Speaker 1: So I was in college, but it was the summer
Speaker 1: of my sophomore year or freshman year, and I had
Speaker 1: gone to a BBD concert and met Jeff Dyson, who
Speaker 1: was one of the new editions. He had long time
Speaker 1: been a new addition bodyguard. He was on the road
Speaker 1: with BBD.
Speaker 2: Last time on waiting for Impact. My friend Scott and
Speaker 2: I found out we were one degree of separation closer
Speaker 2: to sudden impact than we ever knew we were. We
Speaker 2: have a friend who was a recording artist in Michael Bivens'
Speaker 2: East Coast family and you know her too. It's twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one Emmy nominee if that's Nicole Brown.
Speaker 1: And I told him, I say, I want to sing
Speaker 1: for Michael bibbns. Can you please let me backstage?
Speaker 2: Like me in nineteen ninety one, if that had big dreams,
Speaker 2: but unlike me, she knew how to manifest them.
Speaker 1: And he was like, I cannot let you backstage, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you that they're staying at the Sheridan
Speaker 1: in Cauiahaga Falls. So if you happen to show up,
Speaker 1: you know at the Sheridan. You didn't hear it from me.
Speaker 1: To this day, I know Jeff. Now you know Jeff
Speaker 1: and our friends now. And to this day he says
Speaker 1: he doesn't know why he did it. He was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know something about you. Just felt like I was
Speaker 1: supposed to help you.
Speaker 2: Evett loved Michael Biffins, She loved New Addition, she loved
Speaker 2: Belle Bivdevaux, and she loved to sing. So she found
Speaker 2: Michael Bivens and she sang.
Speaker 1: And so I went to that hotel, stayed in the
Speaker 1: lobby until four o'clock in the morning when BBD came
Speaker 1: to the hotel and I followed Michael Bibbins around and
Speaker 1: I was like, mister Bifman's massing for you, mister Biman's
Speaker 1: massing for you, mister Bimin's messing for you.
Speaker 3: And then finally he was like, oh gosh, like just sing.
Speaker 4: He was mad.
Speaker 3: I was mad, like it had been at an opus
Speaker 3: to get to this moment.
Speaker 2: That's the thing about taking big swings. Sometimes they're mortifying,
Speaker 2: but sometimes they actually work.
Speaker 1: He finally let me sing for him and asked for
Speaker 1: my number, and then called me the next day and
Speaker 1: invited me to be a part of the East Closet family.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk to a vete, Nicole Brown, about
Speaker 2: her time in the Coast Family, about what it was
Speaker 2: like to wait for your moment in the spotlight as
Speaker 2: a singer, and about what you do when it never comes,
Speaker 2: And we're going to find out what she knows about
Speaker 2: sudden Impact.
Speaker 5: Also, we'll talk to Karen Kilgareth. She and I were
Speaker 5: leading more or less the.
Speaker 2: Same life back in nineteen ninety one, So we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about what she learned that got her to
Speaker 2: where she is now. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: another big thing we have in common, a pivotal career
Speaker 2: moment that involves losing a big contest on national TV.
Speaker 2: This is Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project.
Speaker 2: So here's where we left off. As I began my
Speaker 2: search for Sudden Impact, my friend and fellow pop culture
Speaker 2: obsessive Scott Gimple, found a nineteen ninety two music video
Speaker 2: from the East Coast Family, a group of pop, R
Speaker 2: and B and hip hop artists signed by Michael Bivens
Speaker 2: to his record label biv ten, a subsidiary of Motown.
Speaker 2: The song and video are called one four All four
Speaker 2: to one. By the way, the title of that song
Speaker 2: never gets any easier to say. You always have to
Speaker 2: kind of prepare your mouth, but it is what we
Speaker 2: would now call a posse track. There are rap moments
Speaker 2: from Mark Finesse, from two young kids called ten ten
Speaker 2: who have their suspenders on backwards a little like the
Speaker 2: other young rap duo of the time, Chris Cross, probably
Speaker 2: a coincidence, and from mc brains who would go on
Speaker 2: to have a top forty hit later in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: two called Uchi Couci. There are moments that are sung
Speaker 2: by a big frat boy looking guy named Hayden with
Speaker 2: a sport coat slung over his shoulder, and by a
Speaker 2: group called White Guys whytgi Ze who look a little
Speaker 2: like Sudden Impact. And then there's a young woman with
Speaker 2: a clear and beautiful voice and a warm and familiar smile.
Speaker 2: She goes by the single name Yvette Vete Nicole Brown Sunday.
Speaker 4: I can't stress you just how my job just dropped.
Speaker 2: My friend Scott, who we met in the last episode,
Speaker 2: is the chief content officer for the Walking Dead universe,
Speaker 2: and a Vett is a Walking Dead super fan. Vette
Speaker 2: and Scott, as we learned, are real friends in real life.
Speaker 2: But this is a part of her story that he
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about. And we now have the connection
Speaker 2: to the East Coast family and maybe sudden impact that
Speaker 2: we've been looking for a backstage pass, if you will.
Speaker 2: So I asked Scott to reach out to a vet
Speaker 2: to see if she'd be interested in opening up about
Speaker 2: her life in the East Coast family. And while we
Speaker 2: waited for an answer, I wanted to go a little
Speaker 2: bit deeper into the early nineties and what life was
Speaker 2: like for a young dreamer back then. And I know
Speaker 2: someone who I bet has some very good insights. What
Speaker 2: was Karen's nineteen ninety one esthetic talk?
Speaker 5: What's you wearing.
Speaker 6: At Jesus H, I'll tell you, I'll tell you it's
Speaker 6: not good news.
Speaker 2: That is Karen Kilgareff. She's a comedian, a writer, the
Speaker 2: co host of My Favorite Murder, and the co founder
Speaker 2: of Exactly Right, the network i'm doing this podcast on.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one, Karen was working a look.
Speaker 6: Because I was out of the house and I could so.
Speaker 6: First of all, I died my hair black, like the
Speaker 6: second I got a chance to. That was incredibly like invigorating,
Speaker 6: and like, you know, I know what I want.
Speaker 4: I dyed my hair black. I was pale as a ghost.
Speaker 2: Karen's a friend of mine now, but in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one we were strangers leading very similar lives.
Speaker 6: I started working at the Gap, and that really, that
Speaker 6: felt bad, That felt real goad.
Speaker 5: Again, we're on parallel tracks.
Speaker 4: Did you work at that?
Speaker 5: I did? I ever the winner of Navy and White Cap?
Speaker 5: I was there. What is white cap? I asked, I
Speaker 5: said white. It's just a different word for white.
Speaker 6: It's a way to say white and really set yourself apart.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one, in separate malls, in separate cities,
Speaker 2: two thousand miles away from each other, Karen and I
Speaker 2: were doing the same thing, suffering through eight hour shifts,
Speaker 2: pushing pocket t shirts and high waisted jeans, listening to
Speaker 2: four or five spins per day of that corporate mixtape,
Speaker 2: dreaming about the lives and careers we would have someday,
Speaker 2: lives and careers we couldn't even picture because they didn't
Speaker 2: even really exist yet. Back then, we were on the outside,
Speaker 2: with our noses pressed up against the glass. Right now,
Speaker 2: Karen is a big deal, like few other people I know.
Speaker 2: She went out and got her life. But in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one. We were both very busy daydreaming about what
Speaker 2: our lives in the future could look like, and we
Speaker 2: were both hard at work fucking up our lives in
Speaker 2: the present.
Speaker 5: Who was Karen Kilgareth in the summer of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4: One, Oh god, well, I just turned twenty one.
Speaker 5: Oh boy.
Speaker 6: I was living in Sacramento at the time. I had
Speaker 6: flunked out of Sacramento State University.
Speaker 4: Congratulations, thank you so much. Not easy to do.
Speaker 6: Took medication, and it took a real know how and perseverance.
Speaker 4: To be asked to leave a state school.
Speaker 6: That was basically took all comers and didn't give a shit.
Speaker 5: Now, once again Karen and I were leading parallel lives there.
Speaker 5: We'll get into that shortly.
Speaker 2: But in order to give her life some direction and
Speaker 2: stop feeling bad about failing out of school, Karen tried
Speaker 2: something new.
Speaker 6: The good part about this era was just before it,
Speaker 6: when I was twenty, I started doing stand up comedy
Speaker 6: as a desperate move to stop being such a loser
Speaker 6: who had flugged out of school and just had and
Speaker 6: basically was kind of going nowhere in the Central Valley.
Speaker 6: So I think by the time my twenty first birthday
Speaker 6: rolled around, I had felt that I had actually begun
Speaker 6: on my path toward my dream, which was always kind
Speaker 6: of a secret, Like I really knew I wanted to
Speaker 6: be a stand up comedian for a long time, but
Speaker 6: I I just didn't believe I would ever do it.
Speaker 6: And then this kind of amazing combination of good and
Speaker 6: bad things happened, and then I.
Speaker 4: Got to start.
Speaker 2: Karen transferred to Sacramento City College, where she met some
Speaker 2: cool artsy kids from the theater department. Can't you just
Speaker 2: see them? Her new friends were more edgy and mature.
Speaker 2: It was a new, better support system and like any
Speaker 2: good nineties arty kids, we have to imagine them smoking
Speaker 2: clothes at night.
Speaker 5: She's beginning to do stand up, but in the daytime
Speaker 5: it's the gap.
Speaker 4: There is an oppressive feeling.
Speaker 6: I used to get in the middle of like an
Speaker 6: eight hour shift, you know, the mixtape that would play
Speaker 6: and it would be on like the fourth cycle, where
Speaker 6: I You'd just be going a little bit crazy and
Speaker 6: I would be standing there kind of staring at like
Speaker 6: the fluorescent lights, going how much longer are you going
Speaker 6: to do this?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Is this going to be the rest of your.
Speaker 6: Life, because because there's part of you that was at
Speaker 6: least brave enough to get on that stage until of
Speaker 6: what are now some of the worst jokes of all time.
Speaker 6: But you know, like I did have that leg up
Speaker 6: that that I had done. So there was a little
Speaker 6: bit in me that was like, but I think I
Speaker 6: can do something. I don't think I should have to
Speaker 6: work at the gap for the rest of my life.
Speaker 6: But then there was parts of some of the time
Speaker 6: when I was there where I was just like, I
Speaker 6: can't breathe, and I'm going to be here forever.
Speaker 2: I know that, feeling extremely well, and I remember that
Speaker 2: what I wanted from life back then was vague. I
Speaker 2: wanted to express myself, make a mark on the world somehow.
Speaker 2: I wonder what did she want back then?
Speaker 6: I think fame the idea, the made up childhood idea
Speaker 6: of what fame is and what and what all that
Speaker 6: kind of glory would be.
Speaker 5: What is that child version of fame.
Speaker 6: I think it's like it's like entering anywhere through double
Speaker 6: doors and like putting your hands out in front of
Speaker 6: me is literally like the It's kind of that kind
Speaker 6: of like as if you'd go into restaurants that only
Speaker 6: had double doors and do like hello everyone.
Speaker 4: There was just here.
Speaker 6: Oh h yes, it's me, I'm here waving as you
Speaker 6: eat dinner kind of idea. I think that was that
Speaker 6: was part of it, but I do think it was
Speaker 6: holding my own with men who do comedy.
Speaker 2: Karen was learning stand up, finding her place in the
Speaker 2: Bay Area comedy scene, looking for clues.
Speaker 6: The improv was my first one where I got on stage,
Speaker 6: so it was kind of like the closest one to
Speaker 6: my heart, and it felt so because it was one
Speaker 6: of those clubs that was downstairs, so it was really
Speaker 6: like cellar feeling, which the you know, all the walls
Speaker 6: were painted black.
Speaker 4: You could only I could see one top.
Speaker 6: Matt, the bartender, was really tall and he had like
Speaker 6: bleach blonde hair, so I would focus on watching his
Speaker 6: head move during my sets to know whether or not
Speaker 6: I was doing good. So if he was like doing
Speaker 6: head bobbing, like laughing, I was like, all right, so
Speaker 6: I'm fine. Like you know, there's there's all these kind
Speaker 6: of images in my brain that are seared there forever
Speaker 6: of how I'm going to do this thing that's really
Speaker 6: hard and incredibly frightening and make it work. So those
Speaker 6: magical things are happening to me at night, and then
Speaker 6: at eleven am, I'd have to show up and fold
Speaker 6: down a sweater wall or whatever and go back to
Speaker 6: just being the person that's trying to sell you socks
Speaker 6: along with your three T shirts. And it was just
Speaker 6: I was very indignant about the fact that I had
Speaker 6: to work there, but that also it was such a
Speaker 6: corporate It was so easy to do things wrong at
Speaker 6: the Gap. I was wrong all the time. I was
Speaker 6: always doing it wrong.
Speaker 5: You know there is one way to fold a pocket too.
Speaker 4: For real. Yeah, they'll check it.
Speaker 2: And then a big moment happened on TV. America's Funniest
Speaker 2: People comes caught.
Speaker 4: How dare you.
Speaker 5: Talk about it if you don't want to?
Speaker 4: Did you do research?
Speaker 5: I saw it?
Speaker 2: Let me set the scene. Karen had been getting better
Speaker 2: at stand up. She had been coming up with a
Speaker 2: group of friends, Andy Kindler, Vernon Chapman, Brian Possain maybe
Speaker 2: you've heard of him. She entered a comedy contest at
Speaker 2: a club in Sacramento, and she made it to the finals.
Speaker 6: And then and at some point they're the manager of
Speaker 6: that comedy club was like, hey, America's Funnies people's in
Speaker 6: town come to Old Sac and they just you're basically
Speaker 6: just do some jokes on camera.
Speaker 4: And so one of my.
Speaker 6: Bits was I was at it was it was my
Speaker 6: impression of a cheerleader auditioning for a Shakespeare play. So
Speaker 6: essentially it's a classic fucking hacky stand up thing where
Speaker 6: you recite something impressive in a different voice. So I
Speaker 6: was just doing a valley girl voice.
Speaker 5: Of Richard, I I.
Speaker 4: I exactly.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so that's what ended up on America's Funnies People.
Speaker 2: So I mean the answer is, yes, we are going
Speaker 2: to listen to some of Karen Kilgarriff on America's Funniest People.
Speaker 7: I'm presenting my version of a cheerleader auditioning for Shakespeare play. Okay,
Speaker 7: So like I'm auditioning for this or whatever, and I'm
Speaker 7: gonna be doing a monologue from like Richard I I I,
Speaker 7: And like what it is is, I'm lady Annette and
Speaker 7: like this guy totally killed my husband, Richard, and so
Speaker 7: he comes to the funeral just to make problems, just
Speaker 7: like Rick bar did that time of that party when
Speaker 7: he's gonna throw the keg through the window. Do you
Speaker 7: remember that? Well, anyway, so like, he totally shows up
Speaker 7: and I totally get mad and I totally say this
Speaker 7: to him. I go like, I go like, foul devil
Speaker 7: for God's sake, Hence in trouble us, not for that's
Speaker 7: made the happy Earth. Eigeh Hell filled it with cursing
Speaker 7: cries and deep exclaims. It's not the like to view
Speaker 7: thy heinous deeds. Behold the pattern.
Speaker 4: Of your butcheries.
Speaker 2: Not what she would do now, probably, but it's funny.
Speaker 2: Her perspective is very clear. If you want to see more,
Speaker 2: it is on YouTube and it's worth watching. It's like
Speaker 2: a muppet baby's version of the Karen Kilgarriff We know now.
Speaker 6: And then I got called by the producers saying do
Speaker 6: you want to come down to Burbank because you made
Speaker 6: it to the final three? So all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: you know, and that I recorded it well in Sacramento
Speaker 6: and then got into a car accident. My mom's like,
Speaker 6: that's it, You're moving home. You're just up there fucking around.
Speaker 6: I moved home and got the call like from my parents' house.
Speaker 6: So again, basically, after having flunked out, I floated for
Speaker 6: a little while in this comedy thing that was happening.
Speaker 6: And then I was like back, moved back in with
Speaker 6: my parents, so almost like a new low. Then the
Speaker 6: America's funniest people called, So now I'm back up and
Speaker 6: like show biz time, and I flew down to that show,
Speaker 6: sat in the audience was, you know, like the drum
Speaker 6: roll with the Dave Coolier was one of the hosts.
Speaker 4: It was like the whole.
Speaker 5: Thing TV's Calliope.
Speaker 6: Calliope from Days of Our Lives. It was a dream
Speaker 6: come true.
Speaker 2: In the video, Karen is right there in that studio audience,
Speaker 2: in that very chic Jet Black nineteen ninety one one
Speaker 2: hair and Karen does not win.
Speaker 6: I won third prize. A four year old girl beat
Speaker 6: me and a man. She said a joke. She was
Speaker 6: what did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
Speaker 6: Where's my tractor?
Speaker 5: Fun?
Speaker 6: That was?
Speaker 4: I know. No, she's talented, she was good. She was
Speaker 4: she deserved it as ten and the man probably. I
Speaker 4: bet we could track her down to who it is. No,
Speaker 4: and that girl is Ariana Grande.
Speaker 2: The guy who won the big prize was a seventy
Speaker 2: year old guy dressed like a miner from old cowboy movies.
Speaker 2: He did a strip tease to mc hammers, you can't
Speaker 2: touch this, and he won ten thousand dollars, but Karen
Speaker 2: didn't walk away empty handed.
Speaker 4: I think I got four thousand dollars before taxes.
Speaker 5: But I mean that's early nineties money. That's not bad.
Speaker 4: It was, you know what it is.
Speaker 6: It got me out of my parents' house and into
Speaker 6: my apartment to moved to San Francisco to work at
Speaker 6: the Gap and start stand up again with a It
Speaker 6: basically relaunched my barely having begun stand up career.
Speaker 5: Where did you see yourself as an adult in that situation?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: What did I think I was going to do?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Where would you have imagined you'd be?
Speaker 6: Now? Honestly, I kind of like this is the dream.
Speaker 6: I'm doing it and I'm thrilled and thrilled every day
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 2: And has a career in comedy looked the way that
Speaker 2: you imagined it would in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 6: The thing that I didn't understand is that everybody that
Speaker 6: moves to Los Angeles is baseline talented at least one thing.
Speaker 6: But there is a ton of people here who are
Speaker 6: insanely talented at like four things. And that I think
Speaker 6: I had that was the part that I was the
Speaker 6: most wrong about was Oh, like, I'm super funny, and
Speaker 6: I know a bunch of really super funny comics, and
Speaker 6: we're like the funniest people, and it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: there's actors.
Speaker 4: Who also are from Broadway who are ten times funnier
Speaker 4: than you.
Speaker 6: Like those those lessons as I lived in Los Angeles
Speaker 6: and became intensely bewildered at the level of true talent
Speaker 6: that comes to this town and tries to make it.
Speaker 6: I just wanted it to be like, no, I'm a
Speaker 6: natural and you know I'm the best or whatever.
Speaker 4: But it was like quickly learning that, like you.
Speaker 6: Want to tell yourself that, like those pretty hot girls
Speaker 6: that are going in just for the ingreen new roles
Speaker 6: aren't funny, they fucking are. They're funny. They can tap
Speaker 6: dance and their models, So go fuck yourself, Karen from Petaluma,
Speaker 6: because your shit ain't flying. You know. There was that
Speaker 6: lots of adjustments like that that were really bewildering. But
Speaker 6: then I think, thank God, somewhere along the line that
Speaker 6: idea came to me is like, if I want to
Speaker 6: be in this business, I should learn the business so
Speaker 6: that I know what I'm doing and not just be
Speaker 6: standing out here trying to be like an actor or
Speaker 6: a comic, because those people have the least amount of
Speaker 6: power or control. And that's what led me into writing,
Speaker 6: and that's what led me into being behind the scenes
Speaker 6: and learning how it actually works and what the real
Speaker 6: business is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've been I mean you've had many, many
Speaker 2: ups and downs, Like there were things that you know,
Speaker 2: they're America's funniest people. I mean, it launched a career,
Speaker 2: but it was you know, you weren't flucked immediately from
Speaker 2: that to super stardom. So how did you keep What
Speaker 2: did you tell yourself to keep going?
Speaker 6: I told myself I was funnier than that four year
Speaker 6: old girl every goddamn day.
Speaker 2: I want to get back to something Karen said at
Speaker 2: the beginning of our conversation. Karen flunked out of college.
Speaker 2: So did I. I left for college in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine a place called Holy Cross in Massachusetts. I'd been
Speaker 2: on the waiting list, and I think that is why
Speaker 2: I was so determined to go there.
Speaker 5: You don't like me perfect, let me chase you.
Speaker 2: I got there, I was surrounded by people who looked
Speaker 2: like they had it together, which I very much did not.
Speaker 5: People who were good at being normal, which I very
Speaker 5: much was not.
Speaker 2: A lot of kids from New England, where making fun
Speaker 2: of you is how they show affection, but it's also
Speaker 2: how they make fun of you. Holy Cross is a
Speaker 2: great place. I did not fit in there. This is
Speaker 2: the thing I would find out later. Early in the
Speaker 2: first semester of my freshman year, a bunch of the
Speaker 2: guys on my hall apparently had a big conversation in
Speaker 2: the common area about whether I was gay, which I
Speaker 2: very much was and still am, and at the time
Speaker 2: I was very much not ready to deal with it.
Speaker 2: In this conversation, a classmate from my hometown apparently confirmed
Speaker 2: that yes, the general.
Speaker 5: Word on the street was that I was very gay.
Speaker 2: That kid apparently called another kid from my high school
Speaker 2: who double confirmed it. And if you've worked in journalism,
Speaker 2: you know a fact is not considered credible unless it
Speaker 2: can be double verified.
Speaker 5: So I was out. I was out. Heead now.
Speaker 2: I was not in the common area on my hall
Speaker 2: the day this conversation took place. I wasn't on campus
Speaker 2: at all because I had gone to the local mall
Speaker 2: to go to a record store called Sam Goody to
Speaker 2: pick up a cassette that had just been released and
Speaker 2: was sitting on my desk later that day when my
Speaker 2: roommates and some of the guys from the hall gathered
Speaker 2: to go get dinner, and that tape was the album
Speaker 2: Results by E Liza Minelli, which was produced by the
Speaker 2: Pet Shop Boys and has a Sondheim song on it.
Speaker 5: So my gainness was now a triple sourced story.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the guys on my hall, who I thought I'd
Speaker 2: been doing okay with, suddenly.
Speaker 5: Began to keep their distance. That's what life was like.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine at a Catholic school, and that's
Speaker 2: probably why this Catholic school in nineteen eighty nine had
Speaker 2: zero out gay students. I was having trouble making friends
Speaker 2: for the first time in my life. What middle aged
Speaker 2: Dave can see very clearly is what I should have done,
Speaker 2: which to just say, yes, yeah, I'm gay, do you.
Speaker 5: Have any questions?
Speaker 2: But I didn't. What I did but instead was spiral.
Speaker 2: I was out every night, drinking like a maniac. I
Speaker 2: skipped class on the regular. I was crying for help
Speaker 2: and pretending everything was great all at the same time.
Speaker 2: It was exhausting I didn't do well. A couple weeks
Speaker 2: into the summer of nineteen ninety, after I had finished
Speaker 2: freshman year, I was at my parents' house in Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: I went to check the mailbox and there was a
Speaker 2: certified mail notice oh one six one Oho the zip
Speaker 2: code of holy Cross, and I just knew I had
Speaker 2: never failed at anything in my life, and suddenly there
Speaker 2: it was a massive, humiliating public failure.
Speaker 5: Karen puts the feeling into words better than I can.
Speaker 5: Did it feel like flung it out of college? Which
Speaker 5: I also did? Oh d oh yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: After my freshman year Holy Cross in Massachusetts, very conservative
Speaker 2: Catholic place where I did not fit in at all,
Speaker 2: and they vomited me out very quickly. However, it was
Speaker 2: actually it was like a one year suspension, and so
Speaker 2: I did, like go and get my grades up, and
Speaker 2: then I went because I felt like I have to
Speaker 2: finish what I've started.
Speaker 5: I went back, which was a mistake, and.
Speaker 2: I delayed my actual maturity by many, many years, and
Speaker 2: it was for me very difficult to scrub off the
Speaker 2: scent of failure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, is that does that resonate with you at all?
Speaker 6: A thousand percent yeah, I never saw myself when I
Speaker 6: was a child. I was smart and good at school,
Speaker 6: always liked it, And that lasted right until seventh grade,
Speaker 6: and then it all changed, and along with like puberty
Speaker 6: and adolescence came this kind of like I don't I'm
Speaker 6: not the smartest one in the class, therefore none of
Speaker 6: this is worth my time, or like I can't stand
Speaker 6: out and I'm not standing out in the smart way.
Speaker 6: I'm not standing out in like the pretty way. I'm
Speaker 6: trying to be loud and funny, but that isn't very
Speaker 6: appealing to anyone anymore. Like it was one of those
Speaker 6: kinds of things where I just didn't I just didn't
Speaker 6: know what I was doing really or how to do anything.
Speaker 6: So I didn't see myself as the kind of person
Speaker 6: who would like flunk or fail or disappoint her parents.
Speaker 6: Same when it started happening, it really did feel like
Speaker 6: I'm sliding backwards down a mountain and I can't stop
Speaker 6: myself and I can't do anything about it, so I
Speaker 6: might as well just stay in bed, drink some beer,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, Like, just dig all the
Speaker 6: way into this failure act.
Speaker 4: If I'm going to fail.
Speaker 2: I definitely got lost in a loser moment for a while.
Speaker 2: After this happened, I was able to pull myself out
Speaker 2: of the downward spiral eventually, but still, more than three
Speaker 2: decades later, the sense of failure is still something I
Speaker 2: catch on myself.
Speaker 5: It's still my reflex.
Speaker 2: To think of myself as a failure, to focus on
Speaker 2: the things I haven't succeeded at instead of the things
Speaker 2: I have Now, thanks to therapy and the wisdom of age,
Speaker 2: I can shake it off when I feel it on me,
Speaker 2: but it gets on me still, and I can't help
Speaker 2: but notice something when I look at ut an impact.
Speaker 2: Even though that moment in that Motown, Philly video is
Speaker 2: all I ever saw them do, I don't think of
Speaker 2: them as failures. What I see is a big launch
Speaker 2: that didn't pan out. What I see is some guys
Speaker 2: who had a plan and it didn't happen, and now
Speaker 2: I just want to know what they're doing. I see
Speaker 2: them as people who might have succeeded in a way
Speaker 2: that I couldn't see, and I want to know what
Speaker 2: that way is. I have a certain amount of curiosity
Speaker 2: and goodwill for them and for their story that I
Speaker 2: can't muster for me or for mine. Maybe that's why
Speaker 2: I'm so obsessed.
Speaker 5: I want to play something for you.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's not America's funniest Thank god, here there they are.
Speaker 5: Yes, sudden Impact, Yes, just yeah. Do you remember this
Speaker 5: video at all?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 6: I do, the Motown Philly video where it's everybody they
Speaker 6: go through and it's like a yeah.
Speaker 5: It's the East Coast family.
Speaker 2: It's perhaps even though they get it to BBC.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know the exact part.
Speaker 5: That's the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this sudden impact. We are we are tracking
Speaker 2: them down. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 6: I mean, if I had to pick, and I love
Speaker 6: first of all, this has always lifelong been my favorite
Speaker 6: thing of picking a favorite guy in a band. Yes,
Speaker 6: and and people fighting about it or discussing it or whatever.
Speaker 4: Where I remember I would do like for Duran.
Speaker 6: Duran Obviously John Taylor the guitarist was the hottest and
Speaker 6: the one I liked, but that's the one everyone picked.
Speaker 6: So I was like, I like Roger the drummer because
Speaker 6: I Dave we are so Nate.
Speaker 3: Absolute so much.
Speaker 5: I yeah, no, absolutely from the jump it was Roger.
Speaker 2: Some people divide the world up into astrological signs I
Speaker 2: do it by who's your favorite member of Duran Durant?
Speaker 2: And I knew Karen was a Roger. All the best
Speaker 2: people are Rogers.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 6: I was just like, sure, it's a given you're gonna
Speaker 6: like John Taylor. He looks like almost like a big girl,
Speaker 6: which everybody loves in rock and roll, Like there's something
Speaker 6: about that that's so soothing to a young girl's soul.
Speaker 6: But what's this Italian doing over here? What's this little
Speaker 6: guy that's that's holding down a rhythm section.
Speaker 5: Who looks a little out of place and uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: He looks like he hates it, which I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's so when he becomes the first to leave,
Speaker 2: it's not surprising at all.
Speaker 4: No, I was proud of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, goes and lives on a farm, and it's just like,
Speaker 2: I don't guy's cocaine is bad.
Speaker 5: Let's not do it anymore.
Speaker 6: Guys, you're doing much and you all you now look
Speaker 6: like middle aged women.
Speaker 4: Okay, so wait, let me look at this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I can really see for sure. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: you're gonna want to look close.
Speaker 6: But did these guys release a video or like, is
Speaker 6: there a reference of any kind of me knowing them
Speaker 6: that would Okay.
Speaker 2: That's the whole thing, is that this is what they did.
Speaker 2: Oh so my understanding is that they have continued to
Speaker 2: make music in some way or another, but I don't
Speaker 2: know where they are. And this was such a massive
Speaker 2: like platform to be given really before you've done anything.
Speaker 5: And then kind of nothing happened, which is fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: And then we get to the points of this show,
Speaker 2: which is the point in the Motown Philly video which
Speaker 2: I never get.
Speaker 5: Tired of looking at.
Speaker 6: I got to pick the guy in the center with
Speaker 6: the bow tie, which makes me think he's somehow the
Speaker 6: lead made something made or he or he is smart
Speaker 6: enough to notice set himself apart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Barber streisandstyle.
Speaker 2: And it is a tuxedo shirt if you look closely, Okay,
Speaker 2: it is a tuxedo shirt. And it's it's definitely it's
Speaker 2: an Italian restaurant waiter.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I was gonna say, did he have to pick
Speaker 6: up a couple tables after this shoot?
Speaker 4: And he had to go straight to his dad's restaurant
Speaker 4: And it's.
Speaker 2: That might have been the take, you know, that might
Speaker 2: have been the only take. You know, they're young they're
Speaker 2: full of promise. It's nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 5: What advice do you have for Sudden Impact about a
Speaker 5: life in the arts.
Speaker 6: You know, don't be afraid of a safety net if
Speaker 6: you have if you have an accounting degree, that's great.
Speaker 6: If you don't put all your eggs in one Sudden
Speaker 6: Impact basket, which hopefully they didn't. But like that was
Speaker 6: the thing that I did, really did learn coming to
Speaker 6: Los Angeles as a stand up comedian, that I better
Speaker 6: get some other skills going very quickly, like learn learn things.
Speaker 6: Have someone teach you how to write sketches, how to
Speaker 6: write scripts, how to be an assistant, something else. But
Speaker 6: like flexibility, I guess resilience, adaptability would be.
Speaker 4: My advice. That's the key.
Speaker 2: So maybe the boys of Sudden Impact did just take
Speaker 2: a more practical path. Maybe they went back to school,
Speaker 2: or maybe they're still grinding.
Speaker 5: It out now. I have no idea.
Speaker 2: But at long last, after three decades, I know someone
Speaker 2: who might well Sudden Impact have existed in my mind
Speaker 2: as a symbol, a moment from a music video, a
Speaker 2: mystery I've never known how to solve for a vet
Speaker 2: Nicole Brown. They're friends co workers East Coast family, siblings.
Speaker 2: You know, a Vet from community, from Drake and Josh,
Speaker 2: from generally being the best thing about whatever she's in.
Speaker 2: But she's also a singer. She was a part of
Speaker 2: Michael Bivens's East Coast Family with Sudden Impact. My friend
Speaker 2: Scott put me in touch with Evet. And what's fascinating
Speaker 2: is that she got her dream life and then got
Speaker 2: a new dream life.
Speaker 5: Because she walked up and asked for it.
Speaker 2: Karen and I were dreaming and folding denim in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one, Vet was manifesting.
Speaker 5: Did you did you just always want to sing?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Gosh, you couldn't tell me I wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: a singer. I oh, I mean I grew up loving
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson and Jackson five, and I.
Speaker 3: Was I'm not that old.
Speaker 1: Ever I found them they were already grown and as
Speaker 1: they were the Jacksons by the time I was born
Speaker 1: and realized what the Jackson five was and how amazing
Speaker 1: it was. And I listened to just a lot of
Speaker 1: old R and B. Like, well, it's old now, but
Speaker 1: it was like eighties R and B when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and I just loved music and I loved
Speaker 1: singing and I thought I was going to be and
Speaker 1: one of my favorite groups was New Addition, and my
Speaker 1: thought was, if I'm going to marry one of them,
Speaker 1: I need to be on tour with them, and so
Speaker 1: the only way I could ensure that is for me
Speaker 1: to sing.
Speaker 3: So that was one of the other.
Speaker 1: Reasons why I wanted to be a singer, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to marry somebody. A New Audition, So there you go,
Speaker 1: there's my secret.
Speaker 2: New Edition were the biggest boy band since the Jackson five.
Speaker 2: They were so big when they fired their manager, he
Speaker 2: went out and started a new boy band just out
Speaker 2: of spite, and that boy band was New Kids on
Speaker 2: the Block.
Speaker 5: More on that.
Speaker 2: Later, but New Addition were huge in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: And like with Duran Duran, you had to have a favorite.
Speaker 2: So now it can be told, like who in New
Speaker 2: Edition I loved?
Speaker 1: I loved Ralph and I loved Michael. Those were my
Speaker 1: two favorites. I love them all, But if I was
Speaker 1: gonna marry someone, who would have been those two?
Speaker 5: Okay, so you had a double bias.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean Ralph was first and Mike
Speaker 1: was second. And Michael knows this, so I'm not telling
Speaker 1: tales out of school. I'm not he's not finding out
Speaker 1: here that he wasn't.
Speaker 3: My favorite.
Speaker 2: New Edition had been put together by music producer Maurice Starr,
Speaker 2: who got them in a recording studio, released their debut album,
Speaker 2: Candy Girl, and when a couple of the singles started
Speaker 2: selling well in Europe, sent them off on a world tour.
Speaker 2: They came back from that tour and Star mailed them
Speaker 2: a check for their year plus of hard work. That
Speaker 2: check was for one dollar and eighty seven cents, not
Speaker 2: five checks. One check for them all to split. I
Speaker 2: know that doesn't sound like a lot, but adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 2: that is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's still some bullshit. So they fired Maurice Starr.
Speaker 2: They moved to MCA Records. They released the album New Edition,
Speaker 2: which went double platinum in the States. They released five
Speaker 2: more hit albums, and then they took a break. In
Speaker 2: the late eighties, the individual New Edition guys began to
Speaker 2: go their separate ways. When Bobby Brown went solo, then
Speaker 2: his replacement Johnny Gil did the same, then lead singer
Speaker 2: Ralph Tresvant. That left the other three Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins,
Speaker 2: and Ronnie de Vaux to form Bell biv Davoux, who
Speaker 2: blew up in nineteen ninety with the album Poison and Listen.
Speaker 2: I tried a lot of things when I was trying
Speaker 2: to break into this business, but there is one thing
Speaker 2: I never thought of doing, and it's just going up
Speaker 2: to my hero and demanding a job. Ivette sang for
Speaker 2: Michael Bivins in a hotel lobby and then he called
Speaker 2: her up and signed her to his label.
Speaker 5: So tell me where you're feeling that in your body
Speaker 5: when you get the call.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, my whole whole everything just
Speaker 1: like lights up at the thought of that. Because one
Speaker 1: thing I didn't tell you about meeting him that Kaihaga
Speaker 1: fall Sheridan was one of those atrium hotels, so like
Speaker 1: the center of the hotel, you can look all the
Speaker 1: way up and see all the floor, so it's like
Speaker 1: a big square and you can look up right. So
Speaker 1: every time I asked Mike to sing for me, I
Speaker 1: asked when he walked in the door, when he was
Speaker 1: getting his key from the front desk, as he went
Speaker 1: to the elevator, he said no to me like three times.
Speaker 1: So he got on the elevator and went up to
Speaker 1: like the six or seventh floor, and as he gets
Speaker 1: off the elevator, I hear singing coming from the six
Speaker 1: or seventh floor and I look up and there's Michael
Speaker 1: Bibbin's letting somebody sing for So I get on.
Speaker 3: The elevator and I punched it.
Speaker 1: I get off the floor and he's just finishing up
Speaker 1: listening to someone that said, you just really messed up
Speaker 1: that I've been asking you, and I really would like
Speaker 1: to sing for.
Speaker 3: You, sir, and let me, sir.
Speaker 1: He was like, he's a kid too, I'm like, sir,
Speaker 1: and so he said, well, just go on and sing then,
Speaker 1: and so I sang angrily.
Speaker 3: He listened angrily.
Speaker 1: He took my number angrily like it was a really
Speaker 1: like contentious, you know situation. But he was like, I
Speaker 1: gotta get her number because she actually can sing, like
Speaker 1: and he was looking for talent.
Speaker 2: What's truly wild about this story is if that's absolute
Speaker 2: certainty about it, not just now, but then it's not
Speaker 2: like she went to apply for a job.
Speaker 5: The job was hers and she knew it. She just
Speaker 5: went to pick it up.
Speaker 3: There's one other thing about it.
Speaker 1: Dave the fall whatever year, I think it was a
Speaker 1: freshman year, sophomore year of college is the same year
Speaker 1: that Michael discovered Boys to Men. And Michael was on
Speaker 1: BT with Boys to Men introducing them to the world.
Speaker 1: And I was in college watching BT and I said
Speaker 1: to my roommate, my friend Nikki, I said, he's going
Speaker 1: to manage me. I'm like, I'm I'm Michael's going to
Speaker 1: manage me.
Speaker 3: And she was like sure. I felt in my heart,
Speaker 3: I'm like, he's going to manage me. Like I just knew.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how it was going to happen. I
Speaker 1: just knew that he was part of my destiny. Like
Speaker 1: whatever I was going to be in entertainment, that Michael
Speaker 1: Bibbins was part of it.
Speaker 3: I can just feel it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can just feel it. And you manifested it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or God knew what was going to happen and
Speaker 1: put it in my mind.
Speaker 5: So you get signed to Motif ten MM, and then
Speaker 5: then what happens.
Speaker 1: We do a video, We do a song, and we
Speaker 1: do a video and that's where we worked with Well,
Speaker 1: they were they were the white guys by the time
Speaker 1: I did the video.
Speaker 3: They started a sudden impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew sudden impact became white guys and now
Speaker 2: I have a thousand more questions for Sudden Impact, Slash White.
Speaker 1: Guys another Bad Creatures, so many great talented people.
Speaker 3: We did our.
Speaker 2: Video Bivin's put a Vette Hayden and another singer into
Speaker 2: a vocal group together.
Speaker 1: We were putting a group called Different and we were
Speaker 1: brought out my my junior year, I think, yeah, the
Speaker 1: summer of my junior year of college, we were brought
Speaker 1: out to California school.
Speaker 5: Yep in school.
Speaker 3: We were brought out to California to record.
Speaker 1: And so I spent the summer of my junior year
Speaker 1: out here and we were like just hanging out around
Speaker 1: the pool and going to parties, like we hadn't recorded yet.
Speaker 1: And it was coming up on the middle of August
Speaker 1: and I said to Mike, I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: got one more year school, like I'm almost almost have
Speaker 1: my degree, like I need to. I hate to go
Speaker 1: back and do this. And so he was like, we'll
Speaker 1: go home, finish your degree. You can come back and
Speaker 1: we'll do it, you know after, And then of course
Speaker 1: by then, you know, the music industry change.
Speaker 2: As the early nineties became the mid nineties, popular music
Speaker 2: got a little dirtier. I love your Smile by Shenise
Speaker 2: became freakd Like Me by Adina Howard mc hammer, whose
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety song you Can't Touch This was so wholesome
Speaker 2: it won a seventy year old guy ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: on America's Funny As People. By nineteen ninety four, was
Speaker 2: doing a song called Pumps on a Bump with a
Speaker 2: video that features him in a speedo. The videos on
Speaker 2: YouTube watch at your own risk. Sexy Jams was just
Speaker 2: not a direction if that wanted to go in. She
Speaker 2: wanted to do uplifting, almost gospel style R and B music,
Speaker 2: So her time as a singer never really came. Are
Speaker 2: you frustrated during this time, like while you're signed?
Speaker 1: And you know, I wasn't frustrated, but I'm someone that
Speaker 1: likes to be efficient, and I just felt, like, you know,
Speaker 1: laying out by the pool is fun, and going to
Speaker 1: these parties is fun, and it's great to be around
Speaker 1: Michael and stuff. But my dream, or my mother's dream,
Speaker 1: even more than mine, was for me to graduate from college.
Speaker 1: And I wanted that for myself. I wanted that for her,
Speaker 1: and I had put in three good years and I
Speaker 1: had scholarships and pill grants, and you know, I really
Speaker 1: worked hard. I had work study all through college, so
Speaker 1: I earned, you know.
Speaker 3: The right to be there.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, though it was fun to be
Speaker 1: out in LA, if we're not recording, I don't need
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 3: I need to be recording.
Speaker 1: So it was the frustration of it not being an
Speaker 1: efficient amount of time spent.
Speaker 5: So at what point did you say music is not happening.
Speaker 1: I've always felt like, you know, you race towards the
Speaker 1: thing that's racing towards you, and so music just didn't
Speaker 1: like me that much.
Speaker 3: It just wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: It thought I was cute, Yeah, but it didn't like
Speaker 1: me like that, right where acting loves me, like acting
Speaker 1: things I'm great. And so when I started auditioning for
Speaker 1: commercials and that started to take off, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: this is what it should be.
Speaker 2: The dream of singing receded into the background while the
Speaker 2: dream of acting took over. But singing never completely disappeared.
Speaker 2: And this is the funny thing, Dave.
Speaker 1: I sing on just about every show I get, every
Speaker 1: show that I've been a series regular on, I've sung
Speaker 1: on every single whie. So the gift is still being
Speaker 1: used and I do a lot of cartoons, a lot
Speaker 1: of kids shows, a lot of cartoons, and I've been
Speaker 1: singing on all of those as well. So it's not
Speaker 1: like it's gone. It just didn't manifest in the way
Speaker 1: that I thought it would.
Speaker 2: If that is at peace with the way her career
Speaker 2: turned out. She didn't get to be a big famous singer,
Speaker 2: but it's not because of anything she did or Michael
Speaker 2: Bivens did. The world was just a different place back then.
Speaker 1: We were very young and naive and didn't understand what
Speaker 1: it was. And I don't know that I don't know
Speaker 1: that any of us back then had the killer instinct
Speaker 1: you would need the killer instinct that performers now are
Speaker 1: like born with. We didn't have a social media. All
Speaker 1: the meeting is that they had to read. They could
Speaker 1: read up on anybody they wanted, They could find out
Speaker 1: about anything, they could put out their own music, like
Speaker 1: the world was wide open for that generation, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like those of us back in the East
Speaker 1: Coast family, we didn't have those those opportunities to figure
Speaker 1: it out. So that's why some of us made it,
Speaker 1: and some of us are still trying to get to
Speaker 1: whatever place we wanted to get to because it's just
Speaker 1: not laid out. There was no blueprint back then, like
Speaker 1: it was a record label and that's it. So many
Speaker 1: ways to make it now. Yeah, if some an impact
Speaker 1: was out right now, they would be they would you know,
Speaker 1: be streaming, they'd be on YouTube, they'd be doing TikTok
Speaker 1: videos like we wouldn't know them.
Speaker 3: They'd be super duper famous as a.
Speaker 5: Boy band right now, right right.
Speaker 1: They just didn't get their shot, right, they get their shot,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, Hayden didn't either. Hayden Heide was such
Speaker 1: a great You need to talk to Hayden.
Speaker 2: If you watch that one for all for one video,
Speaker 2: you remember Hayden. He sticks out like a sore thumb,
Speaker 2: looks like a frat boy on your college rugby team.
Speaker 5: But that voice. How was this guy not a star? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I would love to talk to Hayden. Do you know how?
Speaker 3: I sure know how to get you in contact with Hayden?
Speaker 5: Not sure would be fantasy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that would be No.
Speaker 1: You got to talk to Hayden because he's he's first
Speaker 1: of all, he's that's someone I hope puts out an album.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his voice is he was like a white one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible voice. I mean, all I've heard is is
Speaker 2: you know from No He.
Speaker 1: Had a whole He had a whole album on Motown.
Speaker 1: It never got released. He remade PEG Yes beautiful, Yes,
Speaker 1: amazing version of PEG never came out. It was something
Speaker 1: that something happened with the label. I can't remember. But
Speaker 1: there's a whole album of music that is done. Hayden's
Speaker 1: album not being released is a tragedy. It's a tragedy
Speaker 1: for music that blue eyed soul. He would have really
Speaker 1: yeah he did. That's a loss for all of us.
Speaker 2: We are one step closer to meeting Sudden Impact. If
Speaker 2: that's gonna hook me up with Hayden, another act from
Speaker 2: Michael Bivens' East Coast family who could have been huge.
Speaker 5: I want to know his.
Speaker 2: Story, and not for nothing. He might still be in
Speaker 2: touch with Sudden Impact or White Guy's or whatever their
Speaker 2: name is. Now we'll talk to him, and we'll take
Speaker 2: a deep dive into the pop landscape of nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one and how one procedural change in the way charts
Speaker 2: were compiled changed what the entire world listened to with
Speaker 2: pop chart columnist.
Speaker 5: Chris malanfe That's Next Time on.
Speaker 2: Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project. This has
Speaker 2: been an exactly Right production written by Me Dave Hormelson,
Speaker 2: produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded, mixed and sound designed
Speaker 2: by Andrew Epen. Additional engineering and assembly by Annalise Nelson.
Speaker 2: Music by Ben Wise, artwork by Garrett Ross. Executive produced
Speaker 2: by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark and Danielle Kramer. Follow
Speaker 2: the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at exactly right
Speaker 2: and follow me at Dave Holmes. For more information, go
Speaker 2: to Exactlyrightmedia dot com. Binge the show ad free on
Speaker 2: Stitcher Premium for a free month. Head to Stitcherpremium dot
Speaker 2: com slash Impact and enter promo code Impact when you
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