B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles

Sit back, relax and enjoy your Sunday morning brew as Bijon & Niles bond with an old dear friend and music collaborator, singer/dancer David “Pop Tart” Morris – a 20+ year Disney entertainer. Touching on topics that include the complexities of getting on Broadway Shows, to the entertainment in Las Vegas, being fearlessly authentic, to the importance and value of reaching out to peers or friends for help and/or advice with one’s career. 

Tune-in as we introduce a music project Niles, Bijon and David collaborated on a number of years ago, “Stylesuit”, an up-beat R&B, soul music, pop band with singer/songwriter/producer, Niles Thomas, trumpeter Bijon Watson, and vocalist David “Pop Tart” Morris. Tune-in as we showcase two songs that have been sitting on ice. Does this dynamic trio reignite “Stylesuit”? Enjoy!

What is B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles?

B-Side Morning Brew with Bij & Niles is a unique radio show broadcasted on 91.5FM KUNV Jazz & More in Las Vegas, pairing music and lifestyle through tasteful consciousness. Live the Lifestyle™. Shows air the first Sunday of each month.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

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Good morning and welcome.

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You're listening to beside morning brew would be

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at Niles had coffee, chat. chillin

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on the corner of lifestyle app

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and music stream on 91.5k would be

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jazz. Right now. Right? We're gonna go. No turning back. Okay,

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baby. Would you like to hear your special guests? I mean, listen, yeah, man. Let's dive right in. Let's start with our sip of coffee. Oh, yeah, that's it.

Unknown Speaker 0:48
We have a very special guests. Longtime friend, Maven, collaborator, vocalist, entertainer, as work everywhere east coast to west coast. And beyond Europe, Europe, Europe. And as I'm saying, and just an amazing soul and amazing spirit. And we're so glad that we can reconnect with this gentleman. I'm talking of none other than the incomparable David Pop Tart. T. Morris. Welcome, my friend. It's so good to see you look fantastic.

Unknown Speaker 1:22
Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:24
So you are? Yeah, well, you have made your way to Vegas. Like I said, the vortex of Vegas had sucky when I was it. It's

Unknown Speaker 1:32
absolutely amazing. The sun is shining. It is 100 degrees. The dog is panting drinking water right now. It's just an amazing place. Vegas is the ultimate vacation destination resort. That's awesome. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:46
beach. I don't know if you know this. But before I left to move here, David, he and I were we were recording one afternoon. He was living in LA also at the time. And because he used to live here in Vegas a long time ago. That's right. And so he was the one who I'll never forget it. We were walking in some shopping center. So we're taking a break. And he told me he's like, You should go to Vegas, you should go to Vegas. And then I went here and then he like soon after he went to New York. What was going on? Why New York,

Unknown Speaker 2:17
New York was I had taken a job that actually took me to the east coast and it was actually in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And lightning what it was the contract was finished in North Carolina. And so I decided to go north and pursued of Broadway aspirations. I worked for Disney off and on for 20 years and wanted to give Broadway a try. I'm just

Unknown Speaker 2:42
sorry, weren't you king, someone on the in the Disney show.

Unknown Speaker 2:49
I was at King at NAR Max eating frozen. You know, it was actually a groundbreaking moment in my career to be the king and frozen the musical at Disney 2000 See state of the art theater. And they chose to do colorblind casting, and after years of experience and also timing was right. And they decided that I was going to be one of the one of the black king, it was an Asian Elsa there was a black Elsa, a black king, Asian King, and and white. But, you know, it was really incredible moment in my life, spending 20 years working for an organization where something like this would have never happened. And it happened.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
So then he went to New York and went to New York committee X Disney folks, Disney cast members would go to New York in search of some Broadway

Unknown Speaker 3:42
Absolutely, with major shows like Moulin Rouge at the time. And Hamilton and all these long running shows, it was definitely a dream that I was pursuing. As well as just giving New York a try born and raised on the West Coast. It was absolutely spectacular. To be on the East Coast and experiencing the the architecture and the vibe and the nightlife and the music and the culture. Never, you know, it's like I had never lived there. I traveled there but living there and being submerged in all those things was really an incredible experience. Unfortunately, the pandemic had other things in store for us, you know, there being a major shutdown. You know, in New York, it definitely was the major sidetracking as far as the land of submissions through online submissions and videotapes. So after that experience of being there and doing that, and you know, I got a feel for in New York, I was ready to come back west.

Unknown Speaker 4:44
I remember just a few months ago because you've only been out here now what maybe a month or two months now something like that.

Unknown Speaker 4:50
I mean time flies I rolled into town January 5 Change Martin Luther King day what I rolled in on Martin Luther King day I drove across the country with me and my dog and rented a SUV, everything that fit in the SUV along with her six days drove across the country and, you know, rolled into a sunset mark. I mean, it felt like free at last. That's

Unknown Speaker 5:17
awesome. Well, you look fantastic. You look happy. Thank you. That's what's most important, man. That's how I remember. David. Pete Morris. Thank you happy good. So it's good to see that. No, I

Unknown Speaker 5:28
know, honestly, it's great to have have you here. I mean, it's, it's been a blessing for me. I mean, it's, it just says your energy. And you know, it's just so amazing. It's just, it's, it's great to have what I consider family in town. You know, likewise, and I know months ago, middle of last year, maybe around this time, you were kind of hinting at maybe I should come back to Vegas and go to Vegas? Yes, you need to come out to Vegas kind of thing. And so now Yeah, so you've been doing a lot of, well, you're getting into some of these gigs in town, right, in terms of like just trying different things. I saw you on Instagram dressed up as a robot or something for something different.

Unknown Speaker 6:12
It's great, David, like I'm

Unknown Speaker 6:14
saying it is truly a diverse entertainment. And many roles, as we know. So it's great to see the

Unknown Speaker 6:23
world of entertainment, and especially the board company like Disney working on major cruise lines, traveling, going to Europe, Asia, events, weddings, candy buffets, you know, whatever it takes to make people happy. But been so fortunate to have been a tap into all these areas, as being, you know, production assistant, picking up a truck and loading the truck up full of everything that is goes behind the scenes to create an awesome event. And it's been really educational. As far as everything that it takes, you know, to put on the Wow. So it was really good to be back in Vegas and have adapted all those skill sets. And to start reaching out to different event companies and producers, you know, so that that way, I'm not just considered a vocalist, or an actor, or a director, you know, it's like, these are things that I love to do. But it really does take all these different skill sets, to, you know, make a living,

Unknown Speaker 7:25
it's great that you have all of that, you know, I mean, all of that kind of vaudevillian flavor, if you will. It's like, pretty much do anything, you know, which is cool. I want to introduce a project that the three of us embarked on a number of years ago, and I think, Yes, I heard on this show, back in the day, it was probably what, 10 years? Well, 1012 years ago, something like that easily on a particular kind of music. What would you call it like,

Unknown Speaker 7:51
exploration. I mean, we it was music that we all love to do. Yeah, and we put that group together. It

Unknown Speaker 7:57
was you know, dance, some Hip Hop flavors, some r&b some soul. And it just so happened that my voice and PopTarts voice just really, really goes together and wrote the songs. And so I think we call the project style suit. And unfortunately, we never we have we did a whole five song EP, we have beautiful video footage that was professionally shot. But the production was so big. We just couldn't lift it off the ground. Especially in LA right. I

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mean, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 8:30
So who knows? Maybe they're you know, maybe it'll, maybe there's a resurrection here in town in Vegas. But I think we should introduce there's a song. One of the songs that we'll play today for style suit is called What do you guys want to start with home? Where do you want to start with hypnotizing?

Unknown Speaker 8:48
Let's start with let's start with hypnotizing

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because because Pop Tart introduces the Tim with his beautiful voice you're listening to besides morning brew with BJ Niles here and 91.5k one V jazz and more. This is a song of ours called hypnotizing

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mouth is so beautiful just like a picture

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you can turn you off

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I've seen your pictures wall is sashayed down the runway with a red dress on your face on.

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Use

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See you world size

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next dress song you modeled down the stage to your fashion song fade into the camera and walk away

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inside your dream

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world

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know

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where you gotta go when the Merrilees you all

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went away right to stand around in a circle

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classic world around the fragrance of fashion

Unknown Speaker 13:14
Welcome back you're listening to beside morning grew with Bayesian dials 190 1.5k u and v jazz and more. Man it's great to hear that so hypnotizing that brings it way back. That brings it way back. When David lay set up David lay set up That's amazing. Yeah, so great to hear you man. We got to do some more of that live. We'll do a live our

Unknown Speaker 13:37
listeners need to know those years ago when we did a couple of shows. We were in LA and did the show B John and I were actually this the show was in downtown LA and Bijon

Unknown Speaker 13:46
seven grand seven grand right and part.

Unknown Speaker 13:50
B, John and I earlier that day, were in Laguna Beach, doing a project he was doing. And of course me being a bit of the devil, if you will, and like come on, man was scoped to the rooftop, you know, the rooftop Hotel. Let's just have some wines have some wine and some food. We're overlooking the ocean and get more tipsy more and more tips and like man, let's just not do the show. I don't want to do the show is just hanging out here. He's like, we gotta do this show. Of course. Me being the irresponsible one. Ultimately flew down basically to LA to make that show. Barely. We barely made that to walk in this cat. David T. Morris, our special guest today. We had no idea before we go on stage. He brings up this

Unknown Speaker 14:36
it's a challenge. No, no, no, no, no. It was a bit that it was a bit dazzled challenge. Am I right David? It was.

Unknown Speaker 14:47
It was like, like from a vampire movie. I think

Unknown Speaker 14:57
it was filled with this amazing assortment of like snacks that, you know, he's it. Little m&m. You know, it was just, it was awesome. I

Unknown Speaker 15:09
have we've now I think about I believe I have them throughout the whole bar. Oh yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:15
yeah no Yeah, yeah. No he transformed the space right into snack Central. And it was part of and and then the brother came out in this long flowing velvet rope and pink and the boots and the boots you had those big thigh high boots on?

Unknown Speaker 15:34
I definitely knee

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high boots maybe not that. Oh, they weren't. And, and 1000 I looked at each other and we just see like, what is going on?

Unknown Speaker 15:47
It's like, Man, this cats like coming out from parliament. Funkadelic just,

Unknown Speaker 15:51
it was so fun. It was it was straight out of people. Amazing.

Unknown Speaker 15:57
I mean, you know what, now we were just talking about this recently, the reality of I mean, Prince and Michael Jackson, yes, you know, an air of, you know, pop stars and rock stars that, you know, really put on a spectacular, and, you know, years of working at Disney and working, you know, in these big venues. You know, I just come from a background of understanding that no venue is too small to put on. Exactly. And I mean, the fact that you remember it means that I accomplished my oh

Unknown Speaker 16:31
man vision mission. The coffee shop stayed with me at that at my apartment back then. And I remember the next morning we were having coffee we couldn't we could barely hold down the coffee we were

Unknown Speaker 16:44
because we we were we didn't know what happened was like, did we dream that like it was like a dream sequence chalice

Unknown Speaker 16:50
with Chex Mix on stage. Right? Did you see you saw that? Right? That wasn't just me. Like it was great man. It was like it was the perfect thing. But fast forward to today, or even this past holiday weekend Memorial. Whatever the Memorial Day weekend, we just had pop tart and I went to meet up downtown for brunch. And we started talking about just what's going on and what you know, his aspirations while he's in town, what he really wants to accomplish. And a couple of things that in the conversation that popped up, that we've all been through, we've all been through this. Yes, that's it, man. Why don't you reach out to that girlfriend of yours that, you know, saw you that night, we're all hanging out. And and she you know, she's she's been here and she they used to work at Disney. And together, she does some, you know, some great things here in town, right? That could that could essentially help pop tart, even if it's just advice on the client just reach out to it's like, Man, I can't reach out I don't want to do that. I want her to feel XY and Z. And it was it was a reminder. I'm like, Man, why do we do this to ourselves? It's like, first of all, I said, she's not going to take it that way. Because your good friend. And that's not who you are. It's genuine. But we've all been guilty of not reaching out to peers or friends of ours to either ask for advice or some help in some way or another or get some inside information on what's going on? Because of I don't know what I mean, what do you think he is? It's,

Unknown Speaker 18:21
I think it's because of? Well, I think because all three of us have had amazing success at what we do. We've been at the pinnacle of what we do. And when we when we take that leap of faith but putting out our own material. Right? It we reach a point of analysis paralysis, I call it that, you know, you've heard me say that several times before, and we feel so weak. If we haven't done it on our own, then we said we're a failure, not realizing that it takes an entire community of people advocating for you as an artist to help at least put it out there now. And the other realization is that not everyone's gonna like what you do, and that's okay. And it's so hard for us just to take a step back and say, Hey, I'm doing what I love to do. Well, we did 1000 People love that music, we love to perform it. I remember when we played that night at seven grand, that place was packed, people were losing their freakin minds, you know, and it was just truly what we wanted to do. We love the music. And we look back at all this now, if you and I were talking about if you look back at all the amazing performances that we've had all of those amazing performances were what we just did what was true to what we love to do, we weren't driven by that,

Unknown Speaker 19:37
and not afraid to ask questions or do what we do or you know, reach out to a friend here and there, hey, can you help with this? Or can you do this? Or you know, can we pay, you know, Tuesday for a hamburger today? You know, whatever it's gonna be. But you know, that's what that's what, you know, David and I were talking about and I'm hoping David when we were talking about this, I hope it brought back some confidence in you realizing that, yeah, you don't have to hide from this or not ask someone for help or advice or whatever the case is, you know, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 20:11
And this moment, just hearing what you said, it really reminds me of the importance of being fearlessly authentic. And

Unknown Speaker 20:19
yes, that's a great way to describe it, David. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 20:22
And you know, in this moment, it's really reminded me that that's also the main reason why I chose to come back, Wes and why I chose Las Vegas is because being in New York and Broadway aspirations not to say that not to have any judgment against it, but it's definitely character driven and they're very specific songs specific character specific roles. And I will be honest and saying that I felt like I was getting lost and trying to perpetrate and be one of the you know, the idea of coming back west and reconnecting with with you and reconnecting with myself is reminding myself even, you know, with candy and velvet rose, is you know, reminding myself there is so much joy in being fearlessly authentic.

Unknown Speaker 21:14
Absolutely. That's I love I love that. I think we can do t shirts. Fearlessly authentic.

Unknown Speaker 21:20
I mean there we go.

Unknown Speaker 21:21
I think on that note, I would love to play it another style suit tune all

Unknown Speaker 21:25
right, you're listening to beside morning group Bayesian Niles on 91.5 key would be jazz and this song we're about to play as another tune from our style suit project entitled all.

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Fragrance be sad

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and sad

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just flag.

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My god me

Unknown Speaker 25:17
Welcome back you're listening to besides morning brew with beach and Niles here on 91.5k, u and v jazz and more. And that was our project called style suit with myself Bijon on Flugel horn on that particular tune. And David Timor's, our special guest today, on vocals, and man, that song is so fun and beautiful. It just really does bring back a lot of memories and, and inspiration. Truth be told, I just forgot how, how light and airy that those songs were. I mean, they're just fun, you know, beautiful and fun. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:53
I mean, I look back on when we were doing that project. And we were just going for it. I mean, original music. Dave is bringing the heat with the vocals. I mean, it was just great. And the horn parts were killing and the vibe the group was was infectious. I don't know, we got to break some of that back. Well, in fact, we have a we have a few we want to tell people about the audience about a couple of pop up shows we have? Well, so July 11, we're going to make an appearance at what should we tell them? Or should we keep it Keep it keep it a secret, so we tell them what

Unknown Speaker 26:29
we should tell him,

Unknown Speaker 26:29
I think Bucha Okay, I think we're good, we are good, we are going to make an intimate of parents at a very intimate spot, a staple here in Las Vegas for the music community, the dispenser lounge, our good friend and collaborator really guys indoor for the spearhead that evening, and we're going to be performing with the jazz Republic, and a few special guests, including David poptop, mores. And some other special guests, we'll bring it we'll let you know about. As we get closer to the date, there's going to be an amazing show. And we're so spoiled by performing at the Smithsonian like we normally do. But this is somewhat like it like I was talking about earlier, some of our best performances that we've talked about, have been in the most intimate setting. So we're really looking forward to bringing the heat in an intimate space like this, it's gonna be pretty cool. So

Unknown Speaker 27:20
for those of our fans that have seen us at many times over at the Smith Center, this is a great opportunity to see us in a very intimate setting. Yeah, we're gonna blow the roof off the joint. I mean, that's just the way it goes. That's just how it's gonna happen. We do have, we do have our show at Smith Center on September 10. And we'll be letting everyone know when tickets will be available for that particular show, too. And that's going to be an incredible night with many special guests. So we'll we'll unveil the details of that as we draw near to the date.

Unknown Speaker 27:52
I think what we found, since now it's moved to Vegas, and we started jazz Republic Entertainment Group, that the community of artists that are in Las Vegas are second to none. It's a very supportive group of people. We've gotten to know them very well. And it's been fun collaborating with and being able to showcase them and stuff and the premise being presenting original music, and that's the key. It's important for the audiences to see local musicians and artists performing original music. I think it's going to be a treat. You don't want to miss it.

Unknown Speaker 28:33
Absolutely. So if you'd like to learn more or learn more about us, feel free to visit www.va Jazz republic.com where you can learn more about us as well as also listen to previous radio shows that we have previous episodes. We want to close this out beach.

Unknown Speaker 28:54
Let's close by thanking our amazing friends. Artists compadre, David part, Morris for joining us and it's so great to have you in Vegas. In the Vegas vortex bringing your energy bringing your fearless authenticity to the Vegas vortex. And I was looking forward to many more things to come artistically for this amazing gentleman.

Unknown Speaker 29:20
I wish we had more time with you on this radio show. We'll bring you back on the show.

Unknown Speaker 29:24
You could never have enough David T. Morris can I get oh yeah

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you been listening to besides morning brew with bees

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and Niles chillin on the corner of lifestyle app and music stream on 91.5k u

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and v jazz

Transcribed by https://otter.ai