing socials together right now in a fun way because everybody's having fun with it.

SPEAKER_04 7:37

Only parks. Who's my favorite park?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I well that's the Is it only national parks? It is it's national parks, but that's what I did a joke. I did a a like a parody post the other day, and I was like, I'm waiting for the um the RV parks to enter the chat saying hold my beer. Paps Blue Ribbon specifically. No, but there there were some surprising so Ohio Pyle has entered the chat. Um, so there's they're getting local, like that Cuyahoga Falls or Cuyahoga Falls. Yeah, buttermilk falls. Like some of those ones have entered the chat, so it's getting interesting. I thought it would die down after a day or two, it's actually ramping up because like now every day there's an account that pops up, and it's like no, it's like bigger accounts. They got 20,000 up to a million followers, and it's all just these national parks, and it's bringing it's bringing awareness too. Like there's parks that I didn't know I wanted to visit until this yeah, phenomenal.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

That's the thing about any of these sort of trends as you get to learn stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Right. So, anyways, if you're on socials, look up Only Parks. It's fun, funny. It's something that's endearing. It's like a relief from political crap and any all the the bad stuff, all the first world problems and the third, you know, whatever. It's it's fun, it's entertaining and it's lighthearted, and it's all in good fun.

SPEAKER_06 9:11

Go check out Only Parks.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:13

So do they have actual subscriptions? Do you pay?

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Like they could do that to raise money for the park. Because isn't the parks like under that's how they should make money.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Right. They're under funded right. It did become political for a minute because of the funding.

SPEAKER_07 9:27

You could even do one. You could do a naked one where you had naked people in parks and charge real money. Like only only fans and only parks.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 9:35

And it would be people in parks you could make money. You could make money off.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Well, that's kind of why it be blew up, is because they were using like really good-looking guys in the posts. Some of them. Some of them were just showing mountainous structures with phallic symbolism behind it. You know what I mean? So they were fun and funny. They're entertaining. And I don't think a kid's gonna get it. It's just like in the Disney films, you know, like where there's innuendo, but as a child, you shouldn't really understand.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

There's a there's a peak out in Wisconsin in the Badlands, but they call it Penny's Peak.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

No, they don't. Stop it. You're lying. He's that is an inside joke, but if you've been to one of his comedy shows, you know what he's saying. All right.

SPEAKER_06 10:21

They call it Penny's Peak because of the way the opening is.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

There's well, or we could talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

There's one mound, one little mound. They call that Penny's Peak.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

What's that one that you in in uh out in Franklin County? You could you call it the butt crack or something?

SPEAKER_07 10:40

Oh, the butt crack of the gap. That's just the way the mountains come together. It looks like a butt crack when you look at it in the rearview mirror.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah, that's always fun.

Music As A Universal Language

SPEAKER_07 10:49

The butt crack of the gap.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

All right. So let's talk about the main meat and potatoes of this episode.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Yeah, we were talking about karaoke that made us do music as a life language is the title of this episode.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

So I'll tell you why why it the it kind of it my AI assistant kind of called it out as a as a language. We had talked about doing another music episode. We've done one historically. We're gonna try to hit on different topics this time, but music is essentially our life, right? But I was, as usual, scrolling through socials and I saw a post and it was um an Appalachian gravesinger. And so think of the song like the song like I'm a man of constant sorrow, how they pull that like wail into it from your gut that may you know what I mean. Like dance on a grave with sadness. They s they don't even dance, they stand there.

SPEAKER_05 11:51

Well, I think it'd be fun if they added dancing, maybe a little, I'd call it the death dance. Playboy.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

It was so beautiful though, and it was so enchanting and so haunting and so emotional. And and I clicked into the comments to see, I always am interested to see what people say. So in the comments, somebody said, you know, um, it's the it's posts like these that wash away, you know, politics and and real life problems when you hear something like this and it's just its own language. And I was like, for real, like when you think uh church music or spiritual music, it doesn't have to be particular to one sect. When it happens, it's emotional.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Well, it's because humans connect music connects to us somewhere that we're not like on some deep level as humans, so it can be lead to profound experiences because it taps into this other thing, which is why I think it happens with you know church and stuff. It is because people get wrapped enraptured with this the the the mus the soul of the music.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

So I Albert Einstein had a love theory, and I didn't go deep dive into it, but the gist of it was that he wrote a letter to his daughter, and he said in the letter, and I'm greatly paraphrasing, that the one uh force that hasn't been able to be quantified is love, and the closest thing that I think you can get to that in expressing that is through music. Like it is the language of emotion, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:44

He also Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I love it. I love talking about this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Yeah, no, he um I forgot what I was gonna say there. No, I totally forgot because I thought you were gonna cry. Um yeah, no, I mean well it just goes to show you that even like somebody like that that thinks of the world in very like rough, like scientific terms. Yeah, very cut and dry terms. I guess I don't know though. Albert Einstein was a Greek theory. He was one of the scientists that could think beyond the realms of science, so I don't like will not say that he's like other scientists, because most other scientists aren't able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

But uh yeah, no, his fascinating things on life, I mean, he's got a lot of perspectives.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Right. I was just uh the reading that was like really profound for me because uh I never like to me Einstein has always been a character, right?

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Like he's always been like Right, people don't think of him as a human because he's so characterized.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Right, and as somebody who is um who thinks systemically and in patterns and sees deeply into those types of things, I think it's hard for some people to um see the human side of me sometimes. I've been blamed to be a narcissistic or cold or callous by certain people. And so to be able to, and I know why it is, it's because of how I think. And it's hard for me to com communicate to people who don't think the same way I do. So in that aspect, it was really cool to see him as human, but then it all kind of clicked together in like two posts back to back, which were those two posts, the Appalachian Gravesinger and then the then the Einstein like letter to his daughter about love. I was like, shit, music is a language.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

And and it also is because we talked about this, this is sort of what led to it too, is that with all the different you know, the world is so split in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Right now. Yeah. I mean, it always is. People are always fighting. It is what it is. I'm not saying that it's worse now that it just feels worse because the you know because we're aware.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

We're in it and we're aware.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

The last worst thing was felt like the worst thing to be.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

But if you talk to people, but if you go to a concert, let's just say you go to see.

SPEAKER_05 16:27

LRB? LRB. LRB.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

But let's just say you go to see Little River Man. Everybody that's a terrible example. Let's just say you go to see the Rolling Stones.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Biggest band in the world of all time.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

You know what I mean? Nobody's so I mean, we could get into arguing right. Statistics are top five grossing, critically, whatever, one of the biggest bands in the world of all time. Rolling Stones. Yeah. And they have been for five, six decades.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah, absolutely. Mine's a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

If you go to a Rolling Stones concert, it's like any other group of people. You're gonna have people that think one way, people that think another, but they're not there to think about that. No, they're not there to talk about that, they're just there to bond over their love of this commonality. Right. Which is the songs, the music, whatever you know what I mean by experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

The music, the lyrics, the experience, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

Right. So it divides it cuts across political divides. It does, it cuts across language barriers. Yeah. Not all music is able to be understood in the same way, but some music does. Evidenced by the fact that the popularity of, in particular, Western music throughout the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

It's huge.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not saying that those places don't all have their own things and stuff, but I'm just saying that just shows you how it's a global language.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Well, how much did we crack up uh how many English or like originating bands or artists can sing American country style music? And it's perfect. The accent is perfect, it's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Except for one.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Uh Dina.

SPEAKER_05 18:26

Yeah. Keith Urban.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Oh, Keith Urban. He sucks. Fuck Keith Urban.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

But I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh, speaking of which, uh, that was a tidbit this week that I learned Nicole Kidman is dating um Simon Baker.

SPEAKER_06 18:40

Oh, Patrick Jane.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, and they're coming out. They're coming out with a new show or movie or something. They were filming together, which is how they kind of got together. It's called the Mentalist. No, it is not. Oh my god. I wish they would resurrect the mentalist so bad. That was just a movie.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Give us like a psych or monk movie. Right. Like just with the mentalists where they'll finally get the real Red John.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

It's not it wasn't the asshole that they shot, which they shoved into the episode at the end to make it work. But we're not talking about that.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Anyways, we're talking about music. But um, so what were we just talking about?

SPEAKER_04 19:21

We were talking about Keith Urban, we're talking about being a global language.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Oh, yeah, global language, transcending boundaries. But how many European artists can lean into that country twang and pull it off so well.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

You don't even have to look that far. Look at how many country artists don't have an accent when they talk. Right. I'm gonna give you one that'll blow your mind. Kenny Chesney.

unknown 19:47

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

When Kenny Chesney talks, he sounds like a regular dude.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Well, isn't he like from just like Virginia? He's from Kennedy. He's from the South, and I'm not sure. No, I don't think he is. I think he might be from like Indiana or something.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Well, maybe Indiana is the South when you get down to part of the back and talk. So that's like a different story. But uh regardless, it may be the Midwest, but I'm just saying he sings with the country, like he has like, you know, not a thick one, but I'm just saying, like a lot of people, it's weird how mu accents and music work.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Right, right, absolutely. Um I'm trying I can't think of that other uh band though. There was that band that did the blues. No, he is literally from Tennessee.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Or how about, yeah, I thought he was from the South. I didn't think he was. How about the but look at people from Tennessee though? Nate Bargetse, he's Southern. Yeah. You do hear it with certain words, but for the most part, he doesn't talk like a southerner.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

But like I feel like if he was singing a country song, he'd put a little stank on it.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

I want to hear him sing now. No, his voice is so weird, it might I don't know how it would sound.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

No, but I'm just saying, like, it's it's one of those things. It's just so weird how. Or like those guys, how about the dudes from Sweden that I showed you that did like they all the Negro spirituals? That's all they said. It's just a group of Scandinavian white as white can be milk toast. But for some reason in the 70s, they became obsessed with like like African American, early African American folk music, Negro Spirituals.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

You can't say that without me thinking of Madea's what I know.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

No, I know. But it's fun, but no, but that they and so they released out like people in Scandinavia, they were loving it.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Right. Meanwhile, they look like Peter Paul and Mary on the damn coverage.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

It looks like Abba.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

It's so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Imagine of ABBA saying nothing but Negro spiritual.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Oh my gosh. We talked about this the last time, but I have to just pull it back in again because music history always is part of the conversation. But you know, I'll um so uh one of my co-workers listens to like a Spanish hybrid type music, and um we talked about on the last music episode, Narcocuritos, which was a way uh so it brings about music and storytelling.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

Well, caritos in general. Right. That's Mexican, traditional Mexican folk music that tells like a tale, just like country western music. It's right. It influences heavily that the Southwest, you know, between like country and Western swing and like the Bakersfield sound, a lot of that has such people don't realize that ties in such close the Southwest history with Mexico is such a t strong tie because it's it's one region, right? Two countries.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:52

And uh so the culture and the language and the music has a lot in common. That's why you hear accordions, which is also interesting because it was German settlers that introduced the accordion to Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

People don't think about that. People think about like immigration stuff to play, but there'd be these people were going all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Right. They weren't just selling here in the United States. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

Yeah, it was all over. So then that influence builds up, and that's how you get. But then what's interesting about that is so they introduced the accordion, then the accordion comes back years later into country music through that same through the Mexican side. Right. So now it's gone by way of Germany to Mexico to Bakersfield.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

And to Dwayne Yoakum.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And me being from Western Pennsylvania grew up listening to Accordion because we have polka.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Well, and that's exactly right. People don't realize that's why, though, because of both of the the Eastern European influence of the accordion coming to those two areas.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

Like it's fascinating. It's just, it's amazing how music does. It transcends time, language, humanity, like all of those things. And it's like, it reminds me of the in the Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne breaks into the office and locks the door behind him of the warden.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

And all the guys are outside the yard and he puts on this opera and plays it for the whole yard. And Morgan Freeman says in there, he says something about because they hadn't heard music. And Morgan Freeman says, To this day, I have no idea what that old Italian lady was singing about, but it was the most beautiful thing I ever heard.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Right.

Meeting Through Karaoke And YouTube

SPEAKER_04 24:42

You know what I mean? Like because it's like it just it's it captures this thing. It just taps into a piece of you that you can't really explain. And that kind of brings us to where, like, even when we first met.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

I mean, we talked and stuff, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

But well, so we officially met at karaoke.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Right, right, 100%. But I don't think that the music was I mean, it was just because we liked karaoke and that was the but when we one of the first like times that we were spending together outside of like get you know, get together, um was we were sitting in so and my uncle who now just passed away uh this week, I was house sitting for him at the time. And we just sat in his den on the computer and YouTube for what felt like well no, but I'm saying like first clip was probably like eight hours, and trading songs back and forth as a way, not doing a lot of sun talking, but as a way to communicate and introduce and say, This is who I am. Yeah, these are the songs that I value. This is what represents me as a person, and you you learn through that. It is like again, a language.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

And you talk because you talk about, we did talk about the first time we ever heard it, why it was important to us, why we love that genre. So we learned more about each other in a day or two of exchanging music than I think we could have learned on 17 dates together.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

And the the uh the fun story we I introduced her to a song for the American Gangster soundtrack, Anthony Hamilton. Uh Do You Feel Me? Is that what it's called?

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Yeah, Do You Feel Me?

SPEAKER_04 27:36

Uh like it's been a while since I listened to it, so I almost forgot there. But it sounds very much like an old 70s soul song.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

And I introduced that to you, and you said I said, if I said I said, if we ever get married, this will be our wedding song.

SPEAKER_05 27:52

And it was.

Childhood Music And Family Dynamics

SPEAKER_00 27:53

It was. But we'll get to that. We're gonna talk about the soundtrack of our life here in a little bit. But I want to start out by introducing each of us, like how we came into music, right? Because we have two very different kinds of introductions to music and very specifically. Right. So for me, um, I grew up in well, I was born in 75. So my parents always had an old console stereo, the big thing that looked like a uh I don't even know what they're called.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

I think they're called console stereos, because my dad collects them.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

You've seen all his different videos, and my pap they everybody had those back then.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah. And so it was a big deal. My dad grew up as a music lover, and my mom grew up as a music lover, and so when they came together, they had quite the collection of albums together. Hundreds. And I don't know what happened to them over the years. My dad bitches about it because some of them got lost in moves, but some of them would have been worth money, which is sad.

SPEAKER_05 28:59

But, anyways, long story short, maybe you'd be surprised how much records aren't worth.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, I mean that was extremely crazy. But so growing up, my dad was like two people, literally. Two people. He was a violent, drunken holy terror, sometimes. But if you heard the music turn on when he got home, you knew it was party time. It was party time. You were allowed to get out of bed, you were getting pizza, bringing home hoagies, yeah, treats, all of it, candies, all of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

He spent all his money at the bar, he didn't have a dime left to his name.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

But what he brought home was joy, and those were the good times. And he my dad's a weird character. He's everybody, you either love him or hate him.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

I think most people both.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah, yeah. He's a weird guy.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Because if he flips the switch, you don't know what to expect, and he's hard to contain.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

To be fair, he was much more volatile.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Younger.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

Younger. Now that he's an older man, not that he doesn't pop off and get weird every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yeah, he does. He has no emotional regulation.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

It's so small compared to even in the time frame that you and I have been together.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

Do you know that he can't do it? Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

He's definitely hung down. But when but back in the day when he was still like two, literally two different people. Um bipolar. Yeah. I mean, it's it's bipolar. He's actually diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. I don't know if some of the personalities wedge themselves into a hole.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

I think back then they were misdiagnosing that as that, though. But I think what he because it really what he does is go into manic stages on both sides.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah, for sure. When he's happy.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

I think he has it all. It all comes together.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

It definitely. And that comes from his upbringing. And I someday I'll write about that. It's not really mine to tell right now, I guess. But um when he was on, oh my God, like my dad has a baritone voice, and he is a beautiful singer. And it was just like the whole house came awake. Everybody was dancing. My mom was relieved, which was not a lot around him, you know. Right. So our good times were always around music. Like that defined.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

Right, because it's the only time you think about when he like when you're in that sort of situation where it's hellacious most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Right. You don't know what you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Right. And you're that on edge, and then you immediately you start to see the things that kick to that the good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Which this case being music, then you know, you're like, oh. So of course it's almost like what's that movie where there's a a drunk mom?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Oh, um Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood. Yeah. It's kind of like that, you know, in full night. That that's why that music or that movie hits me to war. Because that is very that was my that was my dad, essentially. So, but the thing of it was like when I say he's a weird character, um, my dad had been to Camp Hill in the 60s. He was very young. Prison. Prison, yeah, for our international.

SPEAKER_05 32:32

Just visiting the cops.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

He was when he was in 16, he was in Gen Pop with adults. And um back then it was very racially divided. So he back then. I mean, maybe even now, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 32:46

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 32:46

It's more so now. Okay. Prisons have gotten just worse when it comes to race. That's the only place that everything is drawn by racial lines.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Is prisons.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

You have to.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

You can't not be a part of it because if you're not, then you're subject to the like wrath of everyone. Right. Yeah. You just sort of have to fall in line. And even back then, I'm saying, yeah. It was less back then because there was less prisoners and there was less diversity in the criminal population. Right. Now you got all kinds of people. Now there's all not now you just don't have one Mexican gang. Right. You got ten. Right. You don't just have one black gang, you got ten. Right. You don't just have one white gang, you got three.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

Right. No, I don't know. I mean, it's it's not the white people gang selection, they do not have the white guy gang selection is much less. And that's the one thing like we don't have access. It's kind of, you know, it's just one thing we haven't taken over. I know I'm gonna write it down because that's a hilarious joke.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

That is a hilarious joke.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Um, but that's why you do podcasts, because that's how you write material right there, like that is just a perfect example. That's a Shane Gillis type story. In a sense, he's the one that taught me, dude, you should do a podcast even if no one listens, just to get material.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Because you discuss things and you just telling stories and stuff like that, and then you come across a gem like that where you never thought about it that before, and then it's yeah, next thing you know, it's part of your act. And that's hilarious to think that white guys, but that's the one thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

And you have a solid prison set on the ball.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

Yeah, I already talk about stuff like that. So it's just something fun to throw in there about how there's the selection of white gangs is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

That's insane.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

You don't even and if it doesn't here's the thing, is you there's no fun white gangs. Like, not every black gang is about hating white people, right? But every white gang is about hating everybody. Do you know what I'm saying? There's not just like sort of happy go lucky, let's just fight with the bloods, white. Like, do you know what I mean? Right. We need to go back to the good things. These white spanky in the gang. We need to go back to some kind of good white gangs and not just white hate. That's my diversity speech for this.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

That is a fantastic premise.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

That is not oh my god, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

Like, there isn't, though. There's no non-white hate. But back to you.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

So, so that in saying that, you would to hear him talk sometimes, you would think that he's so racist. But he's not. Like, my dad just takes every person as they come. He hates all people in groups.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Which I think is what all people do.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

My dad hates all people in groups.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

Yeah, I hate all people in groups.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Right, any group. So, but I hate people. But the reason why I'm saying that or even bringing it up is because his absolute hands-down favorite singers of all time, two of them. One is Mary Wells, and if my dad could have married Mary Wells, he would have.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

Well, your dad, let's preface this by saying your dad loves like soul music.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Soul music. Do a lot.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

He likes early soul music. He's a purist. If it's like anything past 1963, he probably won't like it. Right. Because he's a purist of soul music. So he likes it. You say Marvin Gay, only like pre-1971. Right. When he was still in Motown. Right. Your dad likes like Motown style. So he's and he's a purist when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Sam Cook is his ultimate hands-down all-time favorite, and we'll talk about Sam later. Um, so yeah, so like that's the music that I was being introduced to from my dad was Motown. So I grew up just absolutely pining for soul music because it meant two things. One, I was feeling something, and two, my dad was in a good mood.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

I mean, that's well now you've not only attached, so now you not only like the music, but now you've attached attached it to a dopamine response in your body. Right. And serotonin. So like you've now attached a response, a chemical response in your body to these songs.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yes. And and I think you've probably noticed it. Like sometimes when I'm in my fields, I'll sp I'll lean towards that music when we're out riding around. You know what kind of mood I'm in by that when I'm doing the Motown playlist. I'm feeling nostalgic for when I grew up, which is a weird thing to say because as much as I had a Motown. Well, I didn't grow up like as much as any era of Motown. No, I didn't say and I also didn't have like for as fucked up as my childhood kind of was, it was also there was so much good there too. Right. That like I pine for those parts, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Oh, sure, of course. It's a nostalgia. Nothing tastes better than the stout.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, it does. And like the so the endearing part of it was, and then um we'll talk about how you got into music, but the endearing part for me was that my um my dad was like a local celebrity, non-celebrity on the radio. So WCRO had a contest that you could call in and it was music trivia.

SPEAKER_04 38:16

WCRO, it's you when you said that it sounds like you're talking in the same way. I it sounds like you're talking about it, and I understand what you mean, in the same way that people talk about the old whatever station the Grando operators.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah, yes. That was the car version.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

And it's interesting to hear that because you don't obviously now you don't hear that because radio is I mean, not that it's not a thing, but it's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

So at that point it's the only thing. Right. Or you get what I mean. Like back when they referred to it as those stations. Yeah, like you knew the call stations. There was only three TV stations at the time, and you'd also knew the call stations of the radio because you everybody got like a na they would even back then, smaller radio stations would broadcast national like the Grand Ole Opry. Right. On sick, not every night, but like Saturday night or something. You could listen to a Grand Ole Opry on, and it would say live from whatever the station was in Nashville, brought to you on the That is exactly how I fell in love with, and I did fall in love with Wolfman Jack because WCRO would have the Wolfman Jack show on.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

I think it was Saturday nights, I don't remember, and he would DJ nationally, but we would listen to him on that station. But anyway, so quickly, my dad was banned eventually from calling in. They would have trivia, and my dad, I don't know if he still does because he's in his 70s, but back then, he to your point about being a purist, he knew every fact about he must have read every album cover, front to back, knew who the originating knew who wrote songs, all of it.

Growing Up With A Radio DJ

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Like he absorbed it. Well, I think this is a perfect transition then to tell my music backstory because my mom also got banned from playing radio stations, but because she married the DJ, not because she was always she was winning a lot though. Because I'll say this the Statute of Limitations is way past. She wasn't cheating, but she would get like inside information in the sense of we're doing the we're gonna do it at two, five, seven. You know what I mean? Because back then they would do different things. So like she was, I mean, you that's not really inside information, but you get the idea. And so mom would try, and there was a couple times, yeah, mom would win contests when they were just like dating. Mom would listen to we always listen to Norm on the radio. So, but my stepdad was a radio DJ. Now, let me first off say though that my mom and my dad both had musical influences on me, but I wouldn't think of them as like musical lovers.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Right. I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

Like, do they listen? And my mom doesn't listen to like any secular music now. Right. But when we were younger, she would listen to like old country. We had like a best of the sixties tape that we listened to. Crimson and cloveries and stuff on it. And uh yakity yaked all the time. Very wholesome. But um when my so my mom and dad divorced when it's seven, so she started dating Norm when I was like eight or nine. They got married nine, ten, something like that. And Norm was a radio DJ. And he worked all over the, you know, he worked, we he worked in Greencastle, Winchester, Frederick, but for the large majority of it, he was working in Frederick. Now he also did side DJing. So he did weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs. Stop it. But he would have if they were paid me. I mean, there just wasn't any Jews in Waynesboro.

SPEAKER_05 42:22

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Or wherever, you know, Green Castle. But um he had now part of this was because he was a DJ, like a regular DJ, like you think of going out. Back then it was all hard copies. So he had album, it was right in the perfect era. He had a rack of records, a rack of cassette tapes, and a rack of CDs. Yes. And when I say a rack, I'm talking upwards of 20,000 plus.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:54

Like records, albums, whatever. And uh uh some of the the record I'm thousands of 45s in like older records, and then like and you would think, and then most of it, like we talked about money, but you know, most of it's not valuable. It's kind of like books. Unless you have like the first print, for it's not a lot of that stuff's not really valuable unless there's some rarity to it, which there's surprisingly amount a lot of these records out there, you know what I mean? Like because they've been made since then, like they were multiple runs, just like a book print, you know what I mean? So people have later, those aren't really right, you have a fourth print of like an original Beatles album, it might be 25 bucks. Right, you know what I mean? Like it's not like some lucrative, you know, thing. Did he probably have some rare ones in there? I'm sure, but my mom had a fire and most of us were destroyed. Right. But I had access to absolutely anything that I wanted to listen to. Because not only did he have this huge record collection, but then on top of that, he was always up to date with the new because he was the music well, I don't know what you call that, the head music guy. Yeah, the music programmer for the station. So he would all constantly receive promotional stuff before it came out. Stuff before it came out, like all the new music. Anything you ever we were on the cusp of new music. Right. And so it was an adult contemporary station, but he would get, they'd have rap songs, I have all the latest rap stuff, because it was every he just got everything. Like, you know what I'm saying? He just got it all. And uh so anything that I wanted to listen to, I could listen to. If I heard a mention of it, I could listen to it. If I heard uh something on MTV, I could listen to it. It it we had it and had access to it. So and in particular later, like when I got into sort of being like a nerd about it, and really got into music, then I could explore. And that's how I got into soul music was through exploration. Well, because I was really into Cat Stevens, and Kat Stevens covered Another Saturday Night by Sam Cook, and me being the music nerd that I was was like, who's this is not his song. Right. So where who is this? And then I listened to it and I was like, oh, I like that better.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Oh yeah. Another Saturday night.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Then the Cat Stevens version. And um, so that's how I and then but then I was like, who's this Sam Cook? I remember picking up the album, and that it was a record, and inside the record it was had quotes about people, quotes about Sam Cook by other people. Oh wow. Like it was like Muhammad Ali was like the greatest ever. And then Rod Stewart was like the voice of God. He, if I could something about if he could have anybody's voice, it'd be his. Wow. Do you know what I mean? Like and stuff like that. And uh well, Rod Stewart covered a lot of Sam Cook stuff because that was his favorite singer. Um, but just different, you know what I mean? Because Sam Cook obviously tragically died, you know, when he was young, so you know, he obviously wasn't gonna be around making the music, so everybody was like reflecting on it. But that's how I found that. Um But yeah, so I used to do every I at first in school, I'd make tapes for people, and then I would burn CDs later because I had all of the access and the equipment. Right. Like I nobody in his setup was two record players, two cassettes, two CDs, and you could record right to tape from either or any mixture of, right, and it was just a it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

But um I was stuck recording from the radio to my boom box.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

I used to do that too, though. I used to call in and request songs. One time I called into Mix 95.1 and I requested Fields of Gold by Sting. Who the fuck knows why? I was in seventh grade. I remember the night because I used to do this all the time. I was in seventh grade and I called it, and she's like, What do you want to hear that for? And I was like, I don't know. And she's like, You just want to hear she said, Is there somebody you want to hear that for? Or something like to that effect? And I was like, No. She's like, You just want to hear it for your own bad self, huh? And I've got I remember her saying that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

I love radio DJs so much back in the day.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

But it was just funny because she probably is like, who the fuck is this kid?

SPEAKER_00 47:56

This little kid.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

Because obviously I'm in seventh grade. You can tell I'm the kid.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 48:00

Calling in. I think fields of gold by sting.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

So like I'm sure I don't know if it still conveyed, because I would have been like 15 in the mid-80s, right? And I know that they still did this later, but once MTV became prevalent, you guys probably weren't as paying as much attention to radio. But like in high school, the big thing was to get a request on the love line. So like you would so and so like when I my very, very first boyfriend ever, shout out AJ Hamara, because he's actually still in music. He plays so the band that um J.R. McAfee's gonna be singing with, I think AJ actually plays with them.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

But um, and I can't remember if he plays bass or guitar, regardless. Um so I think we were we might have been in seventh grade or like going from seventh grade to eighth grade, but it was my first boyfriend ever. And um he played Ah, I can't even remember. It he played Lita Ford and Ozzie Osborne, maybe uh on his own guitar in his bedroom for my birthday. His mom made dinner because I think it's I mean, obviously, what was the dinner? I don't remember.

SPEAKER_07 49:21

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

I was a teenager and food Do you think if I was telling this story, I wouldn't know exactly what they had for dinner? But then he called in another song on the love request line for me, so it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 49:35

Well, the thing that I was just talking about, that line, it was seven and nine every night. And it was basically what you're talking about, and that's why she was like people wouldn't always do sometimes you would it was just it didn't have to be somebody you loved, it could be for anybody or just Randall. And but some people would do like I did, yeah, and just call in a song. But like, yeah, that it was I knew exactly what you mean because that was a thing because I knew kids that would do it, like for a girl that they were trying to play I'll make love to you.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Oh god Boys to men.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

I couldn't try to because for me it was the early night.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Listen, I was on the love line once or twice. I'm just saying. I was popular when I was in high school. But that aside, so the funniest thing that ever happened though when I was trying to record music was so I recorded, like I said, onto my boom box. One day, me and my girlfriend Susie were sitting in her room, and I forgot that we were listening to a playback of the countdown from the night before. And it was at the same time that the countdown was on, right? So we're listening to the playback of the countdown. I'm an airhead. You know I'm a fucking airhead, right?

SPEAKER_04 50:44

First off, I just want to interrupt one thing. Countdowns? How great were they?

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Oh my god. Okay, we'll come back to that, but I'm not listening.

SPEAKER_05 50:52

But go back.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Love a good countdown. So I'm listening to the countdown. We wanted to hear, I am pretty sure we were listening for Guns N' Roses Patience. That's what we were waiting to hear in the countdown. So we're listening, she's sitting on her fucking roof smoking a cigarette, don't tell her dad. And um the DJ comes on and he's like, 10th caller gets tickets to whatever. I was like, shit, I'm calling. Colin. I get through. I was like, am I the 10th caller? He's like, for what? As like, didn't you just announce that there was a contest? He was like, what are you talking about? As like, so I didn't win anything. He's like it was such a shack fu. I thought I won.

Radio Countdowns And MTV Era

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Oh dude. I was just rough. Well, I want to come back to countdowns though, because we well, and I want to come back to another thing here because I knew this would happen, though. Because A, I want to talk about MTV because we live, we lived the no other generation or group of people will have ever gone through that era.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

The birth of MTV.

SPEAKER_04 51:59

And the death. The birth and death of MTV. Yes. Like we lived the whole entire lifespan in our lifespan of MTV. We saw it.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

It lived as long as the dog that we got when we were children.

SPEAKER_04 52:11

And then I also want to talk about the countdowns on the radio. Like how even when Sirius does it. Because we have Sirius, because I like we like Sirius. I love a good countdown. And not only that, but like a good countdown in like the middle of the night on like a Sunday night when you're driving home somewhere. It's like rowdy eights or something. But no, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 52:36

The countdown that I looked forward to absolutely every year was either the Memorial Day or the Fourth of July countdowns. Because they were national programs. It was back then there wasn't as wide of a compendium of music, so you could fit a lot more right.

SPEAKER_07 52:55

There's less music to put in the top 500.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Right, exactly. So it spanned, and you got some rock, some pop, some hip-hop-ish that wasn't prevalent in the 80s, right? But you still got it because like walk this way would be on there. So like that's I loved the Firecracker 400 countdown. Oh my god, I miss those.

SPEAKER_04 53:16

But yeah, uh there's something to be said for the radio, like in the middle of the night, driving somewhere you never been, or back from somewhere you never been. You know what I mean? Yeah. And you get into like that.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

But talking about MTV, how mad did you used to get when MTV did their countdowns and the number one song was something fucking stupid that you were so tired of hearing?

SPEAKER_04 53:39

Well, listen, so I don't know if you lived through the summer of Jeremy and November Rain.

SPEAKER_05 53:48

But I did.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

They battled back and forth for number one. Well, for November Rain was number one for like eight months. Right. Like it was months.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

I don't think it was eight, but it felt like it.

SPEAKER_04 54:03

It was an entire like season and a half of November Rain was the number one song. And then like it finally got dethroned, I think, by Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Fucking Jeremy.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

Yeah, but and those are great songs. They are great songs. And I love November Rain.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

But I don't want to hear them at exactly eight o'clock every single night for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_04 54:24

It was worse than that, though. They've not not only were they number one in the countdown, but they played them eight because they were number one. They played them all day. All day. Well, that was the thing, too, is let's go back to that. Back in the day, people have no idea. Kids today, the advent of music television, where it was just music videos all day long. There was no music videos before that. Right. And so people started making music videos, which was another expression.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

It was a new art form.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

Yeah, it was a new art form. So the artist not only had to have a good song, but you had to have like a cool video too.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Right. You had to have a good producer, a good visual artist, a good creative.

SPEAKER_04 55:14

That's a stripped-down song and a stripped-down video. But look at the nuance that goes into the video to show whatever it is, they capture it.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 55:24

Like they get the vibe.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Or like um uh what was that? Oh One and Dead or Alive. That music video, because you could even if you've never been to a concert at that point, you were at that concert. Like you felt like that when he said it's an I'll rock them all, and all the people were standing outside trying to get in. I'm pretty sure that was the Cambria County War Memorial, that scene.

SPEAKER_07 55:52

Right. And so it was I mean I believe it.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Yeah, it was crazy. And yeah, fucking when Johnstown with Bing Guns N' Roses was here, like big artists of the 80s were so hard to believe.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

Right. You think about that, right? Think about that. I would have loved to have lived through that to be able to imagine if you lived five minutes from where you could go see, and not in a big city. Like it's one thing if you live in New York City and you can six blocks from Madison Square Garden.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

That's a totally different scenario.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

But in Russia Belt Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 20,000 people.

SPEAKER_04 56:30

Even to get Twayokum a little while back. Yeah. I'm taking band to see WWE as C.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Yeah, we get some good as well.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

There's still some things that happen, some concerts.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

I saw Kelly Clarkson was one of my Kelly Clarkson was my first concert ever because I have uh auditory triggers, right? We've talked about that before. But um, so I don't like going to concerts for a bajillion reasons. But um Kelly Clarkson played when she was big, like big huge, 2011-ish at the Cambridge County War Memorial, I think, is when I went down to see them with the lead-in. Um, that was my first first concert ever.

SPEAKER_03 57:08

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

And I've only ever been to two since. I've I was at Guns N' Roses in what 2016, we went to Guns N' Roses um in FedEx Field, right?

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

And then Tyler Childers at The Dome or whatever that is.

SPEAKER_04 57:25

Yeah. Yeah, I've seen so I've been to a lot of concerts. A lot of them were because like as a kid, we would go to stuff, and they weren't always huge concerts.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Right. Well, you were at some intimate.

SPEAKER_04 57:40

I was at some very intimate, like record release parties and stuff like that. That was a cool part of it.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

I we went to a Mariah Carey one. Tony Braxton.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:51

Uh John Tesh, of course, we went to. Um but Tony Braxton, Mariah Carey, uh Tony Rich. Do you remember him?

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

So I can't even think of the song, but it was very big. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Because that country. Nobody knows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:07

Yeah, nobody knows. Country or Tony Rich.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

After that.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

Um Bonnie Raid.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 58:14

Uh Bonnie Rate. Um some other country uh Amy Grant, Shania Twain.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Oh, right. I remember you saying that.

SPEAKER_04 58:26

Um Shania Twain, we went to one of her, it was a record thing.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Now, were these people there at those record releases?

SPEAKER_04 58:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They would perform. A lot of times it wouldn't be like a full concert. Right. It's like three songs or something.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Right.

SPEAKER_04 58:41

And it's like at a borders.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Right.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

No, but you know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

It's not like it's a small in a minute.

SPEAKER_04 58:47

Right. Now, those are that's one kind of thing. But then I've also been to regular like concerts as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

Um, but I'm just saying I got to see a lot of cool people like that, quote unquote, in concert.

SPEAKER_01 58:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:00

Now, sometimes we did go to actual concerts. We did go to an Amy Grant concert. We did go uh Gloria Stefan was another one that we did go to her concert. It was I want to say the Maryland Theater, but I might be wrong about that.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:15

Um But you know what I mean, people like that.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Like I prefer the more intimate venues. Like I which is weird when you s because think about we've talked about this often and in other settings, but SNL, that stage is a hard effing stage to capture an artist's vibe.

SPEAKER_04 59:36

Totally ridiculous. But I just want to end on the other point though about at the time, I didn't give a fuck about seeing Gloria Stefan.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

You know what I mean? That was all it was all lame to me. I didn't even pay attention. I looked for other stuff that I didn't give a fuck about Shania Twain when I was 13.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:56

You know what I mean? Absolutely not. I hated country music at that point.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:04

Because it was like that's all we listened to growing up.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

With like my grandparents. So I mean and country wasn't cool in the mid-90s.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

Well, it started to become cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:14

It started to become cool again, but there was like a but all the the people I listened to rap and I listened to grunge as I was coming of age.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:26

So I those things were not cool to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

Until I was until I was about like 15 or so and started to get into music.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

But for the middle school age, when I'm I'm listening to corn.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Right. Not see, and I got one because of my age, but two for other factors, I got to skip the corn era, which I'm happy with. Um, so I skipped a lot of that music. I didn't listen heavily to like Marilyn Manson or any of those guys because so I went from being an 80s baby, right, to I was an 80s hair band girl. Chasing Amy bring brings a picture of that girl to mind. And also in them in old school, when um what's her name? Um Meredith Gray. What's her real name? I never remember.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:18

Uh Pompeo.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Ellen Pompeo, when her character is talking about being in school and she was the girl with the jean jacket and the marble reds. That was me. Like that I was the epitome of an 80s hairband chick.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:31

Well, let me say this though. Because I lived through that era as well, even though I didn't come of age in that era. Right. So I say you're coming of age as you're like entering into your teenage.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:44

So when I was younger though, uh it was the 80s. Right. And I all everybody that I looked up to Uncle Kevin was my Uncle Kevin, yeah, Emily.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

Like the people that they were all hairband people. They were all hair. So I loved all those things.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

But then once but literally once it became uncool, it you stopped liking.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

It just became like the 80s turned off real quick. Real quick, and you stopped liking it, became so like my grunge period was in high school, right? Like my my junior senior year, but at by that point in time, excuse me, and I had always listened to all the music, right? So I listened to everything all the time, other than country. Again, um, we talked about this before. So with country music, um, my grandmother listened to country, my mom listened to country, but it wasn't like per like I didn't listen to it all the time, and I fucking hated it. I absolutely despised country music when I was younger. Despise music.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:56

It's so weird because for both of us, because now that's the major I'm that's not all I listen to, obviously. I listen to a lot more stuff than you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

Right. You do. Your your palette is way wider than mine.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:10

I because you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Like I still listen to Especially new, because I don't listen to newer rap or anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:16

Right. And I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

I it's not that I don't like it, but I just love I'm very stuck in of an the early Lil Wayne era of hip-hop, along with like the Tupac.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

My love of hip hop is extensive. Right. You know, that could be a whole different areas that could be an episode I used to teach in class hip-hop history when I was a to other white kids out in the country after school to try to educate them about the history of hip-hop. No, they needed to know the founders. You know what I mean? Shout out KRS1, Rakim, and you know, Big Daddy King, cool keys.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:51

And so I would teach them about those guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

But regardless of any of that, so we were talking about I know the original Roxanne rap from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

No, I'm with you. Your credentials are well established. But I'm just saying now, you don't keep the only thing I you know what I don't keep up with now is heavy music.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

Yeah, I don't keep up with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:13

I very much like metal. Like, I love like Metallica, Slayer. You know I love all that stuff, but I that's as far like once you get past a certain point, I don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:26

Any of the new, like, harder bands, I don't even know who they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

I I couldn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:30

I just don't, that's one thing I don't keep up with. And I still enjoy listening to the older stuff, but it's just none of the new stuff interested me. And I know people will probably be like, oh, you've never listened to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

Yeah, you I mean, drop a suggestion because maybe we maybe you'll get it right. My sister actually dropped me a suggestion. I should have listened to it more, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:51

And you know that I listen to stuff like I'm much more forgiving of things. Like people, like, because with rap, people be like, I don't, you know, people are like, Oh, they like because I don't even understand what they're saying now. These but I like a lot of new rap. I like a lot of new music in other genres.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

So I think maybe if I found the right stuff, maybe there is new rap coming out again that I like. There was a period of rap music where I didn't like the it all sounded cookie cutter exactly the same to me for a couple years, and I just couldn't. I I mean, because I I grew up listening to Wu-Tang, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:28

So I think for me the difference is I knew who to listen to. It's just like with country, people would say that new country sucks, but we don't listen to new country. No, we listen to new country artists, but they're not on the radio. They're not. We know where to look. It's the same thing for me with my rap. Like that song you've got to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Excuse me. That song you played for me the other day, I can't remember the artist.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:52

Pooh Shicey. Yeah, Pooh Shicey.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

I like yeah, I like that song. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

Up is fuck the fit.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

I like that song. Um, so yeah, I'm not opposed to it, but I'm just not like I'm never in the mood to sit there and scan through a bunch of music to find a gem when it comes to genres that I don't listen to all the time. If you bring me a gem, fantastic. It's my I love.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

I was gonna say how many times it just to go to show you, like, how many times do we share new music with each other? All the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:22

All the time, because you and I have very different tastes, but we also have very similar tastes at the end of the day. If you if you find something that you really love and you want to share it with me, chances are I really do love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:34

Right. That's exactly right. And the thing is, is it's like, yeah, like I know if I hear like certain what I know that you're not gonna like it. Like if I know if it's something I know you don't like, right? I'm not gonna play that for you. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

But if it's something that I like that I know you'll like like Volbeat, meh.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

And I like me that kind of I don't like Anthem Raw.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:59

It's like the the hard rock Elvis or whatever.

Life Soundtracks And Song Meanings

SPEAKER_00 1:07:01

Yeah, I don't like I just don't get down for that kind of stuff. But um, so let's talk about we have a whole segment coming up about the soundtracks of our life, right? So we talked about our early days and the kind of music that introduced us or into the world excuse me, hold on. The kind of music that introduced us into the world of music. But now, and we've talked about like grow coming into music for as teenagers and stuff. We talked about, you know, how when we met, but we've produced a couple actual playlists or we've lived through a couple playlists, and they're good. They're worthy of talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

I think that what's fun is because just like we already talked about, you associate certain you have playlists of your life, like you said. Whereas you're listening to certain music during certain times of your life and you reflect on about it, and it brings up those you taste that nostalgia or the memory that's attached to it. And sometimes songs take on different meanings. In the sense of we to like talking about this, a good example of this is when I was in my uh go when we were going through my addiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

And like you had certain something, like, and we very much lived like separate lives during that time. We didn't we did, but we didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

But you know what I'm saying, though, like we were very much on our own paths, living together as a couple and still trying to do co-parenting with Dakota and all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:33

And so, but then other but songs like that that were bad at the time, just take um your uh these eyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

Yeah. These eyes is special to me because I had a group of friends that carried me through your addiction at a karaoke bar.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:51

Right. But then separately, now the song has different meaning.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

We love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:57

We love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

The actual lyrics hit, like the Hurtins on Me. Yeah, I will never be free. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

Yeah, it's great. And you can see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

You took a vow with me and you broke it, right? Right. And and it hurt when I was singing it at the karaoke bar, and I felt it, and that's why I became popular for singing it at the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

Or songs that helped us through something. Yeah. Like Anthony.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

Absolutely. Uptown by Drake.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:26

When he died, well, the music that we played during his funeral, we've listened to a thousand times over.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

Right. So we created a CD to play at his funeral, but we copied it and gave it out to his friends. And it was all they contributed to the play.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:41

It was, yeah, it was songs that he listened to with his friends, songs that he listened to with us, songs that he listened to with his sisters.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:48

Yeah. It was everybody picked a song that meant something to them with him for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:55

It didn't, you know what I mean? Whatever your connection was to.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

And it was all genres.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:59

It was all over the place. It was rock, country, rap.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

Yeah. It was but But there's a few favorites. I mean, the obvious ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

What we still listen to now, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Yeah. Well, the obvious ones are Go Rest High by Vince Gill and Um If I Die Young by the band Perry, because those were uh obvious choices for a few year old.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:19

Well, and to but to me, the two songs that stand out are the Drake.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Drake, Uptown.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:24

And Fishing in the Dark.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

Fishing in the Dark, yep. Because that song tends to just pop up in our lives whenever it wants to. And then for me, um, I was actually almost talking, I I almost brought this up at work today. I can't remember. Oh no, it was actually in my group chat. Um they were talking about kids, teenagers, and it just popped into my brain, and I was like, oh, save it for the episode. Um, Anthony's ringtone to wake up in the morning was Santa by Sublime. And for a fucking year, I had to listen to that song nonstop because he wouldn't get up for school.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:03

Well, I'm gonna sidetrack here onto another thing. I'm trying to shut up about this and keep it moving. But how about when you had a multi-disc changer?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:14

And you woke up to what would pop in.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:19

I and I accidentally sometimes would leave Black Sabbath in the very in the first album. So I would wake up to what is this.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:37

I wish people could see that because you just did a Jack Black face totally.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:42

But anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

No, I hear you, because mine for in the early aughts, whenever it was just me and Dakota for a while, um, I woke up like that, and mine was always fuck what I said. You don't mean shit. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:57

I remember you saying that, Peter. Um, but back to what we were talking about and soundtracks that we've created. Well, another one is our wedding.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:06

Yes. And there are people like Alita, who is a loyal listener. Her mama talked told me a couple of years ago that she still listened to that CD in her car.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

That's hilarious. But it was just a lot of good songs.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:18

Yeah, there was a l so many good songs.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:20

So, but that is another way that like people get to know you because they're like everybody had something on there that they liked or connected to.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

Right. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:30

Whether or not they're the 80-year-old grandma or a kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

There was different things on there.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

Right. And so unfortunately, one of the songs that persists on that CD, and I still have copies of the CD, if we ever want to resurrect it, um, we'll give them out at our um anniversary party.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:48

Or if you want one, right as some.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:51

And I'm like this, I this hurts my heart to say out loud because this song is probably one of the most vocally beautiful, brilliant, dynamic songs that ever was When a Woman Loves.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:06

R. Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

Oh my God. Here's the thing is I don't give a shit, dude. Listen, I'm not gonna stop listening to that song.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

It was on our wedding CD. We can't retire it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

It's for every bad human being, there's a few good things that they did. Even Hitler had a few wins. But R. Kelly, sure, he might have pissed on teenage girls, but god damn it, that song, he touched the hand of God.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:35

And on our next episode, we're talking about capturing pedophiles. Anyways, um, no, so seriously, though, that CD, of course, Into the Mystic is on there. Um, and then at our actual wedding, um, we had a karaoke DJ there, and I sang nothing compares to you by Sinead O'Connor, which was one of my original kind of really good songs. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that song has a very strong hold on my heart.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

And it yeah, it's just so I mean, there's so much.

Grateful Dead And Getting Clean

SPEAKER_00 1:14:10

There is. And so talking about us introducing each other to music, um, one of the the I didn't introduce you to the band, but I introduced you to the the compendium that was The Grateful Dead, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:26

And I was just thinking about that earlier.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:28

I was like, man, I need to watch it. Yeah, and that became So how I got introduced to The Grateful Dead. Now, I knew The Grateful Dead, who they were. Right. And I knew a couple of songs. How could you not? Everybody knows Casey Jones and you know what I mean. Like a couple of other ones that were like, because they don't have a lot of quote unquote hits. Right. I think I mean like radio and Casey Jones. But yeah. So I my knowledge of the Grateful Dead was, like I said, Casey Jones, Touch of Gray, and that was it. There's nothing that I'm gonna, I'm not gonna say anything bad about those songs. But like you said, they're not representative of the Grateful Dead is or who they are. I mean, they are, but I'm just saying, like, once you know the rest of it, they're not a good single representative that they're gonna be able to do that. Exactly. Exactly. And but I think I got introduced to them at the right time, though, because my love of that style of music, because they very much tap into folk old timey stuff. So that gave me a new and they're very much music appreciation people.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:50

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:51

They love mu I mean they love music.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

And so I but regardless of any of that, the Amazon documentary, six-part documentary, whatever, about the grateful dead.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

Was it the long strange strip one?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:07

Yeah. It came out right at the time that I was getting clean.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:12

And it right preceding that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

Right. Probably about six months to a year.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:18

No, less than that. Really? Just a couple, just a couple of months.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

Okay, we'll we'll go with that. But we had listened to, so here's the thing is for me, when I was younger, I did a lot of open mics, a lot of open mics. I probably have a thousand or more under my belt. And one of the places that I love doing open mics was Dively's Tavern here in Johnstown. And those guys covered a lot of Grateful Dead. I was a skater for a little period of time. So that the skater culture in the 90s listened to a mixture of stuff, and part of that was the Grateful Dead kids. So it was, it was I was introduced to their music early on, and I didn't appreciate it then. But I started listening to it again and re-introduced and then introduced you to their kind of Well, once we watched this documentary, it was like you gotta hear this, you gotta hear this, you gotta hear this.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:16

Yeah. And then I sort of got and then I absolutely fell in love with it. Then it helped save my life, got me clean. Right. And we've I've you know talked about that. I'm not gonna go into all that right now because Recess Kings. Yeah, go listen to that. And uh because of in the interest of time, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:38

But um but anyway, the Grateful Dead saved my life, and then I became a nerd about it. Like I got into all the stuff, all the things.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:46

Right. He knows now he's which is pure Scott fashion. When he loves something, he immerses. So he knows way scores more about it than I do at this point. Um, I was a casual lover of most of their music.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:03

Um, but he now because it turned into so it was one of those things. If you ask me who my favorite musical artist of all time is, that's probably gonna be my answer. Yeah, now it's and I'm just saying, like, as a total package, if I was really like having and I mean I could argue, you know, a thousand different ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:22

Mine is probably still guns and roses.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:25

They sta they immediately jump to like the top of the list.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:30

So, and because of just, I mean, you know, and like I said, I love it because it's not I love the appreciation of that they have for music, that songs that they brought to life, old time stuff, like they were such a different thing than what I thought my perception of them was prior to the the documentary, was because like I didn't know the music like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:55

And then once I like started to hear her, I was like, oh my, like, this is exactly what I love.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

Right, right. And I mean, I don't even want to run down the list, but obviously Ripple is has meaning to us, and um, Broke Down Palace is absolutely hands down, probably my favorite of their songs.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:17

Um both written by Robert Hunter in the same day, but regardless, anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Exactly. And so now like our event space is called our home is called Broke Down Palace.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:28

Well, because it to me it also because once you fall in love with the Grateful Dead, listen to me, now it's like because I am a total deadhead now.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:37

In the same way that like if I meet, ask her anybody that we meet, if I see anything even remotely related to the Grateful Dead, there's a conversation. It's like meeting Steelers fans. Like, I'm you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:53

Which so, and you know me, I'm all about synchronicities. So Big Anthony, on the day that we procreated, the very day, he got a dancing bear on his he got it, that was his birthday, August 13th, 1993. He got a tattoo of a dancing bear. He also had a um a samurai. He drove a samurai and it had dancing bears on it. Like everybody knew that was his because it was teal and it had the dancing bears. He had, I actually think I wore one of his t-shirts well into our relationship. Um, it was no, I lied. That was our sons. Um because I asked, and Anth bought that at the beach. He actually got in trouble for buying it at the beach because his par his foster parents didn't like the grateful dead. Didn't like anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:45

That's what I that's what I was gonna kind of go into with was like the perception of the grateful dead. But what I love about my perception of the grateful dead now, like when you get to, you know what I mean? Like, like I was saying, like when you get to like live and breed the grateful dead, it represents like everything that I love about life. They just loved and say what you will about Jerry's drug issues or whatever. They he still loved life, and they always took the time to get to know people, to absorb people into the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:19

Right, there was no malicious, there was no corporate climbing, there was no It sounds stupid, but love. Right, there was nothing but love. That's exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:28

And then not like and and just love of life and love of people as individuals, love of freedom, right, love of expression, love of you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:38

Like Right, and the lifestyle that he lived, uh I can't really knock him for having an addiction because I like having gone through that, like right, I'm not saying that it's okay to do drugs in excess. I'm not saying that's okay. What I'm saying is that we've learned over time that there have been pe lots of genius people have drugs as their coping mechanism. Right. He was a musical fucking genius.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:11

Genius. And he was a good person. Everybody, nobody has anything bad to say about Jerry Garcia other than you're on.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:20

They'd be like, and that's just his bandmates.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:23

Because it affected them.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:25

His family and his bandmates are gonna feel they're the people that the people that you're closest to are the ones that deal with your addiction. Right. Everybody else is just getting in.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Right. That's exactly it. They don't know it for nothing. And it's because they and again, if I can't say for sure that it didn't lead to some of the most brilliant things that he produced musically.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

And the bad thing, the people that say those bad things would his you think his bandmates didn't love him to the Right. These guys were brothers, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:01

These guys were brothers that bonded in a way that most people never get to.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

Right. They've they went through all of the things together, grew up together. I mean, decades built an empire of people who just adored them.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:18

Right. And who From people from Harley Davidson, Hell's Angels, to peace-lovin' hippies.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:28

Right. To corporate America.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:30

To corporate America to they touch so many different things.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:36

Right. And you see their influence in some of the music that we love today that were is cropping up on the news scene, which we'll talk about in a few.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:45

There's very few bands that transcend time, not just with their music, but like with merch. You see kids that don't even know who the Grateful Dead is wearing like the Grateful Dead Nike East tub.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:00

Right. I love it. You know what I mean? I love it. The dancing bears are like the most iconic.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:04

It's iconic. Right. It's I it's one of the greatest branding things that there has ever been in any field. It's like Coca-Cola. Absolutely. It's like Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:17

Hold on. Do you want to grab south? She's standing there in the way. I need to look at my notes real quick anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:25

Hey dog. See you sound.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:41

She wants you to pick her up whenever it's going on.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:45

She's like I know.

Ken Burns Country And New Favorites

SPEAKER_00 1:24:47

And she's already had two now, so she's gonna skip. All right, so the I'll hit on that in a minute. Um all right, so we talked about the Grateful Dead documentary. Um, but the other documentary that has played heavily into our life in the last couple years is the Ken Burns country music documentary, which might be the greatest documentary I've ever watched in my entire life.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:25

It's oh it's it's religious.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:29

It is, it was a spiritual experience.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:32

I want to go watch it right now, but it's that good. It feels like church when you're watching, you feel like you're learning, it's like it is a spiritual experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:42

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:43

Because you connect to the people, you connect to something old timey, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:48

Yeah, and to get that like behind the scenes peak, that's that's one of the things that I love about this documentary. I cried with people, I fell in love with artists even more, knowing more of their backstory, knowing how hard Dolly Parton fought to get out of that contract with Porter Wagoner. Like I work at nine to five. God dang it. I already loved her entire soul, but that just made me just amplify it even more.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:20

Or they're the stories of the connections that changed total history. Right, like the barber. Yeah, the barber for the fam the the the barber was the Everly Brothers dead. Right. And he met those songwriters just cutting their hair, and they had struck out like 20 times. Both of them, both of the Everly Brothers and the writing duo. Right. They went on to become one of the greatest writing duos of ever time, and the Everly Brothers are still like one of the greatest selling artists.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:54

Right. It's insane. I those little those little nuggets that that you just get, like you said, it's nostalgia tastes good, right? It's just it feels so good. It feels so homey. It feels like a time when it was really just about the music.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:12

If you love if you even remotely like country music and are interested in any way, and you've not watched that documentary, go watch all 12 hours. It's long, it's eight parts or 10 parts or something. Go watch it. It's amazing. It's filmmaking at its finest.

Musicals And A Dolly Parton Detour

SPEAKER_00 1:27:32

So just a couple little nuggies um before we start wrapping it up. Um, so uh talking about or bringing it full circle back to music as a language and how you can use it to communicate maybe even spiritually. Um, one of my favorite new artists, and they're not new because they've been around for a minute, but I only discovered them about a year and a half to two years ago, is the Red Clay Strays. And there's so last May-ish, I heard, um, it was probably last April, I heard I'm Still Fine for the first time. And it's that song does something to me, but I'm just throwing out a little cautionary tale to everyone. Um I was singing that the one day, and I said the lyrics, sang the lyrics, Oh, but father, I'm afraid you picked the wrong one with my full chest. And I was singing it to God, and I was singing it as a challenge, and God turned around and said, Bet, bitch. So we'll more to come on that, but um, just don't do that. Don't challenge God through with your whole chest through a song lyric because trust and believe that music moves emotions and emotions carry weight that gets to where they need to go. That's all. Um, but so that was a weird one. I do want to um talk about a more fun little tidbit in music. This is a whole genre that I could go down because when I was in high school, I produced musicals. So I love musicals. Dakota was in the musicals. So we were music we were musical theater parents for a couple years. I mean, musicals, right? I don't know if you like them. You probably don't see them.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:41

I do not like musicals. I mean, I have I enjoy them watching them live, but I'm not a guy that's gonna be, I'm not running around singing Nat King Cole. No, because what's the name? What's the one where there's filler on the roof? I don't know why maybe they can cole, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:02

So I've seen almost all of musicals but the only one I've ever seen on Broadway it was Aladdin and it was oh my god it was gorgeous it was a whole I want to see more but I'm only bringing that up because again like in researching things I was actually researching I was actually researching uh conspiracy theories for something else and looking for things in history that were sensational that became something that are like mainstream now that we just don't really think about right so this little nugget came into play which was the best little whorehouse in Texas so the best little whorehouse in Texas was a Dolly Parton movie at some point Dolly Parton Burt Reynolds oh Burt Reynolds yeah he was the cop in the movie or whatever the sheriff yes and the it they made a Broadway musical out of it and I get a giggle out of it because um we were playing like New Year's Eve one year we were playing um Pictionary and that was what I that was one of the things that I had to draw in front of Susie's entire family and I didn't know what it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:27

Well first off Texas is what you draw first right and then you draw a woman with big boobs and a cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:37

Yeah I mean yeah do this you keep pointing at her so um so anyways long story short that is actually a true story um so there was really a gentleman um he was a news reporter and there was a whorehouse being run in Texas it was called the chicken ranch everybody knew about it because there were rules and they were clean and they were orderly and there was no drug activity and you know what I mean like they were just there to do business.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:18

Just there to be whores.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:20

And just some whore there was nobody that was like mad about it. Like everybody knew it existed the cops overlooked it which is where Burt Reynolds comes in in the movie Dolly's the madam that runs the place and I mean that's how most good I think that's how most whore houses were run back in the days.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:39

Hush hush.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:40

Well I don't know because when I think of them I my the first thing that comes to mind for me is um like the saloon days when there was brothels upstairs and they were rowdy. Well saloons were rowdy but then I also skip fast forward to when I first discovered the internet and the bunny ranch I love those bitches. I watched their TV show on Skinemax or whatever HBO because I wanted to learn how they how all that worked. Like I would never do it but I I want to know how everything works. So I wanted to know how the bunny ranch worked but anyways I digress. So that was just a fun fact that I cooled out of nowhere because it just felt like it it comes into play.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:22

It does you don't even realize that movies like the best little warehouse in Texas are based on a true story.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:29

And a Broadway musical came out of it too. Right well that's what I mean. So one thing that we didn't talk about that I do want to bring up real quickly it wasn't on the agenda but it's just worth throwing Randos out here at the end. So like you and I are both also musically inclined and we've both been DJs.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:45

I'm not musically inclined.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:47

You play guitar not well better than I can and I can read music and play instruments.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:54

Right but the reason that I've stopped and I don't is because I'm not musically inclined and I struggled right but you're not horrible at it you can play tunes.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:05

I mean I miss Josh Minnick Josh Minnick I miss you around a campfire but regardless of any of that but you have but you're musically inclined but you've DJed I have good taste you do have good taste in music impeccable taste impeccable taste in music but for the genres that I like for the ones I don't like I don't fucking know no I do for those too I would have to believe you but um yeah so I played instruments when I was younger I played the violin the cello the flute and in high school I played the drumming you have an ear you can hear it. Yeah I can't do any of that I can't I can't carry a dude in a bucket which is why we are actually fun karaoke DJs because we podcast we're both comfortable in a bucket both know music but I'm not good at it. Right so what we haven't talked about is our new favorites like who are we listening to right now right now? Right I tend to get stuck in music loops. I have a hyperfix fixation for music and so until another event in my life changes my music scope somewhere else I'm stuck in this loop that I'm in and I kind of like it. I have a country playlist that's sick it's hasn't changed in a year and two years. I mean you've added a couple in there yeah well because we I tailor um Taylor McCall yeah we discovered that just played on YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:40

Rolling Stoned again um yeah I don't even know I haven't been listening to really too much other than the like you said just I know like comedy has sort of taken a little bit of the music.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:57

Right it's overtaken we still listen we're stuck in our old playlist when we travel right now. So what I'm looking for from our listeners is like what given what we've talked about like we listen to a gambit of music what are some of your favorite artists that aren't being played on the radio like you're picking them up on YouTube you're picking them up on socials you're picking them up on Sirius but they're not mainstream playlist music let us know who they are we'll give them a listen. But for me especially in the country genre or blues that kind of stuff but um also new rap hip hop that is blending like that old genre.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:34

I get enough of that I know you do I have I know you do but your taste is slightly different well no I'm saying the ring with that with the I see how many people send me new rap stuff.

AI Music And DIY Creativity

SPEAKER_00 1:36:46

Yeah that's true. I mean it's like you got bros though I don't I don't talk to people outside of like social media you have friends I don't really fool with people like that. I have group chats that are kind of all over the place. So um I do want to talk about AI music for a second. Just a second um because I know there it's everybody has opinions about AI. I I am gonna call out the you know you get your year end review or whatever. I was in like the first top 10% of global adopters early adopters for chat GPT meaning that I was the first of the first 10% of all users to ever use chat GPT I was in the first 10% globally globally. And I use chat GPT today more than 88% of all other users. Yeah I believe that so in that case clearly I'm pro but I'm also an advanced logical thinker and have discernment so I'm not a risk for as somebody who uses AI.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:56

Well I'm not pro or anti. It's this it depends on what you're doing and what you're using it for. I don't want to go I don't want my artists create using AI to to create music I when I go see their music I don't want it to be AI but if you're making a song for a commercial about cheats.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:20

Right exactly that mean anything to me and it here's another note on AI and this is partially with songs but like also like flyers I see this all the time and it it this is my opinion on it is because people say it all the time you know about like music flyers comedy flyers don't use don't don't use AI get a fly yeah get art who has hired all these artists to do event flyers before it was fucking copy and paste since I've been able to use a computer where is a broken musician gonna get money to pay an artist to design a flyer right exactly like for a show at Bucky's bar right exactly you know what I mean like on where they're gonna make thirty dollars right like I mean it just doesn't so ridiculous I get it like I understand the argument like but I think there's AI's not going anywhere and I think there's a place for both that's all right before um Microsoft had like like the earliest received uh release of Microsoft you could still create flyers in a Word document and that's what many of us were doing for whatever we were doing flyers for and I was in bands during those days hard cider I still have a flyer that they create it up made a hundred copies. Yeah that's what we did in high school like when we had Battle of the bands in high school we created our tickets on one sheet on a computer with a Word document and then used cardstock to make our tickets like nobody was ever hiring we hired printers to do like tickets for the musical but we still had to design it and I did all of that in our it's just it's a mood argument. I don't know such a mood argument but I only bring it up because full disclosure Scott we've talked about this before Scott wrote the lyrics for our podcast because they are very specific to us and Pennsylvania really um but I used AI to generate the singing because right now we've got 12 listeners.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:39

I'm not gonna the lyrics are partially AI generated just mean because I just took the outline and switched up stuff and made it right now I think the one that our latest release is mostly you.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:54

No it's not that's just it okay well regardless that's how good it is regardless of all of that I say that because when our podcast catches fire at some point we will hire a real artist to sing the theme song.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:10

Right.

Wheel Of Wisdom Music Picks

SPEAKER_00 1:41:11

When I have money to pay an artist to sing it exactly I will exactly until then I'll spend the$5 on whatever that is oh I I bought 1500 credits a year ago and I still I still have right exactly but also because I just wanted to give a shout out to whoever created that damn AI remix of Move Bitch because Chat GPT asked me when I was outlining this episode what is one song that really gets you to your core in a good mood and I was like that's changed over the years because like remember for a minute it was like um hallelujah oh you no no no no no not the how no I know what you're talking about I can't remember does it Fallout Boy maybe maybe but anyways regardless of that I don't know who sings it but um but right now it's the AI remix of Move Bitch get out the way. That song gets me I could be crying puddles over a dog dying in the middle of the road in front of me and if Scott would turn that song on I would immediately like flip a switch. I can't not get into a mood when I hear that song. So thank you big bubskys for introducing me to that AI remix. Also I've also been fooled by AI mixes where I thought a real artist released a song collaboration and they fucking did people trick you. So fuck you people that are tricking me Scott has a good ear for the AI voices so he knew right away it wasn't that oh I knew instantly um that said they call me the Michael Jordan of sniffing out AI voices. For the wheel of wisdom today we're gonna keep it in this music thread the old wheel of death being so I already answered a song that changes my mood instantly that's right now in the current state of affairs is movement the AI version so what's yours? FDL Pooh Shyste FDL Pooh Shyste No discredit to the feds fuck the feds FDF all right so song that feels like home Tyler Childers either like Southern Indians or Lady Man anything from like the Purgatory album right so saying Tyler Childers actually throws a monkey wrinkle to my plan because my main you know this about me I don't know why but Yellow Lead Better is my song that's my song that feels like home to me. But I could also make an argument that Lately Shake the Frost is also that song for me. I can name a hundred songs right right right that's for me it's always Yellow Lead Better that's the chords and the way that song is arranged regardless of the nonsensical lyrics it just the the melody of that song does something to me and it almost evens me out. It doesn't pull me down into a bad mood and it doesn't hype me up into a good mood it just mellows me the fuck out. Yeah I that song I mean I like it but I just I feel like I've probably overplayed I don't think you've overplayed it but it gets overplayed I do get mad when somebody tries to do that for me to karaoke if you try to do it at karaoke you better goddamn hit that song because I'll be mad and especially if I'm judging you in a karaoke contest. Alright so one more question um on the wheel of wisdom underrated artist like of all time like anywhere or just for you I mean for me underrated artist I would say Vincent Neal Emerson.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:35

I knew you were gonna pick that guy because he is an absolute picking fucking fool he's a great songwriter and yet nobody I mean country people know people like me that are in the know know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:53

But like outside of that I mean he's doing good I mean he's but I'm just saying like he's he's uh like one of those you know ones like I feel you I feel you he's underrated his abil his ability as a songwriter a player and a singer I mean he's he's he's good so mine might annoy you a little bit but you'll probably so it's not even lately it's just and not even the radio stuff I'll say but the live performances I've seen Jesse Murph.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:33

Yeah I mean she's okay I don't know I know you just are not a fan of her she There's something about people there's something about when females do that thing with their voice I know that I don't that just it just does it just I know take to me it just takes away from it. I don't understand I feel you I get doing it once in a while but there's some people that make it like their thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:57

Right and that's what I'm saying is some of the live performances I've seen she's fallen in and out of that and done a more storytelling stupe vibe. So I just I there's something about her that I just absolutely adore like I am a champion for Jesse Murph. I'm like one of her fans I don't know if she's big in any world but she's big on TikTok so I see her all the time. All right so to wrap up the show to summarize is if you want to understand someone ask them what they're listening to.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:40

Yeah I don't it's like I also it to quote the movie you've got mail Greg Kamir has a great a great he's got a great quote man where he's saying some things that are very good um now Greg Kamir has a quote in there where he says something he quotes another person and he says it when he's writing the article he says it goes back to the great whatever you are what you read and it much then it is that way with what you read it I you very much are you are what you listen to.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:22

Right.

Upcoming Shows And Sign Off

SPEAKER_04 1:48:22

So if you don't really like music I don't trust you those people Dan Sutter does a whole bit about people that don't like music. It's like you ever met these people they're like I don't like music like what like country or no I don't like music and it's like yeah no no thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:47

All right so what do you got coming up over the next couple weeks? Anything that we before May 1st Bucky's oh Bucky's out in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:57

We love the Buckey Lucy Ola Mills that ain't the middle of nowhere I'm going to the Scotchman and getting me a burger take some of them Buffalo chicken fries.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:05

Oh my God can I just say they were good. I'm getting them they're like four dollars I wasn't even yeah like I was not expecting them to be because it's bar food right their fries were so perfectly cooked they're taking their time in the back air in that little room and the sauces so it's literally just a pile of fries with chicken tenders on top with buffalo wing sauce and the ranch. Whatever chicken things are all of it the the whole package were good. It was because they were crispy and yeah and for the price like I saw one plate of them and I was like I need those yeah Bucky's is uh yeah shout out to whatever's going on in the middle of nowhere Scotchman is also called Bucky the Scotchman aka and I saw this morning And we're gonna be at the karaoke thing Saturday. Yeah well we we covered that earlier yeah no I know but I wanted to call it out yeah we're gonna be yeah well I'm gonna clip it out from the early for sure so Friday night at Bucky's and Osceola Mills they actually made a drink for the show it is the rainbow it looks amazing it's got colored rainbow flavors it's got I don't I don't want to talk about liquors on the show I guess I don't know if yeah I guess we can but anyways it looks be it looks gorgeous.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:30

It's beautiful it's called the rainbow yeah and they created it just for the just for the night.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:37

Just for the night state college is 20 miles that way if you need to figure it out. And then Harrigan's on Saturday for the karaoke contest. I'm so excited about that. Cash prizes cash prizes guys all right we will see you in May 1st for May May Flowers.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:58

We're experiencing April showers right now as we record so we'll see you May 1st for May Flowers and if nobody's told you today stay trashy stay trashy bitches eat biscuits get trash where the little things comedy legends we bring it home in the way it's got to go to go and go to the body Things wrong, comedy legends, we bring it home, haunted highways, midnight dash, riding shotgun, kicking ass.