An interview with Michael Scotto 8/19/25

An interview with Michael Scotto, a Jersey Shore based musical artist, educator, husband and father with deep and varied roots in the Asbury Park music scene.  From his earliest musical origins to his vast contributions as a member of many seminal NJ bands and projects ( Lifesite, Virginia, Republic, Agency,  Full Fathom, solo projects, etc. ) his tenure as the Studio Manager for Lakehouse Recording,  to his thoughts on the role of technology in music and eclectic array of othjer subjects, this is an engaging conversation and exchange of thought and sentiment.

Apologies to the audience in advance for the exuberant and prolific contributions of my unexpected cohost Koda the Husky in this particular episode!  Quite frankly I contemplated not publishing this interview with Michael Scotto due to the excessive audio distraction from my beloved canine companion, but Michael was good spirited and quite entertaining about it and charged through the experience with graceful intellect, rapacious wit, and the slick ease of a true professional.  

Please visit his podcast Through the Glass available here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/throughtheglasspod/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6NMaILfHOnubGAvVSM80Nf?si=b4480a0886664c56

Apple Music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-the-glass/id1826916869

YouTube.com: https://youtube.com/@throughtheglasspod?si=vAWpIzaOT3y6DAuR

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/open-mic-with-colie-brice--6563363/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's August nineteenth. You're listening to open Mic
with Koli Bryce, and I'm here with a very special guest.
I mean, they're all special guests.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's face it.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Michael Scotto, renaissance man of myriad talents. How did we meet?
We met because we had a mutual friend and bandmate,
Brian Saint, who introduced us. And I was running a
label called Area at the time, and I put out
a record featuring the talents of mister Scotto and mister Saint. Uh,

(00:28):
long time, God, longer than we care to admit. When
was that two thousand and six, nearly nineteen years ago?
It was. Anyway, Mike, welcome to the podcast, and thanks
for coming here.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
I wanted you on the show because I think.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, why am I here? Why am I in Sayerville?

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Why are you in Sara. Well, that's a question all
of us in Sarahl ask.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Basically.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
The way my podcast is starting to take shape is
I'm finding that I'm finding it interesting helping fellow musicians
and artists and other creative types kind of excavate their
life's journey following their muse and some people have stayed
strictly in one medium. Other people have kind of branched
off into different things. And I kind of find like

(01:13):
this is like the underground alternative to like the Magnificent
Ones with Billy Corgan. It's like the other guy you know,
not all Steve II, but doesn't mean that those stories
and your history, it's all part of the greater puzzle.
And I like kind of seeking out the crevices of
various artistic journeys. So that's why I invited you. I

(01:35):
want to talk about your journey, which started when you
started playing guitar as a kid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, my mother, my mother played played and still plays guitar,
so there was always instruments in the house. She was
the guitarist in the church group along with my best
friend's mom, so two buddies. Both our moms played guitar
in church, so just around it, they would rehearse at

(02:01):
my house. And I remember before I wanted to learn
the instrument, I was very happy to be like just
hanging with the band, maybe putting some guitars in some cases,
maybe I would fire up the water for the tea
for their tea break. So I've rody, I guess my
first love was roadying and being around a band. That

(02:21):
was the first exposure folk music, Christian hymnals done in
a folk style. At the church, they had the traditional choir.
So those of you listening who are familiar with these things,
you might picture a big organ and many singers, all singing,
and that's pretty much all of the sound. You don't

(02:41):
need much more than a good organ and a lot
of vocalists. However, my mom my Mom's group, they called
themselves the folk group, so they would take the same
songs but play them in like a almost like a
hippie dippy kind of fashion on their acoustic guitars, and
you know, the one woman would play a little tambourine.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Was she like Joan Bias and was she into that movement,
that folk rock movement. Was she influenced by that?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
That's a great question. I don't know if she was
influenced by it. I know it was the music of
her time, right, but she didn't did.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
I think we're all influenced by the music of our time,
whether we care to admit it or not.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
For sure, I think if you're coming out of the
fifties and the sixties and there's an acoustic guitar around you,
you're you're not only familiar with, but you probably have
some strong feelings about the folk music scene. And a
lot of folk was political at the time. As you know,
my mother was a political like. She's not a political
person like. She didn't go to college after high school

(03:39):
because of all the protests and stuff. It just seemed
it seemed scary to her. She ended up going back
to school decades later. So yeah, it's all about my
mom for many the same with you know, a lot
of people, you know, it's a parent or someone next
to them that's introducing them. So yeah, Mamascoto, we had
a guitar in the house that she gave me and
I don't know who's it was. It was a small,

(04:02):
like a shorter scale, sort of diminutive classical guitar, and
you and I were just talking upstairs, how you've been
playing on nylon strings, to really.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Appreciate nylon strings, as I've been playing a lot of
gigs with older hands.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
One hundred percent, so that's what I started on. So
it was a classical guitar, nylon strings, and just trying
to copy the music I was listening to and also
we were trying to write music very early, so like
third or fourth grade, me and this kid Mark shout
out to Mark Manning on the West coast. These days

(04:39):
we were trying to make songs. We were writing songs
about homework, about the girl that we had a crush
on that we probably would never talk to about, the kid,
the kid who smelled weird. Sorry dude, sorry, you know
we weren't familiar with the curry curry smell at the time.

(05:01):
So he got he got his own.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Song, a song and.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Shout out to tpok. Sorry again, it's what we have editing.
What do I have to am I going to cancel
my my fourth grade self? Oh boy, I'm fucked.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
What we do live in the time where we have
to tread carefully? Right, So Gateway drug into electric guitar.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Great Gateway drug and to electric guitar definitely would have
been hearing Peter Buck and hearing Johnny Marr. So like
the sort of jangly sounds of R. E. M and
the Smiths. I would put those two guys sort of
in a similar category at least from my upbringing in
my ears and being like, oh, I would like to

(05:52):
sound a little more like that as opposed to whatever
sounds that the acoustic guitar and the classical guitars were
producing at the time.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
And you're also known as as quite the effects of ficionado.
When did what inspired you getting into more textural, ambient
kind of forays.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right out of the gate? So, first band band, meaning
like playing gigs. You know, I'm probably fifteen and I
was in a hardcore band. I didn't really know much
about the hardcore scene. It was just, uh, hey, you
play guitar, right, yeah, you should be in our band. Yeah, yeah,
I should do that. What kind of music you guys play? Yeah,
we're hardcore? Yeah, I like that. I didn't know what

(06:31):
that was at the time. And of course, and plus
these terms they change throughout time. But whatever it meant,
you weren't.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
An authenticated member of that subculture at that time.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
You were just like.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Going, no, not at all. I was in no subcultures.
I was in my own subculture, unfortunately at the time,
at least I felt unfortunate at the time, and yet
getting into that scene and then showing up I didn't
even know how to play power chords. I'm like, oh,
is it like a D minor or something. They're like, yeah,
you know, you should just learn some power chords. So

(07:03):
the guitarist of that band shout out to Sleigh also
known as Dave Kuzanelli but forever known as Sleigh show
of course, and you know Sleigh is going to show
you how to play power chords if a guy named
Slay is gonna show you how to play chugg and
chugger and what's that? Of course, if you can't get
a nice like, it's over. So I would practice that

(07:25):
style enough to be in this band, and he was
like very proficient. He was into bands like a Slayer
in Metallica, so he was able to really rip. And
I'm like, well, I'm not. I'm not trying to match
this guy. So what if I went I'll learned the song?
But what if I go the other way? So the
other way for me was you know, you'd be in

(07:47):
rehearsal studios or in basements and there'd always be some
effect pedals just sitting around. No one was really playing
them that I remember, so I grabbed like a phaser
and a flanger pedal, anything that would give some depth
to the sound other than that like right in your chest.
Turned out to be. What became sort of the sound

(08:08):
of the band was sort of this this contrast of
Sleigh and then me playing like very fruity sort of hey,
what if we did this? Like they're like, yeah, just
do it. And it's what actually became sort of the
sound of the band, those two things. And we had
a singer who would scream half the time but could

(08:29):
sing proper too, So we stood out, I think, in
this band, and we had you know, a little mild local.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Success purely hardcore, kind of a mutated kind of adaptation.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Of Yeah, probably over years it would become you know
what people call like emo or something, so it's pre
emo premo. It was a primo. I guess it was
pre emo. However, you know, some purists out there might
call like certain bands like Rites of Spring and all
these other bands sort of like the beginning of that.

(08:59):
Sou's definitely before us, but at least as far as
totally and at least as far as the scene the
scene in air quotes pictured in your minds, no one
was doing that, So we definitely stood out. Started as
Withdraw and then it got we changed it to Life
Site when we changed a few members and we hit

(09:21):
it hard for a little bit, and it was a
lot of fun, but we stood out. It was also
the reason a lot of people ate it.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Actually, you guys released records, You toured Germany, right, I
mean the band actually life site had a life cycle.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
There is catalog, yes, yeah, yeah, it was fun. It
was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Where could people check that out?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
At least one of the albums is available on Spotify.
I'm not affiliated with like the ownership of anything at
this point, yet it's out there. Maybe both albums, so
there would be first albums called Invisible Wish and you
could hear like some teenage chug a chuga and then
a bit more refined only two three years later with

(09:59):
the second album, Destinance. If they're both on Spotify, you
should check them out.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
That was very scene of the time, or in and
around the New New Jersey Shore region were the origins
of it.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
It was its own scene. So some of you out
there might remember that there were matinee shows. So, by
the way, we're in the early nineties, so hopefully you're
a lot younger than me. But early nineties, the Stone
Pony was doing Sunday matines so afternoon shows, and that's

(10:32):
when they'd have their hardcore matines. Most of the clientele
and fan base were underage, so it didn't pay for
the pony to you know, have a nighttime show and
sell like either zero alcohol or get those special security
teams that could parse out who was above and who
was below. I don't even know if they still do
shit like that, but are we allowed to use profanity

(10:52):
on this okay? And so they would do them in
the afternoon, and as far as I know, it was
a big hit. Local heroes like Jack o'manahan he was
running those prior to that. They were at a place
called the Cafe Bar and Zacho went on Brighton eventually. Yeah, yes,

(11:13):
that's right. So we would play his shows, and there
weren't too many places to play. There was really no heavy,
heavy music like that in the mainstream, so you had
no chance of like feeling like you were touching on
the mainstream. Probably wouldn't be until like Rage against the
Machine maybe like drops were like, oh you can, like

(11:33):
you can do music like that and still like be
quote unquote mainstream. So I remember them being like an
AHA moment for me. We would play up in New York,
you know, we try and break into New York and
play all those dirty clubs and the at the bottom
of Manhattan, and then yeah, we did. We get the flew.
We flew the Coop for a little bit and did
some shows in Europe.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
I think it's unfortunate that in today's world there's really
not much ecosystem available to onunderground bands. There isn't really
that incubation habitat to kind of get it together currently,
at least not to the degree that you know back then.

(12:12):
What do you think of that?

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if
I have my finger on the pulse of what you
could incubate now, being like, you know, so far along
in my journey, I don't know, but I would say
there's more, there's more opportunities to.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Push the script for a minute.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
People should know that you were also the studio director
of lake House Music for some years.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right, I was the studio manager of the recording studio.
Lake House Music is sort of the educational portion of
the company. I was not in charge of that. I
was I was, you know, steering the ship at the
recording studio. So it's kind of two separate entities. Yeah,
in the.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Absence of like these Sunday matinee shows and these I mean,
I feel like it was easier for bands to get
their first gig back then. Like now, it almost seems
like you have to be going to like music academy
or something that has the stature and business acumen two
book a showcase night somewhere. It doesn't seem quite as

(13:08):
wild and free as it once was.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that. The idea that you
could take lessons at a music school and depending on
what track you were on, part of that track would
include like a gig and even helping to put like
your band quote unquote band together that didn't exist. I
think that's very cool. I mean, most of the artists

(13:30):
I would meet at the recording studio, if they were
like locals, a lot of them came through that sort
of feeder program. So it's a very different approach. I
remember on on my podcast had on the singer of
Sonic Bloom Max and really his entire it was interesting
the way he was talking, Oh, we got a little
doggy in here. What's up? He's by the way, he's

(13:54):
not the one who's yelling. There's there's a well behaved
dog here right now, then there's another guy fired up.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Hopefully that's not picking up too bad or I can
limit that.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh maybe it's just it might just be the barking
in my head. But this idea of this idea of
sort of having a feeder program introduce you to collaborating
and then also performing didn't exist, So I think it's
pretty cool. I probably would have wanted I don't know.

(14:24):
I don't know if I would have wanted to do that.
I probably wouldn't have wanted to do like the learning
and the lessons. Probably just want to show up at
the gig.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Like to me, it's almost like hunting at a game
preserve or something that has a fence around it.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
It's a different thing. I'm getting the feeling that you're
not stoked about this this track. I'm getting I'm getting
vibes from your facial expressions. I don't disagree.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, you know, I don't think you can train people
to be rock stars.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
I know it's profitable, but I don't know. I mean,
in the absence of having other opportunities, it's better than nothing, right,
if there's a way to gain stage experience or whatever.
But I I don't know, man, It just there's something
that doesn't seem too organic about that process to me.
And you know, I'm a Rocosaurus Rex. I'm not a

(15:15):
you know, fond of change necessarily. I know you can't
change change. But I'm cautious about change, and I'm skeptical
about change. And I take my time change. I take
my time when things change.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I don't rush into change. Well, all right, all right,
I see where you're coming from. I don't disagree with you. However,
I think it's two different things. I think that people
who benefit most, whether it's a someone our age or
whether it's a fourteen year old, it's more like scratching
an itch than following that like compass inside you. Maybe
I don't want to speak for you, but maybe you

(15:48):
were the same as me, where you just sort of
had this compass which was like, well, no matter what
I want to do, I gotta be creating things. I
gotta be playing music.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
I have no choice.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I have no choice. The universe has said you will do.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Where I like yearned to have a thirst and lust
for accounting or something pragmatic that would give me a
more stable future. But I could not not follow.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
That inner voice same And I think there's another half
of people in the music world who are like, man,
I'll never be in a band. It would just be
nice if I could just have three people who sort
of were around my age and into what I'm into,
that would be that would just be fun. That's very
different from like I have this, this this burning compass
inside my chest. No matter what, whether it's with a band,

(16:30):
whether it's with fans, whether it's alone, whether it's everyone's
spitting in my eye, I'm going forward.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Rocky one.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes, he doesn't win. He doesn't win at the end
of that Apollo beats him up, but he gets back
up because it doesn't matter how many times you get
knocked down. That's right. And then I think there's also
the people who like they just want to scratch this
other itch, which is just like I would just man,
I've always wanted to just play on a stage one song.

(16:57):
That's my dream. So I think for for those folks,
that's a beautiful avenue. For the For the person who's
probably got the burning, annoying itch in their chest which
is ready to pull through their ribcage, I don't think
it would have any effect. I think it would be
something maybe that's fun to do, but they would want
to outgrow that and move past that very quickly because

(17:19):
it's not as organic.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
I say, you're saying that type of archetype. They're still
going to find their way into the hunting through the
process where it's just another gateway to them. They're gonna
keep They're gonna follow that soul's journey one way or
the other. And if that's one gate to start it,
and they're gonna find the next step.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
I think so because like you know, I mean, my
my my origin story isn't very cool. Like I could
start with like playing hardcore shows and like going to Germany,
but like it's really about like church music and the
big the big you know, jumbo acoustic guitars and hymnals.
So that's not exactly the most organic thing either. Maybe interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
So let's go let's go back and taking away back machine.
So what was your next project after a life sit?

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I did a one eighty. Well had already won eighties.
So you're starting in church and then you go and
join like a hardcore band, right, and and I remember
I remember my mom, like I played her the demo,
like when I first like joined the band, I'm like, yeah,
it's harder band called Withdraw. She's like, oh, let me
put it on, and it's like, obviously it's chug a chuga,

(18:28):
but just some there's motherfuckers are talk a lot of shit.
Punk motherfuckers. That was one of our songs. And my
mom's like, oh, punk motherfuckers talk a lot of shit,
is that right. I'm like, well, you know, it's just words.
I'm just the guitarist. She's like, all right, cool. I

(18:51):
was trying to make excuses for it, and she was trying,
probably trying hard not to be so mom about it.
So I had taken this one eighty from you know,
being her back up in church too now in doing
this when I decided to leave life, so I left
site was still going. I just decided to leave because
I was bored. So when I get bored, I can't

(19:12):
I rarely can find a cure for that. I just
have to go somewhere else. So I left the band,
and I don't remember how I got involved with this
artist Virginia, but maybe some local folks around here of
a certain age might remember a young lady acoustic singer
songwriter Virginia. She went by Virginia Trout was her full name,
but she just went by Virginia. She was on Gig records,

(19:35):
did a lot of stuff through Indian all all these people,
and she would yes, and she was playing with just
some great musicians. So the Careu brothers, So Andres and
Christian Caru.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Notably, had just left.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
It couldn't be more different. This is female singer songwriter,
whatever that conjures up in your minds in this interview.
Very sexy, very slow, just very sexy music, to be
honest with you, and they were trying to make it sexier.

(20:19):
So she would play alone sometimes and it was great.
But then she was working with the Carew brothers, So
Christian on bass, just laying down some real just tasty stuff.
And Andres as the producer of the band and the
drummer slash percussionist, so he was producing the records. He
was also still in or it just finished up being

(20:39):
in a probably one of the biggest local bands, Love
and Reverse. So he's that guy. And I was hearing
the stuff he was producing and it sounded so good,
and he was doing like most of the instrumentation himself.
So and then also James Dalton. So if you were
a musician or an artist, or anyone who just goes
out and hears live music, you certainly know James Dalton.

(21:01):
Back in the day, he went by j Pat. James
was in the band as a mandolin player, and he
likes to tell the story of like, yeah, as soon
as soon as they hired you know, soon as they
hired me, that he was fired, like immediately after. It
might have been fifteen minutes later, but there was quickly
a transition.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
I don't he was a texture guy and you became
a new texture guy.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
I guess I felt like it was a very different sound.
It would be nice to keep the mandolin. But whether
they didn't want that much instrumentation or whether they just
wanted a different vibe and I was that vibe, I
don't know. But he likes to joke that he was
kicked out.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's such an amazing family tree of all the various
short musicians, and I.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Mean so much.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Should do like a flow chart of that family tree sometime,
because it's just it would take up I don't know,
it would take up a lot of space, a lot
of craft paper.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
We'd need an open spaces project yeah, Well.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's just really fascinating to me, the archaeology of how
all the different bands evolved from different things.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
It's just it's so fun. And if you're open minded,
which I think you are and I know I am,
you find yourself in situations that if you really calculated
it or you're being Yeah, if you were being more calculated,
you wouldn't find yourselves in. So just being open minded,
you find yourself drifting around.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
So I Don'tiver's travels have nothing on being a nasber
Park musician.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's true, and it's funny because you don't even always
know how you find yourself in those situations. Like I
don't remember how I met Virginia or how I got
introduced to her. I mean, I was coming out of
being in like a hardcore band, so it's like that's
not what they were looking for. And I remember some
of the early demos and then I did a record
with them and I mentioned Andre's crew. He was producing it,

(22:45):
and I just want I wanted to please him. He
was the person in the room who I'm like, Okay,
I'm gonna learn the most from him. Like I'm always
trying to identify, like who's the sage in the room
that I can learn the most from and not in
like a leech parasitic kind of way, but like, as
an artist or really has anything, you should never feel
like you're at the top of the food chain.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, you always want your game.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
You want to up your game. That's why you're here.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
You always want to be the weakest link in the
band become better, And I definitely was the weakest link
in that band.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I remember we're recording and he's like, maybe try it
like this, how about more like this? And We're going
back and forth. Meanwhile, in my mind, I'm like, why
don't you fucking play these guitar parts like you're crushing it?
You sort of arrange them anyway. You're much better than
I have ever Like, why am I here recording this? Yet?
He was patient, he was sweet, and all I did
was ask questions probably the whole time and played mediocre.

(23:40):
It sounds good on the album. I'm still playing way
too much, but working with him, I learned what not
to play. That was the first time where I'm like,
all right, I'm gonna bring all my fucking skills to
the table. I got my pedals, I've stretched I have
grand ideas of the orchestration that can go over this simple,

(24:00):
gorgeous guitar melody which doesn't need me at all, And
it was about learning what not to play. He was
so like, he was so patient, he was so smart,
so andres I love you man.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Do you think maybe there's something though, in the over exuberance,
albeit maybe accompanied by profound ignorance, when someone is just
getting into the studio and writing and playing with all
the toys, And is there something in the over indulgence

(24:34):
that sometimes gives something a little extra lift, that has
a certain kind of honest authenticity.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, because the opposite of that is just sort of
being jaded and being like that's been done, we don't
have time to try that. That's the opposite side of
that coin. So I think you need it, even though, yes,
albeit ignorant, as you say, it's going to lift the room.
Maybe they liked having me there, Maybe I was fun
to have around.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
It's that leap of faith where sometimes you do capture
lightning in a bottle and sometimes you fall off the
cliff and it's not pretty one percent.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
So yes, even though it's a little ignorant and it's
a little inexperienced and your you're spraying your talent all
over the place whether it needs it or not. Right,
you're just alpha dog and just alpha dog and spraying
it down make sure everyone could smell and taste and
feel it. But it also I think it does elevate
the room. It's kind of exciting to have that person

(25:32):
in the room.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, here's another.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Question for you.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Share your speculations with me. Here. When I was learning
how to play guitar, we all would jam with our
buddy and we'd all take we'd steal something from one
guy and couldn't quite understand what another guy was doing,
but maybe get a little something from it, and we'd
like learn tricks like in back alleys and like bedroom
jams and stuff, and like it was certainly wasn't efficient

(25:57):
as far as like learning, but I think people had
more identity and character when they kind of like went
through this like quest process of learning the guitar versus Now,
I mean, there's there's such a plethora of educational resources online,

(26:18):
Like you can you get like the past, the cheat codes,
you start with the cheat codes.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
And now has that raised the median level of proficiency
and yeah, I mean there's like ten year olds that
are doing things that will never ever be able to do.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
I would see that a lot at Lake House. I'm like, oh, jeez,
I'm gonna get smoked by a twelve year old. No,
maybe I'm not gonna not gonna play this one. I'll
just watch.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
I just want to see how you're doing.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Let's say, young boy so, and.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
You know they're you know, obviously anything improving any type
of education, whether it's musical or literary anything. I mean,
it's great, but there was something almost mystical about the
quest of getting a little chunk or a little nugget
out a time. So like, well, I don't mean, I

(27:11):
don't mean, like where do we even go forward with music,
because now we've got like, you know, I thought it
was bad with like auto tuning and and uh, you
know mashups.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Oh you're so cute, You're so cute, and now it's like, AI,
I know, it's like, well, I don't know, I have
no idea. I know where your question is going. I
have no fucking idea.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, it's like, well, so are we gonna assume like
like when we have a Sunday brunch. Is there gonna
be like an AI robot that takes requests and we're like, yeah,
but just to make it interesting, can you do that
in F sharp minor instead of the original key? And
could you do it with that? Like we'll be like,
could you sing it like Louis Armstrong?

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Please.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
We'll be able to manifest and indulge any eclectic, esoteric,
experimental musical interest we could possibly have. I guess there's
maybe curating all that will become a new art form.
I don't know, but like where to human beings.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Which is why I enjoy going.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
You know, I was afraid of the acoustic guitar and
just singing my whole life.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I was like I.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Always needed a big fucking sound around me, Like I
wanted bomb basting. I've seen you around, Yeah, like the
big sound like from the eighties, from Cerebral yet whatever.
But the intimacy of jessic guitar in a vocal or
a piano in a vocal. I just kind of feel
like the truth. We're back to the era of the truth.

(28:36):
It's like, uh, what was the historic figure Jack Henry
that kept doing the uh railroad tracks old school? And
he refused to be replaced by a steam engine, Like
kind of feel like that guy?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, yeah, Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
It's a it's a lot going on with technology and music,
and it seems like the technology is gaining more than
the music is.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Well, certainly, you know, the technology is the power is
growing exponentially. I mean, no one knows where where it's head.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
At this point, I'm hoping AI will at least find
some of us entertaining as pets.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Are you going to fucking bark when your AI is
trying to do a podcast? Are you gonna bark from
your room?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
My AI will probably have the capacity to z at
me with something neurologically that prohibit me from doing that.
If I had a button to press on my husky
right now, he'd be quiet.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, it would be like, oh, I'm sorry, our koli's
acting up again. Such a human.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Well, you know, given mankind's proclivity for a cycle of
destruction and renewal, which was fine when we were fighting
with bows and arrows and we're just composed, what happens
when AI reaches a logical conclusion that, you know, we
might be not be the most desirable species to populate
the plant.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I don't know. I mean, I don't know that that's
a foregone conclusion. Currently. You know, all my experiences with AI,
and what I know so far is that it's it's
it's not thinking creatively, so it just wants to please you.
So I don't see it getting rid of you if
you're the owner of your AI.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
But I don't know, because if its codependent infatuation with you,
I think it's just in my human relationships.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Oh amongst humans, Yes.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
That hasn't always been a great out. So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Well, what I'm saying is it's what's baked into the cake.
Is it's it's I'm giving it. You know, I'm giving it,
I'm personifying it. But it's its job is to please you.
Now what lengths will it go to to please you?
I don't know. But right now it's not thinking creatively.
It's not thinking like, fuck man, I'd be better off

(30:58):
without fucking Coley and Michael around. I don't That's not
how I see it, So I don't think it's a
foregone conclusion.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
The ignition point is where it recognizes its own sentience.
Nobody knows like that could be like right now or
ten years.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
As we're speaking, the fucking it shifted.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Well welcome.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
See see we asked you to bark off axis. All right,
So I'm gonna take over the show now because Coli'S
leaving with this this guy with yappy magoo. So I
hope you're enjoying the show out there. Do you like
all of Coley's shows? Do you even like Coli? Have

(31:40):
you ever met him? He's not always the most likable person.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm just kidding. He's
generally likable. We're just sitting here with some dead air.
I'm in a basement. It's the type of basement that
at that scene in the movie when the federal agents
kick down the door because you know they're definitely gonna
find the hostages or the freezer with the body parts

(32:01):
in it. It looks like one of those rooms for sure.
I don't smell anything decomposing, so I'm hoping there's nothing
dead down here. But I also don't want to piss
them off. I don't want this to be my last
my last stop here on earth. My mother will be
so depressed if I died in Sayerville, in Coley's basement.
It's a shitty way to go. I don't know if

(32:22):
he's going to edit all this shit out just improvising,
I was talking. I was giving everyone a sense of
our surroundings.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
We won't edit this now.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Your new husky slippers will be done by Christmas.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
It is so warm, so warm.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
It's snugly.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
All right, So we're so you were having an AI shit.
You were taking an AI shit.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, well, I just following where the brain spark went.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Let's go back.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
So you're in the band with Virginia and James Dalton
all that.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
I don't remember if I left that ban or if
I or if the band dissolved. I wasn't asked to leave,
but I don't remember how that ended. But it was
right at that time where I was looking to I wanted.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
To rock out.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
I wanted to fucking put a little uh, a little thing,
a little mustard, a little balls, whatever you want to
call it. And at that time I had a very
good friend in Ocean Grove. Shout out to Kim Schell, Hello, dear,
just celebrated a birthday, and she's like, oh, I've got
some friends in Ocean Grove that you should, you should.

(33:32):
You know they play regularly just like solo, but they
also kind of want to get like some band situation going.
So she she was working at what it was the
old coffee shop in Ocean Grove, Daily Grind, Daily Grind.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Janice Bonovido and Rob Schumann.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, shout out to those guys down at the winery. Now, yes,
still overseeing the guest house at the winery. And she
had me come down to the cafe to see someone
who would become a friend after that, Mark Prescott. Oh.
So that was like and uh, for whatever reason, that
just wasn't like so much a fit for what I

(34:10):
was looking for. But he and I ended up becoming
good friends. And then I was there maybe a week
later to see h Brian Saint play and that felt
like a little bit more of a fit. And uh,
very quickly after.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
That, interesting because I had just stopped playing with those
guys and moved out west. Oh, so this is the timeline, Yeah,
this is our timeline intersects.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
And so who was in that band again?

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Brian Saint of Sinners.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, so who was who's that?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Brian on vocals and in the songwriter.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
I was playing the guitar, Seratomac on drums, Rob Schuman
on bass and it's goot John Sarah on cello and
Ben feldon keys.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Rip Ben, rest in peace, motherfucker. Shout out to Ben Feld.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Whatever people think of Ben and other respects. Most people
found him quite lovable, but he could be quite a
little something else too. But man, that guy networked more
musicians and stitched. He was part of the He was a.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Weaver of musicians.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
He he was so intrinsic to so many bands that
got formed. You know, he really he had so much
to do with networking and bringing people together.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
I agree. And you know, all our tombstones will have
the plus side on the negative side etched etched into them.
I know mine will. But I have nothing but like
you know, love and respect for Ban. I miss him and.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Because if I was an angel, I'd be missing some feathers,
and the feathers I had.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Left would have tar.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
That's right, folks, He's all the time he were tarring
and feather in him. Okay, so you you just quit
that band, so you were moving west to follow the
business the record business man.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
I got replaced by Brian Well.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
I think I was very well, you know the way,
I was very old school classic rock pentatonic minor, tried
and truly rock and roll horse vibe, and I think
he wanted someone who was much more alternative.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Not that yeah, yeah got you, Yeah, I got you.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
There's a lot of things I can't do. And then
again not that. Oh I'm then I'm not the person
for this, because that's that's my that's my thing.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah. I don't think he wanted like three minute like
drenched Hendrick souls anymore.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
And I would just spilled all over his twos.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
With glassy strat goodness. I don't know if it was classy,
but it was definitely glassy.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Oh yeah, it was some glassy.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I would never I've never called you classy. Can we
be clear it's never been said. So you were going
out west for what? For work? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (37:01):
I was offered a job at a new media startup
called the Music dot Com in Hollywood, and right sultaneously
I held it was a company that was doing vinyl
reissues as well, and I wore the title of a
marketing director and went from like fifty dollars gigs at
the moon Rock in Asbury Park to being in the

(37:22):
middle of Hollywood and get involved. We're the first website
to do one hundred and twenty eight kilobyte narrow casting
stream live, a lot of cool got to meet a
lot of celebrities, blah blah, did a lot of a
lot of cool stuff out there.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
But yeah, I had left behind the Asbury.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Scene, okay, and then so that's when I met those guys,
like right at that time.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, and then I guess you guys started.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Republic, that's right. Yeah, the group that we got together
and started playing shows and recorded two demos with would
have been Republic. And then at some point I think
we had just got like a letter from someone out
in California and it was like, yeah, we own that name.
I think it's a producer. He's just a producer. And

(38:11):
I that was also the first time that I found
out that some people just scoop up names because they
might use them one day, or they might think about
using them, or it's a good name that no one
scooped up, and you just sort of scoop it up
and maybe if someone wants it, they could offer you
money for it. I didn't offer anything for the name,
but so we had to come up with a different names.
So then the group was changed to the name agency,

(38:33):
and that's we played that way for a couple of.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Years historics because it went so when I went out
to Hollywood, I you know, I really believed in Brian
sat I think he vocally had this baritone, almost Victim
Owne kind of voice, but in this.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Alt rock style.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
I found his original songwriting.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
I really loved it.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
And he didn't even know what cords he was playing
half the time. But I thought there was such a
innocence in that that he wasn't psychoanalyzing himself. He wasn't
having paralysis through analysis, like I know just a little
bit too much about music theory and not enough at
the same time where I start thinking about what other

(39:19):
musicians think about my writing. And I think the best
writing is when you just don't give a fuck and
you just puke it out of your soul. And it
may be something that's elaborate and complex, where it may
be simple as you know, cup of sugar whatever. And
but I thought he was the full bill of goods.
I think he had the physical charisma at the songwriting talent.

(39:41):
So when I was out in Hollywood, there had been
a live show we get recorded at the Moon Rock,
and I was promoting the shit out of it on
this website that went from like two hundred hits a
month to two hundred thousand, and I just told him, like, dude,
if I.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Can ever do something for you, I will.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
And so basically, while I was out there working for
another label, Universal Music Group offered me a manufacturing and
distribution deal to start my own label area.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
So when I came back to the Jersey.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Shore and at the you know, it's funny because there
was a time where that would have been a big
deal in the mid nineties when a CD was eighteen dollars.
If you could get anything in the pipeline, you're going
to sell ten thousand units just by having access to
the distribution pipeline. Well by even by like two thousand,
with a proliferation of peer to peer file sharing and

(40:35):
Napster and MP three dot com, it was already starting
to devalue physical goods.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
So at the time, I thought like, wow, this is.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
A museum'm getting to deal with Universal. What I realized
is that is that the labels and their desperation, they
were just tossing out P and D deal scene if
anyone could make something stick to a wall because it.
It was over as we knew it, just not all
of us got the memo yet, and they wanted to
see if there'd be some mavericks out there that could
do like a regional label or.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Whatever, which is what to be clear for the folks
out there, which is what area was. It was a
regional right, But.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
What I chose to do was try to I was like, well,
I obviously you look at Sun Records, you look at Stacks,
you look at subpop, and I was like, well, you know,
there's so many people at the Jersey Shore love music.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
There's great musicians.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
It's like, maybe instead of trying to have a grand Slam,
I could get a bunt or single base hit by
fostering something that serves its local indigenous artistic community.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
And it was a beautiful sentiment.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Unfortunately, you know, and it's not you know, Gig was
doing it before I was doing it. There's plenty of
people that you know, we're trying to do it. But
I mean it was unfortunate because you guys. I thought
you guys delivered an absolutely killer wreck the work you
recorded that at.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
The Hunt, right.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
No.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
The first album was Retromedia with Paul Ritchie of Paul
Richie engineering and co producing, and I think it was
his first project they let him do on his own
observation and all.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Those songs those were recorded there. Yeah, it wasn't Eric
involved some way because he was at the mastering.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Session so the way it worked, and I wasn't at
that mastering session, so I can't speak to that. But
Eric did our demos, which we recorded in various rando
locations wherever we could get him and his portable board.
That's where we recorded. So whether it was his bedroom
at home, or whether it was Sav's basement, or whether

(42:47):
it was maybe one other location, but that record we
did at Retromedia, and that was how we met Paul Richie.
Shout out to Paul.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
John Nole ins that studio.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
I don't think he does anymore at the time. Yeah,
So we met with John and he handed the helm
over to Paul, and we were like sure whatever, like
we were in any position or even had enough know how,
one hundred percent, we had a great experience there. In fact,
one of the tracks on the album, which name I
Will Will Not Come to Me, is a piano track,

(43:21):
and that just came from like we just had a
little extra time in the studio and they weren't rushing us,
and everyone's outside smoking cigarettes, and I'm like, let me
fuck around with the piano. Yeah, we just throw we
could throw a mic on that. It's like, yeah, throw
a mic on it. I did this. I wrote this
little thing and that was like literally composed, put together
and recorded like cigarette break time stuff.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yeah, that's when that magic happens.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
You just that's what keeps you going.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
I think that's right and it and it came out
very good. I can't speak to the mastering session, either
I wasn't there or I don't remember it, but the
second album was recorded exclusively at the Hunt in Millstone
with Eric Bennett at the Helm.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Tell me if you agree. I feel like, at least
in terms of like pop, to me, when you have
the right singer singing the right song, with the right sound,
with the right production style suitable to that singer and song,
when you line up those three things, that's when you're
really hitting that vein of gold.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
I feel like you guys did that on that album
released on several.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Of the tracks. I do too. I think that's a
good fucking song. I remember, I haven't listened to it.
In years and years and years. But but as I'm
remembering and thinking about the song right now, I was
always like a little bit bummed because I felt like
it hit so much better live. So you know, sometimes,

(44:48):
and I'm sure you've dealt with this, and you're very
prolific with what you've released, so I'm probably the most
prolific person I know. Maybe, however, sometimes you're just like,
maybe just go in and re record that. So so
it's not like anemic compared to the live version. But
if you had to choose one, like, hey, how should

(45:08):
I check out their song? I guess it's gonna kick
my ass live or on the record. You always feel
better if it's someone's like, oh no, it'll kick your
ass live much more. That's like a better badge to wear.
Not that anyone can sound good in the studio, because
I also don't subscribe to that. Having managed a recording studio,
I quickly learned that, like, you know, yeah, there's there's
magic in technology, there's magic in old gear, and there's

(45:32):
magic in a vibe in a room. However, if you
don't fucking bring something, there's nothing. And I would see
this all the time with artists.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
You kind of encouraging me heartily to take advantage of that,
specially you guys were doing with having a band, like
coming in with the lead sheet and just cutting a
tune in a day.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Great if you want to explain it to people, this
is a is a product that we had product I
guess that's the corporate word for it. A product we
had at the studio, which I think was badass. I
also did a song, did you I also hear that?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, so Lake House did this great deal where you
go in, you sit down and you either bring a
recording of your song or you play it live for
an arranger who charts it out, and you go in
with a band. You do a scratch vocal, they kick out,
They give you some feedback, and you just kick it out,

(46:27):
go into the next room overdubbed the Keeper vocal, mix it,
master it and VOI LA, and I gotta say I
felt so it was like it was like a day
spot for musicians. That for dy guys, because I'm always
you know, there's a struggle. I think when you're your
own engineer, there's this scientific rational part of your brain.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
It's like, I hope I'm not clipping this that I hope.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
I got to write like another paralysis through analysis thing,
and my compressor said, like that part of you is
get And meanwhile, the creative artist party just wants to
completely let go of all of that. So there's an
inherent compromise right there, because when you're recording yourself, it's
very hard to get past that self conscious awareness that

(47:13):
you're recording yourself.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
So to me, as a DIY guy, to actually.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Go back into a truly classy studio and get that
contemporary sound quality with ass kicking musicians to her so
incredibly at least the guys I work with were incredibly empathetic.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
That's who we had to hire. So talk about a
tough one, like I need I need a musician who
is absolute top notch, But it's okay just having no
ideas and leaving their ego at the door and just
basically doing sole order. And by the way, we're not

(47:56):
for a lot of money and not for a lot
of money, right, so like no one was retiring working
those sessions. However, I think it was fair. I think
it was a fair pay, and I think the fairest
thing of all was the price we would charge the client.
I'm sure, I give you some kind of discount, but
it probably wasn't more than like three hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Whatever it was, it was an incredible value for the
product I've received. I was blown away by what I
heard back.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Dude, it was one of the best products out there. However,
it depends on the clientele. So like if you're if
you're listening right now and you're the person who's like, oh, yeah,
I got this song, or I got these four songs
and I could play them upwards, down, backwards, inside out,
but I just never have done anything with them. But
I would love for it to be like a kind
of a ballad, piano ballad, or I would love for

(48:42):
it to just rock the fuck out, put some four
on the floor and just it's the best product for that.
You already have your song if.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
You're still doing it, But I would, i'd I'd have
to heartily endorse any anyone who thinks you're a halfway
decent singer songwriter that you're not gonna find a better
value of manifesting your idea into reality.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
No, you just have to. But you do have to
have some level of openness and trust us, because if
you're like also that artist that I just describe, and
you're control freak. Fuck you enjoy your path by in
your room, by yourself, because you're doing.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Let professional people do what professional people do. It may
not be to your exact flavor.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
For me.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
To me, I was like, wow, this was so eerily
close to what I would have wanted anyway. So for
me it worked out fucking great. But I think a
lot of it has to do with how you steer
the band when you're in at vocal booth. If you're
cool and you let them know that, you totally like
if they know you're on the level and you give
some feedback, they're gonna it's it becomes very collaborative very quickly.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Well, you gotta be on the level.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, that's they're gonna get if you are bringing.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
If you're on the level, you're on the level. If
you're not, there's nothing you can do.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
The antelope onto the table, they're gonna cook it.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Up nice antalope Okay.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Well like lying going out catching the animal like they're
they need the wrong ingredient. Okay, you're gonna make a
good Still.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
You made it. You made it even more like I
don't know what the term would be. That's sooteric. I
don't know if that's right. No, no, no picture and
being hunted by another animal. We're not talking about hunters. Yeah,
I did. I did the Track your Song. This event
is called track your Song, so we'll do I'll do
a free promo for the old the old job. Yeah,

(50:31):
track your Song event at Lakehouse Recording Studios. It's killer.
I did it once while I was working there, and
when all the musicians are like, oh, like, no, no,
no additional pressure because the your quote unquote bosses here,
I'm like, just do your fucking thing. So if you're
if you like your music out there and you want
to check out the tune I released it, it's called

(50:53):
You'll Die Here, And there's really great artwork on the
single by my buddy Ryan Herbison, So go to it
just to look at the artwork and enjoy that. Forget
the song. It's not going to change it. Working at
the studio in some ways it was the greatest job

(51:16):
on the face of the earth for a person like me, Like, hey,
God came down and designed a job description for you.
Oh shit, Like it felt like that sometimes. And then
at the other end of the spectrum, I think the toughest.
One of the toughest things was just sometimes dealing with

(51:37):
unrealistic people, like in the music business. I know, I'm
gonna blow your mind. Get ready, you're seated right, all right, folks,
He's already sitting, So if he falls down, it's because
he literally imploded. But there's a there's a narcissism that's
pretty rampant in certain cultures. And I would put like

(51:58):
the you know, artistic culture. I think it's just like
it makes sense, like creativity, mental illness, lack of awareness
of issues with self esteem, all these things. Okay, let's
keep going all of them.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
City for self delusion, infinite infinite That was my favorite
drug before I got into recovery, was the infinite capacity
for self delusion.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
That's right. They correlate. This correlates to the artistic type.
So every single client is that.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
But there is an epidemic of it, and you know,
the Asberry archetype of like I'm the most gifted singer, songwriter, blank,
whatever the scene has ever seen. And I don't know
why people don't recognize my my deity there and you
know everyone, you know, it's weird. You can't completely diminished

(53:01):
that mindset, because there are people that have been able
to ride that rainbow to like, if you don't believe
in yourself, no one else is gonna believe in you.
But some you know, hopefully, through some degree of healing
and self awareness, we we find a healthy balance between
self assurance and narcissism, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
And you know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying every
artist has those qualities, but those qualities it's right, it's
every it's every point nine. It's it's that they correlate
like they just do. That's really what the artistic kid

(53:47):
is dealing with at some point when they're younger, you know,
the like there's some kind some kind of ship.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Some of the best songwriters have survived this functional origins
and there's usually some type of ego wound that has
been self healed and not really you know, not fully.
And I mean look at some of the greatest entertainers.
Really there are people that are having codependent relationships with
the whole world. You know, it's them versus the world.

(54:15):
There's the need to be a spectacle. There's an there's
a need for a constant stream of external validation to
feel like your life is worth living.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Which is very unhealthy. Yet as you say, and you
say correctly, that's also part of the sauce that makes
like great art. That also positively correlates to making great art.
Doesn't mean that you have to be out of your
mind or be unrealistic or be shitty in relationships. But
I mean, let's look back on your art history. Yeah,

(54:46):
look back on art history. Like everyone is a complicated
figure everyone, even in sports. Greatness even in sports. I mean,
if you've seen The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary,
it's incredible, so like no one's gonna argue that, like, Okay,
Michael Jordan is, like, you know, one of the greatest
athletes of all time, like forget basketball, just athletes of

(55:08):
all time. But you came away from that documentary being like, okay,
well he doesn't have any No one's this guy's friend,
there's no So clearly, like you know, it correlates to isolation,
to not understanding how everyone else just can't get their
shit together like you can.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
Yeah, well imagine the tragedy of that too.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
So you do get that external validation, and then you
get to a point where you have success and you're
just surrounded by yes people because no one wants to
stop the ride. Of course, you don't really have who
can you actually trust that actually cares about you.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
It's the emperor's dilemma.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
And you can't even care about you because you never
learned how to take care of you, because you've been
utterly dependent upon external validation the whole time. Very few
people can survive that.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, that's a thing. Yeah, I say the emperor's dilemma
because you know, I read a lot of like ancient philosophy,
and you can dig into some of these leaders and
these emperors and like, wow, all the power, but also
the paranoia. Someone is always trying to kill you. And
because your saying.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Tell you're welcome. Okay, the Agency record didn't chart the
way we had hoped it would, but that was for
your own good.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
You're welcome, thank you.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
So Agency continued to exist and have had released a
couple more great releases, and then I recall backing you
up on Keys as you started going into some more
solo oriented projects.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Yeah, it's absolutely right. I quit that band.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Because you have a great voice. Brian sat obviously has
a great voice, but I remember, you know, the background
vocals I was like, yeah, Mike can sing too. I
know it was uh. I guess it was a natural
evolution of your personal journey to be like, all right,
I've supported all these other people with my talents, and
now I want to put myself forward.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
In Yes, I was always a singer, so those same
like living room jams with my mom's folk Christian church band,
that music. If you know anything about folk music, in
addition to the message, folk music's sort of all about
the message. It's certainly not about how well you can
play guitar or what chords you're using. Nobody cares. So

(57:23):
in effect, punk rock and folk music are pretty much
the same thing. It's like, well, yeah, what's the message here?
But one of the secondarily to the message, and I
probably I definitely wasn't caring about the message when I
was young was vocal harmony. So hearing my mom's group
do two and three part harmonies, it was amazing. I'm like, oh,

(57:46):
that's the sauce. So growing up, anytime I also listening
to music, whether it was in my parents' car or
in my bedroom or anywhere, I was always humming a
counter melody in a harmony range. Naturally, I was doing it.
I was doing it purposefully. I was honing it. I'm like,
I love when bands do that. I love that sound,

(58:08):
getting form of vocal and start. You just had a
natural No, no, I never took you had a natural
talent for.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Picking out something that was in key. You probably didn't
know it was a third or a fifth, or a
sixth or a ninth. You just had some instinctive drecent.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, one hundred percent. It was all instinct through listening.
I mean, I don't know if either you want to
call it nature or nurture. If it's If it's nature,
then I have really good instincts. If it's nurture, I
hung out in the living room when my mom's band
rehearsed every week, and.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
My observation of your musically for nearly twenty years, I
would say it's both. I think you have a very
strong natural talent. All right, folks, Well, unfortunately that podcast
got cut off. My profound apologies.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
There was.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
A lot of interference with my dog Coda barking, and
it was just one of those days where there's gremlins
in the studio and honestly, I'd consider not even publishing
this episode. But some of the points that Michael expressed
were so poignant, and there was so much a history
about the the Asberry Park music scene of a particular

(59:13):
era that I felt that the archival value of documenting
some of that information was more important to preserve than
accommodate my embarrassment and vanity about the audio quality of
the said podcast. So I thank you so much for

(59:34):
listening to this, and I thank you for your patience
with those issues. And I just want to thank Michael
Scotto for coming down and being such a good sport
under tenuous circumstances. And I don't think I'll come to
come back down to that basement again now that I've
heard his free form improvisational remarks, but perhaps perhaps we'll

(59:55):
get together onto mics at another time for another reason. Anyway,
thank you for a litt saying it's just CALLI Brace
and you've just listened to Open Mic with Collie Brace.