00:00:00 Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio, Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Love Show. Of course, if you've been here for the last almost ten years, you know that I was born in a musical household. I was destined the falling over the craft. I don't know if I had a choice in the matter. While the kids were reading Doctor Seuss, I was immersing myself in liner notes, judging typography, label logos and all those things, and of course graduated later to absorbing everything from periodicals, anything that I could get my hands on. In terms of journalism music journalism, specifically, our Guest Today, I would say, is the original influencer. He gave us me. Specifically, he gave some of the first critical looks at hip hop music, which you weren't getting in the fanzines that I was reading at the time. So to see hip hop treated with such a serious kind of in a serious scope, that was the first time for me, and it made an impression, not to mention growing up in the early eighties as a ten year old, eleven year old seeing serious record reviews by artists I loved, like Prince. Our Guest Today sort of was the bridge and the introduction to my falling into that world that I bring up every time I'm on the show, not to mention other landmark recordings like Pink Floyd. People know that idrned Rolling Stone reviews like on my childhood bedroom wall and study these things. Yeah, I told you scary. But anyway, I will say that many of us know him also as the trusted voice in music journalism. I don't think it's hyper bowl at all to say that he's the Walter Cronkite of music journalism. He's broken out many a story. He was the voice I heard when Big Year Tupac passed away. He was the voice. I will say that the steps that led me here to this moment I've shared many a time of the roots reaction to Kirk Cobane's untimely demise, and it really starts with hearing his voice announce this news. I know that introduction shouldn't be this long, but you know I'm big given flowers. Anyway, I'm very excited to be talking to Kirk Gloder right now. Welcome to the question. Great to see. How are you okay? 00:02:50 Speaker 2: You know I lived in Philly for a while and your father's big hit was like the national anthem of Philadelphia, tear drops. Yeah, it was just it was played everywhere every day. 00:03:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know that you went to Temple. I did. When did you go to Temple University. 00:03:04 Speaker 2: A thousand years ago? It was like nineteen sixty five. 00:03:07 Speaker 1: Wow, I was mind blown. Like, what were your observations of Philly? I often don't hear it's weird. Like my father, I never thought to ask him about what the sixties were like in Philly, but musically, like, what were your observations it was? 00:03:22 Speaker 2: You know, I was a big dua fan, so phid healthy was like the duop capital, one of them. And there's so many great records are made there, so many. 00:03:31 Speaker 1: So were you always a record guy all your life or didn't. 00:03:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, the music meet you or now the music didn't meet me. No, I always was, and it was great to be in Philly because that's where you know. Today's the Day by Maureen Gray, came from Puppy Love by Little Jimmy Rivers. I love all that stuff. I have those records. 00:03:51 Speaker 1: Wow, I love that you know that history. What was your first musical memory in life? 00:03:58 Speaker 2: I think the first thing I heard there was in the early fifties, there was a song called Abba Daba Honeymoon. It was the first stupid song I ever heard. And I'm convinced that great music can have stupid words. As Bob Dylan says, the words are misleading because the song is not the words. The song is the music. So there was that and Theymoon, Debbie Reynolds and Carlton and Carpenter whoever he is, and it was. 00:04:26 Speaker 1: Wait, is that I know this? Yeah? I thought, I yeah, I recalled hearing it. I just don't know specifically where. 00:04:41 Speaker 2: That's enough, Okay, you don't have to hear more. 00:04:44 Speaker 1: What was the first single that you purchased with your own money? 00:04:48 Speaker 2: And one of the first ones that my brother gave me a dollar to go down and get this Elvis Presley record. It was like all the rage and it was it was hound Dog and records were a dollar. Oh, by the way, what's I grew up on the Jersey Shore, Ocean City, New Jersey, very close to Philadelphia. Okay, okay, so when you talked about going to the city, it would be Philadelphia. 00:05:08 Speaker 1: Do you remember the first concert you ever attended? 00:05:10 Speaker 2: Actually, no, I don't. It was like lots of there were lots of little like local bands, bar bands. I mean that's the first live music I saw. 00:05:18 Speaker 1: As far as your childhood home is concerned, like what was your house looking like? Like your parents? What did they do? 00:05:24 Speaker 2: My father was a house pinner, my mother was an accountant. You know, it was like a where I grew up as like an Aymark Berman movie. It was very cold in the summer and in the winter it was just windswept beaches and loneliness. You know, it's a sad story. 00:05:42 Speaker 1: Well, as a child or coming up, what were your aspirations and dreams, Like did you want to have something to do with the music business or writing about entertainment or did you have other dreams? 00:05:53 Speaker 2: Well, I think you know where I lived, just all the stuff you would see about entertainment and music and movie was you just wanted to get out of where you were. So you just wish you could get out to this wherever this was. It's like magic land. So yeah, I always think about that. 00:06:10 Speaker 1: Do you remember your very first writing assignment or the first thing that you wrote about creatively about music or entertainment. 00:06:18 Speaker 2: I was in the Army and I worked for an Army newspaper and at a hospital. Actually it's a long, boring story, but I started writing there like on a deadline, which is something you should really learn. And then after I got out of the army, I stayed in Germany where I was and wrote for a newspaper that covered rock and Rollax, So I go and do Jennie Choplin. This is that period, you do all these and Captain Beefart and so that was. That was a ton of fun. That time was like the late sixties early seventies. Did a lot of things I shouldn't have been doing, but it was. 00:06:56 Speaker 1: That's the journey in life, you know. I know that I came of age when air quote serious journalism in music at least like was a thing. But I know that at some point in history it wasn't. I mean, am I wrong to assume that with Rolling Stone in sixty seven, like that was the beginning of Hey, let's treat this culture asked something serious? Like before in your recollection, was there anyone that spoke seriously of this being an art or you know they treated the Beatles like high art. 00:07:29 Speaker 2: Or I think you know Ralph Gleason in San Francisco was a guy who took it all seriously. And he was a friend of Jan Winter who started Rolling Stone. And Yon's thing was ap and real news places. Why not it was real news. And then at the when there were some things that come up and make your friends look bad or in the business, but he was adamant about that. I said, this guy did something bad. We have to you know, we have to put that in there. And Ya was all this, he's responsible. I think for a more serious approach to popular music. 00:08:04 Speaker 1: The integrity of it all. Yeah, the seriousness. What is the true definition of what a music journalist should be. 00:08:12 Speaker 2: You should between the music business like life, or musicians like life. They're people like everybody else, much more talented sometimes. And you should know the business. You should be able to cover the business, because I think the business is fascinating. The guys that rose up to start independent record companies in America were all like all Jewish guys who are like from families that were tailors or something. They said, I'm going to do this this thing. I'm going to start a record label. And they would do it. During the war when there was a shortage of vinyl, they would tear up linoleum from floors and meld it down to make a records. I mean, yeah, it's just incredible. Tiber Harri told me that from modern records, and you think, wow, they do anything to do it, and they made records of people that would never have gotten records made, you know, or just music with them today is brilliant. But at the time they would just get screwed over by the business. 00:09:08 Speaker 1: All right. So now that the smoke is clear, and when I'm saying the smoke is cleared, I think oftentimes when a phenomenon happens, and especially now like in the social media of it all, I see a bunch of people just rushing to prey, like an alum will come out and then instantly like a masterpiece. You know, it's like sixty seconds old. But also as much as the folklore and the lore of a Lester Bangs type for those that are googling right now Lester Bangs, you know, it's kind of the storied. Well do you explain, like who Lester Bangs was? 00:09:45 Speaker 2: For Lester's sort of the archetype of the hard living, hard drinking music journalist. And he wrote in a sort of free form way, and he write over and over. He wrote a book and like oh, we or something a blonde I think it was a blondie book. And he would just churn out stuff and it would be everywhere, and he was a real character on the scene. 00:10:09 Speaker 1: Now for like journalist circles and writers, was it received as man from Heaven or was it sort of like how I looked at Old Dirty Bastard and Wu Tang Like there's different levels of mcs and the Wu Tang clan. Of course, you know, there's there's different tiers of degrees of it. 00:10:28 Speaker 2: But I don't think many writers got Math from Heaven. They were always complaining about what they were getting paid. But yes, just bring around people like that. I mean, old Dirty Bastard, what a great individual, you know, what a great America. 00:10:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not even I'm not dismissing it, but I think at one point, like the way that the idea of Lester Bangs is, you know, his kamikaze sort of hunting, as Thompson esk. You never know what he's going to write, But like, did he help the cause or did he hurt in the long run? Because I think I know journal simply because other writers would talk about Lester Bangs. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I think people would want to be like Lester without knowing him. When I first got to New York, I went to a show at town Hall. It was Sandy Bull and probably don't remember him, do you. No, he's like an ood player. And Lester was there how many. There were no other people there. It was just him and me and I don't know who else. So he would go to everything, and at that time in New York, you would go to everything. There's so much stuff. And Lester would stay up for forever, drinking in cough syrup because he wasn't a druggy. He's a romo ar guy and beers, and you see all these guys hanging out and there the rock critics. He's seeing the bars like bells of hell, just sitting there with their head back because they were just wasted. And then they get up and write stuff and it would come out and it would be funny. I mean, lest your stuff was very funny. 00:11:54 Speaker 1: You're familiar with the joke of the ouristic crats, right, with the heristic all right, So in journalism, like, is there a journalist version of that? I'll give you an example. Probably the most famous Pitchfork review that I know is and I love the way that you're here. Your eyebrows was so tricker, like so triggered that that's just everything. 00:12:25 Speaker 2: No. 00:12:25 Speaker 1: Like, Probably Pitchfork's most famous review was an album by Jet, of which I think the writer did a jiff of I believe a gorilla taking a piss and defecating all over the place. And the album I Think God is zero point one, of which I think in ninety someone gave I think I don't know if it's Frick or not or Wild gave Andrew originally like a half. 00:12:57 Speaker 2: And I'm gonna argue with that. 00:12:58 Speaker 1: No, no, No, That's the thing though, because it's like, at some point I'm like, is this the aristocrats? Are you writing as a journalist? Are you like, hey, guys, hold my beer, check this out. Do writers often have that, like if you know you're going to pan an artist or whatever, like in a review, like you're going to go to town on it just to impress like a certable. Do people mostly do that? 00:13:24 Speaker 2: Or I don't think that? So I think I think a lot of writers at that time when I was doing it, hanging out together. So opinions tend to homogenize, I think. And one of the most famous miss aimed reviews was Robert chris Kau Is it Mona Ray? I don't know when Jimmy Hendricks first played here. He saw Hendricks live and he called him a psychedelic Uncle Tom, and people were just going what people who heard the records? He said what? And since then, you know, Christy said that, yeah, well he's you know, the live album came out from that gig and it's not Jimmy's best and that's what he's saying. That's what. I just didn't think he deserved all the hype. And there was somebody that who was another Rolling Stone guy said Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band sucked and not my favorite Beatles are either, So I understand why not? 00:14:22 Speaker 1: Are you way over time? Is what is all? So? What's your your beat? You save one album and the rest of fall in the fire? Which one are you saving? 00:14:31 Speaker 2: I can never answer that. I mean every Beatles album before Sergeant Pepper. I think it was kind of interesting. They were doing stuff well. I think when the Beatles came along, I just listened to it. I played music a little bit, and you could tell that there were so many chords in the in these songs. You said, Wow, they're doing doing all these chords, but it's still like a rock song. They were just so brilliant and it was it was exciting to be alive and to hear that stuff. 00:14:59 Speaker 1: So you were impressed in real time when they were presenting art like this post timpan Alley meets show Tunes and the Beatles. 00:15:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, well up to a point. I mean, most of it's hard to say the Beatles are anything bad because they didn't really do anything bad. When they're doing like Robert Rubber soul albums like that, it was something new was happening, somebody knew was happening in music. It was just exciting to be there, excited to hear it. 00:15:24 Speaker 1: I just never heard someone's opinions on the Beatle that told me in real time what they thought of it, like of course, and this happens a lot, especially with like albums that are misunderstood, like I'm pretty certain that you know, pet Sounds is a great example, like in you know, twenty years later, oh my god, heard this, but back then it wasn't like that. So for you, like, do you remember in real time, like the reactions of albums that we now consider classic have been in different or. 00:15:57 Speaker 2: I think again, the great thing about the Beatles was they conquered the world. World. Everybody wanted to be them, everyonebody wanted to live that life, and it just they just made the world light up. He thought, well, this is what's possible, and I think it gave musicians a lot of hope to saying there's something can be done. 00:16:26 Speaker 1: So what are the steps that lead you to writing? Well, period, just in journalism, Like, did you start in music or did you just start traditionally? 00:16:39 Speaker 2: As I said, I worked for a paper in Germany doing stuff, so covering some pop music. 00:16:44 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm sorry. In America, I. 00:16:46 Speaker 2: Worked for a kind of a throwaway newspaper doing nothing. It was really annoying. I hated that. So it was good to get to I worked for Circus in New York. It's good to write about music that you know, you grow up with, and you really feel like you know it, and you know who the people are and the music they've done, and how the music is marketed, you know where it comes from. It's all a fascinating story. It's like an assembly line. Well some of it. 00:17:13 Speaker 1: What year did you start at Circus? 00:17:16 Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy seven nights. 00:17:21 Speaker 1: Okay, so in the mid seventies once, like postmodern rock with modern rock is like at least twenty or ten years old, depending on what you know where you think its origins are. Could one make a good living. 00:17:36 Speaker 2: Writing yes, No, you can't make a good thing you're writing? No, not really. I mean if you're working for Rolling Stone, you don't complain a lot at the time, okay, because they pay you, but generally, I mean it was it was awful. You're getting a couple of dollars for record reviews. 00:17:54 Speaker 1: So even like writing a cover story, like wasn't enough to like would you have to have a second gig? Also, so like were a lot of people bartenders also at nighttime and then. 00:18:04 Speaker 2: A lot of people did that. They also lived in hobbles and they lived a diminished lifestyle. So it's not a way I would recommend trying to make a living and have a future. So it was difficult. 00:18:17 Speaker 1: Was Rolling Stone a hopeful destination for you or you just like whatever comes along, I'll take it. 00:18:24 Speaker 2: I mean that was as high as you can get rolling So at that time in New York it was you know, seventy seven, seventy eight is when punk rock was happening, and white punk rock and black punk rock was all happening, and it was just so exciting and there was so much to write about. It was like being in Liverpool when the Beatles were starting out, because you're you're hearing something new and it's not what the business has been and it was youthful, vigor and it was wild. Was one of us. So there was a lot of stuff to write about. 00:18:54 Speaker 1: So you were aware in real time that, Okay, this is a revolutionary moment that I'm with missing. 00:19:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I mean, you go. I spent a lot of time at CBGB's and Max's, so it was like, if you go to CBGB's, you see bands that were like bar bands, but they had original material. So I love bar bands. I think they're great generally, and these were people came up in bars, but they were playing original material. It's like it was like magic bands you would not know about today, they're forgotten now, had a couple of good tunes. 00:19:27 Speaker 1: At least what established bands or established gods now did you see in the embryonic stage back then their first shows or them opening for someone. 00:19:38 Speaker 2: Bands today not today? Back then gods. 00:19:43 Speaker 1: What former gods did you see like as unknown acts in that period? Well, if you say CBGB's I think talking Hits at their start there. 00:19:52 Speaker 2: And yeah, so the Ramones a bunch of times. I mean all those acts were I love those I love the Ramones. And also, on the other hand, you're hearing like black punk, it was also equally exciting. It was equally amazing run DMC would come on with this Eddie Martinez, this kind of crunch guitarist. It was wild hearing that stuff. It had not been done and you knew something was changing and it did. 00:20:21 Speaker 1: Did you catch any like Baburines in their prime show? 00:20:26 Speaker 2: I saw them opening up for a band called the Tits from Boston. Okay, they were loading in as I was leaving it, but I saw them live. It was it was pretty lively ACKed. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: What would you say during that time period in the mid to late seventies, was a show with an artist that just blew your mind seeing it in real time. 00:20:48 Speaker 2: I was really impressed by Captain beef Heart live because what he was doing was sort of making your body move in a new way. His band was doing such strange stuff, and I mean, there's stuff something like that. Today is this group on Jean de Patrine, you know, those Canadian guys with a plaster of Paris noses. 00:21:09 Speaker 1: I've not heard of this. Oh well call him up, all right, that's something I should look out for. 00:21:14 Speaker 2: They're just they're pretty amazing because what they're doing is it's just two guys, a drum and a guitar that's heavily treated and they're playing loops. It's almost all loops and the guitar is triering them and the footballs. It's amazing, amazing, it's all instrumental that we're taking a look at. 00:21:33 Speaker 1: All right. Speaking of Bee for I did the SNL music documentary and so I'll say that, like before is untimely passing, Like you know, I got to know how well they're for is six or seven years now? I want a guy, Yeah see him and he would always have these crazy stories about and he told the story of you know, I asked him like, was there ever a time when an act didn't work on SNL like that you thought was going to be it? And you know, he talked about Miles Davis's comeback, which he was like that was a disaster for him. But his first answer was Captain Beefheart, and he put me hip to And I didn't realize that you review this doc at the radar station them, and I know that beef Heart did his first song was he did Astray Heart, And because it ended so abruptly, everybody's going on right, only twice on that show, like having watched literally all one thousand episodes to do this thing. Of course, you know, Shinead O'Connor is number one as far as like leaving the audience shocked into silence. But when Beefheart ends it, you know, at first I was watching, I was like, wow, this is really out there, and you know, I'm used to avant garde presentations or whatever. But when he stops the song and there's like six seconds of the deadliest silence going by, and this one guy in the balcony just yells shit. And but for half a second, there's a look on beef Heart's face that I know that got to him, Like it was such a just for half a second he showed like how heartbroken it was jarring, and then like it was like a small golf clap thing. But I mean I got into his music and I got obsessed with him. 00:23:31 Speaker 2: It's like how come, Especially as a drummer, I would imagine it's like WHOA. 00:23:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, just I don't know what it appealed to me. I mean I like weird things, but I always felt like it wasn't that weird where it couldn't catch on, Like Prince has done a lot of radical things and it's caught on. But is the journalist's role speaking of archetypes, like to know something inside or like I know something like highbrow, I know something that you don't that you commoners don't. 00:23:59 Speaker 2: Know oude I know, I hope not. 00:24:03 Speaker 1: You try. 00:24:03 Speaker 2: I think if you really like something, I think you try to show people why it's good or suggest why it might be good and why should maybe at least. 00:24:11 Speaker 1: Go hear it. 00:24:13 Speaker 2: Captain before it suffered mightily trying to get his music across and never really succeeded and never made it work. And he's just done some brilliant albums. I think they've been rediscovered, Like Johnny Rotten is a big Captain before. There are a lot of like punks realize what this is and now we look at it differently, and now we look at a lot of stuff differently. 00:24:35 Speaker 1: I would say probably Jack White was the one that really explained to me eloquently, like why you should like this is what you should pay attention to these songs, and then like they caught one. Can you walk me through? I'm trying not to make this sound story like your first week at Rolling Stone, like it like I'm here, like for you is just like where do I sit? But your first week there? I just want to know what the lay of the land is as far as like what meetings are, like, how all things get assigned. 00:25:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, people would get together in an editorial meeting, talk about what's going on. Somebody would volunteer to cover it. When I was there for like the first week I write our name, Charles M. Young showed up just back from London, just back from the punk scene, and he was dressing differently and sort of moving and talking differently. He met the clash, he met all those people. Yeah, well no, he didn't do that. He's a very cool guy. But he was there and had been there. It was like, you want to go up and touch him? He said, what's it like over there? 00:25:35 Speaker 1: Uh? 00:25:36 Speaker 2: And he got that story, And you'd have meetings and you decide said I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that, and you give it to the person that seemed best informed about it. 00:25:46 Speaker 1: Who's the person that decides, Okay, you will go cover da da da. You'll cover da da da, and you'll cover dada da. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: Oh, whoever the managing editor was, whoever the music editor was. I mean, there are things that Yan wouldn't really Yeah, is not a punk fan, but and he didn't really want to have the sexphistles on the cover of Rolling Stone, but he allowed it to go. He said, yeah, okay, do it. 00:26:09 Speaker 1: He understood the value. 00:26:11 Speaker 2: He knows what's happening. I mean, he was a James Taylor kind of person more so. Okay, well then I shouldn't say that like all my brothers and all that otis redding that period. But he was very aware of what journalism is and realized you have to cover stuff sometimes that maybe not everyone likes, and you have to cover your friends and point it out whether when they're messing up. So he was willing to do that journalism thing. 00:26:38 Speaker 1: Okay, So for me growing up, I grew up in a Rolling Stone subscription household, and well, you know, I bless you because of the way that my dad ran his band just pretty much every other week we would Ben Shop forty five's been Shop records. He just decided to just get cash Box, Billboard, Rolling Stone, and Cream like all the music magazines basically so that his band could look through and be like, okay, we should do this that. And so initially, like the illustrations would grab me, and once I discovered what collage was, you know, third grade by this time, and it's like, oh, I'll take all the you know, Robert Risco and all the artists that were illustrators and started putting them on the wall. So that's how kind of by eighty six eighty seven, I think I had like at least two hundred of this adorn like on every square inch of it. So I'm obsessed with how the record reviews were treated back then. Okay, so I think probably one of the earliest landmark records you got to review, meaning it will wind up being a classic, although you know you don't know it's a classic at the time. Was you got to do the leave review for the wall for a pin foy can. He just walked me through, like what is the process of reviewing back then? Like how long do you get to sit with the record before you even decide what to write about it. How do you did they just trust you to like hear take it? 00:28:12 Speaker 2: Or yeah, I mean nobody told you what's right? You listen, you didn't have a lot of time to do record reviews, but you know a lot of time to do features. You got to see your group, and you have time to do a record maybe a week or two. It was every other week rolling Stone, so maybe it'd have two weeks. 00:28:30 Speaker 1: Maybe you only had two weeks to take in all four sides of the wall. 00:28:34 Speaker 2: And might be you know, I forget exactly. It might have been four weeks. I don't know. But there's so much other stuff happening. You can't take yourself out of the mix and have everybody else do your job, and you have to do other stuff. So and how many records are really worth sweating over? When you think about it? It's true, it's like how many how many geniuses do you meet in life? 00:28:56 Speaker 1: I see that, see from my point of view, Like, okay, so literally this I mean now in a sort of metaphysical way, people would say like, wow, you were like manifesting your you know, affirmations or whatever. But I would literally start every album with a fake record review, like literally draw literally draw my illustration, draw the album cover, put you know, the stars there, and literally put that like post it on just to get me in the mind state of what I'm creating. 00:29:28 Speaker 2: Did you write bad reviews? Did you put people away? And who were they? 00:29:34 Speaker 1: No? I, well, you know, I also believe that classic records need highs and lows in it, Like a guy like Michael Jackson will try to go on a hundred every song of which you're gonna get numbed by a song number four. So you know, I also pay more attention to what my filler is as a post. Well, we were never a hits based group, but you know, I do believe in a balance of highs and lows in making music and all those things. But you know, nowadays, one particular artist that we know, a well known artist that was critically acclaimed during their period, went as far as like renting out a museum and for every room in the museum. That was one of his proteges. All right, everyone knows Kanye did this for it literally had a room, so you experienced the record song by song by a curated room. But you know, I learned at the time I was on def Jam. I was like, okay, so do we get to do this? It's like if you pay for it. But to them it was like the first impression was the most important, and you know the artist wants to make sure that you receive it right, that you're paying attention. Da da da da da. I mean nowadays people go through all these acrobatics or whatever. Was there any of that back then? Of what or trying to make sure we get a good review or sure? 00:31:08 Speaker 2: Like how important was a parties and invite you and you'd get free booze and free food. 00:31:13 Speaker 1: That helps? 00:31:14 Speaker 2: Okay, there's a lot of people who are writing about music needed the free food. They were happy to go. A lot of people lived off that stuff. 00:31:20 Speaker 1: Were you witness okay, I know that Queen did this for the jazz album. Were you witness to any of the jazz record release parties that later turned into. 00:31:32 Speaker 2: No, I wasn't there. I wasn't the world's biggest Queen fan. Really, Bryan May is great. 00:31:38 Speaker 1: But what did you like back then? What besides b part. 00:31:44 Speaker 2: I say a lot of the punk stuff was coming out. I don't think about that period. There were a lot of little bands from England I thought were very good a lot of the New York stuff. I mean, being in the middle of it. Being in New York, he would just be exposed to that all the time. 00:31:59 Speaker 1: But once you're tagged as a writer a journalist, does that numb the experience of just enjoying music? To enjoy music, like when you go home, do you want to hear music or do you want to hear it? The opposite? 00:32:13 Speaker 2: Well, at the time, I think when you're starting out, you do. I think that's one of the sort of dangers if you can put it that way of doing anything for a living, if you're reviewing movies or records or something. After a while, it becomes a job. I mean, you have to fight that off becoming a job, and you have to you have to fight off the feeling of you know who am I to review? As lou Reid once said, you work on a record for a year and some asshole of the village always gives it a B. You know, and you know how that feels. You know, you can imagine how that feels. So let's try to avoid that godlike feeling of I have I have control of your destiny with this record. 00:32:55 Speaker 1: But you know you're you do know your god though, right, Yeah? Well now, well actually I don't think that we know your guy, because I later, I think maybe ten years ago, I found out, like I thought that you were also responsible for the stars that were given. But who, like, who decides what the stars are given? 00:33:14 Speaker 2: Somebody I don't know. 00:33:15 Speaker 1: And are you forewarned? So save you wrote something that was moderately what you felt was fair, thinking, man, I might get a three and a half or four and then it winds up getting a three. 00:33:26 Speaker 2: Well you can. I mean i'd recall saying, well, this should be a four star record or I mean you could do that if it was somebody that was really important to somebody higher up a rolling stone. It mightey not come out out the way you wanted its star wise, and there would be interference with that. But that was kind of rare. I think there wasn't. 00:33:43 Speaker 1: Would they assign something that you didn't agree with and be like, hey. 00:33:48 Speaker 2: That's once or twice. Yeah, that's abound to happen. I mean, they're bound to be things like that in the music business. There are things that happened in the music business. They're not entirely virtuous. Things are done and I'm sure all the principles which hadn't been done. Life goes on. 00:34:06 Speaker 1: Kind of in the almost famous way. Have artists ever complained to you about like what you did, Like you know, you gave us a bad review. 00:34:14 Speaker 2: Or I don't remember anybody doing that. 00:34:16 Speaker 1: My opposite, you gave me a great review. 00:34:18 Speaker 2: Well occasion, Robert Plant told me once he really loved a review I did it his one of his solo albums. But generally people are not going to give writers or people on TV a hard time because it will come back to kick them in the ass later. So there's that going on too. There's a lot of cultivation, try and be nice to this person. 00:34:39 Speaker 1: I think people were self aware that maybe in the eighties, but I think in the seventies is probably just an all out. Some of the more savage things I've read review wise were seventies, and I never knew what the artist's response was to that. I know, like especially now, like I've read many a confrontational, passive, aggressive dig from artists to journalists. 00:35:05 Speaker 2: The Lester Bangs had really come out of a relationship with Lou Reid and they printed it. I mean, he would write stuff with Lou who came out in Punk magazine and just trashing. 00:35:17 Speaker 1: Him to his face, and he wanted this. 00:35:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the greatest thing about Lester. He would just do this stuff and it would get printed, and I'm sure Lou wasn't too happy about it, but he sat down for it. He did more than one interview with Lester. 00:35:33 Speaker 1: So, but your goal was never to make a mark or try. 00:35:36 Speaker 2: To figure out like make somebody angry. 00:35:39 Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine, okay, So I know, initially when I first started video directors, I thought, like wanted to be video directors. But then it's like, no, they do video directors so they could do commercials, so they could do a TV series, so they could finally do it. 00:35:55 Speaker 2: Make the top for you? 00:35:57 Speaker 1: Though? Was the endgame ever, Like, okay, I want to write a New York Times bestseller, like write fiction or I. 00:36:05 Speaker 2: Didn't think about it. No, I never wanted to write fiction. I don't think I would have been any good at it. It'd be nice to have a book, you know. I had a couple of books that was great. But everybody think everybody wants to climb up and be on top of their field. But I was pretty happy being a writer. That people will actually read right, and it got out distributed that far because most writers don't have that. 00:36:39 Speaker 1: What friendships have you developed as a result of your journalism, like. 00:36:43 Speaker 2: With artists, Almost nothing. I think it's a bad idea to be friends with people you're covering. Never do it. Don't do it. If you're going to hang out with somebody and be they stopped by your house for a sandwich or something, it's like you're not going to be able to cover that person anymore. 00:36:59 Speaker 1: Has someone try across that line with you. 00:37:01 Speaker 2: Not if they value their life, you know, not really? I mean I think the it was persuasive thing. And in the seventies and the eighties or there always be drugs around and people be saying, take a bunch of this with you, and really it's yours for free, So that would happen. But I was never really friend. I knew Don Captain b far It pretty well. There were people I knew pretty well, but I'm not gonna I want to make myself sound too virtuous. But there were a couple of people I was kind of close to that I knew okay, but not many. 00:37:38 Speaker 1: What was your first cover story do you remember? 00:37:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it the pretenders. I don't know. The first thing I ever did for olling Stone was this band called Poco, which was like or Poco just like it was kind of a country rock things like Okay, so somebody as would you like to do this? And no, I wouldn't like to do it, actually, but since you're asking for Rolling Stone, sure I'll go to it. So you have to go home and listen to poker records and go and then you go talk to the guys. And inevitably, people in the business are pretty nice if they're getting you're knowing a story on them. Everybody's pretty nice show businesses. I find that, don't you find that? I think I was that, like, you're very nice? You know? 00:38:21 Speaker 1: Well yeah, I okay, So I will probably say now one of the scariest things about being me is I'm close friends with people. I'm not trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this, like I'm not in their demographic. However, I do enjoy the science of dissecting why something works, you know what I mean. So even though like even in the height of TRL mania with whoever, Backstreet and Sinct or whatever, I'd go to those concerts like not as not as like a but more like I want to study like how I want to know how things work, like how the machine works. And so sometimes you'll get caught in the thing. And a great example is Fish. I thought I had nothing in common with Fish, and just as a favor, they let me trail them. This is like when they were initially going to retire and the spands like a week left and like one of my nerdy friends that ran our website, Hello Dan, said you know, like I feel like you guys could learn from their business model just go to the shows, and you know, I was like, I don't even do psychedelics. I don't know if this is going to be fun. I have the time of my life there, you know what I mean. But I'm emotionally involved for other reasons, but it's just not me like being a fan of their work. Eventually I'll study it because I'm also embarrassed that I don't know. It'd be like me not knowing thriller or whatever. Well, how would did you handle someone that you're not generally interested in? But it's an assignment. 00:40:05 Speaker 2: I think you're right. You find a way to be interested. If you like music, if you like the business. I mean, all one of the guys in the Great I think Jerry Garcia had said, even the lamest music doesn't hurt anybody, So it's not gonna it's not gonna hurt you to go listen to it. You know, I think most music has something redeeming about it if the person has talent. So you wind up covering stuff that you might not immediately love. But a friend of mine, David Frick, covered Fish. He was not a typical candidate for a Fish fan, but he was definitely. He went and spent time with them, and he came back just saying, they're actually great. They're really nice guys, and they're all actually great live. I've never seen them live, but it's be brutal. No. 00:40:53 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, here's the deal, all right. So the day one, the reason why my guy wanted me to go see them was because I didn't understand. He's like telling me, yo, your life is going to change if you start letting fans tape. And you know, I was like, you bootleate my show. No, no no, no, no no no, And he was like, dude, you just gotta see how this will change your life. And so initially I think with Fish, I was still like, nah, I'm good. But then when I went to see Pearl Jam and saw how their community works, then I was like, all right, maybe, okay, I'm onto something because my whole thing is like why I give the cowway when I'm also selling the milk. But then day two I hung out backstage just to see how they operate, and I was like, Wow, this guy's playing a vacuum cleaner as a drum solo and all this stuff. By day three, I think I was just open to it and realized and subsequently taking all those notes that we took for those four days, like the entire Roots most operati like changed for the better because I just couldn't understand how like, especially with black music, you gotta have a hit out the box. I think the Roots are like one of the last groups that like relied on prestige and you know, critical claim and all that stuff without ever having a hit single. And you know, every album is just like nerve racking for me of like, are we're going to get dropped? Not drop? We need somebody to give us a you know, a hot version or a cameo. I didn't want to have to jump through the same hoops, you know, like Joni Mitchell doesn't need a cameo from method Man or any of those things. 00:42:40 Speaker 2: So Charles, she got Charles Mingus to do, right, I like to. 00:42:46 Speaker 1: Be Wait, do you have a favorite This has been a recurring theme on each episode I've done. Do you have a favorite Mitchell album? 00:42:53 Speaker 2: I guess Blue? 00:42:54 Speaker 1: Oh you like Blue? 00:42:55 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:42:55 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:42:56 Speaker 2: I mean she's really interesting. I think there's a live version of her doing Free Men in Paris and it's as like Randy Brecker on and has like these real jazz guys and she's amazing doing that. Her coord sense is amazing, I mean more so than people understand, I think or appreciate. So I spent a long night getting really drunk with her once and Dan Tana's and she what was that? Like? That was great? She's a fun person. Joe Mayez is a fun person. You never know who's going to be entertaining. 00:43:33 Speaker 1: On the opposite side of that, has there been not a contentious relationship but a relationship that or not a non relationship that you weren't aware of of an artist like not liking you but you got to know them later. 00:43:46 Speaker 2: Or no, I mean they don't like you. You generally don't know unless you go do something with them and they it's clear that they hate you. I'm sure lots of people didn't like me, you know. 00:43:57 Speaker 1: But the thing is is that what makes you notable, and you know, I'll get to your MTV phase, is that you pretty much had access to people who would never give an interview. So there's some sort of disarming thing about you that. 00:44:13 Speaker 2: Well, you have access, depending on your outlook, if you if you work for Rolling Stone or whatever, if it's it's important enough, you have the access. Everybody loves you because they love your out your outlet, they love the publicity they'll get out of it. So there's sometimes not an overdose of sincerity going on. People. It's business. It's a business transaction. Nobody's I don't remember anybody telling me they hate me to my face, but I'm sure. 00:44:42 Speaker 1: Well, nice to you those first yeah. 00:44:45 Speaker 2: I mean, if you could tell what condition he was in while you were dealing with him. That was a great band. I love them, and he was exactly what you would think, you know, crazy and talented. 00:44:59 Speaker 1: Why did you do you know that it was time to make a pivot and leave Rolling Stone? To go try other things that you. 00:45:08 Speaker 2: I didn't really, I mean, it just it just happened that I was doing a story in Australia on the Mad Max movie, the third Mad Max movie, and Tina Turner was in it, and I knew that somebody there was somebody trying to do a TEENA Turner book like in a week or something like one of those quick turnaround things junk. And I told her managers, and you know, somebody should do this real story because it's an amazing story going back to Saint Louis in like nineteen sixty or something, that whole shipland circuit thing fascinating and somebody should do that. And they said, well, okay, so I got to do that. It was was that Roger Davies, Yeah, lucky man, and it was she was very fortunate to have him for their manager because he was absolutely vision, we'll just stop people's butt. So it was amazing being with it. That Tina didn't all the records of hers that I liked, the early stuff she hated. She hated all that stuff that he said he would put this in keys it was too high for me. And so she doesn't look back out of the way I did. I thought those records are like immortal, and when she gets it, when you get into like the the hippie phase and rock, it's like, I don't know, I think she was better than that, really, but she was a fascinating person. 00:46:22 Speaker 1: You were over there to cover her. 00:46:24 Speaker 2: No, I forget I was over there. I think doing it was like in the the period when like minute work, what's happening people like that, you'd be covered in the Australian scene, which was a happening thing. And I'm conflating these things probably, But I went over to do the Mad Max movie, so that was very interesting to meet George Miller, the directors like a genius and you know tenas that are wearing some bizarre chain mail outfit. 00:46:56 Speaker 1: Was just great. 00:46:57 Speaker 2: And uh, it was just a great trip. It was to be over there. It was great to watch her work. 00:47:02 Speaker 1: How many hours of interviews was the Iteena process? 00:47:07 Speaker 2: Oh twenty some hours, I'm sure? And travel? 00:47:10 Speaker 1: How would you spread it out so that you wouldn't exhaust her. 00:47:14 Speaker 2: I don't know if you could exhaust her. She worked all the time. But we did a lot. We did stuff in New York and some gigs here and then went to Europe and travel around in Europe, and after the show every night she would talk. I mean, after doing one of these shows where you're just killing yourself, she would have the time to talk and remember her stuff. And it's pretty amazing. 00:47:33 Speaker 1: I thought, wasn't cathartic for her to go through these memories? 00:47:37 Speaker 2: We like to think? So she did another autobiography of some sort of like a year or two ago, and I don't know why I didn't read it, but not because I didn't want it. I'm sure it was fine, but get Yeah, I think it was cathartic to get this stuff off her chest and talk about it because a lot of us pretty ugly as you as you know, so it's hard to talk about that. And I think it affected her vision of the music she made with like and I turns a very important figure in rhythm moves, very very important. This guy you know, works with Howl and Wolf and stuff like amazing, but he's only known now as a wife. 00:48:20 Speaker 1: Meeter, how did you know exactly what picture to paint? Because you know, eighty six eighty seven really wasn't a time period where people were very like transparent about you know, the eighties were ruled by mystery and scarcity marketing and that sort of thing, Like was there any point during the interview process where she felt like she went too far and revealing things or like no, I don't recall that, or pulling it out of her She. 00:48:55 Speaker 2: Knew she was a particular place and because of Roger Davies, he knew what was happening in England and all these new groups, you know, Human League and stuff was going on, and they're making records just with synthesizers. He said, he knew what's happening here. He said, this is what you need to do. You've got this classic R and B voice. Let's put you in front of all these synthesizers and work with these new young people. And it was brilliant. And that record when it came out Private answer, you would listen to it and you knew it was a hit. This is a hit, this is a hit, this is a hit. It was an amazing record. 00:49:28 Speaker 1: What was your response to when it TENA got optioned for a movie, Like did you have any saying that or they just took your book in? 00:49:36 Speaker 2: Pretty happy about it? You know they pay you for these things. 00:49:40 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't know Okay, you know you might. I'm a filmmaker. Okay, well no, no, no, no, no, Well I've yet to do a script it, but I never knew what the process was in optioning a book. 00:49:54 Speaker 2: And the book gets optioned, and do you. 00:49:56 Speaker 1: Have any say in the actual screenwriting of it all that they now ask you for the tapes to listen or. 00:50:02 Speaker 2: I have given that tape, those tapes, some of them to other people who've done documentaries about Tina for HBO somebody. 00:50:09 Speaker 1: Do you still have the originals? 00:50:11 Speaker 2: I have all that? 00:50:12 Speaker 1: Do you have all your tapes? Come on? Why? 00:50:15 Speaker 2: Because that would be like fifty weeks of tapes. I mean, I haven't got that much a living space, so. 00:50:22 Speaker 1: You're not sentimental at all about. 00:50:24 Speaker 2: Like oh yeah, but I mean you can't and you move around, you lose stuff. I mean, I've got David Bowie, I've got Pete tousand, I've got these people I talked to like to keep all of that. I hope cassette tapes really last a long time because they're all very old now. 00:50:39 Speaker 1: So moving to MTV, when did you start working there? 00:50:45 Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty eight, February, Arizona. 00:50:49 Speaker 1: Okay, Like I've always been aware of MTV and watched it religiously, but I would probably say that your arrival there is where suddenly like I felt like rock journalism was a respectable thing. 00:51:05 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:51:06 Speaker 1: And in your presentation, were you self aware of being cut dry the way that you were because you're on MTV? I think the temptation for a lot of people there. And this is the thing, I was unaware of how old you were, So I'm thinking at least back then you're like, okay, maybe five or six years older than you were, like kind of the older brother figure to us. It's a lot of us. But you know, with anyone else that's on any of those video channels, they might tend to code switch and pander to all, yo, what's up dudes that I'm here a MTV And yeah, and you never did that, and I actually like with you and Tabatha also like very just cut dry and it made you trustworthy and so like, was that a conscious decision to. 00:51:58 Speaker 2: I don't have that cut personality. I cannot be bubbly. I'm not a bubbly person. It's a failing. Actually it's not something he would boast about, but yeah, I couldn't do that. So so I'm naturally dead pand. 00:52:13 Speaker 1: And not once where the MTV people like this guy is absolutely like, no, they're nowhere near Ricky Rackman or poly Shore or whoever. 00:52:22 Speaker 2: And why would I try to be? Then they're they're good at being them. Once in a while, I would get asked to do something. It would be like the Spice Girls or something. 00:52:32 Speaker 1: You know, try on a silly hat or whatever, like I. 00:52:34 Speaker 2: Never did that. Okay, Well, now I wore pajamas for a Madonna shoot. She was having something called bed for Bedtime Stories that album, and yeah, everybody got in pajamas. I was really dumb, but it was fun. Doing stuff with Madonna is always fun. 00:52:52 Speaker 1: Wait, oh my god, I'm thinking of real time. He described that moment with Madonna and Courtney Love at the like you're in the middle of what was obviously a real time even your casualness of taking this question, like I don't remember this. Do you remember this moment at all? 00:53:11 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's all I see it all the time because it's it's on TV. We're doing some little interview with Madonna. Some compact, like a woman's makeup compact went flying through the air and Donna said, then, so somebody we saw that was Courtney, and then some producers said get her up on stage, which Madonna's going, God, no, don't do that. And so Courtney comes up, just wasted, falls down, her skirt goes up. It was it was great television. You know, you prayedvision absolutely okay, do it again, never fall down again. It'll be great. 00:53:50 Speaker 1: And was Madonna surely she realized. 00:53:54 Speaker 2: Very happy about it. No, but she maintained her composure. She didn't like to be upstaged, as you might imagine. Yeah, it was great, and now it's you're gonna still see it three years later. 00:54:06 Speaker 1: I totally forgot you were in the middle of that storm. I absolutely forgot what are probably three of the in your mind, like the most landmark moments of your tenure there. 00:54:30 Speaker 2: You would have to tell me, I don't know, there's a landmark for you. 00:54:33 Speaker 1: I think is okay. So being at NBC, there was a point where because after we take the Tonight Show, my addressing room is also a studio, so oftentimes I'll leave there one in the morning, two in the morning. And there was a period like for the first four or five years, where I'd see Brian Williams in the Cafeteriam, like, what the hell are you doing here? And explain to me, like, I often have to stay here just in case something and happens. So if we were like on the verge of a war or something like major that's happening, he would just have to live in that building. Were you on twenty four hour call for like a lot of Like when the Kurt Cobain situation happened, you were the first voice that we heard. 00:55:17 Speaker 2: In john Lyn and eyes or something. Someone will call you at home. Yeah, I mean a memorable thing, just some of the Prince wants at Paisley Park. I went up there and talked to him, and Prince shows up wearing sunglasses and the producer's just going nuts, said you can't wear some telling Prince you can't do some reflection. Yeah, well, just we can't see your eyes. So he's in no way he's going to take them off, you know. He said you have to take them all. He said no, She's just that kind of guy. And so he did this interview and afterwards he was kind of an a good mood. He said, we'll have I'll call the band. He goes somewhere and calls every guy in the band. You're getting Larry Graham out of bed, and they all show up like half an hour later and they start playing. So we're sitting there listening to them for like an hour and a half or something. 00:56:07 Speaker 1: He did a full concert for how many people in the room A thousand? 00:56:11 Speaker 2: I mean, it was a lot of people, and it was just amazing and Princess playing this guitar that signed on the back by George Benson, one of those full sized Gibsons. Yeah, that was a night to remember, as they say. 00:56:25 Speaker 1: That's cool. Do you remember anything at all about the handling or the announcement of Nirvana of him dying. 00:56:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think anybody was shocked that he committed suicide. He was sort of on the it was known that he was on the verge of that. But you're shocked that this would have happened. This band was so good. They were such a great lie back and and nice guys too, and just thought, God, what a loss. He could have done a lot of stuff. Everybody says that when somebody telling him dies, like what if Buddy Holly lived, imagine what he might be doing. But he might have been like a country and Western hack too. Yeah, you never know. But oh, I think Kirk Obang, I think he was ready to move on to more elaborate stuff. I mean there's there are tapes of him sort of talking about that. I want to said, these guys are holding me back if you can imagine that great band. 00:57:20 Speaker 1: I know that the air quote, the serious artist trope like often kind of hampers an artist. I'm probably guilty of that, like overthinking, over rehearsing, overthinking, over researching, all those things. What do you look for in terms of an artist that impresses you, like, because I'm certain that you've been in situations where you might think, like, oh, this person's pretentious, or you've been in a situation where nobody knows enough about this person. Or you've probably been in situations where an artist might be burnt out you know that they're phoning it in or whatever. But like for you, how can you I won't say judge, but like for you, what do you think your subjective opinion is on, like what an artist should be as far as your observation in the last four decades of journalism, what. 00:58:21 Speaker 2: Should an artist be? Talented? Should be real talented? 00:58:27 Speaker 1: Well, how do you feel an music. 00:58:29 Speaker 2: Now there's there's always stuff going on. There's never been a time whether there hasn't been great music. I don't think you have to be aware of it or you have to go look for it, but it's there. You can't get it all off the radio. 00:58:41 Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, okay, So in let's go to the eighties. In the eighties, who are the three people that are your your trusted voice dog? You got to check this record out, like listen to this or yo, did you hear that new record? Who are those three people. 00:58:58 Speaker 2: That I think I did the first the first rapp review for only SI, Yes you did the message that was amazing. 00:59:05 Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sorry, Yes, it's right. 00:59:09 Speaker 2: My life that was sort of different. 00:59:11 Speaker 1: It was it was leave review for a single guy. I remember it. I never saw a leave review single before that. Candy Girl for some reason, like got leave reviews as singles. But yeah, that was a moment in which even my dad noticed like, oh, okay, the stuff you're listening to is important. 00:59:30 Speaker 2: All that stuff run DMC and all those guys like wow, that changed the world, changed the business in a big way. 00:59:39 Speaker 1: Is there a point where you I think I went through this and maybe right before the pandemic, like maybe in twenty eighteen where I started, Okay, well maybe I should get off the train, and well. 00:59:54 Speaker 2: It's just is it a dark period? 00:59:57 Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think at that time Pierre I was leading, especially leading them to the pandemic with all the therapy stuff and just really wondering, like you know, the ten year old of Mirror that would study record reviews, study liner notes, and you know, his parents would let him get up at one in the morning to watch whatever divo and rock concert or whatever, like any of those things, and then the music just became a burden to me, right, and similar to you know, job, well became a job. And you know, I know, especially with Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, that they found other things to do, start painting whatever. So that's how it got into doing like other things this and movies and whatnot. Now I'm back on the bandwagon, but you know, there is that moment where I think most people that had a passion, I mean, it's almost like a relationship, like it's the honeymoon period in the first five years, and you're sort of contentious and indifferent. And I didn't want to be that person, but for you, like, was there a moment in which you just felt like I'm out of this or I don't understand, or you were signed someone that. 01:01:16 Speaker 2: Oh No, I think if you're whatever you do, you're gonna get tired of it. I think if you want something fresher, it's always good to move out, move on and do new things. As you say, when I was writing record or yours, I got tired of that. And then you do features and after a while you get tired of that because you've done it and it comes the same thing over and over, and you move on to other other fields and other things. 01:01:40 Speaker 1: So what is your passion now nowadays besides movie you're writing, which I love your Yeah. 01:01:47 Speaker 2: I write about movies quite a bit, Yeah, I and traverse. 01:01:50 Speaker 1: I like your takes on on on music on movies. Do you do your own headlines? Also for the movie reviews that you do? 01:01:57 Speaker 2: Yes, okay, because as I say so, if you're leave it for someone else, I always find if you because people whoever you're waiting for, they want it like a photo or something, and if you give them fifteen photos, they're going to pick the worst one and put it in. Yes, Demily, to make people seem stupid, but it's just going to happen. Everybody's busy, everybody's running through stuff, so to do it yourself is always best. 01:02:25 Speaker 1: I think, is there something that you haven't delved into at all, or some sort of bucket list project or creative project that you've yet to do in writing? 01:02:39 Speaker 2: I hope, So, I don't know. I can't think of anything offhand. I mean, I think I've been totally blessed to be able to do stuff that I was really interested in. I mean, to be able to spend your life supporting yourself doing something you love. How many people get to do that, and so you are really fortunate if you do well. 01:03:00 Speaker 1: You know, this is a buckle, this dream for me to just thank you, talk to you, and I really in that bucket. I will say that you're You're kind of the top of the pile. I mean, because a lot of my music education and you know this is not just MTV. MTV is probably the least of it. I mean, you know again, I'm I'm living, I'm living with your words like plastered on the wall. So you know, it's great to finally have the face to the person that I've done up with and I thank you for that. Man. 01:03:33 Speaker 2: I was very happy to meet people. You know, James Brown, so I was very happy to meet him once. And remember remember the period when he was the original disco man. In the disco period, they made him do this record. I said, oh man, And there was some party at some bar. He shows up in a bright red hat like the one Prince wore for the Hall of Fame thing, and so, well, come meet James went up. It's really loud in there, and I said, I love everything you've ever done, starting with nineteen fifty six. From there and up every I just I've probably named every single idiot right, and they're going on and on and on. And at the end, when I was finished, I turned around to go somewhere else. He didn't say a word. He hadn't said one word. 01:04:18 Speaker 1: He didn't. 01:04:19 Speaker 2: I was impressed. That is the greatest thing. Wow, he saved that for me. 01:04:23 Speaker 1: You know, for him to say nothing is normally it's the opposite. When I hear those stories. 01:04:29 Speaker 2: Well that makes me feel worse now. 01:04:31 Speaker 1: No, I you know, well might awesome, might be performative, James that thank god you didn't get that person. It's where you mentioned that James is probably the one artist to whom I'm probably the only person I know that has high regard for classic records, yeah, and horrible records. I believe that horrible records and classic records are one of the same. That's what I don't like is mediocre record Yeah. And James Brown has never made a mediocre record. So when a lot of his posts mustache, some would say angel dust period of James Brown, I find myself, especially in the last fifteen years, I listen to a lot of posts seventy five, you know, and I have my little James Brown circle of former employees of his or whatever, and I'll just you know, hear a filler song and what was on his mind when he made this? But it's so bad, it's awesome to me. And it's to the point, like jazz bassist Christian McBride fellow Philadelphia and I are going to probably do we want to do kind of a tribute band to some of the worst of James Brown. Actually, you want to know something, I have this discussion with him maybe two years before he passed. Prince, So the Prince's the north star that guides Prince. As far as James Brown is concerned, is actually that period the four on the floor disco? 01:06:09 Speaker 2: Oh why not sure? 01:06:10 Speaker 1: Which you know, of course as a hip hop as a hip hop head, you know we are stuck between sixty seven and seventy four, where like the breakfeats are. And then I asked him one day. I was like, yo, like all of your James Brown references I've ever heard kind of come from the bad period. And he says bad to whom? And in my mind, I'm like, well, duh, Like come on, dude, Like I have many rehearsals you like playing body heat at nausea. He's like, you don't like body heat? And I was like, well, that's cool, but what about like you did too funky in here for like an hour at rehearsal. He's like, you do only too funny in here? 01:06:49 Speaker 2: And then many new organ trio stuff. 01:06:53 Speaker 1: Possibly no, but it's it's he's true artistry. He literally has never done anything media like, not many people can say that, like to not be mediocre, I think is probably the. 01:07:06 Speaker 2: Artist's goal tonight for you, that's so true. 01:07:08 Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, my pleasure. I appreciate it. Kurt Loader on the Quest Love Show, and I thank you guys, and I'll see you on the next go round. See you. Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Mere Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sewn G, Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jacob Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex kN Roman. iHeart Video supported by Mark Canton, Logo's Graphics and animation by Nicko by Loewie. Additional support by Lance Colder Special thanks to Kathy Brown Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mande. Please subscribe, rate the view and share the Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, make sure you follow us on socials That's at QLs. 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