Part One: The Phil Spector Episodes

Robert sits down with his old pal and Grammy-award audio engineer Greazy Will to discuss one of the music industry's greatest bastards: Phil Spector.

(4 Part Series)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, Ladies, gentlemen,
gentle bems, h and all points in between. This is
a podcast about the very worst people in all of history,
and normally it's a podcast where I, the host, Robert Evans,

(00:22):
read a story about the very worst people in all
of history to a guest who generally comes in cold,
not always. Yeah. Yeah, I've been doing this eight years.
You know, you know the drill, thunk.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
You've figured it out by now. Even I know the
drill by now.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
And regular listeners will recognize the voice of my dear
friend Greasy Will, the Grammy Award winning Greasy Will.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey, fuddy, what's up?

Speaker 4 (00:46):
How's it going. I'm very excited to be here and.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Today if you we are going to flip the rolls right,
and I'm gonna tell you about about somebody who's very
near and dear to my a bastard of the music industry.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
And I'm very excited about this.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, I have a question first, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Greasy, Well,
who I love my buddy. Uh do you know where
this is being streamed right now?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
We are we well on Netflix?

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, our good buddy Greasy Will here. The second we
announced that we were going to be streaming video episodes
on Netflix, commented sellouts, So what does that make you?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's what I my friend of fifteen years.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
When I was a.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Kid, being a sellout was an insult. But now, as
an adult the world that we're in, being a sellout
just means you successful.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
You know, it's exciting for me.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Just means you get to buy the good produce.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Are there other ways I made money in the path
that I might have preferred more? Are there different ways
to you know? This is the this is the future
we've been given.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Look, look you're talking to a guy who All right,
So I have a course, a recording course that I made,
and recently I posted this ad that I had made
with a high quality camera like the one you're viewing
me on right now.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
If you are in fact viewing.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Me, I high quality camera and all the comments where
people like greasy and high death is weird.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
I don't like it, So welcome.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
To our lives.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Specifically, like I do not do high quality in anything
I do in music, I mean in anything.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's perfect well, because I've reached the peak of my
success as a professional in an audio medium. And you
also reached the peak of your success as a professional
in an audio medium. Yes, and the powers that be,
in their wisdom, decided we got to put these guys
on TV. People need to see their faces. For some reason,

(02:48):
I don't know. When we moved to Netflix, a surprising
number of people were just based on confusion or based
on the fact that it changed from YouTube, were like,
I didn't realize that many people were watching the podcast, right,
But we have. We've been working on it. We have
gotten it to where audio episodes of the show are
back on YouTube music. So if you listen to the

(03:10):
show that way, I know there was there was confusion.
Things got disrupted there for a while, but from now
on that should be normal. And initially a lot of
our international viewers were cut out because it was Netflix
wasn't letting it wasn't our show wasn't available internationally.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Damn region specific broadcasts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now our show is available on most of the places
that Netflix serves.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Worldwide, baby Vietnam and Korea for reasons I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
So the Aussie's out there, you can you can watch
now if you've got Netflix. I don't know. Again of
the audience listens because it's a fucking podcast. So hopefully
none of this should be changing for most of you.
Who are we hearing about today? Will who? What piece
of shit are you going to tell me about? I know?

Speaker 4 (03:59):
But so let me ask you this. Let me ask
you this first.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Uh, if you had a mount rushmore of horrible music
people right like whoever you.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Could think of? Who? Who's Who's your George Washington.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
It's it's gotta be Michael Jackson, because Michael's the perfect
mix of that man's music. You simply can't cut his
music out of popular culture and have it make sense.
There's too big a gap like his he he made,
the impact he made is there, and a bunch of
his music is immortal and also definitely raped a bunch
of kids.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Ton of Yes, just like my bas bastard.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Maybe yeah, I can give I can give my four?

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah, go ahead, Sophie.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
My four, Michael Jackson, R Kelly P. Diddy and the
subject of this episode.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
That's all right.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I'm gonna tell y'all, I don't think the subject
of my episode makes it on on the Bastard's uh
a mount rushmore iry And here's.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
And here's why. Here's why.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Because you you want to hear because number one is
Ian Watkins. Do you guys know who Ian Watkins is? No,
Ian Watkins was recently just actually I was going to
bring this up even before, but Ian Watkins was recently
murdered in prison. Because they don't like those those types
of people who do those things to infants.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Infants.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
He was the singer Lost, Yeah, he was the singer
of Lost Prophets and.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
This guy.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yes, So it was interesting that you might because I
do have a question in my overall thesis in discussing
this person is when is it bad enough to cut
somebody out?

Speaker 4 (05:34):
And when does their music overshadow.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
The big the big picture, right, because we so often
in the music industry, we we will give people weird passes.
Weird people get weird passes just because they're good at something.
You know, they're good at making noise. That's kind of
ridiculous to me. I do not I do not think
that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
But people, really, you're allowed to molest fifteen years, yes, yes,
or younger.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
So our subject today is somebody who I think is.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Horrible, and you will hear a lot of evidence to
uh to that effect, back that up. Yes, But but
our subject today is Phil Spector, Phil Spector.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
Do you know about Phil Spector at all? Like? What
do you know about?

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Here's here's how much I know about Phil Spector. In
order to even listen to this podcast, I had to
make make sure I had a gun on me like
that Christ, because I know Phil's bringing one.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yes, yeah, Phil is definitely bringing a gun to the
party for sure.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, all right, let's do it.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
This will be our episode today.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
We're we're we're gonna talk about Phil Spector.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Boom, cold open. Done. We did it.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
We're done, We're opened.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Look at you, prettiest girl at the party. I love it?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
All right, are you guys ready to hear about Phil Spector?

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I was born ready, well, actually I was born bloody
with the cord wrapped around my neck, but also ready.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
What were you? Were you in fact a cord baby?
That explains a lot.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
I think I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I was in labor for like seventy hours. Something was
wrong with me.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh my god, I think I was.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, she had a chip on her shoulder about that.
It might have just been forty eight hours. It was
like a long time.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
And and and in perfect comparison of our relationship. My
mom was in labor with me for less than an hour.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
I think my mom had me inside of the back
of a pickup truck, but I don't know, like a camper.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Maybe I think, yeah, yeah, you can.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
You are one of my friends most likely to be
born inside of a pickup truck. My god, Yes, it
was an honor.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
So first off, I want to say, uh, this is
why I picked Phil Spector, and because I am in
personally a very big fan of his work. It is
it has informed a lot of my work as a musician,
as a producer, as an engineer. I I love Phil
Spector's work. To me, it was it was so groundbreaking
for the time for many reasons. And there's a lot

(08:15):
of like future of music that came from where he
was at, you know. And I like to do that
game of like, oh well, I like the Beatles, and
the Beatles were really influenced by like what Brian Wilson
and the Beach Boys were doing.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
And Brian Wilson loved Phil Spector.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Right, And so it's like, if you are a Beatles fan,
you not only have heard Phil Spector's work, you've also uh,
you've also like been influenced by him indirectly through them
loving you know, the chain of command that it was
right or chain of Cutso yeah, yes, yes, so Harvey

(08:54):
Phillips Spector. His name was not phil original Harvey.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Harvey was his name.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Harvey Phillip Spector was born on December twenty sixth, nineteen
thirty nine, in the Bronx, New York. That's at least
what the birth record say. His mom claimed that he
was born on Christmas Day because she honestly and truly
I think maybe believe that he was the second coming
of Christ.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
That was actually like she was just really really like indo.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
So okay.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
He he had an older sister, Shirley, and an older
brother who died just days after being born, who was
born just before him, which is a bit why he
got the ultimate Jewish mother protection system going on over
him for his whole childhood.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, so he is. He is wrapped up. There's a
wall between him and the real world.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yes, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
There are unconfirmed theories regarding Specter's extended family structures. Some
biographical accounts suggests his parents may have been closely related,
possible even first cousins, though this has never been definitively proven,
but he said it all the time.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
He would tell people this. He'd be like, my parents
were cousins.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
It was like, all right, like I guess randomly at
like lunch on a Tuesday or something, he's bringing this
stuff up. Oh yeah, yeah. What is well documented is
that both sides of his family were Jewish immigrants whose
families fled. Let's take a break real quick, Robert, Uh,
you want to playing guess the country his Jewish relatives

(10:28):
had to escape in the late eighteen hundreds to early
nineteen ones.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I'm gonna go with Poland.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh so close, very close, very close. Uh pot, probably
we don't know exactly, but probably Belarus or oh yeah yeah,
or or Ukraine to Ukraine to possible.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
So, yeah, you're you're in the right the right area.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
A lot of people who are like, I don't know
exactly what country they were in, and part because it
was several years over the period of time they lived there.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
That's literally the description that's most often given is Eastern Europe.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
They fled Eastern Europe.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, he lived under three or four governments.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So you know, this is a very
classic early nineteen hundred's American tale of you know, Jewish
immigrant families leaving their country because of the anti Semitic
programs going on, and then coming to America, settling in
New York in a very Jewish neighborhood, or being surrounded

(11:27):
by other Jews who had.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Escaped these same situations.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So obviously some generational trauma going on for sure to
start off, and also family trauma and also some questionable
things going on with his mother already, you know.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
As far as her mental stability is.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
So. As a child, Specter was described as overweight and
physically fragile. He struggled with recurring health problems and was
often encouraged to stay indoors rather than participate in sports
or outdoor activities. Developed a strong dislike for beaches, athletics
and physical competition, and any environment where he felt exposed
and inadequate. Over time, his body changed. Yeah, yeah, he

(12:11):
hates beaches.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yes, that's my favorite bit of that old thing. He's like, yeah,
you know what, I hate beach. You are not Ken,
Phil Spector. Your job is not beach.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Okay, no joke.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Like multiple times throughout any of the biographies that you
read about him, it's brought up that he doesn't like beaches,
specifically beaches. He's like, oh yeah, Phil wouldn't go to
Venice because there was a beach close by.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
Like he was like mad about it, all right, brouh.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
As he entered adolescent, he lost weight dramatically, and he
became notably small and slight in stature. Instead of solving
his insecurities, this transformation reinforced them. He remained physically unimposing,
ill suited for sports, and deeply self conscious about his
appearance and masculinity. As an adult, he would always joke that,
like when they were picking sports teams that he was he.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Wanted to be the manager.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I'm the manager of the team today, you know, like
right from because he's like, I'm not gonna I'm gonna
play sports.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
What a weird little guy.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
When Phil was nine years old, his father, Benjamin Specter,
died by suicide. Oh yeah, we are going to have
some classic bastard style empathy to start off our show today.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
He's having a difficult start of things.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Yes, he's had it, he's had it rough.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
I'm sure this won't make him a monster.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Spoiler alert.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Uh, his dad killed himself, So basically the stories.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
His dad left, left the factory.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
He was like a metal worker, and he left the
factory and started driving home and just parked a couple
of blocks away, put a hose in his tailpipe and
started sucking on some carbon monoxide fumes in his uh,
in his car. Yeah, and they don't know, they don't
really even know why he did it, Like he had
financial stress, but you know he was done.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
It was the right time for that to be a
normal thing, you know, uh, financial stress, business failures, depression,
they've all been cited possible mental illness as well, Like
there seems to be a very strong prevalence of that
in Phil's life. Whatever the cause, the event shattered the
whole family, right, so Bertha Specter becomes the central force

(14:26):
in Phil's life, tightening a grip on her son's emotional
and developmental trajectory. Alongside it was Phil's older sister, Shirley,
who would exhibit as much control over his issues over
Phil as his mother did. Both of them would emotionally
abuse Phil often. His mother would often disparage his father
and blame young Phil for his death. So she's like
over there, like, your your dad killed himself. Because of you.

(14:48):
Before you, he was happy, and then you came along,
and then he killed.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Him, and the best thing for kids, right, giving you
that sense of agency, and you killed your dad, and
you anything you put your mind to, including kill your parents,
which you already did, right.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, very impressive, bro, I couldn't kill my parents, all right.
So she treated his father's death as a source of
family shame as well too, So it was like she
never told the truth about it to anybody, Like if
she met somebody and they're like, oh, oh, he's off
in Europe on business, or he died in the war.
Like she's always like just making up other things and

(15:28):
not saying, oh, yeah, he, you know, killed himself for whatever,
which I mean, I guess I kind of.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
Understand, you know.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
It's not like I'm like, yeah, dude, mom, step mom
killed herself, which is facts, you know.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
I guess I just did announce it to the world. Nevermind.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
So yeah, obviously not a great start to life. He's
fall he's frail, he's his dad kills himself. His mom
and his sister are both super possessive and controlling over him.
Pretty bastard'sy start to the story. Not long After Benjamin's death,
Bertha relocated the family across the country to Los Angeles.
This is where Phil decides he absolutely hates being called

(16:03):
Harvey and he starts going.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
By his middle name Phil Cool.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
All right.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
The move placed them in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Fairfax,
which this is just a stupid little aside, but all
the kids called it, like in the neighborhoods called it
fairy facts because it was like like.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
The weakest school around.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
They were like, so he's like the he's like the
weakest kid at the weakest school.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
Right, Yeah, they're.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Calling his school. They're basically calling his school gay, and
like the parlance of the times.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
She was absolutely not true when I was in high
school because Fairfax beat our ass at basketball.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's good to hear the thing.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
I don't know if it's turns out money does something
long term shocking. So Phil struggled to make friends outside
a small circle of family and school acquaintances, and he
remains socially awkward and intensely sensitive and deeply dependent on
maternal approval, obviously on account of his mom and the
way she is.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
Yeah, the mommy is his only.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Advancement into social normalcy came as a result of his musicianship.
He was said to be able to play any song
that you heard on the hear it on the radio
and could play it immediately like he could just drew start,
like playing along before the song even finished.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
During this time, Phil found himself his first real girlfriend,
a girl named Donna Cass Donna believed. Donna recalled Phil
being very intelligent but intensely possessive. He would call to
places he believed she was and question the people there
about her whereabouts, and when he found her, he would
grill her about what she'd been doing. Right, She said
she believes this was his nature because it was what

(17:38):
Bertha and Shirley did to him whenever he was at home. Right,
she said, this is from Breaking Down the Wall Sound.
By the way, this will be my primary source for
almost everything. Nick Brown wrote an amazing book, Breaking Down
the Wall of Sound.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
It's really really good.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
We'll touch on some stuff about it later, but that
and Ronnie Spector's book, which was Be My Baby, which
is amazing. I highly recommend reading the audio or hearing
the audio book of that because it's narrated by Rosie Perez.
Which is, oh my god. Yeah, it's amazing to listen
to Rosie Perez narrate this whole story because she's like,

(18:14):
you know, she's like, you know, she's got that whole thing.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
It's amazing. It's really good.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
From breaking down the Wall of Sound quote to Donna,
it was as if Bertha and Shirley saw her as
a rival for Phil's affections, who was trying to steal
him away from them. She says, I always felt they
were in love with him or something. They treated him
like he was a god. They protected him, and they
wanted to protect him from me weird. So so this

(18:41):
is like fifteen, sixteen years old, he's already intensely like
they barely even had phones, and this dude is calling around,
checking on his girlfriend everywhere she goes and like making
sure her story matches at like, you know, into like
fifteen right, unhinged. I think it's you know, yeah, Well,
and here's the thing is this is something that I

(19:02):
think is a lot of musicians are weirdos.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Right, It's like there's a certain thing that goes along.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
With being a weirdo and being like that kind of
musical genius that people can like that you can hear
a song and you know, and play it the first
time you heard it, right, there's something that's like kind
of hand in hand with the two personalities that kind
of seem to go together a lot of times. So
it's not weird to be weird, right, It's not weird
to be small, it's not weird to be skinny. It's like,

(19:29):
I know a lot of those people in the music industry,
but it is weird to be possessive and and shitty,
you know, and like and treat you know, and have
a pattern against women, which we'll see in this in
this whole thing. So during his teenage years in Los Angeles,
Specter became obsessed with guitars. Barney Kessel one of the
most respected and accomplished session musicians working in the recording industry.

(19:53):
Kessel was a jazz guitarist, but it will often go
on to play pop hits of the day and eventually
became part of the legendary Wrecking Crew. If you know
about out Hollywood music in this time, the Wrecking Crew
is everything they wrote, they played on every single song
in the late fifties and early sixties all the way
to the seventies pretty much.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
They were the band you heard in the back of it.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
So Phil respected in both for his mastery of jazz
and his seamless transition to other genres. At one point,
Specter was given the opportunity to meet his idol. The
meeting did not unfold as he had imagined. Bertha his
mother insisted on accompanying him during the conversation with his idol.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yeah, Bertha, she does it.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Man.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
During the conversation, she begins questioning Kessel about career prospects,
financial stability, practical viability, like a career in music, all
this stuff. It's like like yeah, He's like he's there.
He's like, yeah, dude, I get to meet this guitarist,
this legend. And she's like, well, what's the money like
in the job? You know, Like she's just taking over
control of this whole conversation, and Phil's just so embarrassed.

(20:56):
Like this goes from being like, Oh, I get to
meet my hero and to like, I'm just really embarrassed.
I'm really embarrassed that I'm sitting here having this conversation
and this is just this is his mom. His mom
is in control of his life at all times. He's
always he's always stuck with that.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
That's yeah, Okay, I did not realize, like knowing about
like the later stage of Phil Spector's life, somewhat I
did not realize he started out dominated by his mom
to such an extent that.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yes, that does. It ain't a scan, it does kind
of scan.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, you know, I mean it's not always true, right,
It's like a lot of times, a lot of times
people are just shitty people, right, But a lot of times,
if you look into it, it is kind of like
when your dad when you're little, like, oh, he's just
beating you up because he's got a shitty home life
and he's trying to So a lot of sometimes that
is true.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Sometimes they're just bullies, you know.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
But sometimes they just they got a shitty home life
and they're dealing with something that you can't possibly understand.
So by the mid nineteen fifties, Specter began forming musical
groups with classmates and neighborhood friends. Eventually, he helped create
a vocal trio called the Teddy Bears, consisting of Phil
and That Climbard and Marshall leab Teddy. The group formed

(22:10):
the Teddy Bears, Yeah and that's such a nineteen fifties
name too, Yeah, you know, yeah it is.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
So the group formed through teenage friendships.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
They all went to the same school or whatever, and
like they knew each other and so it was like
just a very high school organic situation, right. But then
Phil's sister Shirley forced her way into the.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Band as a manager.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Right, She like immediately is like, as soon as they
start having any success whatsoever, she forces her way into
into the whole situation as the manager. And then when
Phil's like, no, I don't want you to be in
a managery, Mom's like, let him be the manager, pel,
you know, like immediately, yeah, immediately like takes his sister's side.
So and she has no idea what she's doing, of course,

(22:57):
so like she makes horrible decisions all over the place.
She's doing dumb stuff. But Phil is still He's the
architect of this whole thing. And he he writes this
amazing song right in nineteen fifty eight, well still in
high school, Spector wrote and produce a song title to
Know Him is to Love Him. This is where I'll
make my first entry and do evidence of Phil was
seriously fucked up, Like I had some fuck that was.

(23:19):
He was fucked up, right, This is where we're gonna
get into. Phil was seriously fucked up, Sophie, can you
show Robert the image of the gravestone there?

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yep, Okay, I'm saying it. Yeah. Ben Spector April twentieth,
nineteen forty nine, father husband, Yeah, hell yeah, brilliant. To
know him was to love him?

Speaker 2 (23:41):
What was that? The name of Phil's song there was
To know him is to love him?

Speaker 4 (23:46):
Philo.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Phil wrote, he doesn't have daddy issues. He's doing good.
He's fine.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Phil. Phil wrote a song and he talks later. He says,
this is this song is about death. You know, this
is a song about death, and nobody noticed because it's
framed in the nineteen fifties kind of you know.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
To no, no.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yes, very silly, but he had you know, nobody else
gets it. But if you listen to it, it's like, oh, okay, yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
You were kind of like a huge fucking hit.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
Yeah, it was a huge hit. It was a huge hit.
It's very big deal.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
It became a massive national hit, reaching number one on
Billboard charts. Part of its success came from side Bastard's appearance.
Dick Clark American Bandstand. Yes, that's right. Dick Clark is
a side bastard today. I'm not going to get deep
into him, but he basically invented Paola. People would pay

(24:43):
him to put bands on American Bandstand and it because
of him, like literally, like the that's what got out
of control eventually and caused like the biggest, you know,
one of the biggest scandals in the music industry for
the longest times. Like you have to pay in order
to become successful. Yeah, thanks for creating that.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Uh so the success was astonishing, right given the band's youth.
Phil is only seventeen at this time. He's a he's
a baby, right, So it's it's massive. Like Sophy said,
it was a number one hit across the country. It
was a huge song. Even today, it's still like a
kind of a big song like that. I looked up
and had like a couple hundred million streams or something.

(25:24):
It was insane. This experience kind of cemented because he
was the architect of this whole thing. He was the
boss of this whole situation. So this kind of cemented
like his like dominance in the studio. This is what
made him want to He was the producer on it.
At seventeen years old, you have a number one hit
in the country, your ego is probably gonna go a

(25:45):
little yeah, you know, yeah, it's certainly not so. But
this is where I'm gonna hit item number two. I
Phil Spector was seriously fucked up.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
But before you do that, as the boss and the
producer of this podcast, you know what time it is.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Oh shit is advertised or some advertisse and you.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Know what none of our sponsors did is raise Phil Spector.
I feel confident saying that none of our advertisers helped
helped raise Phil Spector fairly certain I believe it.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
I was really.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Curious where you were going with that.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, and we're back. Ah boy. I sure love those
ads from I don't know, probably the Portland Police Bureau
and then some AI company.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
I wish you'd get sponsored by a whiskey company. That
would be nice.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
No, I wish I'll take your whiskey. I'll tell people
to drink it. I have no problem telling people, you know,
to to drink. There's no health consequences to that. You know,
it's a lot healthier than gambling.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
I actually tried it, like I was doing social media
for a little while where I was doing cocktails with
greasy like as like a thing, hoping like some company
would be like, hey, this guy's do an alcoholic content.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
Work though that was the only reason to do it.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
I literally just was like some free booze, you know, like,
let's subsidize this control.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
You're just you're just throwing out like a fishing line
and hoping a brand picks up so you can drink
for free.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
That's all I've ever wanted.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
That's how the internet works. Now, all right, where are we?

Speaker 2 (27:18):
All right? So, while on tour, Specter was allegedly cornered
by hostile individuals who mocked and humiliated him about being short,
being a nerd, being being short and nerdy, I mean.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Just being short and having glasses will cause you some
serious shit.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, so keep in mind too, like this is important.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
He at adulthood was probably only like.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Five three, Like he did not I say he was little, geez,
he was real little, right, So, like, we don't know
if this story is true. It's very mythological bullshit type stuff.
But we don't know if this story is true, but
it absolutely if it is true, it makes a lot
of sense about who he would later become he was

(28:08):
physically restrained and urinated on during the encounter. The precise
details vary depending on the source, and it's like kind
of multiple biographies reference it.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
He said it. He told this story later on.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
He's like ganged up on by a bunch of guys
outside of a show who are making fun of him
because he's a short, little nerd, and they like hold
him down and piss on him.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
It sounds like I think he's in the bathroom when
it happens. You like, like he goes in to go
to the bathroom after a show and they like attack
him in the bathroom or whatever. It's very like nineties
like teen high school movie type situation.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a hairy type deal. If heathers or
something like that's intense bullying. Yeah, they're pissing you.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
If the story is accurate, it appears to have deeply
scarred him.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, would Yeah, that's pretty bad.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, especially when you think, like imagine where he's at
in this whole situation, Like he thinks he's.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
Like made it, like he's on top of the world.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
He's got a number one hit in and he's got money,
he's got success. People all over the country are seeing him,
come to see him play shows, and he just goes
to the bathroom, like walking off stage, probably one night,
and he gets jumped in the bathroom and pissed on,
Like that's.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yike, Yeah, number on you. I think it's gonna make
him a better guy.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, definitely, definitely not gonna make him a nice person.
All right. So, despite the group's success, fractures quickly appeared
within the Teddy Bears, and that Klimbard used her earnings
from the hit record to purchase a car, and not
long afterwards, she was involved in a serious accident that
left her hospitalized for an extended period. So she gets
a bunch of money, she gets a nice car.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
She got one of those six fifty sixties cars. That's
just it's steel. There's no seat belts the car. All
of the force of the impact is transferred to you.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, probably pre dating like like the National Traffic Safety
Board like requiring seatbelts by like twenty years.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
At this point, I feel, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
So she gets in this horrible accident, and this is
kind of the nail in the coffin for the group.
But you know, she's and that says that, well, she's
in the hospital, she gets in this horrible accident, and
Phil doesn't call her or come by or anything. He
just that's it. That's just the end. She just he
just leaves, He just goes away, and that's it. There's
no band anymore, you know. So they're like high school friends.

(30:31):
This is very strange, you know, to like, uh see
to get this, you know, this far successful with your
high school friends. And there's no incident and it's not
like they didn't get along or anything like that. They
were all friends. And then he was just like, deuces,
I'm out of here.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Well do you think it like she could no longer
provide use to him? You think it was something like that,
or we really can't even speculate.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
I think I think you're right on the path, Sophie.
I think you will find as we continue on. Anytime
somebody he stops serving their their usefulness to him, Phil
is done with him.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
He just wipes them from his life.

Speaker 6 (31:07):
Very friends, which spoiler alert, is the next person we're
going to talk about, Lester Sill Leicester sil This is
right after this time or during this time, and this
is when he made friends and a partnership with Lester Sill.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Lester Still was a decorated World War Two veteran who
fought in the Battle of the Bulch. He made his
way into the music industry after that. And despite what
you think, actually the nicest guy. Everybody's like, oh dude,
Susie walks in the room, he's the best. I love
this guy, you know, like this is like this is
like if.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
You lived through the Battle of the Bulge, it's hard
to get like bent out of shape about the little things.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
One would assume.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
But also I met a lot of very disgruntled war
veterans in my time, and I've been like, why are
you guys so mad? Bro, just like I don't know,
get an addiction that helps out or something.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Get an addiction. That's always my advice to be.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
So Lester took a liking to Phil and assumed a
fatherly role in his life. So uh, he like really
does step into Phil's life. Him and Bertha and Phil
start having problems at home. He lets Phil move in
with him. You know.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
Uh. He gives them connections, he tell he introduces them
to people.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
He tells everybody, this is this this killer of producer Phil,
Like he just like helping him out anywhere. And he
even sends him to Phoenix. I believe it was to
meet Lee Hazelwood. Lee Hazelwood at this time is a
really successful writer. He would later go on to write, Uh,
these boots are made for walking, which oh my girl,
said Sinatra, She's so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
That's one of the finest achievements of our species.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, that song.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
So he sends him to hang out with Lee Hazelwood,
and Lee Hazelwood hates him. Hazelwood, It's like this motherfucker
won't stop asking questions. He he's always like doing stuff.
He's like he's weird and he's just always around me and.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
I don't like him.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
And and he tells him never bring him back to
my studio.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
I never want to see that guy again.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Wow. Okay, So so this is the kind of seems
like a pattern as we'll start to like emerge here.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
Is that like either you love Phil or you are
like okay.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Guy, Yeah?

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, like yeah, that guy's the worst. So after this,
he moves on to a relationship with another girl. So
he breaks up with Donna cass or whatever. He moves
on to a relationship with another girl, Lynn Castle, but
it was short lived, as she couldn't stand as incessant
to interrogations. This quote, his behavior got too friggin crazy, too,
absolutely crazy.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Where are you what are you doing? Where are you going? Controlling?

Speaker 1 (33:47):
So yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
So this is clearly a pattern. He is absolutely controlling.
He's like definitely trying to like, uh.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
That's basically what I knew about Phil Spectra going into
this is that he was like super controlling in his
professional and personal relationships. Yeah, that's kind of all I know.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
And that is that is exactly it.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
And we'll we'll we'll get more into like this professional
side of this too, but it is it is alarming early,
you know, and like Sophie, we brought this up earlier.
It is like it's like letting people get away with stuff,
and how long can they get away with it? You know?
And yeah, and it seems like, I mean, it's the fifties,
so let's be fair, like this is still the time
where or like early sixties. This is definitely the time

(34:31):
where like like jokes on TV were like your wife
was talking to watch give her the old one four
of the eye, you know, like right, you know, like
the honeymooners are like actively like like to the moon.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, bang zoom straight. It's it's like an aspect of
like yeah, because it's just like so common and universal
at the time.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right, I hear somebody else do an old timey voice
besides Robert, because.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Robert is so good straight moon as that's good.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
I love Archie Bunkers.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Shit, it's great you.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
It is two different It's interesting the two different kinds
of reactions to Oh, I keep like doing things I'm
not supposed to be doing and I haven't gotten in
trouble yet because like, the two reactions are the one
the one I have had about things that I won't
talk about on air, where at a certain point, more
than whatever the statute of limitations as it go, I
was like, I'm gonna stop doing this. Done this too

(35:27):
many times. I'm not gonna keep taking this risk anymore.
Like I've gotten lucky, but I feel like I'm gonna
stop rolling the dice on this.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
I did. I feel the exact same way every time
my registration on my car goes more than eight months
out of date, when I'm like, all right, eight months,
that's a long time.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
To be There's three years I didn't register in my car, right, yeah,
stuff like that where it's like that probably now I'm
gonna were shoplifting, where it's like I've had enough money
now I'm not gonna keep taking the risk. And then
other people who are like, no one's called me on
my shit, guess I'm gonna get even crazier. And then
they become the president.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
No reason to stop now, all right, So spoiler alert
on Phil. He doesn't get any better. This is right,
this is his pattern. He keeps going, but they do
break up. Him and Land break up, and he starts
expressing desire to relocate back to.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
New York City.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
New York offered something that he really wanted, which was
proximity to a legitimacy. In New York at the time,
there is a building called the Brill Building, and we're
gonna tell you, well, I'll just read because it's better
to read than in summarize. I think Spector quickly embedded
himself in the Brill Building ecosystem, the highly competitive songwriting
and production factory that produced some of the most influential

(36:45):
pop music of the era. The environment was famously ruthless.
Young writers turned out songs daily competing for placement with
artists and labels. Success required speed, instinct, and relentless self promotion.
Spector thrived creatively, but developed a reputation almost immediately for opportunism.
So I just read this thing where it's like, hey,

(37:05):
everybody's cutthroat up in this shit, and then it's like,
Specter immediately gets a reputation for being opportunistic in a
cutthroat building. To be opportunistic, to be like that in
a cutthroat.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
You definitely, you know, in the music industry, to be
a cutthroat for people to be like, hey, guy is
fucking ruthless? Is something? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Multiple collaborators from this period later accused him of aggressively
positioning himself for credit and financial participation in projects that
were often collaborative efforts. There were recurring stories of Specter
inserting himself into songwriting or production roles and minimizing the
contributions of others once success became likely. In some cases,
he was accused of leaving collaborators off credits entirely, a

(37:51):
move that not only deprived them of recognition but also
cut them out of long term royalty income.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
So he's he's already just ruthless.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
So there's something that I want to bring up here,
which is about the way that writing works, or writing
a song works, right, which is like the deal is
if there is no prior agreement, all right, if two
people just walk into a room and write a song together.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Right, it is, And they didn't fIF not as right
and not as part of a pre existing business arrangement or.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yes, yeah, yeah they did, not no one specified like hey,
spontaneous art. Yes, if nothing is specified, it is a
fifty to fifty split, doesn't matter if one person wrote
one word and the other wrote the entire song and all.
He was like, if you come into that create, if
it's three people, it's thirty three to third. If it's
for it's twenty five percent. Unless you have already agreed

(38:41):
to something. That's what the legal split is for this
whole situation. So for him to come into like sessions
and be like jumping right on, it's like it's like
I've seen this before, Like somebody walks in the room
and starts suggesting things, and you're just like, he just
took a portion of my my cut of this song,
and your suggestions were things I was gonna do anyways,

(39:02):
that's kind of annoying, you know. It's like, it's really
easy to finagle in this time period, especially so a
fellow writer named Beverly Ross, who helped Phil, recalled his
promises to bring her with him if he were to
ever get into the right rooms, but he renegged immediately
upon being granted opportunities. She saw Phil as a user,
and she was eventually offered a staff job, but she

(39:24):
declined it because she would have to see Phil every day.
So this woman literally turns down a successful, money paying
job writing at the Brill Building because she was like, oh,
I'd have to see Phil every day and he is cold.
I don't want to be around him. He's the worst, right, Yeah,
he's sketchy.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
I respected a man could be that annoying that You're like,
absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
I want this is not worth the job.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
The job is not worth my peace of mind. Please
stay away from me.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
You should all have self respect.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah yeah really, but you know twenty six man, it's
hard man's.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
Right now, all right? Uh so, uh, this is from
her quote.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
I was so gun shy of ever becoming vulnerable to
someone who'd betrayed me like that, because Phil practically killed
me emotionally. I figured I wasn't smart enough to handle
the part of his personality that I understand. It was
like Phil was born without a conscience and I was
his victim. He could be so ruthless. Wow, so seemingly
we have heard only from women that this is an issue, right,

(40:33):
It's like this does not seem to be very much
a male issue.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
This is asistent.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, women around him have to feel the breath. And
you know, I mean again not to like give anybody
an out or any empathy for somebody who's a shitty
person because like shitty acts or shitty acts and it
doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
But you can see like this is kind.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Of like an emotional and you know, reaction to his
mother and his sister pushing him, controlling him.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
So too, Yeah, isn't absolution.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
Yeah, I think I'm going to talk about this later.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
But so Phil, whenever he went to work at the
Brill Building after he got his money from the Teddy Bears, right,
he made a lot of money, he had to actually take.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
His mother to court.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
I know, Uh, he had to take his mother to
court to get his money because even as like a teenager,
his mom was like, no, he can't you can't, you
can't be trusted, you'll leave us, you won't let us
have any money, you won't take care of us. And
so he's basically even like going into adulthood, he's having
to fight his mom in court over his own money

(41:37):
because of the way that you know, because the way
that she is, the controlling nature of her and everything.
So you know, it's like he's he's doing that while
also controlling other people and and and you know, doing
shitty things to other women.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that. Yeah, so it's in part
just kind of his revenge based on his his shitty mom.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah, he's just taking it out on other people.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Well also just he grew up learning that, like that's
what you do to people, Like you can either be
controlled or controlling. Yes, I'll controlling. Yeah sure.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
So so yeah, so being cutthroat, like we said, being
cutthroat isn't weird in the music industry, Like, you know,
there's a lot of people that are famous for their
like ruthless activities inside the music industry, especially in the
old days or whatever. But to be in a cutthroat
environment and be the cuttiest, throatiest person of that environment
is like okay, like everybody is like, no, Phil is

(42:31):
the worst of all of them, Like, you know, everybody,
everybody in the building hates him, nobody trusts him. He
gets a reputation from just being like the dude that
would show up all the time and just like jump
in on things and take control and on all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (42:43):
People don't like him.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
So one of the most important relationship spectro form during
this New York period was with legendary songwriting production Durg
Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. Liber and Stoller were already
giants of the early rock and rhythm and blues era,
and we're responsible for shaping hits artists like Elvis Presley,
the Coasters, like numerous other artists. They were architects of
the modern producer model, combining songwriting and arrangement and studio

(43:08):
direction into a single creative authority. At this point, like
music is changing really fast at this point, you know,
because the technology is changing, the way that people operate
is changing. It went from being like, oh, this is
a band that plays this music to now like we
got a creative team. All these people are writing this
stuff and like also to this is really important.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
This is the first.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Time in musical history that music goes from being marketed
to adults to being marketed to teenagers. Oh right, yeah,
because prior to this, there has never been.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Teenagers with money, you know, like teenagers.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Yeah. Yes, as a teenager, you're like you were just
working in the minds and handing money to your parents
so that they buy starvation with it. Yeah, you have
forward to starve to death.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
So this is the first time in all of recorded
history basically that teenagers become a market right, And this
is really important to this whole overview of like where
where the money comes from, and how they market to
things and how they even write a song. Like, so
it went from being like, okay, a band does all

(44:21):
this to like a group of guys would get together
in a room and start being like, okay, cool, Like
I wrote this song, I was gonna give it to
this person, but you know, we should give it to
this person. And that's why in this time you'll see
a lot of like, you know, like Aretha Franklin songs
that are also Otis Redding songs later or whatever. You know,
like people would just write a song and give it
to an artist, and then anybody who liked that song

(44:43):
would also cover it because the money went back to
the publishing.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Right, the performance is a minimum amount of the money.
The publishing is the money.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
So these guys would keep giving these songs to other people,
other artists and be like, you should do this song.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
And it just became normalized to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
So the the strength of the music industry went from
being bands to being producers. Right, and this is where
Phil kind of slams hard into the industry. All right,
so he falls in like he falls in with these
guys liber and Stoller, who are like the guys of
the time. They are the Max Martin's or whatever famous producer,

(45:22):
the Kenny Beats, or the Doctor Dre's or the whatever
you love. They are that of this time, and Specter
admired them intensely. He started their recording techniques, their business strategies,
and their ability to shape artist identities from behind the glass.
In many ways, liber and Stoller provided in Specter with
a blueprint for the career he wanted to build. Despite

(45:45):
recognizing his talent. However, liber and Stoller never fully trusted him.
Accounts from associates and later biographies described them as simultaneously
impressed by spector's musical talents and wary of his personality.
He was ambitious, obsessive, and socially abrasive. He pushed himself
into rooms he had not been invited into. He demanded
opportunities he had not yet earned. He hovered around sessions,

(46:08):
absorbing information and inserting suggestions, persistently trying to attach himself
to projects. But they kept they kept giving him chances. Right.
Part of this was practical, practical because he was actually
he was good.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
He was very good musically talented.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yes, and so it's like, man, you ever worked with
somebody who's good at their job but a horrible person,
Like we've all been there, right.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
Right, yeah, and you're like, ah, specters come to the studios,
Yeah we're gonna write, but yeah, we're gonna write a.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Banger, but.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Their willingness to tolerate him also reflected that, you know, uh,
he represents the next step, like what I was just
talking about, He's the next step in the evolutiontionary ladder
of working in the music industry.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
You know, it's like.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
He's he is the producer model that will become the
tour de force in the industry.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's uh, yeah, that's that's that's a good note. I
do want to say, you know what I'm willing to
settle for will.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Uh billions of dollars. I only want to becoming for
the ragor. And I'm sure I know, I actually know
that you do get you get billions of dollars from
these ads, right.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
I do. I do billions of every every single ad.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
And there's no healthcare given to any of your employees.
You are just like you are Jeff Bezos. Man.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
I actually bought Bezos' yacht just to sink, so that
my yacht will avoid sinking the same way.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
You know, I've heard about that you're doing. I went, yeah,
don't sleep on that couch as well.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
I'm saying, anyways.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Let's all think about what diseases you get from Jeff
Bezos's yacht couch and here some mad Yeah we're back.
The answer was gonna rhea.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
All right, all right.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
So this is where Phil starts really developing his understanding
of how records are made. How I mean, this is
a learning environment. This is the professional like environment of
writers in New York. This is his like high school
or college or whatever.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
This is his moment.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
He absorbs all that, and he starts really understanding like
the recording studio and the process of recording is it
is like the music itself, the music comes from the
environment that this stuff is made in as much as
anything else. And this is kind of like a new
concept because you know, music is we're in the sixties

(48:53):
right now, right we're in the sixties. We only really
started having like reasonable sounding recording recorded music like ten
years prior to this, before anything like that, before ten years,
like we only got everybody say thank you to Adolf
Hitler right now, thank you, ad Off without no.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
One of his many contribution.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
To the world was we got a post World War two?
Do you know this about Hitler? This is actually really funny.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Really because it was Huston. He famously believed and wrote
about this in my comp that the best way to
convince people of anything was the human voice, that the
pure human voice was the best tool for influencing people.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
And at the time confused at the time, exactly literally
he was ahead of the curve oncaster Alf Hitler.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
The world's first podcaster. Amazing, that's right.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
You know, it's like the British were all baffled at
the time too, because like prior to this, Like basically
they had magnetic wire recording and they had wax cylinders
that they could record to right, and it was basically
one shot, one kill if you liked. If you messed up,
it was over right. But magnetic recording actually, and.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
It was cleaner.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
It sounded way better, like in comparison to like the
old vinyls that I had, the like, it was way cleaner,
it sounded more pure. And the Brits were like, how
is this guy broadcasting from like eight different cities in
absolute clarity? Like they're so confused at the time, they
have no idea what's going on all because Hitler's over
there with the only magnetic recorder.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
That's in the entire world.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Because just turns out, basf there in Germany, who's just
still a company. Congratulations, you guys made it through the
entire Nazi regime and all the backlash, I you know,
hats off. So without Hitler and his magnetic recording, we
would not have.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
The music industry.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
They brought the GIS. The GIS brought it back in
the forties, uh to America. We started tinkering with it.
By late fifties. We have Les Paul and Bill Putnam
basically like the gods of recording folks.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
If it hadn't been for Hitler, none of us would
have been able to hear the Mighty Mighty boss Tones
album about George Floyd And what kind of America would
that be?

Speaker 2 (51:10):
I so desperately want to take the time five second story.
I once went to a concert and you know, the
guy that dances on stage and that's his only job.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Somebody threw a shoe and it hit him right.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
In the fucking face and it took him completely out,
and they stopped the concert and they're like, we're not
gonna play.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
And somebody goes, who cares?

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Wow, that's my favorite Mighty Mighty boss Let's story. All right,
So sorry I was on a little tangent there. Hitler
gave us recording, but it's very new. Recording is very new, right,
So the way that they record is changing by the day, right,
It's like people are discovering new things. We go from
a single track to record to so now we have

(51:53):
two tracks and you can bounce back and forth, and
now we have four tracks.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
And then next thing you know, they've got a.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Whole console that they've made that you know, and these
guys are literally building them themselves, like Bill Putnham was
like building handbuilding his own consoles and everything. And so
they now have some technology. It opens up the world
of recording. Prior to this, if you were a band,
that was the only way to record music, right, you
had to stand all around this horn and everybody like

(52:22):
make their noise, and whoever was like the loudest in
the horn is the loudest. So he put the vocalist
the closest, and you put the drummer away the hell back,
and like, you know, you have to.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
It's it's complicated.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
It's you're so concerned with just getting a recording that
you don't have really time to think about the.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
Artistic direction of the recording.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
And so this moment in history, the late fifties, early
nineteen sixties, this.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
Is the moment that changes all of recorded music.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
And why obviously I'm such a big fan of this
as someone who considers himself to be a stereo phil specter,
you know, I absorb a lot of his music and
I think that this is like how I try and
portray myself and a lot of this stuff without all
the you know, well, actually the same number of ex wives.
That's great, we have the same number of X wives

(53:09):
at three.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
We're crussing it.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
But without the other crimes, without the other crimes.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
So, rather than treating musicians as equal collaborator, Specter increasingly
saw them as interchangeable components and a larger sonic structure.
If one player failed to achieve the desired result, another
could replace them. If a vocalist lacked the emotional texture
he wanted, he could manipulate arrangement, echo, orchestration, reverb, all
these things to compensate and evolve.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Sorry, go ahead, No, this is like and it seems
like this is in a lot of ways the birth
of the end of music, transitioning away popular music, transitioning
away from these are people who like make something like
art that they want to share with people too. This
is a product, and we can we can cut out
pieces and slide in pieces wherever we need to percent.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
This is absolutely the birth of that. This is the
birth of like. I am pitching this song to Ariana
Grande because she might sing it great, but I don't
care if Beyonce takes.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Let's get bidding on this music. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
It's no longer as much.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
I mean, I still think people put as much love
and passion into their Sure, yeah music is always but
it's we're.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Saying it's nothing but bad or whatever. But it's a
big change.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Yes, it is a very big change. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
So Specter closely studied records that we're experimenting with dense
layering and orchestral pop arrangements, particularly productions that emphasized emotional
saturation through instrumental doubling and echo chamber effects. Songs like
under the Boardwalk you know that song.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
If you listen to somebody.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
sEH, if you listen to that, you will absolutely hear
what are the early you know, phrases that that Specter
would draw from. It sounds basically like a Phil Spector song.
It's got you know, like the orchestration is buried in there.
It's like, you know, the vocal is very upfront and everything,
but everything else is kind of a mesh behind it,

(55:06):
and it's not nearly there's a lot of reverb and everything.
It's not nearly as clean and clear as some of
like because that was the goal, right, It was like
for so long they're like, we just want to make
something that sounds good, and then all of a sudden
they're like, oh, actually, we can make anything. So let's
just make it sound crazy, let's make it sound reverby,
let's do like experimentation with this stuff. So he starts
to get into that. What distinguished Specter was not necessarily

(55:31):
that he invented these techniques, but that he became obsessed
with expanding them to their absolute extreme. Where earlier producers
used layering to enhance song, Spector began envisioning arrangements where
individual instruments disappeared into a unified emotional mass. Precision gave
way to density, Clarity gave way to atmosphere. The recording
was not meant to be dissected. It was meant to

(55:52):
overwhelm you, right. And this is like the big principle
of the wall of sound. Anybody who knows about Phil Spector, like, seriously,
no about the wall of sound. The wall of sound
was Phil Spector's creation in sorts. It's it's a it's
a way of recording that makes the music like very Wagnerian, right,

(56:13):
It's it's like a Wagner opera. It's a bunch of
noise coming at you, right, And it is meant to
overwhelm you.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
There's often layers of percussion.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
It was all like, uh, layers of instrumentation to be
drummer on drummer and drummer, three piano.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
Players, like six guitars.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
And this is such a big change because, like I said,
prior to this, it was like, well, you just put
a band in a room and then you record the band, right,
and so now it's all of a sudden, like I
don't have to reproduce this on stage. It doesn't have
to sound like this. I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna
put ten pianos on here. I'm gonna go crazy with you,
you know, like yeah, like I can do anything, Okay,

(56:51):
I want ten pianos, then bring in ten pianos. It's
also like kind of that like era of like that
starts there where was like the money is actually in
music where they're like I need ten pianos tonight, and
like someone goes out and picks up ten pianos.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
You know, it's really amazing.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So like this is also yeah, kind
of the birth of the the insane expenditures for like
crazy artistical wins aspect.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
It later transforms into a cocaine budget, but well a
little early.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
It's early for the cocaine budget, but it will eventually
become a cocaine budget.

Speaker 4 (57:24):
Excited.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
So, despite being signed to Liber and Stoller, those two
mentors that he had, he eventually becomes enamored with the
co founder of Atlantic Records. I'm at Airdigun and when
given the opportunity to jump ship, he wasted no time. Right,
liber and Stoller are pissed. They're like, bro, what are
you doing? Like, we gave you this opportune.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Tolerated your bitch ass, and you're just gonna dip.

Speaker 4 (57:47):
Yes, we tolerated you.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
We let you come in put up with your ass.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
And he's like, actually, I was underage when I signed
your contract, so it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
You guys can't do shit. And he just walks out
right and and they're like, eh, fair, that was true.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
We get, in fact, sign an underage person to a
contract without having the proper legal authority, So whoopswee fucked up.
So so he becomes friends with Ahmed Erdegan Erdigon recognizes
his talent and he starts learning from him. Uh, it's
he's just an old school record guy, right, And now
so Phil's now learning the business.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
Right, this is he was in the music thing, and
now he's like, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
To learn the business. Phil would find some reasonable successes
during this time, remaining under the tutelage of his friend Lester,
still the old World War Two veteran, but he would
eventually desire more freedom to work as he pleased, and
so he and Lester formed phil Less Records, a portmanteau
of their two names. I think that's the word portmanteau, right, yep,
thanks nailed it.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Look at me with that look at I just guessed
on that one. Thanks. Uh. He was slowly becoming the
king of girl groups.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
It was actually around this time that he was dubbed
the Tycoon of teen, which sounds very questionable.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
I don't like I don't like that. Nope, nope, visceral reaction.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
So, by the age of twenty one he had become
an undeniable force in the industry. He had produced a
string of hits, like I think he had like twenty
one top ten singles in Jesus three years or something. Yeah,
it was like an insane amount. His first major success
was Spanish Harlem, after his own Spanish Harlem by Benny King,

(59:28):
and then there's no one other like My Baby by
the Crystals. He's a rebel by the Crystals. Bobby Socks
and the Blue Jeans had a song as Zippity DooDah.
Lots of crazy hits, right, yeah, crazy crazy hits.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Here's a little little piece though the Crystals are sitting there.
They recorded There's no one other like My Baby. He
did well in the charts, and then you know, a
few months later, they're sitting there listening to the radio
one afternoon and they hear.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
A song come on.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
They're like, oh, this is cool, it's an interesting So
they get done and the radio announces all and that
was He's a Rebel by the Crystals.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
And they're like, wait what.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Phil had begun recording songs and then releasing them as
band songs without any of them having been on the song.
He didn't, He didn't care. He was just like, they're
all replaceable to me. You're all just you're all just singers.
I don't care about you at all, especially you're all

(01:00:30):
female singers. You are all female singers. I will just
replace it. He never does this to a man, not
in his entire career. But to women he does this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Oh, just like two less obvious man Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
I would I would have put I don't care what day.
I would have punched him in this face. I would
I would have looked him.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
At eye level and bring that up.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Yes, I'm glad to bring that up. Good because.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Another tick in the fill is seriously like uncomfortable without
his gun comes from the lead singer of the Crystals
And I forget her name.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
I'm sorry. I hack in a fraud just like you.
So I forgot her name.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
But she tells a story in this documentary to watch
where she's like, yeah, I saw that, and I was like, okay.
So she goes and she talks to this mobster that
she knows, and this mobster goes out and just beats
the dog piss out of film, and it's like, hey, like,
if you ever do comrade mobs? Yeah, yeah, hey man.
Sometimes organized crime has his purpose, let's be fair, you know, so.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Often more reliable than the government.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Wait, what was the name of the documentary you were
just talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
This is from the Agony in the Ecstasy of Phil Specter. Okay, cool.
So he has a bunch of successes. Zippity dudah, be
my Baby with the nets. You've lost that love and
feeling with the righteous brothers. He is on top of
the world.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yeah, Jesus, be my Baby. He has that one in
an uber last night.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Actually, yeah, be my Baby. He's on the my I
have a vinyl from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and it's
on there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
It's so good, very funny story. Years later, Phil Spector
he was asked by Martin Scorsese to use be My
Baby for the opening of Cocaine Cowboy. I think it
was the one.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
Anyway, it's the opening of it. It's be my Baby.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
They do a whole thing, and he's asked and he's
like no, and then they do it anyway and he
and he sees it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
It comes out. John Lennon shows it to him, and
he sees it, and he comes out and he's like,
what the hell outdn't toe him? They could do that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
And so he gets all mad and then he sues him,
of course, which you know is fair or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:02:49):
That's fair. That's fair, song of affirmation, that's fair. You
suit him.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
But then he goes on for the rest of his
life and tells everybody I made Scorsese with that mad.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Yeah, okay, all right, that was a bit of a.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Dick for the rest of his life. Think that's why,
and that at the pinnacle of Phil's success is where
we will leave this episode. Robert, how do you how
do you feel about Phil so far?

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
I mean, he's a little bit of a dick, but
you know, he's hit some bangers.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
He hit some bangers so far, he just sounds like
an asshole, is really good at his job.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
I didn't know all that shit about his mom and a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Huge misogynist who screws over female.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Uh yeah, I would I would have punched.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I say again, it's like if this was if this
was the end, right, you'd be like, I mean not
really bastard worthy, Like he's sucks. But there's no shortage
of those people in the music industry, right, It's like
there really is. Yeah, there's no shortage of horrible people
in the music industry. Like I meet them all the
time and then I'm like, cool, this is why I

(01:03:57):
stopped working with labels.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
I'm going back to my studio. Yeah, but it is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
There's a lot of them, right, and you know it's
you know, it's tough too, is for every awful person
I meet in the music industry, I meet a legend
that I'm like, you're the nicest person I've ever met,
and like, how are you this good and this cool
and this person not that good and way shitty?

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Like I don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
I'll never get it. It's there's a weird proportion in
that stuff. Wow, Robert, you could be founded. I right, okay,
which I can't think yeah, uh you. I like to
think of it more as like like you telling your
parents back in like the the early two thousands why
you can't move back home and why you're having success

(01:04:43):
in Los Angeles, and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
You're like, I write, Okay, you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Know, it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Exhaustive explaining what I do for a living.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
To be okay, yeah, just go away.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
I can be found at at Greasy Will Grease at
Greasy Will Music.

Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
You can just google me. I'm like on the internet.

Speaker 6 (01:05:06):
I have it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
I have a recording course. If you want to learn
about how to record from a Grammy Award winning engineer,
I have one. It can be found at greasy does
it dot com or you can just google me, or
you can go to my I'm on the internet, man,
I'm on the Internet, Like, it can't be that hard there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
It's easy to find people.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
I feel like you guys will be fine tracking it's
a Z. It's not with an S. I get a
lot of greasy wheels and that kind of does make
me a different guy, because a guy I want to
meet him.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
I mean, if you told this on the podcast, who
gave you the name greasy Will.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Pharrell exactly? It's very cool, very cool.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
It was very cool.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
It's super cool.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
Yeah, you know, this is the end of the episode. Friends,
We'll be back, We'll be back. Behind the Bastards is
a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool
Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check
us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Full video episodes a Behind the

(01:06:13):
Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday.
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