171 - Rock and Roll Juggernaut

In this episode of the Trampled Underfoot Podcast Mark Lindsay goes into the background of one of the most influential hard rock bands of all time. A band that came from humble beginnings and exploded to meteoric heights in the late 70s and early 80s. What was behind their success? How did they become the musical powerhouse they are today? Eloy Escagedo gives his opinions, and the hosts discuss what was and what could have been.

Next is a discussion of listening to music as an activity. Is music as important today as it was in decades past? We know that the way people experience music today is totally different from how we experienced it as kids and young adults. Has that difference caused music to lose the social impact and social importance it had decades ago?

Finally, did the way we experienced music translate to video when the VCR exploded onto the scene?

There is so much more in this episode, but it really has to be experienced. Check out this foot-to-the-floor, hard driving, rock and roll episode of Trampled Underfoot Podcast!

Show Info:
"Two guys from different decades, backgrounds, and opposite sides of the continent discuss life, the universe, and everything. What's the show about? About an hour…"

The views expressed in this podcast do not reflect the views of our sponsors - so there.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You are about to be trampled underfoot. Oh my goodness, Mark, Oh
my goodness, I've got to tellyou what I've got to tell you.
I'd like to welcome everybody back tothe Trampled Underfoot podcast show. And your
hosts are Mark Lindsay out on theWest coast and Eloy Escajado down here south,

(00:27):
hugging the border ninety miles away fromCuba here in Florida. You make
it sound so exotic and so farOha, oh, arcane traveler from a
distant land. You know it reallyis because it's kind of like the Fallace
going down. That's one way oflooking at it. I guess Hi,

(00:49):
I'm Mark. We're two guys fromdifferent decades, different background and on opposite
sides of the continent, discussing life, the universe and everything. What's the
show about? About an hour?I have a Okay, I got I
have a couple of questions for you, but I need to set the scene
a little bit, and it's goingto require a lot of speculation. The

(01:11):
questions I'm going to ask you,I know it's going to require a lot
of speculation. I'm gonna I'm gonnabe very biased and I'm gonna be In
other words, I'm not gonna secondguess myself. I'm just gonna throw it
back whatever you need to say,Okay, whatever you ask, it's gonna
require a little bit of setup.Now. I've been holding on to one
of these things for a while becauseit's something I didn't know. I found

(01:32):
out about this about a month anda half ago. What I have I
have refrained from telling you about this, or even seeing if you already knew
it, for about a month anda half, just so we could get
to it. Okay, that'll beinteresting, that'll be interesting. Okay,
Well, let's go back to thenineteen sixties. Whoa are you familiar with

(01:53):
a song by a group called theEasy Beats called Friday on My Mind?
Can you hum the tune in timewith your d do Do Do Do Do
Do Do do? Okay, dodo do Do Do Do Do do do

(02:15):
do anyway? Okay? It was. The song was called Friday on My
Mind. Okay. They're a bandfrom Australia. They had a It was
an international hit in the US.It got to like number three or number

(02:35):
four on the top ten. Okay, and it was it was really really
big. Well, one of thethe rhythm guitarist for that group and his
a bandmate. Basically, after thatband broke up, they got together and

(02:58):
decided to just become a song writingand producing duo. Okay, and this
was guy by the name of Georgeand his friend Harry. George had brothers.
George was born in Scotland. Youknow him. He and his brothers
all born in Scotland. I knowwhat you're going with this now moved to

(03:19):
Australia. This sounds eerily familiar toa certain group that blew up throughout the
seventies and eighties. But I'll letyou come, yes, is it what
I'm thinking? I don't know.We'll find out in just a second.
George and Harry had another hit assongwriters in nineteen seventy seven, believe it

(03:43):
or not, a disco song bya guy by the name of John Paul
Young called Love Is in the Air. You remember that one, um the
seven in the Air. Yeah,whatever, Yeah, but I'd have to
hear the melody to read charge myend say oh yeah, because right now
it's just in the blur. Well. George and Harry became very very big

(04:08):
songwriters and huge producers much more successfulthan they ever were with the Easy Beats.
Okay, I what the part Idid not know was that he wrote
that song that love is in theAir, that disco song. Because when
you think about his brothers, histwo younger brothers, they're absolutely the end.

(04:29):
And I can't say that thank youantithesis. I can't say that word
with or without my dentures. They'reabsolutely the I'll just say this the opposite
of everything disco. Well, ifyou if you already yes, if you
already know this story, then I'lljust go ahead and do the grand reveal
for everybody out there. George's lastname is Young, and his younger brothers

(04:55):
are named Malcolm and Angus. Okay, I did not know that then,
and I was thinking of the Begs. I you know what, I thought
that that's where people were gonna go, the Beegs. Yeah, but his
name was George Young and his brothersare Angus Young and Malcolm Young. Of
course, the root of ac DCabsolutely nothing like the disco song that George

(05:19):
Young became super super famous for,which I thought was are you kidding me?
That came from the same family.I would never have even thought about
associating those people together. I thoughtmaybe people would think about the Beejis because
they were born in England and thenmoved to Australia. That's why I was

(05:42):
thinking that. Um, but therewas a lot of that. There was
quite a bit of that. Yeah, you know, there was a lot
of that that that um that thattruck from from England and to m Australia.
There really was. And not onlythat, but also New Zealand and
such. Right, there was alot of that. Even past the time
of like you know, the eighteenand seventeen and eighteen hundred, there's still

(06:05):
people traveling and moving over there andall that good stuff. So that's why
I thought. I thought, oh, it sounds like this would fit with
the Beejis somehow. Now I wouldnot have thought that, Yeah, go
ahead, okay. Would you havethought that I would bring up the Beejis
as a subject voluntarily? No?No, But I discounted how much you

(06:29):
do not um like them, andyou have mentioned it in the past,
So you're right. If I didthink it through, I would have thought,
um, he wouldn't bother. Thatwould be like you starting the Rolling
Stones fan club. You know,Yeah, that ain't gonna happen. Anytime
soon exactly well where I was gonnago. So that was just one little
tidbit, one little trivial thing.Snorting was another seventies thing, just Pat

(06:56):
Travers song, Snort and whiskey.The the questions that I have for you.
We know that ACDC just absolutely blewup in the seventies and eighties,
and their first few albums, thefirst two albums actually were more They got
a little bit of attention outside ofAustralia, but not much now we're talking

(07:17):
about the original line up with BondScott as lead singer. But they really
got worldwide attention when well, whenPassed Away, Well High Voltage came out

(07:38):
and was released internationally, came outin the US. It was kind of
a compilation. It had a fewnew tunes, but it was a compilation
of their first two albums done inAustralia only, and they did okay.
They went on a US tour,but not really supporting that album. They

(08:01):
were opening acts for like Kiss andyou know, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent,
Blue Oyster Cult, things like that. But when they recorded the next album,
Dirty Deed's Done Dirt Cheap, theyreally started to gain some momentum.
Then Let There Be Rock came outand it really picked up and really got

(08:28):
bigger and bigger and bigger. Thenthey started to work on Back in Black.
They were just starting to record.I mean, they had a couple
of albums, other albums out,you know, Let There Be Rock and
you know, Power Ridge. Butthen Bond Scott died and they kind of

(08:48):
scrambled and they looked for a replacementobviously, and hooked up with Brian Johnson.
And then when Back in Black cameout, that was the biggest selling
album ever and then it just wentcrazy from there. Knowing the juggernaut they

(09:09):
became and the driving force of hardrock music, do you think that would
have happened under Bond Scott or doyou think it took Brian Johnson to make
them skyrocket like they did. Wouldthey have been as successful as they became
if bon Scott was still the singer, if he hadn't passed away, That's

(09:31):
my question to you. And Iknow there's a lot of speculation involved.
There is because there's a lot ofalternate roads that no longer exist that could
have existed and the consequence of that. But all in all, I would
say that yes, because during theera starting off from the eighties on,

(09:54):
the medal was a big money makerwith everything from the actual music, radio
play, advertising, concerts, tshirts, posters, magazines. The culture
was primed. And yes, Iwill agree with you there they were at
the right time. The culture wasprimed and ready for so I would say,

(10:16):
yes, they would have done itanyhow. And I'll just give you
an anecdote of me as a kid. So when I was very little in
those early I was just a littlekid in those early years, late seventies
going into the eighties. At somepoint I had moved away from Sweetwater for

(10:37):
a short time because my folks,you know, they weren't they were trying
to work things out. It onlylasted for like a year, that that
inconvenience, but I was living afew miles away. And then I returned
to Sweetwater, and I was alittle bit, well a little a year
makes a big difference, and agrowing kid. When I came back to
Sweetwater, I came back into myroom and this and that, and I

(11:00):
stepped out to play, and theother kids were older too, and they
were running around and I would runaround with them, and they had older
brothers with all the records and allthe cool heavy metal bands posters on their
walls. We've mentioned that, youknow that jean jackets and leather walking down
the streets, the camaros and thunderbirdsin the streets, just the whole thing

(11:22):
that we're aware of. Well,guys like you and you're from your time,
we were looking up towards right becauseyou were the older kids. And
although you were a little bit older, older than that, and maybe not
not that much, but some youwere somewhere around the older brothers, the
older brothers age, so you wouldhave been the equivalent back then of the

(11:46):
ones that you know. Some wereinto karate. Literally they'd wear karate suits
all day long because of the BruceLee thing. And you'd see that Sweetwater
was such an incredible place in thatrespect, at least from my perspective,
just out towards the world. Andthey would bring cassettes and records from their
older brothers and we'd sit on thehoods of the car and listen to the
cassettes on boom boxes in the wholenine yards. And one of the ones

(12:11):
was when they brought me a CDCback in black and my friend likely it
was my friend John. He said, look, let's check out a CDC.
This is their new singer. AndI'm paraphrasing what we might have sited
out in like a long time,but well, what happened to the old
singer? And he said, oh, he died? And for me as

(12:33):
a kid, that concept was notyou know. So wait a second,
this is a band and this isa new singer within the and so the
other guy that I found that itwas just a moment of you know,
and we played it and when weplayed back in Black, it must have
been eighty three, eighty two,eighty three. I don't know what when
that album came out. We WereLittle Black? Was nineteen eighty was it?

(12:58):
Yeah? I probably got to ita couple of years down the road,
so it could have been eighty twoat most eighty two, eighty two
eighty three. It could have been. But we were little kids, um
sitting on the hoods of cars andthe whole concept. And there were other
albums that we listened to, butno, this is the guy. And
when I heard that that was it. I couldn't believe the sonic explosion of

(13:22):
awesomeness that was coming from the freakingboombox ac DC. So um so I
remember that story in that era.Yeah, maybe a few years out of
that happening, and that stuck withme later, I found out as you
get older, you read and whatnotin listen. So my long story short,

(13:43):
I would think that they would havejust the same because the music was
there, and yeah, they wouldhave done They would have done it either
way. Well, see, minecomes about. My exposure of them comes
about slightly differently in that you guyswere looking up to the older brothers and

(14:07):
what have you. I discovered acDC through my younger brother. I was
oh, eighteen or nineteen years old, something like that, and our cousin
came to visit. You know.I was married and living out in my
own house. My younger cousin cameto visit and stayed with my family,
you know, And I came overto visit one day, me and my

(14:28):
ex wife, and they were outin the garage playing pool on the pool
table and the boom box going,and he was playing Highway to Hell the
cassette. And I had never heardthis band before, and I'm like,
dang, this is good. Whois this? This is ac DC?
And he gave me the cassette coverand I checking it out and everything else,

(14:50):
and the more it's playing, themore I liked them. And I
just dude, I came in halfway. Flip that back over. Let's hear
the first half a side one,you know. So he did and everything,
and I started digging it. SoI went, you know, not
that same day, I think Iwaited a couple of days till pay day,
he probably, and then went andbought that album and then saw that

(15:13):
they had other albums in the stacktoo, So I just grabbed the next
one that happened to be there,you know, because I don't know I'm
discovering a band, but I knewI liked that album, but I had
the money, so I'm just like, okay, let me grabbed this one.
And that was Dirty Deed's Done Dirty, and I became a fan from
there. Well yeah, there's noI mean, there's they were I'm sorry.

(15:35):
I was, oh, go ahead, go ahead, now, go
ahead, go ahead on no,I'm sorry. It's just as a memory
pomped into my apart from the Blackand Black, and one day my friend
pops out with the Who Made Whoand he brought it too many says,
dude, you gotta listen to thisone. It's awesome, I said,
and I said, oh, whomade Who? And he said, yeah,

(15:56):
it's about aliens. I remembered thatbecause it was such a weird thing
for him to say, and Ibelieve that there had to be something about
aliens. So I went about listeningto the album, and I could never
connect anything to do with aliens.Obviously, the title says who made Who?

(16:18):
Who knows where he got it?But it's an example of little kids
saying off the cup things and thenthat being deposited in another person's mind,
in another kid's mind, and thenit totally screwing up the reality. You
know, it's about aliens, Ican, but you know what I mean,

(16:41):
I know exactly where he got thatfrom. And I can tell you
where he got that problem because Iremember when that album came out. It's
actually the soundtrack to a movie calledMaximum Overdrive, written by Stephen King.
It's a comedy horror kind of amovie. The movie itself is very forgettable.

(17:03):
It's not that good of a flick. I mean, if you're into
that kind of thing, go forit. Basically, the Earth crosses the
tail of a comet and machines basicallycome to life and become sentient beings,
right okay, and go on akilling spree. The it's it's very,

(17:27):
very forgettable. But I can rememberwhen that movie came out the big selling
point, and the reason I sawit was because the entire soundtrack was ac
DC and the Who Made Who albumwas the soundtrack to the movie. So
there's some sort of connection there that, yeah, And so I went and
saw the movie. It was butthe soundtrack was cool, and it was

(17:51):
a mixture of Brian Johnson and BondScott and a couple of instrumentals that were
from the Bond Scott era, youknow, Chase the Ace and a couple
of others. Um, sink thepink was on that as well. Yes,
sink the pink, It's out offashion, because back then in the
eighties, there was also this thingabout if you remember, and I'm sure

(18:14):
you do, um just the colorsman. It became like an explode,
sink the pink, it's out offashion, um, and guys would wear
these hot pink shirts and the wholething, and it was the antithesis.
Here's the second place we can usethat word of what the rock culture was,
which was wearing rock t shirts andthe jeans, rolled up sleeves and

(18:37):
whatnot, or you know, whiteor black, just planing shirts and stuff
as opposed to the preppy sort oflike um and um. They had that
song there in there. Yeah,well, so that's what that song was
about. The whole conclusion to howI discovered them was if it I didn't

(19:03):
think I was as out of touchat the time as I was because I
was in my blues phase and Iwas listening to progressive rock. So if
it wasn't on the FM alternative albumoriented stations, I wasn't really picking up
on it. I was, youknow, I was too deeply into Pink

(19:23):
Floyd and Kings King, Crims King, Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Yes, those kind of bands.And but when I heard that from
listening with my brother and my cousin, it was like, holy cow,
man, I need to maybe kindof slip back over to AM every once

(19:45):
in a while and see what I'vebeen missing, simply because it appears that
I'm missing quite a bit here.So I do remember when Bonscott died,
and I do remember how everybody thought, well, this is going to be
the end to ac DC and thenfast forward, here comes Back in Black,
and I don't think even they knewhow much of a juggernaut that album

(20:10):
was going to be. Now,I don't remember which song was released as
a single first, but I wantto say it was you Shook Me All
Night Long. And the minute Iheard that opening riff, I thought,
wait a minute, what's this Andthen they got into it and Brian Johnson's

(20:33):
vocals came along. I was like, holy hell, yeah, that's one
of the best. It's one ofthe best rock songs ever. You can't
or I can't get in the carand then pomp on the radio and we
not pump it up. It's oneof those yeahs, oh yeah, the
volume will go up. And thatled me to my classic saying, I

(20:56):
don't always listen to ac DC,but when I do so to my name
verse because you cannot turn that down. It's just it's it's not authorized,
so it's such it's such a it'ssuch a powerful song. Um, I
just it's just. I also rememberthat Brian Johnson took a little bit of

(21:18):
flak because people were saying, oh, he's just trying to sound like Bond.
Scott. That's his voice. Hedoesn't put on anything. If you
listen to him speak, that's hisvoice. That's just how he sings.
And he doesn't squeak like that.But that that gravelly, oh yeah,

(21:41):
that gravelly part. He's he's veryseriously Jordy. I will tell you that
um from Newcastle in the UK.He was singing with a band called Jordy.
And believe it or not, theyfirst heard his name from Bond Scott
when Bond had told him told Malcolm. Bon had mentioned that he was in

(22:08):
England and had heard a band calledJordy and Brian Johnson was the singer.
And this is a quote from bonScott. Brian Johnson is a great rock
and roll singer in the style ofLittle Richard. He's a guy that knows
what rock and roll is all about. So when Angus and Malcolm were talking

(22:32):
about what they were going to dowith the band, that was the first
name they came up with, andso they auditioned him and about five or
six other singers then called Brian Johnsonback and they sang and recorded a couple
of songs and then the next daythey officially invited him to become the next
lead singer. But if bon Scotthadn't a scene him performing with Jordy happened,

(23:00):
it may never have happened because hewas virtually unknown, and in fact
he had quit singing and gone backto work. He was a car mechanic,
so it may never have happened.They had never chanced to cross him,
but they they did look at othersingers, but they ended up going
with Brian Johnson. But that isjust his voice. I mean, there

(23:22):
are some recordings out there of Jordyon YouTube and his voice was like that
long before ac DC ever became popular. So no, he's not trying to
imitate Bond Scott. That's just him. So yeah, I never even thought
in terms of that, although peoplemight have said that, but I yea
at the very beginning there was alot of that, always trying to imitate

(23:45):
bon Scott. But you know what, that goes on all the time because
you get used to a band's lineupand then they replace people for one reason
or another and it's never as good. I mean, look at the Van
Halen David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar. I mean that started fist fights.
Either this or do you don't youknow, so did Um the Black Sabbath

(24:11):
roster change as well. Yeah,Deo Deal is a way better singer than
Ausie by leaps and bounds, butbetter is not, you know, technically
and by the way he's really Dealis really good. But technically better is
not always because rock and roll,at the end of the day has an

(24:32):
element of off the cuff and andall. They's great. But the point
is that um, sometimes it fitsand it doesn't have to be that the
person is proficient like a mastro Um. He could be just simply rock and
roll, you know, And sothat's you know, you can be technical

(24:52):
and not really have the magic.I just think that there is a lot
of evolution in every band. Everyband will refine their sound, they'll refine
their expertise. I mean, Iknow people who are die hard Rush fans
who love the early Rush before GettyLee started playing synthesizer or a keyboard.

(25:18):
Yeah, they don't like the factthat keyboard or synthesizer was added to Rush.
They want back in the old youknow, the old early days where
we're a three piece combo and itsguitar, bass and drums and that's it.
They still like Rush but they like, you know, give me the
fly By Night days and forget theTom Sawyer days. And to me,

(25:40):
I just see it as an evolution. While replacing band members, whether they
be a singer or a guitarist orboth, I see that also as an
evolution. You know, a lotof it has happened because you know,
due to outside forces. I mean, look at Ozzie with Randy Rhodes.
I mean, Azzie had no controlover what happened to Randy Rhodes, but
he didn't quit. He kept goingeven after Randy Rhodes was killed. And

(26:07):
you can argue I prefer it withRandy Rhodes versus any other guitarist. But
that doesn't mean Azzi himself is betteror worse. You know, it's an
evolution, it's a different So youhave like the do you have the David
Lee Roth era van Halen and youhave the Sammy Hagar era van Halen,

(26:29):
you have the Bond Scott era acDC, you have the Brian Johnson era
ac DC. I just wonder ifthey would have now they would have traveled
up to a level of success underBond Scott. No doubt they were already
there. The trajectory was already set. But would they have become the powerhouse
that so many other groups modeled themselvesafter under Bond Scott as they did with

(26:53):
Brian Johnson. I think so becausewhat I mentioned before that that they they
had the music and there was enoughum need to fill the heavy metal rosters
on radio play and T shirts.So if you think about the eighties,
um, all sorts of bands weresigned and put on stage um dressed in

(27:18):
the most outrageous lipstick covered perm hairtight you know, um jeans and leather,
uh, just everything to get themoney rolling, and people were ready
to come. I was one ofthem, ready to consume the heavy metal
hair metal. Um, all ofus were all of us all. There

(27:42):
were some that were into the preppystuff. So they were into like back
then there was this thing called bassmusic, and so they had songs like
let's say that one song called DiamondGirl. I think it's talked about it.
Yeah, we've talked about it befor but as an example, they
would take that song and then they'drework it all h all uh like what

(28:07):
you'd see the rap um, youknow, reusing of of beats and whatnot.
But they'd cycle for like an houron the radio, Diamond Diamond,
the Diamond Diamond boom and so that, and so there was a crowd for
that was Diamond, good Diamond,and he just kept going and freaking going.

(28:29):
Well, that was just murder forthe heavy metal world. Um,
and so, but there was enoughof the heavy metal being pumped out and
everybody was really getting into it.So there were those two worlds and there
were other little pockets, right,you know, but it was the same
with us with rock and roll indisco. I mean you had that big

(28:51):
divide there. So well, thisthis sort of like bass type music was
kind of an evolution branch from thatearlier pop disco world sort of like and
the heavy metal obviously was a evolutionof what happened before it. But um,

(29:14):
I think they would have made itbecause of that fact. And I
think I'm not sure. But ifI remember, well, those songs that
they were that came out in thatBack in Black album were already written and
some were probably recorded, and sothat was already in play if I recall,
well, but you can you cancheck and double check if if that's

(29:37):
so. I'm I've been looking becauseI've heard that a lot, and I've
heard that, and I've not foundany definitive yes or no. Um there
were no vocals had been recorded.I have not found anybody with any kind
of authenticity or any kind of inside knowledge who has said yes, vocals

(30:02):
were recorded. No. But I'veheard some music may have been, but
I haven't heard specifically which tunes.But music had been written, but it
wasn't completed. They started working onthe album the same year Bond Scott died
with Brian Johnson, but it wasreleased the year afterwards. And in fact

(30:27):
the band was just gonna call itquits and just break up and everybody go
on to go their separate way.It was Bond Scott's parents that said,
don't do it. Keep going,find another singer and keep going. There's
no way Bond would have wanted youto quit. So they did, and

(30:47):
the rest, as they say,is history. Much like the case with
the rock versus disco, there werea few breakout names in rock that broke
through the disco hecks I'll call it, and made it into the top forty.
But for the most part during thatera, the rock fans were kind

(31:08):
of we were the minority because everybodywas going, oh no, you gotta
listen to the BJ's, Oh no, you gotta listen to this group or
that group that I can't even name, I don't even know the names of.
And I was like, people,but I can't, I just can't,
man, I just it's not mystyle of music. I'll switch to
country first. And that's when Istarted taking the deeper dive into blues and

(31:30):
started figuring out the roots of thisstuff, where it all came from.
And it was just like I wasn'ttrying to perpetuate any kind of a divide
amongst my friends and family or anything. It's just a lot of people kind
of went their own separate ways afterthat. It was weird. It was
strange. It's funny how music canbring people together but can also divide them

(31:52):
like crazy, like anything. Yeah, if you have something that's meaningful to
people and you have choices to bemade, it's like people are gonna and
then they get passionate about it,and um, it's just and music.
It was something that we had andunlike today we have music obviously, but

(32:16):
you know, we've talked talked aboutthis. We didn't have this Colosso environ
Um Internet environment where you may enjoymusic, but if you press the button
to the next page, there mightbe this fantastical, you know, adventure
awaiting you, and okay, musiccan wait for half a second and then

(32:37):
you five hours later, you're likewatching fungus on rye in a documentary that
lasts, you know, sixteen episodes, trampled underfoot. So we're not in
that world of that, although we'rewe're we're in the last we're not even
in the last roles. I thinkthat that that we're the because people born

(33:04):
I can't place the we'd have tomake a choice where we agree roughly,
but after a certain point, there'scertain things that people didn't experience anymore after
a certain point that were of theold world that we were a part of,
generationally speaking, and that now peopleonly hear about through wild tales.

(33:30):
I mean, a lot of people'sgrandparents are people that were born today,
grandparents that we were born probably inthe in the fifties and sixties, which
to us, like fact, mydad was in the forties, although my
mom was in the fifties and stuff. So there were carryovers from their eras
that we would pick up on.But as we're going and going and going,

(33:52):
those things get left behind, andso kids have reference points. Luckily
there's the Internet, but there's notthe same thing as being well in that
world at that time. That's becauseI think music has taken on a different
level of importance in people's lives thanit did to you and me. Because
the very very few young people thatI have talked to, and now I'm

(34:16):
not out on the spree asking peoplequestions or interviewing folks, but like my
grandkid, they can't fathom the conceptof going over to a friend's house just
to listen to music. You know, you and I we would do that
all the time, either grab analbum or invite friends over, or go
over to a friend's house to listento a new album he bought. And

(34:39):
that was the activity, you know, five to six kids sitting in the
guy's bedroom. He's got the albumplan and you're passing the cover around and
reading the liner notes and everything elseand checking it out, and you're yeah,
but you're just You're the primary reasonfor be there to be there is
to listen to that album. Hey, I remember, I just to tell

(35:04):
you. I've told you in thepast, but it's one of those things
I met my friend Ernie back inthe eighties and one day, hey man,
I'm gonna gonna be around. Yeah, and so on the phone and
I bike ride over another thing that'sand I would bike ride over and then
you'd get there and he lived likeon the third floor. Um it within
Sweetwater. But you're biking. Sonot only do you have hey mom,

(35:28):
I'll be back later. There wasno m at what time precisely or for
me at least in my case,it was like it was we're in Sweetwater.
Don't cross out of Sweetwater because therewas a barrier. So you'd go
bike riding. You take your bike. You'd either walk it up the steps
with the stairs, which three floors, I don't think so. So there
was this little elevator. I'd propit up and I'd go up to the

(35:51):
and and you know, hey man, what's going on. Go to his
room. He's got his rock androll and all his stuff. You'd have
this cassette sitting there one time,and it was White Snake sitting there,
and I had my cassette that Ibrought with me and stuff, and I,
oh, dude, White, Isaid, oh dude, White Snake.
And he's like dude, that thatrecord sucks. Man, I can't

(36:15):
believe I bought that crap. Itsucks. And it had, um,
what's that song? You don't knowwhere I'm going? I don't know.
Yeah, here I go again?Yeah you did, I go? Okay.
So it had that song and sojust on that it had it within
that little cassette thing and the coverwith that melted like logo and stuff.
I was like, I was like, dude, you don't like it.

(36:37):
And I'm already as a kid,I'm already calculating, Dude, I've got
um you want to trade it,I've got Kubla Khan. There was a
span that I had bought. Idon't even know what trade I made with
that cassette, but there were tradesgoing on everywhere. Yeah, and people
were comping stuff and returning stuff,and it was like talk about faff of
mute intellectual It was everywhere. Yeah, everybody was comping stuff and and guess

(37:00):
what, people still bought the album. But in any event, um,
I've got Kubla con and he putit on. But I didn't like Kubla
Khan. It was like, tome, was like a cheap and they're
not bad. Um, but backthen, I was like, they're a
cheap copy of Metallica and have youhave you heavy metal? As we put
it on and he heard it andit had this like demon creature like on

(37:23):
the cover, and he was like, yeah, man, this is the
stuff, this is the stuff.So do you want to trade for for
for White Snake? He says,yeah, man, take that crap,
and we traded so the Kubla Khan, which I thought was a travesty.
You know, every time I triedand play it and I got myself my
fricking um White Snake album off.Stuff like that, you know, happened

(37:49):
all the time. Absolutely, absolutely, That's how you discovered new bands.
That's how you checked out an albumbefore you went and spent your allowance on
it, was somebody else spent theirallowance on it because they listened to another
friend copy of the same album.You know, me growing up there in
the San Francisco Bay area, Ididn't have the money to go out and

(38:13):
buy a cassette recorder that would hookup to our stereo so that I could
record an album on cassette. Infact, I got a I got an
eight track recorder for Christmas one yearand It was an expensive piece. I
mean it was close to one hundredbucks, and back then, one hundred
dollars was a lot of money.I mean a lot of money. When

(38:35):
you figure we bought a brand newcar for three thousand, one hundred bucks,
was a huge chunk of change.It was the only thing I got
that year for Christmas. But Iwas I was over the moon because I
got that eight track recorder that Icould plug into my stereo and record albums
onto and I made my own mixtapesand that's what I played in the car
when I was driving around with myfriends. But that was how we experience

(39:00):
the music. And they can't.They can't wrap their heads around that.
You got a song you want toshare with a friend, you either text
them check this out, or you, you know, set up a playlist
where you guys can swap music backand forth, or what have you.
You're in separate buildings, in somecases, separate states. You're not getting

(39:24):
together to experience the music the wayit was meant to be experienced, and
that is put the needle on sideone, let it play through, take
a break. Everybody runs to thebathroom, does what they gotta do,
Sit down, and then play sidetwo, which is to me absolutely the
best way to experience it. Butthat concept is just foreign now. And

(39:44):
there was another thing too, thatthe musicians for the most part were kind
of mysterious and like you didn't knowmuch about them. You'd see a picture
of them, maybe an article,but it was just enough to get some
inform on the background of stuff.But you still, like, I remember

(40:05):
the the Ozzy Osbourne aid a bat. My friends would say, dude,
Azzi ate a bat on stage,and like, um, So that story
just kept getting passed around and passedit because that's how people did. They
would pass it. Someone would readthe article or maybe it was on the
news and whatever, and then youpassed it around around and then everybody got

(40:28):
the information and they'd tell their variationof the story. So by the end
of the time, yeah, atthe end of the line, you know,
he not only did he eat abat, but he ate a goat
and yeah, camel too, youknow, yeah, and chased it down
with a cow. Alice Cooper tellsa similar story about you know, the
old story we heard was Alice Cooperbit the head off a chicken on stage.

(40:52):
I heard that one, and thatis absolutely not the case. I
mean him and his guitarist and hisbass player. I'll tell the same story,
and that is they were playing Ithink in Detroit and somebody threw a
chicken up on stage. A chickenended up on stage? Is this?
So I picked it up? It'sa bird fly away? And of course

(41:15):
the chicken moralists plummeted into the crowdbecause chickens came by and they ripped it
to shreds. The crowd ripped itto shreds. But it got turned around
to our Alice Cooper bit the headoff a chicken. No that whatever happened,
that must have been a terrible chickenfatality on the chicken. Yeah,

(41:37):
killed by music music listeners. Yeah, and you know, but you're rush.
There was no internet, so wehad mash pit, so we had
no way to check or verify onthis. You know, if it wasn't
in the newspaper or written in abook somewhere, there was no way to
check on it. You know,you couldn't follow if you had a guitarist

(42:02):
that you liked or a drummer thatyou liked and he left a band,
you had no way of knowing wherehe went until you were reading the liner
notes on somebody else's album that wentoh wow, hey, he's playing with
them now. But now you canget on. Every band member has their
own website and you can get onand say, oh, this guy left

(42:22):
this band. He's playing with themnow, Oh okay cool, and you
can follow them along that way.But you know, so instant information and
instant verification as stories because believe me, if Alice Cooper bit the head off
a chicken, it would have beenviral. But back then there was no
way of verifying anything this, thator the other. I mean, all

(42:45):
I can say is thank god thatthere. I grew up before cell phones
because if there's no evidence to proveit I didn't do it, yes,
and if I should have done it, it was done hours ago. So
it's also ancient in the annals ofancient history at this point, because anything
pass anything passed computer age, unlesslike you said, there's photographic or some

(43:09):
sort of diary or something like.I mean, there's no it's it is
what it is. It's of thatera. We are definitely in a new
paradigm reality UM with other included thingsthat that we that we that are part
of our daily UM existence. Now. Um, I know we're getting close

(43:30):
to the top, but maybe thiswill kind of devetail in. I know
we both did it where we wentover to our friend's house and we listened
to music and everything else. Butafter, you know, the VHS explosion,
did you do that with movies aswell? I did that with some
on TV, mostly UM. WhenVHS came around. My dad bought VHS

(43:57):
and put it in his room.I didn't have access to the VHS.
When he would go and work,I would. We had little stores where
you'd go and rent um. Thiswould before Blockbuster. Blockbuster didn't exist.
There were little you'd have a stripmall and inside it you'd have like one

(44:17):
of the stores would have like justtons of movies and you'd go there and
you'd have your little card subscription andyou'd go and rent it for three days.
I think they'd give you the rentalfor three days and you had to
do the whole rewind and the wholefamily and so you you'd go and watch

(44:37):
your thing. So I'd go intohis room and do that. When he
upgraded, he passed on the VHSto me and I finally got a VHS
in my room. The same thingwith the TV's. I started with a
little black and white TV and thenum which they had their own good TV.
But somehow that he brought me anew TV, a little bit bigger

(44:58):
and in color, and I waslike all right, So it was sort
of that that kind of world.Yeah, yeah, Well I didn't get
my first VCR until I until nineteeneighty two, so I was already twenty
one years old. I was stationedat Ford Or, California. I was
in the Army, and it kindof morphed from what we would do every
once in a while was go upto the barracks. I was married,

(45:21):
lived off of the base in anapartment that we readed, and we would
go up into the barracks on aFriday or Saturday night and just say,
hey, we're going to the drivein movies. Anybody want to go?
And off we would go. We'dput you know, eight ten, twelve
gis in the bed of the pickup. Everybody bring their sleeping bag and we'd
lay them all out in the bedof the truck, so you had like
six inches of sleeping bags, youknow, back there, nice and padded,

(45:44):
and we'd pull in back into thedrive in with the tailgate face in
the screen, grab the speakers andjust give it a good go. Well,
it kind of morphed from there.When I got my VCR, there
were little mom and pop do rentalplaces all around. It's an army base.
You have a captive audience. Lotsof little mon Paul video rental places

(46:07):
popped up and they flourished because thegis were constantly renting tapes. And we
get a concession, you know,go rent a couple of video cassettes,
bring them to the house, andI'd have fifteen twenty people in my living
room all sitting there watching whatever movie. That was kind of an extension of
that music thing, you know.It just turned over to video, and

(46:31):
I remember doing one of the mostpopular one was we did twice a year
was I had the Star Wars trilogyon VHS and we did all three Star
Wars movies. That was later on, but it was really something just getting
the whole group together and having ablast. But you didn't do that more

(46:53):
or less with your friends. Withfriends, yeah, we get together and
watch movies. Absolutely as far asrecording or like um dubbing or whatever.
I remember doing that to some moviesand maybe some shows, like if they
had a concert on TV, Iwould record it. But yeah, I

(47:15):
don't remember too well. If Idon't even remember that I much used the
rewind thing. I just let itplay. I think I can't remember that
well those details. Yeah, Ican't remember specifically. I know that I
recorded shows every now and again.Yeah, But um, my dad the
reason he got the thing. Heliked to record news programs like so he

(47:43):
was totally into like so he hewould record news. Yeah he was because
remember his whole thing he or oneof his things, was to compile m
just information and data concerning political unrestin the Caribbean, particularly in Cuba,
and so he would record any sortof conference. He'd do it with newspapers.

(48:07):
He would buy all different newspapers yearafter year after year after year.
They'd come to the door and he'dcut clippings, he'd organized thing. He
basically like a library for news concerningthe topics that he was interested in.
So I'm kind of I'm a badcopy of that, like I'm a I'm

(48:29):
a downgraded copy of what of whathe was. But I'm actually I take
after my dad in many ways becauseapparently I'm doing that with the genealogy,
think my interest of course, butbut he was like, just it's a
constant fanatic about it. Yeah.I would record certain TV shows, but
they had to be something special.Like I went to a phase where I

(48:52):
was recording NASCAR races and I wouldplay him back and watch him. But
then I kind of got out ofit. It's because it's like, why
am I saving this? What doI care? Am I going to go
back and watch this race ten yearsfrom now? I know who won?
So I got out of that.I would more or less basically just record
things that we're going to be onwhile we weren't home for some reason that

(49:14):
I wanted to watch later. Andthat's all it became. I stopped archiving
video. Of course, it's aredundant format now, so everything that I've
got is kind of lost until Igo buy another twenty dollars VCR off a
Craigslist and recorded over to DVD orsomething digital that I can store on the

(49:36):
computer what have you. Because rightnow, like I've got footage of us
in Germany that I can't touch becauseI don't have a working video becausette recorder.
That's another thing that just pop intomy head about all this. For
us, back then, high definitionin the realm of music of movies was
going to the movie theater with thehuge screen where you can really see the

(50:00):
actor's faces and just the whole whereasTV was you know well what it was.
Today high death is everywhere, sothe the So we had to go
somewhere to get a bigger view,a more detailed view of things, because
those TVs didn't cut it necessary.I mean, that was great, But

(50:22):
in contrast, I mean I can, I can't. I don't even know
how I know how Lee Majors looks, because he was basically the equivalent of
related um. And yet I Ican, I can I know who he
is to this day because it's youknow, glory the mind fills in the
blanks. But um, we hadto go to the theater for that high

(50:44):
res um and we didn't call itthat, but whatever, um, And
today, I mean, you're inhigh res right now. I don't have
to go to the movie. Idon't. In fact, I don't have
to go and see you. Ican see perfectly as it probably can better
than with my eyes because you cansee that I certainly need a shave.
Well yeah, but then you alsohave video files and audio files. Who

(51:08):
are gotten to the point to wherethey have built theaters in their homes.
I mean, you know Linda's bagpipeinstructor, her husband, he has built
this humongous home theater in one roomof their house. And they don't have
a TV set. They watch everythingI'll via that home theater and everything from
the local news or whatever TV programup to you know, movies and what

(51:32):
have You are in this big theaterroom with surrounds sound, the whole thing.
So it's just as good as goingto the drive to the drive in.
I say, no, it's justas good as going to the theater
without the popcorn and the twenty twodollars jujubes or milk duds. It was
a nice experience. Though, wellwe could still do it right, but

(51:55):
it was a nice experience to youknow how people say there's those memes on
line and stuff where they say Ihad the best childhood because I grew up
getting my knees scraped and falling offthe bike and this and all the things
from from yesteryear. Um. AndI always look at those things, I

(52:16):
say, well, yeah, youknow, um, But I always think,
as well, that the only reasonyou love that is because that was
your experience. But you could beI don't know, somewhere in some tropical
chasing island with a spear and chuckingit at animals, and then you look
back and you think, you Ilove those boors that we used to.

(52:37):
Um. Yeah, because it's yourpersonal account, you know what I'm saying.
So, um, it's well whatyou said, it's all relative,
it really, it really is whenit comes to these things, you know.
Um, So I see that asthat. But but all that aside
everything that we experienced individually. Butwithin that those eras sure have enough meat

(53:01):
to them to telp fantastic histories andstories about those experiences, and they were
very special because they were our experiences, you know. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Every generation grew up duringthe best time. Yeah, and every
generation blames the generation before for theproblems during that best time. And that's

(53:23):
been going on since the first generation. I mean, that's all there is
to it. So that's never gonnago away, nor should it, because
it's those perceived mistakes and errors andproblems that keep us moving forward. Because
you know, we may not wantto hear it, but it doesn't matter

(53:45):
how old or how young you are, one day soon your kids will be
blaming you for their problems. Soyou take the slings and arrows with the
progress. I guess it's crazy,you know. I once, I'll say
this one last thing and whatever youhave uh to. I just want to
say this in reference to the blamingand this listening. Um, it is

(54:06):
not blaming. But I remember asas a kid, I remember telling my
dad, this is gonna sound weirdand if you don't have perspective on the
situation, but whatever, I'll shareit with you guys. Um, it's
meaningful to me and it makes senseto me. But I said to my
dad, Dad, you know what, if it weren't for what happened in
Cuba and Castro, I wouldn't existbecause you and mom met here, and

(54:31):
you were from different parts of Cubato begin with, and you met here
due to the And my dad lookedat me and he said, that's not
the way, he said. Hesaid, no, no, no,
no, no, no, andhe kept going like he just missed it.
Um. He was quite able toprocess this, um and then some

(54:51):
but um, he just he said, that's not don't don't bother with that.
I found it interesting. I neveru I knew I was on solid
ground with the fact of it,and but I never pursued him giving me
a solid reply because my dad,you know, authority and whatever he said,
that's it. So if he saidno, it was knowing that was

(55:13):
the end of it. Yeah.But um, I remember that me mostly.
I remember me questioning that neither oneway or the other as a problem,
but um, just the notion ofthings winding down in the direction that
they do due to a series ofdifferent situations that are out of our control

(55:36):
and beyond our thing. I foundit an interesting thing, and I always
remember that he said, but hekind of like, now, don't think
that way. I had to interprethis nose. It wasn't a mean no,
it was in a negative note.Was like it's like it was kind
of like dismissing it, like saying, don't don't bother with it. I
always remember it, so that whatit is that opens up a door to

(56:00):
a whole nother discussion. But it'sabsolutely true, and it comes down to
the point to where it all boilsdown to each and every individual on this
planet is lucky. It's one hundredpercent luck. The odds against those two
people getting together and the essences thatmade us got together and that we were

(56:21):
born. It's one hundred percent luckfrom our perspective. From our perspective exactly,
we are lucky to be here becauseif one of those things would have
been switched, a totally different person. Yeah, that's something another that's another
discussion. It's another discussion. That'smind blowing stuff, because I mean it's

(56:44):
really it really is mind blowing stuff. But I knew we could get that
deep. Just one well, wehave been doing. Um just another thing,
my my and I'm just saying.My dad also in newspaper articles that
he wrote throughout the eighties, seventiesand eighties, mostly throughout the eighties,

(57:05):
which I've been able to download fromthe Herald and stuff and save them.
But he would he did allude tothat question. I'm curious if Mike asking
him that. I doubt it,But he wrote an article and I haven't
saved there where he talks about theconsequence people blaming This was back in the

(57:28):
eighties, but the consequence of peopleblaming current situations during that time, in
reference to the blame of Christopher Columbusas an example, it wasn't necessarily that.
But he said on the topic ofone issue, he said, so
we're gonna blame these people, butmaybe we should blame and he went through
a series of things in the article. Maybe we should blame Christopher Columbus because

(57:52):
without him nobody would have arrived herefrom those places that people arrived. Yeah,
maybe we should. We should worryabout them, the people that proceeded.
How about the Egyptians. Wait asecond, the Jews. He went
through Europe and stuff in his articleall goes back to Adam and Eve,
and it all goes back to Evetaking picking that apple if she hadn't a

(58:12):
pick that apple. Well, theexactly the article he displayed all these different
variations of one group and the othergroup and the other group sort of like
snowballing and and but he did itin order to sort of like, um,
make it clear to the to thereader with that particular issue. I
forget the specific now that what theissue was and where they were trying to

(58:35):
blame a group or whatnot. Buthe was trying to say that, look,
it's all a progression of history,and nothing is unscathed, nothing is
left, no rock is left unturned, and everything is rolling downhill, um
avalancheing through the progress of time.He wrote about that in those terms.

(58:55):
He wasn't he was privy to thatidea. But when it came to me
ask think him about it, hisanswer to me was no, like kind
of like, just go and enjoyyourself. Yes, run and play,
just be home before the street lightscome on, right, Yeah, I
found that an interesting thing. Anyways, whatever, we um go live every

(59:15):
Tuesday here on our YouTube channel andthat's Trampled Underfoot Podcast on YouTube. And
I've got to scratch my foot.I'm gonna die if I Oh, okay,
um try that again, dude,I don't just my my on the
top. I'm wearing flip flops andjust right on the top. If I

(59:38):
wouldn't have stopped, I would havehad to suffer through it, and the
suffering was too much. Okay,So scratch that. So we go live
every Tuesday here on the YouTube channel, the Trampled Underfoot Podcast channel on YouTube,
and um that's Tuesday's at nine thirtyEastern six thirty Pacific. So we

(01:00:00):
also have a website by the samename, Trampled Underfoot podcast dot com,
and you can catch our past episodesover there, there's a button called the
Wayback Machine button and you can pressthat and check out all the different titles,
put them in your podcatcher and takethem on the go. We're also
over on Facebook, which is theTrampled Underfoot podcast on Facebook, and we

(01:00:23):
usually leave you know, pictures andlinks and stuff depending on the topics that
we cover on the show. Sothat's it. Oh wait a second,
that's true. We also are sponsoredby Harneil Media, your website solution.

(01:00:43):
Yeah, I got a new line. Harneil Media is your website solution.
If you're looking to improve, increase, or even develop a web presence,
you need a website. Stevenelin isyour man. Steve can set you up
with a web site. He canweb host, He can do as much
or as little as you need forhim to do. He's your one stop

(01:01:06):
shop. He can help you setup a web store for you to develop
merch so T shirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs, etc. They take
care of the inventory, they takecare of the collections. You just sit
back and watch the orders come in. That's Stevenelin at Harneil Media. That's
h A r n e A Lmediadot com sponsor of Trampled Underfoot podcast dot

(01:01:34):
com, so listen. We doafter show, so we'll stick around for
those of you that are here duringthis part of the broadcast. Have a
safe week, and thank you forhanging out with us. Peace. Trampled Underfoot