Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards a podcast,
Speaker 1: but this week is about Filium Specter.
Speaker 2: I'm fairly certain that's not what his first name is.
Speaker 2: Here to correct me, Greasy.
Speaker 3: Will, that's actually I think his name was Philium. I
Speaker 3: have no reason to dispute that. The Yeah, absolutely one
Speaker 3: hundred percent. I do want to lead off with saying
Speaker 3: that I forgot last episode, but I did want to
Speaker 3: mention I have made a playlist of all of Phil
Speaker 3: Spector's music. I thought that it would be very even
Speaker 3: though it's technically whenever you're doing this is educational, so
Speaker 3: you can use music for anything that you want when
Speaker 3: it's educational, but I thought it would be, you know,
Speaker 3: especially with the new prestigious Netflix deal that you guys got,
Speaker 3: I didn't want you to have any you know, copyright
Speaker 3: complications are too. No, I'm just saying, I just don't
Speaker 3: want you guys have any complications. You know, So instead
Speaker 3: of what I think is Phil's most seminal song, instead
Speaker 3: of playing that, I'll play you my interpretation of it.
Speaker 4: Thank you all for listening. I will be here all week.
Speaker 5: The night meant I knew I found my show.
Speaker 6: The kind that talks about ev were freaking now.
Speaker 5: Each shine I listen.
Speaker 6: I can't believe my Holy.
Speaker 5: The more than God than be too naughty, though, Can
Speaker 5: we till me hid behind the sady that you see
Speaker 5: behind the cantles by, behind.
Speaker 2: The business snappy, I'm the best.
Speaker 5: From more crimes consent.
Speaker 1: See oh.
Speaker 7: The weirdows Is Street, dried.
Speaker 2: Leave on.
Speaker 5: Some feet, rocked up that then the darkest shows you
Speaker 5: love that cringe at a briefing.
Speaker 7: Day fall some can gupy behind the Ballet Street, the
Speaker 7: passion of.
Speaker 2: The boothston snappy, so.
Speaker 6: Behind the s Street, the passion looks like the Boston Sniffy.
Speaker 6: The bastards, sweet.
Speaker 4: Bastards.
Speaker 8: That was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Well, that was genuinely one of the sweetest I looked.
Speaker 3: I just want everybody to know, like this was not
Speaker 3: an AI song. I legitimately made that.
Speaker 2: I would never have accused you of that, I know.
Speaker 3: But it's like right now, there's so much like like
Speaker 3: you know, like fifty does fifties song, you know, like
Speaker 3: do up you know, and you're like, ah, no, I legitimate.
Speaker 3: I brought in a girl. Her name is Clancy. I
Speaker 3: shout her out, Shout out Clancy. She was amazing She
Speaker 3: crushed that Ronnie Specter vibe. She absolutely killed it. It
Speaker 3: was amazing and I and I very much appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, you didn't.
Speaker 2: Really show that wall sound thing too that you were
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, literally, what I was going for was trying to
Speaker 3: sound exactly like Phil Spector's Be My Baby, which is
Speaker 3: where we will pick up.
Speaker 2: Today, Beautiful after beautiful after introduct after this.
Speaker 4: Nailed it, So back to our story, back to our pow.
Speaker 4: Philip Specter.
Speaker 3: His career is exploding, right, this is where we're at
Speaker 3: right now, His career is exploding.
Speaker 4: He is the hottest.
Speaker 3: He is Max Martin in the nineties, right, he just
Speaker 3: wrote Britney Spears and now he's working for Christina Aguilera.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then he's working.
Speaker 3: For you know, it's just like hit after hit after
Speaker 3: hit after hit. And like I said before, in last episode,
Speaker 3: we talked about he was the.
Speaker 4: Tycoon of teen.
Speaker 8: Hate.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so he's yes, it's very it's a very
Speaker 4: upsetting name and as an.
Speaker 3: A you know this, but to be fair, he is
Speaker 3: probably only like twenty years old, Like he is barely
Speaker 3: not a teen himself at this point. And this is
Speaker 3: a very very peculiar time in history, right, because most
Speaker 3: of his competition is like fifty forty.
Speaker 4: Right, they're like old.
Speaker 3: Dudes, right, it's like like in the early days. Like
Speaker 3: it's very funny. But they talk about this all the time,
Speaker 3: Like basically, if you heard a song by a young
Speaker 3: black girl group, it was written by an old white
Speaker 3: Jewish man. Yeah, yeah, without fail, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: You know, not quite yet, but very soon the Chess
Speaker 3: Brothers are gonna have Chess Records in Chicago. It's going
Speaker 3: to be everything, you know, everything that exists you know
Speaker 3: in music is gonna come out of there for a
Speaker 3: little while.
Speaker 4: It's like there is absolutely.
Speaker 3: There is just a a a world of old white
Speaker 3: dudes writing writing pop music for teenage girls.
Speaker 4: And Phil Spector is the maverick.
Speaker 3: He's the young guy. He's and he's doing it different.
Speaker 3: He's very different, right, all Right, So the studio becomes
Speaker 3: his creative space. The studio becomes you know, everything to him.
Speaker 3: He's using it as part. It's like the it's it's
Speaker 3: really in these moments too, when he's making these these
Speaker 3: wall of sound productions. It is basically Phil Spector and
Speaker 3: the studio is the is the musician. He's bringing in
Speaker 3: randos from the parking lot to sing backgrounds, like there's
Speaker 3: layers of percussion and shit. It was like if you
Speaker 3: could keep a beat at all, it was like cool,
Speaker 3: go in there and play this thing. He would have
Speaker 3: multiple drums, like all sorts of stuff going on in
Speaker 3: these productions. They were they were the musicians were interchangeable.
Speaker 3: The studio was important to him, gold Star Studios in
Speaker 3: Hollywood on Vine and which is no longer there by
Speaker 3: the record it was it was a shitty studio in
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: I gotta break it here to say of my favorite
Speaker 2: early in our friendship memories was coming to visit you
Speaker 2: at the studio you were working at in LA for
Speaker 2: the first time with Lenny and like cracking a sixth
Speaker 2: pack when you're like putting the finishing touches on something
Speaker 2: and you're like, you know, this is where they made
Speaker 2: pet sounds, And I was like, oh this building. You're like, no,
Speaker 2: like this room is the room?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Here, yeah, right here? Yeah.
Speaker 3: Which again h I mentioned this the first the first episode,
Speaker 3: but uh, you know, part of my love for this
Speaker 3: whole story is that this is all combined. This story
Speaker 3: is all one story, which also includes Charles Manson. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you know that Charles Manson's in this
Speaker 3: whole thing too. And I actually have a little bit like, dang,
Speaker 3: I should pivot from this one the next one.
Speaker 4: I come over here, I should? I should Charles Manson
Speaker 4: Beach Boys.
Speaker 2: Talked a little bit about the Beach Boys and Charlie Manson,
Speaker 2: but not as much as the subject deserves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god, it is. I mean, it's it.
Speaker 4: We'll get there. We'll get there.
Speaker 3: That's a later but that's a that's a little special
Speaker 3: thing for you guys in the future.
Speaker 4: You'll love it. So yeah, so you know Phil Is
Speaker 4: is working at gold Star. The Beach Boys are are.
Speaker 3: Brian Wilson actually is part of these early like background people,
Speaker 3: not singers. He's like a hanger on. He's like showing
Speaker 3: up places and being like, oh Phil's working, like and
Speaker 3: he's a kid, and he just like, oh, I just
Speaker 3: want to see what Phil is doing. Because Phil is
Speaker 3: the guiding force of what would become the Beach Boys,
Speaker 3: which would then become the Beatles. Is like whole vibe
Speaker 3: on how they just were not doing the Phil is
Speaker 3: the architect of this original sound and he cannot be
Speaker 3: stressed enough how big of a deal this is, Like
Speaker 3: he is like as big as as doctor Dre is. Right,
Speaker 3: like when you think of like, oh, like everybody knows
Speaker 3: doctor Dre, everybody knows Phil Spector. Right across continents they
Speaker 3: know Phil Spector. Everybody knows Phil Spector. Right. He is
Speaker 3: after after the hits that he's crafted already. Just he's
Speaker 3: world he's worldwide, mister worldwide. He's pitfull and.
Speaker 2: So right right, yes, he's the first mister worldwide.
Speaker 3: He is also, as I said, only about like five
Speaker 3: foot three or whatever and anywhere's heels. He starts wearing
Speaker 3: heels all the time because he doesn't want people to
Speaker 3: know how short he is. He starts losing his hair,
Speaker 3: which we'll talk about a little bit. Uh, and so
Speaker 3: he starts wearing wigs and starts like going, this is
Speaker 3: the beginning of all this. At this exactly, he's like
Speaker 3: twenty one and he's like losing his hair at a
Speaker 3: crazy rate.
Speaker 4: He's like all right, real insecure about it.
Speaker 3: Really has a lot of self worth image issues, you know,
Speaker 3: he really just does not like he's doing all this
Speaker 3: because of that, he's trying to go bigger and bigger
Speaker 3: and bigger, because he looks at himself as being just
Speaker 3: like the worst, because you know, mom issues and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But by the mid nineteen sixties, Phil Spectr had achieved
Speaker 3: something few producers had ever managed. He had transformed himself
Speaker 3: from songwriter into brand, from collaborator into architect. The Wall
Speaker 3: of Sound was no longer experimental. It was defining popular music.
Speaker 3: But as his professional authority grew, so did his emotional instability.
Speaker 3: He got married to a woman named Annette Morar, right,
Speaker 3: and it is such a small blip, like this is
Speaker 3: I should have started with that, But it's such a
Speaker 3: small blip. He marries her and immediately just starts ignoring her,
Speaker 3: has no interest in he He love bombs her.
Speaker 4: He does what we now call love bombs, right, He
Speaker 4: love bombs the ship out of it.
Speaker 3: But then once they get married, because this is like
Speaker 3: a very short courtship, once they get married, he's like
Speaker 3: not interested anymore.
Speaker 4: So that gives me.
Speaker 8: That gives me major, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, calm down on hating on people for bad relationship.
Speaker 2: And situations, as we have well we wanted to talk.
Speaker 3: I'm doing the best I can look, I figured out,
Speaker 3: I figured out the problem.
Speaker 4: It's me. I'm in the same place I've locked I
Speaker 4: figured out the problem the house all the time, we
Speaker 4: figured out the problem.
Speaker 9: But the real you know, we gotta saying you got
Speaker 9: nine problems, but.
Speaker 8: You're the bitch, and it's.
Speaker 3: Problems and I am all of them, and I have
Speaker 3: been nefariously behind every single one of them.
Speaker 4: Just this will never come back to me.
Speaker 2: All my problems are raither me or the government, which
Speaker 2: is why I really focus on hating the government. True.
Speaker 3: All right, so his paranoia is escalating, his reliance on
Speaker 3: intimidation is becoming really normalized.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: Wait, that's actually kind of interesting.
Speaker 9: So he love bombs this person, he's obsessed with her,
Speaker 9: and then they get married, but then he no longer
Speaker 9: wants to like control or stalk her.
Speaker 2: No, he literally he So that's a new behavior.
Speaker 3: He basically it's that classic like as soon as he
Speaker 3: gets it, he's not interested in it. Yeah, as soon
Speaker 3: as he gets it, it pivots, like the whole thing changes, right,
Speaker 3: But he.
Speaker 8: Doesn't want to control her anymore.
Speaker 3: Not not really, it's more of like it's more of
Speaker 3: like he I mean, he is still controlling, right, but
Speaker 3: he just doesn't care at all, you know, like most
Speaker 3: of the time, he's more interested in his career, in
Speaker 3: his work, in what's going on in the studio.
Speaker 4: He builds a studio underneath his house so that he can.
Speaker 3: Just like be down there whenever he's like, anytime he's
Speaker 3: annoyed or like whatever, he just goes downstairs.
Speaker 4: So he has the ultimate like escape plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure if he were to catch her cheating
Speaker 2: on him, he'd be pissed, but he's hardly paying enough
Speaker 2: attention to know.
Speaker 4: Got it, absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, he's very much at this point, he's very
Speaker 3: much interested in Phil.
Speaker 4: Phil is what's driving him, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what he's looking for this whole time he
Speaker 3: keeps talking about this is a constant reference. He's looking
Speaker 3: for the voice. He's looking for the voice that perfectly
Speaker 3: compliments his wall of sound, his musical compositions, like being
Speaker 3: all these like big Fuagnerian like opuses and everything. He
Speaker 3: wants a person to be that thing, to be that
Speaker 3: that front and center for all of this to make
Speaker 3: it worth what he's doing. He doesn't feel like he's
Speaker 3: found that with any of his previous stuff.
Speaker 4: So in walks.
Speaker 3: Ronnie Bennett. Ronnie Bennett, let's talk about Ronnie Bennett will
Speaker 3: eventually become his wife's spoiler alert.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much I wrote, so now I
Speaker 4: just gotta I wrote a lot. I wrote a lot.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of words in here.
Speaker 8: I'm forty one pages, you wrote, my friend, yeah, Jael.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, no, no, that's exactly what I was gonna say.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm on the subreddits, I'm on the YouTube's.
Speaker 3: I read the comments. I read the comments because they
Speaker 3: keep me humble, Because like I'll be like posting something
Speaker 3: on the Internet and somebody be like, this guy's a
Speaker 3: fucking loser, and I'm like, oh cool, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm really.
Speaker 3: Just you know, I gotta, I gotta keep it real
Speaker 3: out there. But sometimes I see comments on there where
Speaker 3: people be like, I can't believe Robert.
Speaker 4: Fuck you.
Speaker 3: Fuck every one of you who has ever made a
Speaker 3: comment like that. Fuck any of you who have ever
Speaker 3: said anything bad about Sophie too.
Speaker 4: I slapped the shit out of you. And this is
Speaker 4: for the subreddit right now.
Speaker 3: I'm one of you, and I see the things you
Speaker 3: say and I'm disgusted by them.
Speaker 4: Sometimes because I'm like do you know this took me
Speaker 4: a year.
Speaker 3: This took me a whole year to do this.
Speaker 4: I'm busy. I'm a busy person.
Speaker 3: But even whenever I was like, like, you know, I
Speaker 3: told you like last week, oh I'm done with this,
Speaker 3: and I was like mostly done, but I wrote another
Speaker 3: like three thousand words because I was like, well, there's
Speaker 3: some parts I'm missing and.
Speaker 2: All this because ship.
Speaker 4: This is hard. And I hear all your little Internet
Speaker 4: comments like oh you said some weird ship or what. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm doing my best, dude.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm improvising at the same time, I'm obviously
Speaker 3: drinking a little bit and like, you know, you guys.
Speaker 2: Got to cut me a break, got to do that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know anybody else operates, but this is how
Speaker 4: I do things.
Speaker 3: Speaking which purchase, greasy does it, recording course taught by me.
Speaker 4: I'm very responsible marketing, incredible word thank you. Yeah so
Speaker 4: so yeah.
Speaker 3: So. Ronnie is born into a family shape. She's born
Speaker 3: in Spanish Harlem, New York City, August tenthnineteen forty three,
Speaker 3: four years after Phil was born, just down the street. Basically,
Speaker 3: they probably lived almost in the same area at this time.
Speaker 4: Essentially all right.
Speaker 3: So her father, Lewis Bennett, was an Irish American and
Speaker 3: her mother was African American Cherokee. Her father was also
Speaker 3: a drummer and a drunk, something that can still be
Speaker 3: found together in massive quantities around the world. You can
Speaker 3: have a drummer and drinking anywhere you go. It's true,
Speaker 3: you can find it. It's this prevalentist Coca cola man.
Speaker 3: It's there. So he's also a failure, right. He can't
Speaker 3: he can't keep a job, he can't do anything. He's
Speaker 3: just a mess most of the time. So she grows
Speaker 3: up not really down with alcohol. Right, this is important
Speaker 3: for later, but.
Speaker 2: She starts her life understandable.
Speaker 3: Being traumatized by a little bit by alcohol. She always
Speaker 3: loves her dad, but she definitely feels like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is an alcohol thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: She loves singing. She's really big on like Frankie Lyman.
Speaker 3: She loves Frankie Lyman. She thinks he's the best ever.
Speaker 3: Dinah Washington just voices that were raw and like real,
Speaker 3: real authentic feeling, right, And she also gravitated towards performance.
Speaker 3: She was always like, you know, like the classic front
Speaker 3: woman thing. You know, it's like when she was a
Speaker 3: little kid, she was always singing into microphones. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like that story, right. Her father being a drummer
Speaker 3: and a failed drummer did not discourage her mother because
Speaker 3: her father left pretty early, but it didn't discourage her
Speaker 3: mother from encouraging Ronnie's musical talent. She didn't just like
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I mean, if it was me, like, dude,
Speaker 3: I had ex girlfriends that were like, my ex boyfriend
Speaker 3: was a drummer and he failed at music, so you
Speaker 3: can't possibly make money off of music.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, you know, maybe you're wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't know, to be fair, I didn't make a
Speaker 3: lot of money off of it, so whatever. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so her mom, her mom supports her. Her dad's always
Speaker 3: waxing poetic about his days as a musician, and so
Speaker 3: she grows up as that being like a really important thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: She was always singing at school events, neighborhood functions.
Speaker 4: She she got a style. Right.
Speaker 3: There's something that happens when you do a lot of
Speaker 3: music is eventually, at first you're just learning, you're just
Speaker 3: trying to replicate other people's things. But eventually, once you
Speaker 3: do it enough, you develop style. Right, and for her,
Speaker 3: she developed a very unique style. It was very raw,
Speaker 3: It wasn't musically perfect, but it had just.
Speaker 4: A tone that was just beautiful. Everybody recognized it, right.
Speaker 3: So her oldest sister Estelle and her cousin Nedra formed
Speaker 3: a vocal group called the Darling Sisters. The trio practice
Speaker 3: constantly singing in school hallways, street corners, in their apartments.
Speaker 3: That's like a thing that still happens in this time period,
Speaker 3: people like out doting on the corner, just singing in public. Bro,
Speaker 3: if you saw that shit now, you'd be like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, fucking influencers of this shit?
Speaker 4: Shit is it about to say?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I would assume it's some like incredibly irritating like
Speaker 2: TikTok thing or whatever, some fucking viral bullshit or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't want to be a part of your
Speaker 4: fucking videos, weirdo.
Speaker 2: You know it'd be a huge as.
Speaker 4: I would absolutely. I mean, like, you guys suck anyways,
Speaker 4: I don't even.
Speaker 2: Want to you from making music, and I'll tell you so.
Speaker 4: The group was eventually renamed the Rawnettes and namely captured
Speaker 4: their identity and Ronnie's emerging role as a front woman
Speaker 4: you know Ronnie and the Rawnettes.
Speaker 2: It's very sure normals toteduely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, but you know, Ronnie's lead vocals really
Speaker 3: do become the defining characteristic of this whole thing. Their
Speaker 3: early performances were energetic, glamorous, and slightly rebellious. Ronnie developed
Speaker 3: distinctive stage presence that blended confidence with vulnerability. She wore
Speaker 3: dramatic eye makeup, teased her hair into towering beehives, and
Speaker 3: moved with a swagger that contrasted with her petite frame.
Speaker 3: She was creating an image that felt simultaneously innocent and dangerous,
Speaker 3: and aesthetic that would later become iconic.
Speaker 4: In nineteen Sixtyes, Pop Colder.
Speaker 3: Sophie, if you would please show Phil and the lovely
Speaker 3: Ladies of the Ronets. Yeahful they didn't invent that beehive hairdoo. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they're the reason it became popular, right. It was
Speaker 3: like their adoption of it was the thing that made
Speaker 3: that you I mean, that was my grandmother had one
Speaker 3: of those when I was a kid. Still and it
Speaker 3: was like the eighties, like it stayed on for twenty
Speaker 3: some years. How popular that was. So it's like their
Speaker 3: cultural irrelevance just cannot be understated in any way. They
Speaker 3: were incredibly important to the look of the early sixties,
Speaker 3: so breaking into the professional music industry proved difficult for them.
Speaker 3: The Run has performed at clubs and talent contests dance
Speaker 3: venues all throughout New York City, struggling to secure recording
Speaker 3: contracts or industry attention. The persistence reflected both ambition and
Speaker 3: necessary necessity because music was.
Speaker 4: Important to Ronnie. Like she it was get rich, d
Speaker 4: die tryan on this. You know she was fifty cent
Speaker 4: hard right now.
Speaker 3: Eventually the group secured opportunities to perform at venues that
Speaker 3: expose them to evolving pop and rhythm and blues.
Speaker 4: Scene of the nineteen sixties New York.
Speaker 3: They performed at the Peppermint Lounge and other popular clubs,
Speaker 3: and again Ronnie driving the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were starting to get.
Speaker 2: Sorry, go ahead, just because this is an inspector and
Speaker 2: I know what's coming is like based on just how
Speaker 2: he treats artists, like the replaceability of them treating him
Speaker 2: just like another tool. And hearing a story like this
Speaker 2: that really drives home. Just like, no to get anywhere
Speaker 2: close to people hearing you on the radio, you have
Speaker 2: to have been relentless about making it your life, like
Speaker 2: as evidentally unhinged in your dedication to this career.
Speaker 3: Especially at this time, right, Like, and it's a really
Speaker 3: good point, Like it cannot the dedication cannot be understated.
Speaker 3: It's like at this point, in order to get a
Speaker 3: record made, right, that cost a lot of money, you know,
Speaker 3: like yeah, for the time, you know, it'd be like.
Speaker 4: One hundred or two hundred dollars or something like that.
Speaker 3: To record a song at the studio, Like two hundred
Speaker 3: dollars is like a whole month's paycheck.
Speaker 2: For people, Like it's a crazy amount of money.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a lot of money for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: So and it's still kind of that way today. In fact,
Speaker 3: if you're interested in working with Greasy Will, you can
Speaker 3: find them at the Grease factory.
Speaker 4: Greasy Will do right.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's very expensive.
Speaker 3: So even to just get something recorded as expensive, then
Speaker 3: you have to get it to a DJ. You have
Speaker 3: to get it on the radio, because the only way
Speaker 3: you will ever sell anything is if it's on the radio.
Speaker 3: So you got to get it on the radio, and
Speaker 3: then it has to build local support, and then it
Speaker 3: has to build regional support and then it has to build.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like sometimes this is like a years long process
Speaker 4: to get music to be heard.
Speaker 8: So she's hustling, she's like relentless in trying to get
Speaker 8: her stuff out there.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely, uh.
Speaker 3: She strongly believed that the right producer would eventually understand
Speaker 3: how to capture her voice authentically, and she continued to
Speaker 3: performing relentlessly, touring, rehearsing and refining her stage present. She
Speaker 3: saw her career not as a sudden break waiting to happen,
Speaker 3: but something that she would build through persistence and emotional honesty.
Speaker 4: So, yes, that's exactly it. She worked.
Speaker 3: She put in the work from the time she was
Speaker 3: like fourteen years old, just grind it all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say it's the only way to do it,
Speaker 2: but it's the only It's not it's but it's the
Speaker 2: only way to do it. If like you're not somebody
Speaker 2: who's coming from somewhere, you know.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of Nepa babies in the music industry right now, so
Speaker 3: we don't have to pretend. So they're rising through New York.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen sixty three and she's looking for this producer,
Speaker 3: and coincidentally, a producer is looking for his voice, his muse,
Speaker 3: his wall of sound, his girl who will be that
Speaker 3: for him? And they meet they though literally it's very funny.
Speaker 3: They literally just they just call, you know. It's like
Speaker 3: it's like nineteen sixty three, just like you just look
Speaker 3: up in the telephone.
Speaker 8: Hey, you want to produce my album?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's like when I think about the old days of
Speaker 3: how things were done, it's like, what you just called somebody.
Speaker 4: I won't even answer a phone call from a number
Speaker 4: I don't know right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just pick up the phone and yeah, get
Speaker 2: a fucking music deal based on that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: so they're assuming your call timed in well with when
Speaker 2: he'd just done a line. Yeah, you might be able
Speaker 2: to fucking make some shit happen.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was like, all right, So they just called him.
Speaker 3: They call him, they call him, and he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've heard of you guys, because they're making a noise
Speaker 3: in New York right uh and Phil at this time too,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of geographical confusion with a lot of
Speaker 3: the stuff that he is bouncing back and forth between
Speaker 3: California and New York all the time like that.
Speaker 4: It's like he loves working in gold Stars.
Speaker 3: So he goes out to California to work at gold
Speaker 3: Star at the studio, but he he doesn't like the
Speaker 3: New York scene is still the scene, right, so he's
Speaker 3: got to like go to New York and then he
Speaker 3: flies back and then he'll work there for a while.
Speaker 3: So a lot of times that it might seem like
Speaker 3: he is just like transporting across the country and the story,
Speaker 3: but he really is.
Speaker 4: So he heard phil in Ronnie.
Speaker 3: He heard the voice that he had he'd been waiting for,
Speaker 3: the emotional landscape that he had spent years construction would
Speaker 3: fit perfectly with her.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The professional relationship, though, immediately blurs into personal fixation. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he starts, he starts spending you know, extraordinary amounts of
Speaker 3: time rehearsing Ronnie, rehearsing Ronnie. He's always rehearsing Ronnie. Like
Speaker 3: it's like, Ronnie, stay after, we got to do this,
Speaker 3: you know, Ronnie, Ronnie. It's like always Ronnie. And of
Speaker 3: course she is the front woman. I'm not saying, you know,
Speaker 3: that's not important or whatever, but it's like very obvious, right,
Speaker 3: that he is, that he is trying to isolate her
Speaker 3: as a great isolation is began disguised as mentorship.
Speaker 4: Exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know what else hasn't happened before advertisements. We're
Speaker 2: the first podcast to do that. So yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: Yes, let's do it, and we're back. We're back into
Speaker 3: Phil Spector. Actually, I don't know if I like that,
Speaker 3: soby's faith Yeah, yeah, all right, So yeah, it's easy
Speaker 3: to portray Ronnie as a victim, and only as a victim, right,
Speaker 3: but it kind of it denies the fact that Phil
Speaker 3: Spector is Phil Spector at this time. He is a
Speaker 3: legendary person in the music industry, and she fell into
Speaker 3: love with him as well. It was not one sided.
Speaker 3: It was not just Phil love bombing her, but it
Speaker 3: was in fact, quote, I already knew I liked him
Speaker 3: that first day, and I knew he liked me too.
Speaker 3: It really was love at first sight on both our parts.
Speaker 3: Even though I hardly said three words the whole night,
Speaker 3: I didn't have to say anything else. We commune in
Speaker 3: other ways. Every time Phil put that song back on,
Speaker 3: I was wondering. I wondered if he wasn't trying to
Speaker 3: tell me something because it Shirre didn't speak to me.
Speaker 3: I couldn't stop thinking that today I really met the
Speaker 3: boy I was going to marry.
Speaker 8: And that's from Ronnie's book Be My Baby.
Speaker 4: Yes, from Ronnie's book Be My Baby.
Speaker 2: I'm so bummed about.
Speaker 4: He showers her with gifts, attention, grand declarations of devotion
Speaker 4: like he is just he's on it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: However, remember I said that Phil has his studio in
Speaker 3: his house, right, yes, and he is still married.
Speaker 4: Oh, his wife lives upstairs. So again, this is also
Speaker 4: from Ronnie's book.
Speaker 3: She goes to visit him, and she says, quote, I'd
Speaker 3: never been in a panhouse before Phil or anyone else,
Speaker 3: so naturally, when I walked in, I couldn't resist peeking
Speaker 3: into all the closets and poking.
Speaker 4: Around behind all the closed doors.
Speaker 3: I opened one door and was surprised to find a
Speaker 3: bedroom where six or seven pairs of women's shoes were
Speaker 3: scattered all over the floor. Asked Phil who they belonged to,
Speaker 3: and he nearly turned pink. Will you stop snooping around
Speaker 3: where you don't belong, he snapped. I think it was
Speaker 3: the first time I ever saw Phil lose his temper. Okay, honey,
Speaker 3: I said, I'm sorry. He must have noticed the hurt
Speaker 3: look in my eyes because he softened his tone immediately.
Speaker 3: Those are my sister Shirley's shoes, he explained. She stays
Speaker 3: here sometimes when she's.
Speaker 4: In New York.
Speaker 8: Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
Speaker 2: Your sister Shirley.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bro, getting mad was the distraction to come up
Speaker 3: with the excuse, right, He was like, what are you
Speaker 3: looking around for?
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, sister shoes. But those are my sister shoes.
Speaker 4: If I'd have thought of that before, I wouldn't have
Speaker 4: gotten mad first. If I'd have thought his sister's shoes immediately,
Speaker 4: I would have gotten mad.
Speaker 3: Come on, so, uh, you know he abrupt, defensive, you know, aggressive,
Speaker 3: This is this is a pattern that would kind of
Speaker 3: define the relationship. You know, Curiosity would be met with
Speaker 3: intimidation or reality would be replaced with Phil's version of truth.
Speaker 2: Right, he's gaslight.
Speaker 4: She accepts that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she accepts that as the truth, right, and
Speaker 3: just doesn't even question it. She does say that she
Speaker 3: recognized that Phil Phil was had some issues, right. She
Speaker 3: was like, he's got some confidence issues. And this is
Speaker 3: another quote that I could get it Okay, so important,
Speaker 3: so so important.
Speaker 4: Listen to this all right. So this is from her
Speaker 4: book Be My Baby. Quote.
Speaker 3: Phil first started losing his hair around the time we met.
Speaker 3: In fact, there's a picture that was taken when he
Speaker 3: signed us in March nineteen sixty three, which also was
Speaker 3: the first day I ever saw him wearing a two pay.
Speaker 3: It was so obvious if you knew him, but he
Speaker 3: still went to great lengths to hide the fact that
Speaker 3: he wore wigs. Even when we slept together. After we'd
Speaker 3: do our foreplay, he'd get up from bed and make
Speaker 3: sure the lights were all out.
Speaker 4: That way I couldn't watch him when he took his
Speaker 4: hair off.
Speaker 3: Then he'd stumble into the bathroom in the dark so
Speaker 3: he could rub this acid tone solvent all over his head.
Speaker 3: It was the smelliest stuff in the world, but I
Speaker 3: guess it was the only thing he could get the tongue.
Speaker 4: The two pay glue off his out.
Speaker 3: So's he's like twenty one, and he's like lost all
Speaker 3: his hair already, and he is incredibly the.
Speaker 2: Worst way to ooh.
Speaker 4: Sorry, and everybody knows. Everybody around him knows, but like
Speaker 4: he's so powerful, you don't say anything.
Speaker 3: Sure sure, And so it's just like everybody's just just
Speaker 3: kind of accepting that this is a thing that has happened,
Speaker 3: and nobody says anything, and they just let him go on.
Speaker 4: With his little delusion about not being bald. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm not really bald.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, of course, Phil, Absolutely. I always wonder with
Speaker 2: guys like that, do you know that everyone knows? Is
Speaker 2: this like a power thing? Are you truly deluded?
Speaker 3: I'm so excited that you brought this up, and I
Speaker 3: can't wait for it down the road when we discuss
Speaker 3: Phil in his hair, because we have to at some
Speaker 3: point in time really get into Phil psyche about his hair.
Speaker 2: And spoiler, is a big deal for him.
Speaker 4: It's a big deal. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3: He just flat out does does never, never acknowledges that
Speaker 3: he wears wings. It's amazing, all right. So, uh and
Speaker 3: that's gonna get even funnier in a couple of paragraphs here.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: So Phil brings Ronnie to California under the promise of
Speaker 3: expanding her career opportunities away from her family.
Speaker 4: She's now cross the country New York to California.
Speaker 7: Way, you know.
Speaker 3: During this whole time, Ronnie claims to have not known
Speaker 3: that Phil was married. She didn't find out until they
Speaker 3: had been sleeping together for several months, when a fellow
Speaker 3: musician finally broke the news to her. She had been
Speaker 3: in love with Phil and ignored all the warnings, but
Speaker 3: now it was clear, it didn't change your love. She
Speaker 3: still loved him, and he still loved her, and he
Speaker 3: loved bombs her with the house and they move in together.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So she's literally just in like the bathroom one day
Speaker 3: and somebody's like, oh, yeah, because you know, because his wife.
Speaker 4: And she's like wait what, She's like, yeah, he's married.
Speaker 4: You didn't know he's married.
Speaker 2: He's married.
Speaker 4: What are you talking about? So she's just like she's hurt.
Speaker 3: But she's like, uh, you know, I mean he comes
Speaker 3: and tells her, of course, you know, nat, Oh it's
Speaker 3: not we're done, we're getting divorced.
Speaker 4: We don't love each other. It's a whole thing, right.
Speaker 3: So Phil lied to Ronnie's mother about the nature of
Speaker 3: their relationship too, and tells her that they're married already
Speaker 3: because she's like, you guys can't be living together in shit,
Speaker 3: And he's like, no, we're already married.
Speaker 4: It's fine.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I don't believe its so bad.
Speaker 4: I believe it's a lie. Yeah, yeah, I don't believe you,
Speaker 4: but I do need to, like, you know, figure this
Speaker 4: all out right?
Speaker 8: How old is Ronnie at this time?
Speaker 3: Ronnie is like nineteen years old, like twenty nineteen, twenty,
Speaker 3: and Phil is Phil is like twenty two, twenty three
Speaker 3: years old, like he was born in thirty nine, so
Speaker 3: twenty four, he's twenty four, okay. He would have these
Speaker 3: wild swings between like heavy love and then targeted insults.
Speaker 3: One night, after a show, he flew into a rage
Speaker 3: after a cameraman compliments her, and he loses his mind.
Speaker 3: Quote from Ronnie's book quote. This was a big thing
Speaker 3: with Phil. If I lost control in front of a crowd.
Speaker 3: He hated it because that meant I was out of
Speaker 3: his control, and on top of everything else, you came
Speaker 3: in off key. He could only ever criticize my singing
Speaker 3: for technical reasons because he knew I didn't read music,
Speaker 3: so I couldn't argue. Don't bother coming to the party.
Speaker 3: After the show, he ordered, I don't want to see
Speaker 3: you there. I went straight back to my hotel room
Speaker 3: and cried. I suppose I could have gone to the
Speaker 3: party anyways, but I never considered it. I just couldn't
Speaker 3: go against Phil's wishes in those days. Phil couldn't control
Speaker 3: what I did once I got out on stage. But
Speaker 3: that wasn't a problem he had in our personal life.
Speaker 9: So he is.
Speaker 4: It is pretty early. They're not Mary.
Speaker 3: This is very early, and he's already taken control. The
Speaker 3: Beatles asked them to go on tour with the Ronettes,
Speaker 3: and Hill told Ronnie.
Speaker 9: Not to do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: He's very anyway, Yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, fuck those guys,
Speaker 3: those those random blokes from Liverpool or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no future.
Speaker 3: So so, following the incident where he was urinated on
Speaker 3: spec to developed an intense obsession with personal protection.
Speaker 7: This is.
Speaker 4: This is classic fill right.
Speaker 3: He began collecting firearms, frequently carrying them during studio sessions
Speaker 3: and public appearances. Over time, his guns become more than
Speaker 3: defensive tools. They become theatrical symbols of authority and intimidation.
Speaker 3: Naturally right, Like this guy doesn't just he loves guns, right.
Speaker 2: He likes to scare people with guns a lot, yea,
Speaker 2: and yeah, he.
Speaker 3: Loves a snub nose. He loves a thirty eight dude.
Speaker 3: He just like that's a pocket gun, like crazy little.
Speaker 2: Whip it out and wave it in people's faces. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the perfect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the perfect. And also you can hit him
Speaker 4: with you.
Speaker 3: It's very heavy, it's gotta yeah, I mean that's a
Speaker 3: hit with hitting you. That's a good pistol whipping gun
Speaker 3: for sure. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you jam it into someone's body, the slide,
Speaker 2: doesn't you know, get out of battery or every like
Speaker 2: you can. You can really just poke people with a
Speaker 2: thirty eight very easily.
Speaker 3: And yes, and let's be real honest too, when it
Speaker 3: comes to a thirty eight, like, it's not like a
Speaker 3: long distance weapon.
Speaker 2: It's not a name gun.
Speaker 4: It's not a naming gun, not at all. All right.
Speaker 3: He also developed a fascination with martial arts, particularly karate.
Speaker 3: All right, no again, this is nineteen sixties America. We're
Speaker 3: about to see Elvis get into the same thing, isn't us.
Speaker 3: This isn't like out of control. Lots of actors are
Speaker 3: like okay, but all right, but.
Speaker 4: Feel's particularly fun.
Speaker 3: So he's watching television right now, and he sees a
Speaker 3: guy named santi Yo Soul break a brick with his hand,
Speaker 3: and and he's it.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: He's sold bro share. Yes, So he starts taking lessons
Speaker 3: from this guy. He finds this guy and starts taking
Speaker 3: lessons from him, right, and he just like goes crazy.
Speaker 3: It's like every day, and he starts he starts walking
Speaker 3: around town just like in a karate gee, just like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you like this, Like he's inventing being a wee.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, and all right and again and again.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have real hair, so he's he's wearing a wig, right,
Speaker 3: He's wearing an obvious wig and a karate outfit walking around.
Speaker 2: But you can't make fun of him because you know
Speaker 2: he's also going to pull that thirty eight on you if.
Speaker 4: You do yes, and probably armed with the gun. So
Speaker 4: like all of the things right, all right, this is so.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 3: This also gives him access to actual karate practitioners because
Speaker 3: he's taken lessons from these guys. So then he hires them.
Speaker 3: He hires Santy to to be his his bodyguard because
Speaker 3: he's like, well, now I got this tough guy right
Speaker 3: here karate and these guys. Also, I just want to
Speaker 3: point out, like I don't know this to be fact,
Speaker 3: but I just can't stop thinking about this because because
Speaker 3: another bodyguard who's a karate guy.
Speaker 4: He talks about this a little bit.
Speaker 3: But uh, you know, you know that they're getting paid
Speaker 3: a lot of money, yeah, to be around this guy.
Speaker 3: They're making a lot of money off of this guy, right,
Speaker 3: so you know they're like, yeah, bro.
Speaker 4: You're you're killed me with.
Speaker 2: Phil? Really you got the most power, so dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just a little push knock me right over Phil.
Speaker 4: Wow, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Well it's also, especially in this period of time, just
Speaker 2: lying about your martial arts qualifications. Oh yeah, spent ten
Speaker 2: years in China learning kung fu from monks. Who's gonna
Speaker 2: check up on that ship? You learn and you're good,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could lie about anything back in the day.
Speaker 2: It's so easy.
Speaker 3: Even when I was like in high school, you could
Speaker 3: still lie about things like what am I gonna do?
Speaker 4: Go to the library and prove you wrong.
Speaker 2: All of the top build native American actress in Hollywood
Speaker 2: were Italian men. Italian guy. Very easy to lie.
Speaker 4: It was so easy, all right.
Speaker 3: So so Santi uh, bodyguards for him, and then he's like,
Speaker 3: Brian got time for this anymore? I'm actually getting a
Speaker 3: legitimate business, like so he passes it off to this
Speaker 3: other guy, and Neil farkas and felt that Specter was
Speaker 3: using his bodyguards as status symbol but also as a
Speaker 3: threat to anyone who might get froggy.
Speaker 4: So he's like, you know, walking around and got these guys,
Speaker 4: you know, like, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: Kind of shit very Jack Doherty coded, you know Jack Doherty,
Speaker 3: the young kid, the Zennils or whatever, will know who
Speaker 3: the fuck that is.
Speaker 4: Anyway, he's he's you know, he's doing that.
Speaker 3: He's he's going up to clubs on Sunset Strip, getting
Speaker 3: in front of everybody, and then when somebody dares to
Speaker 3: question him, he says fuck you, and they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: well let's fight. And then from out of behind him
Speaker 3: comes some actual karate guys you know. Plus also two
Speaker 3: actual karate guys in the sixties must have beat the
Speaker 3: ship out of everybody. Dude, like they're still in like
Speaker 3: the world of like wild Haymakers.
Speaker 2: And everyone else is doing like the Captain Kirk two hundred,
Speaker 2: you actually know how to hit somebody?
Speaker 3: Yeah, doing this thing, you know Jack, Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So So it's like like actual karate guys. I think
Speaker 3: about this all the time. Like Dave must have just
Speaker 3: mopped the floor. It's not like now you might actually
Speaker 3: run into like a UFC guy like or.
Speaker 2: Like an MMA guy. The guys who actually do that
Speaker 2: now just.
Speaker 4: Walking but he's just karate guys walking around anyway.
Speaker 3: So so yeah, so he he basically is just antagonizing
Speaker 3: people and purposefully to cause problems and then has his
Speaker 3: bodyguards beat the shit out of them, which is super
Speaker 3: fucked up so a meal though he says this is
Speaker 3: from breaking the wall of sound quote. Specter had never
Speaker 3: quite got the hang of karate. He might have worn
Speaker 3: a black belt tied around his ge and he might
Speaker 3: have boasted a journalists that in case of real trouble,
Speaker 3: I could totally kill a guy. But according to Emil Farcas,
Speaker 3: he just play acted. He'd do a lot of chopping
Speaker 3: his hands in the air, but he was nowhere near
Speaker 3: a black.
Speaker 2: He's like a chopping his hands in the air. If
Speaker 2: the thing someone's going for it as a chop, you
Speaker 2: can kind of guess, I know, you couldn't really hurt
Speaker 2: people that way.
Speaker 4: But generally he's hitting him with the hyah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, it's it's hilarious to picture like
Speaker 3: in your brain, right, I just always have to remind
Speaker 3: myself because he's a giant in the world.
Speaker 4: But he is a five foot three man. He's a
Speaker 4: tiny little dude out here.
Speaker 3: Karate choppings, incredible wearing a karate gar.
Speaker 2: He's a man who believes he's a martial artist.
Speaker 1: My god.
Speaker 4: But all right, but what he was good at was
Speaker 4: playing pool.
Speaker 3: Apparently he was pretty good at playing pool, and so
Speaker 3: he hired this pro player, Willie Musconi, and paid him
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a year to
Speaker 3: hang out at his house and teach him how to
Speaker 3: play pool.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's cool, yeah, and then hold on, hold on.
Speaker 3: Then he would go to pool halls and hustle people
Speaker 3: with him, and then when people got mad, he'd have
Speaker 3: his bodyguards beat the shit out.
Speaker 2: Of He's really he's really scraping all of the fun
Speaker 2: you can have when you're rich enough for bodyguards. He's like,
Speaker 2: I just have a posse of dangerous men that have
Speaker 2: to beat people up if I'm if I'm a dick,
Speaker 2: I am surprisingly more rich guys don't do this.
Speaker 3: To be honest, and honestly, I'm gonna be honest man
Speaker 3: if I ever get that kind of money, like walking
Speaker 3: around with bodyguard's money.
Speaker 4: Oh that's all I'm gonna do. Yeah, Yeah, that's all
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3: So he would throw crazy parties and then disappear. He's
Speaker 3: a weird dude right now, He's like, uh, he throw
Speaker 3: these crazy parties and he disappear the whole night and
Speaker 3: then reappear right as people are about to leave, and
Speaker 3: he would get super mad if the girls wanted to
Speaker 3: go home, super mad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 3: He has got real He hates to be alone first
Speaker 3: of all, and he establishes this, but he also just
Speaker 3: has like specifically when women want to leave he is
Speaker 3: he gets.
Speaker 4: Upset every single time.
Speaker 2: Not cool with him?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Phil would This is from a meal Farcas again
Speaker 3: from breaking down the Wallace Hund. Phil would get very
Speaker 3: upset with women walked out on him. Farcas says he
Speaker 3: would rant and rave, you'll never work again, I'll get
Speaker 3: you fired.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: But then again, you'd have this thing at parties where
Speaker 3: you might have twenty girls each and each one would
Speaker 3: try to last out the other to see who was
Speaker 3: going to stay the night with him. But the feeling
Speaker 3: I got was that Phil sort of realized that most
Speaker 3: of these people were around for the external rather the internal,
Speaker 3: and he would have preferred that he wasn't liked for
Speaker 3: the limousines and the money and all that. He would
Speaker 3: have really liked to be loved for himself, and there
Speaker 3: were girls who liked him for that. I think the
Speaker 3: problem was that Phil could never believe that these people
Speaker 3: could love him for who he was.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised he had trouble believing people could love
Speaker 2: him for who he was, because he's a dick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's sad, but I'm also yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is very strong like like uh like yeah, dude,
Speaker 3: of course nobody like Stiffler, right, it's like Stiffler like, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course no one likes you.
Speaker 2: Bro giant prick to everyone man like, yeah, you're not liked.
Speaker 3: You know who won't get mad when you try and
Speaker 3: leave their parties in the middle of the night. These
Speaker 3: these sponsors paid money.
Speaker 8: I want to say me because if my parties don't.
Speaker 2: Go that late, but the Party of Capitalism, that one
Speaker 2: keeps on going forever. Yeah, and we're back, okay, will
Speaker 2: take it away.
Speaker 3: Yes, So it's nineteen sixty four, the Runnettes toured England
Speaker 3: with the Beatles. They go they do, actually go to
Speaker 3: the Beatles to tour with the Beatles, and Phil insists
Speaker 3: on being there. He is super jealousy that he does
Speaker 3: not like it. You gotta keep in mind, too, the
Speaker 3: Beatles are the next evolutionary step.
Speaker 4: In this chain.
Speaker 3: We went who now producers are and bands are gone,
Speaker 3: and Phil Spector represented the most important version of that.
Speaker 3: But it's nineteen sixty four and the Beatles are about
Speaker 3: to crossover in America and Phil Spector is incredibly threatened
Speaker 3: by them. They have been tearing up the charts and
Speaker 3: kind of pushing him out very much so. So when
Speaker 3: the Ronnets are asked to go on tour with the Beatles,
Speaker 3: he's like and so he goes to England to supervise.
Speaker 3: You know, he has to go over and watch and
Speaker 3: make sure no one's putting the moves on the own girl.
Speaker 3: You know, he said from Ronnie. This is from Be
Speaker 3: My Baby, Ronni's book. Phil never came out and said it,
Speaker 3: but I could tell he didn't like the idea of
Speaker 3: a spending too much time with the Beatles. I don't
Speaker 3: think his ego could stand the competition. Beatles were leaving
Speaker 3: to start their first US tour in a few days,
Speaker 3: and when John asked me if we wanted to fly
Speaker 3: back with them on their chartered jet, I didn't have
Speaker 3: the nerve to ask Phil if it was okay, So
Speaker 3: I mad my mom make the suggestion. You know, Phil,
Speaker 3: she told him it might be good publicity if the
Speaker 3: girls went back on the jet with the Beatles. No,
Speaker 3: he told her, I have already bought their tickets, and
Speaker 3: that was all that said. So he tells them, no, man,
Speaker 3: I got tickets for you already. You can't fly back
Speaker 3: on the plane with the Beatles.
Speaker 4: Are you crazy?
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna let my girlfriend get on a fucking
Speaker 3: plane a private play with a bunch of rock stars.
Speaker 3: Hell no, that's a horrible idea. Yeah, yeah, hell no.
Speaker 3: Uh So he buys them. He buys them private or
Speaker 3: commercial flights back, right, she says. She continues, My mother
Speaker 3: and they landed the next day at Jfkin. She says,
Speaker 3: My mother and I watched the whole thing on TV.
Speaker 3: We're amazed at how many kids showed up at the
Speaker 3: airport screaming and carrying banners. But what surprised me even
Speaker 3: more was something that happened after the plane landed. The
Speaker 3: jet was on the ground and the cameras zoomed in
Speaker 3: on the door that was about to open up to
Speaker 3: give America its first glimpse of the Fab four. But
Speaker 3: when that hatch finally did swing open, who do you
Speaker 3: think was with them? I almost faded when I looked
Speaker 3: at the TV and saw Phil Spector following the Beatles
Speaker 3: out of their place. So he's like, you can't fly
Speaker 3: back with the Beatles, and then he flies back with
Speaker 3: the Beatles.
Speaker 2: I want to fly back with the Beatles absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So like there's like thousands of people greeting him at
Speaker 3: the airport and they're like and there's Phil Spector and
Speaker 3: they're like that sick, amazing, amazing pettiness, amazing that is
Speaker 3: that is Tom Petty right there, dude, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like a grand level of dickery. Like it'sulary.
Speaker 3: You can't ride with the hottest band that's going on
Speaker 3: in the world right now, but I can't and you.
Speaker 4: Have to take a definitely. Yeah, so funny. So Ronnie's
Speaker 4: life keeps like it's more and more confined.
Speaker 3: She's starting to get like kind of more trapped by
Speaker 3: Phil and everything and Phil starts working repeatedly at the
Speaker 3: studio gold Star. I mentioned it before. It was like
Speaker 3: the scene of his Wall of Sound, and it's really important, like.
Speaker 4: It is kind of like a big deal. It's it's hate.
Speaker 3: Ashbury for the hippie movement, right or you know or
Speaker 3: or or would stocks. It's an important moment in time
Speaker 3: where a bunch of people come together for a thing
Speaker 3: that is like significant. And gold Star is there. Gold
Speaker 3: Star is where the Wrecking Crew kind of was born.
Speaker 3: It's where Phil was doing all these hits. And it's
Speaker 3: a shithole for the record, but Phil loves it. He
Speaker 3: turns it into his fortress, right. He just like like
Speaker 3: he no one's allowed to come in unless he says so.
Speaker 3: He's booking so much time there, like he lives in
Speaker 3: this studio and at this studio. He uh, he is
Speaker 3: working with Sonny Bono and share Sonny Bono, side Bastard
Speaker 3: Sonny Bono, Sonny Bono, We're gonna side Bastard Sonny Bono. Uh,
Speaker 3: Sonny Bono is a is a big giant dick and
Speaker 3: we first of all bro He's like the most first
Speaker 3: of all. First of all, I mean the Copyright Productions
Speaker 3: actor that he did just so Disney could keep Mickey
Speaker 3: Mouse in fucking in there in there. That that sucks, right,
Speaker 3: But also, how do you go from being Sonny and
Speaker 3: share like this whole like they they sang on on
Speaker 3: Mama's and Papa songs and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they were.
Speaker 3: How do you do that and then become a Republican senator?
Speaker 4: You know, like that's like the ultimate betrayal.
Speaker 2: Of a human being ended as a Republican senator.
Speaker 3: He wasn't a Republican sellout senator fucker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 3: He was the one and also the subject of one
Speaker 3: of my favorite eminem lines, Sonny Bono Ski's.
Speaker 4: Horses and hitting some trees. Oh, I love that great.
Speaker 3: So so Ronnie develops a close relationship with Cherr, who
Speaker 3: became one of the few people that Ronnie could confide
Speaker 3: him because she's also living very similar situation at this time.
Speaker 3: Sonny and cher is about as famous as Ikeantina about
Speaker 3: his famous as Ronnie and Phil Ironic that they would
Speaker 3: all work together with very strange. And it's really interesting
Speaker 3: too because in all of these situations, it shows that
Speaker 3: the men in these situations who.
Speaker 4: Are very dominant to their women. Also, oh, are all
Speaker 4: subserving to Phil.
Speaker 3: Sonny Bono bends over for Phil, like completely, like he
Speaker 3: is he yes, absolutely, he is he is he lets uh,
Speaker 3: I mean he, I mean Phil is the god at
Speaker 3: the time. Sonny Bono is nobody. He's a gopher. He's
Speaker 3: a runner at a studio, and Phil treats him like
Speaker 3: a runner at the studio is horrible to him. He
Speaker 3: treats him awfully. Sidone, this is a really funny story.
Speaker 3: When Ronnie first met Cher, she thought she was a hooker.
Speaker 4: She like, she like, yeah, she thought Share was a hooker.
Speaker 4: She was like, oh, this must be Sonny Bono's hooker.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, and she just she just says that,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things in these like interviews and
Speaker 3: books and stuff that I've read, Like, I I love
Speaker 3: Phil s Becker, so I've read many books on him.
Speaker 3: I watch every documentary I love, I love Phil Spector
Speaker 3: and I'm so interested by so uh. When I watch
Speaker 3: and read all these things, it's insane to see, like
Speaker 3: how open and honest people are about the horrible things
Speaker 3: that they think can say out loud.
Speaker 4: It's so crazy. Why did you write this in a book?
Speaker 4: You wrote that you thought Share was a hooker? Anyone
Speaker 4: that just say that that was it was totally free
Speaker 4: to shut the monk up. Nobody you want it. No
Speaker 4: one's gonna be like, hey, man, do you ever think
Speaker 4: Share was a hooker?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Like you just yeah, okay, incredible, so funny.
Speaker 3: So anyway, so they got a complicated relationship, Sonny and Phil,
Speaker 3: and it blossoms into this very like subservient relationship where
Speaker 3: Sonny just does everything that Phil asks.
Speaker 4: He like whatever Phil tells him, like, hey, don't let
Speaker 4: the girls do this, He's like okay.
Speaker 3: And he becomes like an enforcer for Share and Ronnie
Speaker 3: Bennett's relationship in a lot of ways. And it's very again,
Speaker 3: he's like getting other people to carry out his like possessive,
Speaker 3: weird details of his life stuff.
Speaker 4: It's very strange.
Speaker 3: All right. So Phil has had a killer career, right,
Speaker 3: He's had a killer career. Things have been going good
Speaker 3: for him. The Beatles come to America, things start to change.
Speaker 3: He does, he still has some hits. Things are going
Speaker 3: good or whatever. But we're about to hit nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 3: And in nineteen sixty six, he produced River Deep, Mountain
Speaker 3: High for Tina Turner. Yes, and he to him, he says,
Speaker 3: this was the greatest thing he ever did. It was
Speaker 3: the ultimate realization of the wall of sound.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 3: If you listen to this song, it is such a song.
Speaker 3: It's phenomenal. It's a cacophony of sound.
Speaker 4: It is a it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like you cannot tell other than Tina's voice.
Speaker 3: You cannot tell a single thing that is happening in
Speaker 3: the background. You can kind of hear like a guitar
Speaker 3: riff in the beginning of Barn, but that could be anything, right.
Speaker 3: It's like the whole sound is so amorphous, it has
Speaker 3: no shape, it has no it's so drenched in reverb
Speaker 3: and it's just noise behind what's going on.
Speaker 4: It's so brilliant and so beautiful.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does rip, and it's very reminiscent of like
Speaker 3: modern day like shoegaze type stuff is like this. You know,
Speaker 3: it's got a really cool atmosphere. It's all atmosphere and emotion. Yeah,
Speaker 3: even notoriously shitty side bastards, notoriously shitty side bastard Ike
Speaker 3: Turner boud.
Speaker 2: It is it is a Music Industry episode, We're gonna
Speaker 2: have a lot of side bastards.
Speaker 3: I just really like the effect myself as well. By
Speaker 3: the way, Yeah, I think you should make it into
Speaker 3: the regular rotation.
Speaker 4: It's so nice.
Speaker 2: I have a soundboard.
Speaker 9: I need it.
Speaker 4: There we go, it's so good. It's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so notoriously shitty side bastard Ike Turner, Yeah, revered
Speaker 3: Phil let him be in control. You're talking about a
Speaker 3: band Ike in the Ike gets Right featuring Tina Turner.
Speaker 4: Like, like we're talking, Ike is the control freak of
Speaker 4: control freaks, and.
Speaker 8: He's submissive to this weird little guy Sophie.
Speaker 3: In the beginning, we asked, we asked this question, why
Speaker 3: do we allow people to be horrible and shitty and
Speaker 3: just because they can make a really cool it's the
Speaker 3: same that, it's the same world. Why why do those
Speaker 3: people allow this other person who's also shitty to to
Speaker 3: get away with being in control of them? Because the
Speaker 3: music industry, because you can write a good song, you're
Speaker 3: you can get away with murder sort of not not
Speaker 3: completely spoiler alert, and like do people like he is
Speaker 3: visiness wearing that's missively wearing wings. Nobody is confused about this,
Speaker 3: and he is wearing platform shoes. He has five foot three,
Speaker 3: he's wearing platform shoes that barely make him five to five,
Speaker 3: which is still really really sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, no, Hi knows nothing wrong with it,
Speaker 2: but it clearly is fucking with him.
Speaker 9: I mean, this is this is what pops up when
Speaker 9: I searched Phil Spector in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: Okay, look at that. Oh no, the glasses, the days
Speaker 2: diamond glasses is amazing.
Speaker 4: This is a little early for this.
Speaker 3: Those glasses are honestly with but but I want to
Speaker 3: share this picture real quick because this is also very important.
Speaker 4: Robert, Oh god, I have been waiting to show you
Speaker 4: this picture. I can't wait.
Speaker 2: This is so good.
Speaker 3: All right, So this is Phil Spector in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 3: around the same time. Around the same time. This is
Speaker 3: him with his his security guard, George Brandt. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So they're they're sitting in some sort of old timey
Speaker 2: van and George Brandt like Phil is in George Brandt's lap.
Speaker 2: He looks like a child because Phil's holding a gun
Speaker 2: and pointing it out the window, and he's got like
Speaker 2: a fucking like, what what's that?
Speaker 3: It looks like a labrador or like like like a dog,
Speaker 3: like what a poodle? Like a poodle hair situation going
Speaker 3: on my head like a.
Speaker 7: Gun.
Speaker 2: And his bodyguard has his arm around Phil and is
Speaker 2: like holding him in place. And his hand is like
Speaker 2: as big as both of Phil's hands put together like
Speaker 2: one hand. Like this contrast between the two men is jarring.
Speaker 8: It's like the flappy hats.
Speaker 3: Incredible. Yeah, it is very It is so incredible. I
Speaker 3: cannot believe that he took that picture.
Speaker 4: And was like, yeah, print that ship.
Speaker 2: Crazy.
Speaker 4: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: He's he's a tiny person that really gives you like
Speaker 3: a perspective.
Speaker 2: He's look very silly posing with a gun.
Speaker 3: George brand This is George Brandon. George Brand is a
Speaker 3: kind of big. He's like six' one or something like that,
Speaker 3: but he's not that's not huge.
Speaker 4: That's me. I'm six foot, you know, he's like my.
Speaker 2: Size, but he looks like a giant compared to him.
Speaker 8: Ike Turner and Sonny bowing to him in submission.
Speaker 3: That's crazy, yes, yeah, yes, but that's the power of
Speaker 3: a hit maker. That's the power of pretty cool. It's
Speaker 3: like somebody who's controlling the industry and that kind of
Speaker 3: power is But as I said, uh, this this uh
Speaker 3: well I didn't say it, but spoiler alert, it doesn't
Speaker 3: last long. He produced this river, deep, Mountain, dit high
Speaker 3: for Tina Turner. And he spends enormous amount of money.
Speaker 3: This is signed to his lebel to the Phyllis records.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And he he spends a ton of money, right, emotional energy,
Speaker 3: just everything. Time, he puts everything. This is his magno opus,
Speaker 3: This is his his his thing, right he he thinks
Speaker 3: it's the best thing he's ever done. Massive orchestration, intricate layering,
Speaker 3: one of the most powerful vocal performances ever recorded. Spector
Speaker 3: later described it as the greatest work of his career. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in the United States, it failed miserably.
Speaker 2: That's so wild.
Speaker 4: It fails horribly. Now, Yeah, Spector says. Spector's belief and
Speaker 4: a lot of people's belief.
Speaker 3: I've heard a lot of opinions on this, but the
Speaker 3: belief is generally it was too white for black audiences
Speaker 3: and too black for white audiences. It was that rare
Speaker 3: moment of in between. It had orchestration, and but it
Speaker 3: had Tina. But it had wall of sound mud, but
Speaker 3: it had Tina. But you know, it's like it's like
Speaker 3: it was so confusing for DJs at the time because
Speaker 3: you either played race records or you played white records,
Speaker 3: and that was it.
Speaker 4: Like it was like where does this fall? We don't know.
Speaker 3: Phil Spector is taking this to a logical like conclusion,
Speaker 3: but it it just doesn't hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah this it did.
Speaker 3: It did have success in the United Kingdom. In the UK,
Speaker 3: it did chart, but the domestic rejection just devastated him.
Speaker 3: For a man who equated control with emotional safety, the
Speaker 3: failure felt deeply personal. If he could not guarantee success
Speaker 3: through perfection, then his entire identity as a producer was
Speaker 3: suddenly unstable.
Speaker 4: Right, So this this breaks him, Like this is the
Speaker 4: breaking point.
Speaker 3: It he He takes out a full page ad in
Speaker 3: a newspaper in America saying Benedict Arnold was right.
Speaker 4: Whoa, yeah, because England liked it in America didn't.
Speaker 2: Whoa, That's nuts. That's a crazy place for your head
Speaker 2: to go, right, okay, bro.
Speaker 3: So after that, everybody's like, Okay, well we're not spinning
Speaker 3: this record anymore. This dude just called us all traders,
Speaker 3: like he said, he said, England should have won the war.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that guy Little.
Speaker 4: So Fill's failure with River Deep Mountain High calls him
Speaker 4: to pull out of music completely.
Speaker 3: He announced his retirement from music and spent the days
Speaker 3: wandering around his mansion, desponded and depressed.
Speaker 4: This is a common theme with Phil as well. He
Speaker 4: spends a lot of time wandering around his mansion depressed.
Speaker 3: Dennis Hopper was actually chronicling the process of making River
Speaker 3: Deep Mountain High. He was doing like a documentary film
Speaker 3: on the process, and because he'd been around, he saw
Speaker 3: this and how it reacted Phil. He offers Phil a
Speaker 3: job playing a drug dealer, an easy rider, which is
Speaker 3: an amazing, amazing film, amazing role. They said literally, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we get him. We let him be an easy writer.
Speaker 3: The story I read framed it as like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, like it'll pick him up, it'll make him
Speaker 3: feel better.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then when you actually hear, like the Dennis Hopper interview,
Speaker 3: he's like, yeah, he had a Rolls Royce and he
Speaker 3: would let us use it.
Speaker 4: We'd put him in the movie.
Speaker 2: We couldn't afford it. Otherwise it was easy writer.
Speaker 4: You know, we're like money five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: So other than that, other than his time on Easy Rider,
Speaker 3: he spend most of his time playing pool and often
Speaker 3: hanging with his friend Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 4: Are you familiar with Oh my god, Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: I mean Lenny Bruce was the inspired George Carlin. He's
Speaker 2: kind of the er he's not.
Speaker 3: He's like the first first stand up comic, but he's
Speaker 3: like the first show some people say.
Speaker 2: The first really good stand up comedian.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And big.
Speaker 3: Dude Phil loves him, right, Phil just idolizes him.
Speaker 4: He thinks he's amazing.
Speaker 3: He's Phil Spector, so he's big enough to just be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: just hanging. Lenny Bruce is, by the way, in his
Speaker 3: personal life a massive pieces basically.
Speaker 2: And horrible drug problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, horrible drug problems, horrible everything problems.
Speaker 4: Lenny Bruce is a mess.
Speaker 3: And for those of you who are not familiar with
Speaker 3: Lenny Bruce, I if you look it up, you're going
Speaker 3: to be a lot.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of n word Lenny Bruce rants, is
Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: Yeah, a lot of They also try to like fictionalize
Speaker 9: romanticize him in that Marvelous Missus Masel show that was
Speaker 9: on Amazon.
Speaker 8: They make him a character in that and they make
Speaker 8: him like this, like yeah, because.
Speaker 4: He did not want.
Speaker 2: Because of his influence on like comedy from a freedom
Speaker 2: of speech standpoint, which he really did stand and pay for, yes,
Speaker 2: but that they also whitewash a lot of like he was.
Speaker 2: He was a messy motherfucker among comedians, and the medians
Speaker 2: are almost all messy.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stories about him showing up at
Speaker 3: Phil's house and like and like, you know, Phil having
Speaker 3: to like basically kick him out and be like and
Speaker 3: apologize to his guests. Phil, Phil, the guy who held
Speaker 3: people at gunpoint, waved guns around, had to be like, yeah, guys, sorry,
Speaker 3: Lenny's messy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Lenny's messy.
Speaker 7: Guys.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, he's my friend. Doesn't always use
Speaker 2: the right terms. He can be kind of in appropriate,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: So the two men bonded over a shared sense of
Speaker 3: being misunderstood outsiders navigating industries that simultaneously rewarded and rejected them,
Speaker 3: which is extremely valid. They're both kind of outsiders while
Speaker 3: also being like praised and glorified.
Speaker 2: Also kind of at the top of their their careers.
Speaker 4: It's very strange.
Speaker 3: Bruce admired Spector's musical intensity Inspector appeared to be drawn
Speaker 3: to Bruce's defiant rejection of authority and social norms. He
Speaker 3: quotes Lenny Bruce all the time. He'll Lenny Bruce says.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like always how he goes. He loves
Speaker 3: Lenny Bruce. He loves Lenny Bruce so much that Phil
Speaker 3: keeps a blown up image of Lenny Bruce above his bed.
Speaker 3: What oh what.
Speaker 4: Ronnie? Ronnie?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so where is guy and Wasted together? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's weird, Okay.
Speaker 3: I like when I wrote this, I literally had this
Speaker 3: like funny mental image of me having me having a
Speaker 3: Robert Evans above my bed and like your shirtless, you know,
Speaker 3: like just like just like you know, over the shoulder
Speaker 3: kind of look, you know, just like I just I
Speaker 3: was like, yes, dude, that's how I want.
Speaker 4: My relationship with Robert to be. Is like like like
Speaker 4: quasi sexual.
Speaker 2: And relationship absolutely.
Speaker 8: My goodness.
Speaker 3: So, so Specters get he gets his belief that he's
Speaker 3: existing outside of conventional society.
Speaker 4: By hanging out with Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 3: It validates that for him, you know, and that society
Speaker 3: just didn't understand him. This is why River Deep Mountain
Speaker 3: High failed. It's just like Lenny Bruce, right, It's like
Speaker 3: society just doesn't get how important this is.
Speaker 8: But then but then Lenny Lenny dies.
Speaker 4: But then Lenny Bruce does die.
Speaker 2: Doesn't have a long life expectancy. It's a Lenny Bruce type.
Speaker 3: On August third, nineteen sixty six, Lenny was found on
Speaker 3: the floor of his bathroom with his pants around his
Speaker 3: ankles and a needle stuck in his arm. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's how that that goes, right. He died of an overdose.
Speaker 3: He died in an overdose on the toilet, which is
Speaker 3: very Elvis and sad. Very I mean Bruce said, yeah,
Speaker 3: very Lenny Bruce. Yeah, Lenny Bruce was the original Lenny
Speaker 3: brucey od died on the toilet.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Phil was devastated to lose his friend. He's so
Speaker 3: sad about this and again mopes around the house for days,
Speaker 3: you know. But a few days later, a cop shows
Speaker 3: up at his I think it was his lawyer's house.
Speaker 3: It might have it is either his friend or a lawyer.
Speaker 3: But cop shows up and says, hey, I got I
Speaker 3: got these pictures of Lenny Bruce from the crime scene.
Speaker 3: Either you buy him or I'm selling them to the tabloids. Right,
Speaker 3: and so Phil spent five k of his own money
Speaker 3: just he purchased him. Spent five thousand dollars of his
Speaker 3: own money, which at that time is.
Speaker 2: Like a house. Yeah, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, spends five thousand dollars of his own
Speaker 3: money to purchase those photos to keep them out of
Speaker 3: the press.
Speaker 4: He also paid for Lenny's funeral, and then after Lenny's funeral.
Speaker 3: He locked himself in his house for weeks on end
Speaker 3: and didn't talk to anybody because he was so depressed
Speaker 3: at the loss of his friend.
Speaker 4: That's one of those real.
Speaker 2: He is capable of deeply caring for someone, and it's
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's a really weird moment because you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's sad, but also.
Speaker 2: This is the first really human emotion we've gotten. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like yeah, okay, interesting, but also huh, you.
Speaker 4: Know back to Ronnie.
Speaker 3: Right, Ronnie's mom finally is like, you guys aren't really married, right,
Speaker 3: So so she's like, you're not living with somebody if
Speaker 3: you're not married to them. She like uses her mind
Speaker 3: over the whole thing. Yeah, She's like, you guys need
Speaker 3: to get married, right. So Phil, you know, he still
Speaker 3: lies to her. He tries like lie, but she comes
Speaker 3: out to California and she's like, nope, don't believe you.
Speaker 3: And see she takes Ronnie and makes her move back
Speaker 3: to New York, which is again very crazy. This is
Speaker 3: like an era where being twenty one is actually what's
Speaker 3: considered an adult at this time. I mean it kind
Speaker 3: of still is a little bit, but in the manner
Speaker 3: of like if you were under twenty one, you could
Speaker 3: actually be told what to do by your parents. Right. Still, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're not really and also no money and all sorts
Speaker 3: of shit anyway, so she forced her to move back
Speaker 3: to New York. Ronnie hates being in New York. She
Speaker 3: hates being around her relatives. She feels like they're all
Speaker 3: like gold diggers kind of, and she wants to get
Speaker 3: back to California. So Phil comes and rescues her and
Speaker 3: takes her back to California. But as soon as they
Speaker 3: get back, he gets right back into being jealous, you know,
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until she threatens to leave him that.
Speaker 4: He finally does commit to marrying her.
Speaker 3: Ah they're planning to be married on April fourteenth. Okay
Speaker 3: was shot and killed on April fourth and Phil goes
Speaker 3: into a despair. Super common Phil anytime somebody famous dies
Speaker 3: that he has had any association with at all, which
Speaker 3: does happen a lot, you know sixties, in all, he
Speaker 3: falls into like these horrible depressive states where he just
Speaker 3: like mopes around. He was just playing MLK speeches on
Speaker 3: repeat in his house at like top volume, which I'm
Speaker 3: sure he had a killer stereo, right, he's perspective, So
Speaker 3: he's just blasting MLK speeches at like top volume in
Speaker 3: his house and like crying in the living room. It's
Speaker 3: like super crazy, which brings me to a point about
Speaker 3: Phil that I think is super interesting. For all of
Speaker 3: Phil's flaws, racism is neuterous, not once, not ever. He
Speaker 3: is always when we look at these relationships, it's like
Speaker 3: it is always black girl groups that he's like, you know,
Speaker 3: doing this abuse to. But black is never really like
Speaker 3: a consideration. It is women that is the consideration that
Speaker 3: like is an issue with women. For as awful as
Speaker 3: he is, he's never awful about black people. He loves
Speaker 3: black people. In fact, Ronnie thinks that he wished he
Speaker 3: was black.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he he cried, cried given him like the
Speaker 2: industry he's in at the time. Yeah, okay, yeah, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. Actually. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he eventually snaps out of his depression and they
Speaker 3: return to their wedding plans. They get married on the fourteenth.
Speaker 3: The marriage itself was performed at a Justice of the
Speaker 3: Peace ceremony. They know, for a millionaire record producer, he doesn't.
Speaker 3: He half asses the hell out of it. He does
Speaker 3: justice to the peace, and as someone who's done a
Speaker 3: couple of Justice of the Peace marriages, you know, I
Speaker 3: get it right.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I just want to get it over with, you know,
Speaker 4: I got stuff to do today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: One his chauffeur's brother was his best man.
Speaker 3: After the wedding, they celebrated by going to a concert,
Speaker 3: and then Phil sent Ronnie and her mother home with
Speaker 3: his driver and went to visit his mother out of
Speaker 3: guilt of not having told her about the wedding.
Speaker 4: So he feels bad.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, actually, I can't believe I didn't tell
Speaker 3: my mom about the wedding. I should have told her
Speaker 3: about this, right, So I probably should have done that.
Speaker 3: So he goes right, and Ronnie and her mom go
Speaker 3: back to the house.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 3: Ronnie goes home. She puts on some lingerie. She gets
Speaker 3: wedding night. Bro We wedding night, you know.
Speaker 4: She gets all up and she waits and waits and
Speaker 4: waits and waits. Ho always go by.
Speaker 3: Phil does not come back, and she's like, uh, okay,
Speaker 3: well the hell. Finally he returns home, laid his hell,
Speaker 3: drunk his hell, and he's mad. He walked into our room,
Speaker 3: she says. This is from her book, Be My Baby.
Speaker 3: Quote he when he walked into our room, I could
Speaker 3: tell the last thing he was interested in was my body.
Speaker 4: Remember she's wearing lingerie and everything.
Speaker 3: He was a completely different person than the man I
Speaker 3: had sat with at the concert three hours earlier. You bitch,
Speaker 3: he shouted. I couldn't believe how mad he looked, and
Speaker 3: worse than I'd ever seen him. He was raving so
Speaker 3: loud that the veins in his neck were bulging blue.
Speaker 3: I know your game, Veronica, he shouted, You just want
Speaker 3: my money.
Speaker 4: That is it, isn't it.
Speaker 3: I was so scared that I got up and ran
Speaker 3: out of the bedroom and into the hallway. If Phil
Speaker 3: was going to kill me, I wanted him to do
Speaker 3: it where there might be witnesses. What's wrong, Phil, what
Speaker 3: did your mother tell you the truth? He panted that
Speaker 3: this whole marriage is about one thing, my money. He
Speaker 3: was so mad he could barely catch his breath. Now,
Speaker 3: Ronnie and her mother locked themselves inside a bathroom for hours,
Speaker 3: hiding from Phil's rage and unpredictable behavior.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 3: My mother and I had been living on that pale
Speaker 3: blue carpet for over an hour when Phil finally warm
Speaker 3: himself out and went to bed. After that, we got
Speaker 3: kind of drowsy ourselves. I was just drifting off to
Speaker 3: sleep when I heard my mother sigh. Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie,
Speaker 3: what did you marry? I moved in close to her,
Speaker 3: and I started to cry. Isn't this something I sniffed here?
Speaker 3: It is my wedding night, and I'm spending it curled
Speaker 3: up on the bathroom floor with my mother.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 4: So it is her wedding day, her wedding day, her
Speaker 4: wedding day.
Speaker 3: He goes to a show and then he comes home drunk,
Speaker 3: drops her off, comes home drunk, screaming and threatening her.
Speaker 3: An hour, he spent an hour banging on the bathroom door,
Speaker 3: threatening her, screaming, at her with her and her mom
Speaker 3: just in the bathroom, cut it up on the floor crying.
Speaker 4: And that extremely happy moment. Cool is where we will
Speaker 4: leave this episode.
Speaker 2: That's Part two Baby, Part two Dune.
Speaker 3: I am greasy will you can find me all over
Speaker 3: the internet. I have lots of things for sale if
Speaker 3: you ever want to buy them. And it is the
Speaker 3: same thing. You're supporting people's you're supporting people's livelihoods. Yes,
Speaker 3: my assistants they're drug free, so you know when I
Speaker 3: pay them money, it's not going to drugs. That is right.
Speaker 4: That is super courteous. That's the best you can say
Speaker 4: about anybody.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. Whereas I take all of my
Speaker 2: profits and hand them out underneath the bridge so that yeah,
Speaker 2: we can buy drugs.
Speaker 3: Not You might as well pay me in heroin, you know,
Speaker 3: like just pay me in heroin.
Speaker 2: Just because like strangers I give money to in heroin.
Speaker 4: You are Robert Evans, my good friend and found it.
Speaker 3: I write okay on the internet and also here Andrew
Speaker 3: on Netflix.
Speaker 4: On Netflix, you might be this on the Netflix.
Speaker 9: Bro.
Speaker 4: This is the closest I will ever come to success.
Speaker 2: You could watch this watch another one of Netflix's classic
Speaker 2: hit shows like whatever movie is out now.
Speaker 3: That one about that pervert guy that kidnaps people and
Speaker 3: keeps them in their basement.
Speaker 2: Sure you could be watching the pervert next Wow.
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