Episode 2 - Michael Ramos (Mellencamp/Patty Griffin) & Sandy Ficca (Firefall)

Welcome to episode 2 of Soft Pass!  This month we talk to Sandy Ficca, the longtime drummer for Firefall, and Michael Ramos, who has played with such greats as; John Mellencamp, Patty Griffin, Paul Simon, Kris Kristofferson, BoDeans, Charlie Sexton, Robert Plant, David Grissom, The Rembrandts, Violent Femmes, Los Lonely Boys, Ani DiFranco and many more.  We talk about life on the road, and what we’ve found on VHS tapes left on the bus. Michael talks about his time working with Robert Plant, and Sandy tells us about the time he played with Jaco and some stories surrounding him.  Michael relates a classic story about something John Mellencamp made him do on tour, as well as his time recording at Paisley Park.  Sandy counters with his Ginger Baker experience and talks about Slim Jim Phantom and Skunk Baxter at a classic rock fest in Mexico.  Sit back and hear some great stories from a couple of road scholars this month on Soft Pass!

Transcript

spk_1:   0:01
a soft pass. Episode two. Welcome to Soft Fast, hosted by John Michaels, a 30 year veteran tour manager and sound engineer for some of entertainment's most well known touring acts. Sit down with songwriters, musicians, producers, managers, lawyers and touring professionals. Talk about what really goes on behind the scenes in the studios, offices and on the road in the entertainment industry. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Soft Pass. My Name is John Michaels. And Joining Me on the show this month are two good friends of mine who don't know each other. I've toured with both of these guys individually and there from two slightly different factions of the music industry. My first guest was the board Up production specialists for the Man Cow in the Morning show,

spk_0:   0:54
as well as other talk shows for the Central Point Oregon Talk Radio Network. He also owned a drum shop in Boulder, Colorado, from 93 to 2005. Appropriately called Sandy's Drum Shop and Boast Toe have sold drums to every member of Los Lobos, except for their drummer going back to 1970 71. He played drums for the Drifters with such hits as Fools Fall in Love, This Magic Moment and Under the Boardwalk, the movie Hollywood Nights, You remember that it was the do op number where they saying it on the corner. There. He's also played with CBS recording artist Thelma Jones. Of course, many of you will know him as the guy who eventually took the place of Michael Clarke as the full time drummer for the band Fire Fall, and he's been with them for the last 30 years, playing shows with everyone from America to Ah, Ginger Baker, which will hear about in a bit all the way from Medford, Oregon. I'd like to welcome my good friend Sandy Thicket to the show.

spk_1:   1:46
Thanks, John. Thanks for having me

spk_0:   1:48
and my other Guest is a touring musician of 30 plus years. He's from Austin, Texas, where he grew up with the sounds of rock and pop blended along with the traditional cumbia music from down there, and from that upbringing he was attracted to putting a contemporary mark on those traditional sounds, which he does with his own band, Sharonda Cakewalk. But he's probably best known in the inner circle for his work behind the scenes and playing on stage is all across the world. During his tenure as a hired gun, he has worked with such greats as John Mellencamp, Patty Griffin, Paul Simon, Kris Kristofferson, Charlie Sexton, Robert Plant, David Grissom, The Rembrandts, Violent Fem, Slow, Slow Only Boys Ani DiFranco. I don't know that there's too many people he hasn't worked with. The list just goes on and on. He got a Latin Grammy from his work with Lila Downs, and he's currently in a and R person and producer with Lucky Hound Music down there, as well as a member of the +484 Artists Management Team. Please welcome very talented musician, producer, engineer, consultant and all around fun guy from his hometown of Austin, Texas. My good friend Michael Ramos.

spk_2:   2:51
Hey, John, how you doing? Everybody.

spk_0:   2:53
Thanks for being here, guys. I just want to kick it off real quick with something that we're all familiar with. Travel. It's a big part of what we do in this business. It has a huge effect on a lot of things, the different things that you have to try to plan for unexpected things. It has a huge effect on things like health and nutrition and family, even one's mental state. As you get older family and personal life plate mawr into what you do now, we usually go out for extended weekends instead of three or four weeks at a time on a bus. But we've all been through the bus way of life. I just like to talk about some things related to travel in the business and how we all prepare for things when hitting the road. I'd also like to discuss the advent of technology and how it's changed the particular landscape of travel as it's changed all kinds of things. In this business, tour managers used to carry briefcases full of contracts and a book full of phone numbers in the bag of quarters or calling cards, and they'd be on the phone at every truck stop for a long as you know we're at the truck stop.

spk_1:   3:50
What do you

spk_0:   3:50
guys remember about traveling back in the I guess Sandy, for you'd be back in the seventies and ah, Michael in the eighties versus today when you plan to go out for a weekend. These days it's much different than back in the day. What do you remember about those times

spk_2:   4:05
when I first started touring? I laugh because I think back now. And it was before the Internet before satellite television on buses, and you'd literally have a television set installed there in the wall. And, you know, you got the local stations if he were close enough and your antenna would pick it up and if you wanted to watch movies, you know, you had to have, like, a the HR, whatever.

spk_0:   4:27
They had a VHS tapes in all of the buses. I remember from back in the day,

spk_2:   4:32
right, there was a drawer that was there. You have all the tapes in there and stuff one time that comes to mind my very first major tour that I did. We have this box of tapes that somebody had let one of the guys in the band and we started just watching him. There was one that was entitled home Take on. We start watching it. And it was like a movie, like a regular television show being taped and all of a sudden it clicked to this couple getting after it and are crazy manner of positions and different tricks. And we were just and I eventually had to leave the room. Does it? Started getting pretty rough at one point. We were like the soundtrack that was playing all of a sudden. You know, D J brakes in? Yes, you're listening to. Probably gives a call, right? Oh, my gosh. So we narrowed it down. Who? The couple? Waas.

spk_0:   5:18
Oh, no way.

spk_2:   5:19
Yeah. So, uh, you know, be careful. What?

spk_0:   5:22
You Sandy, what were some of your favorites in the VHS drawer on the bus? Do you remember?

spk_1:   5:29
I actually never really did the bus thing. Get out of here. I came in to fire fall right after the bus thing was over. We were flying everywhere. I heard lots of stories. I

spk_0:   5:44
have to imagine that David Muse must have been a handful

spk_1:   5:47
of the bus. Um, I can't remember whose bust this was on, but whatever that band was had a closed circuit TV with cameras in the bedroom. And so all the crew would be like playing cards and stuff. And as soon as the guy, whichever musician or whoever took somebody into the bedroom, he knew it was. But she didn't like you. Said Michael, that clicked over to the live action and they would, you know, move. Ah, the victim into whatever position they thought was would be the most enjoyable. So that's pretty standard, I think on buses,

spk_0:   6:34
my mind, how times have

spk_2:   6:36
changed. They have.

spk_1:   6:37
I went from basically sleeping on top of amplifiers in a van and traveling around in a big 18 foot truck, two clubs straight into flying.

spk_0:   6:50
Oh, you miss the most magical part of touring said.

spk_1:   6:53
I know, I know. I mean. And when I was with the Drifters, I had to drive the Cadillac because their bus had broken down.

spk_0:   7:02
Wait, a bit of weight of it. You guys toured in a caddy with the drifters.

spk_1:   7:07
What the singers, the singer the singers did. I was the designated driver for that, and occasionally we had vans and rental cars and stuff. But for the most part, I drove around a I don't even know what year was it? Probably 69 or 70 Cadillac Eldorado. So it was the sporty one.

spk_0:   7:29
Wow, man, that's such a It's such a difference. I mean, the bus years, those air kind of like the college years, you know? Oh, yeah,

spk_2:   7:36
in that case. I was in college for a long time, huh? Are you try to keep up with how many days? Months I used to add it up and I just gave up after a while. I'm like, Why? What? It's ridiculous. I mean, things have really changed cause I remember when the Internet was first available on buses and that was dangerous for me because I get done with the gig. I'd be into my second glass of wine and I go on eBay and I'd start on. And then the next morning I'd wake up. I'd open at my computer and say, Congratulations. You won, You know, cut that out

spk_0:   8:10
drunk. E big, pretty dangerous.

spk_2:   8:12
Over back

spk_0:   8:13
in the day, for those of you who have never done a bus tour at each venue, you request a certain amount of hospitality, and a lot of that hospitality goes to stock the bus. So that's how you kind of eat and stay healthy on the road. People who need to eat certain things. We request those things, and then those air transferred into the bus. Nowadays, it's a much different world. It's a fast food haven out there, and you're in rental cars or transportation vehicles in your at hotels that have nothing besides McDonalds and Denny's next to him. So what do you guys do on the road to kind of stay healthy and or at least not eat fast food all the time? How did we got any tricks?

spk_1:   8:51
I haven't mastered that yet.

spk_2:   8:54
I basically if they're certain staples that I know, like if I need to sack I haven't eaten meat in 35 years, but I do eat fish. Fortunately, I've still been able to be on tours where they would have catering, and we would kind of tell them if certain people had certain dietary restrictions and stuff. But what I do now, if I'm just flying or if I know I'm gonna be traveling all day with no access Teoh food of my choice, I basically travel with, you know, nuts and kind bars and the types of things that I know can hold me over until I can have a real meal being on the road. The food has always been a challenge.

spk_1:   9:29
See, I was a vegetarian for 20 years. 20 years ago. I just gave up on it and said I'm just going to eat whatever the hell I want.

spk_0:   9:38
Sandy's always telling me not to eat any soybeans or corn. So what's the deal with that Sandy?

spk_1:   9:45
Well, that's kind of a newer thing, actually. I I learned a lot about that when I was working on Man Cal Show because they were talking about the soy thing, how it makes men get man boobs, and it's a really bad deal. For a lot of vegetarians. Soy was like the center of all things wonderful.

spk_0:   10:06
Yeah, it's like it's the staple.

spk_1:   10:08
Yeah, well, corn, with all the GMO stuff, I do know that corn is one of the worst things for diabetics, which I am one. That's the main reason I try to stay away from corn and most carbs. Although I'm I'm such a weak person,

spk_0:   10:25
it's impossible. It's near impossible on the road to stay with. But speaking of good food, um, we've all traveled around the US many, many times, any standout restaurants that you can think of that you really, really, just every time you're in that town, you have to go there. I can think of one in Salt Lake City that Sandy is going to say?

spk_1:   10:44
Yep, exactly. The Red Iguana in Salt Lake. There's pictures of all bands that have gone through there is kind of, like legendary amongst musicians.

spk_0:   10:55
I enjoyed it. Sandy left. Is moly there? Twice? Already got more way to go and then he's left it on the table twice. Two separate incidents.

spk_1:   11:04
If finally it finally made it home though.

spk_0:   11:07
Michael, you got the standouts. You You often have to go and hit every time you're in that town

spk_2:   11:12
I used to, and nowadays I found myself falling into these traps. If I go to a city, especially if it was the city I love, you know, I fall into the trap of just going to the same places. So I started trying toe experiment and just see what I would stumble upon. Nothing comes to mind right now. Chicago has great food. New York City Obviously San Francisco. You know, when I go to those talents, I know I'm I'm gonna find something good.

spk_0:   11:36
We would always try to go to the Billy goat if we're in Chicago just for the nostalgia factor. You what's like the worst airport travel experience that you've ever had? Ah, Thank you. Pick. I had one recently with Sandy, where we cut to the airport and he didn't have his driver's license. Oh, yeah, and had to continue on with the whole weekend without, you know, if not the worst one of the top three we've all had. Um I'm just curious. What years are

spk_1:   12:04
sanfran freakin? Cisco is the worst airport on the planet, period. Was that well, there's two runways. It's one of the busiest airports in the world. They are consistently at the top of the list of airports with the worst delays. For a while, they're flying out of Medford. I almost always had to go through San Francisco, and it seemed like every time something happened every flight I would post just this saga of what was going on in San Francisco. And I've had people writing me going. Hey, man, we haven't heard anything about San Francisco. What's up? Well, certainly

spk_0:   12:47
there must be one that just stands out, though Where you just Nothing went right or they lost your luggage or all the merch got lost. And you didn't get back till the end of the run or you know something?

spk_1:   12:57
Yeah, there's so many of those. I tell you, one of the most recent things that happened again it was in San Francisco we had just played in Hawaii were flying back home. We'd lay in San Francisco and the pilot comes on the air and says, We can't let anybody off the plane until all the baggage is unloaded. And we're thinking what he said. They couldn't let any passengers off until they unloaded all the bags or the nose of the plane would tip on. And I was like, What? There was a point where I was under the assumption that there was nothing new that could happen to me in San Francisco. That Hatton You're kidding me. And so on another flight, I was sitting beside a pilot. It's someone one of the new word. I think it's to 7 37 9 hundreds. I told him what happened and he goes, That's a really, really thing. There was something about the way they designed it, that

spk_0:   13:59
that sounds like a total bullshit call.

spk_1:   14:01
I know it hasn't happened to me since On that same plane, it only was that one flight. I don't know what the deal was but that, to me was like the ultimate airport.

spk_0:   14:15
What about you, Michael? Do you get stuck in instead? Bull for three days

spk_2:   14:18
have, well, close. I mean, I've had some really nightmarish ones one a year ago with my family on the way back from a gig that I had flown them, too. And I don't think they're gonna be wanting to go to any more gigs after that one. But I think the worst flight of all time was back in either 90 or 91. The bow dean's kind of back In the heyday, we I went to go do a tour of Australia. We've been trying to talk our manager into letting us go because we've been getting invited. We finally decided to go. And our manager at the time, you know, it was a total pencil pusher bargain hunter. So the flight out it was like Milwaukee to Denver. Denver toe L. A L A. To Honolulu. Honolulu Teoh.

spk_0:   15:04
Like the star of David Flavor

spk_2:   15:06
anymore. I think it's like spelling his name across the globe with our rattle. So we were there for 30 days. We had 28 shows in 30 days, so We had two days off one of those days being the day we landed, so we knew it was gonna be rough. And the manager said, We have a layover in Honolulu. On the way back, I went ahead and bought tickets. I bought hotel rooms and everything for everybody on the way back. So I bought two packages. You could either stay for five days or for two days. For those of you that want to get back. Well, I wanted to get back. I had been after I was exhausted. I was really tired of being around the guys in the band. If I opt for the two days and I slept the entire first day, I mean straight through. I had jet lag. So the next day I was excited, went to the airport, and Kurt and I, Kurt Newman. He and I were the two that were headed back early, and we got on the plane. So we're sitting on the tarmac and we're waiting and they're like, OK, we have a situation here. It turns out the space shuttle was flying overhead. When that happens, there's like a 100 mile radius that they don't let planes go up in the air. I'm telling if the space shuttle is down there at 30,000 feet, there's a problem. And if there's a plane, No. So they hold us on the tarmac and we took off, like, two hours late. No problem. We had a five hour layover in Denver anyways, no big deal. That was our connection back to Milwaukee. But we've been to Denver and I'm like, Okay, we'll be on the ground in 30 minutes and I'm like, That's great, you know? And then we start circling and 20 minutes go by 30 minutes, go by an hour, goes by, turns out your weather And so they have all these planes, like hundreds of planes in a holding pattern. We were circling so long we started running low on fuel. So they had to fly us to Salt Lake City and we landed on the tarmac. They brought out all these fire trucks and they're spraying that plane with phone while they reload. So we finally get back to Denver, we get to Denver. There are thousands of people in the airport scrambling. Kurt and I had a plan is we're getting off the plane he ran. I don't I guess they still have him. You know, those banks and banks of phones, right? You know, for the Hotel Rwanda cars. So he immediately just started picking up one phone after the other to see, because once we got off the plane, it was sort of we got to get a hotel because there's nothing that's going out tonight. So we went and we found a room someplace, and the person at the desk there said, Okay, just go out to the front and you'll see the shuttle. Vance. Well, we went out onto the pickup spot again. Thousands and thousands of people and one of these shuttle buses came by. Remember those footage from like, Vietnam? And everybody's trying to get on the last helicopter out, right? I'm not kidding. It was just like that and you'd get on and then you'd literally have to push people out that we're still trying to get in trying to hold the door open. We finally got to the hotel. It was The weather was just so awful. It was depressing. And we were in some fleabag hotel, went back to the airport the next morning got on a flight. So we got home, like, 36 hours later. And, you know, and it was really sad because, you know, there was nobody there. Like we all had family that was supposed to meet us and all that stuff we get to the airport, and it was so anti climactic.

spk_0:   18:23
Uh, I had one. Probably about it would have been a little later in the nineties, maybe mid nineties, where we were coming home from a gig in Missoula, Montana, where I was with Survivor at the time. This is back when I don't If you guys remember, there is a airline called Northwest Airlines for a while. Yeah,

spk_2:   18:42
I remember him.

spk_0:   18:43
I was a Northwest Airlines guy, and so was Jimi Jamison, whose no longer with us. Great guy, by the way. Yeah, very kuka Jimmy and I flew together on Northwest of the rest of the band were on American Frankie and all those guys were at the airport. Frankie's group takes off in their American flight. Me and Jimmy had another hour, hour and 1/2 to wait. So we're hanging. I think the guy from Kansas showed up, and for some reason and we were talking with him. But anyway, we got on our flight. The plane takes off upon takeoff. You just heard this loud bang. And then it just smelled like, Ah, oil or something, You know, like a burnt oil smell kind of thing. In the whole cabin, there was no smart. Yeah, there's no smoke or anything, but it was just a burnt smell way. We get up in the air and the plane starts circling and the pilot comes. Isis, folks, you may have noticed. Ah, slight noise. When we took off, we blew a tire upon takeoff. We're just gonna circle around here a little bit till we get in further instructions. And then So we sore circling for, like, 10 15 minutes. The pilot comes on. These folks, you may have noticed We've been circling around for a while. We're just trying to burn off a little fuel, you know, not panic in the cabin. But the people are kind of like, OK, we circle around a little bit more, and then we pull out and start to come back for an approach. And the captain, as he's pulling out to make the round to get to the approach. He says, folks, we come in for the landing, you may notice some emergency vehicles on the runway, and this holds feel about, you know, all these emergency vehicles, fire truck, ambulance. And he says, I I assure you, this is just a standard procedure is no, no need to worry. And ah, so eat. Long story short. He brings a thing in for a landing. Everybody claps. We get off the plane about 30 minutes later to two guys wearing the you know, the

spk_2:   20:32
had that the

spk_0:   20:33
Yeah, that has that. Suits. Like they come walking into the gate area just outside the door holding this engine from the airplane. And the captain gets on the mike and he announces to everybody in the gate that what it actually happened was the tire blew. Yeah, but then the shrapnel from the tire flew back into the engine and lift the engine on fire. Great. So, yeah, you know, Jimmy and I were commenting at afterward. The headlines would have been just very ironic, you know, lead singer of Survivor Dyson Plane crash. But luckily that didn't happen. That we have had a interesting night in Missoula, Montana, with everybody from the Warped Tour, which is a whole other story in itself.

spk_2:   21:14
I don't know why they call the Why did they call it the terminal? I don't I wish they would change the terminology.

spk_0:   21:22
Did you notice in the Milwaukee airport? I don't if you have any. You guys have been through there recently, but they actually have a sign up by the TSA. That's is a reek, um, Bobby elation area.

spk_1:   21:32
Right. I did see that one time fire fall was flying from Florida to Houston for a gig. There was a hurricane happening. We knew that we weren't going to play the gig, but we had to go anyway to get paid. Oh, my gosh. This fight. Everybody on the plane was throwing up. The turbulence was so bad. And we were the last plane toe land. They closed the airport right after we landed. And we told Jack, never ever again. If we have to not get paid, we're not gonna fly through a hurricane ever again.

spk_0:   22:10
Did any of the band guys blow chunks?

spk_1:   22:12
I'm sure somebody did. I didn't and I don't know how, but our keyboard player at the time was sitting on the window and I'm on the isle and Danny was a really, really timid flyer. He was white knuckling the whole way, and I just I was like, Oh, my God, This guy behind him had his head on Danny seat on the back of Danny seat just going crazy with puke bag,

spk_0:   22:41
the vomit memoriam.

spk_1:   22:42
Then the guy behind me started doing the same thing, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh! And it was like, you know, a chain reaction. I think this lady across the aisle was trying to keep her son from throwing up, and she's like, just pretend like here on a roller. Crews are, she said. So finally we landed. We goto Houston were in the hotel and we're playing poker. And they announced that the airport was reopened and a couple of the guys went back to the airport, got on the plane and flew to Denver. And I was like, I am not going anywhere again tonight

spk_0:   23:25
where they went right back. That's crazy.

spk_1:   23:27
Yep, they went right back.

spk_2:   23:29
I was on a private jet with one of my former employers and we were on a tour and

spk_0:   23:34
I was just gonna ask you about that. Well, um, sometimes you're lucky enough to ride with the boss. I hear

spk_2:   23:41
right. Well, you know, I'm not gonna mention any names, but we're flying through this storm, and I mean, you think it's bad being on a big plane that's being tossed around. Try being on small jet being tossed around earlier. And this particular former boss of mine had a real fear of flying. They would have to, you know, medicate him a little bit, you know? Just calm him down before he would get on a flight on a clear day. So you can only imagine what he was like. And so we're flying around. He kept screaming at the pilot to slow down. If we slow down stall recruit. Yeah, but that was pretty awful.

spk_0:   24:23
You know, I worked for a ban where I had to bosses. We took a private jet to to go do 1/4 of July gig. One time I was sitting in the front of the plate with one of the bosses, and I had the other boss kind of back in the row behind me and apparently one of the two bosses was ultimately afraid of flying in small aircrafts. He's definitely afraid of something going on. We're meanwhile, me and the other boss are having conversations with the pilot. Well, the flights going on with the one boss keeps trying to get my attention. Flagged me down, tell finally just stands up. Because when you stop talking to the pilot crazy situation, Michael, I think you know, have dogged about, but

spk_2:   25:01
oh, absolutely

spk_0:   25:04
strange situations and airports. I have had band members specifically talk about bombs in the TSA area. What

spk_1:   25:11
are they gonna do to

spk_0:   25:12
be talked about a Bob? Who cares? Bom bom? Yeah,

spk_1:   25:15
It's just like what? Well, only musicians, man. Yeah, I was just going to say all of this talk leads me to the new standard quote. In this business where we play for free, we get paid to travel.

spk_2:   25:30
I've been saying that for two decades.

spk_1:   25:33
You're just always ahead of the curve.

spk_2:   25:35
No, not necessarily. I've just got jaded way before anybody

spk_0:   25:38
else. I want to start getting in some of your guys accolades, cause I know there's some probably some cool stories in there. Michael, what did you do with Ani DiFranco?

spk_2:   25:47
um, you know, it was really interesting. I got a call from my buddy, Mark Holman, who has the Congress House, and he's had that studio up and running for over 35 years. And he called it, said, Hey, can you come in and place and be three on this project? I make sure, um, who is it? He said, I need to Franco, you know, this is sort of she wasn't a new artists at that point. She hadn't been around really long. She's making these serious waves and stuff. So I went and I played on these songs with her and she was really nice, really sweet. And I really enjoyed working with her and she didn't have a keyboard player. And after that session, I guess she really liked the way the B three sound. And she hired a keyboard player, which I thought was great. The funny thing that came out of that I was on tour with Patty Griffin. We were touring with the Dixie Chicks and we were somewhere in Florida, outside of Miami or something, and I have been trying to convince her to let me bring my B three on the road and she was like, No, you know, it's just too big, Don't want to bring in. And

spk_0:   26:43
I agree with her, by the way, from a crew perspective. Uh,

spk_2:   26:46
yeah, I'm sure sometimes in our days, often we go shopping together. We go eat or whatever, you know, just to do something to get away from the tour. And we were in this clothing store, were listening to this, you know, some stuff. And there was this track that came on. It was like this be three part on It was way up in the mix and I was like, Listen how good that sounds. I like this song and I went up to the clerk. I said I was playing and she handed me the CD and it was Honey that Franco like, Oh wow, that was making I don't know what that was about memory or my memory retention.

spk_0:   27:23
It's funny how that synchronicity happens. Just the other day I was in Denny's and Poco came on, and then I'll be in Home Depot and I'll hear pure Prairie League or fire false dogs playing out, you know, in the auto parts store, like Jock often says I mean, does that happen to you guys to wear you like you walk into place and then you just hear you like, Oh, hey, that's me.

spk_2:   27:42
That's happen to me a few times and and, you know, I I stand there and I tap my foot. I'm looking around to see if anybody if anybody notices the song, you know they're picking out vegetables and stuff. The cool thing about the Austin Airport. Austin Bergstrom They play all Austin artists. If you go in the airport, if you're sitting in there long enough, sooner or later you'll hear something that you played on always that. That was very cool.

spk_0:   28:06
I hear Schneider a lot in there. Bob Schneider?

spk_2:   28:09
Yeah.

spk_0:   28:09
Sandy, when you were with the Drifters, did you do any recording with them? Or was it just strictly touring?

spk_1:   28:14
I never did any recording, but one time we had a couple days off. Bill Pinkney, who was the only original drifter, took me to his house in Atlanta, and he played me some recordings of the Drifters with Sam Cooke on vocals.

spk_0:   28:33
Oh, wow.

spk_1:   28:34
I was just like, Oh my God, because I guess there was a point where Sam was gonna be in the Drifters. It didn't happen. That was quite a highlight. And I wished I had those recordings.

spk_0:   28:47
Do you know if they ever saw the light of day, or were they just demos that he had or

spk_1:   28:51
I have no idea. They were little reel to reel. Just small. Real, real.

spk_0:   28:56
Real. The real man. Do you guys remember recording and reel to reel in the studios? Oh, my goodness.

spk_1:   29:01
Yep. I remember

spk_2:   29:03
Ideo area at my two inch tape machine right now.

spk_0:   29:07
What do you have in your place of Studer, or what do you use?

spk_2:   29:09
I wish I had a studio. It's an emcee. I 24 track. Okay, That used to belong to my dear friend, George Reef, who passed away a couple of years ago. I bought it from him. There is something to be said, and I don't care what anybody says, You know, I know that there's all this technology now, and it sounds great, but to hear drums and low end on two inch tape, that is a sound that just has not been replicated yet. I'm sorry. I'm really miss it. I didn't really notice it until the first time. You know, after years and years of working in pro tools and I actually did a session that was on tape and I heard the low end and I just could not believe it. I was like, Oh, my gosh, Now I know what everybody has been talking about and it's true, you know, And I do miss it and Mr Smell of the Day I missed it for the tape re lining of the You know, I miss all that stuff

spk_0:   29:58
I didn't miss when we had the hall, a bunch of two inch tape. Now from Danos shop over to the other storage space. That stuff's have the

spk_2:   30:06
man heavy ISS

spk_0:   30:08
heavy stuff. Everything is digital, but I still know a few places that go down toe. They do the two inch and then they bump it over. Some people are just purists like that. It's a difference on tape. Saturation is way different than anything you can make. You can fake it. There's plug ins and stuff, but

spk_2:   30:24
the universal audio plug ins doing a decent job, but it's still not the same.

spk_0:   30:28
It's still developing, but pretty soon it's just you know when you can't tell the difference anymore than I guess we're in a new era.

spk_2:   30:37
I just 40 ironic that all the things that supposedly like Digital was gonna get through this, and it was gonna make this perfect. I was gonna give her to this. And now there's software to bring all that stuff back.

spk_0:   30:47
Right? And it also came with a whole new set up clocking problems and digital Nyquist distortion and all kinds of other stuff.

spk_2:   30:56
It exposed a lot of people who weren't really as good as we thought you were, because it'll is very unforgiving, you know,

spk_0:   31:05
in the same respect. You can go in and perform surgery on it, and no one would ever know that. Ah, absolute, you know, screwed up. But you guys have recorded over the years or ever least bed into some pretty awesome studios. Um, I know Sandy's Sandy's been to Abbey Road recently down here to visit over at fame. Michael, did you record it up at Paisley Park for that record up there?

spk_2:   31:28
Yes, I did. At the time. They said that we held the record for the longest time we were there. We were there often on for six months. We started in July, a late June July. And then we were there all the way till the end of the year, going back, doing overdubs and doing stuff. But it was a wonderful place. I mean, the R E m was there at the same time

spk_0:   31:47
you guys were working with David Z.

spk_2:   31:49
Yes, Bobby's even drummer and David Z was the producer brother. It was a very creative place, you know? And we were there for a while. If any of our friends would be coming through Minneapolis some, you know, on tour, we'd go here and play, and we tell him we're playing at Paisley Park late at night. We take him back to Paisley Park and walking through there. And it was cool because you could go down into the basement. Prince had this big, giant, paisley colored limo down there, and actually, the motorcycle that he rode in Purple Rain was down there and I used to sneak down there and just sit on it. It was just like in his garage, you know, you just walk down there and, um,

spk_0:   32:25
did you ever see the little purple guy?

spk_2:   32:27
Well, you were there. I caught a glimpse of him one time, but, you know, they sort of shuttled him in and shut him right back out. You know, he eventually ended up living there, but he didn't live there yet. Back at this time, you know, there were, like, some windows coming out of that apartment looking down into the lobby and stuff. And, you know, I always wondered if he was like watching us, but I didn't given time. They were just famous people coming in and out of there all the time.

spk_0:   32:51
Have you ever been playing a show? And you just unexpectedly you look to the side of the stage and unexpectedly, there is someone there that you're you know, you're just like what? Why is Lyle Lovett fucking side stage right now?

spk_1:   33:03
When we did a three day classic rock festival down in Mexico were own stage. I look over to the left and slim Jim Phantom from the stray cats was sitting there and sitting next to him was Skunk Baxter.

spk_0:   33:18
Oh,

spk_1:   33:18
Mark. Our bass player, Mark Andes, went over. Grab Skunk pulled him up on stage when we played Mexico and said your plan skunk was sitting right in front of me. I mean, he was literally his amp was two feet in front of my drum kit. It was just amazing. And then after that show, Kenny Aronoff, who was the house drummer, he comes up to me and he says, Hey, man, I see a lot of Kenny Aronoff in you. You know, it was like I was like, Hey, thanks, man. I told a couple other people and they said, What an asshole. No, but it's not you that's

spk_0:   34:00
totally suffered. Kati would do right? Michael.

spk_2:   34:02
It is. And I don't think he meant anything.

spk_1:   34:05
So I took it as a total compliment.

spk_0:   34:07
He's the nicest guy in rocket role. I swear when you played with melon camp, that was after Kenny's time, right?

spk_2:   34:12
No, I actually played with Kenny a lot. Oh, you did? Yeah, because that's how I met him. My very first record with the BoDeans. I just moved up to Milwaukee. He was the drummer on the record,

spk_0:   34:22
right? I remember that.

spk_2:   34:23
You know, the way that I got the melon camp gig, unfortunately was because their keyboard player, I guess he had heart disease his whole life and either never told anybody or didn't know. But he had a heart attack and passed away. And when the time came like he passed away and a couple of the guys in the band recommended me. It's probably due to Kenny and David Grissom and I got in the van, you know? But yeah, kid, he's a great guy. I haven't seen him. Probably. Gosh, it's been a decade, maybe, but I love that guy.

spk_0:   34:52
The last time I saw Katie, I won't forget because it was on my birthday. I am me and Ethan went down and did, ah, drum clinic gig for him somewhere in Indiana. But I've spoken to a few times. He's the guy that taught. Be that when you go into a hotel room, you should immediately get a bottle of alcohol out of your bag and start wiping down the phone. The remote.

spk_2:   35:12
Oh, absolutely, basically, is that

spk_0:   35:14
just cleaning the whole entire room? I saw him do that one time word to the wise. You know, if you're looking to not be sick on tour or if you're a germophobe, those ah promotes and the phones and

spk_2:   35:26
and yeah, they said that the cleanest door handle in the hotel room is the one on the inside of the bathroom because the maids generally clean that. I just read this. Any time I see stuff like that, of course I'm just glued to it. But it was this article about the dirtiest things in hotel rooms and what to look out for. And the remote is the single most germ infested apparatus. And

spk_0:   35:47
people like us should not read stuff like

spk_2:   35:49
that. Looking at a bad car wreck, you have to look, when you were

spk_0:   35:54
playing with Patty, did her husband ever show up just unexpectedly? You're like, Oh, hey, there's Ah, Robert Plant.

spk_2:   35:59
By the time they got married, I wasn't really working with Patti that much. But I did end up being hired by Robert to put a A group together to do some shows with Patty with he and Patty. So yeah, I didn't get toe meet him. And he was a really, really nice guy. Really funny.

spk_0:   36:16
Just expound a little bit on his personality, cause I hear he's just a really kind of a real cut up to hang out with. You know,

spk_2:   36:23
I wouldn't say he is a cut up, but he definitely has. He has his moments and, you know, I think he realizes, Yes, I'm a rock n roll icon. Yes, I'm getting older. And he was just saying to me one time I'm not even gonna try to fake British accent. But he was basically saying, You know, Michael, people come and they come to the shows because they wonder if the old guy still has it. So if I look out in the crowd, I can I can see what they're thinking. He goes to solve, given one of these, you know, he puts his foot up on the monitor, the floor wedge, and he's up there with microphone and he goes, and then I give him one of these. And then he demonstrated, you know, his his microphone thing where he swings it out into the crowd and he pulls it back from the cable. But then he said, You know that I give him one of the, uh, you know, we'll start getting hurt on, you know, So we'd be rehearsing the music and and he would put that ending at the end of the song would be holding out the note and he'd be like, uh, which, you know, it was always great. I think that he did that the very first day, and it totally broke the ice with portion. We were all playing and we were all comfortable. But at the same time, you know, you just sort of when your first working with somebody you don't know what the protocol is gonna be. And that was a real ice breaker that day. I remember

spk_0:   37:32
There's always a little bit attention, especially when you're playing with someone that you haven't played with her don't have a history with you. Look for those moments to break the ice. The sandy You had to do a lot of that with some of these package shows. I remember a show where all of a sudden John Jorgensen was up on stage playing. And then how do you acclamation to that? You know,

spk_1:   37:50
I remember reading on article in modern drummer years and years and years ago, and it was called staying away from the monsters or don't let the monsters get you. And it was talking about just that If somebody got on stage or you saw somebody that you just loved how you deal with it and not let it be a monster that messes you up. You should just play your gig. Don't worry about impressing them. Don't worry about anything. The only time that I remember the monster really getting me was we were opening for the beach boys and somebody told me that Ringo was going to show up. I lost it.

spk_0:   38:34
What was the anxiety, like building up to the downbeat for that show?

spk_1:   38:39
It was incredible. I mean, it was Ringo. To this day, he is the only person in the music business that I would truly love to meet and just haven't had the chance. Right before we went on, they told us that he wasn't going to make it. So I was like, equally bummed and joyful Stain that pressure and right? Exactly. For the most part, we meet so many people and we do so many gigs with all these really great players and great stars. You just get to the boy is Hey, this is part of our brotherhood.

spk_2:   39:16
I was doing a gig in Spain. What's with this guy, Mason Ruffner? We got brought over there to play at this festival and it was the band a while and Dr John and us

spk_0:   39:27
Oh, wow.

spk_2:   39:28
My keyboards was facing in and just to my left was the back of the stage. So about three feet from my keyboards was this curtain and I'm sitting there playing. And I was in the middle of a keyboard solo, and all of a sudden this slightly cherubic face pokes through and just sits there and starts watching me. I can see somebody out of the corner of my eye. When and when I was done with my solo, I looked over and it was Dr John and I was like, Oh, you gotta people, Mac, that's great. Yeah, well, you know, then afterwards I saw him in the hall and he came up to me. He recognized me because I was, you know, was this young blood keyboard player, and I usedto Clifford Antone at Antone's here in Austin. Peak had kind of taken me under his wing, so he was always throwing me up on stage when I was really young and Mac Dr. John, you know, he says, Oh, yeah, that Antone's boy. I was pretty good. I was really decided that he actually even knew I waas. That's one of my highlight moments of my career, I think, other than the initial shock of seeing and poked his head through the curtain and just watching me,

spk_0:   40:33
you know, Sandy met Ginger Baker once. He's he's a wonderful person.

spk_2:   40:36
Uh, tell us that.

spk_1:   40:38
Well, Ginger Baker was living in Parker, Colorado. He was doing this polo thing. Fire. Fall was playing a show in Parker. Ginger was opening for us because he had a local little jazz band. I was never really much of a Ginger Baker fan, but he had done an album with Bill Frisell, which I thought was brilliant. It was a kind of a jazz thing. I took the CD of that with me, and I wanted Ginger Baker to sign it. At first he kind of refused to sign my CD, and I think he was pissed because he was opening for fire fall. He thought it should have been the other way around, and maybe it should have, I don't know, but I told him I said, Look, man, forget it And I just got the CD and started taking it away from him when he grabbed it, said I inside the CDs. And I was like and it was funny cause I had probably been in fire fall maybe 20 years or 15 years. At that time we meet tons and tons of people there. They've all been really nice. And there's only been two people that I've met in 35 years that I would say We're just jerks. That was a ginger baker. Michaela from the beach, Boys. Sorry, guys. Oh, I know I'll never see Ginger again. But Mike, if I see you, it is what it is.

spk_0:   42:02
What happened with Mike Love?

spk_1:   42:03
Oh, he just had this air about him. He's probably the worst singer in the beach with people that are like that. They tend to be insecure. Everything they do, they do in this grandiose manner to make themselves look bigger, Grand. I just want to walk over and slap him and say, Man, get over yourself And I actually was offered the gig to play with the Beach Boys by Bruce and I think he was playing keys or something. At that time. I don't remember

spk_0:   42:36
you say I'm not in the surf rock.

spk_1:   42:39
Well, I didn't say anything. And then later I just told him, Look, you know, I'm happy where I'm at. And the first thing I thought of is Would I have more fun on stage playing beach boys songs or fire fall songs? And without a doubt, it was fire fall songs. I actually enjoy playing those songs, and I don't think I would have enjoyed the Beach Boys songs as much.

spk_0:   43:06
I can't wait to get burly drumming on the show because he has, Ah, some very interesting stories about Chuck Nag. Ron, have you run into him over the

spk_1:   43:14
His daughter lives here. Okay, so I kind of know him through her and her husband.

spk_0:   43:20
Some of the Chuck Negron stories I've heard of the best.

spk_2:   43:22
That's true.

spk_0:   43:23
Did you know Burly also had an encounter with Jocko One?

spk_1:   43:25
I did, too. I knew Jocko down in Fort Lauderdale and actually got to play with him a couple times. You're kidding

spk_0:   43:32
me. No, I ask you all these questions and you leave Jocko out of it. Come on. Here.

spk_1:   43:38
There's just been so many. I can't think of them all. If you want to hear a Jocko story the first time I ever met him. He was really good friends with our bass player. I was playing in a top 40 band in a Hilton Lounge on Fort Lauderdale Beach.

spk_0:   43:55
Oh, you were with Murph and the magic tones.

spk_1:   43:58
That's what we should have been called. Actually, at that time, it was called fake. I d like a Milwaukee cover of it. Yeah, it was a Miami cover bear. So anyway, Jocko comes in to see Darryl, our bass player, and he walks in the lounge, dragging his base by the head stock, no case just dragging it on the floor. And our bass player had the absolute crappiest PV basin you could ever play. He walks up on stage. He plugs into this Peavey AMP. And in seconds it was Jocko and I was like, How the hell did you do that? And he showed me his left hand and said, It's all right here. It's called bone tones on, and I was like, Okay, who am I to argue with that? Jacko had this thing where he thought every musician on the planet should be able to read every note ever put in front of him, no matter what it

spk_0:   45:00
was Really? Yeah. So he was an astute music readers.

spk_1:   45:03
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

spk_0:   45:05
I didn't know that about

spk_1:   45:06
him. So he leans over and he says, Hey, man, I'm gonna go everywhere. You just stay, keep the groove and you know, we'll meet back here in four days. So anyway, we're doing this jam. And it started out with Jocko and our bass player, our keyboard player and guitar player. And after about 16 bars are based players sat down. It was like and our keyboard player step down. So it's me, the guitar player, and Jocko and Jocko just stars playing all this just incredible stuff. I'm doing stuff that I never even knew existed in me. I'm just going Whoa! You know, And then he ends this whole jam by playing America the beautiful, all in harmonics.

spk_0:   45:53
Oh,

spk_1:   45:54
I just sat there and I was stunned. I was like, Oh, my God, what just happened? It Jocko walks over and he wasn't a very big guy and he'd leaned over and he's leaning over my high hat and his face is kind of like right in my face. And he said, Hey, man, you were playing some really cool shit. My head exploded at that point and without even taking a breath, starts screaming at me. Just think how good you be if you knew what the fuck you were doing. Because you can't even read and you play like that. I'm like, Oh, my God. And then again, without even ah hesitation, he goes hated. Ever tell you about when Chaka Khan gave me head in the studio and he grabs my hand and we go on, we sit on the side of the stage, and he just starts talking to me. Jocko was one of those. He he literally was a genius.

spk_0:   46:51
That bipolar stuff really, really kind of got the bath.

spk_1:   46:54
You. Well, I have a little bit of a thing about that too. But he was telling me you could only talk to him for, like, 10 minutes, and then you could just see him leaving his body and going into some some other plane. But he was telling me about he got arrested. He had a monkey

spk_0:   47:15
away. Weight among a really monkey

spk_1:   47:17
had a really monkey. Hey, we had a monkey in his backyard. He refused to keep it in the cage. The monkey terrorized his neighbor's dog all the time, so he got arrested in his public service. Whatever it's called, he had to do a free show in Hollywood, Florida And so he brought down his whole word of mouth band, which was amazing. Few months later, I worked in a drum shop, and we were doing a clinic with Alexa Kunio, who was in Weather Report when Jocko joined. Okay, and I asked him, I said, Hey, Alex, you want me to go get Jocko and having do your clinic with you? And he goes, No, he says, I can't see Jocko and I said, Why man? He said, Well, when he first joined Weather Report, he was completely straight. He says, I feel like I kind of took him to the dark

spk_0:   48:12
side. Uh,

spk_1:   48:13
I said, Hey, man, he's a grown man. You can't blame yourself for that. And at that time, and still to this day, Alex had become a born again Christian. He really felt guilty about it. The last time I ever saw him alive, I had come back to Fort Lauderdale and I went to see my bass player that I worked with Jocko was there. He was with this six foot tall, gorgeous. Looked like a native American girl. And Jack, who came up to me and said, Hey, Sandy, can I borrow 10 bucks so I can get this girl back to my apartment, Not changes. I was like, OK, man, here. Yes, I gave him 10 bucks, which I will never, ever get back, but that's that's beside the

spk_2:   49:01
plan. You that story was worth 10 bucks. So you gotta

spk_0:   49:04
grow with, uh, Michael, Did that ever happen with you where you were like, especially in the melon camp days where the playing on the stage elevated your own playing like you started doing stuff that you were like? I didn't know I could do up

spk_2:   49:18
John in rehearsals and stuff. I mean, he had a way of taking you out of your element. He had a way of pushing you literally to places that, at least for me, I didn't think I could go. And he asked me to do things that I knew I couldn't do. But I did it. I knew he was gonna just jump my shit if I didn't have never a couple of times. Like when I first joined the band. I remember once he said Okay. What are you doing? Okay. What do you do with your left hand? Okay. I want you to double the guitar players part in the left hand, and I want you to play this part with your right hand. And it was two things that were not in sync, and I don't know how I did it. I mean, when I was done, I mean, I kind of envision my like, looking at my hands, you know, like, how did I do that? And even guys in the band were like a man. You just You just dodged a bullet there, right? You know, one of the things about working with Johnny He was such a hard ass when it came to the rehearsals and stuff, you know, we used to call it right.

spk_0:   50:09
Is it true that he would call people up three of the morning to three in the morning? Get over here. We're rehearsing.

spk_2:   50:14
Not when I was in the band, but he would say, OK, you guys go do. Your thing is, I don't have any work for you for three months. and then, you know, like a week later, you get the phone call. John needs you here in Bloomington tomorrow and know your tickets were waiting. You know, that kind of thing. It was never a middle of the night. Wow, One thing I'd like to share was I didn't always play the accordion. I kind of started, You know, we're like Los Lobos kind of came out, and when I heard the Lonesome Jubilee record that had all those beautiful, beautiful violin and accordion lines together, that's when I started to really become a melon camp fan. And when I finally started touring with them one of the first nights that I was playing with him, I always loved, like the line and cherry bomb and check it out the line and check it out especially. And I remember once at a gig I'm standing on the edge of the stage and it was an encore. And I remember looking out, you know, we're playing this amphitheater 35,000 people there and I'm playing that line and I'm like, looking out of the crowd and I mean, I almost I got dizzy like a little vertigo or something. just because I was Oh, my gosh. I'm sitting here playing one of my favorite lines of all time in front of all these people you know, with John Mellencamp. I had, like, one of those moments where, you know, people always say, What's it like? And I would just say, you know what? It's exactly what you think it was gonna be like and again another highlight for me. But yeah, John would do crazy things like make me get up and sing one of its songs. That was always never a lot of fun,

spk_0:   51:45
right? Like he expected you to know the lyrics to the song that you didn't write.

spk_2:   51:49
Well, my very first night on tour with them, you know, I was a three peat offender. I played with John three different times in the third time I went back was the longest run. I've been rehearsing with those guys for a month at that point, so we get up on stage and we start the song hurts so good. You know, start off with this really badass drum intro. All of a sudden, John walks up to the mike and I see him kind of pause and he kind of turns around and looks at me and he comes walking across the stage. He's walking up the stairs to my riser. You're like, Oh, you know, of course. And everybody there, you know, in the arena is staring at me, even the guys in the band and John walks over to me. He says, Get up there and sing it And I was what he was like, Get up there and sing it I mean, we're literally having a conversation in front of 30,000 people or 20,000. How will money And he says, Get up and singing I'm like, Dude, I don't know the words And you said Full shit. Everybody knows the fucking to this. I'm like, General, I don't know the words to this song. You know, I like John Mellencamp, but I'm not, you know, wasn't a super fan. And he goes, Well, you better fucking learn the words because you're singing that Morrone. You're singing it every night on the rest of the tour. Oh, my next day was just shocked, trying to like, you know, it's such an easy song. But when you're thinking about the pressure, you're going to be under, You know, I mean, I was like, stumbling all over myself the next day, and

spk_1:   53:12
we, all of a

spk_0:   53:12
sudden you have to be a lead vocalist that you have to fill some pretty tall shoes in front of that many people. I mean, of course, it's gonna be nerve wracking.

spk_2:   53:20
I don't know what was worse. You know, that the torture all day of knowing that I had to do it or the look on everybody's faces out in the crowd like what the hell? Our year. But John was funny, you know, as far as like pushing people to the limit, you know, once I kind of started getting comfortable with it, you know, kind of like starting to do my moves up there at the microphone and, you know, checking girls out stuff. He was, like, all right to Not when you do it, I want you to come down. I want you to bring your accordion with you, and I want you to play the hook on the names like, Oh, my gosh, it's like, you know, rub your belly, spend the plate standing on one foot, and I think you know it was always going to take it to the next level as soon as he saw you getting uncomfortable. You know what? I I kind of respected him for that because he made me do stuff that I would never have done. So now, whenever I'm playing with someone, or if I'm playing with my band or with some other artists and I know I'm gonna have to do something that I'm not comfortable with, I just think about that first night I had to get up there and sing John Song in front of all those people. And after that, it's hollow Coast downhill, man, because that was scary as shit.

spk_0:   54:29
It does sort of lower the bar in the sense that you're getting to the point where you could go Well, I've seen it all, you know? I mean, you never truly see it all But one thing that comes to mind from a cruise perspective is I was out on tour with a one of our good friends. Dan O'Brien. You weren't out on the road with us. It was Bukka Allen. The Leslie cabinet just took a dump, literally like 20 minutes before Showtime worked for sound check. No problem. You know, Wisconsin problems with this piece of gear. I was in a freak out panic mode and I ran up to Dan. I said, Dan, the Leslie, stop spinning. I don't even It's no movement on the belt, nothing. And he goes OK, and he just walks up to the stage and you know, nothing he hasn't seen before. And and as I progressed, you know, many years down the road, I found that I got to that point to wear you like, you know, everything buildings on fire and everything is going to explode. Well, all right, let's just do this. So it's kind of a natural progression, but it's neat when you actually get push to do something that you didn't didn't know you could do exactly. Sandy, you ran this drum shop in Boulder called Sandy's Drum Shop. Yes, sir. For, ah, at least 10 years. A little more than 10 years, right? Ah, yeah, And in that drum shop you sold drums called tribes custom drums, and I was wondering if you could maybe if you want to talk about the drum shop, the low, slow boast thing is interesting. Fun to hear that story. But if you want to talk about those I was interested in those drums and how you got to make custom drums. And I've seen several people credited you and the drum shop and they play the drums. And how did that come about?

spk_1:   56:04
I had a customer who was a woodworker, and he had a ah, paint booth, a spray booth. He had dabbled in building drums and I had a couple raw shells in the store and we got to talking and I said, Hey, man, why don't you take one of these, paint it and bring it back and let me see your work? And he brought this snare shellback and it was gorgeous. This guy was really good, and he used, like, car paint, you know, and

spk_0:   56:36
we would do on wood

spk_1:   56:37
on wood, and we would do like metallic finishes and fades and all this stuff. So I went ahead and got some more shells, and we built a kit, which is sitting about 30 feet from me. In my studio is the ferry first kit we ever built. I put that out on the floor. We probably sold, I don't know 30 or 40 kits that year. It was just amazing.

spk_0:   57:03
I read one report where he said that he had built over 100 kits

spk_1:   57:07
in that first year

spk_0:   57:08
while just to date.

spk_1:   57:09
Okay, Yeah, I don't think we'd built that many in that first year, but everybody in town bottom. Everybody in town played my kit. It was just this amazing thing, and I never made any money. It was like a, you know, a labor of love. I mean, we had Travis with string cheese. Incident played. Um, Brian Nevin with big head tied, we built a kit for Jeff. Ah, gosh, I can't think of his last name. Great guy use from. Ah, I think the Atlanta area played with Bruce Hampton. Colonel Bruce Hampton,

spk_0:   57:45
Aquarium Rescue. And

spk_1:   57:46
we built him a kit. It was a great thing. It was Ah, it was wonderful.

spk_0:   57:51
Speaking of that time up in Boulder, you were there, you know, living up there. You had your drum shop and you were up there about 20 years after the initial migration kind of came in from California, where everybody started moving up into the mountains there. What was the scene like? 20 years after that event happened, was it still really thriving? That was the music scene just happening. Or had it died out? Did a lot of those guys move away? Do they still live there?

spk_1:   58:18
Some kind of still had places around there. It definitely wasn't like the heyday of Boulder of the early to mid seventies, and now it's even. I I don't even know what it is. Ah, it's just not the same town. But I still love it, just being there, being kind of at the epicenter of the music scene. I think I took for granted because when I moved to Oregon, I knew no one except for my wife's family. And so it was pretty tough the first couple of years here. But now I've really going to, ah, to love this area in this community.

spk_0:   58:58
Do you take Austin for granted? Michael,

spk_2:   59:00
I love this town. I tell people all the time. I love Austin. I love Texas, you know, especially Austin. It's funny. I just said that one of my friends the other day Hey man, remember who we first moved here back in the early eighties, we had the town to ourselves I mean, back then you could go from one club to the other, like your friends are playing in this place. You go when you hear them, you want to go. Here's somebody plate, club foot or the Continental Club. You could go to multiple places nowadays. You gotta plan it out. The traffic here is just so ridiculous, and they're just a lot of people. I mean, Austin's probably gosh grown. It's probably like four times the size of what it was when I first moved here. But it's still a great place to live. Yes, I lament those old days and how simple life was. And now you know, it's really expensive to live here. It's a beautiful place to live in that we could only keep it a secret for so long. But that's one of the reasons why I became a thriving music cities because all the musicians banded together. It was, you know, one for all kind of vibe. There was a healthy competition, but there was never any back biting or back stabbing, and I think it's still that way. They're just a lot of musicians here, and that competition is really, really fears now. Didn't you

spk_0:   1:0:10
have, Ah, public access TV show or something back in the eighties down there?

spk_2:   1:0:14
Yeah. Um, I can't remember what it was called, but yeah, we used to always watch it, and I remember when they started it out, it was like 24 hours of constant music and they just had band after band. After band after band, he saw all your friends, and some people had to come back with three times because they played in different bands. You know, that's just the kind of town that Austin was. You know, in a lot of ways, it's still like that. It is a little tougher, you know, Getting around parking is that's one of the headaches for me. As far as taking it for granted, I don't think I ever took it for granted. I do love this town. We'll say

spk_0:   1:0:47
you work with a few groups down there. 848 artist management and lucky hound music. What do you do over there, By the way, are you? You said you're A and R guy, music consultant,

spk_2:   1:0:56
artists and repertoire. You know, it's like back in the old days it was really cool because like producers were their own A and R guys. They would go out and find bands that they wanted to work with, and they bring him back to the label and say, Hey, why don't we sign these guys? And that's kind of what I do. I feel like I've sort of brought it back to that place where I can go out, meet or here young artists and talk to them. And they don't even have to be young. You know me just but new artists and I really enjoy that part of it because my passion really is working in the studio. I still like playing live a lot, but I really love working in the studio and creating something, and that's what I do. I produced for the label, uh, A and R for the label. And then we also have a management side for 84. That part of it was the biggest learning her for me because, you know, I had toe learn how to think like a manager, which is a scary thought.

spk_0:   1:1:44
Yeah, well, a lot of bands are having to learn how to think like a tour manager. As of late, that never had to do that stuff before, but they and our thing Ah, that seems like almost like what you would do after you're done or not done. But if you want to take a break or as you became an elder statesman of music, so to speak, because there's certain things you have to go through an experience and know about before you can ever be in a position to pick someone that has that in them. You know what I mean,

spk_2:   1:2:10
Right? I always thought I could be a good A and R guy. Everything is so speculative and everything is just all a guessing game. And I remember back in the day when I was in the Boudin's, the top brass would come to Milwaukee or we'd fly to L. A. And we'd have all these talks with them. And I look back on those days thinking how lucky we were because the record company, they really listen to us. And I remember one day there was a lady named Roberta Peterson who was sort of like the patron saint of the BoDeans, and she just passed away recently, just a few months back and after our big meeting. 19 We're all walking down the street. And she just said, Michael, you know, So what do you think the first single should be? And I'm like, Oh, you guys are the experts, You know? You guys should pick it. She goes, Michael, we're not experts. We're guessing, just like you guys are. Don't ever forget that. We don't know what the answers are and that always stuck. Wow. So I figure you know what? I just go with my gut, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If I'm right, Yes. You know,

spk_1:   1:3:02
I think

spk_0:   1:3:03
that goes back a little bit too. What Sandy was saying about the monsters. And you just you got to kind of just do your thing. You know

spk_2:   1:3:09
exactly what it is. The other thing I don't do, I don't do the hindsight 2020 thing. I mean, I make my decision if it ends up being a bad decision, you know, I just learned from it, but I don't go, man. I should it would. You know, I don't I don't do that.

spk_0:   1:3:21
Sandy does it all the time. He's like, Can I just I could have been in the beach boys,

spk_2:   1:3:24
Whatever I think he's saying, man, I sure made the right decision on that.

spk_0:   1:3:30
All right, One last question for Michael, and then we're gonna wrap it up. Uh, going back to 2012 Michael. Now think back now and try and place the time period. Did you or did you not after sound check Get my order of chicken tikka masala at the restaurant? Madison, Wisconsin.

spk_2:   1:3:49
Um, I think this is a good story. You're talking about road food. So we were in Madison and we found it an Indian restaurant. And it was early that I think the restaurant opened at five. And we were there at, you know, for 50 right? It just sounds.

spk_0:   1:4:03
We had early sound check and a good break between sound check and show. I remember.

spk_2:   1:4:06
Right. So we were waiting to go in there As we're waiting for the doors to open, we see, like one of the employees come walking in, and they finally opened the restaurant. So we finally get seated at this table. It was all the guys in the band. The guy that we saw walking in turned out to be our waiter. Obviously, he was running late. We beat him toe work and he came to the table and he was pretty grumpy. So he's taking our orders and he's going around. It goes, you know, you want hot, you want spicy. You wouldn't mild. You know, John are awful. Host here says, Oh, I want hot and the guy says, Oh, hot is very hut Johnson's well, OK, we'll bring it on. He goes, OK, I warn you. But you don't complain me. And of course we all started. So the food comes and John's complaining that it wasn't hot enough, and I think what they did. I think I don't think I got the chicken masala cause I don't need There was no chicken. My in my food, I don't eat meat.

spk_0:   1:4:58
I think you got the chicken tikka masala with tofu or something. It was, like, very similar to my, but

spk_2:   1:5:02
they've definitely put the spice in mind. And I mean, even at our gig, I was still sweating it out it so I couldn't feel my lips.

spk_0:   1:5:10
You didn't complain him. You didn't complain him. Did you know

spk_2:   1:5:12
I would have complained him? Uh, you know, obviously that became our our catchphrase. for months and months and months and was like, Okay, don't complain me, you know, Don't you played be Don't you complain me?

spk_0:   1:5:29
Oh, so so many cool food experiences on the road with Michael Ramos when we were in ST Louis I remember were both up early on the bus to go get some breakfast is just this area near the stadium where there was really nothing going on except for this one place that look, I swear, Sandy, it's place look like a photo mat. And And it was about as big as a photo bad. And it just said, Eat right, you know, like shop, right? Eat, eat, right, right, Yeah. And we go in the place and there's a counter there with two seats. Some reason they had a jukebox in there or an A T M machine or something in the corner and then and the one, like maybe one table and very limited menu of, like, five items. But they they have the old school, you know, where they have a slice of pie sitting in in a container that's like kind of plastic, and you can turn it. They they did have one of those, mainly in the morning. Me and Michael were just looking for a place that had a bathroom, which that place didn't. All right, guys, I want to thank you guys for bold joy to be on the show this month. It's been great talking about all these old stories and some of the interesting people that you guys have met. And, ah, if you ever are in Austin, keep your eyes open for Michael Ramos. He plays Ah, plays out there once in a while with some bands, and he's always lurking around. And, of course, Ah, if you want to see Sandy FICA, he's playing drums for fire. Fall from now until until when, Sandy Till they're done, right?

spk_1:   1:7:00
I think so. We're just gonna all over. I don't know the

spk_0:   1:7:04
most recent gigs coming up when you hear this. Actually, if you want to see fire fall in a bunch of other bands that are from that era, there's a ah, we're on the cruise this year, right? The rock in the Blue Cruise. It's

spk_1:   1:7:15
called the Blue Cruise. The Blue Cruise. Yeah, not blues. It was started by the Moody Blues We got sheesh art Garfunkel's On Their Alan Parsons, The Zombies.

spk_0:   1:7:28
Wow, If you want to see Fire fall, they're going to be on the Blue Cruise with a bunch of other great bands and you could come check him out. And I hear that. Is that where Shannon's having your wedding?

spk_1:   1:7:38
I think there on the Rock and Romance cruise

spk_0:   1:7:41
I don't know if Ambrosia is on that cruise. There also be a special wedding going on that night when you get older in life, the cruise has become a big deal every year. Michael, you know, have you ever done a

spk_2:   1:7:52
cruise? No, I have not. I don't know if I want to be on a boat like that with hundreds of people. You know you don't It's

spk_1:   1:7:59
actually pretty fun. It's fun

spk_0:   1:8:00
for Sandy cause he brings his wife and she just constantly wins money at the casino thumb. Yes, it's amazing. But anyway, thanks both of you guys, Michael Ramos down in Austin. Sandy fic out Medford. You could see them both, respectively, in their work, which is prevalent. All you gotta do is search their name.

spk_1:   1:8:19
It'll come up. Thanks a lot, guys, for doing the show with me all right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. This has been It's off fast. Take part in the conversation on Facebook. Search. Soft past podcast. Soft, fast. Thanks. Blue microphones. Visit them at blue designs dot com. The music by the sandy honest fan join us again next episode for more behind the scenes stories and experiences of working professionals in the music industry.