Episode 797 - Paul Shaffer
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what the fuck nicks
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Thanks for hanging out.
Marc:I know a lot of you have been hanging out for a lot of years.
Marc:Some of you are new because I can tell by the numbers.
Marc:Glad that people are finding some relief or whatever.
Marc:Someone just told me that my podcast has become essential for them to fall asleep.
Marc:I don't always know how to take that.
Marc:There's a couple ways to take that.
Marc:It just puts me right to sleep, right?
Marc:As soon as you start talking, my eyes glaze over.
Marc:Or there's something comforting about the persistent, aggravated intensity that happens out of my face into your head that you find comforting.
Marc:And if that's the case, I'm sorry.
Marc:It can't be easy for you the rest of the day.
Marc:I am recording this a few days early for a couple of reasons.
Marc:One being sometimes I don't like to take all the equipment on the road.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Who's calling me?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm literally calling myself on FaceTime.
Marc:Like, I don't know, I was on my own contact information on my iPhone.
Marc:I must have hit a button, and now I'm getting a FaceTime call from me, and I'm looking at myself talking right now on my phone, and I don't think I should answer it.
Marc:I don't want to leave a message for me.
Marc:That was weird.
Marc:Why did that happen?
Marc:I can't trust anything anymore when it comes to technology.
Marc:But that is the case.
Marc:The reason that I'm doing this a few days early is twofold.
Marc:So I'm not going to be up to speed on anything that's really happened over the weekend.
Marc:Because...
Marc:Maybe that's what the phone call is.
Marc:Maybe I'm calling myself to tell me what's going to happen.
Marc:Maybe that's me calling from the future just to give me a heads up.
Marc:I knew that I was recording and maybe it's a message going like, I don't even bother.
Marc:A lot of shit goes down over the weekend.
Marc:It's going to sound weird on Monday when you know and address it, and here's the rundown.
Marc:Anyways, all right, I'll get to it in a second.
Marc:I want to let you know.
Marc:You can mark this down on your calendars.
Marc:If you're in or around New York City on June 3rd, I will be at this year's BookCon along with my producer, Brendan McDonald, where we will have the first public unveiling of our new book,
Marc:Waiting for the Punch, Words to Live By from the WTF podcast.
Marc:Go to thebookcon.com for tickets.
Marc:You can get a day pass for Saturday, June 3rd, if you want to see us.
Marc:Jeffrey Tambor also has a panel on Saturday, so you'll get some bang for your buck.
Marc:Should be fun.
Marc:Very excited about the book.
Marc:Yeah, oh, also today on the show, Paul Schaefer.
Marc:Paul Schaefer has been sort of making the rounds a bit because he's got an album out called Paul Schaefer and the world's most dangerous band.
Marc:But I'll tell you, man, if you're my age, even if you're not, but probably more so if you are 53, that is in and around that area.
Marc:The figure or the person that is Paul Schaefer on television is somebody you've watched for decades.
Marc:It's just and he's always been this sort of secondary character.
Marc:Obviously, the music's important, but him as a personality.
Marc:has somewhat evolved, but maybe just gotten older.
Marc:But if you were a kid like me, you know, in my first or probably my second year of college, I don't know when that show started, but I remember watching it religiously every night on this clunky, small color television set, 13-inch or whatever, on my bed.
Marc:I would move it onto my bed so I could watch Letterman at night.
Marc:That's the kind of social life I had.
Marc:And I was a religious viewer of Letterman there at the beginning because it was so fucking great.
Marc:I just the place that guy has in my mind, in my life, in my heart is powerful.
Marc:You know, David Letterman.
Marc:But but watching Paul Schaefer at the beginning and evolve into this strange side man sidekick, you know, with him, with his even earlier back on SNL.
Marc:when i was a wow i just yeah i mean when i was in high school junior high 77 just seeing him around in those bits with those big glasses the big elton john glasses and then seeing him on letterman and developing this rapport with david that was sort of weird and stony and just a little off i don't know if it was i don't know if it was a weed related i just think it's paul
Marc:And then just seeing him everywhere.
Marc:The Blues Brothers movie.
Marc:And then just seeing Paul Schaefer around.
Marc:He's been this guy in the corner of the screen for decades.
Marc:And he becomes more of a person as time goes on.
Marc:And you watch him get older.
Marc:And you watch him later.
Marc:The last David Letterman show over those years.
Marc:But he's just been with me seemingly since I was 13.
Marc:So that's like 40 years Paul has been in the corner of the screen.
Marc:I was happy to have him here.
Marc:Because he's an amazing musician.
Marc:He's been involved in a lot of stuff.
Marc:And he's known a lot of people.
Marc:And so it was exciting for me to talk to Paul.
Marc:I remember that I was going to tell you why I'm doing this today.
Marc:I didn't forget that.
Marc:By the way, Austin, Texas, next week, Paramount Theater, March 31st, Austin, Texas.
Marc:And I'll be in Boulder on April 7th at the Boulder Theater in Denver at the Paramount Theater on April 8th.
Marc:So the reason...
Marc:The reason I'm recording this today.
Marc:And this has happened before.
Marc:Maybe it's happened to some of you.
Marc:It's not a good thing.
Marc:It's really probably, you know, outside of illness or heart attack or, you know, maybe looking at the news and finding out the entire world's on fire is sort of a bad moment when, you know, when you don't realize anymore, maybe you've done it once before, but you just start getting sloppy and you start setting that mug of coffee a little too close to the laptop on the table and
Marc:And you don't anticipate ever knocking it over for whatever fucking reason.
Marc:But it happens.
Marc:And there's that moment where you feel it happening.
Marc:You just hear the clink of that glass tipping over and you look down and you just see liquid all on the top of your laptop, right on the keyboard, soaking into those little circuits.
Marc:And that moment is like, ah, shit, what the fucking fuck?
Marc:And then you scramble, you wipe it off, maybe you get a hairdryer.
Marc:So yeah, that happened the other day.
Marc:So I don't know how it's gonna hold up.
Marc:And miraculously, you can't put your whole computer in a bag of rice if that even works.
Marc:But I freaked out.
Marc:I wiped it up.
Marc:I didn't have a hairdryer.
Marc:Don't have a hairdryer.
Marc:Put it outside.
Marc:Baked it a little bit.
Marc:Turned it over to get some of the liquid out.
Marc:I did this all very quickly.
Marc:The thing seems to be working, but I don't trust it enough to necessarily take it on the road and do the business I need to do.
Marc:You know, like mail the files for the podcast from the road.
Marc:So this is what's going on.
Marc:I am getting... I had ordered a new computer because this one's about stupid.
Marc:You know, it just starts getting slow and tired and a little senile and it's got too much on its mind.
Marc:There's a lot of, you know, aggravating, you know, porn links sometimes that, you know, they can't shake and all the baggage that comes with that and God knows what else.
Marc:It's just, you know, the brain can only take so much when it's mechanical and, you know, even...
Marc:An organic brain has its limits, but that, uh, that happened.
Marc:That happened yesterday.
Marc:Of course, the day before I'm, uh, I'm heading out to the, to do some gigs.
Marc:So I have a volatile fucked up little wet brain laptop that I can't depend on.
Marc:So I'm getting this done now.
Marc:So that's what happened.
Marc:I'm sharing that with you.
Marc:I got a weird email.
Marc:It's not even that weird, but I found it entertaining somehow, so I'll address it.
Marc:Subject line, am I a big jerk?
Marc:Hello, Mark, you seem to be the man of introspection, so I hope you appreciate this email and do not just want to beat my ass.
Marc:I discovered your show about three weeks ago, and I have since watched throwback bits from a handful of comedians.
Marc:My question is, am I a big jerk?
Marc:I watched young Louis C.K., young Mark Maron, and young Joe Rogan and was astonished at how much I liked the 2017 versions.
Marc:I've loved everything I've seen of yours on Netflix, belong to the Louis C.K.
Marc:'s mailing list, and actively look for Joe Rogan's tour dates.
Marc:But watching videos of young versions of you guys made me want to fight you guys.
Marc:This is a super weird email to send to anyone else in the world, but WTF seems to thrive on introspection and irrational anger.
Marc:So what are your thoughts?
Marc:I love you, old Mark M. Sincerely, a 30-year-old who must be 50 at heart.
Marc:I don't know if the anger is always irrational, but I appreciate your email.
Marc:And look...
Marc:No one wanted to kick young Mark Maron's ass more than young Mark Maron.
Marc:And I don't think you're alone in in wanting to kick young Mark Maron's ass or Louie's.
Marc:I don't know why you would necessarily want to kick Louie's young ass, but maybe you have a problem.
Marc:But Joe.
Marc:And Rogan, I can tell you fairly confidently, I don't think you'd want to try to kick young Joe Rogan's ass.
Marc:And when he was a young comic fresh out of the kickboxing game, I don't know, maybe you have to look inward, my friend, Brad.
Marc:Maybe you have to look inward.
Marc:And also I might say that I was on top of that.
Marc:Young Marc Maron was busy kicking his own ass almost 24 hours a day.
Marc:Paul Schaefer.
Marc:uh like i said before he's got a new record out paul schaefer in the world's most dangerous band uh which is the band paul led on the late show with david letterman there are guest vocals by dion jenny lewis bill murray and more they're kicking off a national tour on april 1st in new york and they'll be playing through the summer i was very happy to have the odd but uh but candid and and amazingly uh talented paul schaefer here in the garage and this is me and paul chatting it up
Marc:When was the last time I saw you, Paul?
Guest:Well, I think that in... The roast?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That horrible... The auspicious Chevy Chase roast.
Guest:You know about that.
Guest:I was there.
Guest:You saw me bomb.
Guest:I was a roast... Nothing mattered.
Guest:You didn't bomb.
Guest:You didn't bomb.
Guest:Nothing mattered.
Guest:When Chevy got on and...
Guest:He had been taking notes.
Guest:He had been taking notes all through the film.
Guest:You thought, boy, when he comes on, he's going to kill.
Guest:He's going to really lay it out.
Guest:He's going to give it back to everybody.
Guest:And he really had nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:And he just said, wow, that was rough.
Guest:Did he say that to you?
Guest:Wow, yeah.
Marc:Well, no, he said to the audience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I feel like he was not a great sport about it the whole time.
Guest:Yeah, he didn't really want to.
Guest:be doing it yeah he did his wife's charity he kept saying I'm doing it for my wife's charity yeah yeah and he took some hits but he didn't take them well but that's a little misguided well it wasn't he wasn't at the top of his career at that time you know so he wasn't really the right guy to roast you're very diplomatic are you guys old friends like is he in your phone yeah well yes yes
Guest:Yes, he's in my phone.
Guest:That's a good way of putting it.
Guest:He is, and even after that night.
Guest:I was a little rough on him, too, but he was good.
Marc:But you don't always do those roasts.
Marc:I mean, that was sort of a rare thing.
Marc:I have a hard time believing that's the last time I saw you, but I guess it probably is.
Marc:Man, you know, no, that's not true.
Marc:I think on my last Letterman appearance, that was long after I talked about meeting Mel Brooks and talking to Mel Brooks.
Guest:Oh, I do remember that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was the last time.
Marc:Now, is Dave in your phone?
Marc:Yes, yes.
Guest:But it was a secret name, you know.
Guest:I don't want to lose the phone.
Guest:Yeah, and everybody calling him up.
Marc:Well, now he seems like he's chatty.
Marc:He's chatty these days, Dave.
Guest:Well, he certainly, I mean, he doesn't have the opportunity to do it every single night and no one's forcing him to do it every single night.
Marc:It looks like he's having a great time to me.
Guest:He is.
Guest:And he adjusted to, you know, the change in schedule, if you would.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:It must be such a fucking relief, man.
Marc:I don't know why people work so hard after a certain point.
Marc:You got enough money.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You just think you've got to do it.
Guest:You've got to complete it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And as Dave himself has said, you get the feeling when you're doing it like it's the most important thing in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now he realizes, you know what?
Guest:It wasn't so important.
Marc:It's just show business.
Marc:But it's funny, though.
Marc:It's a different thing with music because music does ultimately can have a life.
Marc:For a long time.
Marc:You know, I mean, obviously some Letterman clips, you know, you go back and watch shows, but music stays there, right?
Guest:It's Raining Men will be there forever.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:My accountant certainly hopes you're right about that.
Guest:You did all right on that song.
Guest:I never thought it would have the legs, if you will.
Guest:I didn't even know you did it until today.
Guest:Yes, I know, yes.
Guest:Well, I wrote the music for it.
Guest:My co-writer was the late, great Paul Jabaro, who wrote Last Dance for Donna Summer and stuff.
Marc:Last Dance, yeah.
Marc:That was a good era for that kind of music.
Guest:And he won an Oscar.
Guest:For that?
Guest:For that, yes.
Guest:And then he called me up, because I had done some arranging for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Early disco experimental.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He had a song called One Man Ain't Enough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we made that record with him singing it.
Guest:He was already working towards this groovy concept, you can see.
Guest:One Man Ain't Enough.
Guest:Ain't Enough, yeah.
Guest:And then it's Raining Men.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, he had all the lyrics ready to go, you know, and I was...
Guest:Happy to be able to put music to them.
Guest:And you made a little money.
Guest:I became a co-writer.
Guest:A little brush.
Guest:A little scratch.
Guest:A little scratch.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But the thing about you is you're one of those people in my life who I remember forever.
Marc:You have a place in my mind.
Marc:I've watched you grow up on television.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was young when I started.
Marc:You know, I remember different versions of hair.
Marc:Different comb-overs, yes.
Guest:Several different approaches to the comb-over.
Guest:And I was combing over and making fun of guys who combed over.
Guest:Yeah, at the same time.
Guest:And yet doing it at the same time.
Guest:Ironic comb over, but it was real.
Guest:Yeah, but not looking at myself full on in the mirror.
Guest:I would only look through squinted eyes.
Guest:I didn't really want to see what I looked like.
Marc:I imagine that's what most people do with comb over.
Marc:I imagine our president does that every day.
Guest:Looks right.
Guest:Looks perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:Terrific.
Guest:You put a little Vaseline on the lens, you can get away with anything.
Marc:Because I talked to Eugene Levy.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I've talked to the Reitmans, Ivan and the Sun.
Marc:I've talked to the Canadians that come out of the world you come out of.
Marc:I mean, you were born there, right?
Guest:You were like a Canadian.
Guest:Yes, born in Toronto, raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Superior.
Guest:Do you miss Canada ever?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I love Canada, of course.
Guest:It is my country of origin.
Guest:I'm very proud to be a Canadian, but I'm an American now.
Guest:And I'm very proud to be here, too.
Marc:But are you a citizen of both places?
Guest:Yes, I am.
Marc:Do you ever think, like, maybe I'm heading back?
Guest:No one's gone back yet.
Guest:I was going to go up there and get into real estate.
Guest:I thought that would be the way to go and sell to all the terrified Americans that are running up there.
Guest:You don't know anyone who's gone back.
Guest:I don't see anybody going up there yet.
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:Do you have any plans?
Guest:You could do this from Vancouver.
Guest:It's very nice there.
Guest:I could do it from everywhere.
Guest:In fact, driving out here, I thought I was going to Vancouver.
Marc:Except that you don't have that weird similarity of buildings.
Marc:When I work Vancouver, I say this city looks like it was built from a kit all at once.
Marc:It's sort of new, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, the modernity in Canada.
Marc:I'm speaking French.
Marc:Yes, it's very good.
Marc:It's similar.
Marc:There's a lot of glass.
Marc:The building's all, you know, it's like one kind of angle.
Marc:You know, there's the old stuff, and then there's these things.
Guest:They don't reverse the angle, in other words.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:They don't get any reverse shots.
Marc:But did you grow up in a city?
Guest:The town I grew up in, Thunder Bay, when I was there, it was about 140,000.
Guest:It doesn't sound tiny, but it was isolated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It had its own thing.
Guest:It wasn't near anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Four hours, and you'd get to Duluth, Minnesota.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And that was basically just the same as Thunder Bay.
Guest:Yeah, you don't want to travel.
Guest:These are shipping towns.
Marc:Well, I mean, not much there.
Marc:But you didn't stay in Toronto?
Marc:How far is it from Toronto?
Guest:I was born there.
Guest:I was only there, too.
Guest:It's 1,000 miles northwest of Toronto.
Guest:So I was in Toronto to get born.
Guest:Then way up there?
Guest:Yeah, and then I went up there, yes.
Guest:My dad was from.
Guest:My dad brought my mother up there.
Guest:And my dad was a lawyer up there.
Marc:He was from there?
Guest:From there, yeah.
Marc:How did Jews make it?
Marc:It's hard to say.
Guest:I've asked and nobody remembers.
Guest:They came, my father's family came from Austria and they came through Ellis Island, you know, immigrating.
Guest:They did.
Guest:And somehow, I guess they must have heard there was Opportunity North.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they lived in West Orange, I think New Jersey for a while, then up to Canada, then back and then up again.
Guest:I don't know why, but.
Guest:What bracket was your grandfather in?
Guest:He, at the time, my dad's father had a Western Iron and Metals, you know, scrap metal company.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Shipping, putting it, loading it on these steamers.
Marc:So he went out and got scrap metal from buildings and sites.
Guest:Finding it, yeah, that's right.
Guest:Demolishing cars.
Marc:Like a little, a higher level junk man.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's what he was.
Guest:And he had a compressor thing.
Guest:You put a coal car in there and it comes out a little square.
Guest:No, I never did any of that.
Guest:I used to go visit, though.
Guest:But you'd go to the site and you'd watch him squish cars?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I remember what it was like, big piles of scrap.
Guest:The car squisher?
Marc:He had a car squisher.
Guest:Had a squisher.
Guest:Yeah, it came with a squisher.
Guest:So it was northern scrap metal, western iron and metal, it was called.
Guest:That was the family business.
Guest:And your dad didn't want to go into that?
Guest:No, he went to University of Toronto and became a lawyer and went back up there and he did all kinds of law, wills, accident cases.
Guest:Divorces?
Guest:Everything, yes, everything.
Marc:And your mom did what?
Guest:Homemaker, the hardest job in the world.
Marc:And how many siblings?
Marc:No, only child.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't you have like 12 kids?
Marc:I have two kids.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:I don't know why I thought you were one of those guys.
Guest:Yeah, no, two.
Guest:And you know, one was enough.
Guest:I thought, this is it.
Guest:How many more can you have?
Guest:My wife had three brothers, so she wanted at least one more.
Guest:You keep the one company.
Guest:I didn't get it.
Guest:I didn't get it.
Guest:As an only child, I thought, great.
Guest:Yeah, we got it.
Guest:You got all the... Were you an only child as well?
Marc:I was not.
Marc:And I'm always fascinated with only children.
Marc:I've tried to insinuate on every only child I've talked to that there must have been a lot of pressure not to die.
Guest:Well, you certainly get all the attention.
Guest:I think that's the positive way to look at it.
Guest:And you have privacy.
Guest:I loved my life.
Guest:But now that I have two, I see what my wife is talking about.
Marc:Yeah, it's better.
Marc:The older one needs to have someone to beat up on.
Marc:If no one's getting beat up, no one learns anything.
Guest:Yeah, but the younger one doesn't necessarily love me.
Marc:That can't be true.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:I just improvised that, and I realize it's a horrible way to look at life.
Guest:Yes, well, it is.
Marc:But, you know, so you were just all alone there in the house.
Marc:Let's dig to the radio.
Guest:Picking up American radio channels after dark.
Guest:We could hear the big WLS 50,000 watts AM radio from Chicagoland.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And every night they played the top three most requested songs in Chicagoland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was listening every night, you know, pretending to be a Chicagoan.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And so what kind of station was that?
Marc:R&B or was it pop music?
Guest:You know, we talk in the 50s.
Guest:Yeah, well, we're talking the 60s, you know, maybe mid-60s.
Guest:I mean, top three, most of Chris's songs.
Guest:Wonderful Summer by Robin Ward was up there for a while.
Guest:Only in America, Jay and the Americans.
Guest:So this must have been 1963.
Guest:These were the tunes that I remember.
Guest:And all the local Chicago bands that we would hear, like the Crying Shames, the Buckinghams, you know, kind of a drag.
Guest:I heard all that after dark.
Guest:It was like a lifeline.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To the US.
Marc:So it was like pop music before everything got weird.
Guest:Beatles era.
Marc:Early Beatles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were playing nothing yet.
Guest:I was taking piano lessons as a child.
Marc:You were.
Guest:Classical piano lessons.
Guest:I started at six years old.
Marc:How are you with that stuff?
Marc:Can you lay it out?
Guest:I can't anymore.
Marc:How are your sight reading skills?
Guest:No good.
Guest:No good?
Guest:But I had a great ear for music.
Guest:And I was teaching myself how to play pop music by ear.
Marc:You can ear out chords on the piano?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, and when I started, the music was very simple, you know, Wonderful Summer.
Guest:There are only three chords in there.
Guest:That's all you need.
Guest:You learn the three.
Guest:You can play everything.
Guest:I see your guitars.
Guest:You're a guitarist.
Marc:Yeah, I'm a three-chord guitarist.
Marc:I see.
Marc:I'm very good at three chords.
Guest:Well, I kind of learned along with rock and roll.
Guest:The fourth chord came in, you know, a little more R&B.
Guest:Yeah, that sixth minor chord, yeah.
Guest:Then you could play all the R&B songs.
Guest:100 Pounds of Clay was a big one for me by Gene McDaniel.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:C, A minor, F, G, you know.
Guest:Yeah, perfect.
Guest:And then a fifth chord, you know, you had to learn the three and you had to learn the two.
Marc:Then you get into Beatles territory, the fifth chord.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, yes.
Guest:And so I gradually developed my ear as the music developed.
Guest:And I cheated on my lesson.
Guest:You know, I would watch and listen to the teacher play the piece and then just regurgitate it and play it by rote, as they used to say.
Marc:Without reading it.
Guest:Yeah, just memorizing it and hearing it and watching it and playing it by rote.
Marc:But you never really connected with the classical stuff.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:But, you know, once I heard The Four Seasons...
Guest:Forget it.
Guest:I was done.
Guest:That sound.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sherry baby, big girls don't cry, walk like a man, ragdoll.
Guest:They were your guys, huh?
Guest:They were, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And when the Beatles came out, you know, initially I didn't even care.
Guest:I was still reeling from having seen the four seasons on Ed Sullivan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doing big girls don't cry.
Guest:There was something about that sound, the way they looked.
Guest:I'd never seen guys.
Guest:We didn't have guys that looked like that.
Guest:Or sounded like that.
Guest:Or sounded like that.
Guest:He was high, man.
Guest:He was high.
Guest:It was like they said, walk like a man, sing like a girl.
Guest:He could get up there, yeah, but the whole vocal sound they had was just amazing, and you heard that sound of the city, the street, you know?
Guest:Yeah, you think?
Guest:I said, get me down there.
Guest:I felt it anyway.
Marc:You felt the sound of the street in the Four Seasons?
Guest:In the Four Seasons, yeah.
Marc:You might be the only guy.
Guest:Well, maybe so.
Guest:I don't think so, though.
Guest:They were from Jersey, and, you know, metal was clinking.
Guest:It just sounded like New Yorkshire.
Marc:Well, on this new record with the World's Most Dangerous Band, you got Dion out of, you know.
Guest:How about that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, he gets so much respect, you know, from, like, interesting people.
Marc:Like, yourself, obviously, you have him on the tune.
Marc:And Lou Reed loved him.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, Springsteen loves him.
Marc:I mean, there are people that, like, I didn't really, like, I recently got some of the later Dion stuff, and I didn't realize until not too long ago sort of his struggle.
Marc:I mean, Run Around Sue, that stuff was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But then after that, like when he went through the horrible drug addiction and everything.
Guest:Yes, yeah.
Guest:But he survived, came out the other end.
Marc:But he puts out records all the time.
Marc:I didn't realize this.
Guest:Small label records, blues records.
Guest:He loves the blues and does blues records, yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, I don't think he'd mind my saying he's 75 years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the way he sings on my record is like a bird.
Guest:His vocal on this Sam Cooke obscure, he does this obscure Sam Cooke song that I had never heard before.
Guest:He chose it?
Guest:You know who chose it?
Guest:Seymour Stein.
Guest:The great record.
Guest:Seymour Sire Records.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:The guy who signed it.
Marc:Were the Ramones on Sire?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The Ramones for Talking Heads.
Guest:Seymour and I became friends over all the years of doing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction dinners together.
Guest:And he called me up after Letterman and said, you know, you want to get back in the record business.
Guest:Sign me up.
Guest:And it's on Sire.
Guest:I'm on Sire.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I'm like Madonna.
Guest:And Rhino is the parent company now?
Guest:Rhino really made it.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:They're calling it Sire.
Marc:For all time's sake.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were able to do that.
Marc:Watch that thing on Funny or Die where you revive the character from Spinal Tap.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I had fun.
Guest:And I got to say, Sire, Artie Fufkins.
Guest:Artie Fufkin.
Guest:And he kept saying, Artie Fufkin, Sire Records, how are you?
Guest:Artie Fufkin, Sire Records.
Guest:Came right back to you, didn't it?
Guest:Came right back to you.
Guest:It was hilarious, actually, the first take I forgot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That there was a voice.
Guest:And then by the end of it, I was sort of doing the voice.
Guest:And then I remember.
Guest:Let me, oh, I remember now.
Guest:And I got into it.
Guest:Kick me in the ass.
Guest:By the second time, I was kicking myself in the ass.
Yeah.
Guest:Fun to do.
Marc:And then whose song is that?
Marc:I was listening to the Jenny Lewis song.
Marc:Is that David Bowie's song?
Guest:It was one of the songs that he covered on that record called Pinups.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Whose original song is it?
Marc:The Kinks?
Marc:Whose is it?
Guest:Well, the McCoys originally.
Guest:Sorrow?
Guest:Yeah, follow up to Hang On Sloopy.
Guest:But it was covered in England by the Merseys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Also known as the Mersey Beats, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's where Bowie heard it.
Guest:What a great fucking song.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And doesn't Jenny sound beautiful on it?
Guest:Really good.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:You got Bill Murray really singing?
Guest:He sounds really good, doesn't he?
Marc:It sounds like he was in it.
Marc:He wasn't mocking it.
Guest:Spent the whole afternoon working on it and doing as many takes as we wanted.
Guest:He really wanted to get it right.
Guest:It was kind of touching for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're old, old friends since before Saturday Night Live.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:From back in the Canadian days?
Guest:Well, you know, his older brother was Brian Doyle Murray.
Guest:He's not alive anymore?
Guest:No, he is.
Guest:I don't know why I said was.
Guest:But he, because I'm thinking back, and in those early 70s, he and Joe Flaherty came up to Toronto to cast and form Second City Nightclub.
Guest:This was before SCTV.
Marc:Let's walk
Marc:Let's walk through it.
Marc:Let's walk through the Canada stuff.
Marc:So you're a kid who's listening to music and able to play it and outsmarting your piano teacher.
Marc:But when do you start working as a musician?
Guest:Went to Toronto to go to school, University of Toronto.
Guest:Graduated, degree in sociology.
Guest:How did that serve you?
Guest:Well, you know, there is something about it.
Guest:A band leader has got to work with people.
Guest:He's right in between management on one side and employees on the other.
Guest:He's got to play music with the people and also be the leader.
Guest:It's this tough little sociological experiment right there.
Marc:You've got to be diplomatic.
Guest:Yeah, so it has really.
Marc:Because there's you and then there's Buddy Rich.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And you want to find a nice medium.
Guest:Yeah, you don't want one of those tapes where you're yelling at you.
Guest:You guys are blowing clams out there.
Guest:Although I'm sure one of those exists about me.
Guest:Every band leader loses it.
Guest:Have you lost it?
Guest:At some point.
Marc:Who are you going to yell at?
Guest:Will?
Guest:I lost it one time.
Guest:One time.
Guest:When Darlene Love, the great rock and roll singer who used to come on Letterman every day, every Christmas, and do her original Christmas song from the Phil Spector Christmas album.
Guest:Well, she sang it so beautifully one day.
Guest:And then one time on the show and then sang Silent Night during the commercial gospel style.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The snow was falling.
Guest:People were crying.
Guest:And we came out and the show ended.
Guest:Good night, everybody.
Guest:And I start yelling at Darlene.
Guest:Yeah, well, it had been not Darlene, a stage manager who didn't deserve it.
Guest:But it had been a long day, a lot of things going wrong, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And something happened, and I just started right in front of the audience.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lost your shit.
Guest:Screaming at them.
Guest:Swearing at them.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then, you know, somebody wrote in to page six, well, I thought I liked Paul Schaefer until I saw this show.
Guest:He ruined Christmas.
Guest:I ruined Christmas for that whole audience.
Yeah.
Guest:But I apologized and you know, I just heard the Canadian.
Marc:I'm an asshole.
Marc:Apologized.
Marc:I heard it.
Marc:I heard it.
Marc:I heard it's in there.
Marc:Anyway, what did Dave say?
Marc:Did he talk you down?
Marc:Yeah, he said you have every right to do that.
Guest:Very supportive of me.
Guest:God love him.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Everyone's entitled.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:All right, so you're University of Toronto.
Marc:You're doing your sociology.
Guest:Yeah, when I graduated, I started playing music in town.
Guest:You know, see what happens.
Guest:Take a year.
Guest:I made a deal with my parents.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Take a year to try show business.
Guest:see what happens maybe i'll go to grad if it doesn't work out i'll go to grad so you're in toronto yeah and what are you playing where are you playing you out doing uh what they used to call casuals uh bar mitzvahs weddings by yourself or with a pickup bands you know looking there was but you were leading them you were like no no i would get about you know we need a keyboard player saturday you know i was in a band once that went on and and played at missile bases in northern quebec in the middle of winter
Guest:freezing like 30 40 below and doing covers doing whatever they had to do yes of course whatever we had to do well whatever was out yes it was covers yeah uh tom jones daughter of darkness stay out of my life my life that was were you singing i used to sing a little bit yeah games people more game people playing now
Guest:You know, I can summon it up when I have to.
Guest:I've seen you sing a couple times.
Guest:Yeah, I say.
Guest:I open my mouth.
Guest:I sing a little bit on the record, actually.
Marc:Yeah, one or two tunes, right?
Guest:Yeah, two tunes.
Guest:They made me sound pretty good.
Marc:And you're playing with the old guys.
Marc:I mean, like, geez, some of those guys you've been playing with for what, 40 years?
Guest:Well, Will Lee.
Guest:Forever.
Guest:On bass, yes, was on the very first show of Letterman in 82.
Guest:Before that, we were doing sessions together.
Guest:I met him in the recording studio.
Guest:I remember... Oh, really?
Guest:That's what you... We used to do Barry Manilow records together.
Guest:He played on all those early hits.
Guest:I played on some of them.
Marc:And he's like a very... Like, bass guys are interesting because they're so important, but they're unassuming a lot of times.
Marc:They're just kind of... That's Will.
Marc:He's just there.
Marc:I remember the guitar.
Marc:I remember...
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:The late great Hiram Ball died, you know.
Guest:My first guitarist, nobody could, I mean, he was up there with Hedrick's Hiram.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:I used to love watching him.
Marc:I remember one night Don Rickles came out and the first thing he said is, Hiram, how are you, Hiram?
Marc:You're black, I'm white, that's the breaks.
Guest:Oh, I remember.
Guest:You remember that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't get away with that stuff anymore.
Guest:No, you can't.
Guest:But he paid me such a great compliment that same show and Don Rickles.
Guest:Oh, you remember that night?
Guest:Oh, are you kidding?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:He turned to me and he said, Paul, have yourself committed.
Guest:And I was in heaven.
Guest:Don Rickles has done a line on me.
Guest:I can retire.
Guest:Let's go back to Canada.
Marc:So you're doing missile bases.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Singing Tom Jones songs.
Guest:Sometimes I used to accompany people for auditions.
Guest:20 bucks, you could come over to my house and we'd learn a song together and then I'd go and play for you at your audition.
Guest:And one girl was going to audition for an off-Broadway New York show, a 70s show called Godspell.
Guest:It was a rock musical.
Guest:In Toronto.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Toronto Company.
Guest:This is the production.
Guest:In Toronto, it was like that.
Guest:When hair hit town, everybody auditioned.
Guest:Same with Godspell.
Guest:Everybody auditioned.
Guest:I went and played for this girlfriend of mine, and Steve Schwartz was a composer, very famous now, Broadway composer.
Guest:And he said to me, can you stay and play the rest of the auditions?
Guest:Because the piano player doesn't seem to know the songs that the people want to hear.
Guest:And I knew all the...
Guest:songs you know so yes i played for the rest of the auditions and then he hired me to conduct the show after that really and then he hired all the funniest people that i thought you know who was that friend you brought to the audition uh her name was avril yeah a wonderful singer
Guest:Didn't make it.
Guest:And another girl who I was dating at the time, Virginia, Ron Setti, neither of them made it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I did.
Guest:Oh, no, Avril did get it.
Guest:Avril got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did get the job.
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:Because she sang one of the songs from the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's when Schwartz got to hear me play one of his songs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I got this job.
Guest:I never conducted or anything before.
Guest:But, you know, so here's this company, which besides Apple, who was a terrific singer, you had Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin.
Guest:For my money, the funniest of them all.
Guest:Taught them all how to be funny.
Guest:So funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gilda Radner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Victor Garber.
Guest:Victor Garber.
Guest:The straight actor, yes, who we know from Titanic.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:The guy who designed the ship.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:All these people in the same company.
Guest:And I was saying, yeah, but this is great.
Guest:But when I get to New York, man, that's when I'm going to see some talented people.
Guest:Turned out I was wrong.
Guest:These people are- Amazing.
Guest:The funniest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Still the funniest.
Marc:And Martin Short, you guys still friends?
Guest:We are still best of friends.
Guest:In fact, all of us.
Guest:We see each other all the time.
Guest:It seems like you Canadians are good at that.
Guest:We are, some of us are loyal.
Guest:Marty sure is a very loyal friend.
Marc:I gotta get him in here.
Marc:He's like, you know, after talking to Eugene, it was great.
Marc:You know, I just realized, like, why have I not talked to him?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But, all right, so, but, like, are you, like, before you do this...
Marc:You're actually getting experience, but was there ever this sort of idea that, you know, when you were doing these pickup gigs and that you were going to be, did you play jazz?
Marc:Did you have any other ideas for yourself?
Guest:I thought I would be in a rock band, you know?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I can't, you know, my singing was even worse than it is now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I thought, you know, but I got to be in a band.
Guest:Somebody else will sing and maybe, you know, and that's all I thought for myself.
Guest:But I was playing lounges and stuff, you know, and auditions.
Marc:You could riff.
Marc:Like I know you can now.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then I started to, you know what happened?
Guest:When I was in first year, I'd given up my high school rock band, first year of college, trying to settle down, become an academic, got depressed as hell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Had to sleep all day long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Started playing a little avant-garde jazz in second year.
Guest:I apprenticed with a guy with whom I still play.
Guest:His name is Munoz, to C.G.
Guest:Munoz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A cosmically oriented avant-garde guitar.
Marc:Like Sun Ra kind of?
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Out there.
Marc:And Coltrane.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Taught me everything I know about that style of music.
Guest:Enabled me to play with people like Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie later when they would come on Letterman.
Guest:Still play with this guy.
Guest:And I cheered up when I started playing with him and I said, well, I got to do music.
Guest:It's obvious.
Marc:So that's interesting.
Marc:So you were in a rock band in high school doing, you know, playing what?
Guest:Covers, Rascals.
Marc:What were you playing?
Marc:A Rhodes?
Guest:I was playing a Hohner.
Guest:I started with a Hohner electronic organ, about three and a half octaves, you know, on legs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sort of like the organ you'd see all the English bands using, but couldn't afford that one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was the Vox.
Guest:And then I graduated to a big Yamaha organ, still on legs, you know, the kind that you could put in a case and slide into the back of your Pontiac, which is my parents' car that I used to drive to the gigs.
Marc:So the rock band, you're just doing covers, Beatles and stuff?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:We had no aspirations to do original material or anything, but it was still a great outlet.
Marc:So how'd you hook up with this guy?
Marc:How do you pronounce his name?
Marc:Munoz.
Marc:So the second year, you're depressed.
Marc:You're trying to do the right thing.
Guest:In the summer between first and second year, I stayed in Toronto.
Guest:I'm playing in a band.
Guest:making more money than I would have made working for Canada Car or something back if I'd gone home.
Guest:Playing and staying up all night, coming home about 6 a.m., walking through the village.
Guest:They had their own kind of Greenwich Village up there called Yorkville.
Guest:And a guy is sitting down on the step of a deli playing guitar, and I walk three paces, and then I turn around, immediately go back, and I'm zero in on him like a magnet because he was playing stuff that was fascinating, and I had no idea what he was doing.
Guest:On an acoustic guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, what are you on an acoustic?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is that stuff?
Guest:And he basically said, well, I'll show you.
Guest:I mean, are you a player?
Guest:I said, well, I play a piano, but I don't know what.
Guest:He says, well, you have a piano now.
Guest:I said, well, you know, there's a practice hall over at the university.
Guest:So let's go.
Guest:And like 7, 8 a.m.
Guest:we're over there and he starts showing me stuff right away.
Guest:And I started apprenticing with him right away.
Marc:And what was the key to that stuff?
Guest:uh well first he started me on jazz standards yeah like my parents music yeah that i knew but couldn't figure out those chords right bigger chords right a little more flattered he knew piano or he just he just knew musical theory right and he could play it for me on the guitar and i could figure it out figure it out on the piano yeah and then he said okay now we forget all those chords
Guest:Now we just play one chord and just see what happens.
Guest:And little by little, he just taught me the principles behind that kind of playing.
Marc:Of improvisation.
Guest:Atonal stuff.
Marc:And did you guys play together out?
Marc:We used to play, yeah, sometimes just a duo.
Guest:Well, we'd play at a little restaurant or play like a community hall and stuff.
Guest:It was hippie era, you know, girls in long flower skirts, dancing and stuff with flowers.
Marc:Just the two of you, though.
Guest:Yes, and then sometimes we would have a rhythm section too, but it was a learning, really strong learning experience.
Marc:And that paid off, so like when you had to play with someone like Miles early on, towards the end of his life, I imagine.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I could do it, exactly.
Marc:You could lock in, you're like, I know what he's doing.
Guest:Well, not exactly, but he gave me some amazing lessons too, Miles, when I got to play with him.
Guest:What'd he say?
Guest:Well, you know... Yeah, you know, I...
Guest:The thing I did with him was a part of a Bill Murray movie called Scrooge.
Guest:Billy telling a Christmas Carol story, playing a TV exec or something.
Guest:And there's a minute when he's walking down the street and he walks by a group of street musicians.
Guest:But the street musicians are Miles and Dave Sandborn and me and Larry Carlton.
Guest:And it lasts only about six seconds, the shot.
Guest:But we got to record a whole six-minute version of We Three Kings of Orienar with Miles arranging and showing us all how to play sort of like him.
Guest:And I was playing the bass.
Guest:He kept coming over and encouraging me.
Guest:Even singing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:You know what I'm talking about?
Guest:I want to be, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:And finally he came over, and this will make sense to you as a musician.
Guest:He said...
Guest:Don't play the root.
Guest:What?
Guest:Don't play the root.
Guest:In other words, we're in the key of C. Never play a C. Play around it.
Guest:Hint at it.
Guest:Imply it.
Guest:Don't play it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And when I started doing that, it floated the whole thing and it all of a sudden sounded like Bitches Brew or something.
Guest:You got it.
Guest:That was one of the keys.
Guest:You understood what he meant.
Guest:Don't play the root.
Guest:How do you play around it?
Guest:I haven't played a root since.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, that's not true.
Guest:How do you play around the root?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:You sound like you're going, you play five, you know, and usually in music, five goes to one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like an... So you play that five, you know, and everybody thinks you're going to go to the root, but you don't.
Guest:You know, you go to the sharp one and not the one and all these kind of things.
Guest:This is what I learned from Miles.
Guest:It was a million dollar music lesson.
Guest:Yeah, I bet.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to Crosby in here once, David.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he said that Miles had told him that he covered Guinevere, and he listened to it, and he said, that's not Guinevere.
Marc:And I tracked it down.
Marc:I think it's in the Bitches Brew sessions.
Marc:I don't know if it made the record, but I could hear Guinevere.
Marc:And it makes sense what you're saying.
Guest:So you can hear it, and David Cosby can't hear it.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know why.
Guest:No idea why, no.
Marc:No, I mean, it's his song.
Marc:I guess you're a little more attached to it.
Marc:And if you're going, if you're playing around the root and you wrote the song, you're probably saying like, that ain't the song.
Marc:Play the root.
Marc:Yeah, Miles, play the root.
Guest:Play the root.
Marc:Play the root.
Guest:That's what he's saying.
Marc:So you got all these chops from this dude.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It taught me a lot, not about rock and roll, but just about expanding one's horizons beyond rock and roll.
Marc:And so that gives you a certain fearlessness.
Guest:Helped me out later on when I started getting these opportunities to play with jazz people and people from, say, the previous generation.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And so when Schwartz gives you this gig... Yeah.
Marc:To do Godspell.
Marc:It was Godspell, right?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you'd never really led an orchestra.
Marc:What did you have to do?
Marc:What was the job?
Guest:Yes, lead it.
Guest:But luckily, it was a four-piece band.
Guest:It was a four-piece rock band.
Guest:It's a rock thing.
Guest:Yeah, it's a rock show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was perfect.
Guest:And the piano, very heavily piano-based, like Elton John kind of stuff, and Lauren Nero, you know.
Guest:Steve Schwartz wrote with that in mind.
Guest:So I had to just play that stuff.
Guest:And really, the drummer was the conductor.
Guest:You know, as in a lot of rock bands, everybody turns to look at the drummer for the last chord.
Guest:You know, a lot was kind of happening in Godspell, too.
Guest:So I didn't have to conduct, which I had no idea how to do anyway.
Guest:Drummer was kind of conducting, and we all...
Guest:made it work that way and we were a little rock band it took me a long time to appreciate drummers for the full of what they deserve you know they are everything you know if the drums make you dance then you're going to dance and if the drums aren't groovy right you throw the whole thing out like the cats who like you got to be able to swing right you do i mean it sounds like a cliche but there is something to some dudes can't swing groove whatever you want to call it whatever it is this that's what makes you want to dance
Marc:I had this weird thing with the reissue of Get Your Ya-Yas Out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Where I didn't, because I've been a Stones fan all my life, but something about that reissue brought Bill and Charlie up.
Marc:And I'm like, holy shit, this whole thing would fall apart.
Marc:There's nothing holding them together but those two guys.
Guest:They knew even then they knew that that was their function.
Guest:Hold it together, play together.
Guest:And that way anybody can do anything they want on the top of it.
Guest:But yes, it's all in the drums.
Guest:And that's why they all bow down to Charlie Watts at the end.
Guest:You know, they give him the salam, especially at his age.
Guest:The other thing people don't understand, every song and every rock and roll song for the drummer is like running a mile.
Right.
Marc:It's so physical.
Marc:I don't know how they do it.
Marc:I don't know how they keep time.
Marc:Well, I don't either, but they got to be in shape.
Marc:Because who was the first guy?
Marc:Was Jordan the first guy?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then Anton.
Guest:Steve Jordan.
Marc:Steve Jordan, he's like a miracle guy.
Guest:Now he's a huge record producer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fabulous.
Guest:I mean, he produced the Keith Richards album.
Guest:Solo stuff.
Guest:The last one.
Marc:Did you listen to that blues record they just made?
Marc:It's pretty good.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:It's really good.
Marc:It is, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Are you friends with Don Woz?
Guest:A little bit, yeah.
Guest:I know him from when he used to come on Letterman with Woz Not Woz.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, God, yeah.
Guest:And now he's the hugest, too.
Guest:Yeah, he's big, too.
Guest:He's wonderful.
Marc:Everyone's big.
Marc:You're huge.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm here with you, Mark.
Guest:So that's why I'm sitting in the stairs.
Marc:Did Keith Richards sit right here?
Marc:No, Obama sat there.
Guest:Obama sat here?
Guest:Are you kidding?
Marc:I was in New York with Keith Richards.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:So you want to talk about who's big.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He was a hell of a band leader, Obama.
Marc:Oh, well, he could sing.
Marc:Turned out he could sing.
Marc:Yeah, he's all right.
Marc:But all right, so now you do Godspell.
Marc:So how do you get involved with the funny people?
Guest:Where, you know, after that, so do you, are you- We were all, it was all our first professional job.
Guest:You know, Eugene was about 24 or five.
Guest:Marty and I, 22.
Guest:You know, Gilbert, maybe around the same as Eugene.
Guest:It was all our first real- But Gilda wasn't Canadian, right?
Guest:She was dating somebody.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:She was from Detroit, and she followed her boyfriend up to Canada, and then she became a landed immigrant up there, got her legal status, and she was staying there until they brought her back.
Guest:They pulled her back down here to do- Right.
Marc:Well, how did that unfold for you?
Marc:What was your next gig after that?
Guest:I was doing Godspell.
Guest:I did it for a year.
Guest:We all hung out incessantly.
Guest:We became very close friends, talked about the show and show business.
Guest:incessantly nonstop.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was so influenced by all these people and their personalities.
Marc:And they're just coming up themselves.
Guest:And they just seem to be having more fun with their lives than I was.
Guest:And so I thought, let me become a little more like them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure enough, you know, there are more laughs to be had when you have that attitude towards life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they were very influential.
Guest:And how did the SNL gig?
Guest:Well, the next thing that happened was Stephen Schwartz said, I want you to come to New York.
Guest:After I did his show up there for a year.
Guest:Come to New York.
Guest:I'm doing a show with Doug Henning, the magician, called The Magic Show.
Guest:I saw that show.
Guest:You saw it.
Guest:Well, you probably heard me on it.
Guest:When I was a kid, I saw it.
Guest:Yeah, imagine that.
Marc:Yeah, and Eugene Levy brought it up.
Marc:I had no idea he was Canadian.
Marc:I had no idea that Schwartz was involved with it, but I remember going with my grandmother to see that, yeah, that weird little hippie guy.
Guest:I heard you guys talking about Doug, yes.
Guest:He was a hippie magician, and it was so interesting because he didn't wear the top hat and tails.
Guest:He's like a tie-dye shirt, I think.
Guest:Kind of one of us, yeah, and cute with long hair.
Guest:Is he alive still?
Guest:No, poor guy, yeah, died.
Guest:Became a follower of the Maharishi.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:As so many did.
Guest:Yes, and then I think he got sick, and he thought maybe he could heal himself through meditation, and what he really needed was some medicine.
Guest:Yeah, go to the doctor.
Guest:Poor guy.
Guest:Anyway, so I came, but Schwartz brought me into the States, and I played in the pit in the magic show with Doug, and I learned all his tricks.
Guest:I watched every night from behind, and I had to sign a...
Guest:uh you know a confidentiality yeah yeah you won't tell yeah the tricks but i must say you know doug uh well he's very hot he was a broadway star yeah so there was a lot he did pretty well as a single guy he got around a little bit yeah and one person that he had one date with was gilda uh-huh gilda radner yeah took her out yeah uh didn't call her afterwards oh she was so upset and you know talking to me doug didn't call me and i got so mad
Guest:that I sat her down and I told her every trick, how every trick was done.
Guest:You know, these are the secrets.
Guest:He's a cop man.
Marc:He's not really magic.
Marc:It's an illusion.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So from there, like, did you meet musicians there?
Marc:Like, you know, I mean, like, how did, like, okay, so you do the magic show for how long?
Guest:I did it a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And at the end of that, Howard Shore was the name of Lorne Michaels' band leader who came down from, also Canadian, came down to be the musical director of Saturday Night Live.
Guest:At the very beginning.
Guest:Yeah, 75.
Marc:So when did Bill Murray fall into place?
Marc:You had met Bill?
Guest:Oh, when I got to New York while playing the magic show, I loved the National Lampoon records that came out.
Guest:I remember so clearly this one.
Marc:National Lampoon.
Guest:radio show yeah they had a radio hour and then they put out comedy albums too right the lemmings and yes there was one where there was a sketch chris guest as bob dylan yeah selling on a tv ad greatest protest hits of the 60s yeah you know yeah being so commercial plus if you order now you get my own masters of war call now you know but it's dylan yeah and i thought boy that's funny that's what i want to do and
Guest:Billy's older brother, Brian, who I mentioned earlier, he introduced me around right away when I got to New York to some National Lampoon people.
Guest:That was his scene.
Guest:I met Chris, and I met Billy, his younger brother.
Guest:He said, you've got to meet my brother.
Guest:You guys have the same kind of a...
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sense of humor, you know?
Guest:So before long, I was doing stuff for the Lampoon, and Billy and I did a song together, actually, for their Christmas show, which was called Kung Fu Christmas.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:As you remember, in the early 70s, Rhythm and Bruce was- Everybody was Kung Fu.
Guest:Everybody was about Kung Fu.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No matter what they- Yeah.
Guest:R&B was Kung Fu.
Guest:So we said, what if there was an R&B record called Kung Fu Christmas?
Guest:And Billy sang it.
Guest:We worked on it together.
Guest:Gilda was one of the writers, Brian, too.
Marc:For National Wampoon Radio Hour?
Guest:Yeah, Radio Hour.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you're part of that cruise.
Marc:Chevy was there too, right?
Guest:Yes, although I didn't meet Chevy yet.
Guest:He had been in Lemmings, but then I guess he moved to the coast right after that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I didn't meet him.
Guest:And then what, Belushi?
Guest:Belushi was one of the first guys I met in Toronto.
Guest:Doug Kenney, the legendary Doug Kenney.
Guest:I was at Belushi's house and Kenney was trying to sell Belushi, I think, on the idea of doing a live show.
Marc:For the National Lampoon.
Guest:Yeah, which they ended up doing in a Midtown theater.
Marc:All right, so you're doing the National Lampoon radio right now.
Marc:Howard Shore is the musical director for the beginning of SNL when it was like a variety show more than anything else.
Guest:Well, certainly there were two musical guests instead of just one.
Guest:And they each did two songs, I think.
Guest:The first musical guest was Janice Ian, doing it at 17, and then Billy Preston.
Guest:Doing nothing from nothing?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And I sneaked around during a break and looked at his organ and saw...
Guest:how he had it set up yeah and i said ah you know and i learned a few things you like the way he plays stuff oh he was a big big influence i had some of these early instrumental album organ instrumentals produced by sly stone up in san francisco oh yeah i used to put him on slow him down trying to figure out what he did really listen to that sound how does that sound so you're hanging around you're watching billy preston how do you get the gig
Guest:Howard just hired me.
Guest:I had played a show with him in Toronto and he just liked me.
Guest:He knew I was in town already.
Guest:He hired me and I left the magic show.
Guest:He's Canadian too?
Guest:Yes, he is.
Guest:Now he's a huge movie writer, movie scorer.
Guest:Howard hired me for the band and then, you know, but I already knew Gilda and I knew Belushi.
Guest:I knew Aykroyd and stuff.
Guest:It's very natural for me to start working with them.
Marc:Well, I picture you hanging out with those guys as the laughing guy.
Marc:Were you the one laughing?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Laughing and remembering what people said.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Sometime repeating it to myself just to lock it in.
Guest:You were the laughing guy.
Guest:Just so I'd remember it later.
Guest:And also, I'd get a second laugh on their line by just repeating there.
Marc:But did they ever come up to you like, Paul, you remember that thing we were doing?
Guest:Sometimes they do.
Guest:Or sometimes I will just remember that and they'll say, that's funny.
Guest:I said, well, you should be.
Guest:You said it.
Guest:What?
Guest:You said it in 1974.
Guest:I do have a crazy memory like that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we started, you know, in those days, Lorne used to have a Wednesday afternoon in a rehearsal studio just to kind of toss things around, like maybe come up with ideas, maybe come up with musical ideas.
Guest:We were like a big...
Guest:Second City Rep Company when we first, and I was the piano player.
Guest:So I started developing stuff with them and writing stuff with them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, I remember there was a lot of musical numbers throughout the years on SNL when you were there.
Guest:Yes, and we would just start.
Guest:I mean, the show wasn't locked into a format.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Two musical guests, you know, and then it went down to one.
Marc:Who was the crew?
Marc:The original Not Ready for Primetime Players?
Guest:Yes, so it was Chevy and Belushi and Aykroyd and Garrett.
Guest:And then we had Jane Curtin, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I think that was it.
Marc:That was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Chevy left sometime in the second season, and Billy came in really as his replacement.
Marc:But in that first crew, when you guys are just trying to figure out what the show is and working this stuff out, who was the most...
Marc:Like, you know, consistently surprising, like funny, like just where you're like, holy shit, that guy or that woman.
Guest:They all were.
Guest:They all were.
Guest:And it was so competitive.
Marc:It was.
Marc:From the beginning.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And they'll admit it now.
Guest:There's only so much camera time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Everybody wanted to get on that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Lauren sort of ran it almost like a T group therapy or something.
Guest:You know, whatever happens out of the group, he'll support it.
Guest:You know, so relationships got formed almost like Survivor.
Guest:What do they call it?
Guest:alliance people formed alliances yeah right all kinds right from the beginning writers you know performers would have to form an alliance with a writer so that they had somebody to write that was that was going on right at the beginning yes stay up all night you know writing something was franken there then yes franken was very right original right and and and sometimes refers to a party of it he had at his house before snl went on the air to watch the howard cosell his show was called saturday night live uh-huh
Guest:And we got together at Frank and I was there, you know, at that historic party as we watched Howard Cosell.
Guest:And he had a rep company too with Billy and Brian Murray and Chris Guest.
Guest:That was his rep company.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, he did not.
Guest:Yes, he had like a rep company that would come back.
Guest:Yeah, he was going to be like the new Ed Sullivan.
Guest:He was doing his show out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, same year, 75, same year as Saturday Night.
Guest:And his show was called Saturday Night Live, and it was in primetime.
Guest:And his rep company was called the Primetime Players.
Guest:And that's why Lorne called his, they're not ready for primetime players.
Guest:Howard Cosell.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:How long did that last?
Guest:Not very long.
Guest:Didn't last very long.
Guest:And that's why, you know, then we got to call our show Saturday Night Live.
Marc:So who were the writers?
Marc:It was Franken and Davis?
Marc:Franken and Davis.
Marc:And then what's his name?
Guest:Trying to think of the writers.
Guest:Michael O'Donohue, of course.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the other guy, Schweibel.
Guest:Alan Schweibel, yeah, who formed an alliance with Gilda and wrote a lot of her stuff at that.
Guest:Marilyn Suzanne Miller of the women.
Guest:Rosie Schuster.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Anne Beetz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those were some of those original writers.
Guest:O'Donohue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, Donahue.
Guest:Jim Downey came in a little bit later.
Marc:Yeah, but Michael was a trip, huh?
Guest:Well, he had his own thing, certainly.
Guest:I mean, he was a sweetheart of a guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But of course, his writing style was on a macabre side.
Marc:Out there.
Guest:For sure.
Marc:Yeah, but they found its place.
Guest:We all got to know and love him and appreciate his humor, for sure.
Guest:And it was certainly the dangerous part of SNL.
Guest:A lot of that came from Michael O'Donohue.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Died young, too, huh?
Marc:Too young.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when did the band become its own thing?
Guest:On SNL?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, when does your band become its own thing?
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:Well, I mean, like, you know, like, I'm trying to remember the first season.
Marc:And I remember you.
Marc:But, you know, it's certainly that band, like, coming in and out of commercial and then, like, the different manifestations of it.
Marc:But your band, you know, which was the band who...
Marc:Went on to back the Blues Brothers on that record, right?
Guest:Well, no, we picked some people out of it.
Guest:We poached Steve Jordan and some of the horn players from SNL Live, but then we got them from all other places.
Guest:But who was in the original?
Marc:Legit guys.
Marc:You weren't originally the music director.
Guest:No, Howard was, and I was the piano player.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:I used to, unabashedly, I was such a big Elton John fan.
Marc:I know, you wore those glasses.
Guest:I wore those big white glasses.
Yeah.
Guest:Just as a tribute to him.
Guest:And I didn't care, which is his trademark.
Guest:Why do you wear it?
Guest:Well, because I love him.
Guest:Somehow it worked for me too.
Guest:If there was a shot of the band, you'd see those big white gloves.
Marc:I thought you were in charge.
Marc:I always thought you were in charge.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But well, Howard didn't feel comfortable being like Stan Kenton standing in front of a band conducting.
Guest:He wanted to get off stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One time he tried having a desk on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You guys will be playing and I'll be kind of sitting at a desk.
Guest:You know, anything that he wouldn't have to be an old-fashioned kind of band leader.
Guest:So, you know, it kind of felt him.
Guest:I became sort of a little bit more seen on this thing.
Guest:And I think it was a gradual thing.
Guest:Well, when Lily Tomlin did show number six and sang St.
Guest:James Infirmary.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we all dressed up.
Guest:Howard and his band dressed up as nurses.
Guest:We had to wear nurses outfits.
Guest:I remember that, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, that may have been, you know, the first time the band got some serious exposure.
Guest:And I learned that pantyhose can ride up.
Marc:It's an important show business lesson.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Almost as important as the Miles advice.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Don't play the root.
Guest:Don't wear a hose in a bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So how long were you, did you eventually become the musical director?
Guest:No, I... Never was.
Guest:Howard was for the whole five years that I was there, yeah.
Guest:But I was a writer of special musical material, and then I started performing a little bit.
Marc:Now, what's this story about you had the fuck?
Marc:You said the fuck?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I was the first guy to say fuck on live TV.
Guest:And I'm not proud of it, but it was a legitimate mistake.
Guest:I did not do it on purpose like some others have been accused of doing.
Guest:We were doing, I think this was the fifth season.
Guest:Did you ever hear the Trogs tape?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's one of those underground Buddy Rich kind of tapes where you hear the Trogs in the studio trying to follow up their big hit Wild Thing, but they have no way to communicate musically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They don't know how to get an arrangement together.
Guest:So they kept saying, you had the fucking bait, you were playing the fucking, you had it before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we transcribed, Franklin Davis actually transcribed it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Reframed it as a medieval band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh, rehearsing, uh, Belushi in a guest appearance.
Guest:He had left the show, but came back as a guest and we were rehearsing as a medieval band.
Guest:I was acting in it, but playing, but saying the lines of the troggs.
Guest:But since it was television, instead of saying, fuck, we were saying flog.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You flow.
Guest:You had the flogging beat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember Frank and in between, after the dress rehearsal came out to me, he said, you're getting some good laughs at that flogging.
Guest:Be, feel free to expand, add a few more if you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's all I needed to hear.
Guest:I was on my own.
Guest:I was saying flogging this, flogging that.
Guest:And then once I said the fucking beat and I just slipped and I said, oh my God.
Guest:And then you, I've seen the tape.
Guest:You see my head turned to the side.
Guest:I'm going, oh my God.
Guest:And then, oh my, where are we in this scene?
Guest:I come back, you know, where are the cards?
Guest:I didn't know what to, I thought, this is it for me.
Guest:I've had it.
Marc:Was it on a delay then or no?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:So it played, it went out there, but you know what?
Guest:We were doing English accents and bad ones at that.
Guest:People didn't even, I think people didn't notice.
Guest:Most people didn't even notice.
Guest:Did Lorne?
Guest:Lorne did, and he came over and he said, well, you just broke down the last barrier.
Guest:And he was very sweet about it because he knew that it was really a mistake.
Guest:It wasn't.
Guest:I wasn't just trying to close a flare up and say fuck for the course.
Guest:But that is, yes, my claim to fame.
Marc:And what was your relationship with Lauren over the years?
Marc:Good?
Guest:Always terrific.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I've got to say, I was Howard's piano player, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Came aboard under, though, not even working directly for Lorne.
Guest:Right, so you're once removed.
Guest:But he was always so generous.
Guest:I mean, he'd be in, you know, late at night.
Guest:We're there all night because none of us had girlfriends or anything else to do.
Guest:And Lorne would be in his office with Chevy and Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall.
Guest:Paul, come on in.
Guest:We're just running a few, you know, what do you think about this?
Guest:And I'm the piano player from Canada.
Guest:What do you think about this?
Guest:This funny?
Guest:This Lorne, you know, I don't know why, but he was so very equinonymous at that time.
Marc:And also you're a fellow Canadian.
Guest:Maybe that had something to do with it.
Guest:And you're probably a good laugher.
Guest:He was very, perhaps.
Marc:He trusted your judgment.
Guest:He liked to hear a good laugh.
Guest:And so he really did from the very beginning.
Guest:He included me in the creative team.
Guest:And I'll always be so grateful to that.
Guest:I had a lot of wonderful experiences.
Guest:Is he in your phone?
Guest:Lauren is not in my phone, but his email is in my phone.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I could email him right now.
Guest:Let's email him, see if he responds.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So you do, you do SNL for five years and like the blues, like what was it?
Marc:Like Belushi, like, was he like a, like what kind of guy was he?
Guest:Was he a nice guy?
Guest:Yes, he was a very nice guy.
Guest:with immense appetites.
Guest:We've all, you know, everybody knows.
Guest:Very diplomatic way of putting things.
Guest:And, well, it was just one of those things, you know.
Marc:At that time, I guess, you know, there was a lot of it going around and some people, you know.
Guest:Nobody knew that anybody was going to die.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:And then he died from it.
Guest:But he had gone pretty far with it.
Marc:Yeah, no, yeah.
Guest:Never sleeping and stuff.
Guest:And so when we would all, you know, write that show and work on bits and then go back to sleep, he'd go out.
Guest:You know, that's when he would just come alive.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He always operated at that level of energy.
Guest:Full on.
Marc:Full on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He kind of like there's something about that type, the way he did comedy, you know, sort of made such an impression on so many generations of guys, a lot of heavy guys for some reason.
Yeah.
Guest:That's sort of like all in all the time.
Guest:And no matter what kind of shape he was in when he rolled in on Saturday, you could depend on him to kill.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a dependable performer.
Guest:So a writer, you know, if there was a sketch, you knew he was going to deliver.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No matter what kind of shape he was hung over or whatever he was, you know, and he always did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always did.
Marc:So how does the shift to like, how do you get the Letterman gig?
Marc:Because it was in the building?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, sort of.
Guest:I left Saturday Night Live with everybody else, the whole original company.
Guest:And Lauren, everybody left after five years.
Guest:And I couldn't see sticking around any longer.
Guest:And I was so young that I was thinking, hey, I'm just getting started.
Guest:What's next?
Marc:And also you're learning now how to play with people, performers that come in, right?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:That's the first experience of that.
Guest:Yes, and also doing a little studio work, which I really wanted to do, a studio piano player.
Guest:And you did a lot of that?
Guest:Getting a little of that and being on Saturday Night Live gave me exposure in that area too.
Guest:Let's call that piano player.
Guest:I heard him, he can do such and such.
Guest:Who'd you play with?
Guest:Everybody?
Guest:Yeah, a long time.
Guest:I made a record with John Mayall.
Guest:Oh, John Mayall.
Guest:I talked to him.
Guest:He's been in here.
Guest:I don't know why his name came to mind, but all these different things.
Guest:Joan Armitrading, the great British artist.
Guest:I made a record with her.
Guest:I can't even remember a lot.
Guest:I did a Yoko Ono.
Guest:I did some sessions for her.
Guest:You did?
Guest:How was that?
Marc:She was remarkably together in the studio.
Marc:Did that improvisational stuff come in handy for her?
Guest:Well, of course you had to be on her level.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But some of the things, I mean, I think I played on a record called Walking on Thin Ice.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:One of her well-known records.
Marc:Did you meet John?
Guest:Never got to meet John.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I met the other three Beatles and never got to meet.
Guest:I got close to John when he was, there was a period of time when he couldn't get into the U.S.
Guest:because of prior drug conviction.
Guest:I mean, he was doing a lot of stuff.
Guest:Nixon shut him out.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, and he was doing a lot of stuff in Toronto and Montreal for that reason.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to a press conference once when he was announcing you were going to have a big peace festival.
Guest:And that was like as close as I ever got to John Lennon, but just it was momentous.
Marc:Well, I remember in that first five years of SNL, there was this constant idea that Lorne was going to bring the Beatles back together, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, of course he had that funny sketch where he was offering them $3,000 for the four of them.
Guest:And he would say, I don't know how you want to split it up.
Guest:You want to give Ringo less?
Guest:Whatever you guys want, but here is the check.
Guest:And that was a running bit, very funny.
Guest:And then we've all heard the story about how Lennon and McCartney, who weren't on such great terms, but somehow they were visiting, they were together that night.
Guest:And they saw it and they said, we should go down.
Guest:We should go right down.
Guest:It's only a couple of blocks away.
Guest:And then they both realized they were too tired.
Guest:George Harrison showed up, right?
Guest:Harrison did it one of the shows that I missed.
Guest:I was out here doing something, and I remember watching it.
Guest:Yes, Harrison and Paul Simon sang, a duet, Here Comes the Sun.
Marc:But I think that was pre-taped.
Marc:I was so excited about it.
Marc:I was always so excited to watch SNL because I was a kid.
Marc:I was just kind of 13 or 14.
Marc:So staying up for it, my parents letting me stay up for it, it felt like really kind of racy stuff.
Guest:I think it's the same today.
Guest:I think they're still having that effect and kids still want to see it.
Marc:Well, now it's become very relevant and very, you know, they've really got their teeth sunk in.
Guest:They sure do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's incredible.
Marc:It's better than it's been in a long time.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Guest:They've got a great cast going.
Marc:So, all right, so Letterman, what, you run into him in the hall?
Guest:Yeah, so, no, two years went by and I'm doing studio work and I just got a call from his manager's office.
Guest:He's getting a show.
Guest:It's going to come on after Johnny Carson.
Guest:Come in and meet him.
Guest:And I went in and just had a cold meeting, just like this.
Guest:And we kind of hit it off.
Guest:And he said, I used to see you on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:He had mentioned the Bill Murray things when Billy would do the lounge singer.
Guest:Yeah, he loves Bill Murray, right?
Guest:Yes, he loves Bill and still does.
Guest:And he remembered that Bill Murray lounge singer stuff when he was Nick Winters and Nick Springs.
Guest:And I would always be in the scene playing the piano.
Guest:And I would help put those together, too, with a number of other writers.
Guest:And he mentioned that.
Guest:And he claims to this day that he never had anybody else in mind, wanted me for the job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, we hit it off.
Guest:He said, what kind of band would you put together?
Guest:I said, well, you know, I can only have four pieces.
Guest:That was kind of the rule.
Guest:I'd love to have an R&B band playing the great R&B classics instrumentally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, well, I've always thought of myself as the Wayne Cochran of comedy anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, what an obscure reference.
Guest:What is, who's that?
Guest:Wayne Cocken was a regional guy in Miami, had one hit going back to Miami, and he was known as the White James Brown, because he did a James Brown kind of act, sang that way.
Guest:And he had totally white hair, teased up into a huge pompadour bouffant.
Guest:Jaco played with him.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I saw that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw it in Toronto.
Guest:Wayne Cocken with Jaco Pastorius on bass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never got it.
Guest:It was the strongest thing I ever saw.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:Incredible.
Guest:So that was... And I think they took Jaco to the hospital after that, I remember.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You know, he knocked himself out on that bass guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he felt collapse from exhaustion.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:That's how heavy they were.
Guest:Well, that's how he... And he had like 10 horns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who came through the audience at the beginning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was so exciting.
Guest:He didn't have a great vocal instrument, but...
Guest:He had a lot of soul.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you only wanted four?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:And I've read this.
Guest:I think it's probably true.
Guest:There were certain laws laid down by Johnny Carson, who, of course, controlled that time slot that was going to follow him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, no, I don't want, you know, you can't be doing the same show.
Guest:You can't have the same guests that I have.
Guest:You can't do a monologue like I do.
Guest:That's why Dave used to only do about three jokes at the top and then go back and that was the reason.
Guest:And you can't have a big band like I have.
Guest:You can't have four.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, this is perfect for me because I came up, you know, in Canada playing in these little rock bands.
Guest:I know how to do four.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Great.
Guest:You know, let me at it.
Marc:So you had Jordan and Hiram.
Guest:Yes, and Will.
Guest:Yeah, and me.
Guest:That was it, the four of us.
Guest:And we could really turn on a dime.
Guest:We could play anything.
Guest:We knew all the styles.
Guest:You know, we could play for anybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a terrific little unit that we had.
Guest:And I hired guys who knew all... Because even though these guys were like jazz players and very accomplished studio, they still loved the same rock and roll as I loved.
Guest:They just didn't necessarily admit it.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:And I got them playing Satisfaction, and we're going to do good loving and stuff.
Guest:And everybody started to...
Guest:Well, it's kind of funny.
Guest:You play these records right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there really is something to them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we weren't just playing satisfaction.
Guest:We were really seeing what is great about it.
Guest:Well, the way the bass moves against the guitar is so cool.
Guest:It makes a different.
Marc:So you made it challenging and exciting.
Guest:And we just tried to do it right for the first time.
Guest:People noticed, you know, that it sounded kind of like the record.
Guest:We'd play these intros and it sounded like the record.
Guest:And then before, the vocalists were supposed to come in and there was no vocal.
Guest:We'd just play an instrument.
Guest:We'd already be in commercials.
Guest:So people would be saying,
Guest:Wow, what am I missing?
Guest:What am I missing?
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:Did you keep playing?
Guest:Yeah, we played all the way through.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got that from Saturday Night Live.
Guest:You know, we were live.
Guest:You go on break and you got to entertain.
Guest:And there's a live band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said to me at the beginning of Letterman, you know, and of course you'll record the theme and we'll play the recording every night.
Guest:And I said, wait a minute.
Guest:Well, I'm not going to record.
Guest:It's live.
Guest:We're trying to make it like it's live.
Guest:Even though we're going to tape it in the afternoon, we got to play live.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, I won that battle at least and we played the theme live every night.
Marc:Well, it was always great to see you guys on The Letterman Show, the first one, and then the second one, too.
Marc:But because you're always nailing the songs perfect, and then the rapport starts.
Marc:You somehow develop this strange rapport with Dave that remained pretty consistent through however many years you were with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Sometimes you seem like you might not have heard what he said.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and sometimes I didn't.
Guest:I'm a little deaf, you know, after all these years of rock and roll.
Guest:But also, it would take me a little time.
Guest:I mean, I'm not a comic, you know.
Guest:But that was the funniest thing about it.
Guest:Sometimes it would take me a minute to think of what to say, but then I'd come back and say, you know, wait, bring the camera back.
Guest:I thought of something.
Guest:Come back, come back.
Guest:That became the funny part about you two.
Guest:Is that like your weird stilted timing because you weren't right on the...
Guest:Well, thank you for complimenting my weird stilted timing, but whatever it was.
Guest:But then sometimes you just nail it.
Marc:And it almost sometimes, Dave, it was just a funny rapport.
Guest:It's every night, you know, different every night.
Guest:But he was so generous, really, and would say to me, and how many bosses would say, if you have anything, jump in, anytime.
Guest:And he actually said that.
Guest:really jump in anytime i don't care if i'm with a guest or anything from the very beginning yes and that was such encouragement and confidence building for me and not from the very beginning very beginning they did say well can you are you the kind of guy that could dave could play off can you play with i say absolutely yes but they never really gave me the the opportunity i had to grab it myself right you know i just grabbed the mic and one day and started talking you know what the mic wasn't even turned on
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Well, they don't even know you're going to talk.
Guest:Well, you know, then I had to make sure my mic is on when I talk.
Guest:I might say, oh, I don't think they want it on.
Guest:What?
Guest:You know, I had to get that.
Guest:No, we want it on.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So then they were going to turn it on.
Guest:Then I got there.
Guest:I introduced the band one night and Dave cracked up, you know, and he said, do more of that.
Guest:Do more of that.
Guest:He was very, very encouraging.
Guest:And you guys had a good rapport?
Marc:You'd go out to dinner sometimes?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And we still do.
Guest:We still see each other.
Guest:We commiserate a little bit.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:You know, what it's like to be too later in life gentlemen.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:And how old are your kids, though?
Marc:He's got a young kid.
Guest:Mine are pretty young, too.
Guest:I didn't get married till I was 40.
Guest:My daughter's 24.
Guest:My son 18.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you're still in it.
Guest:Still in it, yeah.
Guest:Son's still at home.
Guest:Daughter on her own, but son, you know, a senior in high school.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Going through, you know, where is he going to go to college?
Guest:That's what we're living through now, that pressure.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, it'll work out.
Marc:Did he do all right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's got some choices?
Guest:He's terrific.
Marc:Well, I mean, terrific student.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:So one of the things I wondered is, how do you decide when somebody needs your support, you know, when they perform on the show with Letterman?
Marc:Because, like, sometimes you guys play.
Marc:Sometimes they bring their own operation.
Marc:You know, like, how is that?
Marc:What is that discussion?
Guest:First of all, we're talking about a show that hasn't been on the air in two years.
Guest:Let's just remember that.
Guest:We're talking almost like we're going to do a show tonight.
Guest:It's a no...
Guest:It's history.
Guest:When we were at NBC, we had a very small studio.
Guest:I know that studio.
Guest:The acts would be encouraged to play with my band.
Guest:Just out of space.
Guest:Yeah, space.
Guest:And also, we would have then something to offer the audience, something different that you didn't see on MTV all the time.
Guest:Them in another environment, playing with new musicians and stuff.
Guest:It was very interesting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When we moved to CBS, partly, you know, the stage was bigger and things got a little more competitive.
Guest:And of course, it's the easiest thing if Katy Perry is going to do the show, easiest if she just brings her whole band and whatever else.
Guest:And you don't have to worry about it.
Guest:And she doesn't have to worry about it.
Guest:So it got a little bit more people bringing their own soft-contained stuff.
Guest:And every once in a while, somebody says, oh, I want, you know, I'd like to...
Marc:paul to play along or you know yeah from the band and it would be up to the artist oh really yeah yeah because like i know when you jump in it's it's always uh you know it's great you you love doing it of course i love i'm sorry i don't mean to talk about it like it's the present no no i love that i mean but for a minute i thought gee i'm late i gotta get in
Guest:33 years, it doesn't just go away.
Guest:It's very, you know, it stays with you.
Marc:Sure, but you got opportunities to play with all these amazing guys.
Marc:I remember Zoe took me to Dylan's soundcheck.
Guest:Zoe Friedman.
Guest:Zoe Friedman was our talent, especially for comics.
Marc:Yeah, she gave me my first Letterman.
Marc:Oh, I love it.
Marc:Great.
Marc:And I remember she told me to, like, she knew I was a Dylan fan.
Marc:She said, you can come over and watch the soundcheck.
Marc:It was just so funny because I don't remember what he played.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:First time he was on when he had those guys from Cruzados or something playing with him.
Guest:He had never met them before.
Marc:Was that Sexton or it wasn't?
Marc:Was it Cruzados?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Three guys that I don't think he ever played with again.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:He just brought them on.
Guest:I don't know even where they got.
Guest:And in the soundcheck, he played a million different songs, none of which he played on the air.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One of them was Treat Her Right by Roy Head, one of my favorite oldies.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Dylan doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Imagine.
Marc:And he'd just like play with you guys?
Guest:He just, he was playing with his own band and just trying them out on things.
Marc:Well, I just remember he was like, when I was there, I saw him like just walk around and he started talking to, what's her name, the guitar player?
Marc:Felicia.
Marc:Yeah, Felicia.
Marc:You know, like, you know, I got one of those.
Marc:How do you like that?
Marc:Like, it was very funny just to see him become human.
Guest:Yes, yes, yeah.
Guest:So I did get to play with him, you know, later in CBS.
Guest:I think he did Forever Young.
Guest:That was the one I saw.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:So, yes.
Guest:I think he just asked me to play the organ.
Guest:He did have a keyboard at that time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I played organ along with him.
Marc:Thrill.
Marc:It was exciting, right?
Guest:Yeah, thrill.
Marc:Who else were some of your memories where you're like, holy shit, I'm playing with this guy?
Guest:Well, James Brown, you know, that's my go-to.
Guest:I always mention it because I never got over it.
Guest:He made us play so well.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:We never thought we could.
Guest:That's a band leader, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, when he starts shaking that ass, I mean, you just can't.
Guest:And his voice becomes another instrument, another part of the groove, and it just makes everybody sound good, you know?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We were skying.
Guest:I remember Steve Jordan and I, we both got our first VCRs at the time.
Guest:That's when it went, like 82, you know?
Guest:VCRs.
Guest:And we taped that Letterman show.
Guest:We used to watch it every night religiously and memorize not only the musical stuff, but the dialogue.
Guest:We had all the dialogue when he interviewed by Dave.
Guest:And at the very end, he did a third song spontaneously.
Guest:He said, you know what I like to do right now?
Guest:Before you close, can we close with, I got the feeling.
Guest:And then you hear Jordan's, whoa, you hear him from over on the drum.
Guest:Dave says, yeah, we'll take a commercial.
Guest:We'll come back.
Guest:And James commandeered the show.
Guest:And Dave loved it.
Guest:Never forget it.
Marc:That's fucking beautiful.
Marc:And we sort of skipped over that Blues Brothers thing.
Marc:Now, it seemed to me like when the Blues Brothers band, like I remember I knew all their names because Blue Lou Marini.
Marc:What happened to that guy?
Guest:Oh, still around, plays with James Taylor regularly.
Marc:And who's your trombone guy?
Guest:Tom Bones Malone.
Guest:Bones Malone.
Guest:He played with me on Letterman all these years.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:And he's with me actually today, yeah.
Guest:And he, on the new record, he's going to do a Kimmel show.
Guest:We're doing Jimmy Kimmel tomorrow.
Guest:That's exciting.
Guest:Yeah, Tom came out to do it.
Marc:Who else is with you forever on this record?
Guest:On the record?
Guest:Well, I mean, Will Lee, you know, Felicia, who you mentioned, the whole band, Sid McGinnis.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Aaron Hike and Frank Green are my two more recent horn players.
Marc:Who was the guitar player before Felicia?
Marc:What was that guy's name?
Marc:Sid McGinnis, and he's still with her.
Guest:Yeah, I had two guitars with Felicia.
Guest:Right, right, yeah.
Guest:And he's on it too, yes.
Marc:He can really play all the different things.
Guest:Yes, all different stuff.
Guest:Play steel guitar too.
Guest:Could play with the country acts, you know.
Marc:But when he did the Blues Brothers, it really seemed to me that Belushi was pretty earnest about it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:He liked playing.
Marc:He liked singing.
Guest:he loved singing and he i mean everybody wanted to be a rock and roll star you know not just belushi but he had an opportunity to do it and there was a real tour yeah with a real plane and you know yes we were a real band for a while there even though we put it together as really a sort of a good nature tribute to the music that we loved he wanted to do it but yes he sold some tickets yes we were we did quite nicely didn't chevy play keyboards
Guest:Not with the Blues Brothers.
Guest:Chevy is a pianist, yes, and a jazz pianist influenced by Bill Evans.
Guest:And one of Chevy's musical claims famous, he had a band in college with Donald Fagan.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:And he played drums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He played rock drums in that.
Guest:You love Steely Dan?
Guest:Of course I love Steely Dan.
Guest:How can you not?
Marc:Well, I'm trying to come around.
Guest:Two of them?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you've got to see.
Guest:Did you see that show that Mulaney and Nick Kroll did?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, hello.
Guest:That's all about Steely Dan for some reason.
Guest:I wasn't sure why.
Guest:It really was?
Guest:Yeah, I saw it on Broadway.
Guest:They talk a lot about how these two older Upper West Side gentlemen, they haven't loved Steely Dan.
Guest:They have an argument about it during the show.
Marc:Oh, I don't remember that.
Marc:I've been on that show.
Marc:I don't know what the Broadway version ended up being.
Guest:Well, one thing about the Broadway version, they have a guest.
Guest:You know, doing that too much tuna bit every night.
Guest:So I did that.
Marc:I got on stage.
Marc:And you riffed it out with him?
Marc:You riffed out the tuna thing?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But I had one joke I didn't tell.
Guest:I'm always sorry.
Guest:I meant to tell it.
Guest:Two old Jewish jazz musicians on the Upper West Side.
Guest:They're sitting on a park bench.
Guest:First guy says to the other, oy.
Guest:Second guy says, I'm hip.
Guest:So that, you know, I'll pretend that I told that.
Marc:You should have them integrate that into the show.
Guest:Yeah, bring it back, yeah.
Marc:I like those guys.
Marc:They're very funny.
Marc:So how did you get involved with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Marc:That's a regular gig for you now, right?
Guest:It has been.
Guest:This is the first year, though, aside from John Baez.
Marc:I like how you wipe your face and head with a Kleenex like a musician.
Marc:Like Louis Armstrong.
Guest:Yeah, like Louis Armstrong.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Anyway, well, it's kind of a little warm in here.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:We can't have the air on because it would interfere with the sound, of course.
Guest:I'm familiar with that.
Guest:Don't worry about it.
Guest:What were we talking about?
Marc:The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, so as a studio musician, one time I got a call.
Guest:Come in in an afternoon.
Guest:It's Robert Plant.
Guest:And it turned out to be that project, The Honey Drippers.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:With Robert doing old rock and roll.
Marc:You did that first record?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I played on Good Rockin' at Midnight and also that first one.
Guest:Nice fella.
Guest:Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Guest:I can't remember the name of it.
Guest:At first, it was kind of a ballad.
Guest:Terrific guy, and to hear his voice in your headphones is a hell of an experience.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:But Ahmet was producing it, co-producing it with him.
Guest:Ahmet Erdogan?
Guest:Ahmet Erdogan, yes.
Guest:And that's when I met Ahmet, and Ahmet liked what I did.
Guest:He could say I was familiar with those old styles.
Guest:And Ahmet hired me for the very first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner,
Guest:when they said they were saying you know we can't ask the people to play they're here to be honored you know let's what we'll do is we'll take a picture at the end of the night we'll get everybody on stage for a picture and then we'll just happen to have amplifiers there and see if anybody picks up guitars well of course they did and they were all but it was totally spontaneous jam session yeah and that's you know i was able to
Guest:kind of lead that.
Guest:One advantage I had was that a lot of the players had done Letterman individually.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sitting in with me on an individual basis.
Guest:And so they knew my signals.
Guest:They got used to my signals, you know.
Guest:And so if I held up four fingers in the middle of this big Rock and Roll Hall of Fame jazz, everybody would know, go to the four court.
Guest:You know, go to F. We're in C, go to F. Those kind of things, you know.
Right.
Guest:It worked out and I kept calling.
Guest:I never took the gig for granted.
Guest:Every year, I wonder if they're going to call me.
Guest:This year, everybody's self-contained.
Guest:They got Yes, they got Journey, you know, and stuff like that.
Marc:Steve's going to play with Journey?
Guest:I'm not saying that.
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm not sure what's going on with that.
Marc:There's always... Last year, I was like, where's Richie?
Guest:Yes, there's always some negotiation.
Guest:It's wild, right?
Guest:Somebody, well, these things run deep when these bands break up.
Guest:And strangely enough, it's often about money.
Guest:How they're going to split up the money.
Guest:But whatever it is, they can't forgive each other.
Guest:And year after year, there was somebody who didn't want to play.
Guest:And, oh, can't you just put bygones aside and be honored with the rest of it?
Guest:No, these things are serious.
Guest:I know.
Guest:They can't get over it.
Marc:But what is your job in that when they're self-contained?
Marc:Do you still have to...
Guest:No, no, I don't have to do anything.
Marc:They've got their own guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but you're still there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I'm still there.
Marc:For the big thing at the end.
Guest:There's always, you know, now it's more of a television show and the numbers are rehearsed and stuff, and there isn't always a big thing at the end.
Guest:It's got to be a little more polished so they can show it on TV.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:It's funny, like those big things at the end.
Marc:I think Scorsese sort of established that with The Last Waltz, that that's the way that goes.
Guest:I suppose so, yes.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that was certainly the definitive rock concert.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:And Ronnie Wood seems to show up at everything.
Guest:He loves to play and is a very happy-go-lucky guy.
Guest:You like his playing?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:Well, he's a talented guy and he can play anything.
Guest:That tone, right?
Guest:From the faces.
Guest:Did a wonderful thing with him once in the 80s with Fats and Friends.
Guest:It was on Cinemax at the time.
Guest:Fats Domino?
Guest:Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And me with the house band with Ronnie Wood in the band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And each of them does their set.
Guest:Each of the three great panel.
Guest:And then they do a big thing at the end, you know, where we all try to play jambalaya together.
Marc:Oh, and so they like the Canadian rockers did.
Marc:All right.
Marc:A few of them Bachman Turner Overdrive and those guys.
Marc:Did you know those guys?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Not at the time.
Guest:But when I was a kid, the guess who, you know, with Randy Bachman was in it.
Guest:American woman.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:During those times, those guys were from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Guest:That was 500 miles away from the Thunder Bay where I was from.
Guest:So at Christmas time, they were always playing our town to get enough money to buy Christmas presents so they could go home for Christmas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I saw them extensively, the Guess Who.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I've gotten to know Bachman a little bit more recently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did some sort of a thing with him, a DVD thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:BTO reunion and stuff.
Guest:I got to play that piano on Taking Care of Business.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Terrific.
Guest:And a lot of rockers, yeah, but you know what?
Guest:MTV, when that started up, we saw a lot of Canadians.
Guest:Brian Adams.
Guest:Rush.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Rush and Triumph.
Guest:Triumph.
Guest:Yes, and these people had world influence.
Guest:When I was a kid, it was like Gordon Lightfoot, that was it.
Marc:Gordon Lightfoot.
Marc:I tell you, man, that...
Marc:It's with some of these guys that you realize, especially the folk guys.
Marc:If they knock out one or two, like John Prine has a lot of songs.
Marc:But Gordon Lightfoot, if you could read my mind, what a fucking song.
Guest:Beautiful.
Marc:It's all you need, right?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And he's got a couple of them.
Marc:He does have a couple of them.
Marc:Sundown was another good one.
Marc:The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I think, was a great story.
Guest:But Americans do love that.
Guest:I think Americans may like it more than Canadians.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:But if that, you know, if you had had triumph and all that stuff, people coming out, what was it, working for the weekend?
Guest:Everybody's working.
Guest:Yeah, I can't remember what that meant.
Guest:Loverboy?
Guest:Loverboy, yes.
Guest:I might not have had to have.
Guest:I can't believe I knew that.
Guest:I might not have met, yes, you pulled that one.
Guest:I might not have had to leave Canada, you know, but at the time, you just...
Guest:There wasn't much of a music scene in Canada at the time when I had to come to the U.S.
Marc:I get a little flack for busting on Rush a little bit, and I want to try to set the record straight because I've heard, because of my past comments of not liking Rush, that Geddy Lee's a very nice guy, and Leaf, and they're all good guys, and they're brilliant musicians.
Marc:Do you know them?
Yeah.
Guest:I don't really know them.
Guest:I have met them.
Guest:And I, you know, when they were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was a time when we did the show from here in Los Angeles.
Guest:And their audience was full of Rush fans.
Guest:Their fans are devoted.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I must say I got them that night.
Marc:They're good.
Marc:So Yes is going to be in this year?
Guest:yes is one of the groups yes i can't remember tupac uh-huh um joan bias oh yeah i did she just released a record or re reissued a few records she's amazing she has a beautiful voice so paul are you going to tour with this outfit yes this spring i am wow even in this day and age it seems to be important to be able to go out and have an act and be able to entertain i'm looking forward to doing it april 1st is a you know april 1st through july 1st we're going to be out there doing shows all over the
Marc:And the album's just called The World's... Yes, the album is The Artist, Paul Schaefer and the World's Most Dangerous Band.
Guest:On Sire Records.
Guest:Sire Records, exactly.
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:I'm the white Madonna.
Guest:Well, thanks for talking to me, buddy.
Guest:A pleasure, Mark.
Guest:A lot of fun.
Marc:Paul Schaefer, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:I love talking to him.
Marc:I liked sitting across from him and looking at him.
Marc:I like Paul Schaefer.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for my upcoming tour dates.
Marc:I've got dates in Austin, Denver, Boulder, Portland, D.C., Philly, Madison, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis coming up.
Marc:So those pique your interest.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour.
Marc:And, you know, do what you got to do.
Marc:Can't play any guitar today.
Marc:Just can't do it.
Marc:It's too early, and I'm harried.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I know it's going to break a lot of hearts.
Marc:Boomer lives!
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