Murder in 4/4: The Jim Gordon Tragedy (Episode 168)

He was the beat behind some of rock’s greatest anthems—Layla, You’re So Vain, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. A Grammy-winning drummer and a member of music royalty, Jim Gordon played with everyone from George Harrison to Frank Zappa. But behind the steady rhythm was a mind unraveling. Voices haunted him. Paranoia consumed him. And in 1983, it all came crashing down with the brutal murder of his own mother.

This episode dives deep into the rise, fall, and haunting legacy of Jim Gordon—a man whose genius couldn’t outrun his madness. That's today on Death in Entertainment.

Story by Brandon Preo

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Picture this. You're one of the greatest
drummers alive, the human metronome who kept the groove
for Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and The Beach Boys.
Your stick struck gold with classics like Layla.
But here's the twist. The man with the magic hands was
battling something much darker beneath the surface.
Jim Gordon went from studio legend to a headline nightmare.

(00:22):
The superstar drummer fell underthe thundercloud of
schizophrenia, and in 1983, in ashocking, bloody turn, he
crossed the terrible line from superstar sessions to a killing
that shocked everyone. This is the bizarre, bloody
backbeat of a musical legend gone mad.
That's today on Death in Entertainment.

(00:47):
Live from Los Angeles. 911 What is your emergency?
Here in Hollywood now. Two counts of murder.
Injury and death, Oh my. God.
Shocking new details. That has stunned the
entertainment world. This makes me a little nervous.
The hair stood up on my arms just like in the movies.
What do? You call this thing anyway.
Death in. Entertainment.

(01:10):
Greetings, Dedo Universe. How the heck are you?
My name is Kyle Plouffe. Hello, and I am Jerry Aquino.
And I am Ben Kissel. Today we have a fantastic topic
for you, Jim Gordon. No, he's not just the
commissioner of Gotham, he is also a fantastic musician who's
LED a crazy life. And we are going to get into the

(01:30):
life of the drummer Jim Gordon. Today's story written by Patreon

(02:00):
member Brandon Prio. OK, so we're zooming in.
Oh, you're looking at a map? Yeah, yeah.
I have the OH. Yeah, yeah, it's open.
Yeah, I'm seeing the man urinated in his front yawn lawn.
Oh. You better zoom in on USA Summer
1945. What kind of segue?
All right, No, I get it. Zoom in on the continent.

(02:23):
Yes. OK.
Have Google Maps open so you cantype in this address.
Yes, zoom in at. 360 PU Ben's naked outside.
Hello, Full Moon. So it's USA Summer 1945, almost
80 years ago to this day. World War 2 is coming to an end.
Victory Day in Europe had come two months prior.

(02:44):
Victory Day in Asia would come soon after.
The number one song on the radioin America was Sentimental
Journey by Les Brown and his Orchestra featuring Doris Day.
OK Anchors Away, starring Frank Sinatra, Catherine Grayson and
Gene Kelly was about to become the number one box office hit in
theaters. Love it.
In the middle of it all, a childis born.

(03:05):
Oh. Known for his impeccable
technique, musical intuition, and ability to execute complex
fills, Jim Gordon's drumming became a defining element in
countless popular songs. His style was explosive, his
timing perfect, and presence on stage was unforgettable.
He played with incredible force and stamina, making him a go to
name in the Los Angeles elite recording scene.

(03:28):
I feel like stamina is an underrated attribute to a
drummer. You got to keep going.
You got to go. If there's no room to stop,
yeah, you're. Going to go and don't stop.
That's why the ladies like the drummer the most.
Yeah, because they always yell don't stop and you're like, I'm
done. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
And they're, they're also like they're they they have the
double hand coordination, they've got the double feet

(03:49):
coordination. Yeah, it's a lot of skill.
They get to pounding. You.
Know OK. He is even credited in the
invention of the future of musical genres such as hip hop
and disco. But behind all the success was a
man fighting demons no one couldsee.
The man who created disco had demons?
Aw, no way. Weird.
Devil's music. What?

(04:11):
His contributions to rock and pop music were monumental, yet
his undiagnosed mental illness led to a tragic downfall in the
1960s and 70s. No serious rock fan viewed the
drummer Jim Gordon with anythingbut awe.
Hmm. By the 1980s, none of them
viewed him with anything but contempt.
Whoa, there is a price to creative genius.

(04:31):
There is. Yeah.
What changed? Obviously we have Brian Wilson,
who just recently passed away, and I watched the documentary on
his life. That was a slog for him.
Living was not easy. Yeah.
That brain of his was like, let me self destruct at any time.
It was hard for. Yeah.
It is relatable, yeah. But for Jim Gordon, this 180°

(04:51):
turn led to his virtual erasure from the culture.
James Beck Gordon was an American drummer, songwriter and
session musician, and convicted murderer no less.
Oh, whose exceptional talent made him one of the most sought
after drummers of the 1960s and 70s.
But that was before the murder, I would imagine.
I would think. Probably, yeah.
James Beck Gordon, great drummername.
He lives up to it. Born on July 14th, 1945 in Los

(05:14):
Angeles, CA Beautiful and raisedin the San Fernando Valley which
we are a part of right now. Nice.
He attended Grant High School, which is where we just had a
high school graduation we went to.
Oh, no kidding. Yeah.
Also my middle name Grant. Grant Yeah, BGK Wow, that's
very. British.
Benjamin Grant Kissel. That's if I ever blow up a mall.
Nice headlines. Grant High School.

(05:36):
So Jim Gordon went there and thethe guy from the Wizards, Agent
Zero, who brought a gun into the.
Gilbert Arenas. Gilbert Arenas went there as
well. All right, very.
You know, those are, that's a big span of people.
Rarely do I have a reference that only I could get.
Yeah, Gilbert Arenas. Yeah, it's not me.
Yeah. Displaying prodigious musical
talent from a young age, Gordon began playing drums in early

(05:58):
childhood. And over 6 feet tall and built
like a linebacker, Gordon cut animposing figure behind the drum
kit. Interesting, usually I think
drummers are like 5-10, really wiry.
Even less than that. Like Lars Lars, Lars Metallic
Rick. Yeah, old.
Rick, he's a tiny little guy. He is.
He's like short and stocky, yeah.
He's always complaining about something, yeah, but he's.

(06:19):
Napster. But he'd be banging away.
Yeah, he does bang away on them drums, that's true.
Some kind of monster. It's a documentary about
Metallica and it shows them in therapy and it really ruins the
whole volume. God, you never listen.
To me in therapy. It literally is that you never
listen to me. Oh, I wrote that song.
You never give me credit for it.So.
Oh. My God.
But. I'm not, I'm not accusing you of

(06:42):
of taking advantage of my chords, but I'm saying I feel
like a lot of the advantage of my chords A.
Lot of it's very not metal. It's not.
Very metal, although it is needed at some point.
I think all bands have to go through therapy, so it's good
from that perspective. Yeah, I just not everything
needs to be on camera. No, very true.
Because Jim's father was a practicing alcoholic.

(07:04):
He wasn't ready for a professional yet.
He was. Right.
Right. Practicing.
He wasn't. He was undergrad.
Yeah, one day, Dad, you're goingto turn pro.
I just can't finish the bottle of Wild Turkey.
I get right towards the end and I can't have the last shot.
You've got this buddy, don't letthe cops tell you no.
His mother became the de facto leader of the household.

(07:24):
Despite this, Jim Gordon was thedefinition of the all American
boy. We've done a lot of all American
boys who have not been so all American.
Isn't that so then? Is that the all American boy?
I think yes, you got definition.You always have to look at the
all American people. You got to look at the pillars
of the community. You're going to look at a lot of
the people who claim to be the the nicest guy in the

(07:46):
neighborhood. Yeah, the good Samaritans, the
ones that are really, really involved.
Right. I mean John Wayne Gacy.
Absolutely. Again, Polish Day Parade.
We've talked about that before. Look at Beaver.
Leave it to Beaver. His his name became a euphemism
for vagina. It's really how do you think
that happened? He was slaying cooch.
He must have been. That's why they call it the

(08:08):
Beeve. By the age of 17, he had
declined a music scholarship to UCLA to pursue a professional
music career. I like that.
Go do it. I ain't go to college.
Go do the damn thing. In Boston we have Berkeley
School of Music, and they say ifyou graduate then you're like a
loser there, you have to leave. Oh.

(08:29):
Because the guys from South Park, they went there, they
ended up leaving, they ended up getting like Oscars and Tonys
for everything they've done musically.
I. Mean, yeah.
They're they're they're geniuses, yeah.
Yeah, also, the Tony sounds likethe sweatiest of all the
statues. You get the Tony.
Here's a Tony, here's a. Tony.
Covered in GABA Ghoul. Yeah, it's not Italian, it's
Sicilian. OK, fine.
Come back in high school in LongIsland, right?

(08:50):
What does my award have? The Meat Sweats.
He joined The Everly Brothers Touring band and joined them on
their 1963 live tour of the United Kingdom.
Yo at like before 20 years old. That's crazy.
That's awesome. Returning to LA, Jim immersed
himself in the vibrant Los Angeles music scene, quickly
becoming a prominent figure among session session musicians.

(09:13):
Session musicians. Session musicians.
Session musicians. That's a tongue twister.
It really is. His versatility and precision
made him a favorite among producers and artists alike.
Working and studying closely with the legendary drummer Hal
Blaine, Gordon became a key member of the Wrecking Crew.
Nice. Sounds like AWWF tag team.
It really does. You know, considering that this

(09:34):
isn't my Forte of music, you're going to have to explain a lot
of these old bands to me. You'll know a lot of them.
You'll know some Everly brothersreal cool.
Just think of a cigar. Could talk.
So, so far, I heard Frank Sinatra at the beginning and
that's the only thing I had a reference to in my brain.
Yeah, well, the Wrecking Crew, they're a collective elite
session musicians based in LA who played on countless hits

(09:56):
throughout the 60s and 70s. Got it.
You don't want to see a room after they were there.
It's not just a clever name. They wrecked it.
At the peak of his session work,Gordon's schedule was so
demanding that he reportedly flew daily between Las Vegas and
Los Angeles to fulfill recordingsessions and live performances.
Dang, all right. That's a lot of work.
It is flying though, is only like 40 minutes, so it's not too

(10:18):
bad. Yeah, it's.
Chill. And strangely enough, I feel
like it was safer then, even though statistically I'm sure it
wasn't. But you know it's.
Funny, seems like it was safer then, yeah?
Gordon's exceptional drumming skills led him to collaborate
with a myriad of artists across various genres.
In 1966, Jim joined The Beach Boys, which is been in the news
this week. Of course.

(10:38):
RIP Brian Wilson. Yes, Sir.
He joined The Beach Boys in studio to help them record their
magnum opus, Pet Sounds. I had no idea how amazing The
Beach Boys were until I've seen the documentaries.
Because for me, I'm just like, Ithink of, you know, surfing USA
and I'm like pretty bass music. But apparently it's genius and I
don't know enough about music tounderstand why it's genius.

(10:58):
So then it's extra genius. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
That's how that's what I fall. I kind of understand that Beach
Boys were like a a crazy impact to this music thing that we've
got going on. But I I'm not I wasn't really
don't really know of them. Well, yeah, I was a little like
Kokomo surfing USAI thought it was like old guy My Music.
But then they were on full houseand then Jesse played with them
and I was like, Oh my God, theseguys are the best.

(11:19):
Well, it's a huge deal, yeah. It was, well, that gave me an
idea that they might be a huge. Deal.
Yes, exactly, they're telling you.
Started to recognize I'm like, Oh yes, the ever classic Beach
Boys that I'm just finding out about, right?
Now, and they let the Olsen twins on stage and everything.
It was great. Uncle Jesse holds up.
Cool. Yeah, cool guy.
He really does. Cool guy all around.
Just what was he the guitarist and lead singer then or.

(11:41):
Yeah, he. Was Oh my God.
Jesse and those somethings. He was so hot.
I'll find it, Jesse. I'll do my work on the show.
OK, everybody, I'm finding out what the band was.
I. Think no matter what sexuality
or gender preference you've got going on.
Like John Stamos was a was a stud.
He was. It was crazy, too, moving to
California when I first moved here.

(12:02):
I lived in Glendale for two weeks and then I moved into an
apartment in Hawthorne. And Hawthorne is the birth place
of The Beach Boys and Marilyn Monroe.
But they have they have a a whole shrine to The Beach Boys
there that's right off the 105 highway.
And their house that they grew up in was a victim of imminent
domain so they could build that highway.

(12:22):
So they just have a plaque wheretheir house used to be.
Oh, interesting. Wow.
Yeah, and I've, I've recovered the name.
I went through all of my files. Oh, yes, I blew off a lot of
Manila envelopes. You know what I mean?
To find the answer. It's Jesse and the rippers.
Yeah. Jesse and the Rippers which?
Kind of sounds like Wreck and Crew Rippers.
Cool, that was. Kill me.
Maybe it was like an homage. It may be.

(12:45):
Widely considered the greatest pop rock album of all time, Jim
was credited with playing the drums and the plastic orange
juice cups on the iconic love ballad called God Only Knows.
What was the plastic orange juice cups?
Yeah, it is. Wow, that's incredible.
I would have loved to be in thatroom with Brian Wilson just
randomly yelling shit at you andyou just like, oh, OK, I'll do

(13:07):
it. And then it works out and.
That's amazing, the plastic orange cup.
Cool, what a credit. You may ask yourself, didn't The
Beach Boys have a drummer? They did.
Didn't The Beach Boys have a drummer?
Dennis Wilson was more known forsurfing, picking up chicks and
hanging out with Charles Manson.Yeah, then establishing his own

(13:28):
musical legacy. That is his musical legacy.
What are you talking? About.
That's pretty much. Fingering chicks on the beach,
that's the legacy. Hanging out with Charles Manson,
he was establishing his legacy, yeah.
Rock'n'roll. In another death and
entertainment coincidence, just this week, the leader and genius
behind The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, died on June 11th, 2025
at the age of 82. But Jim Gordon, Jim Gordon

(13:50):
didn't stay just a session player for long.
So if people that are that are listening don't know what a
session player is, they only go with the band into the studio to
record and then they have their own musicians to go live on tour
with them. It's the closest thing you can
get to a nine to five as a musician.
Yes, you get paid well, but you do the job and you're out.
They're not like you're in the band now.
You're not in the band. Even though you created this

(14:11):
sweet, sweet juice in the same room, Yeah, you're not coming on
tour. You played the hell out of those
cups, kid, but you can't come toSacramento with us.
Nope. Nope.
Pack your juice cups and get thefuck out of here.
But a lot of times they say someof the greatest musicians are
session musicians. Oh, I've never know their names
or anything. And it's because, yeah.
But it's because they can roll with the punches.
So they can, they can pick up ona band like their energy plus

(14:32):
whatever musical thing they're going for.
Yeah. And then and then they can just
like, drop it and move on and switch gears for the next band.
Yeah. And that's incredible talent.
It is. Yeah, my next door neighbor
played bass on the 1st Paramore album and he has the whole
record there that went like goldand platinum and all that.
Stuff that's kind of that's kindof sad though.
I've seen your apartment. But not my apartment.
His apartment. No, but I know.

(14:52):
But it's your neighbor. Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, so don't, maybe don't get into music anymore.
Yeah, that makes. Sense to live by Kyle and a
screaming child. You know, I played the bass for
Paramore. Right.
Put your kid to sleep. He was recruited to join Delaney
and Bonnie's band after another drummer named Jim Jim Jim

(15:14):
Keltner Drop dropped out of the upcoming tour.
OK, what was the name of that band?
Delaney and Bonnie. Oh, right, Bonnie.
Bonnie, Yeah, you. Want to go see Delaney and
Bonnie tonight? Nah, I don't.
I'm going to stay in. But if you and I just ran away
together an old Delaney and Bonnie.

(15:35):
Sounds like going to see your parents cover band, your parents
favorite cover band or something, or just your parents
singing. Yeah, so Keltner was out, Gordon
got in, and that's where he would meet bassist Carl Rattle,
and together they became one of the tightest rhythm sections in
rock music. That's crazy.
One of my best friends growing up was last named Rattle.
You can never trust a Rattle, no.

(15:56):
Can never trust a rattle becausepoison.
They really are crazy. That's.
Wild Yeah. In 1969 and 1970, Gordon and
Rattle toured with Delaney and Bonnie, a group that included
guitarist Eric Clapton and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock.
They say if you follow the if you follow the the yelling of
the N word, you'll find Eric Clapton to this day Holy.

(16:17):
Shit. Was he a big N word guy?
Oh yeah, What? Oh bro, you can just.
Search Eric Clapton meltdown of the 1970s or some black kid at
his concert. It was none too please.
Holy shit. So he was just opening the
window to scream the N word and that's when his kid fell out.
He to fucking say I'm not an Eric Clapton fan.

(16:38):
He's Jesus. Yeah, he's notorious for kind of
being a D bag. Wow, did not know.
Maybe he's changed, who knows? That lineup subsequently served
as the studio band for Eric Clapton self-titled debut solo
album, Eric Clapton OH. Makes sense?
This was in 1970 that led to work on George Harrison's post

(16:59):
Beatles masterpiece All Things Must Pass.
I love that. Some good old fashioned George
Harrison. Yeah, although the Hari
Krishnas, not horrible, but annoying.
Remember in the Union Square, New York City, the Hari
Krishnas. Were always there.
Yes, they were always there. And I just don't know what they
were. I don't know what the the class
structure was, but it was very bizarre.

(17:20):
And and then sometimes they would offer me, they would give
me a nice little offering of something.
Yeah, they would give me a they tried to get me a gold pen and I
was like really depressed. I was like, oh, thank you, this
is so nice. And then they charge, grab it
back, and we got into like a pulling match.
What? Yeah, I almost fought this guy.
For me, they would charge, there'd be.
Well, he was like, no, you need to pay.
And I was like what the fuck? You gave this to me.
Right, yeah, like they gave it to you like as a gift.

(17:40):
And then they pull out of your clipboard and it's like,
alright, thanks. I'll sign your name here.
And how much you're gonna be giving me.
Yeah, I'm like. What I don't like when someone
gives me a gift and then hands me a clipboard.
Yeah, like what the fuck fuck. For anyone visiting New York, no
mixed CDs are free. None of.
Them you want to try them they all come with a prize they.
All do. The answer is no, you don't want
to try their mixed CD. My buddy was like I support the

(18:00):
arts, he gave them 25 bucks and then we got back and the CD was
empty. Of course, but he did support
the arts and a nasty, nasty crack habit.
So with George Harrison, that's where Gordon played side by side
with none other than Ringo Starr.
Ringo is my man, all he had to do was keep time in The Beatles,

(18:20):
watch everyone else freak the fuck out over their dumb
bullshit, and Ringo just stayed in the back and chilled.
Suddenly, Jim Gordon's drumming was everywhere, instantly
recognizable, in demand, and legendary.
In early 1970, Gordon joined JoeCocker's famous Mad Dogs and
Englishmen tour. Nice.
I do not know. Oh, have a little help from your

(18:40):
friends. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah. John Belushi did the impression
of Mr. Cocker. That's very famous.
But Joe Cocker famously never really wrote many songs.
He did a lot of covers, but he sang so beautifully.
He got every song that he wanted.
Fuck yeah. Wow.
That's kind of the dream. Oh, it's awesome.
Yeah. The dream for all of us, in case
you haven't noticed, is less work, more success.
That's the. Dream.

(19:02):
That's the dream right there. I don't have to make a song.
I just got to sing one. I do that all the time.
Why wouldn't I do that? Yeah.
This is where he met Rita Coolidge, who became his
girlfriend. OK, she was a backup singer in
the touring band. In her memoir, Coolidge
described A frightening moment during the tour when Gordon
punched her in the face in a hotel.
Oh my God. Right in the hallway, in the
lobby. She had old ditty moment.

(19:23):
So, so hard that she was. Because she left the freak off,
yeah. Never leave the freak off early.
Can't. She wasn't on time.
Yeah. So he punched her in the face,
apparently so hard that she was knocked unconscious.
Well, that's not right. After this, the relationship was
over. Next came the band, Derek and
the Dominoes. Yeah, of course.
Formed during the recording sessions for the George Harrison

(19:46):
album, Derek and the Dominoes brought together Gordon Clapton,
Rattle Whitlock and and Dave Mason of The Traffic, as well as
Dwayne Allman of The Allman Brothers Band.
Damn, that's a super group. Mm hmm.
As one of rock music's first ever super groups, their one and
only studio album Layla and other assorted love songs became
one of the most defining recordsof the 70s.

(20:07):
Is that the Layla? Layla.
That's the one we all know. They sang it on me.
All my knees. Yeah, buddy, I'm sorry.
Leila has a huge Dick. That's why he's on his knees
sucking it. Nice.
You get it. And Gordon didn't just play on
the album, he Co wrote the titletrack, Leila contributing that
unforgettable heart wrenching piano coda that closes the song.

(20:30):
Wow. However, according to Jim's
battered girlfriend at the time,singer Rita Coolidge, the coda
originally came from a song theywrote together called Time.
Uh oh. So he's stealing.
Music fight. Music fight.
Music fight misappropriating notes.
I do think a music fight is cooler than a comedian.
You stole my joke. Fight.
Oh, it's way cooler. Yeah, it's so it has so much

(20:53):
more credibility. It really does.
It really does. Because mostly it's like I had
that joke about the taint and then you took my you took my
taint joke. Took my taint joke because it
was obviously super original that I just made it up right
now. Like that's fucking.
That's all. It's happens all the time.
It's hacky that they even get their feelings hurt about that,
yeah. So Rita claimed that it was

(21:14):
lifted and repurposed without credit.
In her 2016 memoir Delta, Lady Coolidge recalled that they had
played the song for Clapton while in England, and she was
stunned when it appeared at the end of Layla Without Credit.
Oh, you got to give credit wherecredit is due.
Come on, people. Coolidge wrote.
I was infuriated. What they'd clearly done was
take the song Jim and I had written, jettison the lyrics and

(21:35):
tacked it on to the end of Eric's song.
It was almost the same arrangement I.
I understand being bitter about that.
Yeah, yeah. They literally just took a song.
It's it's like when you plagiarize something, but you're
trying to make it kind of seem like your own words.
So you're like changing just like a couple of words here and
there. You slap your name on the top
and you're like bam, it is. It's in my own words.

(21:56):
Exactly. Instead of saying and, I wrote
and there it is, because that's more like me.
Yeah, that is like you. Derek and the Dominoes disbanded
in 1971 before completing a second album.
Dwayne Allman soon died in a motorcycle crash.
Carl Rattle passed away young from complications related to
alcohol and drugs. Bobby Whitlock retreated from

(22:18):
the spotlight for years. Only Eric Clapton emerged mostly
intact from that super group. He was big into cocaine.
So the whole thing was like cursed.
Yeah, it was mostly intact because he didn't have his nasal
cavity anymore, so he wasn't completely intact.
Got it. Yeah, this super group, it does
sound like you. This was the group not to be a
part of if you want to have a successful career.
Pretty much, yeah. A lot of death and then

(22:39):
recluceness. Yeah, Jim Gordon's role on
recording sessions and albums soon extended way beyond the
simple task of keeping time. Author Joel Selvin wrote in his
biography of Gordon, Drums and Demons.
He wasn't just a backseat guy, he was a fully musical drummer
who embedded his, who embedded his playing into the core of the
composition. Nice, I would go with demons and

(23:02):
drums though. I think demons and drums has a
better role. To it I think.
So too than drums and demons, because when I hear drums,
initially I'm thinking chicken. Drumsticks.
Yeah, it's true. When I say when I hit, when I
say drumstick, I'm not talking about the musical.
No thing. Too often I also think about the
ice cream, which is apparently not ice cream because it doesn't

(23:23):
melt. Oh.
It doesn't I guess. I guess I've never waited long
enough to see if it melts or not.
It was big on social media abouta year and a half ago where the
drumstick people were figuring out what is it?
A psyop made by the government trying to kill us.
Because it doesn't melt. Because it's not ice cream, it's
an ice cream product. Year and a half ago and that is
still taking up space in your memory bank right now.
This is the problem with no longer drinking alcohol.

(23:44):
I'm really smart, yeah, and I hate that for a second.
You're really smart about reallystupid things.
Oh yeah. No more.
I don't know anything that matters.
Yeah. If there was a time machine,
don't send me. Yeah, because nothing's going to
be here. I can't figure out anything.
We barely have fire. But would we?
But what if you had the chance to go back in time and kill
Hitler and that like, you know what?

(24:04):
Assigned just beat them drumsticks.
Someone like assigned you to do it.
I would have, oh, this is going to be taken out of context, OK,
but don't. Oh, OK.
I would have loved Hitler so we didn't fucking have so much
hatred in his heart. OK, well.
Because he was just a. Person you would be beating him
off, I wouldn't. No, I'm not.
No, that's what led to all of that.
God, you know. I wouldn't have been beaten off

(24:24):
Hitler. No, I I would have said I would
have. It was a OK, OK, yeah, maybe my,
maybe my grandfather fought in the war.
OK. Right, right, right, right,
right, right, right. I was, I was saying if you were,
all I was saying was if you wereto be like assigned a job to go
back in time and kill Hitler, you would probably go back in
time and just tell Hitler. I think it's nurturing.

(24:45):
Sticks and their lack of melting.
Yes. And I would have said, and you
would have just, I would have nurtured him to the point where
he would not have had such hostility towards specifically a
group of people. Oh, so you got so you have
Hitler as a baby in this analogy.
Like you get him young. Oh, I don't have to get him as a
baby. That's the, I think that's what
people usually say is if you'd kill a baby Hitler.

(25:06):
But it's tough to kill a baby. Yeah.
Man, what about Jim Gordon? Yeah.
Let's get back to that. Thank you so much.
The fans think about that all night.
Toddler Hitler. Is that easier?
When's it become super easy? Yeah.
When he starts speaking in crazyGerman angrily.
Right. So Jim, he was an expert at
fusing musical genres in no in away no drummer had ever done

(25:28):
before. So take for example, the films,
the fills and the intonations headded to Carly Simon's You're So
Vain. That one I know.
Probably think this song is about you, don't you?
But it is about somebody. It has to be.
It was, yeah. But that's the whole thing is
like, even if it is about you, you're fucking.
So it's a. It's a time loop.

(25:49):
Is it Mick Jagger? It's a catch 22 of lyrics.
It really is. So his fills and intonations,
they were so integral that they helped guide the vocal phrasing.
Integral. Integral Integral I.
Don't know. Integral.
Yeah, integral. OK, they both worked.
Which were so integral. Let's try that one more time.
It's getting worse. It's fine.

(26:10):
No, it's the that's how you say it.
That's how you say it. That's the beauty of editing.
This is just for the Patreon integral.
Which was so integral that that's the only.
Two ways you say? It is that right?
OK, we just said it. OK, and we leave that edit done.
Which was so important. They helped guide the vocal
phrasing. We're leaving all that and.
Fine, fine. We'll get a note.
Be like, you guys are just goingto not edit the podcast.

(26:32):
We'll know, I guess. We're not going to fucking edit
the podcast. I like this non edit.
All right, fine. It's raw.
It's real. It's dumb, but yes, integral.
Or the sama groove he added to Maria Muldaur's number one hit
Midnight at the Oasis. Nice.
In Steely Dan's Ricky don't losethat number.

(26:54):
What? Hell yeah.
Ricky bet not lose that number. I mean, back in the day, if you
lost that number, you're fucked.Oh, you're so fucked, so fucked.
It's over. You lost that ass.
Yum. The beat he devised took the
song into the realm of jazz. In doing so, Sullivan says Jim
became an important part of the hit making process.
Mark Lindsay, frontman of the band Paul Revere and the

(27:15):
Raiders. Let's go.
Oh my God, my uncle Spider senseis getting.
I'm like, oh, now you're talkingabout some fresh new hit music.
Yeah, they immediately noticed Gordon's gift after he was hired
to drum on their song The Great Airplane Strike, which is not
about the Indian Airlines big crash today.

(27:36):
How? Would I have known?
Yeah. Was it about the airplanes?
Was it about the strike, the airtraffic controller strike?
Because that happened to the 80s?
I don't know, it was one of. Ronnie Reagan's first I'm a I'm
a tough guy moment. What if this is just about the
time that a girl wouldn't suck his pee pee and his He calls his
pee pee the grey airplane. And she's on strike.
Yeah, OK. Or it was a forewarning of 911.

(28:00):
Could have been, could have been.
Lindsay recalls he was doing hispolyrhythmic thing with a kick,
a snare and a hi hat accented byTom Toms.
It does sound like it would lookreally goofy but I know it
doesn't. But if I just heard those words
together, I'd be like, is he a acartoon octopus?
That's like what's happening. Like, is he also on a unicycle

(28:23):
juggling? Why is this sound so silly?
What a great halftime show that was.
They say he changed the song up so much that I wound up
rewriting half my lyrics to fit what he was doing.
Interesting. Wow, Jim became the conductor of
the track. I mean, it sounds awesome.
It sounds really exhilarating tobe in a room and hearing that
like creative genius for the first time, you know?

(28:44):
I know, I wish I had that ear for music.
It's crazy because a lot of the drummers, they're brought in
last to just like fill in, you know, whatever else, everybody,
whatever, whatever else everybody did.
The bongs and the bings. That makes sense.
It doesn't start with the drummer.
I feel like it has to start withsome kind of a beat sometimes.
Times. But they're like, hey, we
already know what the song is. Then you kind of figure it out.
Yeah. This guy's like I'm fucking

(29:05):
changing the whole world with this shit.
Yeah. Like, here's a song and he's
like, I see what you're going for.
Let me make this better. Yeah, it's why the drummer's
often the loneliest, isn't he? I guess so.
Yes, often times. Yeah, he's all the way in the
back, surrounded by all the equipment.
Drums, Yeah. That same level of creativity
was found during the recording of Sundown, a song Jim played

(29:25):
for Gordon Lightfoot that becamea number one hit.
Sundown. Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, exactly like that. No, that's it.
Producer Lenny Waronkner. What?
Waronker. Waronker.
Producer Lenny Waronker. Oh, you got to love that guy.
Once Waronker gets his hands on it, it's going to turn into pure

(29:47):
gold. What about Waronker?
Yeah. Everybody's about to get
wronged, that's what he. Said all the time, yeah, you
just got wronged. That's great, he said.
His drum part made the song movein its own way.
It's a specific rhythm that Jimmy picked up from Gordon's
guitar. Nice.
It became one of the most important parts of the song.

(30:07):
Love. That.
Yeah, In 1973, Jim devised a pair of drum patterns that
proved crucial to the development of two separate
genres. His percussion laid down
influential beats on the single Rock the Boat by the Hughes
Corporation, which sounds very. It sounds.
Not, not the music. Yeah, yeah, Hughes Corporation

(30:29):
does sound like they're about toliquidate your assets.
But. But also make you feel good
about it with some nice tunes. Oh, they're doing with cool
sunglasses on. But like you like that couch, so
do we. It's often considered the first
disco song, with Gordon's high hat syncopations and danceable
beats helping the patent rhythmsof the genre.
Interesting, I wonder if you gotany blowback because disco loved

(30:51):
by many, hated by a lot. Yeah.
I'm fine with it though. I think.
It's fine, but Can you imagine if it permeated the culture as
mainstream? I could see that be very.
Mean yeah, I could see that drive me absolutely insane.
Because now we listen by choice every now and again.
You know you can tell by the wayI.
Get away from me, Get away from me.

(31:13):
Yeah. Sounds like a stalker song.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jim also invented the rhythm and
beat that would go on to inspirehip hop, notably in the single
Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band.
The Bongo band. The Incredible Bongo Band I
love. They're like superheroes with
bongos. He.
Invented the rhythm and beat that would inspire hip hop.

(31:35):
We need to get a black person inhere ASAP.
Sure. About that, I'm not fucking sure
about that at all, to be quite honest.
That is suspect. And also.
Well, for the sake of this program, that's what happened,
OK. Yeah.
I well, for the sake of this program, there's I can say I
don't know about that. So far he's had a lot of success

(31:58):
and we are commenting on his, you know, quote UN quote
creative geniuses. And everyone's like, oh, he's
made a beat. Like, no, we've never heard
something like that before. I am still thinking about the
fact that he punched that girl in the face, knocked the fuck
out. Well, he's not forgotten about.
He was keeping the beat going, Jerry.
Yeah. Clearly not only did he knock
her the fuck out, but then he like stole her song.
He did double kick drums. That is bad.

(32:19):
That's bad. Insult to injury.
And then she was, she was sitting there like, wow, I guess
fuck me completely. I guess, yeah.
It's really not given the creditthere because that's like
actually that that stays there forever.
And now all of a sudden he's he's making a contribution to
hip hop, like, OK, all right. Well, I'm looking at the
Incredible Bongo Band and they are cool.

(32:39):
But that's what you need. For free.
They don't sound that cool. Yeah.
Well, they got they got a white fella and then a black fella and
then a white fella and they're they the cover is them on a
train track. Wow, about to shoot a goat.
Oh my God, are they in Texas? Yeah, so the cover is a man in a
top hat, right about to shoot a goat in front of a train
because, you know. They just started asking for

(33:00):
help shooting their goats and this.
Is called the return of the Incredible Bongo Band.
Wow. I'm gonna give them a listen.
Why not? Hey, we're back and we're
shooting goats on train tracks. Let's do it.
Tell your friends. His extended break on the song,
paired with the congas of King Erisen, became a foundational
pattern in hip hop that was later sampled throughout the 80s
and beyond. I'm.

(33:21):
Gonna need to see some. I'm gonna need to see some.
Receipts. I need credit.
I need sources. Yeah.
I just want, I just want. I'm not saying I don't believe
them, but I I just want to see sources.
Yeah, unfortunately with Spotifyright now and we're playing ads
on the shows, we can't do any copyrighted music, but we will
do a Patreon only of all the songs that we're talking about.

(33:43):
We don't have to do it tonight, but we'll get it on Patreon so
we can actually hear everything and not get demonetized.
Honestly, yeah. And I actually do.
I want to hear all these things for references.
That'd be a fun. Thing Maybe the sheep knew and
that's where they had a gun to the sheep's head on the cover of
that album. So despite his success, Gordon
battled severe mental illness. It was later diagnosed.

(34:07):
He was later diagnosed as schizophrenia.
Oh, that's a bad. One shit.
Yeah, well, that's why he was sogood at drums.
There's a bunch of people in hishead playing a bunch of
different beats at the same time.
Makes sense. Wow, that makes total.
Sense why he sees other things that people don't see in music.
Wow, I mean, that does make sense.
By the late 1970s, Jim's condition quickly deteriorated.

(34:27):
It disappeared for days, which that's not so bad.
I mean if he was by if he was. He was supposed to be at work
every day. That'd be a little bad, no?
It's supposed to be at work. Instead, he was at the seashore
proclaiming to be Jesus Christ. Yeah, that'd be an issue.
It's one thing I'm jealous of. I can't do that anymore.
You can't disappear for days when you have a kid.
Yeah, and then you get in trouble.
Yeah, yeah, that whole absent father thing.

(34:47):
It's a whole neglect thing. It's weird.
I mean, you could just do it. It's a real bummer.
Well, yeah, you could. But then, you know, people will
kind of judge you and I would feel sad I.
Wouldn't like it. I wouldn't like you.
No. Well, he heard voices as well.
He spiraled into erratic, destructive behavior.
Like Randy Orton, he hears voices in his head.

(35:08):
I have voices in my head. Got it.
That was so good. We might get copyright struck.
That was good. Yeah.
That was good. Yeah.
He began experiencing disturbingauditory hallucinations,
including voices commanding him to harm himself and others.
And that's the thing about schizophrenia I don't like.
Why can't they be positive? What in the things that they
say, oh, go make sure you get vegetables.

(35:30):
Go go grocery shopping. It's the intrusive thoughts come
in. Yeah, the intrusive thoughts
really start running the show. Well, you know, sometimes people
it does kind of show in positiveways and then because of that,
things go like undiagnosed or like they let them like kind of
stay on this like track because it seems so good.
Like when people with schizophrenia will have like,

(35:50):
what are they like? The grandiose divisions are just
like acting like they're like like I'm.
Papa John now I own a pizza franchise now.
Yeah. And then sometimes that leads to
you actually being like a leaderof some sort because you were so
delusional to think that you were a leader of a company that
you actually kind of became one.And then.
Everyone. 'S like, I guess that's good.
So those are the times where sometimes it does come out in a

(36:13):
good. Light.
I believe it. Well, that's not what happened
here, OK, The voices, right? The voices compelled him to
engage in self-destructive behaviors such as self
starvation, which could just be a diet.
It's a cleanse now, no? It's literally called like the
white girl diet now. I just did a bunch of Adderall
because I'm getting married in three months.

(36:33):
I know that it's a problem for people that don't.
I don't. I don't gain enough weight, but
I'm so pissed at that people. Too.
Yeah. I'm just just really aggravating
that that's an issue for you. Well, yeah, but apparently
because I'm of the the Latina race, I think I'm supposed to
get all of the weight that I'm was supposed to gain throughout

(36:54):
all of my life. I think it's all going to smack
me when I'm like 60. Oh, that's fine, unless I'm like
working out a bunch. Yeah, but that's good.
I mean, it's just nice to know that no matter what, you're not
going to be attractive physically to one group of
people at all times. Yeah.
Oh yeah. No, no one ever is.
It's great. You're ugly to somebody,
beautiful to somebody. Never forget that, yeah.
I just haven't met him yet. No, you're ugly to a lot of

(37:16):
people. Kyle, you're clearly ugly.
No, he's handsome. He's a Boston 11.
Yeah. So he would also deprive himself
of sleep, and yet he kept it hidden from the public and from
his peers. Oh my God, he's like with that
fantastic role in in The Machinist.
He needs Christian Bale. He.

(37:37):
Needs to sleep and he needs to eat.
This is not good for his condition.
Yeah, Speaking of ugly, someone told me, oh, my God, you look
like Christian Bale from The Fighter.
And I was like, oh, Christian Bale, he's handsome.
That's nice. And they're like, no, Christian
Bale from The Fighter. Yeah, when he's a heroin addict.
Yeah, yeah, the fighter is rough.
Yeah, parolee. What do you you?
Have so much meat on your bones.Thank you.
Yeah, I was Bishop for a compliment.

(37:59):
Here it is. You got 1.
You caught a big one. Yeah, you.
Got a big one? No, he's handsome in the
fighter. Yeah, I don't know.
He's skinny, all right. When he eventually sought help,
he was misdiagnosed. He was treated for alcohol abuse
instead of receiving appropriatepsychiatric care.
And yeah, that goes hand in handmany times.

(38:20):
And obviously lack of sleep willtake you straight to some kind
of a psychotic episode no matterwhere you are in.
Mental health if I don't get 18 hours a day, I.
Will I know right? Don't even look at.
Me beauty sleep. Still, some of the music
industry were already beginning to see through it.
Claudia Lanier said she always wondered about that smile.

(38:40):
It was too simple. It felt like he was hiding
behind it. Oh.
Damn, that's a crazy insult. You have a simple smile.
You know what? I don't like about your smile,
it's too simple. That is scary.
It's a great visual, yeah. Because the truth saw was in the
eyes. Yeah, and even a simple smile
sounds like hollow, dark black eyes.

(39:02):
Yeah, absolutely. They never say that about the
nose. I think the truth is in the nose
you can look for little flare ups here or there.
The nostrils will talk. The nostrils will tell.
They're the lie detector of the body.
They really are. The lie detector of the face.
I've heard that. In 1973, Gordon viciously
attacked his wife, which now he has a track record.

(39:24):
Yeah, Renee Armand, she had several ribs cracked.
Oh my God, these are very aggressive.
So this is extremely this is this he's.
Not like holding back. He's like, he's like in a place
when he does these things, like snaps out of it.
Well, the good thing is it endedtheir marriage, so she was able
to get away. But yeah, his beat, sanity and

(39:44):
everything else in his life werebeginning to seriously waver.
That was probably the last pieceof structure in his life.
And then, yeah, you know, fuckedthat up massively.
So he's been free fall now. And I'm guessing these were
never reported. Yeah, to anyone.
Oh, somehow. So it's not been.
Was there a police report on that?
Possibly. There must have been some
information if we know about it.That's true.

(40:05):
The biographer Joel Selvin Gordon's talent can't be
separated from his torment. The level of intuition that Jim
displayed in in his playing requires a certain electrical
electrochemical make up. It's a great name for a band
also. Is that just saying that he
needs to be losing his mind and on drugs constantly for him to
spew out the musical genius thathe is able to do?

(40:28):
Yeah. Yeah, well, that's what Brian
Wilson said. He said that he never sat down
to write a song. The songs came to him.
He said they would burst throughhis chest and cause him like
immense amounts of energy and and anxiety.
So it is interesting. I.
Weirdly believe that. Yeah, it's like it comes from
another place. That's what he said.
And yeah. His highly personal style had to
come from the same place in the brain that produced his

(40:50):
schizophrenia, he said. That also kind of checks out.
Yeah, it's too bad. Yeah, it's like a grocery store
that sells like really, really good meat, but then also just a
bunch of fucking shit sandwiches.
Yep, piss spam. Oh yeah.
Listen, OK bud. The focus and power involved in
playing the drums gave Gordon a refuge from the thoughts going

(41:10):
on in his head, Selvin continues.
The combination of the Renaissance of the drums and the
rhythmic entertainment of the groove produces A hypnotic
feeling that can lift you out. Nothing calms A schizophrenic
faster than a Walkman and a pairof headphones, which I don't
know if that's true. Nothing does what?
Nothing calms A schizophrenic faster than a Walkman and a pair

(41:31):
of headphones. So if you're being bludgeoned to
death as a homeless man and the guy's like, I'm schizophrenic,
you're like, where's my Walkman?Yeah, pretty.
Much like, oh, I'm sorry, I put on the headphones.
It's like much better continue. I can see music though.
Music therapy, It's been around for a long time.
Yeah. For Jim, the drums provided a
place where the voice is silenced.
It's. Very ironic.

(41:52):
Yeah, yeah. It's when you have so much like
cognitive dissonance, not even cognitive, like just dissonance
in your brain. And then when you like, when
you're able to produce somethingoutside of your body that kind
of like takes that, that dissonance outside of your
brain, places it outside of you.And because of that, you feel
like a sense of calm. Oh my God, am I schizophrenic?

(42:14):
No, totally not schizophrenic. Put the knife down, Kyle.
Let's go. Yeah, that's exactly 'cause
people always will, like, ask melike, oh, the people that don't
like metal music, they're alwayslike, Oh my God, how do you
listen to that stuff? And that's always how I would
describe it. It's like, like, I feel like
there's like a lot of like chaosand dissonance inside my brain
and that takes it out of my bodyand it like calms me.

(42:35):
Right. Yeah.
That's why you think you're in astudio recording a podcast right
now, but there hasn't been a podcast here in 30 years.
Ma'am, wake up. You're in Vegas.
You're in the Sunset Strip butt naked.
Ma'am, I'm a. Citizen.
I'm a citizen. Oh yeah, that's something you
can just start yelling regularly, citizen.
Just, you know. At the same time, the 1970s

(42:56):
amount of recreational drugs Gordon took had the calming
effect that would also get rid of this.
You would think the massive amounts of cocaine he did would
make things worse, Sullivan said.
But I talked to psychiatrist whosaid that it would normalize his
dopamine levels. That's.
Scary. I mean, I'm ADHD.
It does kind of that for me, yeah.
Wow, he was doing blow to feel normal, he said.

(43:18):
So his drug and alcohol use alsoserved as a cover for his
increasingly erratic actions. I understand that.
The rock scene of the time was nearly indistinguishable from
psychotic behavior, which that'sgoing to be crazy because LA
right now, the music scene is not really going on.
I mean, it's there, but it's not.
It's not like this. It's not like it's.
Definitely not that. Yeah.

(43:39):
If anything I would say comedians took on the roles of
rock'n'roll lifestyle bullshit. Yeah, yeah.
It's, it's it's something, Yeah,yeah.
I don't know how well it's going.
Yeah, so for them, Jim just blended into the background,
which that if if. Oh yeah, the scene is so crazy.
The. Dude is rock'n'roll.
What do you want? You're gonna be fucking be on
for some days. Yeah, I'm sober, sometimes on
coke. He's shaking in the corner.

(44:00):
Every time he comes back, he hasless hair like Mick Foley is
Mankind. It's fine.
It's like Alice in Wonderland when it's like we're all a
little mad down here. Yeah, pretty much.
In 1974, Jim Gordon joined the country rock super group the
Southern Hillman Fury Band. However, his behaviour grew so
erratic that they were forced tofire him after recording the

(44:20):
first album. That's too bad.
That sounds like it's music. Right up my right up my
alleyway. Yeah, right up my poop shoot.
Yeah. Oh wow.
Poop, Shoot Boogie. He was barely holding on.
He managed to keep it together in the studio for, you know,
just a few more years, but by 1978 Gordon was proving to be
too unreliable to be employed. Which is sad, because at one

(44:41):
point he was. He was the guy.
He was the man. In 1979, Bob Dylan called and
asked Jim to tour with him. What?
Wow. Jim was eager to play with
Dylan, but the voices isn't. But the voices in his head
wouldn't let him do it. Oh damn.
What did the voices say? They've in fact, the voices told
Jim to hang up the phone. Oh shit, he's Jewish.

(45:04):
He's. Not Jewish.
No. Oh shit.
So he hung up on Dylan, and the voices obliged.
But Jim himself was furious. He's like, why did you tell me
to do that? Oh yeah.
Because it's good for you. We know it's good for you.
How do you know that? Because I'm telling you it's
going nuts. Yeah, that sucks.

(45:25):
It does suck. It's also his voices are
horrible. Managers, Yeah, you gotta get
him on the tour, get him on the road with Dylan.
That's what I'm saying. You're supposed to be building
this guy up. The voices aren't, you know, too
positive. Well, maybe the voices were his
intuition being like, hey, you're really sick, maybe get
some help and don't just keep going like.
No, I think normal. These voices were just lazy.

(45:46):
They were too lazy to tour. Yeah, that's what it was.
Jim then called Paul Anka, who he knew from the past sessions,
and Anka had a Vegas gig waitingfor him.
Jim went to Vegas to perform with Anka for a couple weeks,
which, if you know anything about Vegas, schizophrenic,
that's the perfect place for them to be.
Visit. How you say that as well, 'cause

(46:06):
again, I'm, I have my own issuesand Vegas, all the Ding, Ding,
Ding, boom, boom, boom, come over here, honey, you almost
suck. I'll suck you off for 12.
Like all of that stuff is very calming.
Wow. Because when things are calm,
then my brain is going crazy andthen chaos ensues.
But if I'm around chaos, then I'm very calm, right?
OK, so basically me with metal music is you in Vegas?
Yeah, got it. Nice.

(46:27):
Sick. But I can.
You can win. You can't win money in metal
music. I can't lose money either.
That's true. Price of the ticket.
So during the sound check, afterhitting the drums once, the
voices in his head grew loud. They said you hit it again and
you're dead. What?
Oh shit. He couldn't.
He couldn't continue. He needed to live.

(46:48):
No, it's like the what's the name of the spider man bad guy?
He reminds me of the spider man bad guy the green guy the green.
Goblin. Green Goblin, Yeah, he told the
music director he had psychological problems and
couldn't proceed, so that's the first time he's being honest
about. It wow, he actually owned up to
it. It's very progressive.
That is, yeah, that's incrediblyahead of the times.
Now I'm assuming that this guy said man up, toughen the fuck

(47:11):
up, you're a pussy, get back to work.
Yeah, because it's 1980. Well, you know what?
Also very progressive. He agreed and returned him to
Los Angeles. Wow.
And that marked the end of his professional career.
Wow, I guess the voice is one out.
The voice is fucking one. What did they have against
drumming? They.
Had enough of that? Shit, if he hit the drums one

(47:32):
more time he was going to die, that's what.
They take up the ukulele. Yeah, because, because some
voice in his head was like, if Ihear this fucking drums in there
one more time, I'm going to fucking kill myself, right?
It was over it. But the way he could, but the
way he needed to admit it to himself was by separating the
voice and being like, if you hitthis one more time, I'm going to
kill you. Yeah, that's interesting.
I watched a little less a documentary on Ramirez and

(47:54):
apparently when Richard Ramirez,the Night Stalker, when he was
in prison, he talked about his crimes, but he always said his
friend wow. So he like separated him.
Wow, his crimes which is. Interesting.
So Randy and Randall Woodfield. Oh yes, two different guys.
Oh my God. Yeah, Jerry and my full name
will be disclosed at a later time.
So imagine later in life when Jim Gordon actually hears the

(48:15):
song Hit Me Baby one more time. He's like, no.
We're all going to die. That's funny, you know?
It's funny. Jerry's the Villain 1.
Oh. She's taking over.
Is Jerry in the room with us? Yeah, she is.
No, she. Yeah, she is.
Yeah, Scary little people are scary.
Always have, but always will be.In 1981, Jim Gordon was hired as

(48:36):
the drummer in a recording session for an unremarkable
artist, Jean Sarazen. The session in San Francisco
would be his last. After this, Jim played a small
garage. Jim played in a small garage
band that didn't go anywhere. Well, yeah, it's a garage band.
Yeah. If you leave the garage, it's no
longer a garage band. Now you're a street band.

(48:57):
Yeah, he later joined a small Blues band that had a regular
gig on Monday Monday nights in Santa Monica.
I love that though, that's nice.Is he happy at?
All that sounds like a nice little peaceful life.
Yes, for the the voices to go away.
He still gets to play music. Well, yeah, I don't know if the
voice is appease because he was only earning $40 a night.
So you think that they wanted more money, but they're the
reason he doesn't have. Reason he doesn't have any.

(49:19):
So 40 bucks a night. I mean, we like to go to a
little spot in a little Irish joint and there's a bunch of old
timers that play there. And I think it's kind of.
Cute. Oh my God, I love it.
Yeah, they're, they're insanely talented.
They are, and they just, they'reall like in their 70s and that's
just how they spend their Fridaynight.
You know. And despite the lack of success
at this time, this was a time when Jim was not overtaken by
his illness. There was even a point when he

(49:41):
was mentally stable enough to goon tour with Jackson Browne.
What? But he couldn't hold on to his
sanity for long. He knew he wasn't right, and he
felt ashamed or guilty about it,keeping his struggles hidden
from others. Yeah, I feel that.
And so it seems also there's a correlation with every time
success comes. It is scary.
And I guess he just couldn't handle that.
Maybe this was a self-defense mechanism.

(50:02):
Oh. Self sabotage.
Self sabotage, absolutely, we'renot going to do.
No, his bandmates didn't know anything.
What was wrong with him? Wow, they just thought he was a
quiet guy in the back of the bus.
Wow. Yeah, and he was suffering in
the back. Yeah, not that I haven't
forgotten about the time he punched and broke some ladies
rib cage. Yeah, At this time, Jim, Jim

(50:23):
entered a residential treatment program.
His illness kept him from staying in one place for too
long, moving from one temporary residence to the other.
He sold his Mercedes and wasn't working, but occasionally saw
his daughter Amy. At times he'd go to a bar in
Burbank called Shadney, and thatwas a hangout for session
musicians. What's that called now?

(50:45):
Yeah. We got to look that up.
Let's. See, let's let's fucking.
See. Let's check that out, Shadney.
The Shadney, yeah, sometimes he'd sit in there with his band
or any musicians, but there was no real real music career left
for him. OK, and how old is he now?
At this point, this is the 80s, nineteen 81 so.
He's in his mid 30s. He was born 4545, right, right,

(51:06):
right. Yes, he was 36.
So Jim had now been out of the music business for five years.
OK, He was living alone. He was isolated from friends and
any social contact. Sounds like a dream.
Awesome. Yeah, this is the life of a
hermit. And that's usually OK, right?
If you do it in the woods then it's fine.
Yeah, unless you're sending bombs to universities.

(51:27):
Yeah, right. He was battling severe mental
illness, and his condition was only getting worse.
Yeah, the disease seemed to takeover his life, turning his world
into a personal hell. Sounds rough.
Yeah, top among those tormentorswas the voice of his mother,
which would not leave him alone,which that would.
That would suck. That would be awful.

(51:48):
Oh yeah, imagine the voice of your mother constantly in your
head. Oh my God, it's already there.
Kind of is, yeah. I kind of like the voice of my
mother. Of course he would.
Benjamin, let's go to Piggly Wiggly.
OK, Mom. That sounds pleasant.
Yeah, Yeah. My father on the other hand,
Sure, yes, Oh my God. Yeah.

(52:10):
So at this point, his mother's joining in and it's it's not
good. It has the whole family reunion
up there nightmare. So then at one point in 1983,
the voices led him to become fixated upon the idea of killing
his mom. Oh my gosh.
The thought wouldn't leave him, and by the end of the year, his
mother would be dead. Wow.

(52:30):
The voices Gordon. The voices Gordon heard shamed
him so deeply he rarely told anyone about them.
And that's one thing your mothercan do probably better than
anyone else, because she alreadyknows everything you went
through in your entire. Life.
Oh, of course, that's where theycan pick and pick.
Oh God, yes. But act like it's love.
Right, right. Jerry, what did you find out
about the bar the Shandy? OK, so the Shandies, it was, it

(52:55):
was, it was an old pub where, yeah, musical artists would pass
by. It closed down in 1998.
Oh, we missed. We just missed it.
We. Just missed it 27 years late.
Yeah, and so it was. Apparently it was like a boarded
up eyesore. For years, I think until like
2011 something called Casa Cabo Bar and Grill tried to purchase

(53:16):
and open it up but it didn't work out. 2015 another brewpub
tried to open up and it was alsojust lasted a couple of years
and now it's a it's a Brews Brothers brewpub.
What? Yeah.
It's a, it's they. Gotta go.
Yeah, they. Yeah, Yeah, I'm not.
It's a yeah. It's a nice generic Shane Brews

(53:37):
Brothers. All right.
Interesting. Oh, I know exactly.
Where that is? Yeah.
What are his? Yeah, it's literally right.
Well, yeah, 'cause. They I went there when my son
was born. They have a smaller Bruce
Brothers in North Hollywood and then they opened up a larger hub
apparently where chatneys used to be.
Wow. Burbank is cool of ghosts.
Wow, I love that. Oh, yeah.
It's definitely haunted with allthese musicians and maybe like,

(53:59):
you know, Jim Gordon's mother's voice.
Yeah. Jim, you didn't do the laundry
right. Jim.
Jim, what kind of chord progression was that?
You should just quit. Maybe a girl would like you,
Betty, if you took a shower, Jim.
Punch her in the face, Jim. Oh no, it's like psycho.
Yeah. So his mother, she was one of
his closest companions. She believed that drinking and

(54:19):
drugs were his problem, rather than a symptom of something far
more serious. I mean, she's not.
All wrong, but then there's alsothe component where she's
totally. Wrong.
No, she seems good. Like, yeah, like she wants to
help them, but you're gonna haveto help yourself first, right?
And and yeah, and back then people didn't realize that the
drugs and alcohol was very much like a self medicating strategy

(54:41):
to cover up what was actually going on.
Absolutely. So while Gordon began to imagine
that many people were torturing him at the time, the main voice
in his head remained his mother's.
Wow. That's fucking rough.
Very we need, we need some psychologist in here to break
that down. How much time they got?
Right. Jim had Jim had been planning to

(55:02):
relocate his 71 year old mother,OSA Marie Gordon, to Seattle,
where his older brother lived with his family.
She had been living in Tahoe, but it moved back to San
Fernando to take care of her partner's estate.
Jim and his mother had been distant, communicating mostly
through the voices in his head. Oh so.
Telepathy. Yeah, one way.

(55:23):
Psychopathy and telepathy at thesame time.
The afternoon before the murder,Jim went to her house, but she
wasn't home. Good day to not be home.
Yeah, absolutely. So.
The next day, June 3rd, 1983, inthe depths of his mental
illness, Jim Gordon returned to his mother's house and in a
violent frenzy, he attacked her with a hammer.
Wow. He struck her in the skull four

(55:44):
times before grabbing a butcher knife and fatally stabbing her
repeatedly the hammer. The hammer does play into the
the sensibilities of a drummer, you know.
I wonder if he kept the beat. Yeah, like it was like, wow, you
can clearly see like the two andthe four right in these, right
in these abrasions right here. Oh, that is horrible.

(56:05):
Sorry I'm off time but. It's like.
Yeah, seriously, it's like, wait, if you look at the if you
look at the wounds, you can clearly see.
Yeah, the most. Beautiful piece of music ever
written in his poor mother's skull.
Oh God. I'm sorry.
So the the final time he stabbedher with such force it pinned

(56:27):
her to the floor. Fucking.
Michael Myers, yeah. Screams from the house were
reported to the police, who responded quickly.
Detectives at the scene found a letter from Jim's brother
discussing the family issues, aswell as a notebook belonging
belonging to Jim's mother. The police went to Jim's house
early the next morning, so they got there quickly enough, but he

(56:47):
was already gone. OK, that guy's on the move.
Yeah. He'd been drinking very heavily,
consuming Long Island iced teas at the favorite bar in Burbank.
That'll that will do it. That'll do.
It I love a good Long Island. For people that don't know what
to Long Island Iced Tea is, it'severything.
It's everything. It is a death sentence the next

(57:08):
day. I've never had them out here in
New York. I got them all the time because
they were like $3. That's.
Yeah, in a pint glass. Yeah.
No, they're pretty. They're they're more expensive
out there. They get a little pricey.
Every time someone orders a LongIsland Iced Tea, I'm always
like, you're trying to get somewhere buddy, aren't you?
If you want a Long Island iced tea, just save yourself the
money, get a get a a curly strawand just go to someone's gas

(57:28):
tank. And.
Just suck it right up because holy.
Same thing. Yeah, and he would later have
several bottles of vodka at home.
His blood alcohol level was tested and it was 3.3%.
Whoa, that is a hell of a lot. When I was at passages rehab.
Small plug. There was a chick there that

(57:49):
said she blew a 4A point. Wow.
Yeah. Or 04.
Whatever. Yeah.
And she was this super sweet momfrom Wyoming.
Yeah. And yeah, apparently.
And then she showed us all, like, because she was obviously
arrested. Yeah.
Yeah. Drinking and driving.
But it was. Yeah, that's what they said.
They said it was the highest in the state of history.
Wow. You're supposed to be dead.
Good for her. Yeah, she was kind of proud of

(58:09):
it. Yeah, it was a funny place where
everyone is kind of proud. You know, it's just like, you
know, females taking over male dominated.
Exactly what it. Was kind of love it.
Jim was nearly unconscious when they had found him.
They found him curled up under his coffee table, crying and
apologizing. Wow.
Yeah, yeah. Curled up under his coffee

(58:31):
table. Fuck.
But apologizing to who? Himself with his mother in his
head. Yeah.
She's still you. Imagine he thought the voices
were going to stop, and they didn't.
Fuck that is even. Worse, it's all coming from
inside the brain. Took out his mom for nothing.
Nothing in. His own words, Jim said.

(58:51):
I did it, I did it. I'm sorry, but she was torturing
me. You have no idea.
That's crazy. She didn't know either.
And. She didn't, she had no idea.
And I also kind of like feel forhim.
I feel this, this pain that's like oozing out of him that that
still that he made it worse and that sucks.
Following his arrest, Jim Gordonwas properly diagnosed with

(59:13):
schizophrenia, which. Fucking finally, which took way
too long. A little too late, apparently,
yeah, However, due to changes inCalifornia law influenced by the
federal Insanity Defense Reform Act, say that five times fast.
Insanity defense Reform Act Instead I need to defense
reform. No, can't do it.
Can't do it even once. He was not permitted to use an

(59:35):
insanity defense. Really.
Was this post Hinckley? Cause Hinckley got off
basically. Yeah, so this was 83 Hinckley.
Was that 82 or something? Somewhere around, remember?
Yeah, just a year before Jim's court trial, California passed a
law making insanity pleas much more difficult to prove.
To qualify for an insanity plea in 1983, the defendant had to

(59:58):
not know what they were doing atthe time of the crime.
Jim clearly knew what he was doing, so he didn't qualify.
Wow. Yeah, but he thought he was
killing the voice in his head. I mean, he went to his mother's
house, right? To kill the voices in his head.
Yeah, true. Despite the fact that six
psychiatrists testified Jim was insane, he was convicted of

(01:00:19):
second degree murder. The judge, however, understood
the situation and recognized Jim's mental state.
On July 10th, 1984, Jim Gordon was sentenced to 16 years to
life. That's not so bad.
That's a very 16 years in. His late 30s, he's going to be
out in his mid 50s. Or he could be in there for life
for second degree murder, a relatively lenient sentence

(01:00:41):
under the circumstances. Yeah, it's like a manslaughter
sentence. Not too shabby.
Some have argued that Jim shouldhave been diverted into private
mental health care. Probably.
Rather than facing the criminal justice system, Yeah, he became
eligible for parole in 1991 and many times after, but he was
denied each time after he refused to attend hearings.
Maybe prison was the best place for him.

(01:01:03):
Honestly, you know, as long as he's just gauged up supervised.
Eating soup. Eating soup.
A lot of soups. Toilet soup.
Toilet soup. In 2014, a deputy District
Attorney noted that Gordon remained seriously
psychologically incapacitated. Oh, so he's not better?

(01:01:23):
Decades in prison in the US penal system didn't make him
better. So weird.
Cheer up, Charlie. Yeah, what?
So they said he posed a danger when he was not medicated, so he
was rediagnosed with schizophrenia in 2017.
Despite his incarceration, Gordon continued to receive
royalties from all the records he played on.
That's a lot of stamps, baby. He's living the King's life in

(01:01:45):
prison. God, that's fantastic.
His commissary's good. Yeah, you probably got Tang He
and definitely a television. Yeah, Jesus.
This made him one of the most financially stable inmates in
the California prison system. OK, so dead broke on the streets
or the richest person in the US prison system.

(01:02:07):
Hey, which one do you want? I.
Don't I don't that's. Are those the only choices?
Those are the only choices. You know what, I'm already broke
out on the streets. I'll just take this one.
I know what it's like. I'm talking on the streets, but
OK. Yeah.
Give me all the ramen. Yeah, give Kyle all the ramen.
I love ramen, although it's so much worse for you than you
thought. I know than I thought.

(01:02:28):
Well the trick is you only use half the packet and then you and
then you like season it yourselfor none of the packet season the
whole thing. You know what I do?
I don't use the. I don't use the noodles.
I just use the seasoning. I don't even want to fucking
hear about since I don't even know why I.
Bother. Do you have voices in your head,
Ben? I do.
He's like, just just throw the chicken into the oven, don't
salt it at all. Chef, Chef Boyar don't, but I

(01:02:53):
just say whatever ship where I don't.
I am doing that, yeah. I'm only using all the cheese
mom, right? Yeah, I remember my dad trying
to explain serving sizes to me when I was like, when I was like
14. There's like, shut up, dad.
But in hindsight, he was correct.
Yeah, yeah, pizzas are 5 or 4, but.
Gordon spent the whole Gordon spent the next 4 decades of his

(01:03:14):
life in prison, quiet and withdrawn, heavily medicated to
the point he was often describedas a zombie due to the powerful
antipsychotic drugs that were administered.
Wow. I mean, at the same time, I'm,
I'm. He might.
I wonder if that was better for him.
Yeah. It sounds sounds like that,
yeah. His life behind bars was
uneventful and his music career became a distant memory.

(01:03:36):
In one of his last and only interviews, Jim Gordon described
his mental state as, quote, a jail cell that is always on
fire. Wow.
Oh my God, that's. That is terrifying.
That is awful. I'm actually, I'm very happy
that he's dead. I am for him.
No, it sounds like he was. He is yearning the sweet release

(01:03:56):
of fucking death. A jail cell that's always on
fire. Oh my God, yeah.
Kind of scary. Very scary, Pretty much.
So Jim Gordon died on Monday, March 13th, 2023.
Wow. In prison.
Really. At the California medical
facility in Vacaville, I wonder.What his thoughts on Trump were.

(01:04:18):
He had no idea Trump was ever inoffice.
I mean, honestly, if you're in prison, I'll be watching TV
being like, that's not, we're not, that's not real.
Not if it's real. Yeah, I do that now.
This is a prison that specializes in medical and
psychiatric care. Wow, he was 77 years old.
Wow so sick he outlived his mom by 6 years.
Dude suffered for long enough. Yep, a prison that's always on

(01:04:42):
fire at jail well. Yeah, and that'll bring us too.
Final thoughts Your parents are right, the drums bring out the
devil in you. Never play the drums.
No, it's so, yeah, yes, that's my final.
Never play the drums. Don't play the fucking drums.

(01:05:02):
I've never met a drummer story that's positive.
Look at the guy for Van Halen. He lost both his arms or
something like that. Def.
Leppard def. Leppard, He lost one arm, he.
Lost an arm? See that drummer?
Be careful out there, drummers. Never trust one.
Never be 1. And also, you know, it seems
like the mother did the right thing and she was very kind.
But just in my case, I'm thinking, I'm never going to

(01:05:24):
criticize my son if I see that he's crazy.
That's nice of you. I'm just going to be like, OK,
whatever you want, whatever you say, yes.
Well, that's going to, that's what he's going to go down a
horrible path if you. Yeah.
Not, not Yes, Well. Then he's not going to kill me.
Not whatever you want, whatever you.
Yeah, he's going to kill. That's exactly how he kills you.
Yeah. So it's going to be like, you
were always so God damn a Korea bull.
Shut the fuck up. And then your last words would
be like I was good to you Kaden.I was good to as you choke in

(01:05:47):
your own blood bro. Pretty much.
They get stabbed through the ground, Yeah.
In Yeah. I think no, I think this is my
final thought is, you know, thisis just a good lesson for mental
health and just being just just having having an awareness of
people that are the weird cry ones in the corner, overly,
overly creatively genius out It all comes with a price.

(01:06:11):
You. Know what everyone's going
through? It really does.
Yeah. Thoughts.
You know, sorry, I was just, if you're going through something
that's really hard to articulateand it does suck because now if
you say you're suicidal to a therapist, they have to report
it and it fucks with your life insurance.
That is crazy. But anyway, try to talk to a
trusted person, yeah? Wow.
True. It's crazy.
Damn, well, there goes my life insurance.

(01:06:32):
Oh yeah, all of us. No.
Life insurance. Right, also that.
I think I'm paying the government $1,000,000 when I
die, yeah. Yeah, thoughts go out to his
daughter Amy. Like I said, she was born in
1968. She actually gets all of his
royalties to this day. Good.
Well, I hope she's good. I hope she just doesn't have to
work. That'd be great.
Yeah. Complicated life.

(01:06:53):
Dynamic with her and her father I could imagine.
Yeah, and his ex-girlfriend, Rita Coolidge, she was actually
very happy, and she found a lot of comfort knowing that all of
his royalties are going directlyto Amy.
So yeah, great. That's good.
All right. Well, that's a fantastic
episode, that. Was yeah, that was I had.
That was a lot. Yeah, Jim Gordon, The Life and
death and Times. Yeah, of America's lesser known.

(01:07:15):
Drummer. Yes.
And do you hear that? Uh oh.
You've got mail. Hello.
We have got a mail bag. Let's go.
Let's. Do it on the Spotify comments
for wide receiver serial deceiver Randall Woodfield.
I love that title. Yes, Shane Hebenstall said that
he's very surprised they didn't try to get him on death row.

(01:07:37):
How did he avoid the death penalty for his extensive crime
list? And that is simply because he
was only convicted for one murder.
So it's very hard to get the death penalty if you only kill
one person, which, yeah, take that information how you will.
I only killed one. Why are you trying to kill me
now? Serious.
I mean, look at what they're doing with the Luigi Mangione,

(01:07:59):
yes? Salty, 24, said you guys should
plan a field trip to see Randallin prison.
Nice. Oh my God.
I've got a couple here as well. Yes, I want to read 1 from
Where's the Beer? Where's the beer?
They say think you found your third, she's a keeper.
That's you. Is it me?

(01:08:20):
You're a keeper? Oh well.
I'm happy to be. Here yes a.
Little blown by all of this brand new information.
And Meeg says groove is in the heartbend.
That's right, but they wanted usto go to the prison so that you
could see for yourself in personif he was very tall and athletic
and handsome. Oh, I see.
So. I'll be the judge of that.

(01:08:41):
Fantastic. Thank you to everybody.
If you want to request an episode, give us a shout at
[e-mail] to patreon.com/die bud.
We got 2 podcasts, 1 Patreon, and we got like 8 episodes a
week coming out, something like that.
Yeah, we got we got a Ben kiss of politics will be two of
those. OK, Bud, Four of those, one
death and entertainment and we're building a studio that's

(01:09:03):
going to look real nice. We are.
Going. Yeah, so I love it.
So I'm going to say hail yourself.
And then Jerry, you say until next week.
OK, Hail yourself. Until next week.
Don't go dying on us. Bye bye, you have just heard.
A true Hollywood murder mystery.I have never seen anything like

(01:09:23):
this before. The movies, Broadway, music,
television, all of it. A place that manufacturers
nightmares. OK, everybody, that's a wrap.
Good night, please drive home carefully and come back again
soon.