A Finance Guru’s Musical Affair Amidst Edgewater's Architectural Marvels

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Records in Real Estate, a podcast about
well records in real estate.
You'll be entertained andinformed as we explore the
intersection of these two worldsthrough interviews with
Chicago's most interesting andsuccessful people from both
industries.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That was Andrew Wendt and I'm Karen Sanvoss.
We are Chicago Real EstateBrokers, property Managers, avid
Music Lovers and your hosts ofRecords in Real Estate.
Andrew, karen, guess what, what?
We have a guest.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We do.
Yeah, wow, is that why we'rehere?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
That is why we're here.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Okay, this is.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
John Plemandin, plemandin, plemandin, yeah, yes.
He is just a serendipitousguest.
Yes, that I met in a bar downthe street from my house.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
A virtual stranger.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
A virtual stranger, but not anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Not anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, and he is a finance guy.
He teaches at DePaul.
He teaches finance at DePaul.
That's his whole world.
He is also the treasurer of ahuge co-op building down the
street from me, the pinkbuilding.
The pink building In Edgewateron North Sheridan.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, edgewater Beach .

Speaker 2 (01:22):
It used to be like a big hotel.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
It was the apartment building for a big hotel complex
.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, and it's now a co-op and it's just this like
cool world that I knew nothingabout and it was right down the
street from me.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, and he was gracious enough to get to
talking to you.
How did you stumble intoLafarmacy?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I literally was walking down the beach, took a
walk one night and I had anintention.
So maybe this is the universe.
I said I want a glass of wineand I want to meet somebody.
Wow, and so I went to thislittle place that I'd seen a
million times, lafarmacy, whichis the bar on the lower level of

(02:03):
this beautiful pink building,and sat next to.
I sat in between him andanother group who I tried to hit
up on conversation, and theyjust weren't realizing that I
was as fabulous as I am, that'sright.
So I was like all right, we'llscrew you guys.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
And.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I will turn to my right to see what this gentleman
is about.
There's this guy, and he wasJoan Nice.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well, we had a lovely conversation.
He is passionate about hisbuilding, is passionate about
the co-op structure, thebenefits of it, and he's
definitely passionate aboutmusic and vinyl and jazz and I
think you guys are really goingto like it.
An audio file he definitely isan audio file.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yes, yeah, we learned a lot, so let's get into it.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
John, welcome to Records in Real Estate.
It's really great to have you.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Today.
This is kind of a first.
We're going to have youintroduce yourself, even though
we're going to do a little introbefore this, but go for it.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well, I'm John Flamondin.
I'm an investment manager andanalyst by day and I collect
records by night.
I'm also a finance professor atDePaul adjunct faculty, at the
university, and I'm on thetreasure of the Edgewater Beach
Apartments Corporation, nice,also known as the Pink Building.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yes, that's how people will know it around
Chicago, I think.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
And the Pink Building is in Edgewater.
That's on the very northeastside of Chicago, right south of
Rogers Park.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
And yeah, the Pink Building.
Tell us the history about thisPink Building.
It's quite famous.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
The Pink Building used to be part of a hotel that
encompassed much of the highrises there to the south and
unfortunately, I can't rememberthe Cross Street.
I should remember the CrossStreet, but I can't remember the
Cross Street.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Bryn.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Mawr.
No, bryn Mawr is where we're at.
Oh, okay, I can't remember howfar they how far, maybe Burwin.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh, okay, got it yeah .

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So just north of Foster there's this very large
luxury hotel complex.
It was built as an apartmentbuilding, a high end apartment
building that would have sort ofall the amenities of the hotel.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, there's some good pictures in the lobby of
Rolls Royces and famous peoplerolling up.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, and they've got some.
I don't know if those werestaged or Do you know when it
was built?
It was built in 1929.
And I think the other parts, Ithink the original building for
the hotel was like 1914.
And it's a Benjamin Marshallbuilding, which he did the Drake
and the Blackstone Hotel.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
And there's some other building that people think
is your building.
That was also a pink building.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, the hotel they think you'll have people who are
like, oh, I have my prom or mydorm was in here, because Loyola
actually was renting the hotelfor several, I think for a year
or two in the 60s, before it wastorn down and it was dorms.

(05:10):
But there's a lot of peoplelike my parents' age and
probably younger who had theirproms in the hotel and they sort
of remember things about thehotel when they think it's our
building, although I think thehotel was actually yellow.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Interesting yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
I don't think it was pink, but it could be, it could
be.
Might have been pink later.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, maybe it was just very distinctive.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
So a lot of those buildings that were built as the
hotel complex are they still?
There or are they torn downyeah they've been torn down.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
It starts at the breakers and then there's the I
call it the Black building.
I believe it's the tallesthigh-rise building outside of
downtown Chicago and Illinois.
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
The one with the rounded.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah, it's rounded-sized, and then there's
two white buildings.
So all that was the hotel.
The hotel, okay.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So I think what you know is that Lake Shore Drive
well, it used to be yourbuilding was right on the beach.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, there the water come slap up against the
building Cool.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
And so they filled it all in and made Lake Shore
Drive.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
And they did that in like the late 40s, okay, and
what happened was the hotel wasseeing a drop in movement or
they weren't the hot place to beanymore, right?
I think it coincides also withair travel People start flying
to destinations instead of kindof coming to this thing in
Chicago, right?

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Well, and then I mean , at some point Chicagoans were
probably just traveling north upfrom the city and staying there
, and it would be a fancydestination that they would go
weekend there.
And easier to get to there fromthen Lake Geneva or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
But if you fly, yeah, yeah, I think it was probably
the combination of the two,right, but what happened was the
hotel was having some financialdifficulty.
They decided to sell off theapartments, the apartment
building, and a group of 10individuals, one of whom was
George Alice, who was thefounder of the Bears, papa Bear,

(07:20):
got together and put in somemoney and bought it at auction,
for I believe it was about $13million, and was that a large
sum of money, like Back then?
I think it would have been in1950.
Yeah, it seems like we can lookthat up and find out.
But then they turned around andsold the units off to the

(07:42):
people who were living there, tothe residents, so, and that's
how it became a co-op.
So our building's a little bitunique in its governance, and
then the governance structurewas actually set up by the
people who lived in the building.
Yeah, so I mean, I'm sure whenyou're dealing with condo
buildings and things like that,most of the time the bylaws
aren't written by Right, they'rewritten by lawyers yeah.

(08:06):
Usually, usually with thedeveloper, with the developer.
The developer kind of writesthese things Right.
With this.
There was a lot of thought putinto it, so there's a bit
different.
The governance structure is abit different and, as someone
who had owned a condo before, Iwas looking for something
different.
I was looking for a morecommunity focused kind of more
interactive.

(08:26):
So the condo building I was inbefore was like 70 units I think
.
I think the board was likethree people, our board is 15.
Yeah, and you do a three-yearterm and we basically roll over
five every year.
Okay, and then there's a termlimit.
You have to take a year off theboard before you can run again.
That's great.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
And what limit are.
What year are you in?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
I am in my second year.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
As treasurer.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
No, my second year as director.
First year as treasurer Okay,and then next year I'll most
likely be treasurer again, okay,and be on board, and I'll be
off Nice For a year and if Iwant to run again, I will.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Will you Do?
You think yeah, I think so yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, I would do it again, but we'll see where I'm
at.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
I mean, that's two years down the road, I think
that says a lot because you knowmost condo boards people do it
off, they feel like out ofnecessity and it's a terrible
experience, but it sounds to melike you know your building is.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's, a little it's, and I think it's because of the
governance structure.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, Can you explain it?
Well, it's larger, 15.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
You've got 15 people on the board, so you've got more
people to do things.
And everybody kind of does theirthing Right, right.
I mean like it's kind of youfigure out where you add value,
yeah, like you kind of do that,that's cool Right.
And I do feel you know, andthings are, things are kept
pretty civil.
I mean we're also fortunatethat at least in my tenure on

(09:48):
the board we've had some reallyreally good people who are
retired who have come from youknow some some pretty, you know
come from some pretty.
You know good places, yeah,high positions.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
High positions and stuff, and they want to stay
engaged, they want to dosomething, but yeah, they don't
want to do a full-time jobanymore.
Right, you know, and we've beenfortunate.
Yeah, I've been, I've beenimpressed, I've learned a lot
from the experience, for sure,nice.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
What were some of the main things that you've learned
?
Oh, that surprised you.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
I would say probably just dealing with people.
You know, I can get wrapped up.
I mean, this is me personally,right.
I can kind of get wrapped up inmy little, my little world.
But I'm also, you know, I'mwatching some of these people
just how.
You know how to, how to, how tobe a leader, yeah, and kind of,
you know, we've got our boardmeeting, we have our rules Right

(10:40):
, and then you know, how do you,how do you kind of manage?
You know, people are askingthings and things like that and
it's a.
You know how do you diffusesituations sometimes?

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so cool, I meangood, oh, no, good, nope, I
don't have anything really so.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, so I live down the street in another sort of
high rise apartment on Sheridanor condo and it is it's just a
regular HOA.
It's not a co-op and you knowthere's a lot of it's.
It's the idea that you know Iown my piece of property and I
want this and I want that.
Whereas a co-op, I would assumethat people who are coming into

(11:17):
a co-op, first of all they haveto be vetted in a different way
.
Anyone can come into our.
If they can buy a property, youknow, if they can afford it,
they can live in our buildingYours.
You go through a differentprocess.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, the board has.
In general, the board has morepower.
I would say.
You know we do have aninterview process for new
shareholders, but really I mean,if you're getting an in-person
interview, it's because you passthe criminal background check
and you pass the financialrequirements, right, because
that's really the only reasonwhy we reject anybody.
The interview is more tocommunicate that you are a

(11:50):
member of a community, right,and you know we're expected to
treat each other civilly and andkind of welcoming you into you
know, encouraging you to getinvolved in the board, either on
a committee or on a, you know,in some other way, sort of
informing you of some things.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Sure, yeah, and you find that people are seeking
this building out because ofthat kind of community.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
You don't, incidentally, choose to live
here yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Your realtor's not going to.
My well, my, I have a condo,and then I have this co-op.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
My, my realtor is no you know my realtor was trying,
was talking me out of it likecrazy.
Yeah, it was like where are yougoing?
And to give you an idea, I putmy offer in on April.
I think it was April 5th.
Okay, when do you think Iclosed?
I can't tell if you're leadingup to the fact that it took a
really long time or they werelike September 5th, august 15th,

(12:40):
okay, okay, yeah, which myrealtor was like that's yeah,
he's like I've never hadanything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, yeah yeah.
There's a lot of listings outthere that have like even old
kind of buildings.
I bet your building has like 30days of you know for board
approval, but it never works outthat way.
In fact, I don't even think youreally need to get board
approval to purchase in yourbuilding.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
I don't think so.
It's more you know for me, it'sthe paperwork.
It's trying to get you know.
I think this goes for allcondos that I've worked with,
which haven't been many, but youknow it takes a while to just
get to the manager and get thepaperwork that you need to close
.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, yeah, especially if you have a bad
management company.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right Takes forever.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Do you guys have a management?

Speaker 3 (13:36):
company.
Oh yeah, we've got an onsite,we have onsite management, but
it's not a third party like no,it's Soutler's.
Yeah, Soutler's our managementcompany.
They've done a good job.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Their building is immaculate.
So the night that John and Imet, and in the bar at the
bottom of this building is awonderful little bar called La
Pharmacie it's French.
It's spelled La Pharmacie withan.
Ie.
But yeah, and it looks like anold school pharmacy.

(14:11):
Yeah, I guess it's just like aconservative.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
It was an old school pharmacy.
Yeah, it hasn't been changed.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
You should stop by just to see it.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's really really cool.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
And then so we you know, john took me on a little
tour and this building isimmaculate, it's so well done,
and they just redid the pool.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yeah, we just redid our swimming pool.
Okay, you know, brought it,restored it, brought it back.
There had been a little bit ofwhat I would call a remodel in
the 80s.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Remodel.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, it was a patch job that kept it going, but it
had reached its end.
Yeah, and then it was time tobring it back to its former
glory.
It's an outdoor pool.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
No, it's indoor Indoor okay, which is much nicer
like indoor pools because youcan use them year round.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, and it's.
You know it's small but it's socool, because you were saying
that John was saying that it wasgoing to take more money to
upgrade it to some sort of fancynew, modern way, as opposed to
just restore what was there.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, so you know, because it's historical, so
we're able to keep it.
We had a choice we could eitherupdate, modernize right, or we
could, you know, restore therestoration under and keep
things the same.
It was actually cheaper torestore it.
Nice, yeah, so much cheaper Interms of, like the Because we'd
have to bring up the standardsRight, got you Modern day

(15:24):
standards.
It's not like it's not.
I wouldn't say it's unsafe orclean or anything, but it's just
.
Yeah, the water flowsdifferently.
We'd have to like they're thewhole thing.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
They, the team that worked on that, did a wonderful
job of you know, and we'refortunate.
Again, you are building.
I have people ask me is it ayou know?
Is this a retirement community?
You have to be like no, it'snot.
But again, I think there weresome things that I think tended
to inadvertently skew it the agea bit higher, up until about
2000.

(15:57):
You weren't allowed to have amortgage, oh, so you had to show
up and pay cash.
Wow, so that automaticallymakes it Not a lot of 20 year
olds but you could also.
but you know like my unit sold1994, 1200 square feet, two bed,
two bedroom, one bath, for youknow, with a great view of the
park, you know of the space andstuff like that.

(16:19):
You know it's like.
I think it's over like $35,000.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
It was cash only.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, cash only yeah.
So, and what's interesting toois and I've learned this since
meeting John is that the HOAdues are all inclusive.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Taxes and insurance and everything.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
That's one of the unique things about a club is, a
corporation owns a building andyou're given a proprietary
lease Right, okay.
But then you're a shareholderin the corporation, right, okay,
right.
So you're still kind oftechnically a renter, yeah, but
we have one pin for the wholebuilding, yeah.
We paid one tax bill.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Or tax bills higher or lower, but like, as compared
to a condo, or is this the city?
I don't, I don't have a.
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, I'm not going to comment on that because I'm
not sure, I don't know.
Yeah, but it's just different.
I mean, I think people look atthe HOA and freak out, right,
but then you know when you, whenyou're, when you figure your
property taxes Right.
It's sort of different Totally.
Yeah, I think most people arepaying $500 a month in property
taxes around us for their youknow equivalently sized units.

(17:22):
Yeah yeah, you have to subtractbecause you're not paying that
through your mortgage.
Right, right, yeah, it's.
All of our utilities are ontheir internet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
They're on their internet.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's a little bit more
electrical, okay, but it's, it'snot.
It's less than what you wouldpay in a, because there's no,
it's like one connection charge.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, sowe're not paying the fixed
charges.
Right Like we're just meteringyou for the electricity use
Right.
The building pays all, though.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, the fixed charges to the comment.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Have you guys retrofitted the systems Like?
I mean, you know when's thelast time you revamped the
windows or the AC Okay.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
So this is another thing, you know, when you're
looking at an old building, yeah, and you're like, oh, what's
the conversation to have?
Yeah, and her, you know, Ithink when we were having our
conversation, you're like oh,what are the reserves?
Like yeah, obviously the personasked about that Sure.
But.
But what I said was like okay,but you have to look at, you
can't just look at the number.
Yeah Right, and I use thisexample quite a bit Do you want
to live in the building that has$10 million in reserves but $50

(18:20):
million worth of projects?
Or the building that's got amillion dollars in reserves and
$500,000 in products.
Right, I mean they hate theother one that then then $5
million.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
The other one has better reserves?

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, but you know they started about in the
late nineties.
I mean, I just I wasn't therethen, obviously, but I just know
they've started on what I viewas being a 20, 25 year sort of
restoration project.
You know product, so they redidall the windows.
Back then they redid the facadeyeah, Completely redid the

(18:56):
facade and they've been steadilygoing through and updating all
the things.
Our building, you know, it's oneof these things where you go
and you look at the some ofthese buildings like, oh yeah,
well, they want to redo thelobby, but you know the pipe
systems, you know the risersystem 70 years old, nobody said
, but they're tired, they wantto.
You know, focus on redoing thelab, Right, We've got the
opposite problem.

(19:17):
Yeah, yeah, but that's thething, is that you have to look
at those sorts of things, right.
It is that there is a, you know, like when I moved in, I moved
in in the middle of a riser, an18 month riser project they
literally tore out all the pipesin the building and placed them
.
So we've got all new pipes.
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
And that's, and that's one of those things that
you know do you know how I meanthat was paid for?
or yeah.
Well, here's another uniquething about a co-op.
Yeah, that's why I'm asking.
It's a corporation that owns abuilding that then leases it out
to the shareholders.
Right, we can pledge thebuilding is collateral on both
Right, right and the reason.

(19:58):
I'll share something about me.
The reason why I moved out ofmy condo in the early 2000s was
because I got hit with a $25,000special Sure, mm-hmm, you know,
on a masonry issue.
The building, it was an olderbuilding but it had been redone
seven years prior.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
We were like just past the you know stage to go
back after the developer Gotcha,and I was thinking about moving
.
That pushed me over.
Yeah, you know, if you thinkabout it, you know somebody gets
hit with a $25,000, $50,000special assessment.
Yeah, they pay for it, but thenwhoever they sell to benefits
from the, yeah, whereas if youborrow for a project, you like

(20:37):
this, right.
Yeah, really, if I move, well,I just stop paying that loan,
right, you know, whoever takesover the unit, the loan stays
with the unit.
I see for the infrastructure,right?
So you know, and, and our, ourmortgage is 30 years on it.
We did it at the right time,got a very good rate.
Yeah, I mean, we, you know whatthe way interest rates are

(20:59):
going.
We're definitely looking likegeniuses.
So you know, I mean, you sitthere and you look at these
things, but it's like, you know,we've got a new pipe system and
it's phenomenal.
Yeah, that's amazing, yeah cuzwe're.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
We're dealing with that right now where, you know,
big special assessment justhappened because we have to redo
the roof which is underconstruction right now.
But you know, I think we'regonna lose some people because
they, you know, we don't have,we didn't have the reserves
built up for it.
So it's all a special yeah, see, we don't we?

Speaker 3 (21:31):
we have cash flow and we have.
We have good reserve cash flow.
You know we've got a decentamount of reserves and you know
that we save, but it's also likewe're investing in the building
as we go.
Yeah, you see.
So it's like you might justlook at that number and go, oh
man, that's nothing, but it'sagain.
It's my example of the fivemillion dollar building.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
You know, million dollar building, yeah, or the
ten million, yeah and I mean,the big difference is, you know
you have more readily Accessiblecash via loan.
Yeah, condo building that isdoesn't have good finances.
I mean, it's one thing.
If the condo building does havefive million reserves, they can
say we have five millionreserves, we would just prefer

(22:14):
to take out a loan for whateverreason you know, and there are
some condo buildings that dothat.
But without that reserve, thenwhat are they gonna
collateralize?
Right, you know?

Speaker 3 (22:22):
yeah, so you have to do you know, so we haven't had I
Can't speak to my knowledge wereally haven't had a special
like we don't have them.
Yeah yeah, I mean because we'reable to borrow Right, right who
determines the projects?
In the.
You know Well, we have a, wehave a finance committee and we
have a infrastructure committee,and infrastructure committee

(22:45):
Identifies projects that need tobe done.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
They work with.
You know, structural engineerswe hire you know, we hire
engineers.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
We just had a Big I mean I guess you call it a
reserve study, but it was reallymore of a like we actually have
engineering firms of recordthat we work with who come out,
they understand the building,like, okay, what you know,
what's all the stuff that needsto be done over the next five
years, the next ten years?
Because what's really neatabout that building is that
we're getting to a place where IMean this is, you know my

(23:15):
thinking on it where we're doingwe're no longer doing
restoration projects, we'redoing maintenance projects.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, what I mean, mm-hmm.
Yeah, so you know, and that'sbecause we did all the
restoration over the last 20years.
Yeah some of the stuff that wedid 20, 25 years ago now needs a
maintenance, like it needs it.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
You know the facade needs a 25 year.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
You know we get drops out there to like plug holes
and stuff and the problem is isthat that may look expensive
yeah right, kind of on the frontend of it, but it's a lot
cheaper than right what it couldbe ten years from now.
Right, if you don't deal withit.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
So so you know.
But then again, if you look atour reserves, yeah, it's like,
but you know, we're alsoinvesting, actively investing in
the building.
I've been, I've been adamantthat I mean this is, you know,
my opinion, that and this iswhat I know from you know, what
I teach and serve my financialbackground is that you know it's
Everybody feels good whenthere's money in the bank.

(24:12):
Mm-hmm but cash just sittingthere is wasteful right.
It needs to be put.
I mean, this is, you know, ourshareholders cash that they're
putting into the building,mm-hmm.
It needs to be put intoprojects, mm-hmm.
You see, and, and I think whenyou're looking at an older
building like mine that's wellrun, you know like you need to
look at what's coming in andthen also see if it's going out

(24:32):
to fund things.
Yeah, cuz again, it doesn'tmake sense to have five million
dollars in the bank.
Yeah, if you've got 50 milliondollars worth projects that you
need right and you're not doing.
Yeah, so you know versus.
You know someplace like oursthat is doing projects, right.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah, what's the unit or the bedroom?
Count makeup, I mean we're.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
I think we're at like 309 units.
Okay, I believe they estimatethere's about 600 people in the
building.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, like one bedrooms, two bedrooms, three
bedrooms, yeah three bedroomsWe've got some.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
We've got a couple duplexes We've got some.
The we've got units have beencombined.
Yeah, yeah, I mean there'speople there's generations of
families that have lived in thatbuilding.
Yeah, I mean literally.
I mean I have friends of minewho whose grandparents bought
that unit was like their, theirdream retirement home, in like
1980.
Yeah, and they bought theirunit and then they you know my

(25:26):
friend and his wife have movedin.
They plan to raise their familythere.
I mean grandparents passed awayseveral years ago.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
So they just moved in and took over the unit and
that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
A lot of personality, a lot of different.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Oh, there's a lot of characters in there, a lot of
characters.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Made the units how they want.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean mine looks mine.
Mine had a some kind of likerehab gut thing happened in like
the 60s, so it's almost likemid-century modern.
That's cool.
I got all this like woodpaneling and stuff like that and
what are you allowed to do?

Speaker 2 (25:58):
because you know you're technically, you own
shares in this company and sowhat are you allowed to do in
your unit?

Speaker 3 (26:06):
You can I mean you can do a lot of things.
You do have to go through themanagement office.
I mean we've got like a I knowwe're on a podcast, I can show
my but you know an inch thickright sort of Set of rules.
You know constructionguidelines and things like that.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Okay, but they also want the man.
They want.
Oh yeah, painting is fine, okay, painting is carpeted, but
anything Carpeting that kind ofstuff structural, if you're
knocking down wall, especiallyif you're doing stuff with pipes
.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
That's like you need to have.
I mean, we have an engineeringstaff of like five or six people
who are, you know, in thereWorking and know the building
inside it out.
You know, and you know you needto keep them in the loop as far
as what's going on.
Yeah yeah, if you're trying tomove pipes around and do things
like that, yeah it makes sense.
Yeah, so, but the building iscrazy overbuilt.

(26:54):
I could tell you that like in agood way.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
You're like, yeah, I mean, nobody would make a
building like this right, right,it's like, it's like.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
You know there's concrete, everything is concrete
, right.
Yeah right, yeah, everything islike you can't hear I love,
that yeah, can't hear anybody oranything.
I mean, I Sometimes, if mywonderful neighbor upstairs is
wearing heels, right, I'll hearit back quick, right, but other
but it's not like she wearsheels right.
Yeah, yeah, I'll hear.

(27:25):
I'll hear like hard shoes, butother than that.
Yeah you know here that'sawesome.
It's dead.
I mean, the place is crazy over, but we have 11 elevators, wow.
Yeah which and we're 20s, youknow 1920s story building.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, I mean like 11 elevators.
It's crazy, are the?

Speaker 1 (27:42):
elevators.
Are they like retro or they, sowe have what I call the back
eight.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Okay, because the there used to be a restaurant.
It's actually where our gym is,is where the kitchen was.
There used to be a restauranton that terrace on our pool
terrace.
There was a restaurant there,and when our gym is is where the
the like restaurant or thekitchen was.
Okay, they have elevatorsbecause you used to be able to
order food, oh, and they wouldlike bring it up to you.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Oh, cool, yeah, from from dining it was like, for the
entire building, yeah, yeahdoing you know all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
So we've got, like this, back eight elevators which
are like staff elevators.
Interesting that basicallyevery two units has access to
one staff elevator.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Okay, wow.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
And then we have what I call the front three, yeah,
which are like the three, likeelevators.
If your guests are coming, likethose are in the front.
You know right.
Yeah and with the back eightelevators, I were redone like 10
15 years ago.
Okay, the front three elevatorswere redoing the mechanics
right now.
I think the cars were redoneabout 10 years ago, but the

(28:43):
mechanics up on the road forbeing redone this year, yes,
yeah, so it's a you're not gonnabe stranded waiting for another
.
That.
It's weird.
I have I've had people come andsay that's the other thing.
We have guest rooms.
Oh, yeah, so if you want yourfamily to come and stay with you
, you can go put them.
So my mother comes and staysfor a couple weeks month and you

(29:04):
put her in a separate room.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
She has her own little.
It's almost like a little hotelroom.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah we've got ten of these and wow, yeah, you can
put people up there and as apart of your assessments, or
does it you have?
Well, no, they charge, theycharge us for yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, what's the price range in the building,
relatively speaking?

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Honestly well, things of here's.
The thing is that when I waslooking five years ago, there
was routinely about ten unitsavailable at any time.
Okay, and you know the unitswere going in the.
The George Hallis unit was upfor sale and that's actually
three units from up, from myunderstanding, three units
combined.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Okay, and Because he lived, there, you said yeah, he
lay.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, I don't know if he died in there, but he was
living he lived that.
He lived in that.
He lived in the building fromthe 40s, I think, up until wow
1982 yeah yeah, well, and youknow, when he passed away and um
, but they had a his unit.
I believe it come up for saleand I I Actually think the

(30:08):
family still owned it.
Okay, I think they just finallydecided to sell it.
I'm not sure, I don't.
I don't think anybody, I thinkI don't think anybody else owned
it.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Well, they needed to raise money to buy the Ireland's
and racetrack.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
There's this time to deal with, but I'm not 100% sure
about that, but I think that's.
I think there are units thatsit there for like 10.
I looked at units when I waslooking in there and it was like
somebody would leave.
Yeah, and they just pay theassessment Right, and you know
they're in, you know systemliving or something like that.
They just don't get.
They don't get around toselling the unit.
Yeah and then all of a suddenfamily comes in or they pass

(30:44):
away or something, right, so youcan find some good deals.
Yeah, yeah, I mean mine was ina state, yeah, that I bought
from that.
Yeah, I, I would say they thatprices.
Now probably I couldn't seestuff getting below a hundred
thousand, you know, I just don't.
I think prior to that there wassome stuff I was like it would
come up that you would have toget rehab though.

(31:06):
Right, yeah, I mean it'ssitting there for 20 years.
Yeah, yeah, so you know you gotthat level.
But then all all the way up,yeah, I think the Hollis unit
went for about 800,000.
Okay, so nice, yeah, somewherein there, not 100%, I mean you
guys were probably looking up,yeah, but but I don't, I don't
think anything's gone.
I don't think anything's soldin there for over a million.

(31:27):
Okay, I just don't, I don'tthink that's happened.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yes, I'm also not necessarily seeing you're not
looking.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, you know you.
Usually we kind of break outand do a segment about the
neighborhood you know that we'respeaking with our guests about,
but we might as well just jumpinto it.
You know your guys's opinion onEdgewater.
Oh yeah, I do well.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I'm much more new to Edgewater than you are.
You've been here for how long?
Since 2018?

Speaker 3 (31:55):
2018.
Okay and I moved in Halloweenweekend.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Okay, yeah, nice.
And what's your feelings ingeneral about Edgewater?

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Oh, I, I think it's the right.
It's the right place for me.
I have been in Lincoln Square,yeah, and I moved into Lincoln
Square in 02 after college andyou know Lincoln, lincoln Square
is a wonderful area, but kindof what happened for me anyway,
it was like I don't, you know,I'm not a stroller roller,
mm-hmm right, lincoln Squarewent from being like 20%

(32:24):
stroller rollers, which iscompletely fine.
I'm being like 80% stroller.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
I would go into neighborhoods like this and say
oops, I forgot my baby.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, and it's mostly houses, not a lot apartments
over in Lincoln Square.
But I was kind of in theretowards the end like the kind of
the European, the EasternEuropean, not a lot of Germans,
but some Germans were stillthere, yeah, but they were
getting older.
Yeah, those, those two flats,that those you know that's what
you do when you move here fromFormer Yugoslavia or sure, yeah,

(33:04):
from you know, eastern Europe.
In the 80s would you boughtproperty?
Yeah, yeah, those were.
You know there are those peoplewere selling them off and you
know they're that family wealthwas moving on.
Yes, but you know those are now, you know, turned into a single
family homes and so it's just,it just kind of change that I
saw happen.
That's fine, you knowneighborhoods change, right,
yeah, it's, it's good for if Ijust ain't feel like a lot, my

(33:26):
friends were moving.
Yeah, I had a lot ofneighborhood friends and stuff
and they were kind of movingaway.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
I wanted to own.
Yeah, yeah, through through afamily situation, I was
subletting an apartment forAbout six months and I was on a
on the fence about I had, I had,like my core apartment but my
brother was living in it and Ihad moved out and it taken,
sublet from a friend, okay, andI was like, gosh, I renew this.

(33:54):
I really don't like it.
But it was like a block awayyeah, hang out with my brother.
Worked out, yeah, it wasworking out.
But then all of a sudden, themanagement company changed.
I'm like, oh, what's going on?
What happened to you know, tony, my landlord.
What happened?
Well, then I got 30 day notice.
I was like, yeah, so, yeah, Ihad only been there six months,
I hadn't nested yet.

(34:14):
Yeah, that's the thing whenyou're renting yeah, you nest,
right, you can start to nest.
I didn't think I was gonna bein that apartment right in
Lincoln Square, for I Think itwas there 19 years, okay.
Oh well, no, not that long.
Yeah, I had a lease on there upuntil 2019.
Wow, from 2002, so 17 year.
I had thought I'd be there fora year or two.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah wow, and what made you choose Edgewater then
it?

Speaker 3 (34:39):
just seemed, it seemed to be I want.
I had never lived on the lakebefore.
I think I want to be like closeto that.
You know, it Reminded me.
Our retail strip, reminded meof what Lincoln Square was when
I moved in and no to rightseemed kind of the right mix of
people.
I like being a pee in a pod ina in a neighborhood you know
what I mean like you know wherethere's just lots of different

(35:01):
people.
Yeah, you know lots ofcharacters and yeah, things like
that and that's.
You know I was like, yeah, thisis, this is what I'm looking at
.
And a friend of mine had boughtI can do a co-op.
Okay, yeah, and you know shewas telling me about the process
and all that and kind of wewere talking about it.
I like, oh, that sounds kind ofinteresting.
Well, maybe I should look atco-ops, because I had somewhat
bad experience my condo and youknow just the whole going

(35:24):
through it and you know it'smore more of a community.
Yeah, yeah.
And I knew I wanted to be overhere, I wanted to be in a more
full service building, mm-hmm.
And and then I found out youknow it was a co-op, yeah nice.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
What do you like about edgewater?

Speaker 2 (35:39):
I like edgewater.
It is, I mean, my building isright on the beach, literally.
I walk out my back door and I'min the sand which is amazing
and you know there's goodrestaurants around.
There's, you know, walkingdistance to a ton of like Asian
places which I'm a big fan of.
There's a ton of Ethiopianrestaurants.
So if you like ethnic food, Ithink you know there's so much

(36:00):
around and I don't know, it doesseem to have that community
vibe, yeah, like people kind oflook out for each other and I
don't know.
I just it's it's near likeequidistance between Two L stops
so I can walk for you knoweight minutes and be on the L,
get downtown.
I can literally hop on the busright outside of my building and

(36:21):
I'm in downtown.
There's an express bus 147, the147 or the 151, with the 147's
better, but you know it's so,it's.
It's accessible.
But yet you're out enough thatyou're away from the fray.
And I'm older, I don't need togo bar hopping right, yeah,
there's some great communitypubs and stuff.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Well, let's take a break here and then, when we get
back with John, we'll talkabout some vinyl music.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah yes, andrew.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Should we talk about our?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
record of the week.
Do you have one?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
I do great.
We've mentioned this before butI'm gonna mention it again.
I really enjoy, you know,expanding my musical horizons,
mostly by sort of listening towhat our guests suggests and
then going down rabbit holes.
And there's a band that started, I think, in 1980.

(37:24):
They came out with their firstrecord.
It's a band whose name Icertainly have heard many times
before.
It's kind of a band that, likeI think you know, when I was
growing up, my friends or mycontemporaries, like if they had
older siblings, they would talkabout this band.
It's the psychedelic furs Lovethem and I think I have heard

(37:47):
their stuff.
You know there's a couple oftracks that I listened to this
weekend that you know probablywere released as pop music and
played on the radio a lot, Maybesome of their older, you know,
starting with what is mirrors,what is it?
Mirror moves, Mirror moves.
Some of those, at least one ofthose songs I had heard, Ghost

(38:11):
in you, Ghost in you.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Love my way.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Anyway, my point is is that I never really
gravitated towards them becauseit, you know, up until recently
just was not interested in punkor any of its derivatives.
And I played their first albumand I was just blown away.
They have a horn.
The singer is just very is avery unique sound.

(38:37):
It's very driving, it's kind ofindustrial and man oh man.
It just blew me away and Ithink this often happens with
bands as they get some notorietyand, you know, move on through
their careers.
The subsequent albums were notas raw and so, you know,

(38:58):
probably they're morecommercially viable.
But I liked the first albumquite a bit and to plan on
making it part of my regularrotation and it's self-titled, I
think.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
It is.
I love that.
I was very excited to hear yousay psychedelic furs because I
grew up, you know, my formativeyears were the 80s, when John
Hughes was making all his movies, which you know some of them
don't hold up so well with theMe Too movement now, but they
did the soundtrack or they didthe theme song to get pretty in
pink.
So that's what some a lot ofpeople know them by.

(39:30):
But yeah, one of my favoritesingers.
He's got that raspy, sexy voice.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Do you know the name of the singer?
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
You know I should, but I don't All right, fuck it,
we'll just keep going.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
What is your-?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
But I did see them live not too long ago and they
held up really well oh wow, nice, I saw that they were still
together and touring.
Yeah, it was the fix.
And psychedelic furs.
I'm gonna have to check out thefix oh yeah, look at, yeah,
check out the fix, the fix.
One thing leads to another.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Oh yeah, sure that one saved by zero.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Just anyway, it's right up the alley of the
psychedelic furs.
So we should, yeah, check itout, check it out.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Well, it's your record of the week.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
I don't have one, okay, bye, bye.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
We're back with John.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Hello John.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Round two Hello round two Speed round Speed.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
The music round.
The music round.
This is the music round.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
This is where it gets .
This is, this is where it getsdeep.
There we go.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
This is where the podcast really starts.
So this is records.
We talked about real estatealready on records in real
estate, and part of the reasonwhy you're here is because you
know when you guys met, you guystalked music and it turns out
you have a huge vinyl collection.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's huge, because I met people
at much larger.
Well, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
But it's still impressive.
It's a big part of your life?

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
So I was a musician and camehere from Omaha in the late
nineties to go to college andwas playing in bands, did some
light touring and had some otherthings and never made a living
playing music.
I made money playing music,yeah, good.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Does that make sense so?

Speaker 3 (41:09):
it wasn't.
I was in some things that kindof, and in with some people who
went on to go do some fairlylarge things.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Oh, come on, Come on name some names.
No, no, I mean, come on, youdon't have to if I'm gonna say
that.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
I was an original member of Fall Out Boy.
Okay, wow, I played their firstshow with them.
Wow.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Hey, all right there you go.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
That's big Down at the Quarterloo Commons and the
big church looking building inthe Falls Campus.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Okay, all right, cool .
And you were playing guitar.
That's amazing, all right.
And then you also did somecomposition in school as far as
music, yeah, I was you know kindof what was different about me.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
I think why Pete?
You know I met Pete in Evanston, pete Wentz in Evanston in the
summer of 97.
Okay, and you know I was in.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Ah, the summer of 97.
Oh, yes, I was doing.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
I was at Northwestern doing the music program thing,
right.
And then I moved here the nextyear and I started a band and we
ended up like it was reallykind of an instrumental band.
We didn't have a singer, we hada couple of people kind of come
through and they weren'tworking out, sure.
And then there was this bandcalled Baxter that had broken up

(42:22):
.
That I had seen before.
The singer was very good, hisname was Tim and you know we
sent him a tape and he wasinterested.
So he came over and you know,and literally we gave him the
mic and he just like nailed it.
We went on for probably aboutfive or six months and I wasn't
exactly getting along.
It was again.
Being in bands taught me how tobe a professional, quite

(42:43):
frankly.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, because you have to deal with other people.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
And I was the creative one and you know I
could write.
I had some music theory so Icould like write, you know, sort
of bass, rhythm guitar, leadguitar kind of thing.
You know I could kind of dothese like funky things.
The music was interesting, youknow.
It was like people like couldkind of.
It was like kind of hip at thetime, yeah.
But I remember Tim came comesover, he was talking to me one

(43:08):
day when we were driving topractice.
He's like, yeah, I'm gonna gotry out for this band.
You know, 88 Fingers Louis islooking for a new singer and
they were a larger band, likethey had toured and stuff and
had some records out and stuffand we were talking about some
more.
He's like, yeah, I mean, theywant to do something with me,
but I don't want to do 88Fingers Louis.
And that became Rise Against,which is you know so.
And then so we broke up.

(43:29):
He left to go do that which heshould have.
Yeah, that was, yeah.
I think he would have keptdoing our thing if we had all
been getting along, but I waslike that was kind of a dictator
, yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
You were kind of a dictator.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I was like yeah, which I'm not anymore.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
I mean, that's kind of what I you know you have to.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
You grow up, you have to culture.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
I mean, I was like 19 .

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, I was like you know, and I was smarter than
everybody.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Especially like the songwriter you were.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Well, yeah, yeah, well, and I was just really
writing parts, Like I knewharmonies and stuff like that.
I wouldn't say I was writingsongs, I was like writing parts,
kind of putting things to you,but this was what was hot.
Like the bands that were hot atthat time were, like you know,
converge, coles, like this, likethis metal core stuff was like
super hot at the time, but itwas like very nice and like
botch.
Botch was huge, yeah, and Idon't know if you guys know this

(44:16):
band.
No, but keep going.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
But I mean honestly, like I mean, I just adore this
role that we're in.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah, because we learn so much yeah absolutely
but you know, I had classicaltraining you

Speaker 3 (44:28):
know, and I had some, you know I could sort of put
things together.
My mother I meant my mother wasa church organist.
I grew up with a oh lovely,With what I thought was a
Hammond B3.
But then later on I learned wasa C2.
With a Leslie in the house.
So I started playing when I wasfive, you know.
So I could, I could play somekeyboards and things like that.
But like, but you know, I mean,you know, kind of back to the

(44:50):
band thing.
Like I was kind of doing thisband thing for a while and I
just I hit a point with it whenI realized I wasn't listening to
music anymore.
Yeah yeah, I just was like,well, that's what I do, yeah
yeah, that's kind of what I wasdoing for my full living.
I wasn't really making moneydoing it, but I stopped
listening to music.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, I had no desire , I had no desire to yeah like
live music and vinyl or justjust had no desire to do any of
that stuff right and I hadstarted collecting vinyl in
probably the mid 90s, you know,because I was in, I was into
that hardcore, the metal core,like punk rock scene and there

(45:30):
would be things.
To me everything was going on atape Right and getting thrown
in the caravan Right.
So you know, in the DodgeCaravan tape.
So, it didn't matter if it was aCD or it was a vinyl.
Whichever was cheaper is what Igot.
So I started a massing vinyland there were some good record
stores in Omaha, nebraska, I betyou know.
There was this one really coolplace called the Yankee aquarium

(45:52):
where I think the guy lived onthe top floor and then it was an
art gallery and then it was amassive bookstore and then the
basement was a record store runby this guy named Dave.
His name was Dave Singh and hewas like a very kind of
pretentious.
I think he kind of had like afaux British accent.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
No, you don't.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Here's the thing is like if you met him once you
think he was a total prick, buthe was cool Like you just kind
of had to like realize that likehe was not yeah, and he had
some, you know, and he was superinto vinyl, super into it and,
like you know, and that kind ofgot me interested.
You know, kind of talking to himand stuff got me interested in
things as well.

(46:33):
And then you know, when I movedhere, you know, so I had a
vinyl collection that I startedlike in the 90s and then I kind
of got to a place where I wasjust like sick of music.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I was like I need to go do something
else and honestly, like I wasdoing I was doing some touring I
realized what touring realized,made me realize is I enjoyed
like developing product, youknow, figuring something out,
you know, especially the musicalpart of it, and then like kind
of like launching that what Ididn't like, what I didn't enjoy
, was sitting in a van for eighthours.

(47:06):
Yeah, totally, totally, insane,right, yeah, and it's not.
There's a lot of people who youknow, like you can tell, like
they kind of go that they haveto know this sucks and it's.
I think it is different whenyou're, you know you're building
your audience and it's likeevery time you show up
something's getting bigger.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
But that's not happening.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
It's even worse.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
What am I?

Speaker 2 (47:26):
doing.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, oh my.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
God yeah so.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
I kind of came to that conclusion around like, oh,
three or four, okay, so I waskind of doing bands up until
that and I was done with musicand it was weird.
It's like I started listening,like around that time I would
listen to music, but I startedlistening to a lot of like very
contemporary jazz music.
Okay, yeah, like, and I got wayinto Pat Matheny group Sure,

(47:48):
yeah, which is not you know,screamo yeah, no, no, no, yeah,
and, and, and and.
It was funny because I'd bedriving the van and my bandmates
would be like because I'd popthat stuff on late at night
while I was driving, I'd be likeman, this stuff's just like you
know, it's like you get intothe groove with it.
Yeah, you know.

(48:11):
But but yeah, I mean like whatreally, you know, I've been
playing jazz and in high schooland stuff, but so I could
recharge some things like that.
But like, really, where itclicked was there was one patent
that they need to own a storywithin a story, which is not
what the he is like.
It was on an album you probablypay on tour and there's
probably never played it, right.

(48:31):
But for some reason that tune,just like I started like soloing
over that, like improvisingover it, they like really got my
head.
It kind of changed how I thinkabout music.
And then my head got turned onto that stuff and then I feel
like I've never gone back.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, you know what I mean Like so so is that what
you collect, or is that what yougravitate towards?

Speaker 3 (48:51):
So yeah, I start collecting ECM.
So I don't know if you know ECMrecords or not, but it was the
label that Mathini was on andkind of what happened was, you
know, my father always had arecord player, I had his
turntable and you know, back inthe Kind of the late 2000s, you
know, you could show you couldgo to some place like Lori's

(49:11):
Planet Assound, which was aroundthe corner for mine, and find
meant Mathini records for liketwo dollars, you know what I
mean, and I would see one and Ipopped one and I started
realizing, because I tried toget into his earlier catalog,
like what I was talking about islike late 90s or like 2000s,
like that was.
I was into that, ok, but he hasa whole catalog where he was on
this label called ECM.
Ok, in the 70s that, like I,just everybody said, oh, this is

(49:35):
like the best stuff, this isbest stuff.
I would get the CDs at recklessand not be interested.
Yeah, yeah, just, I didn't seeit.
But then, like you know, I pickup a vinyl copy.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Oh, and it was that different.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Oh yeah, yeah, you could hear like OK, I see why
this is like I started noticingthat like some of the music I
was listening to Sounded betteron vinyl.
Sure, especially from that era,especially from the 70s
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
What was better about it?
What did you notice?
It was a fuller sound, uh huh.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, just a fuller, more complete, resonant sound.
I think the mastering is youdon't have the they call it the
loudness wars, but you don'thave this like scrunching of it,
the compression, just acompression on it.
Yeah, you know, it's just afuller sound, you know, and that
kind of led me down theaudiophile road.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Final rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Yeah, yeah, the vinyl rabbit hole of no return, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Yeah, where do you, where do you shop for vinyl
these days?
Do you have a go to or?

Speaker 3 (50:35):
so so sort of the thing is I start collecting ECM
and ECM has started in 1969.
It's still going.
They've got, I think, around2000 releases and I think they
put about 800 of them out onvinyl and I've hit about 400 of
them.
Wow, wow, I've got about 400.
So I start collecting ECMpretty aggressively.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Really Artists.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
Well, ok, so that's the other thing.
I started discovering otherartists that were on this label,
and this label is very, youknow, it's run by this guy named
Manfred Eicher.
He's German and he was anupright.
He was a bass player whostarted this label when he was
like 25.
He's still going, you know andyou know.
But.
But I started discovering otherartists on the label.

(51:19):
I was just like you know, Ijust get the sound.
His whole thing was and it kindof still is is that you got two
days to record.
You got one day to mix Done.
That's it, yeah, yeah, if itsucks he doesn't release it,
obviously, but like he doesn'twork with people who suck, so
yeah, I mean you show up and youget, but there's something
immediate about that, yeah, andhe produces all the records and

(51:42):
I've had people, well, what'shis?
I've had somebody ask me whodon't know, and well, what is
his sound?
You know, like, what is it thathe does?
And I, you know what I kind ofthink it is.
I was listening to a record, newand old dreams, which is
basically Ornate Coleman'sbacking band, the saxophone
player, or Nick Coleman'sbacking band with John, or sorry

(52:03):
, dewey Redmond on saxophone, soit's Charlie Hayden and Ed
Blackwell on drums, charlieHayden on bass and then Don
Cherry on trumpet.
Ok, and there are three of thefour of these people recorded
the original track on the shapeof jazz to come 20 years earlier
with Ornate Right.

(52:23):
I never I'd like the tune, butwhat it is is Manfred, he brings
out the bass, he brings up thebass, he brings up the drums and
he flattens out the signal likeit's very.
You know, if you're listeningon a full hi-fi system, it
sounds amazing, it sounds somuch better whereas you listen
to the original one.
To me it's like the horns aretoo high in the next mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah, you have one of those systems.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yeah, oh, yeah, oh.
What do you have?

Speaker 2 (52:48):
like what is?
What is it consist of?

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Oh, I have to go through the yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
This is like the financial background to get into
your co-op?
Definitely not audio files.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
This you, you can you can you can Dumb it down.
Yeah, I was talking surroundsound you know?

Speaker 3 (53:10):
no, it's not surround .

Speaker 2 (53:12):
I have, like you, know one of those bluetooth
speakers.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
We're gonna lose listeners if you keep talking.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
No, but I you know, here's the thing I enjoyed
bluetooth.
I you know it's.
There is something to that itcomes in handy.
Yeah, it's you know, and Ilisten.
I say the bulk of it, I.
The bulk of music I listen tois through my Bose QC 35, sure
nice.
Yeah, on my phone yeah, butit's like if I want to listen
like like when I'm listeningvinyl I don't do other things, I

(53:40):
don't passively listen to righta hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yeah, I mean like I'm in the game, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we're kind of what kind ofends?

Speaker 3 (53:48):
it.
I have a VPI, cliffwood, okay.
So I've got a VP I Cliffwood.
The stylus I just got newstylus.
It's a HANA M, okay, from Japan.
Okay, it's a moving coil, lowoutput, and then that goes into
a Transformer, which I can'tremember the name.
I just kind of changed my setup, like literally like two weeks

(54:09):
ago, okay, and then I have ashit Manny, which is this
company called shit audio,uh-huh, and then that goes into
a tube amp that's 25 watt.
It's a 25 watt to amp from.
It's a boutique builder out ofHong Kong.
This is amazing.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Wow, yeah, we're.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
and then that's all plugged into Clip cornwalls Okay
, which I know, if you're.
I know clips, I know the nameclips.
Yeah, the cornwalls are likeyeah towers of power, yeah, yeah
.
Yeah, they fell over.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
It's well, you, you probably a specifically chose a
Building, that that was okay, sonot just the building all
concrete.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
I'm not just a building.
But I chose the third floor,right, because guess what's
underneath me?
The restaurant.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
No.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
No plumbing.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Oh.
There's a there's like afour-foot plumbing floor yeah
you're not bothering, allconcrete.
Yeah, and I've never gotten acomplaint from upstairs.
But, um, yeah, I, I could do adrop ceiling.
Yeah, you know, just drop it alittle, and I might do that in a
future renovation.
That's fantastic.
So, but I also don't.

(55:17):
I also don't like to listen toit loud.
Yeah, it's not so.
Yeah, I mean there needs to bea certain level of volume, right
, to kind of make it work, but Idon't, I'm not like beyond that
pound in it.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, you know what I mean Diminishing returns.
Yeah, yeah so is it?
I mean, are you mostly onlylistening, to you know?

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Oh yeah, I got a ECM label or I've got a lot of other
, but that's kind of.
That's kind of been mygo-through, my go-to, but I
think I've kind of capped out,yeah, on what I can get from
them, because I bought so much.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Yeah, you know sort of the geocaching of the vinyl
world.
You have 400 out of 800.
Yeah, yeah, so well, and then?

Speaker 3 (55:54):
and then the problem is as you start getting into the
80s and I'm not even sure aboutthat 800 number, I'm actually
not sure because they they gotinto the 80s and CDs became a
thing and they were stillpressing vinyl.
I think they were pressingvinyl up until 92 and Then they
stopped and then they started upagain in like oh nine.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Yeah and so and then, like I've got a chunk of the
ones for now, but like I don'tbuy everything now because I
mean mostly jazz.
Well, it's jazz, classical andthen everything in between.
Oh, wow, that's the thing, isit?
What I like about is it isalbum centered.
Okay so, like it's, it's.
You know it's intended.
It's a flow Mm-hmm.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
It's a complete.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know you listen to an album.
I'm not listening likeindividual songs.
There's not singles or anythinglike that.
Yeah, right, and, and they'retrying to communicate something,
or you know it takes you on ajourney.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
The album is a journey.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, you know and it's intended for this.
You know format Right.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Is it something that you would pick up at?
You know a store that you knowthat we've talked about?
On that, oh yeah or is itmostly?
I mean, are you buying it from?
No, you can buy it.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
I mean, you know, Um tone-dead has that bought things
from them.
Okay, nice, that's Not so much.
I don't think bucket of bloodreally.
Yeah, you know I mean does thiskind of stuff, but then also,
you know, record breakers hashad some things to.
But mostly where I'm going isprobably dusty groove.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
I just yeah, I just I just went there, yes, on
Saturday.
Yeah, the first time.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Yeah, it does it dusty, groove and the M and
reckless Okay where's dustygroove?
Dusty groove is down at likeDivision in Ashland.
Yeah, it's just south.
It's like Cortez or something.
I can't remember the exactCross street there, but it's
just south, it's on Ashland.
Oh, cool, and they were one ofthe original online record
retailers.
Okay, if you knew that, or?
Not but they like were.

(57:43):
They start doing it in the 90sand they started as an online
only story, believe, oh, andthen they did a storefront.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Yeah, you had a story about a bucket of blood when we
were talking offline that theyare gonna blood the original.
Well, the original founder yeah, he and I used to go to shows
together because the guy whofounded you Johan's face?

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Uh-huh, he said it was like oh yeah, he founded
this thing called Johan's facerecords and I remember that dude
like we used to, because IThink Johan's face was more like
kind of pop.
It was like, you know, kind ofpop, punk Okay, or emo kind of
stuff, but that dude was likeway into metal core.
Yeah, remember, I remember likehanging out with him at shows,

(58:23):
we were like show buddies, forthat's like probably a little
bit.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
And then his story became bucket of blood.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think he started bucket of
blood, yeah and he sold it tothe people you interviewed.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
I think it was called bucket of blood, but he started
it right right, which I'll go.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
I'll go there for my, for my opeth, and yeah, I've
got some like punk rock recordsthere too.
Yeah, if I'm randomly lookingfor that, mostly what I'm
collecting is, you know it's,it's been ecm.
Another great series is blue.
Is the blue note tone poet.
I know blue note, but they betthey they've blue note is up
their game.

(58:57):
Okay, um, they're going deepinto their catalog, remastering
their stuff, pressing it onreally like doing really good
pressings.
Really cool packaging I justpicked up an album at.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
One of the albums I picked up at dusty grooves was
I'm a big fan of lee Morgan yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
Lee Morgan was on it.
They've done several like thatmight have been a ton.
Scratch them.
Mortand the third Like that ohyeah, no, he's, uh, he's, yeah,
I know what album you're talkingabout.
Yeah, is it pink?
Yeah, it's kind of pinkish,yeah, yeah reddish pink, yeah,
yeah it is an egregion album oris it a?
Retina.
That album is amazing.
Yeah, and that's one of the.

(59:37):
That's the classic series.
I believe it's not the toneseries.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
But what is?
What is the tone?
Poet like the tall.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
So tone poet is like they got Kevin Gray who's like
one of the mastering gurus andand then I think somebody else
is overseeing.
I can't remember the personwho's like overseeing the whole
thing, but the whole thing withtone poet was going back another
catalog and finding albums thatthey hadn't re-released.
Sure, they were sitting backthere.
That are gems.
Yeah, and I mean, I went througha whole thing with McCoy tiner.

(01:00:03):
Yeah, like, like a serious,like D.
I mean, some of the stuff theyput out by him is just like.
There's an album calledexpansions that like blew my
mind.
And then there was another one.
I can't remember the name of it, but I can see the cover of it.
He's like on it Fun.
I mean both those albums, likeI.
Basically I became a McCoytiner fan because of that series

(01:00:24):
.
Okay, I mean like you, I waslike dude, why is this guy not
like you know we talk about, youknow?
Or an age giants?
Yeah, yeah, we talked aboutColtrane, miles and, yeah, you
know, mingus and I was like tome tiner should be up there as
well.
That's his.
His stuff is Amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
What is he like?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Which is a penis he was he was Coltrane's penis,
okay, like kind of his more, andthen he went off on his own.
His stuff is phenomenal.
Nice, yeah, the expansionsrecords great.
They did a really nice versionof a Wayne shorter album, who
unfortunately just passed awayrecently, called all seeing I
mm-hmm.

(01:01:02):
Okay, this album is.
I mean it's it's a larger hornsection and it's almost like
it's almost like orchestratedMm-hmm.
Yeah, and and it is funnybecause I have people over to
listen we started, we'relistening.
I was like, oh yeah, I'll playsome jazz for you to go and and
like people who aren't into jazz, like they're like well, this

(01:01:23):
isn't really jazz.
Yeah, because it doesn't soundlike you know, there's no.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Right, yeah, but it's funny.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
All my jazz musician friends you know from the
building and other places likethey play jazz but they don't
play that.
Yeah, but it's uh, you knowthese people?
I mean they were doing somereally it's just under the radar
stuff.
They're going back through thecatalog finding it's recorded
really well.
I mean most of stuff isrecorded.

(01:01:50):
They're doing the masteringreally well.
That's fantastic and it soundsphenomenal on my system.
Yeah but you know the the mostimportant thing.
You know, kind of talking aboutthis and people have said this
and I I can testify to it youknow the number one things you
have to have clean vinyl.
So I also I should say thefirst level is my, my oki-noki

(01:02:12):
record cleaning machine.
Oh my gosh, I need one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
You need to come over you're gonna cringe, you're
gonna cringe.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
I mean, I love this, but I think I think I heard an
episode when you were talkingabout like baby wipes or
something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Well, maybe I mean I did get some vinyl from this
Providence that I was sellingand like I was using sort of
like yeah, I think I alcoholcleaner.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah that, maybe that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Obviously I'm sort of new to this game, but but what
the story I was gonna tell is Ilove the, that my son loves
records, but he's two and a half, yeah, he, he definitely, uh,
you know, handles theminappropriately, ah, yes and uh.
So you know, I need to bestrategic about which records I
have out that he's just gonnagravitate towards, and usually

(01:02:59):
they're like colored vinyl, likeI have this, uh, whitney
Houston live album which I loveto play, and you know it's
beautiful, but uh, you know, notnot so Important that that
remain, you know, free of likelittle little man fingerprints,
you know, but uh, but yeah, Idefinitely need to uh invest in
a good vinyl cleaner.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Yeah, it's a.
You know, mine is a.
It's a.
It's basically a vacuum cleaner.
It's a vpi it's.
It's it's a vpi style cleaner.
I think vpi were the first onesto make it Okay, the style, and
then I don't know if they lostthe pattern or but this is like
a copy that comes from europe,okay so what is it like?
you actually just take a littlething and you you a watch, looks
like a record player, okay andyou basically get something like

(01:03:43):
wrecks, like a tech, it likeAttaches, like you locks it down
, that's a screw thing locks itdown and the bottom it's a
rubber Thing.
You have a brush and you putthe cleaner on and you basically
use the brush and get reallydeep in there and you know it
spins around and then you stop.
What I do is I use this stufffrom uh, um, it's a mo-fi enzyme

(01:04:05):
cleaner, okay, and so you needto leave it on there for about
like two, three minutes orsomething like that, and then
basically, this wand comes outand it's pretty much like what
the machine is is a vacuumcleaner.
It just sucks all the water.
Wow like it just turns around,sucks it all up, okay, and then
I rinse with distilled waterafterwards, because there's
stuff in the Um, in the cleaner,that you might get out of there

(01:04:28):
, supposedly, but I this is whatI found has been the best.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
And then, how do you dry it?

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Oh, it dries itself.
It's a vacuum cleaner dries it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Oh, okay, but when you rinse it off with water,
then you know no, and then Ijust run the vacuum.
Oh, okay, got it.
Yeah, so wow, that's becausethey do to both sides or is yeah
?

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
yeah, and you got flip it over into the other side
.
So it is a little bitlabor-intensive, but it's, you
got nasty.
If you got nasty, I mean I'veit, it, it, yeah, if you, if you
clean it, I usually give a new.
You know, I don't use papersleeves like go out and get the,
I use the mo-fi On likeanti-static sleeves.
Okay, I mean, if I, if I spendtime cleaning it, that'll keep

(01:05:05):
it clean, yeah, yeah, so youknow, and then, and then you
know, and then I've also got amilty zero stat which is like
this little blue gun thing thatdoes work.
It does work, but it's apps.
It'll pull all the static outof it.
Wow, you got up your game,andrew.
This is where I have abluetooth speaker.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Kern marvels at my setup and it's uh, it's nice,
but it definitely pales incomparison.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Wow yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Yeah, I mean, well, it's, you know, it's one of
those things it's like I enjoygoing out finding a record.
That's like super nasty yeah,you know.
And it's like five bucks yeah,obviously I can tell if it's
scratched or not.
Yeah but I think some of thestores are starting getting
clean, keen to this.
That, like you know, justbecause it's dirty doesn't mean
it can't yeah, it used to be.
It's like, oh, this is justdirty, I can right clean this up

(01:05:56):
, dropping the cleaner and yeah,it'll do it.
Yeah, that's awesome, um, butbut yeah, so I do that, that, it
.
It does sound.
I bet you'd be surprised, butbut kind of.
You know what I was.
What I was going on is like thestylus Makes a huge difference.
The stylus and then the phoneor stage, okay, are huge, all
right, yeah, and then obviouslythe speaker's, probably.

(01:06:16):
But, like To me, it's like I'venoticed big differences.
I got these big speakersprobably about a year and a half
ago, yeah, and I always thoughtthey sounded good, but I knew
they could sound better.
And then I went and got thisnew stylus, I upgraded my stylus
considerably and then I got abetter phono stage for it and
what's a phono stage, like apreamp or yeah, it's a preamp,

(01:06:38):
phono preamp, so you typicallythey they were in like old, you
know, like if you have an olderreceiver right, they're like
there, it's there, they'rejust built in.
But this one, like, if you getseparate and they, it does make
a difference.
Yeah, yeah, in the system I had, you know, the preamp I had was
but the I got the step uptransformer.
I might, I might trade the stepof a transformer for a proper
preamp and you know, kind ofgetting rid of the transformer

(01:07:01):
in the, because when I moved tomoving coil you need a different
preamp for that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
So and the list goes on and on.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
But hey, I you can hear the difference.
Yeah, absolutely, like I can, Ican.
If I couldn't hear it, Iwouldn't be well, I can't wait
to come have a drink at.
I know, Come up and listen tosome tunes, but, but where I get
most of my stuff is that thisplace called music direct.
Okay, um, their warehouse isover on it's like Ravenswood.

(01:07:31):
It's Ravenswood and Brydmer.
Okay, it's like a block awayfrom our house, or not block
about a mile away from my house.
That works too, and they'reprobably the largest hi-fi
Online catalog.
Is it new equipment or is it,yeah, new, but they got
scratching.
That, yeah, I mean, it's how Igot my turntable.
Yeah, yeah, I was like, oh,yeah, this was used to a photo
shoot and we lost the box.

(01:07:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'mthere.
I, yeah, yeah, but they also on.
You know, give a.
Give a plug to Rob.
He's one of the guys I workwith there.
He runs like this thing calledrecord warehouse.
It's open from 10 to 3 onSaturday afternoons and it's a
lot of it'll be, you know, lastlike like they buy collections

(01:08:15):
but they've also got likescratching and stuff from.
You have Like box gets droppeda vinyl, like they can't sell it
online, right, but they'll sellit in person, so you get some
good, good prices there Is it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
I mean it doesn't.
It doesn't affect the qualityor no.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
I mean I'm, and that's the other thing.
Maybe I'm a little bitdifferent.
I'm buying records to listen tothem.
I'm less concerned about whatthey look like.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
As long as the vinyl's fine, out there Is
record.
Is record warehouse related tomusic director?
Yeah, it's run out of there.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
They just call it right, they just call it record
warehouse.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Yeah, and he's.
He usually does them.
I'll usually have to call andlike to let him have him.
Let you let you in.
Yeah, him and Dave.
Um, dave Friedman used to bethe booking agent for green
dolphin.
Oh, um, he's helped me outquite a bit too over there, both
with my system, recommendingthings and try that's awesome,
they you know it's nice havingthat there because, like I, just
kind of go over there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Yeah, try things out.
So let's say there it's, it's,it's a big, big place, but it's,
uh, it's also they've got.
They've got good service, or atleast I've had a good service
experience, that's great butmost people want to know about
it because it's literally awarehouse right, it's not set up
for like a retail right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
And what do you do?
Just go up and knock on thedoor.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
Well, there's usually a sign, that's that they gives
you a phone number You'resupposed to call.
They come and let you in.
Good, but I know they mightjust be leaving it open now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Yeah, huh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
That's really cool.
It's an adventure.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Check that out.
Yeah, I don't really rememberwhat my setup is.
I do.
I do know that I have likelittle keef or kef, kef, yeah
they make the stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
I've heard some great kef.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Yeah, just little bookshelf speakers, but they're
fantastic.
Um, I, I think most of my stuffis British because I went to
there's a shop on Milwaukeewhere I got the kefs which I
believe are British decibel,decibel, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they've been around for a longtime.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Yeah, so that's where that's a cool shop.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Yeah, it is cool.
That's where I got everything.
I didn't really researchanything, I just kind of took
the word for it.
So, um, I have a Used receiverand uh, gosh, I can't remember
the deck that I have.
But, um, how old is it?
It's blue.
Uh, it's blue, the projectproject yeah.

(01:10:29):
Yeah, uh, debut carpet.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
Yeah yeah, I, that's what I had before I had my vpi.
Yeah yeah, that's a great forfor the money.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Yeah, that and and that comes with an order phone
red.
Order phone red.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Yeah, the red, the red stylus on it that that was
one of those things.
Like I had my tech, my followerstechniques, like not not the
1200, nothing that cool, my dad,anything that cool, but like a
techniques.
It was like a techniques kindof retail turntable, okay, and
um, it died, yeah.
And I went over to music directand they had a debut carbon

(01:11:02):
that they'd used in photo shootthat they gave me.
I keep on buying photo shootturntables but you know, I mean
they lose the box, right, rightand yeah, and so I got a good
price on it.
I was in grad school, I think,when I got.
I remember bringing it back andlike, and that was another one
of those like eye openingmoments where I was like, oh my
God, this sounds so much better.
It was cause the stylus I hadon this thing was probably 30

(01:11:24):
years old and this brand neworder phone stylus and you know,
the debut for the money is agreat, it's a good, it's a great
turntable for what it is.
Yeah, you're going to get agood sound out of it, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
I mean it works for me.
I mean I, you know, I love tosit down and listen to records.
I mean, you know, with thefamily and a two and a half year
old.
You know you might cringe atthis, but I mean I have a sonos
system.
So most of I play, I play itthroughout the house and I'm not
sitting in front of the kefsthat often unless I have friends

(01:11:56):
over, which is rare.
But yeah, it sounds great whenI am able to sit down and play
it.
So but yeah, we'll take a fieldtrip.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, that sounds great, so you're invited
yourself over?
Yeah, but I know that's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
That's part of the reason why I have this system is
because I want to bring peopleover here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
The collection to be.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Yeah, yeah, check it out and like listen and discover
music and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
Yeah, it's not just for me.
Yeah, yeah, but but so can Iask you a question?

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
I'll ask you a question too, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
But what's your test record?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Oh, that would be.
I don't even have a recordplayer.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
So that's a problem that we need to fix here.
That's a problem that needs tobe fixed.
What's that test record?
Well that you put on the likethat you, you know, think your
system sounds really good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Oh, I see, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
I mean that like you know and here's the thing is, it
might not be what you thinkit's going to be.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like it might be somethingthat's like yeah, kind of like
oh, this sounds really good inmy car, but it doesn't sound
good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good question, I think, when I
well, I don't know what I firstplay when I got up, I mean, this
has really been my only recordplayer.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
Yeah, yeah, and so like I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
You know it.
You know, I don't.
I can't compare this system tothe other system, but I think it
is Lee Morgan the Sidewinder'sis put on and I think, yeah, and
I think that is it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
I think that if it's Sidewinder, it's a tone poet.
Ok, yeah, I think that's a tonepoet edition.
Nice, yeah, it does it full.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
No this is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
this is probably like a might be a classic, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Classic.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
The classic edition they.
That's another series theystarted.
That is very good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
I think this is like an old record, like it's old.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Yeah, yeah, you know original like yeah, here's the
thing.
I mean those those blue note.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
Recordings I mean I've got.
I had somebody who gave me somelike they.
They just gave me a bunch ofrecords of family friend and
there were a bunch of originaltone or original blue notes in
there, yeah, and I was kind ofshocked.
I was shocked.
I was shocked how good theysound.
Yeah, after I clean them theysound yeah, and they look like
they would not sound good.

(01:14:11):
Right, like they were allscratched up, right, stuff like
that.
But, they sound like you wouldnot believe.
Yeah, it was so amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
What's your?
What's your test record?
Oh, it's only fair, I knowright.
I will tell you what my testrecord will be yeah, let's do
that, let's do that.
Yeah, I find that whoeverengineer or produced the Muse
records and we're talking nonjazz, whatever but Muse yeah.
You can play that shit at anyvolume, even the lowest volume,

(01:14:43):
and it just fucking just is bigand it's powerful, and that, to
me, is like I would love to hearthat A great big system.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
Yeah, yeah, contemporary stuff.
Like who's putting on musicthat like I.
Really it always shocks me.
Yeah, I've got a friend of minewho was a record producer and
we completely agree on this.
Like the person who's puttingon music today, that sounds good
wherever you play it, whetheryou listen to Vine or listen to

(01:15:12):
your car, listening crappyheadphones, whatever it is.
The weekends last like fewreleases have just been like
kind of insane.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Really Okay, they sound good everywhere, yeah,
yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Yeah, the, the Don FM , the.
I think it's like after life.
And then the, the EP that hedid.
Okay, I call it the the.
No, he wasn't.
Who was he dating?
No idea, it was Selena Gomezbreakup out.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
I was gonna break it back.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
It's only six songs.
It's an EP.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
He got over it by the six songs.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
It's like all right, I'm out of material, but like
those, those three records justsound phenomenal Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
Like, like just as far as like somebody was putting
out stuff that especially thenew one, the Don FM, I put that
Nice Sounds insane, wow, yeah.
But for me my test record isoff of the Billy Copham album
called Spectrum came out 1973.
And the tune is Stratus andit's kind of a famous tune.

(01:16:20):
I mean, it's like people are indiffusion stuff like this song.
You'll hear a cover like jetbackused to play it Okay and like
but it's a, I put that on likethat Because the drums are so
well recorded.
Billy, I don't know if you knowBilly Copham, he's a.
He was in Montvish, newark orStroud.
Okay, you know him.

(01:16:41):
Yeah, no Phenomenal drummerlike one of these.
So you've heard him, youhaven't.
You don't right now know him,but you've heard him play on
stuff.
I mean he played on a bunch ofPeter Gabriel stuff, right, he's
still?

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
my heart.

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
Yeah, but just the second side of that LP yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
Are you going to hear ?

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
Gabriel's show.
Um, here's the thing with meand Peter, a huge Peter Gabriel
fan, I can't get into the newerstuff and honestly I was all
excited because I love that livealbum that he did in the 90s
for the.
What was the name of that album?
The us tour, the us tour Love,that DVD.

(01:17:22):
The album was like a big thingfor me but honestly, I went to
see him and I loved, I loved um,I think it was.
The album was up.
I actually liked that albumquite a bit.
I wasn't impressed with himlive.
Really I saw him like threetimes on that tour and I was
kind of like looking back at it,I just didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
In what way?
Because I've seen.
I've.
I have never seen him live, butI've seen videos of him live
and I'm like that looks sofucking great.

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
Well, and that's how I thought about that His backup
band is always.
Well.
That was also part of theproblem he took.
He took his daughter out as hissecond, his vocalist, and she
couldn't sing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
No, I mean it was like that, Like I can.

Speaker 3 (01:17:59):
I have a CD of the one of the concerts I saw I
could play for him.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yeah, yeah, she was no.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Paula Cole Right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Right or or um.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Kate.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
Bush or Kate Bush no like I mean it was like his
daughter and I after that wasjust kind of I mean I wouldn't
have done that.
And I'm sitting there lookingat Tony Levin and David Rhodes
and I'm like how are you puttingup?
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
I remember sitting down atTinley Park going like yeah, and

(01:18:27):
I wanted it to be different,but like I just I couldn't.
After he did that.
And I think he's just kind of.
You know, I listened to Op andI tried to get into his other
stuff.
For me it's the last temptationof Christ soundtrack, Massive
album for me, mm hmm, and thatthing is, you know, it's called
passion, yeah, if you'refamiliar with it, yeah, I love
that album.
I listened to it like nine dayand then, you know, us was

(01:18:49):
actually a big out for me andthat's the live, the live.
A lot.
Us too, mm hmm, you know,because I think Paula Cole was a
better, um was an excellentsort of singer for him versus.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Live Kate Bush yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:06):
Yeah, I think her timbre is like is better.
I think that live album is justphenomenal.
Yeah, so for me, for me that.
And then I like Op.
I think Op is like a 12 songalbum that has like eight.
Really good, that has eightamazing songs on it and four of
them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Well, that's interesting because I've been
debating on whether or not, toyou know, spend the money on
that kind of ticket.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
Well, yeah, but I don't, I don't go to big
concerts anymore.
Yeah, what's all, what's comingup for you?
Um, so, so, just in general,the concert experience has to be
a um.
For me, it has to be a.
It has to be an easy experience, Mm, hmm, I can't.
I can't deal with lines, Ican't deal with people.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Yeah, I want to be in and out, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
I buy, um, I buy uh season tickets to the symphonies
, uh, to the symphony centerJazz Series.
Okay, which usually has I buyout the season, I get my seat.
I'm literally front row center.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
Um and and if there's somebody I don't want to see, I
can go see Parmena, brana orsome symphony, but they're very
they're very oh, that's cool,it's also it's nice.
What's nice about, too, is Ijust drive down there.
I literally walk up.
There's no lines, no, no, Ithink there's a good restaurant
next door.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):
Yeah, go in there and eat, come, you know, come over
to come over to you know, go seesome jazz.
And I'm in front row so I haveto deal with people on their
phones, right, right, yeah, whatI mean it's a, it's a, it's a
good chill vibe, so, but, likefor me it's, it's that.
It's um Revenia, yeah, and youknow, matheny is playing at
Revenia this summer.
I'll go see that.
Okay, um, and I'll do lawn thistime, because I've seen kind of

(01:20:41):
this group before.
Yeah, you know, or this makeup,I enjoy that Just sitting out,
hanging out, you know, withfriends or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Great experience yeah .
Nice weather, love Revenia yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
But also, you know, as far as clubs go, you know
it's, it's a lot of the ECMartists that are coming through
are going to Constellation.
So I go to Constellation and dosome, um, hungry brain.
You know the, the, um, uh, theplaces you know those are kind
of is, I believe, his two clubselastic arts yeah, it's a good
place.
I love space.
Space is great.
Yeah, um, you know, so it'skind of those.

(01:21:13):
Yeah, I bet you know.
I mean, you've had guests onbefore, yeah, Same.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Thing.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
But to me that's where the most interesting stuff
is happening is that, like oneof those places I love the green
mills here and grim mills Yogreat, but it's it's a different
thing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
You know that's a deal with people usually there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's just, I'm just, yeah,
exactly, I'm not in.
I want to come in.
I want to show you know I'mwilling to pay up for a seat
someplace.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Yeah, so I don't have to deal with stuff you know.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
but um, but I had a good concert experience last
year at the year oh yeah, andwhat it was was.
I walked in.
I walked in and they were.
They were like, oh, we're doingVIP, uh, seats up front, right.
I was like how much?
Oh yeah, here you go, right.
The Mars, yeah, interesting.
Uh-huh.
Put off the.

(01:22:01):
Oh yeah, he's the best rocksinger the last 20 years.

Speaker 2 (01:22:04):
Yeah, come on, I don't know if you're familiar
with them.
I know, I know them I.
What I've heard is is not mystyle, but it's been a while.
It's an acquired when it firstcame out.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
You have to you.
It's an acquired it's, it'sthey make you work for it yeah,
they really do I'm lazy.
They make you, they, they, they, they hide things in 10 minute
long songs.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
Right, right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
So, who's your as as we conclude the this lovely
conversation and we could talkfor hours and, yeah, have to
have you back Totally, uh, andgo even deeper into what is the
second test album that youmentioned?

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
Oh, geez, what am I throwing on after that?

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
Well, you mentioned to.

Speaker 3 (01:22:51):
I thought Well, here's the thing here's the
thing is that the um, I will saythat what I'll tell you as the
album that got me like where,where I really it's not recorded
well.
I wouldn't say it's exactly thebest recorded album.
That's live.
But it just.
To me it's an amazing albumthat it's a Keith Jirrett nude

(01:23:14):
ants with his European quartetOkay, live at the Village
Vanguard 1979.
Okay, and it is probably just astereo mic in the room but you
would think this was like amassive, you know band, right,
but it's just.
It's Keith Jirrett on piano,pal Danielson on bass, john

(01:23:36):
Christensen on drums and thenyoung Gaborik on reads, you know
saxophone, nice.
And that album is insane.
Yeah, and I wouldn't say it'sexactly like a, because not
exactly recorded the bus, butthe performance is insane and it
will resonate with people.
You know like I'll play it forsomebody and I don't necessarily
know it's the best way todemonstrate my system, but it's.

(01:24:00):
There's a reason why it gotreleased in 79.
And you know, manfred Eicherhas been releasing other Keith
Jirrett things over the yearsthat were recorded back then and
you can kind of tell why he putthat on instead of some of the
others.
You know what I mean, becausethat night they were just on it.
Yeah, I mean it's like it'slike almost like a religious
experience listening through thewhole thing.
It kind of takes you through a.

(01:24:22):
You have to listen to a wholealbum.
Yeah, like it, just you know,and Keith is on it.
This is like Keith at hisheight, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't even know ifyou'd, I didn't know Keith
Jirrett was until like six yearsago, because he hasn't promote
himself as well as people whojust play his piano.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
But it's probably one of the most important musicians
of the last 100 years Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
I have a thought of another one that I played for
Karen the other night Fridaynights in San Francisco.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
Yeah, I've got yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
Yeah, that that would be, I think, a good album.
Yeah, the first song on it atleast.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like Guardian Angel, which is
the last track on it.
Okay, that's a John McLaughlintune.
Yeah, and that's a good, that's, it's a.
It's a live album.
I don't know that I personallywould test on it, but it's a
good, that's a good record yeah,yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, we've learned a ton yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
I've been writing furiously.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Karen's been taking notes.
I got some, a lot, lots of goodnotes.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
Yeah, so look for the show notes when this podcast
comes out, because there'll besome good links to some of this
info that he's dropped.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
And we'll add a lot of his artists to our spot if I
playlist yeah that's rightRecords and real estate.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
Look it up on Spotify .
Yep, All our past guests haveput on music.
Put music on there.
I can talk.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
It's getting late.
Yeah, oh, I should give yousome tracks?

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
Yeah, yeah, please.
Oh yeah, I'll ask you to coolstuff.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
I've been listening to it over and share it with us.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Yeah, cool Thanks, john.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
Andrew.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
Yes, Karen.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
You have one son.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
I do have one son, axel, axel, yes, Adorable two
and a half year old.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Andrew, why have a second child?

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Why have a second child?
That's a good question.
There's a lot of answers tothat.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
It seems like you're tempting fate because Axel is so
amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
Well, we've talked about that and, yes, Axel is an
exceptional child and mydaughter has big shoes to fill.
So we have my wife and Lauraand I have definitely talked
about that quite a bit and, yeah, we might be tempting fate, but
we're going to believe thatshe's going to fill those shoes

(01:26:48):
admirably and that Axel is goingto be a lovely big brother.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
But that's not really the question.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Yeah, am I avoiding the question?
Yep, why have a second child?
Why have a second child?
I don't know.
Because we wanted a secondchild, I guess is the short
answer to that, because that'sthe makeup of the family that we
were hoping for.
And yeah, so we put a lot ofeffort into having a second

(01:27:18):
child.
I think that ultimately, as aparent, you want to bring your
children into the world becausea little bit of hubris, you feel
like they can make it a betterplace, but you also feel like
you have a lot of love to givethem and one sort of begets
another.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
So but after I know that, the toil that I've seen my
friends go through with theirfirst child, you can't prepare
yourself for that you think youcan, but whatever.
And it's exhausting.
You sleep, it's all consuming.
And then you get to a pointwhere you're like, yeah, let's
do that again.

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
Yeah Well, I've said this before and I think it's
totally true.
You completely forget how awfulit was, and I think ultimately
that's some sort of biologicalmechanism, because if you
remembered how awful it was, youwouldn't do it again.
And so you do forget a bitabout what it's like to have a

(01:28:17):
newborn and the relative hellthat you go through.
But here we are signing up foragain and I couldn't be more
thrilled, or we're very excited.
We are ready in terms of ourhousehold and, yeah, ready to
meet our little girls.
So I don't know if that reallyanswered your question.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
It does.
That was a better answer.
Yeah, yeah, I got it out ofhere.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Then my long, rambling non-answer that I just
provided prior to this sort ofdecent answer.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
And, to be fair, I was not drilling you because I
was like, oh my God, why are youhaving a second child?
I think you and Laura arefantastic parents.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
I think that, yes, please keep doing more of that,
because we need more good peoplein the world.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
And if Axel has any indication of what's to come,
then we're all going to bebetter for it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
So I wish you the best of luck.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
Thank you.
Thank you, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
All right, we'll see.
You never know what theuniverse is going to bring.
That's right.
That's the fun of it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
She might be a little hellion, and if she is, then
we're going to find the good inher, just like we find the good
in everybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
That's right, we're going to love her anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
This has been an episode of Records in Real
Estate.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Today's episode was brought toyou by Be Realty.
Be where you want to be and BeRealty.

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