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Keeping Skor: Creativity, Curiosity, and the Things We Keep. A podcast about why people collect the things they love. Each episode begins with a collection - but the conversation quickly expands into something deeper: memory, imagination, and the choices we make about what matters. Through thoughtful conversations with collectors of all kinds, Keeping Skor explores the stories, passions, and meaning behind the objects people choose to keep.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, so how are you? Did you, did you have a gig last night?
Bill Dellicato: Had a gig last night, Lori went down.
Bill Dellicato: We was at the Jersey Shore, and she went with her friend, who I know, and it was, it was a fun night, you know? It was, like, very cool bar.
Bill Dellicato: Good vibe, and she and Judy, like, partied up in a big way.
Stephen Skorski: And so does that make for a rough morning for Lori?
Stephen Skorski: Relatively rough. There was Advil involved, but .
Bill Dellicato: You know, we knew we'd be kind of, like,
Bill Dellicato: Shut in today, so we slept in.
Bill Dellicato: There was more that when we got home, and Nina was babysitting in the neighborhood. She didn't get home until 2.45.
Stephen Skorski: Dang.
Bill Dellicato: It's crazy.
Stephen Skorski: Dang, alright, alright. Well, good for her! Way to make…
Bill Dellicato: Probably, probably made as much money as I did last night playing.
Stephen Skorski: That is… yeah, that's the life of, of a performer, isn't it?
Bill Dellicato: That's it. And a teenage… teenage girl in an area where people are not only paying you for 8 hours of sitting, but they're tipping you out at the end.
Stephen Skorski: That's aw- actually, that's… yeah, that's awesome.
Bill Dellicato: Are you in North Carolina, or you're still in New Jersey?
Stephen Skorski: No, no, no, we're, I'm in New Jersey. I drove up… I drove up for the storm, actually.
Bill Dellicato: Oh, okay.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, so I was in North Carolina, and I drove up.
Stephen Skorski: So yeah, so it's good to… good to… good to be here, just for the week, because we didn't know what we were going to get down there. Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: Probably not prepared like we are up here.
Stephen Skorski: Well, that was exactly it. Yeah, I didn't… I didn't want to,
Stephen Skorski: you know, staying down there, if we lose power down there, it becomes just a nightmare. Yeah. Up here, you know, no problem. You know, full house generator, and
Stephen Skorski: you know, if you lose power, no worries, you just have a nice night, day in, and, you know, we were barbecuing last night out on the dash, so… Nice. Yeah, so, anyway, it was awesome. We're getting crushed with snow right now, just like you guys are.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, for sure.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, but it's awesome.
Bill Dellicato: So, I've never been… I've never been interviewed, so… and I have a tendency, I've been told to talk
Bill Dellicato: A lot, so… you have to guide me and make sure that I don't ramble on, because especially if the subject is, like.
Bill Dellicato: Well, I think it is,
Bill Dellicato: I could probably talk for, like, 12 hours straight.
Stephen Skorski: Well, I'll be honest, we are recording right now, Bill.
Bill Dellicato: That's great.
Stephen Skorski: So, I will, I will cut you off, whenever is needed.
Bill Dellicato: Awesome.
Stephen Skorski: No, I mean, that's the beauty of this, right? It's like, it's not really an interview, it's just,
Stephen Skorski: you know, getting a chance to talk to you about things that are important to you. And that's… I mean, for me, that's actually really fantastic, because, you know, you and I get… you and I talk, but it's…
Stephen Skorski: you know, it's always in the context of something else. Yeah. And that's great, I mean, it's really, you know, it's fantastic, it's wonderful, but what I like about this is to get to talk to you about something very specific.
Stephen Skorski: and very focused. Because even, like, you know, you're talking about your gig last night, right? So…
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: the first thing that I think about, and that I'm so interested in, is what is that… what does it feel like? And what I mean by that is, you know, I have a guitar.
Stephen Skorski: And I, you know, know some cowboy chords, and I've sat on a porch on a few occasions, and played and sung to, like, you know.
Stephen Skorski: the people who are playing with me, and then, like, maybe 3 mildly interested individuals, you know what I mean? So that's… and that's… and that can't be more fun, that's so enjoyable.
Stephen Skorski: But then, you know, I'll go and I'll see, you know, whatever band that I love, and they're up on stage.
Stephen Skorski: And I just feel like that is a whole other different experience. And so, having never done that, I would love to know from, you know, your perspective.
Stephen Skorski: What does it feel like being up on stage, playing music with, you know, bandmates, and there's an audience that's responding to what you're doing?
Bill Dellicato: Well, I could say it very simply, it's incredible. I mean, it's… it's probably the fuel that makes musicians devote their life to something that, you know, probably can't,
Bill Dellicato: Sustain, a family, or, you know…
Bill Dellicato: Economically, it can't be your career, but,
Bill Dellicato: For me, many, many years along, it's still… Is abuzz, and
Bill Dellicato: It's a high that, you know, really can't be replicated, or I can't.
Bill Dellicato: Find an area where you could replicate it.
Stephen Skorski: So if there's no audience, you're in the same room.
Stephen Skorski: You know, you're rehearsing, it's soundcheck.
Stephen Skorski: That feels one way, but as soon as you add an audience, something changes.
Bill Dellicato: Yes, I think because the first thing is very internal, and it's intellectual, it's artistic, but you're not…
Bill Dellicato: Interacting with other human beings other than the people you're creating the music with.
Bill Dellicato: You're not getting reactions, you're not getting feedback.
Bill Dellicato: Hopefully, it's not feedback through the PA, but, right. You're not getting feedback Which you then…
Bill Dellicato: kind of use as energy to, I guess, improve your performance, and…
Bill Dellicato: You can't get that in a basement just playing with your fellow musicians.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Bill Dellicato: In the same way, I think.
Stephen Skorski: So is that how you… is that the best way to describe it? It's energy transference?
Bill Dellicato: Sure, I think energy slash excitement, there is a… an element of… although I don't… I've never…
Bill Dellicato: really felt this, but I've talked to other people who play. There's an element of nerves, or nervous energy. I don't tend to feel very nervous.
Bill Dellicato: But, I've been doing it a long time, so maybe that's a factor. But having that…
Bill Dellicato: uncertainty that you're on the edge, like, that you're performing, that you could make a mistake, that you could forget all the parts, you know, it's,
Bill Dellicato: that's not present at home when I'm playing the piano, right? So,
Bill Dellicato: And last night was a little bit of a unique situation. I guess it's gotten more and more common, where it's not even my…
Bill Dellicato: normal band. It's a band that I subbed for, Barely often. And, so…
Bill Dellicato: these are not my brothers that I've been playing with for, you know, for 40 years, playing material that we've been playing for 40 years. It's me guesting in, and coming in, and kind of…
Bill Dellicato: There's a tremendous amount of prep that goes into that, and then being able to come into that situation and, have… have them
Bill Dellicato: Say to me, it's like.
Bill Dellicato: You know, it's great, and it makes you feel like you're not just a guest, you're…
Bill Dellicato: A member of the family, which was… is kind of a cool feeling.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome. What, okay, so who… so who's your regular band right now? Just kind of…
Bill Dellicato: So the regular band is turnstiles, which…
Bill Dellicato: have been… I've been playing with for, I think it's close to 37 years.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Bill Dellicato: And that was a band that… was formed
Bill Dellicato: in college, although I was not in it.
Bill Dellicato: But it was a couple of my friends
Bill Dellicato: who had come to see the band that I was in at the time, on the Jersey Shore Club Circuit, and they,
Bill Dellicato: They were impressed enough with what that seemed to be that they formed a band, and they started entering the club scene, and then several years later, when the band that I was in disbanded.
Bill Dellicato: I went over and… Started playing with them.
Stephen Skorski: So we're talking, like, mid-90s.
Bill Dellicato: Early, yeah, early to mid-90s.
Stephen Skorski: Early to mid-90s, New Jersey club scene, what's that like?
Stephen Skorski: Give us a… paint us a picture. What's… I mean, Jersey Shore, right? We love the Jersey Shore. We love… you know, what… paint us a picture of the… of the New Jersey club scene in the early 90s.
Bill Dellicato: Well, I… you have to go back.
Bill Dellicato: 10 years.
Bill Dellicato: Because by the early 90s, the New Jersey club scene was disintegrating, flowing apart.
Bill Dellicato: But the prior decade, the 80s,
Bill Dellicato: was… the Jersey Shore club scene was…
Bill Dellicato: the equivalent of being in Liverpool, you know, for the Beatles. There were… you were riding the high of…
Bill Dellicato: Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, there were all these bands that were coming out of New Jersey. There were venues like the Stone Pony that were viewed as…
Bill Dellicato: Very, desirable places to play.
Bill Dellicato: And… when I got into the… into the club scene, call it mid-'80s,
Bill Dellicato: Bands, it was very common for bands, and you're talking most… mostly cover bands, you know, top 40.
Bill Dellicato: Or whatever. That would play 5 nights a week.
Bill Dellicato: They would have, you know, 3 crew members, they'd have a box truck, they'd be carrying their gear around.
Bill Dellicato: And, people were making their living doing that. And you would have… it would not be uncommon to have
Bill Dellicato: you know, 500 to 1,000 people in these mega clubs on the Jersey Shore.
Bill Dellicato: And,
Bill Dellicato: It was kind of like going from being in high school to being a rock star on your own little level.
Bill Dellicato: And, so… As the drinking age changed, and that kind of… and kind of the…
Bill Dellicato: The crackdown on, on driving, drunk.
Bill Dellicato: Started to… become a reality in New Jersey.
Bill Dellicato: They were not able to pack those rooms on the same level.
Bill Dellicato: And by the early 1990s, a lot of those rooms were going out of business. They were, you know.
Bill Dellicato: having a hard time maintaining, the momentum that they had enjoyed before. So, by the…
Bill Dellicato: I'd say by the mid-90s, a lot of the people who were involved in that scene
Bill Dellicato: Had shifted over to doing weddings and bar mitzvahs and corporate parties.
Bill Dellicato: Because, that was the way you could make some money, and have enough gigs.
Bill Dellicato: To, you know, make it worth your while.
Stephen Skorski: That's a bummer. I mean, to go, you know, to go from, yeah, to go from what I imagine the scene was like, say, in 1985, to, yeah, playing weddings.
Stephen Skorski: That's, but you… but it's cool that you were there in kind of the, you know, the peak, basically. Yep. Yep. Okay, that's… I mean, that's, when you look back on those days…
Bill Dellicato: And it was phenomenal. It was just… I…
Bill Dellicato: I hate to be one of these, like, glory days back in the day, but it really was an unreal situation.
Bill Dellicato: To be in.
Bill Dellicato: And you, on a local level, you felt
Bill Dellicato: Like you had made it, that you were…
Bill Dellicato: You know, you were well known, and
Bill Dellicato: there were, you know, these various bands that had reputations. Some bands got record deals, and…
Bill Dellicato: put out records, and the band that I was in in the 80s
Bill Dellicato: Had… did 2 records, and,
Bill Dellicato: Everyone, obviously, was not looking at that as an end, but a means to
Bill Dellicato: You know, taking the next step. And taking the next step was where it started to fall apart.
Stephen Skorski: No, was that, was that bystander?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, so Bystander was the band in the 80s.
Bill Dellicato: And, you know, but even, by the early 90s, when I shifted to turnstiles, we were recording, you know, we were playing 5 nights a week.
Bill Dellicato: We were recording our own stuff and trying to…
Bill Dellicato: Get a record deal and all that jazz, but at that point, people were starting to be,
Bill Dellicato: In their late 20s, And, it became very hard to continue that lifestyle, I think.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that… well, that's… that's gotta do some weird things to your head, right? I mean, if you're…
Stephen Skorski: you know, you have this very recent memory of being early 20s, like you said, a rock star in, you know, in your, you know, your community, but that's still, you know, you're getting that kind of energy, that kind of response. Now you're in your late 20s, and now you're thinking about, I don't think…
Stephen Skorski: Or maybe, you know, you start having doubts whether or not this could be THE career.
Stephen Skorski: what do you, you know, how do you deal with that? You know, because right now, you know, just to set the scene a little bit, you're a lawyer. I mean, you're, you know, you've got this successful law practice, you've been doing this for a really long time.
Stephen Skorski: But you're still gigging, so, you know, put us in the mind of, you know, 20… I don't know when you went to law school, but maybe put us in the mindset of you in your late 20s.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, so that was a very interesting time, where, I had… Graduated from college, And,
Bill Dellicato: most people were looking for jobs, you know, in New York City, or whatever it would be, entry-level positions. And I did not want to do that, because in my mind, it would be…
Bill Dellicato: Surrendering and giving up on my dream of being, you know, a rock star.
Bill Dellicato: So I took a year or so off.
Bill Dellicato: Just did the music, you know, played in the band.
Bill Dellicato: And,
Bill Dellicato: during that period of time, I started to… you know, I actually had a very interesting story that influenced my state of mind. I was, I had a guy who lived across the street from me growing up.
Bill Dellicato: Who went to…
Bill Dellicato: worked for a company called the, New England Digital at the time, which was the manufacturer of this
Bill Dellicato: product called the Sinclavier.
Bill Dellicato: you know, it was used by Sting, Peter Gabriel, it was… first of all, it was like…
Bill Dellicato: I forget, it was $50,000 back in the late 80s or early 90s. But anyway, so he parlayed that position into a job working at the power station.
Bill Dellicato: Which was a famous recording studio.
Bill Dellicato: in New York City.
Bill Dellicato: And, he was working, you know, kind of as an assistant engineer
Bill Dellicato: On… on things, and… basically a gopher.
Bill Dellicato: And… So, my friend Bill and I
Bill Dellicato: had been… he had a song, ironically, it was called Christmas in Jail, Kind of an interesting…
Stephen Skorski: sing song.
Bill Dellicato: puzzle.
Bill Dellicato: we had… we had kind of produced it up, and and had a demo, and this guy, Dave, said, hey, listen.
Bill Dellicato: If you want to come into the power station.
Bill Dellicato: overnight, we gotta do it, like, you gotta show up here at, like, 1AM, and we can record the song, you know? I'll engineer it.
Bill Dellicato: everything, and we're like, wow, we've totally made it. We're gonna be recording at the power station, that's where Springsteen records, that's where, you know, Bon Jovi worked there, you know, this is basically where we're gonna… we're gonna make it, you know?
Bill Dellicato: So we get there, and…
Bill Dellicato: There was another friend of ours from the neighborhood who was there, who was doing the same thing.
Bill Dellicato: You know, he had a song, and he was recording. And I'm talking to him, and I haven't talked to him in a while.
Bill Dellicato: And I said to him, like, you know, what… so what are you up to?
Bill Dellicato: And he says, yeah, I just graduated, NYU Law School, and I'm working for this big you know.
Bill Dellicato: big law firm, and make… I forget what he was making at the time. It was more money than anybody had really even imagined.
Bill Dellicato: And I remember driving home from the power station that night saying.
Bill Dellicato: Boy, I've been putting my life on hold.
Bill Dellicato: And in pursuit of this dream, and I just… I drove to the power station thinking that, wow, you know, my hard work and my dedication has paid off, here I am recording in the power station.
Bill Dellicato: And here's another guy who's doing the same thing. He didn't give up anything, and he's got a…
Bill Dellicato: Great job at a law firm, so maybe I should rethink my plan.
Bill Dellicato: And, and that's why, in the early 90s.
Bill Dellicato: I went to law school, I graduated in 95. And, but when I was in the process of getting into law school.
Bill Dellicato: The, we had a friend who used to come see us in turnstiles, and we play in New York City.
Bill Dellicato: And her father was a big record company executive.
Bill Dellicato: And there was all this talk where, yes, we're gonna get it, he heard the tape, and I had just, you know, applied to law school, and I went through this whole thing, maybe I should… I should hold off, maybe I should hold off, you know, maybe this is the big thing, till I realized that that was a cycle.
Bill Dellicato: And I said, you know, I'm gonna go ahead with my plan.
Bill Dellicato: If someone offers us a record deal, then I can make a decision then, but I'm not going to…
Bill Dellicato: spend my whole life saying… turning down every other opportunity, in the hopes that one day I'm going to be internationally famous.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the problem with being a creative individual. You know, there's so few…
Stephen Skorski: There's so few opportunities, right, to make your living Doing that one thing that…
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, maybe… I don't know if it's… the thing that you almost feel like you have to do, you know? Yeah. This thing that just…
Stephen Skorski: you know, for most people, I think it's really enjoyable. For others, it's almost, again, like, an obsession.
Bill Dellicato: Breathe, it's like breathing, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: This is not… this is not a decision. You know, people don't get obsessive like this, out of choice, I don't think.
Stephen Skorski: No, I… yeah, that's right. I mean, this is what's so fascinating about it. I love talking to other creative individuals who do something completely different.
Stephen Skorski: Because once you start to hear…
Stephen Skorski: The emotional and the, intellectual…
Stephen Skorski: kind of crossover between the disciplines. You know, you start to feel a connection and an understanding, and it… I don't know, life makes a lot more sense to me, when I hear those things from other people.
Bill Dellicato: It's very interesting because Turnstiles, was unique in a certain way.
Bill Dellicato: the… the bass player… had been…
Bill Dellicato: in law school, when we were playing 5 nights a week, so he used to study
Bill Dellicato: in the band room, which is insane, because band room in a club scene like that is, not the great place to concentrate, but he would be very focused.
Bill Dellicato: He came out of law school, and I remember we were driving around New York City once, and we were talking about this very thing, you know, what do we do?
Bill Dellicato: And my friend looked at me, and he said.
Bill Dellicato: Let's face it, you and I are not the starving artist types.
Bill Dellicato: And that… so that whole creative… Passion, came… In conflict with
Bill Dellicato: kind of like a very pragmatic view that the musicians that I was playing with had.
Bill Dellicato: There was… there was another lawyer in… in turnstiles, or someone who was in law school.
Bill Dellicato: Another guy was doing commercial real estate. So,
Bill Dellicato: We… we were all aware at that point in time that,
Bill Dellicato: We were not prepared to be 50,
Bill Dellicato: And, you know, doing odd jobs or playing cocktail hours, you know. So I think our perspective was different than many other artists could be.
Bill Dellicato: You know, I played with a guitar player in…
Bill Dellicato: In bystander who said to me that when he graduated high school.
Bill Dellicato: And came out into the club scene.
Bill Dellicato: He was making more money than his father was.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. And…
Bill Dellicato: had all this other buzz, and so when it came time to say, should you go to college, he's like, why would I go to college? You know, this is… of course, the premise behind that is it's always going to continue, which…
Bill Dellicato: Ended up not being the case.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, so that's in… okay, that's really interesting. So if you were going to give someone advice, they're… they're 19, 20 years old.
Stephen Skorski: And you, you know, have your own life experience to look back on.
Stephen Skorski: Would the advice be… if you…
Stephen Skorski: 100% want to make it, don't have a backup plan.
Bill Dellicato: No, I wouldn't say that. No. And again, I'm filled with stories.
Bill Dellicato: My friend Bill and I
Bill Dellicato: it's before I was in bystander, we were playing, and we were… I think we were literally 18, whatever it was. And there used to be this…
Bill Dellicato: bar, a biker bar, next door to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park called Mrs. J's.
Bill Dellicato: And, you know, the Stone Pony was legendary. Bruce was playing there, you know, he was showing up all the time. This is, like, the Bourne USA period.
Bill Dellicato: And, so the best we could get with our band at the time was to play next door to Mrs. J's. And,
Bill Dellicato: Mrs. J's was a very rough room, and we were young, and… but…
Bill Dellicato: it was fine, we were part of the scene and everything. So one night, we're loading out of Mrs. J's, and next door.
Bill Dellicato: is the Stone Pony, and at the time, there was a band there, it was, like, kind of the house band called La Bamba and the Hupcaps.
Bill Dellicato: So, La Bombamba is a… this guy is… I think his name is Richie Rosenthal. He was a sax player, or is a sax player, who…
Bill Dellicato: had played with Southside Johnny, he knew Bruce Springsteen, he had toured with Bruce Springsteen, he was a legendary figure in this 18-year-old
Bill Dellicato: mind of ours, right? So, anyway, we had never… we weren't old enough to get into the Stone Pony, so we had never seen him. This is before the internet, there was, like, there were no photographs or anything.
Stephen Skorski: So, one night, we're…
Bill Dellicato: we're loading out of Mrs. J's, and it's really late. It's like 3 in the morning. And we pull onto Ocean Avenue, and we see
Bill Dellicato: a guy walking out of the Stone Pony.
Bill Dellicato: with a trombone case. And we're like, what are the odds? I mean, like, La Bamba plays, if I said, I thought he played sax, but I think he played the trombone.
Bill Dellicato: But it was… it had to be La Bamba. So the two of us are in the car together, we pull up, and we're like, hey, man!
Bill Dellicato: Are you… are you La Bamba?
Bill Dellicato: He's like, yeah!
Bill Dellicato: And he looked at us, and we're like… he was like… I think he thought we might have, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Been looking to mug him or something like that.
Bill Dellicato: So he said, we were like, hey, listen, you know, we have this band, and we're, you were playing next… next door at Mrs. J's tonight, and, you know, we're really excited to be… do you have… do you have any advice that you… because this guy was like a god on the club scene, right?
Bill Dellicato: Do you have any advice you could give the two of us? You know, on how to, you know, get ahead?
Bill Dellicato: And he turned to us, and he looked, and he goes, yeah, quit.
Bill Dellicato: And he got in his car.
Bill Dellicato: So he later went on, I mean, he's a very successful guy. I mean, he played on Conan… in Conan's band for a long time, but, you know, here's his attitude, like, yeah, quit. It sucks. So would I tell somebody.
Bill Dellicato: young, to not have a backup plan? No, I wouldn't. Not under any circumstances.
Bill Dellicato: I might give them different advice than what I thought, you know, because I thought at the time that by being in that scene and playing out and everything, that that was the path. I mean, in today's day and age, I would probably tell somebody to not play out, not to gig.
Bill Dellicato: And, you know.
Bill Dellicato: develop a YouTube station, and record some stuff on your laptop, and focus on that. I mean, if you're trying to make it. And that you could certainly do and hold down a day job, for sure.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. Okay, so just…
Stephen Skorski: Help me, help me kind of figure out, you're, you know, it's funny, because we're working backwards,
Stephen Skorski: When did you start playing any kind of musical instrument, and when did you start playing the piano, or the keyboards, or, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: What led up to this conversation with La Bamba? How did we get there?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, so I started playing the piano at 6,
Bill Dellicato: My mother played the piano, she had a piano, we had a piano in the house, and she used to play, and I would sit
Bill Dellicato: Literally at the base of the piano stool, and… Fascinating, you know, like, transfixed.
Bill Dellicato: In a way. And then I started saying to her, I want to know how to do that. And she would show me a little bit. First pieces she showed me were…
Bill Dellicato: The Entertainer by Scott… actually, Entertainer, I think, was by Scott Joplin, or maybe it was Marvin Hamlisch.
Stephen Skorski: It was right around the time.
Bill Dellicato: of the movie The Sting. So…
Bill Dellicato: Anyway, so she would show me that, and the second piece she showed me was Fur-Elyse by Beethoven.
Bill Dellicato: And I… she showed me very, very basic,
Bill Dellicato: versions of these pieces. And that led to starting to take piano lessons, you know? And
Bill Dellicato: To piano lessons for a very long time.
Bill Dellicato: And I… and along that period of time, I was very into…
Bill Dellicato: I wanted to play the guitar, and my parents were saying, we have a piano, you'll learn the piano, you know, the guitar will come later, but by 8th grade.
Bill Dellicato: I think I had gotten a guitar, and I was teaching myself guitar. I never took guitar lessons, but
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, that was the starting point.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. 6 years old. Do you,
Stephen Skorski: When you're playing on stage, does that… does those memories ever come back?
Bill Dellicato: No.
Bill Dellicato: They don't, because those memories
Bill Dellicato: Are more home-based than family-based, right?
Bill Dellicato: But, I think about, you know, it's funny, because…
Bill Dellicato: Lori came last night to the gig, and she was talking… we were talking about
Bill Dellicato: a couple of things, and I… oh, she said that she really likes the song Long Long Way From Home by…
Bill Dellicato: foreigner.
Bill Dellicato: And she was like, that was so great, you guys played that last night. And I said.
Bill Dellicato: when I think about that song, I always think about my band had this…
Bill Dellicato: gig, when we were seniors in high school, to play at the Welcome Freshman Dance.
Bill Dellicato: So, like, we were the seniors, and they had it in an auditorium, there were, like, there were a lot of people there, and we had lights, and we had da-da-da, and I said, the first song we played was Lone Away From Home, Farner.
Bill Dellicato: I remember starting the night that way. So that's what I was thinking about. I mean, I don't know, I forgot what the question was, but, I think about…
Bill Dellicato: the period of time… when I'm on stage, I do think maybe in terms of
Bill Dellicato: early times on stage, but I don't think about being 6 or 7 studying classical piano. That… it was…
Bill Dellicato: It wasn't even in my frame of reference until maybe the 8th grade, when I started to
Bill Dellicato: wanted… I put together a band in the 8th grade.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, music is so… like, this is my…
Stephen Skorski: And again, I'm not a musician the way you're a musician, right? So again, I have a guitar, play the cowboy chords, but I love listening to music, and, you know, the… some of the artistic practices that I do revolve around sound and space, so…
Bill Dellicato: Sure.
Stephen Skorski: I have a different, different relationship than you do, but…
Stephen Skorski: I can't think of anything else that exists…
Stephen Skorski: that is anything like music. Like, it's just so… if music didn't exist, and you described to somebody this thing.
Stephen Skorski: and what it does to people, I don't think you would think that was possible, right? I think you would just say, well, you're describing something that is… falls into the world of magic, right? I mean, it takes us places, you know, it takes us out of time, it…
Stephen Skorski: It slows time down, it speeds times up, it makes us feel things, like, so, so, so deeply.
Stephen Skorski: So, for you, I mean, what is that relationship with just music, right? So, I do want to get into the keyboard part of it, but…
Stephen Skorski: You know, again, being a musician who's been playing literally your entire life.
Stephen Skorski: Do you… do you see it in the romantic way that I see it, or is it a little more, you know, practical for you?
Bill Dellicato: No, I 100% see it in the way you…
Bill Dellicato: indicated. And I do think…
Bill Dellicato: I like to think that music is unique in that way, but if I really…
Bill Dellicato: ponder back to the early years, I was equally I was equally…
Bill Dellicato: Passionate and obsessed with movies, with film.
Bill Dellicato: And I, you know, I've seen…
Bill Dellicato: I would… I was obsessed with movies. But I don't feel like I had…
Bill Dellicato: or I never developed a talent to be an actor.
Bill Dellicato: You know, I… and I love to read, and I've toyed with writing, but…
Bill Dellicato: There's something about… the connection that I felt to music
Bill Dellicato: And the fact that I was good at it.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Bill Dellicato: at the beginning, that I think was snowballed.
Bill Dellicato: So I, I think maybe if you were talking to… an actor.
Bill Dellicato: And you said… he asked the same question, but he asked it in the context of.
Bill Dellicato: is acting, or being, you know, a performer in that realm, magic, I think they… he or she might say yes.
Bill Dellicato: In much the same way, you know?
Bill Dellicato: Or a visual artist, you know? If you spoke to Manet, or Picasso, about… this very issue.
Bill Dellicato: They… they must have connected.
Bill Dellicato: with the page, with the canvas, in the same way that when I look at a piano, I…
Bill Dellicato: It's… it's… it's a gut reaction. I don't know how else to put it.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. I mean, I do wonder about that.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, I wonder about that, because it just feels to me that…
Stephen Skorski: other art forms… I can't think of enough… I mean, maybe movies, you know, I guess there is something about that, but so much of movies is sound, you know what I mean? So, like, you know, breaking down the individual components. There's something about…
Stephen Skorski: And ma- okay, maybe this would've come… this is what it comes down to.
Stephen Skorski: when you… Everything else is visual.
Stephen Skorski: Right, and so…
Stephen Skorski: When you're… when you're looking at something, you're always… Outside of it.
Stephen Skorski: you know, you're always on the edge. You know, if it's a circle, you know, you're kind of on the edge of the circle, looking in at kind of the central point. So no matter what it is, whether it's a, you know, whatever that thing is.
Stephen Skorski: But sound is the exact opposite. Like, we are always enveloped in sound.
Stephen Skorski: And I think that, like, physical positioning
Stephen Skorski: is just… it might have something to do with it? Like, it's just so different that with anything musical.
Stephen Skorski: you're at the center of it. Like, even if you're watching it on stage, you're the… you're actually wrapped in the sound. And so I wonder if that has something to do with…
Bill Dellicato: Well…
Stephen Skorski: of just… It being so all-consuming.
Bill Dellicato: Well… I wonder how you would respond to this. Lately.
Bill Dellicato: For the most part, because my vision is lousy.
Bill Dellicato: My lifelong passion for reading sometimes takes the form of audiobooks.
Bill Dellicato: And,
Bill Dellicato: there's a visual component, like you're talking about, when it comes to reading. You know, there's the tactile touch of the…
Bill Dellicato: Of the page, you know? And now I've shifted to a Kindle, because I can enlarge the text, you know.
Bill Dellicato: a little sad. But I… but I wonder if… we perceive the expression
Bill Dellicato: Differently, listening to an audiobook as opposed to actually writing it.
Bill Dellicato: Reading it, reading the writing, because, I do think that There are multiple senses
Bill Dellicato: that go into watching a movie, right? So it's not just the…
Bill Dellicato: The audio, or the sound, there's the visual, there's, you know, jump… jump scares, there's whatever.
Bill Dellicato: there's light, and, it, it creates a different environment, because music
Bill Dellicato: You can't put it in a corner and say it is 100%
Bill Dellicato: just listening, right? So, you could sit in a dark room with earphones on, and that would be one experience.
Bill Dellicato: But you go to my show last night.
Bill Dellicato: And the fact that the bar was crowded, and people had drinks, and there were lights, and, you know, there were various
Bill Dellicato: you actually saw the musicians, who they were. Remember in the early days, you know, Pink… no one knew what Pink Floyd looked like. You know, it was a big mystery. And I think that added to…
Bill Dellicato: The perception of how you… process the music, and so I don't know that… I mean.
Bill Dellicato: I don't know. I don't know whether it's just that it's… only…
Bill Dellicato: auditory, if that's the right word, whether it's only that you're processing with your ears. I think that music
Bill Dellicato: Can… can have… many different ways about it. You know, we've evolved from just
Bill Dellicato: you know, listening to music to how it's presented to us. There's a phenomenal book out there
Bill Dellicato: by David Byrne of the, The Talking Heads.
Bill Dellicato: Where he talks a lot about why we love music and how we react to it. I mean, he said it in many ways better than I could ever, but, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Over time, how we enjoy music has changed, and it's changed how our…
Bill Dellicato: how our enjoyment is, or the depth of involvement. There was a time
Bill Dellicato: Where the only way people experience music is the way that you say that you play.
Bill Dellicato: Which is with a few people around with your guitar, right? There was no… there were no records, there were no, like, you know, high production, there were no PA systems and groups. You know, people gathered in living rooms and someone played the piano.
Bill Dellicato: And, that was music. So, it has evolved into a multi-layered
Bill Dellicato: experience. I mean, we're going to… in a few weeks, we're going to Las Vegas to see the Eagles.
Bill Dellicato: Who I love. I think I mentioned this to you, who I… I love them, but we're gonna see them in the sphere.
Bill Dellicato: So it's not gonna be just hearing lying eyes and, you know, take it to the limit. There's gonna be other elements that come in that will hopefully
Bill Dellicato: Enhance the experience, as opposed to detract from it, you know.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. First of all, I'm so jealous. I'm so, so… so, really, I'm so jealous that you guys are gonna go see that,
Stephen Skorski: they're amazing, that experience is gonna be amazing. Yeah, I mean, that's right, I mean, everything you're saying, you know, certainly…
Stephen Skorski: It's true. It is multi-layered, and it is evolving.
Stephen Skorski: But for me, I love… I do love all of that,
Stephen Skorski: you know, I think of going to see, like, an Iron Maiden show, and, you know, and just the theatrics, and it… it does…
Stephen Skorski: It's interesting, I mean, it does enhance it, In a certain direction.
Stephen Skorski: But there's something about…
Stephen Skorski: whether it's headphones, I don't… I actually typically don't listen to headphones, I like listening through speakers. Yep. But sitting in a dark room, you know, the light's off, sitting in a dark room.
Stephen Skorski: with a record on, and just closing my eyes, I mean, just getting lost in the music in that way…
Stephen Skorski: it's not that it's better or worse, but it's different. And I guess that's usually when I feel that.
Stephen Skorski: that sensation that this is different, you know?
Stephen Skorski: And yeah, it's amazing,
Stephen Skorski: I mean, yeah, it's so great. I mean, I love, I love hearing your, you know, your kind of…
Stephen Skorski: point of view.
Bill Dellicato: You know, to go back to the pragmatic aspect of… You know, the present day.
Bill Dellicato: you know, my friends and I
Bill Dellicato: often question the sanity of doing what we're doing, you know, as I approach 60. And…
Bill Dellicato: One of the justifications we put out there is, a lot of… our peers
Bill Dellicato: They play golf. They're passionate about golf.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Bill Dellicato: They buy new golf clubs, they go to golf clinics, they get up early, and they go to the golf club, and they play with other people that like to play golf.
Bill Dellicato: And… In a way, my musical activity in the public serves that purpose.
Bill Dellicato: I'm doing… I'm playing golf with my lifelong buddies, or people that are very good at golf, and we're, you know, instead of paying
Bill Dellicato: green fees were… were getting paid, a meager sum, but it's… it's my… it's my outlet, you know? And I wish… I wish it weren't my outlet, I wish it was my everything, but, you know, pragmatism comes back in, and it's just not… it's not…
Bill Dellicato: Not the cards.
Stephen Skorski: Ugh, we hate pragmatism,
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, alright, so… yeah, I mean, I could go on and on, really, just kind of getting into the psychology of what you just said. Instead of going down that rabbit hole just yet.
Stephen Skorski: I do want to just… I wanna talk about your keyboards a little bit.
Stephen Skorski: Because… and I'm so happy we had this chance to talk the way we've been talking for the last, whatever, you know, half hour or so. Because that…
Stephen Skorski: That sort of atmosphere helps me understand
Stephen Skorski: why you, you know, have these objects, you know, these keyboards.
Stephen Skorski: and what they might mean to you beyond just, you know, I press a key and a sound comes out, right? They, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Right.
Stephen Skorski: It's not just a tool, right? So that's really helpful. So,
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, do you think of yourself as a collector? You know, in terms of…
Stephen Skorski: The number of keyboards that you have,
Stephen Skorski: Or maybe the question is, like, when you think of the word collector.
Stephen Skorski: What do you think of, and do you fall into that category?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, great question.
Bill Dellicato: Because all of the obsessiveness that we talked about with music
Bill Dellicato: Translates into the tools that you use to create music, right?
Bill Dellicato: And these tools, I'll call them instruments, are…
Bill Dellicato: a means of expression, but they're more than that. They're often… A statement as, you know.
Bill Dellicato: There's something in me that wants to say, I play a Steinway piano.
Bill Dellicato: And the Steinway Piano is the best.
Bill Dellicato: Now, that opens a can of worm.
Bill Dellicato: can of worms in the Steinway community, because you say, well, what year was your Steinway? And, you know, you really have to go back to the Hamburg Steinways, because the New York Steinways, blah blah blah. You can go down a rabbit hole with this whole discussion.
Bill Dellicato: But… Whenever you approach tools, you,
Bill Dellicato: are making a statement. When I go out and I play with my current rigged.
Bill Dellicato: I'm making a statement, which is insane, because no… really not… no one is… no one is really monitoring what I'm…
Bill Dellicato: bringing out, other than maybe a random keyboard player that would come in and is a geek like me, right? So,
Bill Dellicato: I've deluded myself at various points in time, buying things, because I feel like
Bill Dellicato: To show up with them on stage.
Bill Dellicato: I'll be legitimate, I'll be, you know, whoa, wow, he's got this, or he's got that, you know, must be… that's not a casual player.
Bill Dellicato: But, as far as collecting, I mean, I guess the connotation was collecting with me
Bill Dellicato: It's always been tied to quantity.
Bill Dellicato: In a way.
Bill Dellicato: And in that sense, I don't think that I am a collector.
Bill Dellicato: I have had a degree of pragmatism.
Bill Dellicato: in the instruments that I've gotten, or…
Bill Dellicato: collected, you know, for lack of a better term.
Bill Dellicato: And I've always felt the danger of Accumulating too many tools, Was that you diluted your… ability to…
Bill Dellicato: Maximize the utility that each one You know, kind of represented.
Bill Dellicato: And I always resisted that, because
Bill Dellicato: I feel like people who go down that route,
Bill Dellicato: they, it's a little bit of the shiny new thing element, especially with the evolution of synthesizers and electronic keyboards.
Bill Dellicato: it's like selling iPhones, you know, they gotta get people to keep coming back.
Bill Dellicato: With the upgrades, and they're all debated and everything. But the truth is that the very first version has so much capability.
Bill Dellicato: That nobody really… devotes their time and effort to. They just go out and they buy another thing.
Bill Dellicato: You know, the… Perfect example I'd give.
Bill Dellicato: is… there's a… I'm sure you recognize the name, a man named Brian Eno.
Bill Dellicato: who is a keyboard player in a band called Roxy Music, but he's also, later years, producer… And,
Bill Dellicato: he was… a strong proponent of a synthesizer called the Yamaha DX7.
Bill Dellicato: And Yamaha DX7 is a whole discussion in and of itself. There's been people who've written doctoral theses on it and its effect on the culture. But…
Bill Dellicato: It's been much criticized, and it's also been viewed as overly complex and very difficult in the way that it generates sounds. But Brian Eno
Bill Dellicato: mastered it, and he devoted all his time, instead of, like, going into a studio and seeking a sound and saying, oh, we'll bring…
Bill Dellicato: bring that synthesizer in, because that's the one that is associated with that sound. He would sit at the Yamaha DX7 and squeeze it out.
Bill Dellicato: Right? And I have been guilty over the years.
Bill Dellicato: of saying, I wanna… I wanna collect this particular instrument, because…
Bill Dellicato: Only with this particular type of instrument can I achieve this type of sonic result.
Bill Dellicato: when… a Brian Eno would say that that's ridiculous. Like, you know.
Bill Dellicato: start with the tools, and bring your A-game to it, and you're going to achieve, you can achieve similar things. Now, that's hotly debated, but if you have the Eno philosophy, the desire to collect.
Bill Dellicato: is diminished, because you buy… you make one good purchase, and you squeeze every bit of utility out of it, if that makes sense.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: It does. There's a bunch you said in there that I'd like to hear a little more about.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, but before I actually ask you the follow-up, because I think… I don't know this answer, and I suspect a lot of other people don't either, but just very basically, is there a difference between a synthesizer and a keyboard?
Stephen Skorski: Or for the… you know, if there is a difference, what is it? And for the context of this conversation, could we use either word?
Bill Dellicato: Not all keyboards are synthesizers.
Bill Dellicato: And not all synthesizers are… are… have keyboards attached.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Bill Dellicato: So, a piano is a keyboard, It's not really a synthesizer.
Bill Dellicato: And you could have a guitar synthesizer. You could have a…
Bill Dellicato: Virtual synthesizer, which is all the rage, right now, that you trigger from a drum, you know, from a drum pad.
Stephen Skorski: So, I don't know that they're…
Bill Dellicato: I think there is a distinction.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so, just for a person who's sort of new to this world, what do I call the things that you play?
Bill Dellicato: Well, you would call them keyboards, because all the… That is my…
Bill Dellicato: The vast majority of synthesizers are triggered by keyboards, right?
Bill Dellicato: But,
Bill Dellicato: you have instruments, keyboard instruments, like a Hammond organ, right? Which is not really a synthesizer in the…
Bill Dellicato: sense that we're talking about, it's an organ, right? Or a Steinway piano is not… you would… you never call it a synthesizer. Synthesizers…
Bill Dellicato: came into existence, and this, this is actually very interesting. Synthesizers came into existence probably in the 1960s.
Bill Dellicato: Maybe the late 50s. And the… one of the original proponents of it was a man named Dr. Robert Moog.
Bill Dellicato: And he put together a modular synthesizer. He was an engineer, right? Like, so he wasn't necessarily even a… a,
Bill Dellicato: a musician. But what the theory behind a synthesizer was molding sound based upon various methods, right? Now.
Bill Dellicato: In the beginning of synthesizers, synthesizers were not designed to try to emulate existing instruments.
Bill Dellicato: Because that becomes…
Bill Dellicato: relevant later on. But you would… the allure of synthesizers was you can make sounds that you've never heard before.
Bill Dellicato: You've heard a piano, you've heard a guitar.
Bill Dellicato: you've heard an organ, now we're gonna make something that sounds like we've never heard before. You know, in the early ages of my involvement in this, the notion was you could take the attack of a piano.
Bill Dellicato: And mold it with the sustain and release of a flute.
Bill Dellicato: and then transform that into a violin. Like, you know, people…
Bill Dellicato: People were saying that the,
Bill Dellicato: the options were unlimited. The possibilities were unlimited.
Bill Dellicato: So that's how synthesizers started. Before synthesizers were around, keyboards, really talked about
Bill Dellicato: the acoustic piano, electric piano, there were two main brands, the Whirlitzer electric piano and the Rhodes Electric Piano, and then there was the…
Bill Dellicato: have an organ. And that was… that was what keyboard players played. And then synthesizers started coming in, and in the beginning, they were very niche. They were, like, very electronic-sounding. You know, you think about one of the early uses, commercially, of synthesizers.
Bill Dellicato: was the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer song, Lucky Man, where at the end, Keith Emerson plays this solo
Bill Dellicato: on a Moog modular, and he's using things like portamento, which is a slide between keys that no one had ever heard before. Like, you couldn't play that… you could play it on the piano, it would sound terrible, right?
Bill Dellicato: So…
Bill Dellicato: it came on the scene, and it was like, wow, this is… and in the beginning, synthesizers were monophonic, they only had one… you could play one note at a time.
Bill Dellicato: And as they evolved, you know, the technology evolved, then you could play polyphonic synthesizers, you could play chords, right? And now.
Bill Dellicato: It wasn't, like, only a lead instrument. You could play pads beyond… you know, in the same way you could play a piano, so on and so forth.
Bill Dellicato: And in the beginning of that evolution, all these synthesizers were analog.
Bill Dellicato: They were… they dealt with,
Bill Dellicato: actual electricity, right? And oscillators, generating sound waves, manipulating them in a filter, and then amplifying them through, an amplifier, and…
Bill Dellicato: So, so the analog synths were very…
Bill Dellicato: erratic, they were fat-sounding, they were, you know, they were rich-sounding in a way that…
Bill Dellicato: People were not accustomed to.
Bill Dellicato: And then, you got to the early 1980s, and Yamaha came out with this Yamaha DX7, which I have a Yamaha DX7 sitting right next to me.
Bill Dellicato: And… DX7 used completely different technology to generate sounds. So, they used frequency modulation of sine waves.
Bill Dellicato: As opposed to the analog synthesizers would start with a square wave or a sawtooth wave, and they would filter it out. Like, they would take
Bill Dellicato: elements away. The DX7 started from the basic wave of a sine wave, and by combining those waves at different frequencies and different algorithms, you could generate even more complex sounds than what those analog synths were doing.
Bill Dellicato: So when the DX7 came out, people were throwing away their analog synths. This goes back to the collecting thing. People were throwing away these analog synths, you can… you couldn't get 50 bucks for them, right? Right? And then, lo and behold, 30 years later, those analog synths are selling for, like, $50,000.
Bill Dellicato: From a collector's standpoint, so think about that.
Bill Dellicato: Because, people… Want those vintage instruments.
Bill Dellicato: And it's ironic, because as synthesizers started to evolve.
Bill Dellicato: They went away from their original mission statement, where they were trying to create sounds that you'd never heard before. A lot of the synthesizers were trying to emulate pianos.
Bill Dellicato: organs!
Bill Dellicato: Electric pianos, the early synthesizer sounds. So.
Bill Dellicato: the question became, can a DX7 sound like a piano? Do you make a DX7 sound like a piano? You could do it more than the older sense. And they said the same thing about, can you get a DX7 to sound like
Bill Dellicato: a Moog modular.
Bill Dellicato: Because it's using different technology to get there, and it's digital, it's not analog, right? You know, this is like the same thing with CDs and turntables. But we've gotten… we've gotten to an insane place with keyboards, where
Bill Dellicato: I have… on my iPhone.
Bill Dellicato: a free app that emulates a Minimoog synthesizer.
Bill Dellicato: Okay? If you go on… eBay, right now.
Bill Dellicato: and type in original, you know, 1970… Minimogue?
Bill Dellicato: Probably sell them for, like, 7 grand.
Bill Dellicato: And, I can replicate that on my iPhone.
Bill Dellicato: And my other keyboards.
Bill Dellicato: Now, the people who will… who are in that marketplace, have…
Bill Dellicato: I've got to be careful, I was about to say deluded themselves, but they are convinced that…
Bill Dellicato: The original thing
Bill Dellicato: Which is just… is justified in collecting that original thing, even though those things break down, it's hard to find parts and everything, because
Bill Dellicato: You can never… Replicate the true, original, instrument.
Bill Dellicato: And…
Bill Dellicato: And I tell you that the vast majority of the population, 99.9%, would never be able to distinguish between an original Minimoog and my iPhone app.
Bill Dellicato: I… I'm telling you the truth.
Stephen Skorski: But this, but this…
Bill Dellicato: This group, but this group, this group.
Bill Dellicato: Feel differently, and they're passionate about it.
Stephen Skorski: So you're not in that group?
Bill Dellicato: I'm not in that group. But it has… but…
Bill Dellicato: Participating in those chat rooms and everything has fueled my collecting of various
Bill Dellicato: instruments. So, for the longest time, I did not have
Bill Dellicato: A truly analog, what they call knobby synth.
Bill Dellicato: Where… this is the original days of synthesizers. They had knobs, and they were analog, and they… they… their tone drifted, and everything. Anyway, so recently.
Bill Dellicato: after years of feeling deficient in my life, right, I bought an analog synth. It's a new analog synth, but
Bill Dellicato: I feel like I'm able to… Put to rest that that kind of…
Bill Dellicato: deficiency in my rig, because I have the DX7, DX7 is the FM synth, and an analog synth can't really make analog, FM synth sounds, and vice versa. There are different tools for different approaches.
Bill Dellicato: But the great irony of that long on-ramp to me getting an analog synth
Bill Dellicato: is… I have it here, and I play it.
Bill Dellicato: And my primary keyboard when I play out is called the Nord States 3, and they have a virtual analog synth in there.
Bill Dellicato: And if I have to be completely honest.
Bill Dellicato: I really can't… I can… I can detect a little bit of a difference. I'm not saying…
Bill Dellicato: This opinion is invalid. But when you mix it into a song and put it through processors and reverbs, or, God forbid, play at the bar I played at last night.
Bill Dellicato: There's no way in hell you're telling the difference.
Bill Dellicato: So, if you're a collector, it's like cars, right? You know, you could have a brand new Lexus.
Bill Dellicato: that is a feat of engineering that is unbelievable. Or you could have a GTA, you know, you could have a…
Bill Dellicato: Chevy Impala.
Bill Dellicato: that from 67, you know, or whatever year it is. And…
Bill Dellicato: you're never gonna convince the collector of old cars that that Lexus is… Better.
Bill Dellicato: Because I, I think, I think at its heart, collection.
Bill Dellicato: Is grounded, in many ways, in nostalgia.
Bill Dellicato: and rear… In the rear window.
Bill Dellicato: And in a way, it's… At Polar Opposite, from early adopters, With advancements in technology.
Bill Dellicato: You know, the people who are playing your guitar player, people who are playing a 57 Strat.
Bill Dellicato: will never walk into the Guitar Center and see the brand new Strat that's made in… actually, they have American Strats, and they're more desirable than the Mexican one. They'll never even pick up that guitar.
Bill Dellicato: There's… there's hubris in this, because They… they're convinced
Bill Dellicato: That there was a period of time where these things were created.
Bill Dellicato: And… As a result… there hasn't been an evolution, or the evolution has been negative.
Bill Dellicato: You know, it's crazy.
Bill Dellicato: You know, the Yamaha DX7, when I first got my first Yamaha DX7, it had…
Bill Dellicato: all these complaints about it, there's, I think,
Bill Dellicato: It's… there's digital noise created because the processing was bad, and I think they call it aliasing.
Bill Dellicato: It's… it creates, like, a un…
Bill Dellicato: pleasant digital noise, right? It's lo-fi, right?
Bill Dellicato: But then…
Bill Dellicato: the Yamaha DX7 came out with the DX7 II, which is actually the model I have here, where they improved the processors.
Bill Dellicato: There is online debate.
Bill Dellicato: people spending their entire nights debating the first generation DX7 has got more grit and integrity. You know, even though the DX7 II corrected all the problems.
Bill Dellicato: now the people are saying, I like the problems. You know, it's like… and… I don't know,
Bill Dellicato: You really wonder… If… if these people that are holding on to Collector's items.
Bill Dellicato: Are really ignoring the power
Bill Dellicato: The evolution of the technology that
Bill Dellicato: you know, is creating these new instruments. Like, let me tell you something, you take this Nord Stage 3 and you plop it into 1970,
Bill Dellicato: It would be, like, from another planet.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: Well, alright, let me, let me, let me.
Stephen Skorski: Give you the option.
Bill Dellicato: I could talk all day.
Stephen Skorski: Love this, no, it's fantastic, I mean, it,
Stephen Skorski: I'll give you, I think, maybe the opposite side of that equation.
Stephen Skorski: Because you're right, you know, if you're… if you're… if you're purely basing Your evaluation on performance.
Stephen Skorski: New cars perform better.
Stephen Skorski: Digital watches perform better.
Stephen Skorski: you know, Spotify, Performs better, you know, than, a pile of records.
Stephen Skorski: You know, there's so many things that fall into that category.
Stephen Skorski: And it's true, I mean, I suspect there is a set of individuals who… Are just anti…
Stephen Skorski: new, you know?
Bill Dellicato: Yep, yep.
Stephen Skorski: But even those people… I have a feeling that there is something very deep inside of us that…
Stephen Skorski: responds to… the mistakes… And the errors, and the difficulty in using something.
Stephen Skorski: Because I think that reminds us that we're humans. Like, that's the human element of it, right? So when we get something that… I mean, you know, I say this, I collect,
Stephen Skorski: I mean, collect. I have a small collection of watches.
Stephen Skorski: I have a fairly large collection of records.
Stephen Skorski: I have a lot of books, not quite sure that we would call it a collection, but it's certainly a library. I mean, all of those things have…
Stephen Skorski: You know, modern-day equivalents.
Stephen Skorski: That perform much, much better, right?
Stephen Skorski: why do you need a watch when you have your phone? You know, why do I need records when I have Spotify? That sort of thing. But…
Stephen Skorski: when I put on a record, and there is just the slightest… you know, I don't want to hear a scratchy record that skips, but, you know, just the needle kind of touching the record, and it makes that initial…
Stephen Skorski: you know, sound. There's something in that that I think… truly, I mean, it's not right in the forefront of my thoughts, like, oh, this reminds me that I'm a human being.
Stephen Skorski: But I do think it's there. I think it's really kind of underneath the surface as this really strong kind of river of…
Stephen Skorski: this connects me to the world that I live in. And it's the same thing as a mechanical watch. So, I mean, I don't know, do you think that…
Stephen Skorski: This is what's going on in the keyboard community, that people who are saying, like, no, no, you know, you should have, if you can afford it, you should have, you know, these early analog
Stephen Skorski: Instruments, because they connect you to something that the newer ones don't.
Bill Dellicato: Well, but I… but I think, you know, to go back to your… your turntable, Example.
Bill Dellicato: I still think that…
Bill Dellicato: Your description that it connects you to being human and everything is grounded in nostalgia more than it is in any kind of objective
Bill Dellicato: thing. Because if you had never experienced music, that way.
Bill Dellicato: And you had grown up on CDs.
Bill Dellicato: Okay? Would you… 20 years, 30 years into the experiment, Have the same response.
Bill Dellicato: When you put that record on.
Bill Dellicato: If you had never had
Bill Dellicato: a mechanical watch, and you had always had an iWatch, if someone presented that mechanical watch to you and didn't give you any background or context to say that this was
Bill Dellicato: you know, explained to you what it was, just said, here, wear this watch for a couple of days, compare it to your iPhone, iWatch, and what do you think?
Bill Dellicato: If you remove the nostalgia and the connection to
Bill Dellicato: the past. And you just objectively evaluate the two things based upon present day.
Bill Dellicato: And you AB, like, you know, a lot of the stuff that's going on with the keyboards, and I'm obsessed with this, on YouTube, is people…
Bill Dellicato: are A-Bing things, like, so, the Nord has an incredible organ sound. So, they…
Bill Dellicato: play one note on a Nord organ sound, and they play it on the actual organ.
Bill Dellicato: And they're saying, oh, well, the actual organ is warmer, you know, you wonder to what extent this is confirmation bias, like, so the best way to do that is to kind of
Bill Dellicato: take the visual back out and say, you know, take the Pepsi challenge. Like, which one do you like? Because I think that when we make these decisions about
Bill Dellicato: older items. I mean, how do you… how do you… How does anyone collect anyone Anything.
Bill Dellicato: Without it having an element of connectivity to your past, to your
Bill Dellicato: impressions, you know? Right now, like.
Bill Dellicato: just to get off-topic, but I'm reading, Proust in Search of Lost Time.
Bill Dellicato: And if you've never read it, like, the basic premise is it's about involuntary memory, and the famous beginning
Bill Dellicato: part of the book, is that this man is somewhere, and he takes a Madeline, it's a cookie, and he dips it into a cup of tea.
Bill Dellicato: And it brings them back to his childhood, where his nanny basically would do that. And it triggers
Bill Dellicato: It triggers this whole memory of his upbringing. And his point is that we go through life, and we have involuntary memories triggered by various things all the time.
Bill Dellicato: And… I think that… When we're collecting, these things… of the past.
Bill Dellicato: It's… it's…
Bill Dellicato: bringing us back, and maybe that is making us human. I don't know, because it reflects our experiences. If we have no context to evaluate something.
Bill Dellicato: Maybe we get a different result.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, you're right, there's no way to separate
Stephen Skorski: your experience of anything from your prior experiences, right? So that's 100%.
Stephen Skorski: But yeah, I do, I do… I mean, first of all, I think when you're collecting anything…
Stephen Skorski: The idea of, rational goes out the window.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. I think A-Bing things is probably a mistake.
Stephen Skorski: You know, as that sort of a general philosophy, or, you know, approach to, I don't know, the thing that you're doing,
Stephen Skorski: So, I mean, acknowledging all of that, I do think…
Stephen Skorski: At least I think of my collections.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, I do think… I do think they're better. You know, I mean, I hate to use that… that term,
Stephen Skorski: But when I put on… and I… and kind of directly to your question, like, if I didn't know, you know, if I didn't grow up with records, or I didn't grow up with…
Stephen Skorski: you know, watches… first of all, I didn't grow up with watches that were mechanical, right? So that's something. There's something very soulless
Stephen Skorski: about… scrolling through music on my iPhone, or my phone, on Spotify.
Stephen Skorski: It was just something about… it just…
Bill Dellicato: About the experience, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, it's… it's missing… I mean, there is… I mean, we are, you know, we are physical beings in space, and so I think the tactile nature of things really does play a really big part, and I think the more digitally you go with things, you know, you just lose that element. And I would say…
Stephen Skorski: If you look at who's collecting records now, and the resurgence of records, you do get a lot of people who probably have this nostalgia
Stephen Skorski: you know, kind of drive, but you also get a lot of people who that is not at all, it couldn't be. You know, these, you know, 16, 17, 18-year-old kids, who that… it's not possible, right, that that would be the primary driver of why they're collecting records.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, I think we…
Bill Dellicato: I think that those kids just are better at discerning
Bill Dellicato: Some sort of innate, inherent quality.
Bill Dellicato: Or what do you think, if it's not a draw to the past, what's driving them to lean towards something that is much more difficult
Bill Dellicato: to maintain.
Stephen Skorski: You know? Yeah, totally.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, that's more costly, What, what's driving that?
Stephen Skorski: I think… I think we res… I think we respond to…
Stephen Skorski: The physicality of things in a way that is, underappreciated.
Stephen Skorski: And I would say that for anything. Cars,
Stephen Skorski: you know, people get used to driving electric cars, but, you know, but certainly there are people who… who don't like the fact that you can't hear the engine kind of revving up. You know, it seems like whenever… it seems like often when something like that happens, the new thing does its best to replicate the old thing.
Stephen Skorski: You know, like, you know, okay, can… instead of just, you know, typing in my… typing into my keyboard, you know, like, my computer keyboard.
Stephen Skorski: And making these sounds on my computer, you know, let me make an actual keyboard that replicates what a piano looks like, and then let me take it a step farther and, you know, let me try and replicate the response of the keys on a piano
Stephen Skorski: when it's actually sort of activating a hammer that's hitting a string or a wire that's making… you know what I mean? Like, there's just something really missing when you go…
Stephen Skorski: Too far down the digital road.
Bill Dellicato: Well, that's absolutely… I… if you remember, I mentioned that I always felt deficient because I didn't have… I described it as a knobby
Bill Dellicato: analog synth.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: There's something tactile about
Bill Dellicato: turning knobs, right? And you can… as I said, I have an iPhone app, or I have a digital synth that will emulate that, but it's not the same. You're going into menus, you feel like a computer programmer, there's something about twisting a knob.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: that. And so, I think that that's a big element. The other ironing is this new analog synth I have.
Bill Dellicato: has a knob on it that says Vintage.
Bill Dellicato: What vintage does is it makes the oscillators drift the way that they did in the beginning.
Bill Dellicato: Because that's a more human…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: less digital, but yeah, so I… but… but I do think, and probably be after I'm gone, like.
Bill Dellicato: Engineers who are operating in this environment are aware of this. The whole ballgame is in… modeling
Bill Dellicato: The imperfections in these… like, they may be able to get to a point with digital technology where they can replicate, identically the experience that you're talking about with the turntable.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: You know, so, you know, the other thing I was thinking about, because
Bill Dellicato: One area of collecting that I…
Bill Dellicato: I find doesn't apply to a lot of the things we're talking about, is coins.
Bill Dellicato: So… There are people who collect coins.
Bill Dellicato: And I don't think that…
Bill Dellicato: they're collecting those coins because they think the coins were cut better, you know, years ago, so my nostalgia thing, or Tide, you know… I don't know what drives a coin collector.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, well, again, I don't… I think any collection is…
Stephen Skorski: One of the… one of the fun things about any collection is it does tie you to the past.
Stephen Skorski: Without question, right? So, you know, certainly I'm not suggesting that's not a really important element
Stephen Skorski: To, to this idea of collection.
Stephen Skorski: But it's interesting, because I've had a similar conversation with other people
Stephen Skorski: who the thing that I might argue is a collection, because it has utility.
Stephen Skorski: In their mind, it doesn't quite feel like a collection.
Stephen Skorski: Which is interesting, you know, that the idea that because I use the… because, you know, you're using these things, maybe not all of them, but you're using these things on a daily, weekly basis.
Stephen Skorski: Maybe they don't quite feel like a collection,
Stephen Skorski: To you, but on the other hand.
Stephen Skorski: in certain ways, when you talk about them, it certainly seems like Collector…
Stephen Skorski: activity, you know, collect their mentality. Yeah, yeah.
Bill Dellicato: For sure.
Stephen Skorski: So, alright, so take me back to the… there's something you said earlier that I thought was really interesting, like, you know, way back in when we kind of started to talk about keyboards, that part of the conversation.
Stephen Skorski: you talked about an instrument making a statement, right? You kind of show up, you have this thing, or maybe you don't show up, it's actually just in your studio, but it makes you feel a certain way, right? And so that sort of made me think about this idea of this transference of energy.
Stephen Skorski: Between the tool itself, and to you, and then back again, and then to other people, and…
Stephen Skorski: you know, what is… are you… do you still have that? Like, is that something that's still… was that an earlier sort of feeling? No. Or are you still on board with, if I get this thing.
Stephen Skorski: I now have this feeling.
Bill Dellicato: I still think it's as strong, maybe, as ever.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Bill Dellicato: But, but, but I'm also mindful that it's…
Bill Dellicato: It's not that it's juvenile, but…
Bill Dellicato: I feel… I feel bad about.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Bill Dellicato: Even though I'm recognizing it.
Stephen Skorski: Why do you feel bad about it?
Bill Dellicato: Well, we were talking about… about watches, would wearing a Rolex
Bill Dellicato: a classic Rolex make you feel like you were broadcasting something different than a Timex?
Bill Dellicato: From the same year?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I see… yeah, I mean, I think I see where you're going with this. I would… yes, I would certainly feel different. In some ways, I would feel better about the Timex, and in other ways, I would feel better about the Rolex.
Stephen Skorski: But that's the nice thing about collecting.
Stephen Skorski: is that…
Stephen Skorski: I like the feeling. You know what I mean? Like, you know, each one has its place, you know, it goes back to this A being. I don't, you know, as a collector, I don't have to make a judgment the Timex is worse or better than the Rolex. I can just love each one.
Stephen Skorski: for what it brings to the table, you know? And so…
Bill Dellicato: You gotta dig into that a little bit more. You gotta say, what you… you love each one for what… how it makes you feel, right?
Stephen Skorski: Right, exactly, yeah, exactly, absolutely.
Bill Dellicato: I think the reason why I feel bad about, you know, what we're talking about.
Bill Dellicato: Is… it's rooted in another deep insecurity in my life, which is this notion of feeling legitimate.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Bill Dellicato: Like, you're a real player.
Bill Dellicato: if you play Keyboard X,
Bill Dellicato: If you're… and it's… it used to be a joke, like, oh, you're a keyboard player, what do you… what… what's your main…
Bill Dellicato: arsenal, you know, what's in your arsenal? Yeah, I have a Casio.
Bill Dellicato: And people would look at… actually, Casio has improved, and I owned a Casio for a long time, and people would be like, ugh, Casio. Like, they have an attitude.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, totally.
Bill Dellicato: Doesn't matter how it sounds, doesn't matter that I'm a good player. So I think that there's a little bit of elitism
Bill Dellicato: In how we feel
Bill Dellicato: and you can source that to the Rolex, right? Like, you know, yeah, I got a Roll… I have a vintage Rolex,
Bill Dellicato: It's… it's gonna say something. And it's a deeply personal thing…
Bill Dellicato: That's why, you know, I'll switch over to my other life.
Bill Dellicato: You know, a lot of work I do, in my practice is estate planning.
Bill Dellicato: And, you know, you have people who are collectors who want to
Bill Dellicato: Dispose or arrange for the disposal of their collection after they're gone.
Bill Dellicato: And when you talk with these people, you get into very interesting psychological things.
Bill Dellicato: Because collections are inherently tied to the person who's collecting them. They're not universal, you know? So, my father-in-law, who you know, you know, collects, like.
Bill Dellicato: A lot of really wacky stuff.
Bill Dellicato: And, we joke with him, he's saying, like, you know, when he's gone, like, what are we gonna do with this stuff?
Bill Dellicato: Because it means something to him.
Bill Dellicato: Right? You know, you know, certain old guns. I guess you gotta find somebody who's like-minded.
Bill Dellicato: But it's not universal, like, you know.
Stephen Skorski: No, no.
Bill Dellicato: So, it's… it's hard to… Detach
Bill Dellicato: Way that collected items make you feel.
Bill Dellicato: From, you know.
Bill Dellicato: what a collection is. Like, you know, one person's treasured collection is another person's garbage pile, right? So it's like… it depends upon who the person is, who the collector is.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Well, but that's the… but that's the beauty of it. So I'll… I'll tell… do things as you were saying that. There's, you know, you'll see a meme…
Stephen Skorski: Out there, which always makes me laugh.
Stephen Skorski: You know, it'll be like,
Stephen Skorski: I've seen this at record shows, and it's a picture of, like.
Stephen Skorski: A woman, and she kinda has her head down, and she's clearly very sad.
Stephen Skorski: And then there's a guy, kind of, next to her, and he has his arm on her shoulder.
Stephen Skorski: And the little word bubble says, I'm so sorry to hear about your uncle. Dot dot dot.
Stephen Skorski: Did he collect records? You know, and I see that, and that just… It's that impulse.
Stephen Skorski: is so real.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Because as you were saying.
Stephen Skorski: In my professional life, I come across a lot of people with collections. My initial reaction was, you should call me, because I don't care what the collection is, I would love to know what it is, because you're right, the chances of the kids, or the whatever, you know, the nieces and nephews wanting that particular collection are probably pretty slim.
Stephen Skorski: Right? Yep. But…
Stephen Skorski: the idea that you're gonna… somebody has this collection, and maybe it goes to auction, or it does whatever, and however, somehow it gets put back out into the world, back out in the stream, as someone recently kinda put it to me.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's beautiful. It's really wonderful, because it is so personal, right? So, I think if you have an expectation of your collection being passed down
Stephen Skorski: From generation to generation, while that might be really nice, and if it happens, fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: Because collections are so personal.
Stephen Skorski: you might be disappointed, you know? I don't know who wants…
Stephen Skorski: you know, whatever, you know, pick your… pick your collection.
Bill Dellicato: The only, the only, the only exception to that…
Bill Dellicato: Is, it goes back to the whole nostalgia argument.
Bill Dellicato: And a collection of junk, if it's your father's junk.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: is worth keeping.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Totally.
Bill Dellicato: It's not a collection that you would have put together. Yeah. But if every time you look at that
Bill Dellicato: set of coins, you think of your father, it has utility, right?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, well, I mean, this is the thing, like, when you… when you tell me about, you know, a memory of… you're 6 years old, you're sitting, you know, kind of next to, or maybe even underneath, you know, your mom playing the piano, right? I mean, it's like… it's hard… it's… it's…
Stephen Skorski: Y-you know, it's, it's,
Stephen Skorski: if that's not, you know, while it may not be at the forefront of your thinking, right, again, I think it's another one of those things that must be kind of underneath all of these things, all of these feelings that you have for these instruments, whether you're just looking at it, whether you're playing it,
Stephen Skorski: So…
Stephen Skorski: maybe… give me a sense of how many keyboards you have. Like, let me get a sense of, you know, how many do you have, how many do you play, how many have you had over your lifetime?
Stephen Skorski: Why do you get rid of them? When do you buy them? Just…
Stephen Skorski: Clear that picture up for me.
Bill Dellicato: I have… So, I'm in my studio right now. I have 4 keyboards set up.
Bill Dellicato: And I have one module, which is…
Bill Dellicato: called a synthesizer brain that I can trigger.
Bill Dellicato: From any of these keyboards.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Bill Dellicato: upstairs, In our bedroom, I have a…
Bill Dellicato: Digital piano that we used to have in the apartment.
Bill Dellicato: And we have this Steinway, baby grand up in the house.
Bill Dellicato: So, to give perspective, I have a note, which I'm looking through my phone for.
Bill Dellicato: And the name of the note is Keyboards Owned.
Bill Dellicato: And it goes… I went back at one point.
Bill Dellicato: And try to chronicle all the keyboards that I've owned
Bill Dellicato: Over the course of my life.
Bill Dellicato: And let me see if I can… I can use the search feature. Let's see, this is why technology is good.
Bill Dellicato: Key… huh.
Bill Dellicato: And I am… yeah, here we go. So…
Bill Dellicato: It's probably 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
Bill Dellicato: About 25.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Bill Dellicato: Over the… from when I began this journey.
Bill Dellicato: And, so what causes me to cycle out and, you know… Upgrade, or sell,
Bill Dellicato: The… I think that there's… there's two elements.
Bill Dellicato: There's one which is true raw sound.
Bill Dellicato: It's gotta sound great, right?
Stephen Skorski: And the earlier stuff.
Bill Dellicato: as technology was at its starting points, we had samplers that were, like, they were really gritty, to put it very generously.
Bill Dellicato: And then, the samples got to be…
Bill Dellicato: so good that it's really a challenge for the manufacturers to distinguish the better samples, right? Because they're all… you reach a point, a threshold where the ear can't discern these differences, right? So that first one is just sheer sound quality. The second one
Bill Dellicato: is what I'll describe as user interface. Like, how do you interact with the instrument? Like, how is it laid out? Does it have knobs? Does it have menus? Can you…
Bill Dellicato: do…
Bill Dellicato: whatever you want with it. Like, can you put a piano at the bottom octave, and put a trumpet at the top, and an organ in between, and how quickly can you change sounds? So, user interface. And that…
Bill Dellicato: Is a bigger factor than you might think, because ease of use and
Bill Dellicato: ability to do what you want to do quickly and easily is a huge factor, I think.
Bill Dellicato: So that's driven… I'd say that those two things have driven
Bill Dellicato: My acquisitions and sales over the years.
Stephen Skorski: So…
Stephen Skorski: You know, it's funny, when you're talking about the… what's interesting about this conversation to me is there is a very emotional component
Stephen Skorski: To the creation of music.
Stephen Skorski: But when you talk about the actual tools for you, which is the keyboards, piano, There seems to be…
Stephen Skorski: A very, much less… much less emotional, right? There's… there's almost like a detachment.
Stephen Skorski: So, when you look at a keyboard.
Stephen Skorski: Is there any sense of beauty in the object itself? You know, does just looking at it…
Bill Dellicato: Yes. Kind of create something, you know what I mean? Like… 100%, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: So, tell me about that, because it seems like you've had instruments, you've gotten rid of them, you know, you're down to, if I counted correctly, 5 or 6. Yep.
Stephen Skorski: you know, you've talked about, kind of, the way they work, the sounds that they produce, but I don't know that we've… you know, I haven't heard anything…
Stephen Skorski: That would indicate There's, again, just an element of beauty of the object itself.
Stephen Skorski: So yeah, tell me about that.
Bill Dellicato: So when I was, you know, call it in high school or whatever, I used to…
Bill Dellicato: subscribe to Keyboard Magazine. You know, so you'd have all these,
Bill Dellicato: great articles about gear, music, you know, musicians would be inter… you know, keyboard players would be interviewed. And around that time.
Bill Dellicato: There was a synthesizer that came out that was one of the first polyphonic programmable
Bill Dellicato: with memory, you could save the sounds, right? Synthesizers, and it was…
Bill Dellicato: It was a synthesizer called the Profit 5.
Bill Dellicato: And the Profit 5 was made by an American guy, engineer. And, it was very expensive, but it was also…
Bill Dellicato: Kind of groundbreaking.
Bill Dellicato: I have… a folder of… from my child, I have a lot of paraphernalia, or…
Bill Dellicato: nostalgic items for my childhood. I found the folder, Years ago.
Bill Dellicato: And I have a cutout from that magazine of the Prophet 5.
Bill Dellicato: Because…
Bill Dellicato: you just look at it, and it's beautiful looking. It had, like, wood on the end, it had black, like, the fonts that they chose to use, the buttons, the buttons, the, thing, it just…
Bill Dellicato: I remember, as a child, looking at that going, oh my god, look at that, that… it looks phenomenal, right? So, I've been struggling over the last 15 years.
Bill Dellicato: Because… Profit 5s have been reissued.
Bill Dellicato: Okay? And I've been like, Wanting one.
Bill Dellicato: But my pragmatic side's saying, you don't need a profit… what the hell? Like, you know, it… but…
Bill Dellicato: What has always been driving that
Bill Dellicato: Is what you're describing as just, like, a sheer emotional Reaction.
Bill Dellicato: To… to the way it looks.
Bill Dellicato: in the way it sounds. Now, it hasn't forced me to…
Bill Dellicato: you know, if I… if I were a different person, and I was…
Bill Dellicato: more footloose and free with my collecting, I would just buy a Profit 5, just so I could say I own it, right? Or a mini-mode.
Bill Dellicato: But you look at a Minimoog, and yes, it's a thing of beauty to a geek, a keyboard geek. You look at a Steinway piano, and the craftsmanship, and it is just…
Bill Dellicato: it's a feat of engineering, and this is actually a movie about the building of Steinway pianos. It's fascinating, right? So…
Bill Dellicato: Distinct from the music is a level of appreciation of
Bill Dellicato: the engineering of these things. Just like, in the same way, the first time you picked up an iPhone or an iPad, you're like.
Bill Dellicato: Wow. And I think Steve Jobs meant it to be that way.
Bill Dellicato: He said that, you know, when someone buys an Apple product, I read his biography, Walter Isaacson, I think it was, he said, when someone opens an Apple product.
Bill Dellicato: That experience of the box and all that is all part of it. It's all part of it. It's not the same as opening a black box from UPS with a Dell computer in it. It's different.
Bill Dellicato: And, yes, 100%, like, my reaction, I go to… into the guitar center, and I'm walking around like a kid in a candy store.
Bill Dellicato: looking at… and on the flip side, there's some that I look at it, oh, they're ugly. I don't want that. I would never want to owe that. So it's… it's bizarre.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I'm… okay, so I'm on eBay right now.
Bill Dellicato: Huh.
Stephen Skorski: And I'm looking at a mini Moog.
Stephen Skorski: Moog or Moog?
Bill Dellicato: It's mode, but… Very often mispronounced, but it's actually.
Stephen Skorski: Well, that's the rookie keyboardist in me. Mini Moog, is that what you just said?
Bill Dellicato: Yup.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, Minimoog. Yeah, that's fantastic. Does it fold?
Bill Dellicato: No, but it can lie flat, but typically the back portion with the knobs rises up.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, but that's what I mean, it folds in that way.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so it hinges, yeah, so that is… it is beautiful,
Stephen Skorski: At least the one I'm looking at is trimmed out in wood.
Stephen Skorski: It looks almost like a, you know, NASA panel from the 60s.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. I love… I actually… I actually love the font. I love the placement of, at least in the version I'm looking at, there are red…
Stephen Skorski: Switches?
Stephen Skorski: Red-orange sometimes, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the red, the reddish-orange, there's green ones as well, but the… the reddish-orange ones are primarily…
Stephen Skorski: Crossing white lines.
Stephen Skorski: You know, the green ones are not. Anyway, I mean, there's some… I mean, it is, it's really, really beautiful. And then, looking at…
Bill Dellicato: The Prophet 5…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. You know, it's beautiful in a different way. First of all, it is interesting to see the evolution of
Stephen Skorski: The dials, and the font, and the switches.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I don't know why you don't have both of these right now. Like, you know, it's really, really fascinating to me. I mean, if you had to figure out, you know… I'm asking you very directly.
Stephen Skorski: Why don't you have both of these?
Bill Dellicato: Well, it's funny, because I have… I have…
Bill Dellicato: Digital approximations of them that, from a sound perspective, satisfies that aspect.
Stephen Skorski: Wow, really?
Bill Dellicato: Oh, yeah!
Stephen Skorski: That's it. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but from an emotional point of view,
Stephen Skorski: you know, for instance, I love baseball, and I collect baseball bats.
Bill Dellicato: Huh.
Stephen Skorski: I know that a aluminum bat will hit a ball farther.
Bill Dellicato: It won't sting my hands the way a base… a wooden bat will.
Stephen Skorski: It'll last a long, long time. It's not gonna crack.
Stephen Skorski: I don't want an aluminum bat. Like, I want a wooden bat, because the sound that it makes is, you know, fantastic, it's better. I like the sting in my hands, you know, you know what I mean? Like, so it's so interesting that you're saying because you have a way to replicate… so, replicate the sounds.
Stephen Skorski: You don't need these other… you don't need the object.
Bill Dellicato: That's right, because I think that they're two distinct things we're talking about. Wow. There is the utility of the tool.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: And there is that emotional, kind of.
Bill Dellicato: irrational reaction to just a device, or a thing, or whatever it is. And…
Stephen Skorski: There's… I guess there's a third element we've made. Let me just interrupt a little bit, sorry.
Stephen Skorski: because I think there's a couple times where you've sort of, you know, you said, like, well, I kind of feel bad that I want something, or that I have it, or I feel a certain way, and then you just described it as irrational.
Stephen Skorski: what… I mean, is it? You know what I mean? Like, you know, like, I kind of feel like, you know, I don't think you should feel bad, and I don't think it's irrational. I mean, where… maybe talk a little bit deeper about your thoughts…
Stephen Skorski: Like, is there some, maybe, kind of deeper philosophical approach to life?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: that maybe I'm missing.
Stephen Skorski: That, that… in the way in which you view these things? I, I think there absolutely is. Okay. So…
Bill Dellicato: I know because when Lori was telling me that you want to talk to me, she said that she shared with you this notion
Bill Dellicato: that… I have this deep-rooted thing where if I'm not going to use something, A lot.
Bill Dellicato: I feel bad, or I don't feel that the purchase is justified. So to have a Profit 5,
Bill Dellicato: for that… initial buzz.
Bill Dellicato: Right? Of… of touching it, feeling it, I have it, okay?
Bill Dellicato: And playing it, and having that experience.
Bill Dellicato: And then… To put a cover over it.
Bill Dellicato: And really, because it's not my primary
Bill Dellicato: gigging keyboard. I don't necessarily use Profit 5 type sounds in recordings I do in my studio, but just having it.
Bill Dellicato: I feel is an injustice to the instrument.
Bill Dellicato: Because… I've already gotten… that… Sensation.
Bill Dellicato: from acquiring it. So, if it's…
Bill Dellicato: If it's an acquisition buzz that I'm seeking, And it's expensive.
Bill Dellicato: I have a harder time… I find that to be irra… that's what I'm describing as irrational.
Bill Dellicato: And… the… I…
Bill Dellicato: I go back to the Brian Eno, like, it's… there's some… there's a part of me that has written mission statements to say.
Bill Dellicato: have less gear, and use what you have better, more productively.
Bill Dellicato: You know, don't be chasing
Bill Dellicato: because I feel like, first of all, time is limited, right? I feel like I could spend…
Bill Dellicato: a lot of time just chasing the collection, the kill, the acquisition. And that becomes, in and of itself, a thing
Bill Dellicato: And I don't want to spend my time and my resources on that as a thing.
Bill Dellicato: And maybe part of me does, but not enough.
Bill Dellicato: I think that when I start to go down that path, I say, let me go down into the basement with what I have, and engage with it. Like, engagement with what I have.
Bill Dellicato: Mastering, you know, what… what I have.
Bill Dellicato: having that be… I have… you know, there's a great scene in the… in the… one of the later, Star Wars movies, where, you know, all looks like it's lost.
Bill Dellicato: and the rebellion, and they go to Princess Lei, and they say, what are we gonna do? She's like, we have everything that we need.
Bill Dellicato: To fight this battle.
Bill Dellicato: Now we're gonna fight it. You know, don't look for,
Bill Dellicato: Don't look for something else to tap that. We have… I have all the tools I need to make great music. I should spend more time making great music and playing than I should buying a Profit 5, turning it on.
Bill Dellicato: getting that… Sugar Rush.
Bill Dellicato: and then having it break down, and then having to bring it in for repairs, and… like, I just think…
Bill Dellicato: There's better… there's better paths for me.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Interesting. So, are you an anti-collector?
Bill Dellicato: Well, we started out by saying, you have to define… like, I maybe…
Bill Dellicato: and prejudice, and I say… I define collecting by quantity. Like, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Is… is somebody who has acquired 3 things a collector?
Bill Dellicato: Or do you need more? Or are you always actively collecting? So…
Bill Dellicato: Because if that's the case, then I am… I am probably an anti-collector.
Bill Dellicato: But, because it's collecting for collecting's sake, like, my collecting that I've done, right, and I've done, I mean, I have had 25 of these things over the course of my… that's not to count the software since that I have, right?
Bill Dellicato: I have… It's always been informed by…
Bill Dellicato: My desire to play music, and… and…
Bill Dellicato: and… and perform. And when I play out, I play out with…
Bill Dellicato: I mean, I'm gonna complicate this, but I play out with one keyboard.
Bill Dellicato: And it's… Designed to emulate
Bill Dellicato: damn good emulation. Call it 90% of the way, what I'm trying to achieve, and in a light package.
Bill Dellicato: Now, I use a second keyboard because I want weighted keys for the piano sounds, but that's a separate discussion.
Bill Dellicato: And… when I come home after a night like last night.
Bill Dellicato: I'm still, and Lori is tired of me saying it, I love my Rick. It sounds great. It's… it's what I dreamed about. Like, I always had deficiencies along this road, where it was like, oh, the organ sound is just lame. Oh, I wish it could sound more like a real organ, blah blah blah blah. And now I feel like…
Bill Dellicato: if… if I were to get…
Bill Dellicato: a Profit 5, and let's just forget about the pleasure of the ownership, like we were talking about. Just talk sheer sound quality.
Bill Dellicato: I think that that Profit 5 would sound better than the app.
Bill Dellicato: It's not that it would… But the marginal amount that it is just doesn't justify Spending, you know.
Stephen Skorski: a thousand.
Bill Dellicato: Thousands of dollars!
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god, it's so funny. In this regard, we are so different. I mean, this is… this is the beauty of life, because, you know, people are so different. I would argue that the marginal difference is where, like, the magic of life happens, you know? It's like the difference between going to…
Stephen Skorski: you know, Applebee's for a hamburger, right? And then going to, you know, pick your… you know, pick your burger palace, you know, in New York that kind of has this, you know, really special way of kind of putting, you know, putting one of these things together. Like, on the surface.
Stephen Skorski: They're both burgers.
Stephen Skorski: And if you were to blind taste test them, you know, you would think, well, you know, they're pretty close, yeah, this one's marginally better.
Stephen Skorski: But it's, like, for me, that feels like that's, again, where the beauty of life resides, in those margins.
Bill Dellicato: I'm not… and I'm not discounting that, but… but what I would probably say is that…
Bill Dellicato: if you're talking about somebody who is adamant that the ultimate steak experience is Peter Luger's in Brooklyn.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: talking to somebody who's convinced that the ultimate steak experience is Smith Lewinsky's in Manhattan.
Bill Dellicato: Both of those things are good, and there are nuances that differentiate, as there should be, right? I mean, like, that's what makes the world go around.
Bill Dellicato: But you're walking out of both of those restaurants, With a great meal.
Bill Dellicato: And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pursue, like.
Bill Dellicato: Yo, you know what? See, so this is the part… last night… was it, no, it was two nights ago, we watched…
Bill Dellicato: a documentary on Prime called Nobu.
Bill Dellicato: And it's about Nobu Makowisti, or whatever. He's wildly considered the most…
Bill Dellicato: successful sushi chef in the world, whatever. And he had the restaurant in New York City and everything. And…
Bill Dellicato: he… is so… driven by his passion for excellence, and it's so inspiring. And you say, like, it's just…
Bill Dellicato: you're in awe that, on a global level, he can have this level of quality. So, there's no way that I would compare
Bill Dellicato: a meal at Nobu.
Bill Dellicato: all that goes with it, because it's not just about the fish, right? It's about the experience when you walk into the restaurant and everything like that. I wouldn't compare that to the sushi place that is in downtown Westfield.
Bill Dellicato: Right? Because that's not fair.
Bill Dellicato: But… Again, if you discount that sensory element, Right?
Bill Dellicato: Or the nostalgia. And you just go on sound.
Bill Dellicato: And this is not your primary thing.
Bill Dellicato: Right? Like, this is just… I mean, I'm into analog scents, but I'm not, like, you know,
Bill Dellicato: I'm not doing, like…
Bill Dellicato: 80s synth pop, or, like, early 80s synth pop. Like, I appreciate that, I feel nostalgia for that, but…
Bill Dellicato: For me, it's not… It's not enough.
Bill Dellicato: to… that those margins are just… are not justified. Like, because…
Bill Dellicato: I, you know, but… but I have a Steinway piano.
Bill Dellicato: So, you know what I'm saying? Like, I think you have to pick where…
Bill Dellicato: where you're… where it really… well, I… you don't have to. I tend to pick where…
Bill Dellicato: I, you know, like, I spent more money on this Nord Stage than other…
Bill Dellicato: you know, the Yamaha keyboards, like, Korg, like, they can all do it. Like, for me, I knew I was paying a premium, and I gave in to the margins, right? And it's a hotly debated thing, by the way, because people are having this debate all the time.
Bill Dellicato: And for me, I was like.
Bill Dellicato: In my life, I can… I can afford to be… particular and… and splurge.
Bill Dellicato: For some things, or one thing, but not everything.
Bill Dellicato: And so…
Bill Dellicato: when I say… you said, why don't I have a Profit 5? You know, like, why don't I run out and get one today?
Bill Dellicato: I think part of that is this deep-suited… rooted element of…
Bill Dellicato: you know, limited resources, and limited time and attention, and and I choose to funnel that energy into work with
Bill Dellicato: what I've painstakingly assembled, you know? I mean,
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, so, you know, the Nord Stage 4 came out recently, and I wrestled with whether or not I would sell my Nord Stage 3 and get a 4, and I spent, you know, Lori's tired of me talking about it. In the end, I decided, no, like, I was comfortable with what I had, and
Bill Dellicato: You know, but I know plenty of players who went out, and they pre-ordered the 4, and they wanted a new model, and they got rid of the old one, and…
Bill Dellicato: So, that's it, and, you know…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. I guess it's just a different philosophy.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: That, yeah, no, it's, it's, again, it's re… it's, it's fascinating. Do you,
Stephen Skorski: Alright, well, let me ask you very specific…
Stephen Skorski: A very specific question, because I really don't know much about keyboards at all, right? So…
Stephen Skorski: Let's just say that,
Stephen Skorski: almost 2 hours ago, somebody started listening to this and was like, oh, I want to learn about collecting keyboards. And they were like, I have not learned anything about collecting keyboards.
Stephen Skorski: Let's give them a little bit of something.
Stephen Skorski: How many… are there… how many brands are out there? Is there… you know, so these are kind of the… just the quick hitters of kind of getting a sense of what's out there. Are we talking… is it… is it kind of like guitars, where there's 2 or 3 kind of mega players, and then a bunch of boutique-y sort of things of various quality?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: I'd say that that's… that's true. There might be.
Bill Dellicato: 4 or 5 major players.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Bill Dellicato: And then boutique-y stuff, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: And who are the… who are those major players?
Bill Dellicato: So, right now, it would be, like, Nord, Yamaha, Roland, Korg, sequential Circus is,
Bill Dellicato: you know, the original manufacturer, the Profit 5, but they… they, have merged with Oberheim, which was another big player. Yeah, so those are… those are the main…
Bill Dellicato: main guys, and then there's boutique-y things. You know, it's ironic. This is funny. You know, because I'm in all these, like you said, if someone says, I don't know anything about… you go, there's websites, like, there's one place called, Gear Sluts.
Bill Dellicato: It's funny, musiciansgear.com, whatever, and there's these forms and everything. So I came across this new analog, boutique-y analog synthesizer that I think was released by an Australian company.
Bill Dellicato: And it was an analog synth, expensive, you know, kind of boutique-y. And the name of the synth was
Bill Dellicato: Vanina.
Stephen Skorski: Which, you know, is my daughter's name. Right. And I was like, oh my god!
Bill Dellicato: does a synthesizer name me? And I'm like, I gotta have that, like, I… And then… And then my…
Bill Dellicato: my left brain kicks in and goes, wait a second, this is a boutique-y company from Australia, what happens if this… this thing breaks? Like…
Bill Dellicato: it's so niche that, like, I wouldn't even be able to get it repaired. In the end, it would be more of a pain in the ass than anything else, so I didn't pull the trigger on it, but anyway…
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's… yeah, it's really, really interesting,
Stephen Skorski: you know, the next time we talk, we're… I'm really curious how…
Stephen Skorski: the other aspects of your life, if they parallel this sort of same way of thinking. I suspect they do. Yeah.
Bill Dellicato: I suspect so, too.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so there's, there's, there's 5 or 6 kind of big players. What's, what's, what's the,
Stephen Skorski: you know, what's the ground floor in terms of cost? Like, yeah, you probably could pick something up for 50 bucks, but… just like guitars, like, if you're buying a guitar for $50, you're probably not gonna have a very good experience, right? But if you buy, you know, you buy something, you know, a Squire.
Stephen Skorski: or, you know, an Epiphone for $400, yeah, you're probably gonna have… start to have a pretty nice experience. Where are we at in terms of cost to get into…
Bill Dellicato: At the pro level, at the pro level,
Bill Dellicato: You're probably talking, realistically, no less than 1,000 or 1,500.
Bill Dellicato: Depending upon what type of keyboard you're getting. Right. There's digital pianos, there's workstations, there's organs, you know, but…
Bill Dellicato: No less than 1,000 or 1,500.
Bill Dellicato: And the current sticker price for a Nord Stage 488, which is causing outrage in the world of poor musicians, is about $6,000.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. Okay.
Stephen Skorski: What about amateur, you know, versions of this? You know, I'm… whatever, I'm 14 years old, I want to get into it, but again, I want to have a good… you know, I mean.
Stephen Skorski: You know this, if you give someone a $50 guitar, the chances of them
Stephen Skorski: still being a guitar player in 6 months is probably zero, because they're like, I can't push the, you know, the action is so high, you know, it's awful, that sounds like garbage, you know. What's the equivalent of a…
Stephen Skorski: Of a keyboard, or you're like, no, no, you gotta get the pro version.
Bill Dellicato: No, probably in the… $400 or $500 range.
Bill Dellicato: you can get a gateway instrument.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Bill Dellicato: Something like that.
Stephen Skorski: be? What, you know, what might that gateway instrument be? You know, for guitars, it's, you know, Squire, Epiphone, Yamaha, maybe. What is it in the keyboard world?
Bill Dellicato: So Yamaha has offerings in that… in the non-pro category, in the under $1,000 range, as does Roland. Casio is a player.
Bill Dellicato: korg… You know, they have their…
Bill Dellicato: Flagships, and then they have… they… they…
Bill Dellicato: pull-away features from the flagships. They put less, lesser quality keyboards on them.
Bill Dellicato: You get… you use much more plastic, and, you know, the build quality's not that good. And some of those lower-end keyboards have speakers, built-in speakers, so if you buy a professional-level keyboard, you need
Bill Dellicato: you need an amplifier, you need a, you know, PA, or… Studio.
Bill Dellicato: So, yeah, like, in the several hundred to 500 bucks range, you could get
Bill Dellicato: a keyboard. I think when we were in Costco, we saw a Roland… The other day, so…
Bill Dellicato: 400 bucks or something.
Stephen Skorski: Did you have to walk out with, like, 4 of them?
Bill Dellicato: But only so much as you can fit them in those boxes.
Stephen Skorski: Re…
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so if you buy one of the less expensive, there's some other things you need to buy, you know, some, again, speakers and.
Bill Dellicato: No, it's actually the opposite.
Stephen Skorski: Oh.
Bill Dellicato: So the low… the least expensive ones tend to be much out of the box, where they have built-in speakers.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, got it.
Bill Dellicato: the quality is not that good, but, I mean…
Bill Dellicato: You know, but a Nord Stage 3 does not come with built-in speakers. It, you know, it's designed to be used in a professional context where you have an amplifier or a PA.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Now, do you get into that at all? Is that… is that an area? It's so funny, I'm like, I'm like, I'm trying my best to figure out how you're a collector.
Bill Dellicato: I may not be.
Stephen Skorski: No, I don't… it's really funny, because I… I don't think you… I mean…
Stephen Skorski: I think there's a lens at which…
Stephen Skorski: What you do can be viewed
Stephen Skorski: As collecting. And maybe that's, you know, the obvious, the collection of sounds, You know, I'm thinking.
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: You know, a collector of sounds,
Stephen Skorski: is really legitimate. You know, I think that's not just sort of a silly little throwaway. I mean, I think if… through the lens of, no, no, really what I've discovered through this conversation is that you collect sounds. I would say, yeah, that seems to make sense, because it's not the objects themselves, while they hold,
Stephen Skorski: You know, they certainly hold value to you.
Stephen Skorski: They don't seem to hold value in the way that I think a lot of collectors would.
Stephen Skorski: Characterize their relationship with the things that they have.
Stephen Skorski: But the sounds themselves, right, when we get back to the earlier parts of the conversation.
Stephen Skorski: The experiences, the energy, the memories, you know, all of these things.
Stephen Skorski: the fact that your gateway into all of that, into it, but also adding to, is the sounds? I mean, that makes sense to me? I don't know, what do you think about that?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah, I think so, and I think it's the whole notion of, and I don't mean this in a negative way.
Bill Dellicato: Collecting for the sake of collecting?
Bill Dellicato: as opposed to collecting to accomplish something separate than the mere act of collecting, if that makes sense. You know, all my collecting has been
Bill Dellicato: You know, in pursuit of…
Bill Dellicato: The right tool set to let me accomplish something else.
Bill Dellicato: And that toolset has changed over the years. It's not been static, really.
Bill Dellicato: And when… you know, the funny thing is, one of my newest things that are on the horizon, more so than buying a Profit 5, is that the current 88-key piano that I carry around as a trigger is almost 40 pounds.
Bill Dellicato: And… I'm getting older, and… The second something comes out with good keyboard action.
Bill Dellicato: that I could sub that out with, I'm gonna jump on that, because I want lighter.
Bill Dellicato: equipment when I go out and play. It's just a physical thing, like, I feel… like, the morning after, my hip hurts. I mean, it's… it's horrible getting old, but, and in a lot of these chat rooms, people are talking about that. They're saying, you know.
Bill Dellicato: Why won't the manufacturers come out with a lighter, 88 key…
Bill Dellicato: keyboard that feels like a piano, piano action. You know, that's another big buzz… buzz… were. And, that…
Bill Dellicato: at this stage of my life, where I walk away saying, I love my rig, the only thing I don't love is… is, loading it out.
Bill Dellicato: At the end of the night. You know, the common joke, we… and I… I say this virtually every night, like, we're loading the gear out.
Bill Dellicato: And I say to everybody, like, where's the glory now? You know, like.
Bill Dellicato: 10 minutes ago, I was up on stage, there were lights, people were, like, cheering, and now I'm, like, lifting
Bill Dellicato: a 50-pound speaker into my car, and I'm like.
Bill Dellicato: When I was 21, I had roadies.
Bill Dellicato: Like, where did I go wrong here?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah… I get that. That is… that is actually always an odd…
Stephen Skorski: moment in the evening, and I say this because I have a fair amount of friends who are musicians, who do, you know, something similar to what you're saying, and if I go to the gig, you know, I always stick around afterwards and help them, you know, load out.
Stephen Skorski: And, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's, you know, 10 minutes earlier, you know, just as you described, people are hootin' and hollering and cheering.
Stephen Skorski: And then, you know, a little bit later, you're, you know, you're sort of out in a parking lot, standing behind somebody's hatchback, and asking, like, well, do you put the, you know.
Stephen Skorski: Do you put the, mic stands in first? You know, like, it just so becomes, you know, just completely practical, could not be, you know, less glamorous.
Stephen Skorski: Version, you know, of a person's existence.
Bill Dellicato: I used to play with this bass player, this phenomenal guy. At the time.
Bill Dellicato: He was a Berkeley graduate, and he was writing a,
Bill Dellicato: a monthly article for Bass Player Magazine, right?
Bill Dellicato: Really, really incredible player. And he told… used to tell the story about how he got out of Berkeley, and he landed this gig writing for Bass Player Magazine, but he was taking wedding gigs, like, you know, to pay the bills.
Bill Dellicato: And he's rolling his… bass, amp.
Bill Dellicato: Through a kitchen to go into a wedding.
Stephen Skorski: Dude.
Bill Dellicato: And the manager came in, he was like.
Bill Dellicato: You can't come in through here! He started screaming at this guy like he was some sort of migrant farmer, like…
Bill Dellicato: And he was like, Dave was saying to himself.
Bill Dellicato: I have a degree from Berkeley, I write for Baseball Magazine, and some restaurant or catering facility guy is, like, ripping me apart like a piece of garbage. It's just like, you know, where's the glory? Like, you know, where's the basic human respect?
Bill Dellicato: for a musician, you know? I'm just trying to… just trying to play a game here, you know? Someone told me to come into this way.
Stephen Skorski: That's so funny. It's so funny, it's so true, it's so sad, actually.
Stephen Skorski: It really is. I mean, you know, the…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, it's hard. An artistic life is really difficult.
Bill Dellicato: It truly is. Alright, so let me, let me, let me wrap it up this way, then.
Stephen Skorski: Because we've had, you know, a couple hours to kind of dig into this a little bit, so maybe your answer's slightly different than before, but if…
Stephen Skorski: one… Again, if I've heard everything correctly, the closest approximation
Stephen Skorski: of a collector is that idea of you're a collector of sounds, right? And maybe that's not exactly the right way to categorize it, but I can't really think of a different way to phrase it. But it seems like, because you have this…
Stephen Skorski: Not to… you know, you have a…
Stephen Skorski: you have access to a collection of sounds, but you know what to do with it, right? You know… you know how to manipulate, you know how to sequence, you know how to infuse it with energy, like, all of those things, and then these keyboards, these tools that you have.
Stephen Skorski: This is the thing that… gives you access
Stephen Skorski: To going back to this idea of playing music for other people, and yourself.
Bill Dellicato: But it, like, it taps you into that energy.
Stephen Skorski: flow.
Stephen Skorski: And you've mentioned, right, how there, you know, leading up to that moment and after that moment, it's not particularly glamorous. It's a lot of sacrifice, it's certainly not a way that you could make a living, so there's…
Stephen Skorski: all these down… then, you know, you've talked about the cost of these things as well, so… there's something about that moment between…
Stephen Skorski: the performance starts and when the performance ends. There's something about… That energy that clearly…
Stephen Skorski: you want, right? I don't want to say the word addicted, but it's clearly.
Bill Dellicato: Indeed, you almost need it, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, it's so… so… Wrap it up with… Another, you know, just…
Stephen Skorski: in the… through the lens of everything that I just described, and again, maybe I got that description wrong.
Bill Dellicato: I think I lost you there for a second.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, can you hear me?
Bill Dellicato: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so through the lens of the thing… the… what I've just described, maybe… hopefully I've characterized kind of where you're at, and…
Stephen Skorski: You know, how you think about these tools, and the sounds, and
Stephen Skorski: Tell me again about being on stage, and that…
Stephen Skorski: the thing that you're craving, the thing that you're somewhat addicted to, the thing that keeps you coming back over and over again. Because clearly.
Stephen Skorski: it's important.
Stephen Skorski: And it's something you want to keep doing as long as you can.
Stephen Skorski: Help us understand your relationship to those moments.
Bill Dellicato: Well, you said that I'm a collector of sounds, but I would broaden it out. I'm a collector of tools that enable me to do the things that I want to do, much in the same way that if…
Bill Dellicato: If I were… doing woodworking, if I had a particular lathe. I would want the best lathe
Bill Dellicato: to do woodworking, and I wouldn't necessarily
Bill Dellicato: collect lathes, because it only has utility as it applies to me doing woodworking. So, all the gear that I've collected
Bill Dellicato: Allows me to experience Playing music with other people, and having the best possible
Bill Dellicato: feeling that I'm doing that at a high level.
Bill Dellicato: that I'm serious about it, that I… I bring care and craftsmanship to what I'm doing. I'm not a hack.
Bill Dellicato: I show up on time.
Bill Dellicato: I have good gear, it sounds good, I know the tunes! And, that is all In pursuit of
Bill Dellicato: doing something that I'm obsessive about, that I feel… that…
Bill Dellicato: stopping is… has never been and will… will never be, an option, because it's kind of an essential element in life that, if I take it out.
Bill Dellicato: I feel a huge gaping hole, and…
Bill Dellicato: it's… although I have a good life in other ways,
Bill Dellicato: I, I can't envision a future where I don't have a musical element.
Stephen Skorski: Mmm.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, let me… I thought that would be the last question, but I want to follow up, because you said something that's interesting, and maybe this helps me understand it even slightly better than… you know, you've expressed it very, very well.
Stephen Skorski: Imagine that hole.
Stephen Skorski: Right? Imagine it's… it's… you can't… it's taken away from you, you can't do it anymore, the hole is there. What is the hole? What's missing?
Bill Dellicato: Well, for me, I'll speak very personally.
Bill Dellicato: I've felt like my entire life has been…
Bill Dellicato: you know, I guess I could generalize it. I've been in conflict with my left brain and my right brain… right brain, and there… I have a tremendous amount of pragmatism, that tempers my…
Bill Dellicato: other side.
Bill Dellicato: And, I use the term irrational, or whatever. So I think that if you took away
Bill Dellicato: the music… And you just left the pragmatic bill.
Bill Dellicato: It would be a life…
Bill Dellicato: in many ways, devoid of joy, in any sense, because I would be just a responsible lawyer,
Bill Dellicato: with no… Outlet that sparked me
Bill Dellicato: and then I would be responsible for responsible sake, which seems to me would be a…
Bill Dellicato: of that very sad place. I mean, there's…
Bill Dellicato: Do you need… anybody needs something
Bill Dellicato: to get them up in the morning, and you know, I'm reminded of the Seinfeld sketch where they say, like, you know.
Bill Dellicato: We're not, you know, we're not, man, like, what… do we have any real reason to get up in the morning? And George says, I like to read the daily news, you know, like…
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Bill Dellicato: So, I think that, if I remove this element of my life, I would have very little
Bill Dellicato: Of, of the right brain Bill, balancing me as a human being.
Bill Dellicato: I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. No, I, I mean…
Stephen Skorski: That's great. I mean, it's great that you have that. It's great that you have that outlet, you found it early.
Stephen Skorski: you know, it's something that I think, you can, you know, you can do forever, hopefully.
Stephen Skorski: So yeah, that's really… anyway, it's great. I love… I love… I love this conversation.
Bill Dellicato: It's my first, first, podcast conversation.
Stephen Skorski: Well, it's so funny, like, you know, for me, these are just conversations, right? It doesn't… you know, it goes where it goes, and so…
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, it's… to me, this is the beauty of… other people.
Stephen Skorski: Right? You can only live one life yourself.
Stephen Skorski: And… So then the trick is… To try and…
Stephen Skorski: as the best you can, get into the head of other people, even for just short amounts of time. So to hear… to hear your approach.
Stephen Skorski: To music, to hear your approach to, you know, these objects that help you create music,
Stephen Skorski: And in many, in many cases, it feels very counterintuitive for me.
Stephen Skorski: It's really… it's very enjoyable, you know, to… to… to hear that, perspective, so I appreciate… appreciate your time.
Bill Dellicato: Well, I tell you, one of the things that, and not to comment at all on how he made his exit, but one of my favorite things to do in life
Bill Dellicato: Used to be at 11 o'clock to put Channel 13 on and watch Charlie Rose, because Charlie Rose used to do exactly what you just described. He'd have conversations with people from all walks of life.
Bill Dellicato: And I used to find it fascinating. I'd pick up on book, you know, books that I would want to read, you know, he would have artists on, he'd have politicians, and he just… he had that table, and he would just sit around the table, and he would talk to these people. And so, it is a very powerful thing, it's a very nourishing thing.
Bill Dellicato: Because, you get to see different perspectives, and think about things that you wouldn't necessarily normally think about.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Stephen Skorski: I suspect if we opened up the can of how that… how… the can of, like, how that relates to our earlier conversation about…
Stephen Skorski: analog versus digital.
Bill Dellicato: Nothing.
Stephen Skorski: You know, I think there's probably a lot in there.
Bill Dellicato: It might be a sequel.
Stephen Skorski: But we won't do that right, right now. Yeah, you know, exactly. Volume 2, we'll get into that, but… Well, thanks, Bill. Again, I really appreciate this.
Bill Dellicato: a lot of fun, and, I, I think that I should probably sign off, because,
Bill Dellicato: I have a feeling that my family is upstairs trying to,
Bill Dellicato: dig out the cars, and I've been…
Bill Dellicato: fortunate to, escape that, but I… I should, I should hop into that mix.
Stephen Skorski: Right, right. Well, I think the snow's still falling, so you probably still have much more to shovel, and I hope that someday, you actually have a profit 5.
Bill Dellicato: And you're.
Stephen Skorski: In your basement, and when that day happens, please call me. I want to come over and hear it and see it.
Bill Dellicato: Awesome.
Stephen Skorski: Alright. You got a deal.
Stephen Skorski: Thanks, Bill, appreciate it. Tell everyone I said hi.
Bill Dellicato: I will. Bye-bye.
Stephen Skorski: Bye.