DOUG Talks TO MARK KASSA of SLIGHT RETURN about the Star Studded Tribute to BUDDY MILES !

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, Hi there Detroit Wheels,Doug. What's going on? Marcassa calling?
MOHRK. How are you my friend? Good? Good? How about
yourself? Man? Yeah? Everythinggoing, Yeah, everything's going well here.
Now I understand where are you?You're in Vegas? Is that right?
Uh? Yeah, we just wewere in La first for the Grammys
and then we're in Vegas right now. So we're just going to hit that

(00:20):
Super Bowl Experience thing on Mandelaid Baya little later today, and we're going
to see you two at the Spherelater on tonight. Oh well, yeah,
okay, have a great time.Okay, this spear looks incredible.
Man, I'm so glad that youtwo is actually playing. I'm not a
youtwo fan, but the spirit itselfjust looks a thing is ridiculous. Oh
my god, that thing is.It's crazy. Yeah, I love it

(00:44):
so Mark cos he's the guitar player, singer, songwriter from the band Slight
Return out of Detroit. So Isee you down there at the Grammys every
year. Have you finally won one? We haven't won a Grammy yet.
We been, We've had a bunchof songs on the ballot for the first
round. We haven't got a nomination. Probably had over twenty songs on the
ballot over the last six years,and we've had two on the Latin ballot.
But we're waiting for a nomination.Hopefully it happens soon. It's started

(01:07):
getting on the ballot as it is. But a well, it's difficult because
we're in the toughest category. Isee her down there just about every year,
right, so you at least getto enjoy all the amenities. Oh
yeah, yeah, we have agreat time. It's you know, it's
it's definitely it ain't Detroit. Itell you, it's a different seat.
Like I love Detroit, and hecomes to the West Coast. I mean,

(01:30):
it's a different cast of characters outhere. There's no toys about it.
I really love the Midwest earthiness ofeverybody. Like I thought the best
thing was Luke Combs and Tracy Chapman. I thought that was really good.
Yeah, that was really cool.That was one nobody expected. It was
kind of a surprise, and Tracy'skind of a private person, so it
was really cool to have them themperform together on stage. It was nice.
Yeah, so Mark, you're puttingtogether with some people here, including

(01:55):
my good friend John Bobby of course, Uh, the love of Buddy Mine
And it's a tribute to Buddy Milesat the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center,
which is just a beautiful facility.I mean it really is, you
know, like under the radar.I don't think too many people really know
about it, but I saw thenew Yardbirds play there a few years ago

(02:19):
when they did the fiftieth anniversary tothe Grandy and it is a beautiful place.
But why don't you tell me howthis whole love of Buddy Miles came
together and then we can talk aboutsome of the great people that you have
on there, including Jim McCarty,who of course played with Buddy Miles in
the early seventies. Yeah, it'skind of funny the way this all happens,

(02:42):
kind of just kind of strange circumstance. So we were doing a show.
We're doing a show with Billy Coxwho played with Buddy and Jimmy and
the Band of Gypsies for a showthat we do every year. For that
I'm a board member of for theSleutar Warriors, where we raise money for
the the wounded veterans in Michigan andninety seven percent of every dollar goes directly

(03:05):
to their families, and Billy wasour guest, which he was in the
hundred first Airborne with Jimmy, soit was perfect fit. And they brought
up one of their friends named BuoO'Connor and Boo is like their right Billy
and his wife Brenda, that's kindof the right hand man. And he
came up and of course we're niceto everybody. We invite him to everything

(03:28):
and just like we always do,just be courteous. And we played the
show and then we went and weplayed them changes with Billy and Uh and
Boo was like shocked. We caughthim off guard playing them changes. He
didn't know. We're big Buddy Milesfans. And then when everything was said
and done, he was like,hey, you know what I work with,
you know, the Buddy Miles withthe family, with Chelsea and the
family, and you know, we'vebeen wanting to put on a day for

(03:52):
a buddy for several years now.We think you're the right They like the
way the event ran and that typeof thing, and they said, we
think you're the right fit to putthis thing together, make it happen,
you know, because not just theproducer of the show, like it's our
band performing and everything else. Andit just kind of started from there,
from a small spark, and westarted kind of putting it together and going,

(04:14):
well, who do we have onthis bill if we played and what
would the setless look like? Andthe next thing, you know, we're
started kind of leaking out that we'reworking on this, and musicians started calling
us and saying, hey, youknow, we want to be a part
of this. We loved Buddy andeverybody on this bill. The great part
is that everybody on this bill voluntarilywanted to be a part of this when

(04:36):
they heard this was this was honoringfor Buddy. They knew that, you
know, Buddy really never got hisdue. And part of the reason Buddy
never got to do is because hestood up to the industry moguls at the
time. I'm not going to namenames or anything, but he was one
of the few that stood up tothe people that nobody stood up to,

(04:57):
and so they kind of swept himout of the carpet because if he look
at a guy who played with imean all the all the greatest guitar players
along all time. I mean,he played with Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana.
People don't know he did. Healso did a New Year's Eve gig
with Carlos and that that was thelive album, and then he toured as

(05:18):
a singer and guitar player with Carlos. And by the way, Bud,
he's a smoking guitar player. I'mone of the greatest drummers in the world.
Yeah, one of the greatest.I never knew that one of the
greatest guitar players. I know.I had heard that he was like a
great guitar player. I had neverreally thought of him as a guitar player,
only as a drummer. But you'reright, Uh, guitar players love

(05:39):
to play. Uh the Buddy Milessound, you know what I mean,
there's just a groove to it thatuh you know, musicians gravitate too,
I guess, yeah, I meanas a as a drummer. I mean
the way he was probably the mostsettled pocket drummer I've ever heard, like
Band of Gypsy's when he got adrummer that lays in the pocket like that

(06:01):
where he's a hair behind the beat, not dragging, but a hair behind
the beat, so that pocket sellsin and he got Hendrix, whose phrasing
was a little behind the beat.I mean, they just I mean,
that was the most inc That's whatmade that band of Gypsy Stuff so special.
And then, like I said,if you watch the mid eighties when
when Buddy was touring with Carlos Santanaand singing and playing guitar, I mean

(06:25):
there was times Buddy was I mean, he was the best guitar player on
the stage. I'm sorry to sayit. And I love Carlos Santana.
You know, I worked with theguys from the band, and I've met
Carlos, and of course Carlos isone of the greatest of all time.
But Buddy was not. I mean, he was incredible. He played like
Albert King, upside down, strong, upside down and left handed. And

(06:48):
you know, people don't realize hehad a dozen albums. He was headlining
tours back in the seventies, youknow, with a Buddy Miles Express and
you know, with Jim McCarty andthe band and stuff. He was the
sound of the California raisins all thosegreat commercials and stuff. Yeah, California,
that's right, that's right. Whendid Buddy pass away? I believe

(07:09):
he passed around, man, Ithink around two thousand and four, two
thousand and four, two thousand andsix, right in there. Okay,
But you know you're talking about aguy who played, like I said,
with Hendricks, with Santana, withSteve Ray Vaughan, with Jeff Beck,
Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters. Imean, the list goes on and on
and on, and I don't thinkI've ever seen a musician that's played with

(07:30):
that many icons ever. No,And this is going to be a great
show too. You've done an incrediblejob with you know, a first year
lineup. You know it's going tohappen. People are going to find out
about this after this year, andmore and more people are going to want
to jump on board and be apart of it if you decide to go
forward with it. But it isgreat to see Jim McCarty of course from

(07:54):
the Rockets and Mitch Ryder and Cactus. But he always likes to talk about
the fact that he did play withBuddy Miles, and I know he had
to have been excited and probably oneof the guys who called you and said,
I want to be on this show, right, oh yeah. And
the great part is we just Whenwe spoke last week, he said,

(08:15):
are you one of the guys puttingthis thing together? And I said,
yeah, I'm one of them.He goes, hey, man, I
just want to thank you. Hegoes like, this is way cool and
it's great that you guys are takingthe time to give Buddy his due.
And that's been the overall the vibeof everything is everyone's just happy that we're
actually taking time to honor Buddy.It's like people really recognize his significance in

(08:37):
music and that he never got thecredit that he was deserved. So you've
got Derek Saint Holmes on here fromthe Ted Nugent band. I don't know
that a lot of people really realizedthat Derek Saint Holmes was not only the
voice of Ted's best and biggest album, but he can shred just like Ted.
So oh, you know, he'sno question about it. He's he's

(09:00):
a great guitar player and I cansee he would love being a part of
this as well. Yeah, Derek'sa great guy. We did. It's
funny we did one show I broughthim. I brought him in this year
for the military event and we hadsuch a great time playing. He's like,
hey, call me if you needsome others. And so we did
a few more shows after that andjust had a great time. And when
I mentioned the Buddy Miles thing,it was kind of funny. I mentioned

(09:24):
it to him, and then thenext day when I picked him up from
the hotel for the gig, goesman, I didn't sleep. I went
down the Buddy Miles rabbit holes becausewatching all the YouTube videos and playing along
the stuff and all that, He'slike, I got to be a part
of this thing. That's awesome.And I mean that's basically what everybody's done.
They're just you know, they're hearingabout it and going, hey man,

(09:45):
this is really cool. We got, you know, of course,
Kenny Olsen who played in Banded Gypsy'sReturns with UH, with Billy Cox and
Buddy Miles. You obviously one ofour Detroit guys. Yeah. That was
part of the Hendricks experience, right, yeah, yeah, the band Gypsy's
Return JEF. It was kind ofa tribute to the band of Gypsies,
yep. And then you've got UH. Of course, we had you know,

(10:07):
Derek and Jim, and we goti mean on drums, Dennis Chambers,
one of the greatest in the world. I mean, who better to
represent Buddy than Dennis. I can'tthink of anybody from Santana right now.
He was with Santana for a whileand yeah, Funkadelic, Santana, Steely,
Dan Jackson, five, every greathusion jazz band that's toured in the

(10:33):
world, and so much studio stuffthat you don't even know that he's on.
But that's why he's known as oneof the greatest in history. You
also, you also have a coupleof guys from that actually played with Jimmy
Hendricks. Tell me about those guys. Juma Salton who played with with the
Hendricks at Woodstock for Crushing Player.Yeah, yeah, so jim was there.

(10:58):
And there's a couple we kind ofcan't announce right now because until it's
one hundred percent. They have onemore that was with Hendricks. And you
know Tony Lindsay who's got eleven GrammyAwards and sang for Santana for twenty five
years. She's Henry Brown, who'sthe singer on the Experience Hendricks Tour Guitar

(11:20):
Player. A lot of people don'tknow about, but this dude is going
people are going to hear him andbe floored is a guy named Lance Lopez
from Nashville, killer guitar player andalso did a lot of playing with Buddy.
He had a band with Buddy,and then also Peter Keys, the
keyboard player from Leonard's. Oh yeah, yeah, he's he's a character.

(11:43):
He's like the glue. I canbe sure of that. Yeah. Yeah,
really cool guy and all the guyshave been super nice and I'm really
looking forward to everybody getting together andworking together. And by the way,
this is not put together by somelike big production team or whatever. It's
me and another guy that are noteven promoters that decided just to do something

(12:03):
as a tribute to Buddy. Yeah, I know, that's why. I
think. It's just it's such agreat, great job that you've done already
up until this point. And likeI said, I think this thing is
going to grow bigger and better overthe years. But the one thing I
always think of when I when Ihear the name Buddy Miles, I think

(12:24):
of horns. Do you have ahorn section that's going to be out there?
We got a four piece horn sectionplanning the woodward horns are going to
be playing, Oh right, yeah, oh yeah, no, no,
I'm not. I already know it'sthat's Buddy's signature sound is having the horn
section. And then the funny partabout the horn section is that when I
it was Jimmy Jimmy Smith and theother three players and I contact them said
hey, would you guys, youknow, we'd love to have you play

(12:46):
in the show. And the guylooked into Buddy stuff as I go,
oh man, this stuff is reallycool. I've never it wasn't familiar,
but when he heard it, hewas. They were like, wow,
this is way cool because I've hadwho was Buddy's horn the arranger for the
horns, but the guy just dida phenomenal job with the horn section for
Buddy songs. The youse guys geta chance to shine. So how do

(13:07):
people get tickets for their show?You're gonna have to go on the Deerborn
Center for Performing Arts website. Justyou know, if you look up the
Michael Geido Theater in Deerborn and youjust click right on the site, you
can pick up tickets right there andvery simple to get. And by the
way, you know, unlike againwhere we picked a completely independent venue so

(13:28):
there's no like crazy up charges andstuff. Like that. I think it's
like a three dollars fee, butthere's no crazy up charges. Parking is
free and hello, I know I'veheard people when they go downtown, I've
heard people two hundred and fifty dollarsto park, but no parking is free,
huge open parking lot. And thetheater is like eight plus plus I

(13:52):
know, because it's made for anorchestra and it's all like plus seating and
that type of thing, and veryvery there are no bad eats in the
house at this theater. So nowis your band Slight Return going to open
up or it's going to be apart of the you know, the big
the big orchestra that we're going tobe both. We're going to probably do
probably about thirty or forty minute setto open the show, and then we're

(14:16):
going to stay on stage and theneverybody's going to join us on stage,
and then the players will kind ofrotate in and out depending on who's on
which song. But we're really lookingforward to We've been doing you know,
rehearsing for a few months on thisfor this event, and all the guys
are very very excited about it.Well, I can't thank you enough for
including me and Detroit Wheels as apart of this. I'm looking forward to

(14:41):
it. I mean, I've gotsome heroes that are going to be on
stage there, so I had tobe a part of this. You know,
Peter Keys and myself did some stuffwith Dick Wagner a number of years
ago, which is why I knowhe is phenomenal. And then you know
Jimmy and Derek and Kenny. Imean, this is really going to be
pretty something special because I don't thinkthose three guys have ever been on the

(15:03):
same stage, all at the sametime. And this is Detroit Rock Guitar
Royalty, so you know, let'sjust start with that. And then the
fact that it's for the love ofBuddy Miles music that you just don't hear
that often. I think it shouldbe fresh and just really exciting. And

(15:24):
Mark, you have done a greatjob with this, and who knows,
maybe you'll get a Grammy for puttingthis show. You know, even if
my adult look at the end ofthe day, I mean we're here.
Well, a couple of things.One, I want to thank you because
just the fact that for the lastfour decades there's nobody who has helped out

(15:46):
the Detroit music scene, especially localbands, more than you. I mean,
you're always at everything you put.You push the Detroit guys so much.
I mean, our hat goes offto you, man. We really
really appreciate it. From the daysfrom when you had to beat and you
know till today, you're always outthere promoting Detroit and with the Grammys,

(16:07):
I got to make you laugh alittle bit. I turned in my ballot
this year and in our category wasMetallica, the Red Hat, Chili Peppers,
the Beatles, the Fighters. I'mlike, uh, yeah, I
don't think anybody could vote for SlightReturn. They were I would have voted
for you. I would have.But yeah, you get, like,

(16:29):
you know, all you get isan ounce of rock at the Grammys,
you know, I mean, oneor two awards and that's it. They
don't even do them on the bigstage. But uh, it is an
honor to be a part of it. And uh and you guys are and
that's pretty that's pretty reputable in itself. So on the good side, I
did get to see our Robert Treheelpick up the at the premier ceremony.

(16:52):
Metallica won a Grammy. Yeah,all right and stuff. It was really
cool. Just yeah. Either way, whatever we write, we were music
just because we love it and wewant to put out the best thing we
can put out. And hey,who knows, maybe one of these days
you'll here Welcome to the d onthe radio. That was my song.
You know that I played that alot. Yeah, that was a good

(17:15):
one. Well, no question aboutit. You know, this is going
to be a great night for thelove of Buddy Miles once again. It's
Friday, March first. That's comingright up too. Door's going to open
at six thirty. It's at thatFord Community and Performing Arts Center. I
think you can go to Dearborn Theaterdot com and actually get tickets, so

(17:36):
we hope to see everybody out therefill that thing up. It's only about
a thousand or so seats, soyou better get your tickets fast for this
one. But Mark, once again, I salute you a great job and
we'll see you there at the show. I'm looking forward to it. Awesome,
man, we're looking forward to We'regonna have some fun, all right.
Mark Kasa from Slight Return and forthe love of a Buddy Miles,

(18:00):
we hope to see you there.Thanks Mark, Thank you very much.
You have a great day.