Very Clinical: Very Rock and Roll, part 3

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[00:00:55] Welcome to the Very Clinical Podcast. In about the time it takes to do an M.O. on 3, we will entertain and amaze you with tips and tricks on regular daily dentistry. Here's Kevin and Zach. What is up, Very Clinical listeners? Welcome back to yet another episode of the podcast. I am Zach coming to you from Kansas City, Missouri. With me as always, my trusty go-host, Dr. Kevin Hare Fryer. Did you say go-host?

[00:01:22] Maybe I did say go-host. Well, co, co, and go. I've always thought of you as a go-host. Kevin, are you aware that it's a long way to the top if you'd like to rock and roll? I want to rock with you all night. All night. Oh, and part of every day? No, that's Kiss. I was going for Michael Jackson. Oh, okay. All right. I want to rock with you all night. I blew the bit. See, we had a lot of genres represented there. Yes, we did.

[00:01:50] And that's kind of what we're talking about a little bit. A lot of genres. For sure. The other voice you hear is our guest from the previous Rockin' episodes, Dr. Alan Mead. If you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you might have caught one of his episodes. No, probably not. So this is Rock and Roll Part 3. Yeah. Part 3. We may never stop, by the way. That would be a great album. Rock and Roll Part 3. Woo! Rock and Roll Part 3, exactly.

[00:02:17] Yeah, I mean, Led Zeppelin did their albums with just a number. We could do a number. It's been a long time since I've rocked and rolled. 3. Anyway, if you're looking for any clinical content, we have lots of episodes on bonding agents and class twos and sectioning teeth. And this is not one of those at all. So there's no CE to be gained from this, but plenty of good practical trivia knowledge. This is guitars and drums. Guitars. We're rocking tonight. Yep. Rock out. Drugs and sex and rock and roll, exactly.

[00:02:47] That's right. That's what we love to see and will never show you. Right. We get arrested. Yeah, exactly. You'd have to – that's where the paywall comes in, man. If they want to see – On our Patreon, you can – The candid plot. You can view our time. The three of us. Maybe. Let's see what they think.

[00:03:09] In any case, when I saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for spring break, we started talking about it and essentially have not really stopped talking about it since then. And thus, our rock and roll episodes were born. So we've got – we're moving in a similar direction. And I think Kevin and I sort of talked about how rock and roll has been categorized by constant innovation. You had these early rockers that sort of set the bar.

[00:03:38] And then rock and roll from here – from there till – I don't know, till the early 2000s anyhow has just been this variation on this theme. And that's one of the cool things about it. Like everyone does it a little differently. But there were – Kevin and I and Zach in particular were talking a little bit about some of the studio bands that were put together in the 60s and 70s that sort of laid the foundation. So I'm going to let Kevin take it away. Yeah.

[00:04:03] So if you guys get a chance out there in listening land, watch the documentary Wrecking Crew. And it'll kind of blow your mind when you realize that some of – if you're my age or around my age or a little younger, some of the classic rock songs that you knew and loved were actually performed by this band called The Wrecking Crew. They're studio musicians. That that was their job.

[00:04:38] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:00] And so the Wrecking Crew was just backing these faces or these personas in order for studios to make money or record companies to make money because a lot of these people couldn't play their own songs in the manner that – Or they didn't have a band. They were just the face and the voice. They were just the face. Yeah.

[00:05:26] And the interesting thing is this was – you said – I mean in the 60s and 70s, essentially all the hits were backed by one of two bands. A big number of them. Probably The Wrecking Crew or if it was a Motown thing, it was the Funk Brothers, which is a similar kind of thing. Now interestingly, there's also a documentary called Standing in the Shadows of Motown, which is about the Funk Brothers. So this is like some – I'll put links in the show notes to both these things.

[00:05:56] But the Bilemon documentaries on both of these 60s and 70s, they were the recipe to success for rock music or pop music anyhow in this age. If we're talking about great rock documentaries, I would also suggest 20 Feet from Stardom, which is a documentary about backup singers and how they influenced rock and roll. That's interesting.

[00:06:21] And how some of those people could have been stars, but whatever, the dice didn't roll their way or in some cases the studios like over – pass them over or put them down. And the title says it all. You're 20 feet from the star, but you're on stage and you're a part of that sound that we know, but we don't know their names. Yep.

[00:06:47] So to be clear, the Wrecking Crew didn't write the songs. They were just the sound, right? They may have arranged the songs, and in some cases those songs were written by other people. Like there was the Brill Building in New York where Carole King and Neil Diamond and someone else, I'm forgetting their name. They churned out these hits, and there were also songwriters like Burt Bacharach. Burt Bacharach, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:07:17] In Laurel Canyon also churning out these hits. It is funny too because a lot of the songwriters, you think of – they weren't necessarily the stars attached to their songs in a lot of cases. I mean I guess in country music that's very common right now. Yes, it's kind of the same thing, and I'm not as well versed in country music, but that same thing happens. So you have someone really handsome like Alan Mead who has a look. Yep. He has the charisma. For sure. I'm – And the moves.

[00:07:47] Don't forget the moves. And the moves. And I'm just this like mousy guy that can write songs really well. Here's your song, Alan Mead. We're going to make a star out of you, buddy. And the Wrecking Crew is going to play this for us. You're going to sing it sort of. You could almost hear me say, but wait. I don't have a band. How am I going to do that? But you will. And then the answer is for you. Yeah. We're going to make a band for you.

[00:08:15] To be fair, that's almost how a lot of pop acts go, right? Yes, absolutely. Those people, they don't write the songs. They don't play any instruments. I mean like Britney Spears at the end of the day was just hot and could dance. Yeah. Right. I mean, but I, and I don't know how much she wrote of her, but because the reality is,

[00:08:41] is like, actually this is sort of a, all those, the, the boy bands of the early 2000s. Yes. Like that. They were all, they wrote nothing. That Perlman guy, whatever. Who was, who was a total. That guy was a producer. That's the, what, what's funny about all this stuff is that once, once like Elvis and the Beatles and all these things sort of became a phenomena, there were a whole bunch of people like, Hey, we can make, we can make some money. We can make a bunch of money here. And so they, they sort of, they sort of came up with the recipe to make money.

[00:09:10] I think you went down two tracks. I think there's some authentic people, authentic bands that did their own thing and followed that like they saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or whatever. Like I'm going to do that. And then there's another track of you're just a face and we're going to make some money off of you and you're going to become quasi famous. And I think the, the, uh, the Zenith of that is Millie Vanilli. Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:09:38] So this is a fake band, but like, I've had this thought recently because it's something I was listening to Rick Rubin, the producer, the famous producer. Yeah. Yeah. Um, saying how much he loves professional wrestling and that really professional wrestling that, um, uh, conceit involves a lot of what, what our lives are. Politics is professional wrestling.

[00:10:02] Uh, this, this aspect of the music business is professional wrestling. A lot of TV, reality TV is professional wrestling. A magic show is professional wrestling. We're, we're giving ourselves over to some, we know it's not real, but somehow, uh, for, for the most part, we accept it and we enjoy it. We enjoy the entertainment.

[00:10:28] Um, but somehow Millie Vanilli and there's been some other people like that get caught up in that and they're, um, ostracized or, uh, you know, not look, they're frowned upon. And I don't get that because the bottom line is there certainly were some acts that played their own instruments and played on their own records. A lot of wrecking crew studio musicians. Those were those people's jobs.

[00:10:56] There was also a, uh, a group in New York that was doing the same thing, New York city doing the same thing. Um, but you know, there's also that line that a, a, a true artist, uh, steals and there's examples over and over and over again of people either flat out stealing. Like Led Zeppelin is just repackaging old blues songs and, uh, pumping up the tempo somewhat.

[00:11:25] Um, and the, you know, they're, you're, you're stealing riffs or stealing motifs and then kind of making it your own. Yeah. And that's one of, that's one of the beauties of it. That's sort of where the innovation comes from. It is a beautiful thing. And it's also like, uh, kind of, kind of is, kind of isn't like, um, uh, you know, like, uh, uh, you know, I've, I've got to mention the Beatles come together

[00:11:52] as a ripoff of a Chuck Berry's almost a note, uh, line by line ripoff of a Chuck Berry song. That's wild. And when you, and, um, they were sued over that and like, it's it, when that pops off the album as a first track on Abbey road, you're like, what is this? Yeah. Like that is a very weird or differently constructed piece of music. That's much different than any other Beatles song or any other rock song up to its time.

[00:12:22] But also it was kind of stolen from Chuck Berry. So that's some weirdness there. Right. Um, that's, I think that's, that's, that's somewhat typical in this situation too. Something else I thought about when we were talking about movies, do you guys ever see that thing you do? So yes, that thing you do is a long time. Perfect. It's like a perfect example. A lot of the stuff, what we're talking about is in there. For instance, the, the starstruck kids who come up with a, with a killer song and the, you know, they're, they're one hit wonders. That's the whole story.

[00:12:52] And their song is fantastic by accident, according to the movie. And then they run into this sort of gross, you know, meat grinder of, of the music industry, you know, and, and it's, it's, uh, I actually hadn't thought about that until right this second, it's a very good example of what we're talking about. In terms of the professional wrestling aspect, a great example of that is the monkeys. Oh yeah. Let me, let, let me explain something about the monkeys were totally made for television.

[00:13:20] These guys, only the drummer could, could play his instrument initially. And I've seen wrestling documentaries where, uh, the wrestler themselves starts to blur the line. Like, am I really the villain or can I win the championship? Like win in quotes? Cause what are you really winning? Like we are accepting that you are going to be the champion of this sort of artificial thing.

[00:13:49] And then the monkeys want to play their own music and it reaches a point where they actually record their own album as themselves. Like they fight to do that. And it's actually a pretty good album, but, um, and sort of position themselves where even though they were a made for TV group, they were at some point hanging out with the Beatles and the Beach Boys and stuff like considered like real, very bizarre crossover. Okay. One, one other step.

[00:14:19] You know who the Archies are? Yeah. Oh, you know it. Sugar, Sugar. Oh, okay. That was, that was a cartoon. It was a cartoon. Like it was, I don't know who recorded it. It was probably one of those frigging bands, but, uh, the, you know, the, the Archies were essentially the, it was, it was a song that was on their, the cartoon show that became a huge hit. And then like the band that recorded it kind of, I, it's, it's, I don't even know the whole story behind it. It's sort of. It's really like the, the one is the one hit wonder, uh, like, like, uh, that thing you do.

[00:14:49] It's, it's very similar. Exactly. So, so what's interesting about this is just the business, as we said before, this, they realized that they were going to have, uh, they were going to be able to make some money here. That was, that was, that was a whole line. So they, so, so they put the, interestingly, the, the wrecking crew. Okay. So that's out in Los Angeles. So this is where a bunch of, you know, the, the West coast stuff. And interestingly, the, the wrecking crew were freelance studio musicians.

[00:15:19] And so there were, it sounds like there were more of them through the years. Like they, they rotated through a larger. Yes. They were, however, like you said, and actually whenever you look at any of the pictures, maybe I'll, I'll grab a few pictures. They look like regular people with music stands in front of them. And like, literally they're just laying tracks down as fast as they can. Let me give you just for an example, for this, this wrecking crew, here's the top, top five songs that they contributed to and are like the, the music for. Bridge Over Troubled Water.

[00:15:48] Yeah. I mean, you would, you would think, you would think that was just Simon and Garfunkel doing that. No. Good. Yeah. Well, for, for sure that was written by Paul Simon. But on his guitar, but the arrangement and the song that you know was performed by the right. Good vibrations. Like why? I thought the beach boys had that covered. No, you've lost that love and feeling. They were all over the beach boys. Yeah. They were all over the beach boys. According to this. You've lost that loving feeling. Righteous Brothers. That's, that's the wrecking crew.

[00:16:18] Mr. Tambourine Man. That's the wrecking crew. By the, by the birds. Not, not the Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan wrote that song, but the birds covered it. Yeah. I mean, those are, those are some of the biggest, I really, I, until I heard about the wrecking crew, I would have, I would have thought, well, that music was just developed and arranged and put together by those artists that they have that talent. And so I think that that's one of the issues is that we, we assume that like, if you're

[00:16:47] a band, you've got the talent to write and do and get your own thing together. Yeah. And that, that is where the, that's almost where the, like milly milly, the problem people had was that like, that's too much. If you're just telling me you're not even singing at all, that's too much inauthenticity, you know? Yeah. Yeah. What's interesting too about, about the, like, okay. So, so these groups all would tour.

[00:17:15] So they would have to have, they would have to have a band that could play their tunes. And I think these people were studio musicians. So my guess is that not many of the wrecking crew were in their, their, their touring bands. They wouldn't be, they wouldn't be touring. So like, I think there's a whole other subculture of touring musicians for hire. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm a drummer, you know, and, and you get hired out, you know, I'm going to play with David Cassidy or.

[00:17:43] You remember, you remember when, in, in that thing you do when they, on their big TV debut and like the, the bass player who is only called the bass player, they never even gave him a name. He like went in and joined the Marines and just like ditched him. And so they got, they got a studio musician, uh, bass player and they were wanting to make sure he was going to be able to handle it. And of course he was this amazing musician. It's like every line in that movie is essentially a punchline about jokes about this stuff.

[00:18:11] So, so you'd have a touring band and that goes the same thing for, okay. So I've seen the temptations live now, mind you, I saw them in the last 20 years. So it's not like it was the original guys from the temptations, but there were no musicians on stage with them. They just sang to a, they just sang to a, and honestly, I think that's essentially what they did back when they were the temptation. They probably did. Cause it was a boy, it was essentially the, the, the blueprint for a boy band. There are five guys singing.

[00:18:38] Remember they had that, they had that crazy, uh, five headed microphone or four headed microphone with the lead. That was a temptations thing. And so that's the, so like the studio music was done by, by, you know, the studio bands. And of course this is the funk, the funk brothers top five. That was a really interesting thing you did. The, the funk brothers, which was the Motown version of the wrecking crew. Now that now a little different cause the wrecking crew was like freelance musicians. The funk, funk brothers were just employees of Motown records.

[00:19:07] In house Motown record. They were literally the in-house band. Yeah. And they had less people. They had, it says the total of 13 to 15 people total that were in the funk brothers, where it was more like 30 to 50 different musicians over the years that were part of the, the wrecking crew. But like, okay. The songs that you've heard the funk brothers on my girl. Oh yeah. I heard it through the grapevine by Marvin Gaye. Ain't no mountain high enough by Martin Gaye and Tammy Daryl. And then Papa was rolling stone another temptations tune.

[00:19:34] So like, like they were, if it was a Motown hit, it's likely these guys were backing them. Crazy dental already has some of the lowest prices on dental supplies anywhere, but you know, it's even crazier free shipping. Head over to crazydentalprices.com, load up your cart and use coupon code very ship. That's very ship for free shipping on every single order. Plus every time you use that code, crazy dental kicks back support to the very dental podcast network, save money, get free shipping and support the show. Use code very ship today.

[00:20:03] And back then you remember, I mean, those were Motown was, was just cranking. Oh, absolutely. Good stuff too. And Barry Gordy was a genius and also, you know, making money as a quasi entrepreneur. You found a way to, to package these artists like a product. It really was. Which brings us to. It wasn't just the music. It's exactly right. It wasn't just the music. It was entire package of all of it.

[00:20:32] And so we've moved from, wow, this is an interesting form of music from, you know, the fifties and, you know, Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis and all this stuff to the, into, into, you know, into the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And all of a sudden you're like, this is a great place to make money. And what happens when there's a great place to make money? It becomes, there's, there becomes a formula for it. It's where you're going. It's not the same, but it's similar.

[00:21:00] And we talked in our group about, I think I, you know, sprung this term on you, corporate rock groups like Journey, Foreigner, Toto, Styx, Ario Speedwagon. Yep. And I want to be very careful here. It's music that people like. And it is, uh, particularly a song like Africa by Toto, very intricate. Yeah.

[00:21:27] But those were, uh, highly produced, highly polished, uh, corporate rock acts made to sell records. Uh, they, they, it encompasses some of the things that Zach talked about on our last episodes of like, uh, clean lyrics with sort of a, uh, sing songy, sing along aspect to it. A hook. Usually a good hook in the songs. Yeah. A good hook. A good hook.

[00:21:55] And I think what I've thought about since our conversation and actually thinking about it today, those groups arrived on the scene. Boston is another one of them. Yes. Arrived on the scene at the same time that punk was happening. So. They're almost like anti-punk to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a grittiness to punk, same grittiness to grunge that we talked about.

[00:22:22] There's an authenticity to, uh, punk that, and, and new wave where it morphed into where these bands were really just set up to make money. And a lot of those yacht rock songs or bands that we kind of make fun of fall under the same thing. And I'm, again, being very careful. I don't, you know, like if you love those songs, that's great.

[00:22:49] But I don't think it has the same panad, uh, uh, uh, pizzazz as, you know, uh, a punk rock song from the same era or something like the pretenders or talking heads or something. Would you, would you liken like corporate rock almost to like a fast food restaurant? You know, they're like, yeah, people like, exactly.

[00:23:14] People like something that's familiar, basic, you know, served you very gently and easily. But I mean, can you get a better burger or taco at, you know, a street stand that's like the punk or the grunge? Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's a great example. It's a good, it's a good analogy. But people like consistency and pleasant and easy going and stuff like that. It's interesting you say that. Okay.

[00:23:38] So Boston being, first off, Boston, I mean, the brain behind Boston was the, was the one guy. And they said. Boston's a huge outlier in this whole thing. Yeah. Like, uh, Boston is one guy who laid down all those tracks. Yeah. Brought it to their record company and they're like, they're going to sign, but you don't have a band. Yeah. You're the band. But like the genius to be able to play all those instruments, if you like, if you listen to that, that is next level.

[00:24:07] The only other person up until that time that could do that, honestly, was Paul McCartney. Band on the Run, Paul plays everything, every instrument. He plays the drums, bass, guitar, piano. He plays everything on the, um, you know, there are some other people playing, but he's playing most of it. But Boston, whatever the guy's name is, Tom, whatever it is. He lays out, he takes it to every part. No. Takes it to the next level. You can think of one other. Prince did that too. Prince did that. Prince did that. Famously did that.

[00:24:37] Very talented. Prince comes along later. Yes. Yeah. His first album was, he was in, his first album was in the late seventies. I think late seventies, mid seventies, late seventies. And he, he did all the tracks. There's another guy. He's, he's a, he's a one hit wonder. Aldo Nova or Aldo Nova. Oh, I don't know that one. He did everything like that. It's a metal if you would. But now people do that all the time now. And you're able to do that. That's what YouTube is. With computers. Yeah, exactly. Or even not.

[00:25:04] How about, how about, have you seen the guys who do their own acapella with 12 harmonies or whatever on YouTube or whatever? I, I sat in my nephew or my sister's living room and watched my nephew build a song by Looping Stomp. Looping. It's exactly it. I was just fascinated. And it was really good. And I'm like, you're going to keep that to record it. And he just looked at me like, eh, I can do that again. It's like, it is, it is. Okay.

[00:25:29] Uh, uh, Sean Vandeweiver and I have like this sort of fascination with, with loop daddy. His name is Mark. I want to say rebel a or I don't know how you say his last name exactly, but he's, he's unbelievable. And he's, he, he has albums full of loop music. That's amazing. He's incredibly talented and he's the only guy he's just, he does. He, he, he ends up, it ends up being almost like a DJ, except he lays down every piece of the, it's, it's a, it's wild. Yeah. It's more and more common these days. Yeah.

[00:25:58] But it's, it's, it's almost the opposite of what we're talking about here, where, where the guy from Boston comes in, they have to plug in band members for him. So, so you can tour to sell tickets to make money. Yeah. But if we turn that back around, I don't know, I honestly don't know who is and who isn't in the hall of fame, but I'm going to say that foreigner probably is not Toto's not Boston probably is not. No, Toto and Boston are famously not. Yeah.

[00:26:27] And I'm going to say that the reason that they're not is that if the main criteria is innovation. Now we just talked about Boston being innovated, but the, the sound itself is not innovative. Right. It is not. Yeah. It's just like, we're going to talk more about this in the next episode a lot actually, but foreigner just got inducted in 2024. Okay. It sounds like it's interesting after I've been looking at it, we'll talk about it later, but, but there's some of these bands we're talking about are probably going to eventually

[00:26:57] get there, which blows my mind. I would have figured that they, if they had, they're going to run out of bands. Maybe you're well, yeah, actually. It's kind of what we talked about before. It's like, cause rock is dead or dying. There's only rock itself is kind of dead. You know, are they going to put the loop daddy in there? I don't think. Okay. What you were talking about with the temptations, I want to circle back around to that, Ellen, you were talking about the temptations and it being not the original guys and them having the funk brothers as backup. And we're talking about like a band like Boston who, you know, basically just have rotates

[00:27:27] band members or journey rotates. Are these ultimately almost like, like a franchise that can just perpetually play for forever? Like a DSO where like, you know, like ZZ Top still touring, even though one dude died or, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, eventually will all three of them die and they'll just get three guys that sound the same as them. Or like Queen was touring with like another dude as the, as the front man in excess was touring with another dude as the front man.

[00:27:55] Are these bands going to just perpetuate? I think at some point you become, there's no original numbers and you're your own cover. Yes. Yes. You are a cover band. You become your own cover. Slowly. But surely. The temptations are still touring. And Otis was the last guy from the original temptations. I saw them when Otis was still singing, boy, he was not moving. Yeah. Yeah. His moves were not as good as it, but I mean, what songs were they singing? They weren't singing new albums. They were singing My Girl.

[00:28:25] They were singing, you know, they were singing Poplar's Girl. Exactly. That's so the story is they still know what draws people in. It's not, no one's going to see the temptations for their new album. No. They're, they're going to, they're going to hear, hear the classics, you know, there, which is, which is interesting. And I got to say that a lot of these new members of the temptations are, you know, they imitate the original guys really well. I mean, they're, they're, they were, they were great to listen to, but like I said, you can't talk about the history of the band when there's only one, you know, 68 year old

[00:28:55] dude barely keeping up that was in the original. It does become a franchise. And in a way it's worse than fast food because if we dial it back to our original conversation, there wasn't some like, uh, Glenn Miller, there might've been a Glenn Miller type band, but no one was going out on the road saying they're Glenn Miller's band from the twenties or thirties when we were kids. No, exactly. You're right. You're right.

[00:29:23] You know, you may have a band that imitated them and you knew it was an imitation or a cover, but it wasn't, they weren't going out on the road like that. Or, uh, I can't even think of anyone else that would be a band from the. Okay. I gotcha. I gotcha. It's, it's a little later than that, but the Duke Ellington orchestra. Sure. The Duke, when, when Duke was actually leading it, that was one thing. The Duke Ellington orchestra is still probably, if you're a jazz musician, that is still one of the hottest spots to be in. They're still touring and they're still amazing. Okay.

[00:29:53] But it's in there playing a lot of Duke's arrangements, but also it's big band jazz. So they've got all, they have a deep catalog to be playing from, which is very interesting. Like, so these, and, and is that about money or is that about love of the music? Maybe a little of both. But I mean, when I, the Duke Ellington orchestra came to Miami university when I was in college and the place was jammed. Jammed. Was it just, just standing room only? And this was, you know, and none of these guys, very few of these guys had ever played with Duke Ellington. They were amazing though. They were so good.

[00:30:21] So this is, it's very interesting that the corporate aspect of it, I never really thought about it though. And the other thing is I unapologetically really liked some of these corporate, like I will tell you this. I would argue, I was so frustrated to hear that Toto was almost all studio musicians. Yeah. Like, like, and, and they were just, they would just, yeah. And that was one of the reasons they sounded so good is because they were freaking great musicians. But like, absolutely. Like, I don't know how well they toured compared to their studio stuff.

[00:30:48] Like, I know that they did tour, but I mean, whoever's in the band probably matters less than, than just the music. You also got to think, uh, some of that music is so polished and so intricate. How do you play that live? Yeah. Or how do you, how do you play that live without playing to a track? Which I have no problem with. Yeah. I like, I'm accepting the professional wrestling when I'm watching a band and there's a guitar

[00:31:14] and bass and drums and someone on the keyboard and I hear a cello somewhere, but I don't see a cello somewhere. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, 20 year old, 20 years ago, brain would have been like, what's happening here? This is, and now I'm like, I get it. You can't do that live, but I want to, that brings something to the music that, uh, you know, when you think about it in the sixties and seventies, a lot of music had an orchestral background too. Like they would have, they would have a full on string section and stuff.

[00:31:44] And that's why Bridge Over Troubled Water was, uh, recorded by the Wrecking Crew because Paul Simon plays acoustic guitar and Art Garfunkel sings really high harmony. Yeah. That's all you got. That's it. That's all you got. It's true. It's true. It's, it's, it's very, it's, it's, I mean, this conversation is, is always a sort of mind blowing because the idea that, that, uh, I, I, I sort of have to laugh because with all that orchestral stuff and then also, God, I had something and it was gone.

[00:32:13] Something you were saying about the, the live live, uh, is really hard to do. Sometimes with, with the, versus the studio. Oh, sure. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking to myself, God, I had something there. That's okay. There's so much, there's so much. I will probably edit that out, but I just, I just, I just, it's just interesting that, that, um, all the, the, I, you know, there's a, Oh, I'm sorry. I remember what it was. I remember it was, have you guys ever heard of the Lexington lab band? No, no.

[00:32:43] Really mentioned this. I've never heard of. I'm sorry. I just, I just wreck your weekend. So, so here's the deal. The Lexington lab band, Lexington, Kentucky, it's a bunch of studio musicians and their goal is to record all of these, not all these hits, but record hits that we knew as close to what the studio version sounded like live. And they do it all in one take. It is, I would argue that their version of Rosanna, which is literally, I think one of the best rock songs ever.

[00:33:12] I know it's corporate, but I just, the complexity and I just love that song, Rosanna, their version of Rosanna might be better than the original Toto version, but it's live. It's in a YouTube video. And literally the camera pans, it's, it's all one take. But they are amazing and they put new content out almost constantly. They have the best YouTube channel ever. So it's called the Lexington lab band. You got to check it out. It's, it's like, like, and I think they do tours too. I think they do tour and the crazy thing about tour, they sound studio. They sound like the stuff you hear in the studio, but it's live.

[00:33:43] So on some level, they literally are understanding our take on rock music and how, you know, the good stuff about it is, is, oh, it's really cool. Okay. So Alan, the, you're right. They have millions, millions and millions of views on YouTube. Their top five re-recorded songs, Foreigner, Waiting for a Girl Like You, Boston, Long Time,

[00:34:07] Kansas, Carry On My Wayward Son, and Christopher Cross, Ride Like the Wind. Ride Like the Wind. Their version of Ride Like the Wind is good. So yeah, they've pre-packaged. And so, you know, I mean, I don't know what, what do you call that? A cover band or just a, I guess they're just a cover band at the end of the day. They're a cover band. They would, they would, I don't think they would be insulted by that. They are nuts. If I'll put a few of their favorite YouTube videos and show notes, it is, it's so great. I could listen to those guys.

[00:34:36] I literally will listen to those guys. They they're on Spotify and it's so good. It's so good. And they'll have, they'll have, you know, they've done Beatles stuff. They've done, so they, they cover about everything. So it's in, in, if, if like, for instance, um, oh God, they do Hugh Lewis, Do You Believe in Love? And there's a really good saxophone solo in there and the guy nails it. It's so good. And that's probably not one of the news that plays that song on the original.

[00:35:02] Johnny Cola was a saxophone keyboard player. So he was, he was part of the news, but he was, he was, uh, uh, you know, when they play live, they bring the tower of power horns with them though. So like, like they literally steal the horn section from a band from San Francisco because that's, that's the sound they're looking for. I love this conversation. I can't, I'm just kidding that we're talking about this stuff. It's so fun. So like the innovation comes from the basics and, and, and Kevin's point is like, it's

[00:35:32] too easy not to try and make the money off of it. So, and, and basically it's like, it's like, it's like heroin. The first one's free. Of course, how can they not do the corporate stuff when it makes so much money? And I, but I, I think that there's a natural, um, progression. Like you get to corporate punk happens. Yeah. You get to corporate grunge happens. You get to corporate. It dies. Yeah.

[00:36:01] The rise of YouTube looping, you know, electronic, all that. So, but Kevin, do you ever hear, do you, do you hear punk very often at a restaurant or place when you're out? No. Do you hear grunge? No, you might. No, it doesn't. That doesn't last. It may be edgy. It may be unique. It may be interesting. It may be cool, but it doesn't last. It's like McDonald's. Like McDonald's. Also, I would say, right.

[00:36:29] But if you drive down the, drive down your street or your main drag and by your house, are you going to see more McDonald's or more French laundry? Yeah. A lot more McDonald's. A lot more Boston. So that, that's just, that's just the way we are. Have you guys heard different Boston albums? I do have to say this is, this is probably part of the corporate thing too. They know what works. Right. Boston had a ton of hits. That first album was, was just wall to wall hits. Guess what?

[00:36:57] Every other album is trying to recreate. Write me another song like that. They all sound the same. Which, that, that is so constrictive of an artist. Write me another song like that. I don't want to. This is something that's in my heart that there's something else in my heart that I want to bring to you. And I think the best artists play this game of this. I'm recording something or writing something that I want to listen to. That, that, but you have to have some balls to do that. I mean, you think of the bands that do that.

[00:37:27] The Beatles did that. You too did that. The Beastie Boys did that. But like most bands can't, they can't stomach it because they don't want to flop. They don't want to release something that, that's a mess. You're taking a chance. You want to keep it safe. Yeah. Yeah. Taking a chance for sure. And, and, and the, and you get some flops when you try something, you, when you try something new. Yep. For sure. But Hey, speaking of flops, speaking of flops, the, we're going to spend a little more time

[00:37:57] talking about the actual hall of fame itself. And, and, and honestly, the, how, how you're selected for the hall of fame and, and a lot of controversial ideas about who isn't in there and who is in there and why and all this stuff. So we have, we have so much good stuff. We should probably wrap this episode. Indeed. This is, this was great. Hey, thanks Kevin and Alan. And again, so yeah, if you are joining our rock conversation next week, we're talking rock and roll hall of fame. If you don't enjoy it, well, you know what?

[00:38:24] There's other, uh, there's other podcast feeds you can try out, you know, there's tons of bonding. There's a lot of bonding agents. A lot of endo access talk for sure. Just look on the feed. You can find any final thoughts, double downs, take backs, uh, apologies. Uh, there are, are none, uh, you know, music. I do want to say this music is, uh, such a universal thing.

[00:38:51] I meant to say this in our first episode, you play some music to a child and they start moving. There's something about that, that is, you know, every culture has their own music, all that sort of stuff. So, um, you know, we happen to grow up in a time where we're presented with this music and that's the music of our lives. I mean, rhythm, it's all about the rhythm. It's been, you know, we've had it forever. All right. I'm just, and I'm, I'm grateful to have been born when I was born to experience kind

[00:39:20] of a lot of, a lot of the variety. For sure. Thank you guys for listening and we will see you next Tuesday. See you.