Figure Eights (A Music Podcast) Episode 76 w_ Peter Jesperson (former Manager of the Replacements, Author, A&R, DJ, Music Appreciator)

Join Nick as he talks to Peter Jesperson. 

Topics include: discovering and managing the Replacements, Twin Tone Records, Oarkolk, New West Records, Curtiss A, Slim Dunlap, board games with Tommy Keene and so much more. Great talk!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
You are listening to the Figure eights podcast I host
Nick Wheat to the band High on Stress out of Minneapolis, Minnesota,
and today we have a right ship, Yes we do.
His name is Peter Jesperson. He's an American music industry
businessman known for his involvement in discovering the Replacements and
also managing the Replacements. Co founded Twin Tone Records here

(00:32):
in Minneapolis. What he went off and he was working
at New West Records for a number of years as well.
He has been around and known a lot of great people,
has a lot of good stories and as one of
the best years in the music industry. So excited to
talk to him, finally have him on him without further ado,

(00:57):
I bring you great see.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Too.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
How many cats you have?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Three? Three?

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What you got to have some interesting names for those
cats I met.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I don't know about that. I mean, the oldest one
is Daisy, which was sort of a joke name. It
was like naming your dog spot or something. I don't
know how we landed on that. And then we got
a couple of kiddies right right before the pandemic started
fall of twenty nineteen, and they were siblings, a male

(01:35):
and a female. We'd never had a male cat before.
I grew up with animals, horses and dogs and cats,
and I always seemed like the males were the most trouble.
So I've always leaned towards the females. But anyway, I
got a boy and a cat, a boy and a
girl cat, and they're just the coolest. And they're Mazie
and Millie.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Nice. Nice. Yeah, and my son named her Sheila Ela alway,
isn't that funny. Yeah, So the vets, that was an
interesting trip because they're like Sheila E right, that's us.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and your vet probably doesn't get the connection.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Most of them get it. You get a little look
at it.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And so yeah, it's most local Minneapolis, right probably.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, Yeah, how you been I've been good. I've been good. Yeah.
We're actually getting some warm weather. It's been cold here,
dipping down into the forties at night, which you know,
I know for Minnesota that doesn't mean anything, but uh,
we're there. But I'm I'm avid bicycle rider. In the morning,
I do an early morning bike ride, and when it's

(02:38):
in the four when it gets below fifty, I don't
go out because it's just a little bit too much.
And so anyway, I missed my bike rides. But but
Sey LEVI you know I do.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah. It's uh, it's funny because and you'll remember this,
but like you look out the window and it's like
sunny and it looks beautiful, but it's thirty five. Yeah,
it tricks you when you walk outside and you're like, oh,
I guess it's cold.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. I was checking out some of your other podcasts.
You really do a good job, I got to say.
And the Brian Paulson one was really interesting to listen to.
And I actually hadn't talked to him in years and
I saw him. God, when was it. It would have
been I guess last last June doing some book stuff

(03:27):
down in North Carolina and he came to the Chapel
Hill thing that we did with which was it was
a fun when Tommy Stinson was with me and John
John Worcester moderated. So you know Worcester is of course
just such a you know, just bright light in music.
You know, he's such a fan and such a great

(03:47):
drummer and plays with all kinds of interesting people.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah. I enjoyed talking to him. He was a blast.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, I've got I've got your podcast with him queued
up too.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Nice. Yeah, he's he's a riot and I liked Brian.
I never met Brian before, so that was enjoyable to
get to know him a little bit. But this has
been fun. I started doing it during COVID when there
was literally nothing going on, which is probably the best
time to do it because there was so much availability
by people. So I was just one after another, you know,
Jody Stevens, different people, and I'm like, Wow, this is

(04:18):
going well. I'm getting great guests and it's done pretty
well for what it is, so that's great.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
You know, one other little thing that pops into my
head sort of personal, but I think you'll relate or
understand the thing about cats. I got those those two
siblings in September of twenty nineteen, and Terry Katzman was
out visiting here in November and passed away here at
our house.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
And that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
And I believe that the cats were cuddled up with
him when he passed away.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
That's nice.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I had gone into our guest room to see how
he was doing. He hadn't been feeling well and just
said he wanted to lay down for a bit and
and I went in to say, you know, how are
you feeling and he said, I'm fine. I said, oh,
let me get those cats out here, and he said,
oh no, I really like having them here. And they
were just kids of course at the time. Yeah, And

(05:13):
so I left him in there, and I mean, I
don't know, you know, I don't know exactly what that means,
but I just think it might, you know, there might
have been something comforting if he was you know, scared
there as you know, his body was doing whatever it
was doing, and so maybe if they comforted him, that
just kind of you know, that's a touching story.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
And yeah, yeah, and it's you know, obviously traumatic, but
kind of something kind of sweet too about you know,
old friends being together at the end too. So yeah,
I know a lot of people around here were pretty devastated.
I think I only met him a couple of times.
I think he was working at High Fi John Clifford
for a while, so I would see him in there

(05:58):
on occasion.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
But yeah, Hey, what's the big Star forty five you
have behind you?

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Oh it's some weird bootleg Live nineteen seventy four, New York.
It does not sound great. The recording's pretty rough, but
I stumbled on it and I'm like, well, that's kind
of a cool thing that I've never seen anywhere.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, that's I have never I don't have that I have,
you know, I'm such a magnet for all the big
star stuff. But of course it was seventy four, it
wouldn't have had that lineup. That's great, right, but still yeah, yeah,
I can't. It's at that Hempstead Long Island Recordings where.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
I think I got it in. I believe it was
in Hopkins, like an antique store. I'm like, that's yeah, wow. Yeah,
it just says live from New York. It doesn't live
in New York. It doesn't say where it was.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I think does it have like Motel blues on it?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
September Girls Way Out West Mode laying Don't Lie to
Me on My Soul Ballot of good O thirteen, I'm
in love with a girl in the street. You get
what you deserve Daisy glaze back of a car and
she's a mover.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
I have pectured in Europe.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Huh. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, the recording quality isn't great, but I was like, well,
that's it was worth the risk because it's kind of
a cool thing that I've never seen around anywhere, so right, yeah,
and before or after I still haven't seen it, so
I don't know. It says made in Europe, so I
wonder if somebody brought it to some because you figure
you'd run into it somewhere.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, you know, sometimes people put that put that you know,
made in Europe just to try to fool the you know,
authorities in America or whatever.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's true, so they don't go after them very likely. Yeah,
So your room there looks amazing. Oh you are those
all music books or a little bit of everything.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, I kind of read. I'm a reader, so there's
other stuff in here, but the but the non music
books I tend not to keep. I recycle or or
there's a really great used bookstore down the street where
I can you know, trade them in and that sort
of stuff. The music books I keep, so yeah, most
of them, most of them that you see our music books.

(08:13):
And I'm completely out of space. I've got records all
over the floor now because I don't have room for
to file my vinyl and we're about to right outside
this behind me there there's a doorway that goes into
a dining room. And there's some wall space right behind
the door that I convinced my wife and I'm going
to have a couple of record racks built to fit
that space and hopefully relieve some of the some of

(08:37):
the glut. But we like we you know, we we
don't necessarily like, but we we we live in clutter,
and we like it that way.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
I guess, yeah, Well, it's funny because I've got I
do the same thing. I keep my music books and
I have some down here and some upstairs, and the
records too, I have some upstairs. So I've been given
an amount of space upstairs where i can have that
stuff in the rest.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
I remember moving in with a girl who I won't mention.
You may know her that I was dating so many
years ago, And as we were moving in, I remember
her saying I don't want my living room to look
like a record store. And I thought, oh, this isn't.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Going to go. Well, you know, sounds like you got
a deadline on that relationship.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
That was very much so I should have I should
have write then, I should have said, you know what,
I'm going to just not move my stuff in. I'll
gout check with you later.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's hilarious, hilarious. So what have you been working on lately?
You've You've got the book, and I want to go
I want to go back for sure, coming to the beginning.
But I you know, your book came out euphoric recall
that a year or two now, I can't keep.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
It came out November of twenty twenty three, so a
year and a half or so.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, that was quick. Yeah, And how's up being going?
Are you still doing events around or what? I know
you have mentioned with Tommy and some other thing.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, I am, I mean, you know, it's uh, it's
it's uh. You know, I was with a small publisher,
Minnesota Historical Society Press, and they were, you know, they
were really nice people, but they weren't super music savvy,
and so they didn't they weren't able to really do
a whole lot to help me get book events or

(10:21):
to promote the book events. And you know, I understood that,
and I hired an outside publicist of my own. I
actually had one at the beginning, and then another one
after the contract for the first one ran out, and
and I had two really great publicists, Jim Merlis from
Big Hassle Media, and and then Josh Mills who has

(10:43):
It's a live media here in LA and they did
a really good job. But I set all that stuff
up myself, and again with a small publisher. They didn't
pay for my travel except to come to Minnesota to
do you know, a couple of things that or that
week of the book release, and so you know, I
had to be cautious and spend my money carefully and
try to What I tried to do is book you know,

(11:06):
find an anchor date and then book a couple of
other cities nearby so that I could only you know,
it would only be one plane ticket and rent a card,
you know whatever. And so so yeah, I've done twenty
of them so far, eighteen cities, two in LA and
two in Minneapolis. And then but I have offers to

(11:26):
do other things and it's just hard for me to
line them up like I could do Grimys in Nashville.
They've been gracious in saying anytime you you know, can
come down, we'd like to host you. And there's a
couple other places like that. There's I still haven't done
Boston proper, for instance, and that was a you know
town I spent a lot of time in in early
replacements days, and so we'll see where it goes now.

(11:49):
But I'm actually in the process of I believe I'm
going to do something in London next month, so that'll
be really fun. At the I think they call it.
Let me just look here real quick.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's the.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Oh Far Sight Gallery and they are it's a music
centric place. And Alan Jones, I'm really happy to say
Alan Jones, the old editor of Melody Maker and the
guy who founded on Cut magazine, is going to moderate
and he's helping me set it up. He liked my book,
and I've read his books and so we've we've I've

(12:29):
been in touch with him a little bit in the past,
but mostly since my book came out and his most
recent book came out. So that's really I'm excited about that,
of course, And and then we'll see what else happens.
I mean, I'm open. I'll go wherever somebody will have
me if if it's affordable, you know, if I can
make it work financially.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
No, no, I get that from me. You know. Being
in a band standpoint, we kind of do the same
thing where we're like, all right, we're gonna go here.
That that show pays pretty well. Try to find something
around it to make it worth our while and you know,
see what we can do with it.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
But uh, yeah, I have no I have no illusions.
I mean, I'm I it's a it's a it's not
a you know, never, it's not going to be a
New York Times bestseller anytime soon. But I I'm proud
of you know. Uh. Of course, there's a million things
I wish I could change now or fix or add
or me but but I'm pretty happy with how it

(13:26):
turned out. And and so uh for me, it's all gravy.
It's a win win situation because I it was it
was a you know, slightly torturous, but generally speaking, fun
project to do. And and I got to really stretch
out and I said, I didn't want to try to
write a book unless I could just clear my desk
and not you know, I wanted to be a full

(13:46):
time writer. And so that's what I did for a
couple of years. And yeah, it was really fun. I
mean just to wake up in the morning, I've opened
my eyes and I couldn't wait to get back here
to sit down to start working. And sometimes it was
you know, a couple hours of being able to form
a decent sentence. In other days that it'd be, you know,
twelve hours of just zooming and just throwing it out
there and then editing later.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, it sounds a lot like writing music. Faucets on
and some days it's like, oof, this is not working.
Do you know Ted nicely at all?

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well? I know him from Tommy Keane, I see, you
got to tell you good there. I don't know him well,
but my wife and Tommy were very close, and so
she knew him. They both she and Tommy lived in
the DC area for a while. They got to know
each other there, and then Tommy moved to LA around
the same time my wife did, and so they stayed
friends throughout that whole time. And I got the benefit

(14:40):
of their friendship and got to know Tommy pretty well too.
And through Tommy Ted.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Why do you ask, Oh, he's a riot, that guy,
so I first met him. I don't know if you
listened to that podcast, but I had kind of a
Tommy Bandmates and Friends episode.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I haven't And that's another one that I'd like to
listen to.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
I think you'll enjoy it because there's some there's some
laughs and some tears and all the whole the whole
thing is there, and you know, people were talking about
his competitive nature when it came to board games. Oh
so it was really fun. But Ted was on there,
so I got to know Ted a little bit through that.
And then I did a separate episode with just Ted

(15:20):
talking about you know, Fougazi and all the stuff that
he worked on over the years. And he actually asked
me to help him write a book, which I might
never That was something that never crossed my mind and
that we'll see whatever happens if we ever get around
to it. But yeah, it's it sounds kind of daunting
but kind of fun at the same time.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I have a funny Tommy Keane a competitive game
story with my my son. We joke about it. He
grew up with two uncle Tommy's, you know, Tommy Stinton
and Tommy Keane and and As and Tommy. Yeah, he
would come over and we'd play board games all the time.
He was a real be Probably in you in your

(16:01):
talk with the band guys, you probably know he was
a huge fan of the game Clue.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
And I don't know if they mentioned Clue, oh Clue.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
He was just that so that was his favorite game,
and so we used to play that all the time.
And my son, you know, was when he got old enough.
He might have been maybe eleven, maybe twelve at the time,
and he beat Tommy and it was really he won
the game of all four of us playing, and I remember,
you know, Tommy was like he didn't know how to
react because he knew that it was childish to be

(16:30):
mad at an eleven year old. But on the other hand,
he was mad, you know, So it was it was
it was quite funny.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I think Maddie. Maddie was talking about some game
they would play. He's like, which we started to call
hurt feelings that money. I was got hurt feelings whenever
we played it. That's funny. I think you'll enjoy it.
Tommy was such a great guy. We would we would
open for him when he would come to town, and
it's it's just the thing that about him that kind
of amazed me is obviously he'd been playing music for years,

(17:00):
traveling all over the place, and you just could see it.
He would walk into whatever venue he's playing in and
someone would walk up to him and he would be like, hey, Phil, Hey,
you hey, Like he just knew everybody in the room,
remember their names. I'm like, I can't remember who I
met yesterday, and I'm just like, I was just blown
away by just how that stuck. And you know, it's
a great thing to have, you know, network and build

(17:24):
and get to know people. But he, you know, anybody
who'd come to his shows over the years, he knew
their names when I walk up and they take pictures
and kind of just a neat guy and just one
of the best damn guitar.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Players I've ever heard. Boy, I'll say, so.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
So, where where did you grow up?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
What?

Speaker 1 (17:41):
I've read your book? But for those who haven't read
the book, and I was at the Feetus when I
talked to you there and that you had a great
turnout for that, and I think I read that thing
in the day or two. It is really fun. But
you know, where where did you grow up? For those
who haven't picked up the book.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yet, Minnetonka grew up in minute Well, I guess. I
lived in Robinsdale until I was about four and a
half and then we moved to Minnetonka, went to Hopkins
Schools oddly enough, and yeah, so I grew up on
a sort of near where Ridgdale is now. In fact,

(18:17):
when they built Ridgedale, they tore down half of my childhood.
I used to ride horseback out there, and but we
had a nice five acre plot of land and we
had horses. We had usually two or three ourselves, and
then we boarded some for people in the area. So
it was a pretty happening place and house on a

(18:38):
hill in the middle of the five acres and surrounded
by pasture and pretty idyllic childhood. I got to say,
I mean a good our idyllic place to you know, geographically,
to grow up. It was. It was a lot of fun,
horses and dogs and cats all the time.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
And that's amazing to think that there was pastures there. Yeah,
because for those who don't live here, there's you can
go to Dave's Hot Chicken, right and you know there's
I don't think the I think the Applebee's is gone,
but I'm like, there are no horses in that area anymore.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
There are. Yeah, that was like that was a you know,
a fun spot too. One of my best buddies, uh
you know, had his parents' house, had some property that
went down a hill that really faces right on the
site where Bridgedale is and they had built a fort there,
and and so we used to sleep out there all
the time. And in fact, the first time I ever
smoked pot was sleeping out in that fort. Uh And

(19:37):
and so you know, anyway, that whole area I've got
very you know, I we would have like looked out
the front door of the fort and seen you know,
the you know, the space that would be torn down
for for for for the shopping wall.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Wow. Wow. And obviously you've been a big music guy forever.
Did you ever pick up an instrument or were you
just more of an appreciator?

Speaker 2 (20:00):
You know, that's a question that I've wondered myself for
a long time. I never really did. And I did
take drum lessons for a while when I was in
sixth grade. I've always had a pretty good clock in
my head. I work well in the studio with drummers,
for instance, in a lot of cases, but or I

(20:21):
can if the drummer is open to you know, you know, discussion,
the feedback. But I think, you know, and this may
sound like a cop up, but I really did sort
of like music overwhelmed me so strongly at such a
young age. I kind of always felt like, I'll never
be able to play like the people that I listened to,

(20:44):
you know, on the radio or on you know, when
I started to buy records. So I, yeah, I didn't
really pursue it, but I don't think I had the
talent for it. And it's interesting. My son is twenty
three now and he's had the same experience. He you know,
we never pushed music at him, but we you know,
gave him piano lessons. We you know, bought him an

(21:06):
electric guitar and acoustic guitar bass. He had a drum
kid out in the back yard for a while and
things like that in a playhouse. But you know, he
and he was actually had proclivity with piano, but not
and drums too, but he never really kept at it.
And so you know, you're whatever it is is his drive.

(21:28):
His inner drive towards music didn't include being a musician.
It's the same as same as it was for me.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
That's interesting because I remember I was fifteen when I
started to play guitar, and I feel like the minute
I picked it up, I didn't put it down for years,
Like if we went on a family vacation, I was like, oh,
but I'm not going to be able to play this weekend,
Like there was just something. And I can see to
my kid for baseball, he is baseball, baseball, baseball. And
both my kids like music, they do music stuff, but

(21:58):
baseball and gymnastics that's where all of their energy goes.
So I think everybody, you may have an appreciation, you
may like doing it, but there's something, there's some sort
of a poll that happens when you find that thing
that you really love. Yeah, So yeah, it's kind of
interesting how mine's work, I think.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
But yeah, family vacations were an issue for me at
a certain point because I'd be real grumpy about having
to leave my friends and my stereo. And so I
actually at one point got a little stereo that kind
of the kind that the speakers folded up into a
little suitcase almost kind of thing, and so I would
always my records and my stereo on family vacations, and
my parents were really not happy about that, but it

(22:36):
was a way to keep me from being grump the
entire time.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
So it's funny. My son's uh, sophomore in high school,
and he's at this age now where we'll be driving somewhere,
he'll have his headphones on, so he's listening to his
music in the car and I and it's funny because
when I was a kid, I did the same thing,
and you know, you early don't think of it the

(23:00):
kid to the parent, right, And I'm just thinking sometimes
when he's sitting in the seat, I'm like, well, we
could be talking doing all this stuff, and I'm like,
I did the same Damn.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Been there down that I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
This is kind of how it works. It's like, well,
this is time to go deep into the music that
he loves. And it's fun because he's like, you never
know what your kids are gonna like both, you know,
music or whatever their hobbies might be. But his taste
in music for a sophomore in high school, he'll listen
to this, like some new rap stuff. I've been to
a couple of shows with him.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Fine, It's not my wheelhouse generally, but there's stuff I like.
But then he's walking into the room of the notice
resting shirt on and he's actually wearing a Slim shirt today,
so that was kind of fun. So yeah, h Slim
once told him, Henry, I'm the oldest man you will
ever meet so so, yeah, he used to go over
there and visit with me. So but uh yeah, no

(23:56):
he no, I don't think there's many sophomores in twenty
twenty five that I was just reading shirt. So I'm
pretty proud of that one. And he's a big Marvin
Gay guy.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Too, So yeah, two of my favorites.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah. So, so when you were a kid, what was
what was that first album or song that sparked you,
got you excited, you said you kind of have an
emotional response to it from even early on. What was that?
What was that first thing that you can think of?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I mean, I have a real specific memory, and it
was The Everly Brothers. All I have to do is
dream and I was as I mentioned, we moved to
Minnetaka when I was about four and a half, and
I remember it was soon after that because I can
picture where I was playing, you know, in a ditch,
you know, with a little stream running through it with
a friend and there must have been a transistor radio

(24:43):
somewhere with an earshot. I don't know if it was
coming from somebody's house or you know, we had one
with us, or you know, it was one of his
older siblings or whatever. But anyway, I remember, you know,
and music had always appealed to me, I think, you know,
I don't have a lot of memories from before that,
but I do remember when I heard that something really

(25:05):
kind of physical happened to me. It was it wasn't
like any other thing that I'd heard. I was. I
was sort of transfixed, and and and it happened with
other songs, you know, soon after. Probably I'm guessing it
would have been nineteen fifty eight because I was born
in fifty four, so the Everlys All I Have to

(25:27):
Do Is Dream came out that year. I think. Also,
the Kingston Trio had a big, big, big top forty
hit with Tom Dooley. You know, I was like a
murder ballad, but anyway, done kind of you know, pop
folk style of the Kingston Trio, and I was. I
was really taken with that, and it was I'm sure

(25:47):
the very first song I ever learned all the words for.
And I used to sing it all the time for
a friend of my dad's who would give me a
nickel to sing Tom Dooley for him. You know. So
that was a you know, and that's kind of interesting too,
because you know, all I Have to Do is Dream
is obviously a beautifully written song, but it's a pop song,
the very simple, you know, teenage kind of thing. But

(26:11):
Tom Dooley was, you know, like I said, a murder ballot,
and it was there was a real story there, and
I think that's kind of interesting because I, you know,
I've always been intrigued by the folk music and the
country music and the story aspect of that kind of writing.
So but anyway, yeah, that was the first thing that
really just clicked with me. And so and I knew something.

(26:32):
I knew that it did something unusual, and I would
look around and I'd say, I don't see other people
reacting this way. So it kind of made me, you know,
feel funny and in weird way, maybe scared me a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, mine was. So. I was born in seventy nine,
and it's funny when you're little, Like you said, you
don't always remember details of things when you're very young.
But I remember being in a specific room in my house,
in my basement in North Dakota, and Little Red Corvette
was on the radio, like it just I can remember that.

(27:03):
And Prince is still my guy had got the But yeah,
so like I it's amazing how that sticks because it's
like I couldn't tell you anything else from that period
of time. I was probably three or four years old,
but I remember being in that room and I remember
that song being on.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
I can totally relate to you. Nick. That's that's you know,
we both got it at an early.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Age, right, Yeah, that's that's the bug right there. So
you got into, uh, what was your first kind of
music gig? It was DJing, right, No, the first gig
I had.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
It was a real accidental thing. My dad was working
for a publisher in Toronto. He was he did he
was in the magazine publishing business in the five state area,
and and had worked for a couple of different companies
and and and ended up getting a job with this
company in Toronto. And they at one meeting he was

(27:58):
present for up there they had talked. This would have
been in nineteen seventy two, early seventy two, probably February
or March. And he came back from his trip saying,
my bosses are talking about bringing in a British music
magazine to distribute in North America to compete with Melody Maker,

(28:25):
which was the you know, the more common better known,
at least to us at that time. In Minneapolis, and
I used to have a They had a little index
card filebox at Shinders downtown and I had a card
there where they would save a Melody Maker for me
every week. And by the time I got it, you know,

(28:46):
it would say they would come over by boat, and
so the magazine, you know, the papers would be tattered
a little bit, and you know, four or five weeks old.
But I was still eager to you know, see what
was going on in the UK and so way, when
my dad came home and said, they're talking about bringing
in this other competitor of the Melody Maker called New

(29:06):
Musical Express and talking about distributing it in you know,
major markets in America, you know, New York, La, Chicago, whatever.
And he said, they asked me what I thought of it.
I said, I don't know that much about this music,
but I have a music crazy son. Why don't I
bring some home for him and I'll get his opinion.
And I saw my first issue of NMMY and I

(29:28):
just went, holy shit, this is I mean it was.
It was a Melody Maker. It was a little stuffier.
At that point they had a big folk section which
I liked, but I'm you know, there was this is
the you know time of t Rex and Matehopel and
David Bowie and all that stuff. I thought, well, you know,
an emmy just spoke to me. More So, I raved

(29:48):
my dad about it, reported back to his bosses, and
they said, well, would your son like to distribute it
in the Minneapolis Saint Paul area. And I was like, oh, yeah,
I was still I was a senior in high school,
and I said absolutely. So they air freighted a thousand
issues to me every week. A truck could pull up
from the airport and drop them off in front of

(30:09):
my parents' garage and I'd load up the car on Mondays.
And by that time I was on an independent study
program at school and so I had some flexibility and
I could take after the morning classes on a Monday,
I could, you know, go out and do my distribution
of the magazine. And it started actually at the end
of April and went through the summer, so the school

(30:30):
only impeded on it there for a short time. But yeah,
it was really exciting. And when I look back on
it now, a couple of things. There's a they sent
me a big promotional poster to put up in whatever
stores would display it. Picture of Mark Bowl and with
a flying V between his legs aiming it at the cabin.
Very phallic, you know this Mary Jane's shoes on. And

(30:52):
at the top it said say it Loud, and at
the bottom it said the new musical Express. It's a cool,
bright orange still I have it here framed in another room.
It's a great poster, one of my advice possessions. But anyway,
they gave me those to give away. And the first
issue I distributed came with a flexi disc on the
cover that featured selections from the not as yet unreleased

(31:15):
new Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street. So that
was and so that was. That first issue sold very well.
The rest of them did not sell well, lasted about
I guess. I did it through from from end of
April to mid to late September of seventy two, and
then they pulled the plug because they just weren't selling.
But I made a nickel an issue just for distributing,

(31:37):
so that meant a thousand issues. I made fifty bucks
a week if I didn't sell a single one, and
then I made on top of that a diamond issue
for whatever sold. So it was pretty decent little income
for a high school kid living with his parents. And
I got to get an end, you know with all
the record stores and bookstores, and you know, I really
knocked on every door I could find to see who
would carry him. And it was a you know, it

(32:00):
was it was a failed experiment, but I learned a
lot from it, and I benefited from it. I think
it really. Yeah, it was a great experience, kind.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Of a foot in the door. So some of those
relationships you built based on those did that carry forward?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Peg out?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah, my favorite store was North Country Music. Of all that,
you know, I went to you know, you know, probably
ten or twelve really good record stores that carried the
paper back then and and uh, the North Country was
my favorite. And uh and then of course that became
an or Folk and I spent a decade working there. Yeah,
that was a relationship that, yeah, had opened a door

(32:38):
for me in a big way.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
I don't know how often you come around here these days,
but have you been to Lucky Cat which was fun?

Speaker 2 (32:46):
I have been in it, but not since it was opened.
Mark Treus, who owns the building, of course, Uh, you know,
showed me the inside after they'd fixed it up and whatnot,
so and I, yeah, I'm excited to go. I wanted
to go. Was it last summer when they opened and
Tommy was all Flowers played and all that stuff? That

(33:09):
was I wish I could have been there for that.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, I was. That's the only time I've been in
there so far. And it was that day because I
stopped in to check it out because we were playing
at Mortimer's off of Lindale, So I'm quickly go check
it out, and then I'm like, oh, Tommy's playing here tonight.
And then later I saw all the videos of the
Wallflowers and they're doing all those clash covers and I'm like, well,
damn it.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
So yeah, but I'm in.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Tex with Michelle, the owner, and you know, we communicate
a little bit, and she was very you know, sweet
about reaching out to me and asking my thoughts, like
what what do you think about me? I'm reopening a
record store there and that kind of stuff. So I'm
anxious to see it for myself.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think I think she's done a really good job
with it, and it's it's got the charms, like you know,
it's very Minnesota set, and I, you know, I it's
not the same store, but there's a lot of the
life of it is still in there. So it was
really fun just walking in and going, Okay, it's back,
you know, a little different, but it's back. So yeah,

(34:14):
because it was sad just driving past it all the
time and seen that empty building, I'm like, come on,
I got get something in there, and I'm glad it's
a record store. So yeah, So what happened after that?
So the magazine ran its course? And is that when
you got the job at the record store or was
that how soon?

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh, let's see seven. So September seventy two. I graduated
in the spring, and I guess I thought that my
my direction was going to be radio. I was, you know,
such a fan of music. I love to play music
for people. I thought, well, logically I should be a DJ.
So I went to radio school and studied radio electronics

(34:53):
and broadcasting at Brown Institute.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Okay, so that I believe.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
I began in December. It was a real crash course,
a six month course, and the broadcasting was really interesting
to me and fun, and the radio electronics I'm not
really I don't have that kind of brain. I really
had to, you know, focus to do it. I could

(35:20):
do it once I got the clutter out of my
head and put some focus into it. But anyway, so
I did. I figured I was going in the radio direction.
And then when I graduated, I started they had a
placement director who was trying to help me look for
jobs in various areas, and I went on a couple
of job interviews to little towns like I remember going

(35:42):
to Freeport, Illinois, and actually was offered the job after
I'd done the interview and spent a day there, and
I thought, I don't know that I could live in
such a small town. I thought people were very nice,
but it just didn't seem like it would work for me.
And then right in the midst of that, I got
an offer to to work at or Folk the I

(36:04):
guess it would have been the spring of seventy three
or maybe March of seventy three when I remember shopping
at the store and being I remember exactly where I was,
like looking around the a's and the b's of the
used record section and seeing somebody walking towards me out
of my peripheral vision to my right, and it was
the new owner. It had been North Country Music. Verne

(36:28):
sand And bought it in January of seventy three, changed
the name to or Folk Jocopus. And he was a
very man a few words and it didn't have a
very outgoing personality, and I got the impression he didn't
like me. I was a very excitable, you know, you know,
teenage music nut, and I just thought he didn't care

(36:51):
for my demeanor or whatever. And so when I saw
him walking up to me, I really thought he's going
to kick me out of the store or something. I
don't know, and instead he went, you want a job,
And I was like, in this store, are you kidding? Hell? Yeah,
So that's yeah. So I started there and end of again,
end of April seventy three.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
That's funny. When I was when I was in high
school and grew up in North Dakota near may Not,
there's a record stom miy Not. It's still there, and
that was my dream. I want to work at that
record store. And I befriended the manager and I actually
played with the band in in the nineties, and he
would not hire me. I don't hire friends. I'm like,
my dream is crushed. I moved. When I moved here
in ninety nine Minneapolis, originally I was thinking of going

(37:36):
to Brown because I also want to do radio. So
I guess this is my cosplaying radio these days, right right.
That's kind of funny.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
So hey, I gotta say I grew I spent a
lot of time in mine not growing up. I had
a my mom had an aunt that lived there, so
I really I have great memories of mine.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Not nice what years when you were kids.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
I would have been going up there from the time
I was born, I'm sure when I was very little
until so, you know, fifty five, fifty six through you know,
the sixty seven sixty eight, I suppose. And the house
that we used to stay at is actually if there's
a mine not North Dakota postcard, they often shoot it.

(38:19):
So you see this house in the distance. It was
a very spectacular house owned by a guy who had
kind of done well financially, and my mother's aunt married him,
and so they have this, you know house that was
you know, kind of fancy but really old and cool,
and lots of.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Many fancy houses out there. So yeah, I remember where
it was.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
I don't remember it was. I know that, like I said,
if you, if you there would be a picture on postcards.
I still have one somewhere in a box, I'm sure
where you're looking at the skyline of mine not And
in the background you can see actually see the house
on a hill, you know, just slightly outside of downtown.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Nice. That's cool. Left there in ninety nine and came
here to grow up in Mine not Surrey, so like
five minutes away.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Wow, how interesting?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, about a thousand people in my town and then
mine not was we went to town.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
What an interesting connection?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Now?

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Who else know about mine not?

Speaker 1 (39:20):
You know, not not many. I talked to Mike Mullinan,
who used to be in the Goo Goo Dolls, and
I brought up Mine not to him because I knew
they'd played I saw them in ninety five or ninety
six there, and he he had fond memories because he
ended up playing with Tanya Tucker later, so he's played
there twice. But he's like, I had a good jogging path.

(39:41):
I did that, and like he actually enjoyed his time
too when they were in town.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
And Mine not. Yeah, the Goo Goo Dolls played Mine.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Not boy named Goo Tour, so I think that was
you know, I remember the story about how they had
that metal blade deal that kind of hampered them for
a while. So they were playing that was right when
Name hit and they were playing the state fairs, and
I remember, if you look back on it, they were
playing a lot of state fairs. I think they were
just trying to get ahead financially at that point because

(40:09):
of their record deal wasn't so good. But yeah, it
was right then, right. You know, maybe now you would
see it and go, Okay, well they haven't had a
hit in a while. But I'm like, this was like
right when Name was all over the radio. It's so strange.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Ah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
So so you got a job at or Folk And
how long did you work there?

Speaker 2 (40:30):
From the like April thirtieth, seventy three to June of
eighty three, a little over the.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Years ten years? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Wow? And how did the record label come about?

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Because the record label?

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, twins, Yeah, that's I mean, these are.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I just feel like this is a story. It's been
told so often, but you know, I what happened was basically,
there was a guy named Charlie Hallman who worked for
the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, was a sports writer. Oddly enough,
but he moonlighted writing record reviews and concert reviews. And

(41:11):
his editor there challenged him one time and said, hey,
you're writing about all this music, why don't you write
about local music. And Charlie said, well, there's really nothing
here that I've heard that gets my attention or whatever.
And his editor challenged him, said you should go out
and find I challenge you to find something in Minneapolis
and Saint Paul, you know, in the Twin cities. And
so Charlie went out and saw a bunch of bands

(41:33):
and at one point encountered the Suicide Commandos and had
that I've seen the future of rock and roll moment.
And Charlie was a very charming and funny man, and
he just approached the Commandos and told them that he
loved them and would like to help and you know,
in any way, and he said, you guys should make

(41:55):
a record, and of course they said, we would love to,
and they've made a couple forty fives, and so he said, well,
I might be able to invest, you know, a little
money to help you make a record. And they said, well,
let's talk to the guy who recorded the two forty
five's that we did. And that was a guy named
Paul Stark, and Paul had a he had owned a

(42:17):
house in dinky Town six oh six thirteenth Avenue southeast
kind of heart behind Marshall High, I think it was.
And so he converted it into a recording studio, had
you know, bedrooms upstairs and recording studio and reverb, a
reverb played, a huge reverb played in the basement, and

(42:42):
so that put Charlie and Paul together and they then
they thought, well, wait, instead of just trying to do
a Suicide Commandos album. It was, you know, this was
nineteen seventy seven. There were lots of indie labels popping
up all over the you know, country and all over
the world, and he said maybe we should put together
a record label. And they asked Chris Osgood if he

(43:04):
would like to participate, and he said yeah, And so
the three of them formed a little partnership and we're
starting to move forward when suddenly the Commando's got a
record deal with PolyGram on a PolyGram imprint called Blank Records.
And so suddenly Chris had to call Paul and Charlie
and say, look, I'm going to be a full time Commando.

(43:25):
I don't have time to do the record label. I'm
really sorry, but maybe you should get in touch with
this guy who runs a record store. He might be
a good candidate to fill my shoes. And so I
get a call out of the blue from Paul Stark.
I think by that time I probably had seen him
around a little bit, you know, because he was involved
with music and recording and things like that, but I

(43:48):
didn't really know him. And he called and said, hey,
we're Chris recommended that we talk. Would you like to meet?
And I said sure. So Paul, Charlie, Chris Osgood and
I met at Williams Pub in the Uptown area and
the four of us talked, and I just thought, these
guys are onto something here and I'd like to be involved,
and I said I'm in. And that's how it all began.

(44:11):
So we've formed a partnership right away. That would have
been October November of seventy seven, and then we incorporated
in January of sixty seventy eight, Yes, yeah, seventy eight,
and we had an audition at the recording studio, which
was at that time called p David Studios for Paul
David Stark, and we just invited really you know, A

(44:32):
and R for Twin Tone. At the very beginning was
really just which Longhorn bands do we want to sign?
Because that was the only game in town. You know,
there was nobody, there was really no place else allowing
bands to play their own material, you know, and especially
this new you know, I mean the Commandos really were

(44:54):
a punk rock band before I ever heard the name
punk rock, so so, you know, it was a music
that obviously didn't appeal to lots of people, and uh
and but we were totally we were all in on it.
And and and of course that was sort of part
of what became called new wave and and we just
liked that left of center stuff. So that was we

(45:16):
just basically picked the what we thought were the best
bands from the Longhorn.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Which one so initially when you first got involved, who
are some of the first ones where you're like, we
have to get them, Let's get a meeting with them.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
The first meeting, this first meeting I had with him
at Williams Pub, I remember saying, I said, I'm sure
we're going to have to, you know, talk about what
kind of bands we want to sign, and specifically what
bands you guys like, And I like and all that stuff.
But I said, there's one there's one that we you know,
that absolutely has to be somebody that we work with.
And it's a guy named Kurt Olmsted. And he had
a band called Thumbs Up. And I said, you know,

(45:50):
he he we must make records with Kurt Olmstead.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
And at that time, it was, you know, it was
really Kurt and Bob Dunlap and and uh they were like, uh,
I mean, it's funny when I look back on it,
they were almost like a two headed, you know person.
I had never really thought of them separately. It was
always Kurt and Bob, Kurt and Bob. And you know,
Bob was the kind of, oh, I don't know, a
little more practical musician who was the music director. And

(46:19):
then Kurt was, of course, you know, completely out of
his mind as he as he could, still still is
to this day, and in the most wonderful way. And
and so Bob kind of you know, tethered him to uh,
you know, Terra Firma in some ways, and and well,
you know, Kurt could have all these crazy ideas and

(46:41):
and do all those you know, it was that interesting
mix of I'd never heard anything like it until I
heard Thumbs Up playing at the c C Club across
the street from or Folk. I I hadn't really paid
a lot of attention to Minnesota music, apart from my
brother who had a bluegrass band, and so I was

(47:01):
and and and of course Colonel Ray and Glover were
also one that I I had a lot of admiration for.
But anyway, Uh, when I saw Thumbs Up play at
the at the c c CC tap it was called
back then, that was the first time I'd heard a
local band that knocked me out as much as the
records I was buying. So so they were they were pivotal,

(47:25):
uh experience in in in my uh you know, my
early days, and and uh, they they were. Yeah, they
had that kind of weird blend of of you know,
Kurt obviously loved that old rhythm and blues music, but
he also loved the British Invasion, and so there was
an interesting mix. So it's I think the British Invasion

(47:47):
stuff brought the melody, maybe a little more melody than
there wasn't a lot of the R and B of
the day. And of course he had that voice, you know,
that could rattle windows you know, and uh so, yeah,
I was just blown ay and both uh you know,
I think, you know, both Paul and Charlie were aware
of Kurt, but I don't think they necessarily would have

(48:08):
thought of him as the first thing to sign for
the new label we were putting together. But my enthusiasm,
I think just they just said, Peter's so sure about this,
we're just gonna trust him on it. And then and
then Fingerprints also was the other band of the day
that we really thought had great potential. They were very
different from the other Longhorn bands a little you know

(48:30):
more they're real musicians and uh and they had a
very flamboyant lead singer, Mark Throne, who was a little
jagger agg esque, played a little saxophone, but mostly was
just a lead singer. So they were also kind of
a shoe in. And those guys were all three of
them were guys I went to high school with. They
went to Minute or to Hopkins School, so there was

(48:52):
a closeness there for that. And then and then there
was this other, this other young band who had really
barely played out that we got that I got really
excited about. And this took some arm twisting with both
Paul and Charlie. But I said, We've got to try
these guys. This is exactly what a new label like
ours should be doing, is rolling the dice on something

(49:14):
crazy and brand new. And they were called the Suburbs.
So yeah, yeah, so that was our first thing. It was,
it was thumbs up fingerprints Suburbs. Of course, we recorded
star recording those bands for those first three EPs, and
and by the time we were done recording Kurt stuff,
he changed the name, as he is wont to do,

(49:36):
and so by that time they were called Spooks.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah, Curtis Curtis As he's quite the guy. It's amazing
how far his legend goes beyond the Twin Cities. I've
had Sam Powers, he was in the band Super Greg
texted me one day and he's like, you ever have
curse A on the show? I had Curtsey on the show.
He's like, you should. He's like, buddy of mine said,

(50:01):
he some in New York and whatever year was the
best rock and roll show he's ever seen in his life.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Like, wow, Kurt, I'm what's getting Kurt on your show
is you'll never get him off. Kt him off and
you'll still be recording a days later.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I think I said something similar to say, it's gonna
be Aliens, It's it's gonna be all over the place, right,
And then, Uh, Jason Faulkner, Who's you know Jason Faulkner.
I'm sure you know he is. He he loves Curtise a.
So I told Genie Dodds that, I said, Hey, he
was talking about how much he liked Curtise stuff, and like, really,

(50:35):
I'll tell I'll tell Kurt. But yeah, he he likes
the big hits of Mid America stuff. And I messaged
him once that reissue came out and said, hey, that's
out now, because he said he was. I was looking
for it. But he he's a big Curtise a guy.
And I'm like, I don't think I've ever seen a
more talented dude than Jason Faulkner do everything. So it's

(50:58):
kind of a big compliment, uh for sure. So obviously
the story has been told a billion times, but that
that Westerberg character came in one day with the tape
trying to sounds like he was just trying to get
a show, and got a little bit more toney bargain
for Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
That's another one and probably told told the story so
often I've gone like autopilot a little bit, but try
not to. But it was it was, yeah, just I
was getting a lot of tapes at the time, and
and I hadn't I've i've Paul had been in the
store before. I don't know that I remembered him, but anyway,
he came up to the counter at one point and said,

(51:37):
I've got a band. Would you listen to a tape?
And I said yeah, and he gave me a little
piece of actually I think I gave him a little
scrap of paper and he wrote his name and phone
number on it. And it was a cassette, no case
or anything. And you could see that he, you know,
the whatever had been on it originally had been scratched off,
and in the margins you could see the replacement's name

(51:57):
written and the song titles, you know, in the little
space that was left over. Kind of funny. And also
the other funny thing is when I flipped the cassette
over on the other side, in very girlish script handwriting,
it said Santana Moonflower. So it was like something he
probably swiped from his one of his big sisters and

(52:18):
record and recorded over it. So I remember kind of
chuckling about that, and I but I had I was
getting a lot of tapes at the time, for both
for both Twin Tone and for because I dj' did
at the Longhorn, and I had a little bit of
sway with management there in terms of booking, so if
I'd like something, I would bring it to their attention
and sometimes they'd actually, you know, book it. And so

(52:41):
I had a shoe box that we kept under the
counter that I kept under the counter door folk and
I would put tapes in there, and then when it
kind of a little stacked a masked, I would take
them in the back room at the office and listen
to them while I was doing paperwork for the store,
or sometimes they'd take them home listen to them now.
But anyway, I was in the in the in the

(53:02):
record store when I popped in the replacements tape, and
it really was just one of those things that I mean,
it's it almost sounds like, you know, like I'm making
it up, but I mean it was really, Uh it
hit me right between the eyes instantly, and uh, for
whatever reason, I just thought there was just it was

(53:22):
I think it was just the force of it. I mean,
I felt, I felt it just they just roared out
of the speakers the little boombox that I was listening to.
And then and then I caught a lyric that was
a little off color. And I won't repeat it necessarily
because it's not a very PC way of saying it.
And he changed the lyric by the time we recorded
the song, but it was. It was a song called

(53:44):
Raised in the City, was the first track, and and
I was just blown away. And I got so, I'm
listening to a bunch of tapes. I put the replacements
in on catches my ear, I put my pen down.
I say, wait a second, I start the tape over,
and I say, I've got to just listen to this
because this is this sounds extraordinary. And and then I
listened to the other three songs, and I was just
I mean, you know, and it really, honestly, if I've

(54:08):
ever had a magic moment in my life, it was
right then. It was. It was just I had some
kind of a revelation, you know, epiphany, I guess you
could call it. And and so I called Paul back
a couple of In fact, I thought I wanted to
pick up the phone and call him right away. And
I thought, I am, I'm too over the top about this.
I need to call him down before I call this guy,

(54:29):
and make sure listen to it, you know, sleep on
it whatever. And the next day I listened to the
tape again and I thought, even I liked it even more,
and and so I called him up, and I remember
very specifically a female voice answering the phone, which I'm
guessing was his mother. Could have been a sister, he
had three, but anyway, I said, is Paul there? And

(54:52):
she passed the phone to him, and I basically said,
you know, Peter from the record store, and I love
the tape and and were you thinking about making a
single or do you think you have enough material for
a full album? And it was this really long, pregnant pause,
and you know, he said, quote unquote, you mean you

(55:14):
think this shit is worth recording? And I said, I do,
I said, And then it occurred to me, Oh, you
gave me the tape because you wanted to get a
gig at the Longhorn you were And I guess I
found out later that he didn't even really know about
the label SOW or that I was involved with the
label and so yeah, so that's how it began.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
Some things are meant to be. Did you get any
of those those reunion shows that they did, Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
We went when they did the first three the riot
Fest shows, Toronto, Chicago, Denver. Were living in La Denver
was the closest, so we went there. My wife and
son and I all went, and you know, phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Yeah. I was at the Chicago one in the park
ride Fest and probably about eight deep from Tommy and
they kicked in to take it a ride, and I
felt like I was gonna blow backwards exactly.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
I'm like, I could not believe, you know, you're going
into these things and you're really you know, there's some
replacement members and whatever, you're you know, Freeze is one
of the greatest drummers out there. But I just could
not believe the power coming out that stage. And in
true fashion, there were moments where it's like, oh, this
might just fall apart. Oh they got it back the
whole They went through the whole spectrum of who they

(56:31):
were known for.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
You know, I was standing there. I remember standing side stage,
and they were very kind to let us be up
close there on the side and looking out at the audience,
looking out at seven thousand people shouting the words back
to Westerburg. I mean that was like a big moment
for me because you know, they were not they were

(56:52):
not unanimously liked when they first arrived on the scene,
you know, so yeah, cool that they got that. It
was very uh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I was at the Midway show as well here in
Saint Paul, which I came for that too. Yeah, very cool.
So all of those years, you know, we could talk
all day and I'm gonna keep you all day either,
But in all those years with the replacements, do you
have kind of a favorite moment?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
No, I mean I have many favorite moments. It was
you know, it was a whirlwind, and you know some
of it was you know, hard, and some of it
was you know, downright unpleasant, but yeah, or worse. So
I don't have one moment, but I mean I guess,

(57:41):
like I think about something like, excuse me, when we
were in New York in December of eighty four, and
Let it Be was just out for a couple of months,
and we had done a show at CBGB under a
fake name because we had a booking at a larger
room a week or so later, and the CBGB gig

(58:05):
was just a dubicole.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
It was.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
They were just terrible. They got drunk, didn't play any
of their own songs. The place was packed. They'd been
on the cover of The Village Voice, so every A
and R guy in New York was going, you know,
picking up the paper, going, who is this band I've
never heard of on the fucking cover? And they all
showed up, and the replacements just kind of, you know,
slipped them a mickey and and actually not specifically because

(58:29):
the critic or the and our people were there, but
because Alex Chilton opened up and we were such fans.
I think they might have gotten a little carried away
and had an extra cocktail or two. And anyway, it
was a mess. And so a few days later they
were playing. We had our first headlining show at Irvin Plaza,
which was probably I think that was probably eleven hundred
capacity if I remember correctly. And and you know, you

(58:56):
would think logically, if the band had a complete failure
at one show, that they would come out, you know,
to fix it the next time, but the replacements didn't
work that way. They could do ten shitty shows in
a row and you just never knew when to expect
them to come out of it. But anyway, they walked
on stage that night. I remember being up in the
VIP section. I'd been racing around trying to get things ready,

(59:18):
and we got the band on, you know, going on stage,
and I had to run up to make sure some
VIP had gotten in or something. And so they walked
on stage, and I believe they opened with rock and
Roll All night by Kiss, and it was like before
anybody would have thought it was cool to do a
kiss song. I mean, I remember everybody kind of scratching

(59:39):
their heads. Of course, I didn't even know what it was.
I knew it because they had done it prior to
the New York show. They'd done it. I remember them
doing it at the Cabooz the first time I heard it.
But when they first did it, I didn't know the
song because I didn't no Kiss, and I imagine a
lot of other people in the room that were there
to see the replacements didn't know Kiss either, but some
people did recognize it. And I remember seeing you know,

(01:00:01):
the you know, rock critics and whoever else was in
the VIP section kind of going, WHOA what is this
and they just killed it. They just killed it. So
that was that was a moment where I think, I
really I treasure forever just watching them blow away a
New York audience. And of course that was the night
that seymour Stein happened to come and see them and

(01:00:21):
say he told our lawyer that right that night he said,
I'm going to have these guys signed before they even
get home from this tour.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Wow, that's an exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Oh that was a big moment.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah, no kidding well, and then later being cognizant a
time here too. So later on you went over to
New West Records. So what brought you there?

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Well, we licensed a bunch of the Twin Tone Masters
to an LA based company in nineteen ninety two, company
called Restless Records, and I ended up moving out here
in ninety five and working out of their office. At
that time, I'd started an imprint for Twin Tone called
Medium Cool, and so it felt like if and they
were really interested in helping me plug the Medium Cool bands.

(01:01:05):
Of course, I had Tommy Stintson and they were so
they were excited to have an ex replacement, and then
and then later had Slim as well. Of course, and
so they wanted to they wanted to support Medium Cool,
and it became very I would come out to Los Angeles,
and you know, we'd been out here with the replacements before,
and I didn't really like LA in the early days,

(01:01:27):
and uh so, but anyway, I had to come out
here for you know, to interface with the Restless people,
and and uh the more I was out here, the
more I got to like it, and the more I
thought that it's better for me to be in the
faces of these people who were supporting us financially, to
be honest, better for me to be there and show
my enthusiasm for the groups rather than trying to do

(01:01:48):
it long distance on the phone. So I ended up
moving here in July of ninety five, and and uh
and then that didn't go well because I just the
people at Restless were not my kind of people, and
I didn't realize that until the ink was dry on

(01:02:09):
the agreement. So it was the beginning was nice, but
then the screws kept getting tightened and tightened and tightened,
and I didn't really like the way things were working.
So I left. And that was in nineteen ninety eight.
But I've made thirteen records for Medium Cool, and I'm

(01:02:30):
really proud of them, and I'm really glad I did.
But then when I quit, I really didn't know what
was going to happen. And there was a period where
I really thought, you know, I've done music now for
twenty years, and I don't want to overstay my welcome.
Maybe it's time for me to go look at something else,

(01:02:52):
you know, Like I said earlier, I love books and literature.
I thought maybe something in that field, you know, something
kept kind of drawing me back towards music. And then
all of a sudden, ten eleven months later, I get
a call from a guy named Cameron Strang who said,
I have a one man record label I'm looking to expand.
I like the work you've done with Twin Tone. Would

(01:03:15):
you like to, you know, make some records with me?
And his name and his label name was New West Records.
So I met with him and I really liked him instantly,
I really I liked him. I believed he was a
real music guy. But he also had something I didn't,

(01:03:35):
which was a good business sense. And so he's one
of the few people I've ever met that could straddle
the fence between the creative and the business in that
kind of way, at least in a convincing way to me.
I'm sure there are plenty of them that I don't know.
But anyway, so I signed on right away and we
were a two man operation for a while. He'd put

(01:03:57):
out about ten records when I joined up with him.
First record he and I really got to work on
together was Tim Easton, a guy from a folks singer
from Columbus, Ohio, and that was a really, really a
great project. We had a lot of fun with it.
We got Joe Chicicarelli to come in to produce. We
used part of the Wilco band to back him. I
went to King Size in Chicago to record the basic tracks,

(01:04:20):
mixed it out here in La Anyway, that's where that
whole thing started, and Cam and I really got along
very well. And then as the bottom dropped out of
physical record sales there and I started with him in
ninety nine. By you know, two thousand and two thousand
and one, you know, there was the whole Napster debacle
and people didn't want to pay for music, and it

(01:04:43):
got really difficult and Cameron, you know, had a business
to run and much as he loved the creative side too,
he had to, you know, sort of deal with the
bottom line a bit more so, so that became a
little harder. I realized I wasn't going to be able
to sell him on my A and R ideas very much.
But since he was overseeing the you know, the big picture,

(01:05:08):
I ended up doing the day to day A and
R and all the projects he brought in, And I
was unhappy that I couldn't sell him on my projects.
But at the same time, I'm not going to complain
about working with Delbert McClinton or John Hyatt or Steve
Earl or Dwight Yoakum or Chris Christofferson. I mean, it
was like, oh my god, what am I? What am
I doing working with people at this caliber? But it

(01:05:29):
was great and it was fun and we had They
were They were nice to me, They were respectful. They
knew I was a you know, I wasn't in this
from the same major label world they'd been in, but
but they knew I was a music guy, so they
you know, they treated me well.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Yeah, he had a pedigree there. So do you have
a favorite record from the news days that you were
part of?

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Absolutely I mean the I I I mentioned it in
the book The record. The best record I think New
West ever put out as an album called by Daniel Romano.
And I say that with great respect for all the
other artists and records. You know, many of the they
were very The thing about New West was we rarely
put out a record that I didn't think was absolutely great.
I mean, I really thought we were on a roll.

(01:06:15):
And and you know, even in some cases we made
a you know, maybe we made records with one of
the veterans that wasn't as good as their heyday, but
at the same time they were still you know, there
was still uh, you know, valid artistic merit, you know,
involved and and so. But but the Romano record is

(01:06:36):
the one that, to me, really I think it's one
of the greatest records ever made. Period. And and uh,
I had I had been slow to warm up to
him because when he first came in he was in
a complete country phase. Yeah, it's all about almost cornball
country in a way, some of the early songs and

(01:06:57):
and and then plus the I remember seeing the artwork
for the first album, did for him come cry with me.
He's wearing a cowboy hat, he's got like a Nudi
suit on. I was like, did he spend more time
on his outfit than he did on the songs? I
don't know, you know, But then those songs started to
I started to realize, well, they are a little novelty
based in some cases. But then there were ones that

(01:07:18):
weren't on the record that I hadn't paid attention to.
And then I started hearing the demos for the record
that came after, which is called if I've Only One
Time Asking, And that was when I just I had
again maybe a bit of an epiphany for Romano. And
I remember seeing him right as I was getting the
bug at south By Southwest. He played a number of

(01:07:41):
times at New West events down there in Oh god,
what year would that have been, twenty twelve maybe or thirteen,
And I mean I was just blown away. One particular song,
Valerie leon Is the record is the song that opens
Mosey and I remember seeing him do that at a
thread Gills where there was an outdoor stage at thread

(01:08:02):
Gills where we had a New wes Day party, and uh,
and I remember him doing it and it's those are
crazy rapid fire words, and I was just I was
mesmerized by that, and and that was when you know,
the just blew my mind and and uh so I
I love him to this day. I think he's one
of the one of the best artists in the business.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Well, yeah, I know you you've you've posted about him
on social media, and I know because you you mentioned
some show with him a couple of years ago that
you went to and how great it was. And I
know there are people here talking about you talking about
how great that was. So he was playing at the
Entry and they're all sorts of people who were kind
of curious based on what you had been saying. Yeah,

(01:08:43):
just yeah, he took he tore the roof off that night.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
I was like, okay, I know, I know a couple
of people who say it's the best show they've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Amazing, just that great live artists.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
And I saw him do I saw him do ten
of those where I was just standing there. I was
almost like that feeling of the Replacements, where you go,
at this moment, there cannot be a better rock and
roll band on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Yeah, pretty impressive stuff. Yeah, pretty cool. Who are you
listening to today? What's what's in the stereo?

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Actually I was just playing Jake Xerxes Fussle.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
You know him, No, what's this?

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
He's a he's a kind of folk blues guitar player
singer from I think he's from Georgia. Anyway, I'm going
to see him tomorrow, and so I was just refreshing
my memory on his stuff. He's he's got five albums
out I think you know. It's a rootsy kind of thing,
but exceptional guitar player and a real student of song.

(01:09:39):
He's got liner notes that are very specific about where
all the songs came from, Like he does Duke Ellington
song Jump for Joy opens the album. He does these
things there. He actually lists the source on the back,
like where did I first hear of this song? And
nobody knows when it was really written? Kind of thing.
So that's what I'm listening to just as of this morning.

(01:10:02):
Last night, I had a nice evening just my wife
was out doing something else, and so I had a
nice evening of just listening to whatever I felt like.
And and I was listening to a Woody Guthrie double
album from that those tributes right after he died, they
did the one in sixty eight in New York that Dylan,

(01:10:24):
and I was just actually i'd forgotten looking at the
credits of the record. I pulled it out, and I'd forgotten.
They don't even list the band because they weren't the
band yet, oh so or or or they they weren't
known yet. I guess maybe maybe they were the band.
But anyway, so it's just as Bob Dylan, but it
happens to be with Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel whatever.

(01:10:47):
So so they do three songs and they're spectacular, but
it's also got you know, Judy Collins and Odetta and
all that. So that was something I was listening to
last night, and really I hadn't listened to it for
you know, a while, and and and that was fun.
Also I'm really big on My son is working in
music now and he's he's building a stable of artists.

(01:11:08):
He's working for a record label and also has a
separate management company just of his own, kind of not
really hard to call it a company, I mean, it's
not super formal, but anyway, he's got a couple of
artists there that I just love. So I was listening
to a bunch of their stuff last night. Guy in particular,
I would highly recommend you check out. And I know
this will sound like nepotism, but I would not say

(01:11:31):
this if I didn't genuinely believe that Truman Sinclair is
the guy's name, and I think he's going to be
someone to be reckoned with. A lot of labels are
looking at him right now. His you know, metrics, as
they say, are exploding. And they put out an indie
record in February that's fantastic called American recordings like Johnny Cash,

(01:11:54):
but they're inspired by Johnny but all original songs. And
Truman is really really something. He's a fantastic live and
you know, my son's age twenty three and and just
really one of those guys who, like you said, when
you picked up a guitar, you couldn't put it down.
He's like that guy. He walks around the house with
the guitar hanging around his neck all the time. And

(01:12:16):
and so I think the guy he is, he is
an l a guy. I think I grew up in
Chicago and then moved out here with his family when
he was the ten or eleven, I think, And but
he's been playing in bands since he was eight, and
he's just really really good in Fontaine's DC gold Star,

(01:12:41):
one of the one of one of the best things
I've heard in recent years. L also LA based somewhere
in between. I guess this is a thumbnail sketch, but uh,
somewhere between the dark underbelly of the Only Ones meets
the kind of anthemic songs of Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers really really great.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
That's a good mix. I'll check those out. How often
are you going out to see shows these days? It
seems like you go quite a bit all the time.
I go, you know, we have.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
That's one of the lucky things about living in LA
and also kind of hard to deal with because there's
a show, you know, there's you know, a couple of
shows I want to see every night, and you know,
you just can't do that. But but yeah, I yeah,
I mean, I'm don't. It's you know, they sometimes come
in spurts, but I probably see eight or ten shows
a month.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Quite a bit, quite a bit. That's you know, we
appreciate you come out. We appreciate you coming out to
see us when we're there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
That was fun to have you there, and it was
that Redwood Bar is a fun place where both Autry
and I, my son, Audrey and I really enjoyed the set.
You guys were great and it was I think I
like the atmosphere of that place.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Yeah, that's a cool place. Hopefully we can get back
out there. We got another invite, but I'm not sure
we're gonna be able to pull it off this year.
But same rem Yeah, yeah, we're uh, we're playing in
Chicago in a few weeks at the Montrose there for
this thing. That's with these we usually build some shows
around it as well, kind of like what you were saying.
So yeah, but yeah, it's a lot of fun. Those

(01:14:14):
are There's always a great turnout and we usually we
do nothing can change you the Tommy Keane cover when
we play at these I pos. So it's fun because
you can with that crowd. They know it and immediately
you kind of see everybody kind of oh yeah they're
doing t K. So yeah, it's it's always a good time.

(01:14:35):
Appreciate you jumping on here. I'll let you know when
I when I get it edited and ready to go.
It's going to be a busy week. My son's got
his driver's tests this week, so it's knee deep and
all of that we're trying to get this new high
on Stress record done too, which is taken way too long. Yeah,
we've got that going. And then I'm also kind of

(01:14:57):
doing a side it's kind of a solo collaboration record
with Kevin Salem's worked on. He did a song with
me on it, which is super cool. I know, you
know him, and it's great. He sent me this guitar
track and I'm like, this sounds like Keaven, just this
kind of rhythmic guitar thing he did. It was very

(01:15:19):
much like his first record, so I was pretty pumped
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
That's great. I love him. I actually just saw him
for the first time and got twenty plus years I'm sure.
I got to do a book thing in Woodstock and
he lives there, as you know probably, and it was
so much fun to talk to him. And now he's
working on some new recordings of his own YEP for
the first time in a while, he says, and he
sent me a bunch of them and asked for, you know, feedback,

(01:15:45):
and I was, I mean, I was just knocked out.
I mean it's really really great stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
So yeah, it's cool he sent you the sampleat with
all the songs on it. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the
one I got too. It's really cool stuff. So yeah,
about time to put on any record of his stay.
And I was working on something but never anything of
his own.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
So yeah, and his wife is brought me into a
project I'm consulting on too that I'm very grateful for.
So nice, said Kate. Hyman. Was an A and R
woman made the major label circuit back in the day,
and so it was nice to be in touch with
her again, both her and Kevin. I got to spend
some time with in Woodstock. That was great.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Yeah, he's a great guy. He bought like five high
on stress stocking caps for the local baristas. Oh He's like,
they liked my hat, so I'm buying them all one
thanks Kevin. Yeah, no, he's he's a good guy. And
then I've got I'm going to work with Dan Murphy
on some stuff too. He's coming over here tomorrow to
do some stuff. So I don't know, I don't know

(01:16:44):
what it's gonna end up. I've got a couple of
things he's played on a mine that will probably come
out at some point. And then he's working on stuff
of his own, so I'm I'm co writing a couple
of things, so we'll see what happens with those tracks.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
But I love that guy, give him my best will.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
He's just a sweet guy midway us, through and through.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Good to catch up with you, and I appreciate oping
on here to chat with me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
Fun conversation. I appreciate you asking, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
You bet, Thank care of yourself, you too, Bye bye.
How about that, Peter Jasperson. That was a fun conversation.
Thank you for tuning in, meaning to get around asking
him to be on and finally finally made it happen,

(01:17:31):
and it was. It was fun. One of my favorite
episodes for sure. Forgot to mention at the top of
the show. Hian Stress has some shows coming up. Debuke
Iowa at the Lift on May first, and on May second,
we're playing the International Pop Overthrow Festival at Montrose Saloon

(01:17:54):
in Chicago, Illinois, which is going to be awesome. And
then May the third, we're playing at one of my
favorite places, the law office is called Office Pub Yorkville, Illinois,
with our friend Matt Dirda, and it's gonna be a
good time. So thank you for tuning in. Hope to

(01:18:15):
see you out there for some shows. Oh, we're also
playing May thirty first at Palmer's as part as front
Row Paul Festival as well. There's like six over sixty
bands playing in support and memory of front Row Paul,
local legend music lover here in Minneapolis. So we have

(01:18:35):
a lot of stuff going on and apprecid you listen
and we'll see you next time from Studio twenty four
in Minneapolis. Figure It's podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
And you see you there.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
She was in the crowd, whirrelling alone.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
When everybody wants you right now, she's never home, didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Met them at the take full side.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
But everything has changed, so we all know that you're
waking U to die inside now.

Speaker 3 (01:19:40):
There's nowhere enough to go now, nothing can change you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Would you be before to love?

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Your world is stranger? Can you tell me things that
you loved?

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Nothing could change.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
We feel fool of your world, estrange man, And you
tell these things the child dreams of them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
No