Notes From An Artist
Get in on the conversation with hosts David C. Gross and Tomaso Semioli! These veteran journalists / musicians / authors delve into the lives and careers of senior and approaching senior artists who continue to thrive in various musical genres spanning rock, jazz, blues, folk, Avant Garde, experimental, classical, and permutations thereof. Notes From An Artist exudes intelligent and insightful peer-to-peer conversations, coupled with thematic playlists, offering a refreshing alternative to the youth-oriented content prevalent in mainstream media. It's not only fun, informative, and entertaining... it's a lifestyle!
Notes From An Artist
We Love L.A. Rock Essentials with Tim
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YouTube channel "Rock Essentials with Tim" host Tim P. joins David C. Gross and Tomaso Semioli to ruminate on rock history and personal experiences as musicians in the City of Angels and more.
And now, from somewhere in beautiful downtown Burbank, NBC once more tries to prevent.
SPEAKER_03Morning. This radio show may be hazardous to the establishment media. You are about to embark on a cultural and intellectual journey to deep in itself. It's used composers and authors David Secretary. Tomato's to be open. Welcome to the notebook. Victory Interview, Music, Auditory Collide. Together, Google Artist Note No. Tell us Art. Tomato, note the moment. Touch that dialogue. Buy the ticket. Take the ride. Idiot of a conversation. Idiot. Notes from an artist. Notes from an artist.
SPEAKER_19Susie?
SPEAKER_09Yes.
SPEAKER_19Susie Cream Cheese? Yes. That's the voice of your conscience, baby. Uh I just want to check one thing out with you. You don't mind? What? Susie Cream Cheese. Honey. What's got into you?
SPEAKER_17Very interesting. What do you mean, very interesting? It was stupid. Yes. It was stupid.
SPEAKER_11But it was also very interesting. Hi there, nice to be with you. Happy you could stick around. Like to introduce Leg Larry Smith. Come. Sam Spoon is rhythm pole. And Vernon Dudley Bohey No bass guitar. And Neil Emmett, piano. Come in, Rodney Splater on the sacred phone. With Roger Ruskin's bear on Tematic.
SPEAKER_16I bought the fresh stick just as you told me. You're absolutely right. It's neat and quick and it goes on dry. It did make me feel cool and sweet, just as you said. I did everything you said, but my boss still hasn't asked me to lunch.
SPEAKER_10Unlike some deodorants, fresh doesn't guarantee you'll get ahead in business. All fresh does is keep you fresh.
SPEAKER_16When you think of it, that's quite a lot.
SPEAKER_05My name is Tommaso Semioli. I am your host. My co-host is David C. Gross. David's greetings and salutations to our audience member.
SPEAKER_07Hello, our audience member. And I just want to know, why am I a co-host and you're a host? Shouldn't I be the host and you be the co-host? Or should we both be co-hosts? Is this some problem with your ego, Tom? The fact that I have hair and you do not?
SPEAKER_05Well, hair is a very prominent topic in this uh uh uh episode. Well look at it now. If I say I am your host and you are my co-host, right there it says we're equals. You are a co-host. I didn't say and my sidekick or my undergroup in Fuhrer or I'd give you a sidekick for sure. My lackey David C. Gross is a co-host. Oh, victim of circumstance. How did they um how did Johnny Carson introduce Ed McMahon?
SPEAKER_07He never did.
SPEAKER_05He never did. That's right.
SPEAKER_07He's just the big lunk on the other chair. Or on the sofa rather.
SPEAKER_05Now Conan had Paul, no, Conan didn't have Paul Schaefer. Who did Conan have? He I he had an Andy somebody who was a comedian.
SPEAKER_07Right, right. And David Letterman used uh Paul Schaefer. Paul Schaefer. But I wouldn't consider him a co-host because he was the band leader. Right. So he was just a foil. And I don't mean aluminum.
SPEAKER_05Anyway, another long, bloviating intro.
SPEAKER_07Well, we gotta kill time one way or another, right?
SPEAKER_05As you know, David, I stopped watching television after I left the industry in 2020, and I have pivoted, as they say in the sports business, to YouTube television. And I really enjoy watching YouTube channels. You and I watch YouTube quite frequently. We're on YouTube, as a matter of fact, I don't have an artist as a YouTube page. And among my favorite YouTube shows is Rock Essentials with Tim. And he goes to um he explores all the classic rock locales in the city of Los Angeles. He also goes to San Francisco. He is planning to come to our neck of the woods, New York.
SPEAKER_07Yes, we we'll try and stop that as best as we can.
SPEAKER_05Actually, I we we put out a real nice roadmap and uh well Tim recorded here, he's a musician, so you'll hear that in our interview. So he's quite familiar with New York, but I really do hope he gets to New York City and uh does a Tim Rock Essential because it's a great, great show.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I love the one where he goes to Laurel Canyon Market, which has been the Laurel Canyon market for eons, and everyone from David Crosby to Jim Morrison, they all hung out there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, very much. And it was very interesting to hear his historical reflections on Laurel Canyon, which we will not repeat. We'll get to that in the episode. But very enlightening interview, David. You and I have always been fascinated with Los Angeles. We've played there, you lived there for a little bit.
SPEAKER_07Well, just doing records, that's all. So it wasn't really a a domicile as it were, it was more of a stopping ground while I did the records.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, but yet still, it gives you a little deeper understanding of the thing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, that's why I moved back to New York. Back to New York and then to Connecticut. I like seasons, I really do.
SPEAKER_05You like seasons?
SPEAKER_10Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. And since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
SPEAKER_05I love Los Angeles, and had I had my studio business succeeded, I may have I would have stayed in California. But it's a it's a one-industry town, it's all showbiz.
SPEAKER_07Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_05So and that can be annoying when everybody's trying to make it in showbiz.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, they all have these fancy cars and they live out of them.
SPEAKER_05Tim P. I see his nameplate. There he is. He's sitting down. There he is.
SPEAKER_07What do you mean, Tim P's?
SPEAKER_05No, it's Tim P.
SPEAKER_07That's the that's the Oh, Tim P. I I thought you thought he was going to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_04Can you guys uh can you guys uh hear me?
SPEAKER_05Yes, we can hear you perfectly, too.
SPEAKER_04Okay, good.
SPEAKER_05Good morning.
SPEAKER_04Hey, how are you doing, man?
SPEAKER_05All right, great to see you. That is David C. Gross on the upper left-hand corner. David C.
SPEAKER_04Gross, okay?
SPEAKER_07That's right. S E A. David C.
SPEAKER_04Gross. M P P-E-E.
SPEAKER_05We have uh we have fake backgrounds. You have an authentic background.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, well, that's my uh my gear, you know, and the studio. I have a home studio, so.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay, good. We're very we're sympathetical. We're all musicians here. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm let me turn this up. Hang on a second. I'm using my wife's computer. Mine doesn't, here's where I'm at. Mine doesn't have a uh a camera on it, so my goodness. How do you get it? Lucky you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05All right. Well, David, let us welcome Tim to the show. I'm not even gonna try to pronounce his last name.
SPEAKER_04Well, I go by Tim P. That my professional name has always been Tim P, period.
SPEAKER_05Tim P, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, for I've been a for uh 50 years, so yeah.
SPEAKER_0550 years, my god, you look so young. I've I've go under the name Tomazzo. This way people think I'm Gino Vanelli. David just was born with a good rock and roll man.
SPEAKER_07Well, for the most part, it's David Steve Gross, but back in the 80s in the hairman days, I was David Steve Gross.
SPEAKER_04That was at the hair band. Were you at a band during the hairband days?
SPEAKER_07Oh yeah, I was in lots of them. Uh I'll I'll show you something funny, and the good thing is none of this ends up and we're gonna show pictures.
SPEAKER_05Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_07Well, that that was a long time ago. Actually, now I look more like that. Yes, that's that's it.
SPEAKER_05Interesting. We're gonna get to our travails in LA because it was a boy chick. And uh, Tim, I was the quintessential indie New York rocker. Uh, black jeans, black leather jacket, black t-shirt, still wearing black, black hair, and when you had hair. And when I had hair.
SPEAKER_12And by the way, I'm not only the hair club president, but I'm also a client.
SPEAKER_05And I see I didn't have like you LA guys, David. I didn't have the angular cheeks. See, that's the problem. I have round New York City cheeks. And when I when I went to uh LA during the hairband days, I was like, I could never be here. I'm I'm too ugly.
SPEAKER_04Well, hey, tell that to L. You know, I was I was not in a hairband, although you couldn't help growing your hair longer when that was all going on. I I guess we'll get to all that, but I had a record deal. I got a record deal during those uh hairband days. But my band was kind of like it was called Flies on Fire. And it was kind of a LA anomaly because they were signing everybody at that point, you know. And you couldn't help not get a record deal in those days.
SPEAKER_05So Yeah, yeah, that was the go-go eighties, right? When there were lots of money and the uh the economy was good, the record industry was booming, this new platform called the C D came out, so and everybody had their Task Am Four track in their apartment, right?
SPEAKER_04Totally, man. I I still have it out in the garage somewhere. Great.
SPEAKER_07Well, then those upstarts Fox Text try to find out.
SPEAKER_04You know, I I just couldn't get into the Fossex. It was too small, too.
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Well, David, let us introduce Tim to our audience. Please do that. He is he is the host of my favorite YouTube channel, okay, Rock Essentials with Tim. You know, David, they say never meet your heroes. Now I work for Ralph Nader. I've interviewed Over and Watts and Ian Hunter of Mata Hoople. But to meet Tim, Tim is my hero. I love his channel. You started the channel in February 2019. David, he has over 8.7 million views.
SPEAKER_04My God. I didn't know that. So I'm not very good at checking the stats on this thing. I I actually passed 100,000 subscribers recently. My grandson told me this. So wow. Do you do you get recognized?
SPEAKER_05Pardon me? Are you re do you get recognized that the whiskey at Denny's?
SPEAKER_04Uh you know, once in a while. I was I was funny, my wife and I were uh hiking the other day, because I hike a lot. I live in the hills here, and uh some guy passed me by and he goes, Tim? And I'm like, yeah, and he goes, he was a fan from Australia that happened to be I mean in the middle of nowhere, he was the only person on the past. It happens, but not that often.
SPEAKER_05No. Okay, but 103,000 subscribers, you must be rich.
SPEAKER_04Uh well, I put a video out once a month, so I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_05Among my favorite episodes, Tim, I love the Laurel Canyon tours. Uh you really bring to live places that we only read about. Uh stories about the birds, Arthur Lee and Love, Buffalo Springfield, the monkeys. David, you get to see where all the monkeys live.
SPEAKER_00Told me it's all happening at the zoo.
SPEAKER_05Peter Torx Mansion. The doors, your episodes on the doors are fascinating. Love the Frank Zappa episodes. I love the Neil Young episode, the three-dog night. That was a great one. And the thematic ones.
SPEAKER_04By the way, the three-dog night was my that was my biggest video. And I have to say I was a casual fan of those guys, you know. And uh, but you know, I just found their story really interesting, and uh it was one of those videos I put out. I didn't think it would people would be that interested in it, you know? And uh it was it was so far to date my only video that's gotten a million views.
SPEAKER_07So well, you know, it's really interesting about Three Dog Night. I I was in Miami for I guess it was a Christmas break, and I ended up going to the Hallendale Pop Festival. This is like 1969, and that was their first big show. And I was completely blown away. They put on such a great live show.
SPEAKER_04I saw them, I I saw Chuck Chuck Negron, whose name, by the way, I mispronounced the entire video. I was saying the groan, but uh I saw him play maybe ten years ago, eight years ago at a small theater with Mark Freiner from Grand Funk, who was fabulous. He was really great. And uh Chucky could still sing, but he treated it more like an oldie show, if you will. So it was uh it was not as vibrant, I guess, is what you would say.
SPEAKER_05You know, let me let me share my uh three dog night story. I was playing at the bitter end in 1983 with Ezra Mohawk, you might have heard of. Yeah. I was in her band. I wasn't in her band, we were on the bill, and I'm sitting backstage, and Who Comes Backstage? Chuck Negron and Jimmy Greenspoon of Three Dog Night, and they're wearing the exact same outfits that they wore on the album cover Cyan, which came out in 1973. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, you get to keep the clothes from your photo ship? And well, that was the royalties. The royalties. I guess that was, you know, they they had the Hawaiian shirts on from that album. I said, wow, that clothing held up after 10 years. It's actually in uh Jimmy Greenspoon's book, One is the Loneliest Number. They were they they had with them in garbage bags their platinum records, and they went up to Harlem to buy drugs that night because both of them were.
SPEAKER_04You know, I never got when I do these videos, I research it by reading somebody who's like, I did not read his book, and uh since everyone's told me what a good book it is, it is, I did read Chuck's book. Yeah, uh uh uh Three Dog Nightmare. And uh out of all you know, because I usually read something doing all these videos, and I have to say it was one of the better books that I've rock and roll books that I've read.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04The way he wrote it, the whole you know thing that he went through, really interesting. Really a shame that the guy, you know, passed away.
SPEAKER_05But people have read Three Dog Night. My gosh, when I was a kid from 1969 to 1975, they always had a song on the radio.
SPEAKER_04They owned AM radio in those days.
SPEAKER_05Yes, they did.
SPEAKER_07They made ABC Dunhill very, very wealthy. Yeah. What was the other it was one other Steppenwolf was Dunhill, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_04Right, yes. ABC Dunhill, yeah. The the um American Recorders was right around the corner from where I live here in Studio City. I during the video I actually visited some strip mall now, which is what everything in California is.
SPEAKER_05But uh I really enjoyed the episode. I love when you do thematic episodes, the Beatles in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And uh the Stones in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_04Well, the way uh, you know, the Beatles episode was interesting because uh the way I kind of got I when I started my channel, you know, whatever it was six years ago, uh I had just basically retired. And uh uh, you know, I got a camera. I I I'm a big hiker and I I wanted to record my hikes, you know, you know, put it on YouTube or whatever. And uh, you know, I which I did, and I got a few people watching it. The guy that's in those videos with me, Randy, who's a friend of mine, he's been a friend of mine since I was eight. Right, you talk to him off camera, yes. You know, we were sitting around smoking weed one night, and he was uh he started talking about he lives in Laurel Canyon right on Stanley Hills Drive, and he's he's like going, Well, next door to me, Johnny Barbada lived, you know, when I was a kid, and this, that, and the other. And we took a walk, we took a hike, and he started pointing these places out to me, and that's kind of what got me into the idea, you know, that this might be kind of a cool thing to do, uh, to talk about all this stuff. And it is, I like to talk, so yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, you must be like David and I, David and I are are history buffs.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I started off my college career as a history major for a hot minute, but you must be a great lover of of history.
SPEAKER_04I am. I'm a lover of history, and you know, a musician too. You know, if you're a musician, you like talking music, it it's well, that's why we started our show, actually.
SPEAKER_07It was over COVID, and who better to interview than people who love to talk about themselves?
SPEAKER_08You uh corrects! Yeah!
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. Well, we'll we started off as the bass guitar channel, but we got bored talking to bass players, so uh Well that was my first instrument, too.
SPEAKER_04I uh I love talking about bass. I I did a video about the 15, what I thought were the 15. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I saw that one. What um now what prompted you to pick up the bass guitar?
SPEAKER_04I really wanted to be in a band, you know. I love music, and it only had four strings, so I actually I have one with five strings, but that that I I cannot get used to a five-string bass. It just doesn't work for me personally. I got it so I could get down there to do to do metal stuff, so right.
SPEAKER_05Well you can always tune to B-E-A-D. That's what a lot of my metal friends do. They take the four-string and they go B-E-E-A-D. David, David is a a staunch advocate of the six-string bass. Wow. There we go. Uh-oh, there it is. With pink strings. Very LA, David.
SPEAKER_07Which is funny. Now, one of the things I wanted to ask you, Tim, are you from LA? No, I'm from Detroit. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I'm from Motown. I have that's my aesthetic, I think, I think I'm wearing my crump t-shirt right here. So yeah, I I I spent my first 18 years there right after well, not even right after high school. I came out here to see what I could drum up to. I love music. I was one of those guys that was not a I'm not a great player, even though I've made it my life. No one would let me in their bar band, their cover band at the time. I I I wasn't able to do it, so I started writing original music. Yeah, yeah. And and that's kind of, you know, writing is really where the where the money's at. Basically.
SPEAKER_05Well, it's where the art is at. David and I have this long-going um discussion. We all all of our bass colleagues, and David and I are more of the artistic bent. In other words, it's more about the bent or right. We're bent on it. It's more about the music rather than the tools. You know, you have a hammer and nails. I'm more concerned with what you build with the hammer and the nails than the actual gear. Although, you know, we do get seduced by gear. I see whenever you go into a guitar shop, your eyes widen. Uh, yeah, I mean, come on, yeah. Yeah, you fall in love and and all that. What I found interesting, you know, it's funny when you you go around to all these locales. When my late wife and I were in London in 2019, she was not a rock and roller, she's black, she grew up listening to urban music, but we did take a rock and roll tour. And it's very interesting that, you know, you're in London. Oh, this is where David Bowie wrote station to station. This is where the Stones auditioned Bill Wyman. This is where Bowie posed for Ziggy Stardust, etc., etc. This is where the Beatles did such and such. And everything is an upscale hotel, an upscale restaurant. It's you know, upscale residence. Very few places, very few locales are still around.
SPEAKER_04Here in LA or in London?
SPEAKER_05Both in London and in LA and in New York.
SPEAKER_04This interests me because I'm getting I I was gonna go in in uh in May to London. My wife and I were gonna go there for a week, and I'm gonna bring my camera. So I've really been researching some of these places you're talking about here are on my list that I've been making.
SPEAKER_05Yes, you've got to go to Hedon Street, I believe that's Ziggy. Yeah, you gotta post there. You've got to go to Trident Studios, it's right around the corner. Uh, you gotta do Abbey Road. And then, as a matter of fact, it's funny, when my first trip to London in 1976, my parents took me. And first thing I do when I get to London, I gotta get to Abbey Road. My dad asked the cabbie, do you know where Abbey Road is? They take us to Abbey Road. Now you have to see this is a hot July day in 1976. Abbey Road is not a tourist attract. It is the sign is still there. Yeah, there are no tourists, it's a sunny day. It's a St. John's Wood is suburban London. And uh my dad stood in the middle of the street. They didn't have a traffic light there, so he had to dodge traffic to take pictures of me, the only person crossing the famous Abbey Road crosswalk. Unfortunately, he took Polaroid, so they've disintegrated. Yeah, they've disintegrated. But it's very interesting when you show us where Alice Cooper lived in all these and and we're seeing some guys rehearsing.
SPEAKER_04Actually, I I got to see uh because I took a family trip for a wedding back to Michigan, and my brother lives quite close to where the uh uh the freak farmer was uh in Michigan, in Pontiac, Michigan was where the Alice Cooper house was and the farm that they had there. Very interesting. There's another band with a really, really interesting history, you know, starting in Phoenix, coming to LA, living in Detroit for a year, and uh eventually they went to Connecticut, I believe.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, you might want to interview Dennis Dunaway. He's uh bass player. Yeah, he's bass players that we love.
SPEAKER_04He's he's probably my favorite.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, he is.
SPEAKER_07He's about an hour from me in Connecticut.
SPEAKER_05He's a very interesting uh yeah, individual, and of Course, his wife created a lot of the look that Alice Cooper had with the makeup and all that. Um, you know, it's interesting. David and I are New York City musicians, both of us do have extensive experience in LA playing clubs and doing recording sessions. I lived in San Francisco for five years and I ran a studio business, so I got to spend time in LA. David lived in LA, and we love to contrast the two cities. It's just amazing. I was always blown away by the musicianship in Los Angeles. And people talk about New York. New York, the session players are the best. But man, the guys and girls playing in clubs in LA, they're they're phenomenal. I my theory is that a lot of them come from show business families.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so they they can act, they can sing, they can dance, they can write.
SPEAKER_04So you have places to play and to practice, but yeah, well, I mean, we have rehearsal studios too, just like you guys do. But uh ours are a little we have cars here. And that's the thing, you can put your gear in the car and go do whatever. But you know, we were talking about 80s band, and and and 80s bands were like deceptively good players those days. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_07Well, you know why? They all grew up in the 60s. So they had the incredible Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Richie Blackmore. They grew up when people were actually not posing in the 80s. So they actually had the abilities because they they may have even had um music in their school at that time. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04Say one of the first I saw Ingve Malmstein play, who's whether you like him or not, there's no denying that he is like a world-class guitar player, right? World-class musician. And I saw him play, I don't know if you guys remember the band Steeler. Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Gary Shea.
SPEAKER_04I saw him play in Steeler. Uh and I I met the Steeler guys when they first came out, I think they were from Nashville or Memphis or somewhere like that. They were somewhere in Tennessee. And uh and they came here, and all of a sudden, Ingvane Malmstein's playing with him. And uh uh it didn't take long before he was doing his own thing. Really, really great musician. I've since seen him interviewed several times. I saw Rick Beato interview him not too too long ago, and it was it was he he's a really distinctly great musician who I got to see a couple times.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he's a character. He's a character.
SPEAKER_07And you know what? I think the the uh to this day, I think the biggest scam of all was the Sex Pistols. Because those guys could play. Or at least whoever did that record really could play.
SPEAKER_04Uh, I think it was all uh Jones playing on that. I think he played pretty much everything. After Glenn Matlack left the band, I think it was I think it was all Steve Jones playing in the show.
SPEAKER_05Jones, yeah. Jonesy did uh the guitar and the bass, and uh Paul Cook, I believe, is the drummer. And David, that's your favorite drum fill of all time.
SPEAKER_07I think the tiny snippet in God Save the Queen is the best drum fill of all. It's simple, it's to the point, and it truly kicks ass.
SPEAKER_04I'll tell you what, man, for a band that made one record, name me a better record than that, and a better debut record than that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's exactly. And and John Leiden certainly, you know, he could, he he was a great lyricist, uh great from and we had uh Glenn Matlock on the on the show. He he's another guy you'd have a good time talking to. He he spent a lot of time, uh he spends a lot of time in LA. But yes, my first experience, David was in a hair band, but when I came there with my little indie rock band to play the whiskey of go-go, you know, I was just I was just blown away by how good looking everybody in LA is. And we're like the Velvet Underground with our pale white skin, yeah, you know, sweating. But that that was a big other way. You think so, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, New York City is more establishment. Of course, the record labels started here, then they migrated to Los Angeles. Of course, New York's, David, you would say it's more urban, more jazz in our generation. Dance is very big, dance music disco was huge here in our generation. We kind of look down on LA, but LA seemed to embass m rock and roll more than other cities.
SPEAKER_04I don't think it was as jazzy a place. I mean, jazz is a type of music is is somewhat to this day. I I I can't play it. You know, I can play pretty much everything, but it has always been more of a rock place here. I and I think even during the disco era, it was uh it was more of a rock. There's always been a strock rock presence until past few years. Right. And that's a whole other story why that went away. But I really think it's because musicians can't afford to live here anymore.
SPEAKER_07So well, it's similar in New York. My daughter's just getting out of college and she's already looking at apartments that she wants us to pay for.
SPEAKER_09But it powered your mind the other day, so I know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. But what what what's interesting is, and and I never thought of this before, but the truth is LA show business.
SPEAKER_00Where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic with just a looking pan.
SPEAKER_07Where do you want to put a hairband? With show business, there you go, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_07You know, I I was in this one hairband, and uh we did all our videos out in LA. As a matter of fact, my first uh record that I did out in LA was 76. We were staying at the Oakwood on Barum Boulevard.
SPEAKER_04Still there, yeah.
SPEAKER_07And my I I always wanted to tell this story to someone from LA, so this is this is just perfect. So the drummer and I, because of course you record at night. So you spend your days either uh sitting at the pool or or or what have you. And so we're at the pool, drummer and I are playing backgammon, and these two perspiring, I will say, actresses, not aspiring, came up to us and watching us doing this, and this is classic. It it should have been in um airplanes. I don't like backgammon. You gotta think when you play that game. And here we are, 50 years later, and I do not forget that one phrase.
SPEAKER_04What band were you in staying at the Oakwood?
SPEAKER_07I was in a group called Aztec Two Step, which was a group on RCA Records. We were like kind of an East Coast version of the Eagles.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_07And I had just gotten out of music school, and they needed bass play to go on the road. And fortunately, they needed the drummer, so I had my best friend come on with me. It was great. We we had a wonderful time, it was three years. Then uh, when I was back in New York, I started doing session work. Because back then, rock bass players who read music were a rare breed.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And since commercials and everything was changing, I was able to get in on all that stuff, which was great.
SPEAKER_05Now, David back then you did not have your golden locks. You had your sort of uh Don Brewer Jufro, as I call it there.
SPEAKER_07In Isro. In Israel.
SPEAKER_05Israel.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah, that would that was a much different time. It wasn't until uh I guess it was 80 that my first wife started dressing me. There you go. You know, and and that picture is actually from Co, you know, maybe a couple years afterwards, from from that particular time period.
SPEAKER_04Hey, my mom used to dress my dad. He wore like these Sears uh, you know, onesie.
SPEAKER_07Uh-huh. But true, the best thing of all, as I always say, spandex, the most forgiving of fabrics.
SPEAKER_05Now, Tim, Tim, you came out to LA at 18 to seek rock and roll fame and fortune. What what what did your parents think of you wanting to be a rock star?
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, it's like everywhere. They they didn't understand. I came from a very working-class family. And uh, you know, I had five siblings. Uh, you know, you were expected to go work at Ford or uh uh, you know, go work at GM. And uh, you know, I was I was Artie. And and at the time, there was just no place for me I felt in Detroit. And I have to say the musicians there were really good too, but it was all it was all cover bands. So uh, you know, I came out here not exactly thinking, oh, I'm going to be a rock star or anything like that, but um eventually it kind of you know, I got here, I really liked it. There were a lot of girls here, you know, all that was going on. And uh you also had a place where you have no history, and and that's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Now growing up in Detroit, did you see the Stooges, the MC? I did.
SPEAKER_04The very first concert I ever went to, as a matter of fact, I just did a video on Iggy that hasn't come out yet. Okay, and uh so the very first concert I ever saw was actually the MC5. Wow and a band called Frigid Pink. I don't know if you remember that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I remember Frigid Pink, sure.
SPEAKER_04They were local Detroit bands.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I mean I I love Detroit Rock. I love uh uh I love Bob Seeger, Alice Cooper, um Grand Funk. Um all that stuff was really popular. And and Iggy and the Stooges is uh I I still think they're great. And if you've ever seen them, even Iggy.
SPEAKER_05I've seen Iggy several times, yeah.
SPEAKER_04There's just nobody like them. And uh it's so exciting when you see them. And uh believe me, you see all of them when you see them, too. So yes, you do.
SPEAKER_07And the question that immediately comes to mind is what happened? Where why are we here now? What what what what's going on? This is insanity. This is I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_04I don't think a lot of it has to do with the computer, man. People aren't playing with with other people anymore, you know. I do it. I that's it I I made my living playing with the computer for years and years. It just makes for a lousy performance, unfortunately, you know? Yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_05And and speaking of Iggy Pop, it's interesting when you you interview him. I've I've never had the pleasure of interviewing him, but how much the Stooges were into jazz and experimental music. Yeah. You know, there was a method to their madness. They weren't just these wild punks out there.
SPEAKER_04Iggy comes from a very educated family, too. His father was a uh he was a high school teacher, and uh, you know, these are these are guys that did go to college. Well, the Stooges didn't go to college. They sold drugs to the college students.
SPEAKER_07Well, that's college, you know.
SPEAKER_04That's pretty much it. But that's kind of, you know, that's kind of going to college, right?
SPEAKER_07That's funny.
SPEAKER_05But um, you know, it it we were talking about the uh the New York music scene here, and and you know, David and I had a gentleman by the name of Jesse Rifkin on who wrote a great book. If you want to read about New York music, it's called This Must Be the Place. It's it's almost the Tim's Rock Essentials of New York. And you need three elements for a music scene to emerge. You need cheap rent, you need space, and you need deriglic conditions which prompt cheap rent, right? No one wants to live in a bad neighborhood, and uh businesses don't grow in bad neighborhoods. It was interesting. I was watching uh uh uh your your show, and then the next video came on. You know how I have them on, they go on automatic. And it was an interview with Yorma Kalkinan, and a young interviewer was asking him was like, Wow, what was the magic of Hate Ashbury, the zeitgeist of creative people, and the spirit of the 60s and the summer of love, and and Yorma laughed. He said, You know how it all started? It's because there's nothing mystical about it. The rent was cheap.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know, you know, exact same thing with Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon was like it was like uh uh dilapidated places that the the Hollywood dregs lived in because it was it it wasn't easy to get down to uh the studios from there if you didn't have a car. Right, and that's why all the musicians that's why that whole scene happened. Now it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's all been gentrified and still a cool place, but yeah, very I I just love your Laurel Canyon videos, and I can't imagine. I was like, how do these guys live in Laurel Canyon? Now, of course, I know Laurel Canyon the way it is now, but it's beautiful, breathtaking scenery. But you can see, I know sometimes, especially I think with the Zappa House, or maybe it was the Jackson Brown House, I can't remember. It's kind of scraggly, it's tough to get around Laurel Canyon.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, the the Zappa House was right at the corner of Laurel Canyon Lookout, which is actually the central place in Laurel Canyon. Yeah, and uh, you know, that burned down years and years ago, but they're making a park out of it, and when I've shot the videos I've shot there, I've I've snuck in through a hole in the fence.
SPEAKER_05And I lived in San Francisco for five years, and what shocked me about uh, and you did a fabulous Hate Ashbury episode. That's great. And and I have to compliment whoever's taking the video.
SPEAKER_04That's me. I'm just shooting it with my I I shoot it with a staircrow. Yeah. Wow. Look at this. Here's my camera.
unknownOh my goodness.
SPEAKER_05The cinematography for you is breathtaking, and every time I watch one of your videos, I go, I gotta get I gotta get to LA. You know, I once in a while I go with friends to see the Dodgers play. But um, one of the things that surprised me, I remember my first gig in LA, and I got out of the whiskey go-go at about midnight, and LA was dark. You know, there was like it's it's California is really a daytime culture.
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, it depends on what day you're down at the uh at the whiskey, too. If you're down there on a a Friday or Saturday, it's still pretty hopping, especially during the summer. Uh there's still a lot of people walking around, a lot of young young people seek out other young people. Yes, they do.
SPEAKER_07Hey Tim, there was a book. I don't remember the name. It was really fascinating. It talked about Laurel Canyon and how Zappa's family were um all part of the military.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. That was uh Dave McGowan's I can't remember the name of it, but his name was Dave McGowan. He died, you know, probably about 15 years ago. He died at 55 in a mysterious circumstance because this whole thing is a conspiracy about you know the CIA conspiracy with uh rock and roll. They were basically saying that people like Jim Morrison uh Steve. David Crosby, all these people were were uh assets of the CIA. And uh, you know, because their fathers who who they were all military guys. Right. Right. Morrison's dad was an admiral, Crosby's dad was they were all you know that kind of thing. Jackson Brown's father also. But uh it I I I I I can't believe it because uh you can't teach somebody to be talented, you know, you can't teach somebody to write lyrics that everyone's gonna want to listen to or or or hear. And and see it it kind of stops you because I get a lot of comments about this when I read the Laurel Canyon. There's a lot of a lot of conspiracy people out there.
SPEAKER_07Well, it's funny because I worked with Steven and he was in the military. As a matter of fact, we were doing a TV show and he grabbed my 61 mint jazz bass and started doing rifle maneuvers with it. I was like, stop, stop. But but that was the only tie-in that I thought, well, maybe there's something here, but uh it does seem a bit far-fetched. I think he was saying something to the effect that David Crosby in the real world would have been a Duke. Or something bizarre like that. It was very strange.
SPEAKER_04I I think some of it has to do with there was a military installation on Wonderland Avenue up near the very top. I don't know if you're familiar with Laurel Canyon, but up near the very, very top.
SPEAKER_05Right. That's the um that's where the doors were, weren't they?
SPEAKER_04No, no. It was actually owned recently by Jared Leto. He bought it. It if you look at it from the street, it just looks like a you know, a driveway and a a larger house, but not huge. But it's built into the whole kill there, and it and it's huge. And they used to make movies about like the atomic bomb there, and uh, they used to have people like James Stewart would come there to narrate. A lot of Hollywood stars went there, and I think that's kind of where this whole military entertainment thing came out of, you know. And uh, but it was all based on the 60s uh trying to subvert uh you the youth of the 60s uh you know by the messages that these musicians would give. Exactly. Exactly. It's just hard for me to buy that.
SPEAKER_07Right. What was that? The Atomic Cafe, right? Isn't that the um the documentary on all of the stuff that was the Atomic Cafe?
SPEAKER_04Uh I I've heard of it. I I can't say that I remember it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And David, Stephen Stills was quite a bass player.
SPEAKER_07He was, but he wasn't using it as a rifle.
SPEAKER_04I could put he he lives right up, he lives right on Mulholland still. Uh-huh. I ran into about maybe 10 years ago. He was at a park that I was bringing my grandson to, and I saw him with a very small child, but I don't know if it was his grandson or he was still having kids then, I believe. So could be.
SPEAKER_05See that, David? That's where all my that's where all my Crosby Stills Nash money goes to, his alimonies and his kids.
SPEAKER_07That's it. I hear from my ex on the back of my checks.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's interesting. In September of 1991, I was in LA, and it was the month that uh Nirvana came out with um whatever it was.
SPEAKER_04Who by the way was at the Oakwood during that whole making uh making that album, Nevermind, that's where they lived.
SPEAKER_05Oh, right, yeah, okay. And I'll never forget I was on Sunset Strip and I went by a hair, you know, a hair salon, I guess was, and all the metal guys were getting their hair cut, right? They had almost waist long, the guys who didn't have wigs on, and their hair was piled up to the ceiling. And uh one thing about the grunge movement, and I had opened up a re rehearsal business by that time, I said, Well, at least I don't have to wear tight black clothes anymore. Now I could just wear flannels and baggy jeans. I was like, Well, the the there's one thing about that music uh that I respected was its uh sartorial comfort. And um what was it like when grunge hit LA for you, guys?
SPEAKER_04I knew it was for real and was going to take over. I I happened to see Tracy Guns play somewhere. Oh, I loved LA Guns, yeah, a great band. You know, a very metal hair metal dude. Good guitar player, they're a good guy, too. In between songs, he was playing Smells Like Teen Spirits, just fucking around doing it. Yeah. And I was like, oh, okay, this is gonna take over. And and these it really ruined a good thing for these uh for for the hair metal guys. I mean, they were over as soon as that came out. Sure.
SPEAKER_05It really crushed them. And it was, you know, I I watch a lot of documentaries on that era um about how the record companies just turned their back on them because they were still moving, you know, they were still moving millions of records. Yeah, there were some fluffy bands that came in there. What's interesting about a lot of the grunge bands, Stone Temple Pilots, uh, Alice and Chains, Pearl Jam, those guys were all wearing spandex.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's because Alice and Change. And I think Alice and Change is just a fantastic record.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, they were Men in the Box may be one of the greatest rifts of all time. Period.
SPEAKER_04I got that record the same day I got uh uh Nevermind. I bought those two records on the same day.
SPEAKER_07If you think about the bloated 70s and then punk, and really hairbands and stuff, that was pretty bloated in its own way, and then you get grunge. I mean, the history repeats. Well, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_04And you know what's what's interesting to me about all these movements, all these movements, especially the punk movement, which I was somewhat involved in when it came out, because I was of the right age here in LA. Me too, yeah. I was 19 years old, and uh yeah, it was right at that point. And a lot of these movements come out as as a we want to be free, you can do whatever you want. We're doing you don't have to be a great player, any of this stuff. But very soon, all of a sudden, there's rules about the way you look, the way your hair's gotta look. Very restricting in its own right.
SPEAKER_05Uh you have to wear the uniform, and I think there's one Zappa record, one of those uh you can't do this on stage anymore, uh, where he had a residency in New York in 68, and he's admonishing the hippies, saying, You're all wearing uniforms. You know that.
SPEAKER_07Well, that was at the Garrick Theater, and I was there. I assume I must be older than you too, Tim, right?
SPEAKER_04I'm 69. I'll be 70.
SPEAKER_07I'll be 73 the end of the month.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I'm the young Chippy here. I'm only 66. Yeah, I can choose over the year. But it's interesting about the cycle because what happened to studio musicians in New York and probably LA too had to grow their hair over their collar so they could get work. And then, you know, we had in the in in New York, we had bands such as The Talking Heads and Blondie, who I used to go see. Those were good players.
SPEAKER_08And I just went to Blondie a lot too, by the way.
SPEAKER_05Glenburke was a few years old, Debbie Harry was a few Chris Stein. They weren't young kids. Yeah. They'd been around the block, and it's the same thing with the grunge era, where you had guys who tried their hand at hairband metal and it didn't work out, so then they, you know, they scrapped it, they put the flannel shirts on.
SPEAKER_04I was really surprised to find out that uh Alice and Chains had been a hair band because I I didn't find that out until a couple years ago because it just seems so foreign that they could have been, because they're so authentic.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07Well, think about it. Um Pantera was a grand band.
SPEAKER_04That's hard to believe, too.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I was label mates with them in the early 90s at Atco. I had a band called Flies on Fire, and uh we were on Atco and they were on Atco. So was ACDC Enough's Enough with another band that we Fantastic group. Yeah, yeah. They're still around playing. I just read an interview with that uh with uh Chip the other day.
SPEAKER_07So I know Donnie just put out a new record.
SPEAKER_04Really?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah. Thane Winger got caught at the end, which is kind of a shame because they were all great songwriters. Yeah. And see, that that's the other thing. Tom and I always discuss this. It doesn't matter which. Which particular genre in rock you're doing. A good song's a good song's a good song. And that's where it's at. A lot of your um LA hair bands couldn't write shit. You know, so they had their moment and that was it.
SPEAKER_04A couple of them, yeah. I mean, as much as I I am not a big fan of poison, they did have a couple decent songs. They did.
SPEAKER_05Getting back to the performances, I I was a fan of LA Guns, and those guys, all of those guys could play. Yeah, we'd like to get Phil and Tracy on. I think they have a new record coming out. Tell us now, it seems to me in New York the Brooklyn scene happened. What um post-grunge, what what is the LA music scene like now? Grunge is 30 years old.
SPEAKER_04I'm talking to Staldies. I'm 69 years old, so I'm not going out every night.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but look at you, Tim. You got the hair, you got the black glasses, you got the black sweatshirt, you got guitars behind you. Come on.
SPEAKER_04There's not much scene here anymore. Uh and again, I think it's all all the, not all, but many of the musicians have have moved to other parts. There's more of a scene out in the desert, out in uh 29 Palms, Joshua Tree. Okay, as you were saying before. You can live there, it's cheap. And a lot of people have gone up to Portland. You know, my old hometown of Detroit has gotten uh very rockin' again because you can live there. Yeah. You can afford to to uh go out and play.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I did a story, I worked in television, I did a story on Detroit about 10, 15 years ago, or maybe about 10 years ago, where you could buy a house for $600. There was uh I think Kid Rock was investing in Detroit. There were very innovative companies there. They were taking old tires from the abandoned warehouses, the automotive warehouses, and they were making, you know, bags out of them and accessories and things. Problem with Detroit was there was no money to buy all the you know the new products.
SPEAKER_04It's it's uh kind of a hulk of a city. Yeah. Um I go back there often. Everyone lives in the suburbs. There's the core of the city people live in, and then there's the suburbs, and everything in between, you know, those miles and miles, it's vacant lots and burnt-out houses.
SPEAKER_05Is it Woodland Hills the the big suburbs of uh Detroit? Wood Woodland Hills? Is that the suburb of Detroit or am I talking about?
SPEAKER_04Uh Gross Point, okay, uh Bloomfield Hills, those are outer, those are pretty well-to-do suburbs. Harper Woods. I come from Detroit near Harper Woods on the east side. So you're not sure.
SPEAKER_07Where's Auburn Auburn Hills?
SPEAKER_04Auburn Hills is out, that's near Pontiac where uh the Alice Cooper house was.
SPEAKER_07Okay. That's for a while.
SPEAKER_04And it used to be when I was a kid, it was it was lakes and farmland out there, and now it's you know, mall after mall and you know, all that kind of good stuff. It's what America's become.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah. Where I live right now is still farmland up in uh Lichfield County, Connecticut. You hear rumblings of affordable housing, people are buying up farms and doing this. So I'm sure probably 10, 15 years from now, this will probably end up looking like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, I have to say, man, about where I live in LA, I live uh on the valley side of Laurel Canyon.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_04And uh what's really great about my city right here, what what I am proud of it over, is uh there's a lot of places still to hike. They haven't let them build up the uh Santa Monica Mountains right here. And uh it's still a beautiful place. You can get away from everything in just a couple minutes if you want. And um it it it really made an effort to uh to maintain that here in the city. And I what I love about living here. I I I can't leave now. I have family here, you know. It's like sure. Uh it's it's the way it is. Most of my friends and uh uh co-workers, you know, for one reason or another, they they had they went back to wherever they were from because LA's always been a place very few natives lived here. Very transient city, yeah.
SPEAKER_07So tell me about your first Christmas with no snow.
SPEAKER_04Well, my first Christmas with no snow was uh also my first Christmas all by myself alone at 19 years old. So uh yeah, that was that wasn't much fun. But I think I believe I went to a party that night, other people of the same elk of my age, so I ended up having a good time. But it w it was pretty weird. Now, I I I went back to Michigan in uh in December this year, and it was cold as hell, and I just hated it. Oh gosh. Well, that's my thing, you know. I I have uh I don't even want to see it anymore.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, David, my first Christmas with no snow was when I lived in Miami, and we had a different type of snow there, which That's true.
SPEAKER_07That's true. But Tim, you've spawned my um Peter Frampton lines on my face.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes. Uh but but Tim, you grew up in a great era. I mean, I'm a sports fan. You had Al Kaline and Denny McLean and Gordy Howe. Uh great sports town.
SPEAKER_04Besides this last World Series, you did you guys see the Dodger Toronto series? Oh, of course, yeah. Yeah. I'm a Yankee fan, so no. It was the best series I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, it was. The best series I had ever seen before that was the 68 Tigers, who played were down three games to one against St. Louis and came back.
SPEAKER_05That was a great series. And a matter of fact, you can watch that on YouTube. I think it's all somebody. Yeah, yeah. So I'm I'm 69 Mets, so uh that was the World Series for me.
SPEAKER_07But I have a original Yankee Stadium bleacher seat in my driveway. And where I live, it's more Connecticut is either Yankees.
SPEAKER_04Socks or Yankees, right?
SPEAKER_07And this is a Sox thing, so I just love pointing it out to people just to piss them off.
SPEAKER_04I mean, not to upset anybody, because I know you probably have Boston fans watching, I do too, but I I've being from Detroit and then being from LA, because we hate the Celtics here.
SPEAKER_07Of course.
SPEAKER_04I've never been a fan of Boston teams, sorry, but me neither.
SPEAKER_07Me neither. However, when I was going to Berkeley, which was a long, long time ago, I used to go to the Red Sox games in the in the summer. When I was studying up there, it was a buck fifty for a bleacher seat, and I'd see all these shitty games because you know Cleveland was bad, Red Sox were bad. So uh that was actually a good time. And Fenway is one of the last two original ballparks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. I love going to Dodger Stadium. I used to play a place once in a while in a couple places in Boston, and one was called, I don't know if it's still there, called the Middle East. Yes, there were. I played in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_07Cambridge, I think it is.
SPEAKER_05And the rat's still there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07What about the rat? You must have played the rat.
SPEAKER_04I did not play the rat. Okay. I did not play. And if I ever get to Boston with my camera, I would love to do, you know, go around town and shoot the sentence. I have plans to go to New York and do this. I I I met the, I don't know if you know this guy. His name is Bob Egan. He's got a website called Pop Spots. And what he does is he much the way I do, he he will get an album cover that was shot on location. Yes, yeah, I I um, yeah. And and he doesn't do it on video, but he does it very where he puts it exactly, you know, superimposing him. Yes. Anyways, I I have become casual friends with Bob Egan, and I want to go to New York, and he's gonna take me around, and we're gonna do this in New York.
SPEAKER_05Oh, let us know. I whenever I have uh friends of mine that come from out of the country and they come to New York, I take them to all the spots. I take them where the Dylan, where Dylan did the freewheeling. That's exactly, yeah. Yeah, I'll get you there. We'll we'll take we'll take you to the place where Lou Reed used to drink his coffee and it's a bit it's an album cover, it's or uh images. Yeah, there's lots of places here. Well, that's just it. That's it's funny when I watch your show and you'll point to uh you know a delicate test and that used to be a recording studio. It's the same thing here in New York City. I mean, I could take you to Central Park and say, Tim, this is where dinosaurs roamed and you know, 50 million.
SPEAKER_07But that's not true because Robert Moses designed Central Park. There was no. Well, I'm sure back then there probably were dinosaurs there, but you know what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but a lot of the New York landmarks here, but you'll definitely get to the bitter end.
SPEAKER_04One of them I definitely I want to see is uh you know the pretzel logic uh uh Oh yeah, that's near me. I live that's in Central Park, and he's got it down where it was.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, so that's like 65th Street or something like that. On the Upper East Side. Yeah. I'm also near the building, I guess if you're a uh fan of the odd couple where Felix and Oscar come out of the door. That's that's near me. Um also the um I uh the Jeffersons. I'm near the Jefferson's house. We can take don't forget you've got to go to the all in the family house, but we're getting off rock and roll. The power station is still in business, right, David?
SPEAKER_07Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_05Uh the record plant is gone, but they still have the record plant facade out there.
SPEAKER_07Media sound is gone.
SPEAKER_05Media sound is gone.
SPEAKER_04I recorded at Record Plant before. I spent some time there. Oh, okay. Black Rock, you'll have to get there. I was working with way back. I don't know if you know who Rick Browdy is. No. He produced he produced like faster pussycat poison. He did a lot of the hairbands. Oh, okay. And uh, but he's just a good guy, and he had a place in New York. We stay with him and recorded there. So we we did some work at the record plant way back when.
SPEAKER_07Is the Sound Lab still in LA?
SPEAKER_04Uh, if it is, I don't know if it's open anymore. Okay. Most of these places, especially over the past, you know, three, four years, have just gone by the wayside. Right. You know, there's there's really the only reason anyone needs a big studio like that anymore is if they want to record uh analog drums, you know, in in the big rooms, because you just don't need it anymore.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07My last record, I didn't even play bass on it.
SPEAKER_05Yes, I have my uh my drum pads. Yeah, I haven't been in the studio. I I um Sunset Sound's been gone a while now, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_04No, Sunset Sound is still there.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Who owned didn't Dave Grohl buy the board for the city?
SPEAKER_04He bought the board from from uh Sound City. Oh, Sound City, okay. That's where obviously Nirvana did. I I did a lot of work out there uh at Sound City, and Sound City is still, I was just there the other day. It still exists. The board is not there anymore. That board, but that was studio um I think that was Studio A. Studio B still has their original equipment and smaller knee board. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Now, what's where Tower Records used to be?
SPEAKER_04It's some kind of uh hip hop clothing place. It's still as busy as ever. You know, there's people going in to buy t-shirts, you know, but they're paying 150 bucks for t-shirts.
SPEAKER_05Same thing in New York. I can get you $300 Ramones t-shirt. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_07That's it, that's it. And uh Spo was if if you're looking, if you're at the old world and you're looking at Tower Records, yeah, Spago is right over there. It's Horn Street. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Horn Street goes up right from there. And is it still there? I don't know. I I've never been to Spago, so yeah. Well, it's a it's an expensive restaurant. What about uh is Denny still there? Denny's is not there, and that's such a s I spent a lot of time at that Denny's. Yes. Uh no, that Denny's is not there. Um it is an aroma cafe right now. Uh uh Yeah, not not there anywhere. Canners is still there. Canners on Fairfax. That's and it's still you know the same uh after the bar closes, gathering spot. From what I understand, I don't stay up past 11 o'clock very often anymore.
SPEAKER_05You gotta take power naps, Tim. Anyway, um well, Tim, thanks for being on the show. What's the future plans for the channel? Okay, you're telling me you're you're going to London, New York.
SPEAKER_04I've got a couple uh videos finished. I I I I just uh finished doing a video about uh uh left-handers who play guitar right-handed that you don't know are like which is what I am.
SPEAKER_05There's David Gross, right there.
SPEAKER_04They're left-handers because they play right-handed. Guys like you know, Joe Strummer was one, Harry's one.
SPEAKER_07Now, why are you one?
SPEAKER_04Because that's the way I learned how to play. My sister had a right-handed guitar, and that's how I learned.
SPEAKER_07That's exactly what happened to me.
SPEAKER_04You're kidding.
SPEAKER_07My sister had a right-handed guitar, so I started doing it this way. I figured that's the way to do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, uh, it it it there's some advantages in it, you know, uh, I think.
SPEAKER_07Well, you know, with bass, you're you're still using all your fingers, so there really is no difference. Yeah. If you think about it. That's very, very funny.
SPEAKER_04I've never met anybody who's uh Well, I I started hearing about these guys, and once I started uh going into it, I I think I have 21 of them. Uh there's a lot of people that you didn't know were Elvis Costello, uh Dwayne Allman, uh Johnny Winner uh was one. It really kind of blows me away. And I've always thought that, and maybe it's because I am a that left-handers have more of an artistic brain, I think. And and there's got to be a reason for that. Maybe it's because we're forced to use our right our offhand a lot. I don't know, but but it just seems that way to me.
SPEAKER_07It's always scissors are a bitch.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Forget about it, man.
SPEAKER_05You would think that if you were playing, you if you were left-handed playing right-hand, that would cut would compromise your dexterity to a degree, wouldn't it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04You know, I don't think if if I try to play a guitar left-handed right now, it's like completely foreign to me, and I I just can't do it. Interesting.
SPEAKER_07Also, I think most musicians who are left-handed and play righty still have hair.
SPEAKER_04Yes, it's also hair that's true. Yeah, that's that's another thing. Yes. I play drums left-handed. Oh, do you?
SPEAKER_05Well, I hit my Elisa's drum machine with my right hand, so that's that's how we do it. Because we can't, there are no studios anymore. Well, Tim, great to talk to you. Great to meet you. Continue to obsess with the channel. Uh, give us a shout when you um come to New York. We'll take it on tour of us.
SPEAKER_04Well, I I don't know exactly when it's gonna be, but I'm trying to make it there this year because I I gotta cut, you know, I'm I I'm obsessed with this stuff the same as you guys probably are too. You know, it just it just it's fun.
SPEAKER_05So we do uh whenever I go to a city, I I travel with friends to all the baseball cities. We've all seen all 30 stadiums, and now we're hitting the minor leagues. But I was in Chicago last year, and a friend of mine took me to chess studio. And Chicago's another city with tremendous musical history. Wilco, all the blues artists in you know, Buddy Guy's place, of course.
SPEAKER_04Maxwell Street, yeah, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, whenever I go to a city, I seek out the rock and roll landmarks. And the funny thing is now when I started doing this, there was no Google Maps. You know, it was I think Jimmy Page lives there. I was like, wow, he's got a big house. There's my record buddy in Kensington.
SPEAKER_04Finding these places used to be really trust me, I know. I spent hours and hours and hours uh looking for it, Google, whatever I can find. Now it's it's it's a different world.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then of course with Google Maps, you actually see what it looks like, so you don't make a mistake and things like that. All right. Well, Tim, once again, thanks for being our guest. We'll shoot you an email when this uh comes out and uh you'll break the internet like a Kardashian. We'll get you some more followers. All right. Take care, man. Great talking to you. Enjoy. Bye-bye. Fantastic interview with Tim. David, talk about our playlist.
SPEAKER_07It has to do with California. And you, of course, did most of this set list. I want to give you credit for forgetting four of the great hairbands that I had to put in.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's because you have hair, David. So you always gravitate the hair towards the hairband.
SPEAKER_07No, we we spent a good five, ten minutes talking about how actually the hairband people were actually good musicians.
SPEAKER_05They were great musicians. They were wig bands, really not hairbands. David, can we do an episode on bald musicians? On bald musicians?
SPEAKER_07Yes, we can. We can. Let's see, we'll start with Yule Brenner from The King and I.
SPEAKER_13Shall we dance? One, two, three and on a bright cloud of music, shall we fly? One, two, three, and shall we dance? One, two, three, and shall we then say good night and mean goodbye?
SPEAKER_08One, two, three, and open chance. My little last little star has beaten the sky.
SPEAKER_05Well, we did have Tony Levin, my doppelganger, Tony Levin, and we did have Joe Lynn Turner. We could do a whole show on rock hair replacements. That's easy.
SPEAKER_07That's right. Uh, I'm not only a client, um, I am the president.
SPEAKER_05I'm not only a band member, I'm also a client. Well, you and Tim have fine coiffs, and both of you have let your coiffs go gray.
SPEAKER_07That's true.
SPEAKER_05What is the plural of coiffe?
SPEAKER_07Coiffies.
SPEAKER_05So you and Tim, you and Tim should be.
SPEAKER_07I had a cup of coiffe this morning, actually.
SPEAKER_10This is how you pick the richest coffee in Colombia.
SPEAKER_05You and Tim should start a hairband.
SPEAKER_07That's right. That's right. Although the amount of hair we have now we'd be great in a skinny tie band, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_05Well, look, as I I've oft quoted, uh, in the land of the bald, the one-haired man is king.
SPEAKER_07Good God. But think about all the great bald musicians. You've got Rob Halford. Rob Halford, right.
SPEAKER_05Well, he shaved his head after a long time.
SPEAKER_07Did you know they they started a new um band called Jewish Priest? Which is really an interesting thing. They they did a song called Your Mother Should Only Know.
SPEAKER_05Oh.
SPEAKER_07The Shule on the Hill. Hey Juden, it's great, really. Right, but I'm just auditioning for my second career as a stand-down comedian.
SPEAKER_06Man, man. David, let's talk playlist. What have we got?
SPEAKER_07All right, we've got a song by the doors. We've got one by uh Warren Autograph, we've got one by Sinatra of all people. Frank wore hair piece. He had hair till the very end.
SPEAKER_05Well, he had a hair piece starting in the late 60s. And I I can say that now without having to worry about getting whacked by the state.
SPEAKER_07Well, that doesn't well, if one of his good fans is listening, you never can tell. You know? Let's see, who else did we um obliterate on our uh playlist this time? Uh Three Dog Knight, of course.
SPEAKER_05Three Dog Knight had all their hair.
SPEAKER_07Love.
SPEAKER_05Oh, um Arthur Lee had hair problems.
SPEAKER_07Yes. Ex Motley Crue. Motley Crue, oh, Motley Crew, they all wear wigs. Tom Petty.
SPEAKER_05Tom Petty did not wear a wig. I well, you know, I think he wore a partial because he started losing his hair, and then towards the end of his life, he had a stronger hairline.
SPEAKER_07So Okay. LA Guns.
SPEAKER_05LA Guns, are they all? They even admitted they wore hair.
SPEAKER_07Enough's enough.
SPEAKER_05Who's that? Enough's enough?
SPEAKER_07Do you think uh maybe Derek Frigo did, the guitar player. I'm not sure. Allison Chains, they didn't wear hair.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's the grunge moment. They couldn't wear it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, Buffalo Springfield had no hair. Well, they had hair, but they had no wig.
SPEAKER_05Well, uh, you had David uh uh or rather Stephen Stills had a receding hairline.
SPEAKER_07That's right.
SPEAKER_05That's still receding for some reason.
SPEAKER_07I don't know if it's receding or receiving. Uh we have the monkeys.
SPEAKER_05Monkeys did not wear hair.
SPEAKER_07The red cold chili peppers.
SPEAKER_05Red hot chili peppers shave their heads often, but I think they all have their hair except for the drummer Chad Smith. You always see him with a baseball cap. So that's a guy hiding his hair deficiency.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, probably so. And the Stooges.
SPEAKER_05Iggy and the Stooges, they all have their hair.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I don't think they live long enough to not have hair.
SPEAKER_05My friend you wouldn't think Iggy would have lost his hair, but man, he's got a great head of hair. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Well, it has to do with genetics. It's all genetics. And peanut butter. See, see, while everyone was doing all these hair treatments, you just spray your body, just lap it up with uh peanut butter. Now one question if we ever get Iggy on the show, was it crunchy or was it smooth?
SPEAKER_05Well, you wouldn't know this because you're you're a 60s person and uh the stooges were of the 60s. Did they have crunchy peanut butter in the 1960s?
SPEAKER_07You know, that's a question we'd have to call Skippy for.
SPEAKER_05Skippy. I recall uh the the crunchy peanut butter coming along probably in the 80s, I think, uh, when peanut butter started to get bespoke. But it was always smooth, creamy peanut butter, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_07Well, you know what the big brand in the 60s was.
SPEAKER_18What's that?
SPEAKER_07Jif.
SPEAKER_18Jif, right. Jif, yeah. You're sure choosing making soup from scratch, and you serve that peanut butter? It's a leading brand, and they're all alike. Wrong. New jiff's better. What's new about Jif? Well, new jiff's the fine grind peanut butter. Fine grind? Gif peanuts are ground even finer to get out all the flavorful goodness. Smell yours. So now Jif smells more like fresh peanuts. Tastes gif. Tastes tastes better, really better.
SPEAKER_10Choosing mothers choose new gif. Now it's fine grind.
SPEAKER_05But I think they I think it was creamy. But well, you'll have to I hope in the next uh in uh installment of Notes from the Sixties you do discuss peanut butter in the 1960s.
SPEAKER_07Well, I I think, you know, obviously the seriousness of the show has really um got to a point where I I'll have to start talking about Jeff. Gif and Jell-O.
SPEAKER_05Jeff and Jell-O. What are we expecting in the next episode of Notes from the Sixties?
SPEAKER_07Beats the crap out of me. I started thinking in terms of doing a yearly thing. So this most recent issue that just came out was a 65. Right. So I'm thinking of 66 with sort of a special leaning towards Sergeant Pepper. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Was it 1960? Well, we you you've opined that when the Beatles came to America in 64, that was really the beginning of the 60s. Would you say that that 66, and we've talked about this on our show before, was really a pivotal moment in rock because rock now became art in 1966, or was that?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and and that was actually one of the things I was gonna talk about about regarding Sergeant Pepper. It was the first record that. Had all these interior things to give away.
SPEAKER_05Interesting.
SPEAKER_07You know, and I thought that was a kind of a a fun thing. And you would think if a record like that came out now, how expensive would it be?
SPEAKER_05Right, right. Interesting, right, because it was a gatefold. Now I know the Beatles in England had gatefolds, and the only American gatefold we had was Help, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah, Hel was a gatefold.
SPEAKER_07Well, also Beatles Documentary, which was uh two albums.
SPEAKER_05Right, right, right, not a real album. But right, uh that was the first American gatefold. And yes, you got the Sgt. Pepper cutouts. Did anybody ever cut those things out?
SPEAKER_07My sister did.
SPEAKER_05Oh, your sister did. Did you have the mustache?
SPEAKER_07Oh yes, I did.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Interesting. And of course, uh, right, they started recording Sergeant Pepper in late 66. So yeah, that's a fascinating year. If there's one year in the 60s that fascinates me, it's that year, and that's the year of pet sounds, if I'm not mistaken. And that's the year of fresh cream. Yeah, that's right. Wow. What a heavy year, 1966.
SPEAKER_07See, the the the thing about it was there would be nothing afterwards if it wasn't for those.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then of course the sound started getting a little more experimental with uh between the buttons was 66.
SPEAKER_07You can actually make a case for the first three cream records. There may not have been diffusion.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, certainly, certainly. Absolutely. And then what else in 66? Well, Dylan did Blonde on Blonde, which is probably his best record. So 66 was a big, big, big year.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's probably what I'm gonna do for this week. And remember, what was my favorite record store?
SPEAKER_05Oh, it was the one on the Upper West Side, yes.
SPEAKER_07No. Macy's!
SPEAKER_05Oh, it was Macy's, of course. Well, of course you got you got a good deal of it.
SPEAKER_07Well, yeah, but that record buyer was really hip.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07And I'm I'm still a I w I wish I would have been able to interview him. You know, probably he's no longer on the planet. Either that or he'd be in his 90s if he purchased for the store all those records that I ended up buying so that he had copies too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, be fascinated to talk to. Notes from an artist can be heard live on internet radio every Monday night at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Just just log on to see how I slipped like this. Log on to www.signus radio.com.
SPEAKER_07You know, I usually edit stuff like that out, but this time I think I'm gonna keep it because it'll make me laugh.
SPEAKER_05Where was I? Log on to www.signusradio.com or download the Cygnus Radio app or the digital device of your choice. Uh Notes from an Artist podcast is streaming right now on Apple, Amazon, Buzz Sprout, Spotify, YouTube music, and wherever podcasts are propagated. So you can listen to Notes from an Artist anytime on your own podcast. Anytime on your own. Anytime on your own.
SPEAKER_07How's that for a tagline? Well, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_05David. David, let's talk about the notes from an artist ratings. You are the uh official Notes Women Artist toteboard uh expert. We have uh Notes Women Artists is in the top 9% of all registered 3.2 million podcasts. I wonder how many unregistered podcasts there are. But where can we?
SPEAKER_07It's gotta be at least one.
SPEAKER_05How many countries are we in at the moment, David?
SPEAKER_07At the moment, we're in 150 countries. That has not increased, and that could be because of the war in Iran.
SPEAKER_05Right, we keep bombing countries, so I guess those don't count.
SPEAKER_07Well, they used to be followers, now they don't exist.
SPEAKER_05They don't exist, thank you. We've we the United States military has bombed.
SPEAKER_07But we are in 2,386 cities, towns, villages, brothels. And our newest locations out of those cities happen to be Kyle, Texas. You know Kyle, Texas.
SPEAKER_05I know Kyle. I don't know Kyle, Texas.
SPEAKER_07And how about Blaine, Minnesota? The only Blaine I know is on Living Color. And wasn't he Blaine Merriweather, right?
SPEAKER_05Something like that.
SPEAKER_07Men on film?
SPEAKER_05Yes, I believe that was right.
SPEAKER_17I'm Blaine Network. Today we're gonna look at films on video consent from a male point of view. That's right, and tonight we're brought to you by a brand new sponsor. Hungry men's dinner. The hungry man. I wrestle him down and take advantage of his weakness.
SPEAKER_07Then of course we have, hold on, Oshawa, Ontario. Which I would assume is in Canada.
SPEAKER_05It's in Canada, right, for us all.
SPEAKER_07And then Lugo, which is a province of Ravenia. Doesn't Lugo sound like an Italian restaurant out in LA?
SPEAKER_08When the moon hits your eye like a bigger pizza pie, that's more it does.
SPEAKER_05Well take a look at the case.
SPEAKER_07Do you know that most of the people that listen to our podcasts listen on Apple? But what I found interesting, do you know 15% of our listeners listen to it on a web browser?
SPEAKER_05Interesting.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05They can't afford iPhones.
SPEAKER_07And did you know that two people in Malaysia or one person just loved us so much and downloaded us twice?
SPEAKER_06Wow.
SPEAKER_07Malaysia, Spain, New Zealand, Austria, Japan, Belgium, Canada, Germany. Oh, it's a plethora.
SPEAKER_05Those those downloads in Austria, they weren't by German immigrants, were they?
SPEAKER_07They were. They were probably anti-Semitic towards me. I am not quite sure.
SPEAKER_05Mr. Histler in in uh Austria downloaded our show. Anyway, very good stats, David. Uh follow notes from an artist on YouTube where you can watch historic, hysterical interviews with some of our past guests. Some will actually come back on the show. That's right.
SPEAKER_07We pay them a lot of money, though.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so that's our playlist. My name is Tomazzo Simioli. See you next week. David, say bye-bye.
SPEAKER_07I will say goodnight and goodbye to all you folks. Have a good week and enjoy yourselves.
SPEAKER_01In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
SPEAKER_04I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
SPEAKER_02Guess who I saw today? Oh, old Jeannie Bristol.
SPEAKER_13Oh, she's my age.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean.
SPEAKER_13I know you used to like her.
SPEAKER_02No, I didn't. I did design. How is she? Oh, fine. She's uh married and uh lives in uh Denver.
SPEAKER_20Kate's funny. She should see how much younger she looks when she face in. And her hands, how smooth and young they are.
SPEAKER_13The ivory liquid.
SPEAKER_15Mild ivory liquid. Ever notice how many women with young-looking hands seem to use it? Sure, they take care of their hands too. But when it comes to washing dishes, they use ivory liquid. It's so mild it helps hands stay young looking. Mild ivory liquid.
unknownTry it.
SPEAKER_11All right, back to the matter of money, lovely.
SPEAKER_08Comment, please.
SPEAKER_11Say, Paul, does Mark Spitz believe swimming in the nude helps you go faster? Well, it's easier to stare.
SPEAKER_07You've got to fucking be kidding me, kidding me, kidding me. How dare you call yourself professional?
SPEAKER_14Through unforeseen circumstances, this show will remain on the air until further notice.
