Jim Conrad: Welcome to episode 7.
I am Jim Conrad, AKA Cono, and this is Conovision, the spirit of storytelling.
Today we revisit the subject of music we visited earlier in an episode
with friend and true audiophile, Bill Reiter, and his story of how music
was a pervasive story in his life.
On today's episode, we'll hear from four people who have been involved in music
from the very beginning of their lives.
Mark Holden, musician, songwriter, performer, recording engineer.
He'll talk about his experiences with music.
As well, three giants from the local Vancouver radio and records
industry from the 1970s and 80s.
Dr. Don Shafer PhD, former program director of CFOX in Vancouver, and Frank
Gigliotti and Dave Chesney, who were both record reps for CBS Records, one of
the big monsters of the music industry.
That's a bit later, but first, in an overture, we talk about the neuroscience
and the evolutionary roots of music and how we are all born to sing.
Music permeates almost every human culture on Earth.
The oldest discovered musical instruments date back over 40,000 years to the
Stone Age, but scientists believe music itself could be much older than
that, originating alongside language in early hominid communication.
So why did music become so ubiquitously woven into the human
experience over the millennium?
Evolutionary psychologists argue it conferred significant survival
advantages to our ancestors.
In prehistoric times, music facilitated tighter social
bonding between tribal members.
Singing and drumming together released neurochemicals like oxytocin, dopamine,
and endorphins inducing positive emotions that strengthened social cohesion.
This allowed groups to cooperate better in hunting, foraging, child rearing,
and protection against outside threats.
Musical rituals also demarcated tribal identity and territory.
Early music likely added communication too.
Rhythmic drumbeats and vocal calls coordinated the actions and movements
of groups during hunts or battle.
Singing while working, made labor less tedious.
Mothers may have sung primitive lullabies to proverbial infants as an
early form of emotional communication.
Music also enhanced defenses.
Tribesmen beating drums and making noise during the night signaled
that they were alert and ready to counter surprise enemy raids.
Young night watchmen sang to indicate that they were awake and vigilant.
Sentries guarding territorial boundaries used instruments to amplify warning
calls across longer distances.
In all these ways music enhanced survival odds over human evolution.
Groups that could make music together, whether a simple drumbeat or a
beautiful melody, were more cohesive, communicative, cooperative, and defensive.
Natural selection then embedded the capacity for music into our biology.
Supporting this, scientists have discovered specific regions in the
brain devoted to musical processing.
Infants have an innate ability to detect musical patterns and
differentiate tonal pitches.
Even patients with severe dementia respond emotionally and physically to
their favorite childhood songs when nothing else provokes a reaction.
And of course, music also brings humans tremendous joy.
The neurochemical changes it induces brighten moods and
forge social connections.
Our brains seem wired at birth to link music with positive
emotions and togetherness.
In this way too, nature predisposes us to musical engagement so critical
to our early human flourishing.
So next time you find yourself humming along to a catchy tune, bu-bu-buting
another earworm, remember, you are tapping into an extraordinary
evolutionary heritage spanning millennia.
Music is part of what makes us uniquely human.
Our Stone Age ancestors sang and drummed because it enhanced survival.
We engage with music now simply because we are born to do so.
This is the Conovsion podcast.
I am Jim Conrad, AKA Cono.
We've come to a segment I like to call what I've learned.
This is just gonna encompass all kinds of storytelling about what
people have learned over the time they've spent on the planet.
Today, my guest is Mark Holden.
Mark, hi.
Mark Holden: Hello, Jim.
Good afternoon.
Jim Conrad: Good afternoon.
Gimme a, a quick bio of you and where you're from, what you've been
doing for most of your life, and then we'll talk about what you've learned.
Mark Holden: Okay.
Well, I started my journey in this world in Winnipeg, home of the world's largest
mosquitoes and perhaps friendliest people.
Amazing place.
In fact, I don't know if I've ever met anyone, I'm not gonna include myself into
this, but, uh, that was from Winnipeg that I didn't think was an amazing person.
Jim Conrad: We love the Winnipegers.
Mark Holden: It's incredible.
Jim Conrad: And they love us.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
But, uh, I really have my, in terms of my career path and the
road that I've taken, I started in music and started making records.
It was my quest to be a great producer.
And so I spent a number of years learning how to make records as an engineer.
I felt that if you're gonna produce albums, you better know how to
record them and talk that language with wherever you're working with.
Jim Conrad: So, in producing music, what was the first thing that you learned?
Mark Holden: One of the first things I learned actually is how to think
on your feet and react gracefully and eloquently and elegantly under pressure.
The studio that I was hired at, I got a job in Calgary at the only
professional recording studio there was.
This is in the late seventies.
And funnily enough, I had visited that studio when I was
a scout with my scout troop.
It was like one of our outings.
Jim Conrad: Did you get your recording badge?
Mark Holden: Well, they didn't have such a thing, I think.
I don't know.
I think it was just a, it turns out that our, the chief of my
troop was the head of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
A guy named Dick Galey.
Great guy.
And he, he was, had formerly worked with Disney and everything.
Anyway, he, he, he proclaimed to us one day that, uh, next week we're gonna,
for our scout meeting, we're gonna go and visit this recording studio.
So we walked into this place and into the control room, and just the smell
of the equipment and the, you know, all of that, I just took one look
around and said, wow, this is it.
This is, this is for me.
Jim Conrad: I wanna be a studio rat.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And, and sure enough, three or four years later, I got hired.
It was an unpaid position.
It's at the start, but it was the studio was challenged to thrive is
perhaps the best way I could put it.
And so,
Jim Conrad: Not a lot of bands coming to Calgary to record.
Mark Holden: No, no.
Jim Conrad: Unless they were local.
Mark Holden: Right.
Jim Conrad: And even local guys probably came here to Vancouver.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: Toronto.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
They wanted to.
I mean, anybody that was there felt that they needed to go
somewhere else to record.
And so I think it was a really tough road.
I tipped my hat.
The guy that built the place and ran it was a guy named Peter Bentley,
who I really credit with giving me my start as he did in this case.
But I,
Jim Conrad: Props to Peter, thank you.
Mark Holden: Yes, Peter, thank you.
And, um, you never knew when you plugged a mic in if it was gonna work.
Jim Conrad: Okay.
Mark Holden: So it was either the cord, the mic, the input on the input
module on the console, the patch bay.
Any point where that signal had to kind of cross, it could have gone wrong.
So I learned, uh, very quickly how in front of clients to kind
of like fake my way through calmly without showing any signs of,
Jim Conrad: To, yeah, to calmly troubleshoot any kind of problem.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And it served me well.
It really did.
It served me well.
It was a tough road, and you're sweating bullets as it is, as a new engineer.
You walk into a session and you know, you've got this console and these tape
machines and microphones and cables and headphones and all that stuff.
And so, you know, there's a, the learning curve is very steep.
So you're nervous at best in those early days, but
Jim Conrad: Now it, it helped you that you were a musician.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
I think so, and certainly as an engineer, it helped that I was a musician.
I could talk the language, I could, you know, when it came to assembling
tracks and having to punch stuff in.
And I think I had a, a very musical ear.
And so I think that helped me.
Jim Conrad: And then when you became the band Boulevard, or formed that band, that
was in Calgary with Calgary musicians, or?
Mark Holden: It was, yeah.
Yeah, it was Jim, uh, it was Calgary.
Uh, we, um, I had actually kind of started formulating
the project prior to Boulevard.
It was called Modern Minds.
And I started writing the material and working on stuff when I was working
in Frankfurt, Germany as an engineer.
Came back to Calgary to build a studio called Thunder Road.
And uh, it was during that time that I started to create this
project that would become Boulevard.
And initially it wasn't even gonna be a band.
I just assembled a group of really good musicians and we were just gonna create,
Jim Conrad: Kind of a studio project.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: Maybe release a studio album.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: A lot of projects like that, uh, were happening in that time period.
Mark Holden: Absolutely.
I mean, I think probably the one of most note, at least for me anyway,
was The Alan Parsons project that I,
Jim Conrad: The Mark Holden project.
Mark Holden: Precisely fashioned this over the, after that, so that was
kind of the early days of the band.
And, and of course I ended up moving back to Calgary, as I
mentioned, and built the studio.
And then, then at that point I've got this tool that where at midnight
and nobody's around, I can put demos down and, you know, all that.
Jim Conrad: What have you learned then, now we've got to
the band phase of your career.
What did you learn and what have you learned about the music business.
Mark Holden: Wow.
That's a, that's a,
Jim Conrad: There's a lot to unpack in just that one.
Mark Holden: There's a lot to unpack.
A lot to unpack there.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
I mean, it's, part of it is, is learning and then now looking back, part of it
is, is the ability to observe the way the business was and the way that it's gone.
I mean, fundamentally it's music and it's business.
And what I definitely learned and was highly aware of
early on is it is a business.
And I think that, you know, a lot of my colleagues and fellow musicians
maybe had a harder time grasping that.
And I think that I was either blessed or cursed.
I don't know which, Jim, with having both sides of my brain
kind of weirdly conflicting.
You know, the one side, very creative, and then the other side business.
Jim Conrad: Well, that's the unique thing about our brain is that we can
actually hold two conflicting concepts.
Not really conflicting, but two opposite viewpoints.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: In balance at the same time.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And then I,
Jim Conrad: Without going nuts.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Well, I think my ability to sort of navigate through the business
side of things has become one of my skills, I suppose you'd put it.
Again, there are times where I think, you know, as a musician, if I had
just not had any interest in the business side of things and just
played my instrument, I don't know if it would've changed my path any.
But to be honest with you, I think that I've, you know, I've gotten a tremendous
amount of joy out of being able to navigate through those waters, and my
understanding of the business and how it works, uh, and my ability to kind of
nurture relationships, I think has really helped in what I've been able to create.
Jim Conrad: In your success.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: So give me a story about the music business.
Something that completely took you by surprise.
Mark Holden: Okay.
Well, I'll tell you a story.
So yeah, we with, Boulevard had been signed to MCA Universal in 88.
Jim Conrad: That's a big signing.
Mark Holden: It was a big signing.
Yeah.
And it was a big signing.
Jim Conrad: MCA at the time probably was one of the largest
record companies in the world.
Mark Holden: One of the big four.
Absolutely.
And I'll start this story in Calgary, I had had written a
song called Rainy Day in London,
and I was sending tapes off.
At that time, nobody in Canada would pay any attention to me.
So I would, I would, this particular song, there was it and another song
that I put on a cassette and I'd sent them to the labels in Canada.
Then I sent, I, I always sent what I was doing to this friend of mine,
Rudy Rockenshop, that is her name.
Her and Bob Rock should get together.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Rudy?
Mark Holden: Rudy Rockenshop.
Jim Conrad: Wow.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And, uh, she was a, a radio host, backup singer, and I'd met her in
Frankfurt and we worked a lot together.
She'd come down from Hamburg and get hired to, to sing on the, on various
sessions that I was engineering.
So she became a really good friend.
So anyway, I sent her a copy of the tape.
The band ended up getting signed in Europe with CBS a different label.
And this was the very beginning.
And the song did really well.
Like it charted, it was in the top 40 in Billboard in Europe,
and we were flown over to Germany.
We appeared on this show called Ronnie's Pop Show, and another one called Bananas,
at, uh, that filmed in Cologne at, at DDR.
So anyway, I came back to Canada and now having a song that's chartered
in Billboard in Europe, you know, a few of the labels started to
go, maybe there's something.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
You're getting some attention, right?
Mark Holden: Yep.
So I was contacted by a guy named John Alexander, who was the head of
A and R for MCA at the time, and he said, look, I've heard your stuff.
I've always really have been a big fan, and I've just become head of
A and R. And we, we started this dialogue that went on, john and I
became very dear friends in the end.
He ultimately, um, I was back and forth, and then myself and, uh,
Randy Gould, our guitar player, wrote this song called Never Give Up.
And I demoed it and I sent this off to John and it, he kind of freaked out
and said, okay, I'm coming to Calgary.
Jim Conrad: Loved it.
Mark Holden: Loved it.
So he came to the airport, we went into the studio.
I played him the song, then I played it at ear bleed levels, of course, right?
And he said,
Jim Conrad: The way it should be played.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And from there we left.
I was driving him downtown.
Now it was January and it was minus 30.
And I had a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle,
which gas heater just seemed to fail at all.
The most inopportune times.
And this was one of those times.
So here we are driving from out by the airport in Calgary downtown.
It is minus 30 and it is freezing in the car.
And John says to me, Mark.
I love the band and I'm gonna sign the band, but can you turn the heat on?
Jim Conrad: It's not a deal breaker, Mark, but could you turn the fucking heater on?
Mark Holden: So I looked at him and I said, John, I
just, I was like, oh my gosh.
I said, John.
It's broken.
But I hope you'll still sign the band.
And uh, and he said, absolutely.
We would joke about that for years to come.
And one thing led to another that we, we really required management.
The label said, look, John said, in fact, we can sign you to MCA Canada
right now, but we think it's better if you hold out and say no to the Canadian
offer and we'll get you signed out of LA.
Which was extremely nerve uh, nerve wracking because, you know, I'm sort of
turning down a, a record deal in Canada.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
It's tough to, to turn away guarantee..
Mark Holden: Yeah, absolutely.
Jim Conrad: In the promise of the brass ring.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: But you did.
Mark Holden: I did.
Jim Conrad: And then what happened?
Mark Holden: And then he said, look, LA, as we refer to the
LA office, love the band.
But they really feel you gotta have management before they'll sign.
And uh, so I said, okay, so, and this story, I'm not sure if it's so
much about a lesson, Jim, as it is a, well, it kinda learned, I suppose.
Jim Conrad: I think all stories have a lesson inside them.
I think all stories have a kernel of truth that people
identify with and go, oh, okay.
If that ever happens to me, I'll know maybe what to do.
Mark Holden: Right?
Yeah.
So basically I contacted and I said, look, here's the situation, John,
and the, you know, MCA Universal LA will sign the band if you'll manage.
And he said, well, I'll manage if they sign.
So it was literally, you know, we had to,
Jim Conrad: An impasse.
Mark Holden: Yes.
Yeah.
So I got, I got John Alexander on the phone, head of A and R, and, and I was in
office sitting across the desk from him.
I'll never forget, he had this giant eight foot by eight foot
poster of a boxer of these beads of sweat dripping down its face.
And it's this like bigger than life painting.
Jim Conrad: Wow.
And it's not him.
Mark Holden: It's not him.
It's, I don't know who it is.
So, you know, we got John on the phone, and so you'll manage and said yes.
And John said, okay, well then we got a deal.
So then we ended up signing the deal.
The first album was made right here,
Jim Conrad: In Little Mountain Sound.
Mark Holden: Funnily enough, right where we're sitting.
And, um, the album came out and did really well.
It was released in the States, obviously there was a huge amount of push and
they had big plans for the band.
Um, I remember watching a, an episode of a show called Matlock.
And, uh, in this one episode they were in a, in a radio station and
on the, on the wall of the radio station was a Boulevard poster.
Jim Conrad: Cool.
Mark Holden: So it, and it, uh, really showed us that the machine, quote,
air quotes here, was ramping up.
In Canada, we had tremendous success.
Uh, you know, the head of national promotion was a guy that is a
mutual friend of ours, Peter Demer, who absolutely killed it.
He took Never Give Up to the top 10 for a number of weeks in Canada.
Anyway, didn't think that the US was pulling its weight given what we had,
the kind of success we'd had in Canada.
So one day the phone rings at my house and it's Cliff Jones, who was kind
of handling our day-to-day affairs.
And he said, so, uh, you're not gonna fucking believe this, but,
uh, just called Irving Azoff.
Jim Conrad: Irving Azoff was the head of?
Mark Holden: He was, the chairman of MCA Universal music.
Jim Conrad: MCA Universal.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: So the big cheese.
Mark Holden: The big cheese.
They gave, you know, Irving also managed the Eagles and many others.
He is a powerhouse.
Anyway, called Irving.
And he said, uh, with reference to Never Give Up, he said, well, you
kind of fucked that one up down there.
What have you got planned for the next single.
Jim Conrad: And Irving?
Mark Holden: The line went silent, and I would find out later that Irving
hung the phone up and said to his colleague, a guy named Richard Palmese,
who was the Vice President of Music, nobody fucking talks to me like that.
And it was over, and that was it.
That was it.
The, the US dropped us like a hot potato.
We released a second record, but it, you know, the, the machine, quote
unquote, had come to a grinding halt.
Jim Conrad: Ground to a halt.
Mark Holden: Yes.
Jim Conrad: Okay.
From that, onward to what was your next venture and your next challenge?
Mark Holden: I had to really take a hard look at, you know, how things were
evolving with the band at the time.
Jim Conrad: You had to pivot.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And we'd had some challenges internally.
Jim Conrad: How old were you?
Mark Holden: At this time I was, um, 30.
Jim Conrad: Okay.
Alright.
That's, that's a pretty tender, you, you've had a, a track for a number
of years and then at 30 a dream with the band and everything kinda stopped
and halted and came crashing down.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: Some people don't survive that.
Can't handle that.
How did you handle it?
Mark Holden: Well, I had to, I, I had to take a really honest look at where
the band was at the time, and it was, I'll call it, I think experiencing
a bit of a Spinal Tap moment.
It kind
of exploded.
I basically said, look, I've had enough, I've been driving this
thing from the very beginning.
I started the band, you know, created this group of guys and it had been a
great run, but I, I was sort of done.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Mark Holden: You know what I learned there and I knew it and I actually
said to, uh, you know, a couple of guys in the band, you know, we have to
remember what it is that got us here.
It was our music.
It was a combination, it was our sound.
Jim Conrad: It was the alchemy that produced your music.
Mark Holden: Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I would say that to any, any band out there that is struggling right
now, I would say sometimes you kind of have to put some of your little personal
things aside and it's really about the greater good of the band and the project.
Because you might win your point.
However, in the end, if you cratered the vessel, the vehicle that was
carrying you, in this case it was our band, in the process, then
what good was it being right?
Jim Conrad: Exactly.
I like it.
From there until now, what have you been doing?
Mark Holden: Well, I was introduced to a guy who had invented a
technology around 1990, 91.
Uh, his name was Tom Taylor, and Tom was a very bright,
extremely forward-thinking guy.
And Tom had invented the world's first digital sound card.
Jim Conrad: Okay.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And a friend of mine who as it turns out, had built Thunder Road, my
studio, he and his partner Carl, had been kind of the consulting company
that, uh, we used when we built the studio in Calgary, Steve Faus, and
Steve and I became very good friends.
And, uh, Steve called me up out of the blue and he said, I've just
invested in this company, more specific in this guy and his invention.
But they need somebody like you that understands sound
and understand, you know?
And I, in the meantime, I had also been doing sound for film,
part-time, to support my family.
'Cause I had my wife and two young children at this time.
So, he said, look, would you meet with Tom and see if, if you can help him?
And I said, sure.
So I met with Tom and, and he played me this demo and I said,
oh, this is, this is pretty crazy.
'Cause at that point, Jim, sound for computers was, uh, synthesized.
Jim Conrad: Very simple.
Mark Holden: Yeah, it was very rudimentary.
In fact, it was, it was synthesized.
So the video games that were in existence at that time, like, uh,
Pac-Man or like Space Invaders, it was just pops and clicks and you know.
Jim Conrad: So this sound card enabled computers to have a
broader range of sounds that they could, could load into software.
Mark Holden: Yeah, it would basically capture and play back digital sound so you
could sample anything and play it back.
And so as I started to ask Tom these questions, uh, the inventor, it became
very, very clear to me that the path of least resistance in the area that needed
this more than anything was video games.
And I said to him, you know what, I think what we need to do is we need
to, given 'cause I said to him, you know, well, can, we go ahead and sample
anything, voices, music, sound effects?
He said, yeah.
I said, okay, well, um, why don't we hack into a game and we'll
create our own sound effect library?
And it was like 10 or 12 different sound effects that, in this case it was a flight
simulator, the, uh, Microsoft Flight Sim.
And we had, uh, the, the, the ambient sound of inside the cockpit.
We had, uh, rockets firing, we had chafe firing.
We had, um, you know, landing gear up, landing gear down, that sort of
thing, and we hacked into this game.
And,
Jim Conrad: This is fascinating.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: So the evolution of gaming sound started with, uh, your company?
Mark Holden: This company called M Sound.
In Vancouver, right here.
And so Tom said, uh, are you sure?
And I said, Tom, I'll tell you what.
Mark my words, one day, the video business will be bigger than the movie business.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
And today?
Mark Holden: And he said, he said, there's no way.
I said, well, yeah.
Jim Conrad: And today it is.
Mark Holden: It is absolutely.
Jim Conrad: As big if not bigger.
Mark Holden: Way bigger.
Way bigger.
When you, you configure the 3 point something billion online gamers today,
it's, you know, it's half to planet.
Jim Conrad: So you, so you pivoted from music to software with, with sound,
which is your forte, and then carried on with that through the last 20 or
so years, doing other things as well?
Mark Holden: Yeah.
What it did, Jim, was it introduced me, you know, we, we did end up going
and, and had some great success.
The company was ultimately acquired by a semiconductor company, which
didn't know what to do with it.
And it was a shame 'cause it just kind of fell apart.
But, but you know what it did was it connected me with the world of, of, and
at that time they called it high tech.
It wasn't, now it's just technology, but it connected me with, with the
technology world and I loved it.
I mean, I remember going to the Consumer Electronics show back in 91,
92 when everything was under one roof.
You had all the, you had Microsoft, you had Apple, you had all the video
game companies all under one pavilion.
Jim Conrad: So you could show up with your technology and go, Hey guys.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And we did.
Jim Conrad: Guess what?
Mark Holden: Yeah, and we did.
And I basically, I was batting a thousand.
I mean, I went into every single video game company, Electronic Arts, Broderbund,
Maxis, Accolade, Activision, Lucas Arts, all of them, and I would literally
take my tech team, we'd hack into one of their games and then I'd show up.
Jim Conrad: Build the sound design.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
And I'd play them their game with clicks and pops.
And they'd be going, so what are you, what are you doing here?
Why are you here?
And then I would turn that off and then I'd say, okay, now I wanna play your game.
And it would be like going from a silent movie to a George Lucas soundtrack, right?
Jim Conrad: So the beginning of this story and then to now, what is the, the
kernel of truth throughout that, that is sort of running through this whole thing?
Is it to be true to your talent, to trust your talent?
Mark Holden: You know, I think I've, I've always had an ability
or a, I've been fortunate enough to be able to read, read a room.
What I mean by that metaphorically is I can kind of take a look around
and say, in this case as I did, you know, here's a sound thing.
One could easily have just said, oh, that's really cool.
Jim Conrad: But not see the opportunity.
Mark Holden: Right, exactly.
And I seem to be able to connect those dots.
Jim Conrad: Keeping an open mind.
Mark Holden: Yep.
And I think the, one of the biggest things that, if you're asking me about,
well, the things that I've learned over the years that is, and this is
gonna sound cliche, we've heard it a million times, but trust your instincts.
And the difference between fear and instinct is sometimes an extremely
fine line and very, very difficult at times to determine the difference.
The fear emotion and the instinct, instinct is telling you, uh,
maybe not such a good idea.
Is it that or are you just afraid of failing at this?
And I think, you know, I'd like to say I've gotten better at that.
I think I have.
Jim Conrad: How is your relationship with fear?
Mark Holden: It's good.
Yeah.
I am, I am, uh,
Jim Conrad: 'Cause you understand you can't eliminate it.
Mark Holden: That's right.
Jim Conrad: You just have to recognize it.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: And, at least that's what I've learned, try to
create a relationship with it.
Mark Holden: That's right.
And I think for me, one of the things I do is I very carefully look at
who's creating the noise and the stories that are being made up in my
head about that fear are me, right?
It's, so, you know, I'm afraid of that because I just made myself up five
different reasons when in fact if I just stop for a second and look at
those five reasons, they may or may not be true or effective or valid,
but that's it, you know, making up the, the stories in my head that have
caused the fear in the first place.
Jim Conrad: Well, as Nietzsche said, you know, someone is ruining my life.
It's true.
You are.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: Because of your fear.
Mark Holden: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: And recognizing that and working through it
enables you to be successful.
Mark Holden, thank you for being on the Conovision podcast.
Mark Holden: Well, it's my pleasure, Jim.
Jim Conrad: And now it's time to talk about the music business and
how radio and records played a very important part of that business.
I want to introduce my three illustrious guests, Mr. Don Shafer.
Hi Don.
Don Shafer: Hello, Jim.
Jim Conrad: Frank Gigliotti.
Frank Gigliotti: Hey bud.
Jim Conrad: And uh, my good friend Dave Chesney.
Dave Chesney: Nice to be here, Jim.
Jim Conrad: Thank you.
And my relationship to you guys is, I'm from the radio business way back when.
Don, you were my program director at CFOX back in the early eighties.
Don Shafer: Albeit a bad one, but yes.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Okay.
Frank, you were a record rep with CBS Records.
Frank Gigliotti: Albeit at a bad one, but yes.
Jim Conrad: Well, the mock humility in this room is getting really high.
And Dave, you were with CBS as well.
Dave Chesney: Good one.
A good one.
Jim Conrad: Good one.
You were, you were the good guys.
Dave Chesney: Yeah.
Had to always be a bad guy and a good guy.
Jim Conrad: Um, so back in the day, I know that we haven't prepared anything
or whatever, but give me, Don, a story about what it was like when one of these
guys would come in and try to get you to play one of their artists on the air.
What was the procedure?
What, they would give you a call and say, Hey, I got this hot record.
You've gotta listen to it.
Don Shafer: Sometimes, sometimes there was a procedure.
And sometimes there was none.
But, you know, but we,
Jim Conrad: They just ambush you.
Don Shafer: We, well, we worked at a time when, when we were developing a brand new
format, we didn't even know what it was.
It was somewhere between Progressive to AOR to, it had a bunch of names, uh.
Jim Conrad: Abrams Burkhart Superstars.
Don Shafer: Well, that was after.
That would be after,
Jim Conrad: That was later.
Okay.
Don Shafer: That's, that's when it actually started to get
sophisticated and run by consultants.
And that's when it started to get squeezed.
Yeah, but, uh, it was a really nice time.
It was a fun time.
And these guys would, either show up or call.
I think we got to a point where it became a regular occurrence.
It became a, an appointment, but it wasn't, it wasn't out of the
question to have these guys show up and say, I got a great song.
And we would say, great.
Let's put it on the air.
And, you know, that just doesn't happen anymore.
Jim Conrad: No.
Don Shafer: You know, the thing that I really liked being on
the air and, and, mostly now you were sha in the box, were you?
Yeah, I met these guys when I was on the air, but when they walked
into a station, into a studio and said, this is a killer track.
It was.
You mean, and you would have no hesitation to put it on the air never
having heard it before and sharing it.
Jim Conrad: Now, you guys being record reps, would you get the edict from
on high to say, you've gotta promote these guys, even if the band was shit?
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah, we did.
And most of the time we just ignored them, you know?
And there was a reason for that.
It didn't do us any good to go in and get a record played that clearly didn't
fit the audience of that station.
So we did our homework.
And we knew, we, we felt, we knew what was gonna happen on the air
and what was gonna work good.
You know, the problem was that if we got a record played, they shouldn't have been on
it, a station would've lost the audience.
But worse for us is that our salesmen would put all of these records into
the record stores and then we'd end up eating them because the audience
didn't like what they were hearing.
Jim Conrad: Did anybody see the one and only season of Vinyl?
Dave Chesney: Yeah.
Yeah.
Horrible.
Jim Conrad: So I saw a few episodes, Dave, and then I, I made a mental note.
I say, I know guys who did exactly this, so I, I gotta find them
and ask them, how true was it?
It was kind of like really fictional?
Dave Chesney: No, there were elements of truth.
And we'll leave a name out of it, but everybody in this room, certainly on
this side of the room knows a certain A and R director in Toronto that was
almost a caricature of that person.
But to just back up and finish off what you said to Shaf, all
that we had was our reputation.
So to echo what Frank said, we could only go into Shaf or whoever
and say, this is a monster record.
Jim Conrad: Only if it was.
Dave Chesney: If we really believed in it, you had to do the company, you know,
did you talk to Shaf about that record?
Yeah, I talked to him about it.
He's looking at it, you know.
But when you go in and slam your hand on the desk and say, all right,
look, we're taking this one downtown.
You can either do it now or you can do it later.
You know, so that type of passion, I think, you know, I always, I would
never whore myself, that's all I had.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
You had your reputation.
Dave Chesney: You know, in this business, at every sector of this
business, and it still exists today is will someone take your call?
That gives you the power.
In the old days, it was the Rolodex.
So who, who could you call?
We were, we were in the service industry.
I mean, it's what the radio stations played.
They played tunes, and we had them.
In those days, if you wanted a Bruce Springsteen record, you could
get it from one person and one person locally, and that was Frank.
It was Michael Jackson or, or Cheap Trick, or you know, whoever it was.
On the Epic side, you had to talk to me.
Well eventually record companies just gave away all that power to
indies and then digital distribution.
I mean, I have no idea, I don't even know whether they
have promotion people anymore.
But in those days, we had it, we had the exclusive, we could walk into a
radio station and there is your first listen to the new Cheap Trick record.
Jim Conrad: Shaf, who in your mind was a standout break?
Who did you break when no one else had heard this band and all of a
sudden these guys brought a band.
Don Shafer: I probably have to rely on these guys to remember.
My memory's shot.
We worked at such a great time in music where it was developing, and we, we,
we caught that ride between the end of the sixties into the seventies and
eighties and, and it just kept going.
And every week there'd be another dozen wonderful bands.
I mean, it could have been Bruce Springsteen.
Frank Gigliotti: I think you have to ask that question by categorizing
Canadian or international.
Jim Conrad: That's right.
That's right.
Frank Gigliotti: Right.
Because obviously,
Jim Conrad: Definitely, definitely a separation there.
Absolutely.
Frank Gigliotti: Especially in the seventies and eighties when I
worked in the business separation.
Jim Conrad: So a canadian band, the rap was always, especially with
your American counterparts, well, if you didn't have that 33% rule.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah.
If it wasn't for CanCon.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
This, this band would never be played.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah.
Let me tell you something that was really interesting.
Jim Conrad: Okay.
Frank Gigliotti: Canadian music, when I was there, before Celine
Dion, before everything was Canadian.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Frank Gigliotti: We got 30 to 33% of the airplay.
And the listener didn't know that it was a Canadian artist.
Our Canadian artists were selling maybe 3 to 5% of the catalog.
That was it.
So for whatever reason, they weren't buying the Canadian.
I mean, I can remember presenting a gold record to Murray McLaughlin and
saying, congratulations, we're still $53,000 in the hole, but, you know.
Jim Conrad: But here's your gold record.
Frank Gigliotti: Well, here's your gold record anyway.
You know, that's the way it was.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Dave Chesney: It was a period of time we went through and I think that period, you
know, I mean, not that we were working in the industry from, but if you take mid
60's to 70 and just take a look at that British explosion from the Beatles and
everything, and right into Led Zeppelin.
Jimmy Hendrix.
It was like one five year period.
So I think at, at some point in time, people, uh, historians will look
back at the era that we went through,
Jim Conrad: The golden age.
Dave Chesney: Absolute golden age.
Absolute golden age.
But to itemize one of the things that CFOX Radio, uh, when Don Schafer was
there, uh, was an act that I had and I'd received an advanced cassette.
So, we got advanced cassettes, which was a common thing.
And it was like, listen to this.
We're gonna release this record in three months and you know, just get
yourself familiar with it or whatever.
And the Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas Flood cassette came in and I
listened to it and I was like, wow.
Pretty cool.
It's not that it's terribly original.
You can hear the Hendrixs, you can hear the blues mixtures or whatever.
And then the head office decided that they were gonna put a spiff out on it.
Spiff.
A spiff was a, not a spliff.
A spiff.
Jim Conrad: Okay, great.
Dave Chesney: It comes into the story later.
Uh, so it was basically, you know, whatever region across the country,
'cause we had five or six promotion reps across the country for various regions.
So I listened to it and I thought, okay, well I, I can win a compact disc player.
Woo.
Yippee ki-yay.
The magic part about that was it, I thought, okay, well, we
didn't get the impression that the US was gonna be there for us.
'Cause quite often, as Frank identified, we busted our humps to
try to break the Canadian acts and quite often had to follow the US lead.
But I thought, you know what?
I need a CD player and 500 bucks.
I'm gonna figure out something else.
So Rick Shannon was the uh, music director of CFOX in those days.
Jim Conrad: Oh yes.
Dave Chesney: So rather than going straight to Rick, I knew
through the station that there were various people, copywriters, George
down in engineering, blues acts.
People that would dig blues.
And I went down to The Yale with a bunch of cassettes and I gave 'em to every,
every drunk they could sit up straight.
And I think there was a guy on CFOX on Sunday Night Stormin' Norman, I worked
every blues angle I possibly could.
So by the time that the record did come out and I walked it into Rick at the
station, he had heard about people in the station going, Hey, have you heard that
Stevie Ray Vaughn record that Ches is, and he's like, what are you talking about?
So had the extreme pleasure of giving Stevie Ray his first gold album and
I will thank you Shaf and the Fox for that because without that, at one
point in time, Vancouver was 12% Frank?
12, 14% of sales?
15?
Frank Gigliotti: Not even that.
Dave Chesney: We were like 80% of the sales in Canada was
outta the Vancouver branch.
Like the record absolutely blew up.
Uh, would it have happened anyway?
I'm sure it, well, history will never be, will never be able to turn it back.
I think an artist of Stevie's talent.
But that was the type of thing.
And CFOX, you know, there was no other radio station in this market
that welcomed us with open arms.
We could just wander in and out and,
Don Shafer: You know, being the old guy here, I wanna go back a little bit.
Because it's an important, it's an, I think it's important.
If you go back into, say, late 60's, there were only two or three what we would call
classic rock stations in the country.
There were CHOM-FM in Montreal, which went from CKGM FM to CHOM.
And that was in 1969.
And there was CHUM-FM hadn't happened yet.
It was, about to happen and LG FM, whatever it was called in those days
with, uh, JB Shane and the earlier crew were, I mean they were technically
the first two rock stations or progressive stations in the country.
There was WBCN in Boston.
There was KSAN in San Francisco, there was KPPC in LA.
That was it.
Jim Conrad: And that was it.
Don Shafer: That was it.
That was progressive rock.
Jim Conrad: Playing, playing album rock.
Don Shafer: Yeah.
Playing and then moving from 45 to the longer songs in between 69 and 75.
Like it just exploded.
And that's why we had these guys and some wonderful, wonderful music
people that brought us talent that wanted to work with the radio station.
I remember, you know, Frank and I went to Seattle to interview Heart.
And Heart was like family.
They weren't just a fly in and fly out, you know, type of affair.
They actually came into the radio station.
They hung out.
We actually did things together.
I mean, I still remember Supertramp coming to town.
Supertramp was like family.
So a lot of, a lot of these bands got their chops working with,
you know, a station like CFOX.
Jim Conrad: Back when radio stations and record companies and
bands all worked together, 'cause they, were mutually beneficial.
Don Shafer: Well, we love, we love what we were doing, which is a lot different
than what's happening in radio today.
Jim Conrad: So now we're on to bands and talent and backstage and
performance, gimme your top three favorite all time, either bands or
performances that just stand out.
Don Shafer: Top three.
I'd have to start with Police.
At the Commodore.
Jim Conrad: At the Commodore.
So when they were unknown.
Don Shafer: When they, yeah.
Unknown.
First, first on the road and blew me away.
Jim Conrad: Frank.
Frank Gigliotti: Billy Joel, especially in the early days.
He put on just an amazing, concert.
And, uh, actually we did a Billy Joel live from the Queen Elizabeth
Theater was Roy Hennessy over CFOX.
And, uh, half an hour before the show, somebody forgot to phone the phone lines
to get the thing broadcast.
So, uh, here we are delaying the thing for half an hour, but we would
run the reel to reel down the street.
We bicycle it down the street to the station and then run
back and get, get the other one.
Then they get the other one and get the other one.
Jim Conrad: So you recorded the concert on reel to reel and then, and then
biked it over to the ready stage?
Frank Gigliotti: Had to, because we didn't, nobody phoned the phone company.
Jim Conrad: I think that's called, that's called analog.
Frank Gigliotti: I guess it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can do that.
Bruce Springsteen.
Well,
I remember taking the real Roy Hennessy in a limousine down to Seattle.
It was just before Christmas.
It was at the, uh, Seattle Center.
And so, you know, Springsteen comes out and he does his four hours, right?
And he does Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.
He's got snow coming down on the stage.
Show's over.
Uh, everybody starts to leave.
And then as I, we're just pulling out, I'm, I'm saying, I hear somebody
playing something like, what's going on?
So I went back inside.
Springsteen just wanted to play some more tunes so him and the rest of the band
were playing with like half an audience.
Jim Conrad: Half the house.
Frank Gigliotti: He just wouldn't stop.
Jim Conrad: This is the real encore.
Where'd you all go?
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah, yeah.
Don Shafer: Yeah.
I'm gonna pick that as number two.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
That was number two.
Frank Gigliotti: And in my opinion, the best musical group I've ever worked with.
Bar none.
Tower of Power.
There's just no one has ever played to that, that degree of perfection.
Impossible.
Jim Conrad: Who always ask the musical question.
What is hip?
Frank Gigliotti: What is hip?
What is hip?
Jim Conrad: Tell me, tell me.
Yeah.
Frank Gigliotti: Because you know, those guys were as funky as a bow-legged monkey.
That's funky, right?
Jim Conrad: That is funky.
Dave, top three or just one or something memorable.
Dave Chesney: No, I've, I've time to, I've had time to think.
So, uh, I would say number one would've been The Clash at the Commodore.
And I think everybody in the music industry, in the lower mainland, every
heavyweight, everybody came to watch them and a lot of the detractors were
there to watch 'em fall on their face.
Oh, they rock, they rocked the place.
That would be my top one.
Number two for, uh, personal reasons would've been Barney Bentall's
first show at The Commodore,
because as Frank identified, when you can work with an act that
goes from scrubbing the streets,
Jim Conrad: Busking.
Dave Chesney: Pretty much busking.
And, uh, Barney would often say, you know, as he looked back on his career,
that that sold out Commodore show to a, a Vancouver artist, you had arrived.
And I think so that night and to turn back the hands of time, way back when I
met this bandido Frank Gigliotti for the first time, and I saw a little ad in the
Rolling Stone newspaper and Frank was one of the only, uh, he must have had a
girlfriend in Cloverdale 'cause he was the only rep that would come out to see me.
Jim Conrad: Those Cloverdale girls.
Dave Chesney: Those Cloverdale, those valley girls.
And, uh, so I, I had seen a little ad, I was a religious reader of the, uh,
Rolling Stone and saw an ad and it said last night I saw the future of rock
and roll and it was Bruce Springsteen.
Jon Landau.
So I immediately picked up the phone and phoned Frank and I went, Hey,
you got a record by a guy named,
Jim Conrad: Springstung, Springsteen?
Dave Chesney: Something like that.
'Cause I had read, I'd read a lot of Jon Landau's writing in the Rolling Stone.
He said, I don't know whether it's on release schedule or not, let me check.
And he called me back, he said, yeah.
He said, we got a record coming out, uh, in Greetings from Asbury Park.
It's, uh, and I said, well obviously it's not something we would play at a country
station, but I'll buy it if I have to.
Well, Frank brought me, not only did he bring me a copy of it, when Springsteen
played, uh, the QE theater, right, Frank?
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah.
QE.
Dave Chesney: Frank made sure I got a pair of tickets.
Those row two kind of tickets.
I left at intermission.
I went home 'cause I was so afraid.
He played like 90 minutes already and then there was an
intermission and I was, I went home.
'Cause I was so afraid that it was gonna let me down.
I didn't stay for the second half of the show.
That's how good the first half was.
Jim Conrad: To avoid being let down you left the show halfway through.
Frank Gigliotti: I remember that night.
Jim Conrad: I like that.
Frank Gigliotti: I remember that night, the sound in the theater
that night, Dave, had to be some of the best we've ever heard.
And I'm gonna tell you why.
I was there in the afternoon.
Jim Conrad: QE's got great acoustics.
Always has.
Frank Gigliotti: No it, it goes beyond that.
It goes beyond that.
There's Springsteen for two hours.
White noise, pink noise, analyzing the room, and he's going, I need 2 DB at
3 K. I need, uh, I want you to drop, uh, you know, 2 DB or 1 DB at 10.
And, uh,
Jim Conrad: So he was acoustically tuning the room.
Frank Gigliotti: He and, uh,
Jim Conrad: This is Bruce Springsteen.
Frank Gigliotti: He and Donovan Leitch were the only
people I've ever seen do that.
Unbelievable sound.
You know, unbelievable sound.
Of course we laughed because I, told Bruce before he came out, I
said, listen, this is Vancouver.
'Cause every time he'd walk out on stage, what would happen, everybody
would stand up for like 10 minutes, you know, and, uh, I said, this is Vancouver.
They appreciate what you do, but they're not as excitable as the fans
in Seattle or San Francisco, whatever.
So I said, don't be surprised if you walk out or nobody stands up.
So he's going out there and he started off with Badlands, remember
that was his opening number.
After the, the second number he is looking over at me at, you
know, on the sidelines, are you, going, like, what's going on here?
You know?
And then finally everybody started getting into it.
But, uh, Vancouver was a toughest audience on the continent and
they, they appreciated the artists as much as anybody else does.
They're just looking at their neighbors to see what they were
doing before they applaud it.
You know, that's the way it was.
Jim Conrad: Don, any other memorable concert?
Don Shafer: Yeah, I was just gonna go back to number three,
which is, you know, probably a, a mishmash of, you know, local bands.
If you go back and you remember we used to do live at, and I
am, I think it was the Town Pump that we were at most of the time.
And, uh, that's where Bryan Adams started.
And you know, you, you, when we, when we think back, we did that every week.
We had, you know, Barney Bentall, we had Bryan Adams, we had every
local band, you know, just play.
And we had some great performances and we had some shitty performances.
But, you know, when you think about it, we had a lot of great music
internationally coming through the city.
A lot of great Canadian superstars, but we also had our own music scene that was,
uh, that was vibrant and whether it was the Commodore or the Town Pump, I mean,
clubs were playing lots of local bands.
And it was exciting to see.
Dave Chesney: Can I just quickly jump in there because
there's a golden opportunity.
Jim Conrad: Yes, yes.
Dave Chesney: Live from Gators.
Teenage Head.
So I tell Frankie Venom the lead singer because the station's not playing.
Jim Conrad: That's right.
Once again, Frankie Venom.
Dave Chesney: Frankie Venom.
Jim Conrad: Oh, I love those punk names.
Dave Chesney: So I tell him, I said, look, the station's not playing the
record, but we got a live chance, a shot to do a live broadcast, right?
So, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, so here's the information.
You know, it's radio station CFOX.
Okay, you got that?
CFOX.
Got that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess that's fine.
So, you know, what, you think I'm stupid.
Some, one of the announcers, I'm not sure who it might've been,
Sterling Fox or somebody from CFOX, was there to introduce the band.
Ladies and gentlemen, live from Gators.
Please welcome Teenage Head.
Frankie Venom walks on stage and says, well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Coming to you live on radio station.
C
FUCK.
Don Shafer: Well, I was told not to say the word fuck, so.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Dave Chesney: I forgot that part.
But the next morning, 8:30, the aforementioned Mr. Shafer calls me and
says, Chesney, you and that son of a bitch better be in my office in 15 minutes.
So I get Frankie and we go down and, uh, all that Frankie had to
say for himself was, I'm crazy.
Jim Conrad: That was a great rationale for anything.
Hey, we're crazy.
We're crazy.
That transitions me to, I guess, you know, our topic.
That was then.
This is now.
Uh, you guys have, were there then and have been watching it, you
know, the evolution of the music business and bands and entertainment
and radio over the last 30 years.
How has it changed?
Don Shafer: And I have mixed feelings about it, as you might, expect.
I, uh, you know, I, I loved what we did in the sixties,
seventies, some of the eighties.
But I loved, I loved that experimentation that, you know, Frank or Ches or anybody
could walk in the station and say, this is really good, play it, or trust me.
And, we could, we could actually put it on the radio.
You know, the difference is, is that, you know, we didn't know what, we didn't know.
We didn't have a formula.
We didn't have a, we weren't really that sophisticated.
So what we did was love and gut and playlist sizes could have
been 2000, but over time they went from 2000 to, I think some of the
playlists today are a hundred songs.
Jim Conrad: Yeah.
Don Shafer: I think unfortunately corporate radio, you know, has
sucked the soul out of the beast.
And you know, I don't, and I don't say that unkindly, I understand the
business of it, but we lost the magic.
We lost the soul.
We lost the ability to Ches's point, I don't even know whether
there are record reps anymore.
Frank Gigliotti: I don't know if there are.
Yeah, but radio, in the sixties, seventies, I used to fly down to Los
Angeles once a year to listen to radio.
93KHJ Los Angeles, right?
The Dr. Don Rose at KFRC San Francisco.
They played the music, but they were so good that you
waited for the music to finish.
'Cause you wanted to hear what the jock had to say, you know?
And, uh, you listened some to those old air checks with Robert W. Morgan or The
Real Don Steele or any of those, right?
Jim Conrad: You sent me Coyote McCloud.
And the classic China Grove
intro.
If
that
doesn't get you going with your cup of coffee in the morning, nothing will.
Now how has the, uh, in your specific instance, how has
the music business changed?
Frank Gigliotti: There is no music business.
Jim Conrad: There is no music business today.
Frank Gigliotti: Per se.
Not, not as we used to know it because Steve Jobs, you know, destroyed the,
Jim Conrad: The iPod killed the radio star.
Frank Gigliotti: The iPod killed everything, you know, and the iTunes,
that, uh, I was remember talking to Dean Cameron, who's president of
Capitol Records not too long ago.
Well, I guess about maybe seven, eight years ago.
When you get to be my age that wasn't too long ago.
And, uh, he said, you know, Frankie, he said, uh, we had 265 employees, uh,
Jim Conrad: At Capital Records in Canada.
Frank Gigliotti: During, you know, the seventies, right.
Eighties.
He says, I'm down to 67 and I got a fire two today.
Jim Conrad: And it's just gonna keep on going.
Frank Gigliotti: And it's just gonna keep on going.
Jim Conrad: Dave, music is still vital though.
Dave Chesney: Well, I would think so.
But what I was thinking along the lines, how has it changed?
People don't have the attachment to their music that we had.
It doesn't define them, it doesn't speak to them.
Jim Conrad: It's disposable.
Dave Chesney: Absolutely disposable, and that's just the way it is.
We were fortunate enough to have come through a Renaissance period of music.
It's never gonna be like that again.
I'm not some old fart trying to,
Jim Conrad: Well, you are some old fart.
Dave Chesney: But yeah, I was just happy that I was there.
Jim Conrad: Grateful for the experience of being there
Dave Chesney: Yeah, I listened, you know, I get turned on to music,
you know, from friends and, and sometimes through Spotify or whatever.
But I think the thing was when you talk about the, uh, Coyote McCloud air check,
and as Frank talked about going to Los Angeles just to listen to KHJ, you're
in a restaurant, the waitress walks over, drops your burger, and walks away.
You go, I don't really feel very good about this place, but if she walks up
and goes, Hey, how you doing today?
Well, I just saw you pull up in that red car.
Cool.
Hey, how you doing?
Hey, listen, we got meatloaf sandwiches on sale today.
Really good.
Can I get you a coffee?
You're like, yeah, I kinda like this place.
It's who serves it.
And plus radio, they had the tunes.
That's the only place you could get it.
That was the only place, as I said before, the only place you could
get Bruce Springsteen in this market was from Frank Gigliotti.
If you wanted Michael Jackson, you had to talk to me.
When, Frank will remember these days, of when CKLG and CFUN were
competing against each other for our listenership, one station would
get a, a record before the other.
And all through the whole record, so the other station couldn't tape it.
They'd go, LG exclusive.
LG exclusive.
You know, so yeah.
And you and, and you, you couldn't wait to get outta school to turn on the radio
to hear the Daryl B show or whatever it might be, or The Real Roy Hennessy with
the carpool special, they had the tunes.
And now I expect that I can pull up to the Chevron pump and hit unleaded
and I'll get the goddamn Weeknd song.
Don Shafer: I just wanted to add to that though.
Because there's, there's a place where this starts to sound like, you know,
I remember when bread was nickel.
And, and I used to walk, you know, walk in the snow to, to school.
And we have some great memories, but not a lot has changed.
I mean, I, to your point, I still like going on iTunes.
I still like exploring and surfing for new music.
So I, I find it one way or the other.
But when you talked about radio and what's changed, you know, for me the
biggest thing that's changed is this.
You don't find this very much on most radio stations.
It's too time sensitive, it's too compressed, it's too business
focused or too advertiser focused.
So why are podcasts doing so well?
Why is NPR doing so well?
And why does CBC ratings continue to skyrocket?
Jim Conrad: Yeah, because back to what my original premise, it's
about the stories and those DJs told us stories about that music.
You know, the, the artists were great storytellers.
Dave Chesney: Well, they were human beings too.
And to, to Don's point, I mean, we all remember the days of the BBM
book coming out, and if it was a 15 station market, CBC was number 16.
I remember hearing the story about the CBC French transmitter
in Kitimat falling over.
It was down for nine months.
Jim Conrad: And nobody noticed.
Dave Chesney: Nobody noticed, nobody knew.
But CBC done, and which you have attempted to do with Roundhouse Radio
is reflect my community back to me.
Talk to me.
You know, I, I, I don't need an endless jukebox anymore.
Jim Conrad: I've got that on my iPod.
Dave Chesney: Radio stations that are still out there relying on the hits?
Forget it.
Absolutely.
If you, if all you've got to offer is music, you're in big
trouble as far as me and young, especially the younger generations.
Oh my God.
Like, you know, and I,
Jim Conrad: Well, that's why, that's who's listening to podcasts.
Dave Chesney: But there was a period of time just up the street here when
Tom Lavin of Powder Blues, not that many years ago, opened up a how to be
a success in the music business school.
And taught me to teach, uh, some of the business aspects of the class.
And I would always love, there's a DVD, it's the story of CKLW, the big eight,
now all these hipster doofuses that were so cool, I would put that thing
on and they would sit there with their mouths open and they just go like, oh
my God, where, when did this happen?
Is it gonna happen again?
You know, and so as far as radios, we could beat that one to death, but
I still, I still think somewhere, probably in America, just before they
turn the, the lights out, they just flip the keys to some of the kids
from the college down the street and they just go absolutely ape shit.
And I, with a radio, I mean every, everywhere you go you can find a radio.
In your car, in your house, in the garage.
They're still out there.
I'm not waiting for it to come back, but I think it could come back.
But that immediacy and we've seen now it's the locality.
It's gotta be local.
So we would want to turn on the radio and see how hungover Daryl B was
today, or where did he go last night?
Jim Conrad: Yeah, that's right.
Dave Chesney: You know, he was out at the club.
He went to the Cave Supper club and saw I was partying with the trooper
boys or whatever it might have been.
He was reflecting our community back to us and I think that's what the
consultants, nevermind shrinking the playlist, they took the community
aspect, the relatability, you know.
Jim Conrad: And homogenized the product.
Dave Chesney: Exactly.
And you know, there was a time when everybody was out
on the street and it was fun.
And I don't think it's coming back, but.
Jim Conrad: It may.
Dave Chesney: It might.
Jim Conrad: Frank, you got a story?
Frank Gigliotti: I do have a story with it actually, uh, relates to, to Shaf here.
Um, one of the best lines I think I've ever heard, when an artist used to come
to town, we'd like to bring them down to CFOX, uh, to do a live interview.
At this particular point, Muddy Waters was, uh, was
in
town.
And, uh, I said, Hey, Shaf, I says, uh, Muddy's in town.
And he says, oh yeah, bring them by.
I'd love to, love to have a chat with him.
So we're talking about all kinds of different things, you know.
And then Shaf turns to Muddy.
And he says, so tell me, he says, uh, does it ever, you know, piss you off?
Do you ever feel bad about the fact that all those years,
you know, you were starving?
You know, you couldn't make a buck out of anything.
'Cause that's the way it was playing the blues, right?
He says, and all these new guys, you know, Clapton and Beck, and these
guys are stealing all your chops and making a fortune out of it.
Does it ever bother you?
He says, well, you know, Don, if I had the money, I wouldn't have had the blues.
Jim Conrad: If I had the money.
Frank Gigliotti: So Shaf looks at me and he just, he says, wow.
He says, what else am I gonna ask him?
You know, it was, uh,
Jim Conrad: That's a t-shirt.
That's a t-shirt.
I love that.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah.
Pretty, pretty much.
Another quick story, uh, when, when Willie lost, uh, he was down, was
it 13 million, Ches, and the tax thing, you know, I was talking to
Jim Conrad: Willie Nelson.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah, Willie Nelson.
I was talking to Paul Rappaport, who was the LA promotion manager, and I
says, Hey, you heard about Willie?
Like, what's going on with Willie?
And he said, well, I was talking to Kris Kristofferson the other day, and
uh, and he said, did he talk to Willie?
He said, yeah, well, well, he says, so Kris, what happened?
He says, well, I said, Willie, you know you're $13 million in the hole 'cause
you get ripped off by your accountant.
What are you gonna do?
And Willie says, I guess it would bother somebody that gave a fuck.
Jim Conrad: Now that's a good attitude.
I like that.
Frank Gigliotti: Yeah, I love that.
Dave Chesney: I'm gonna jump off the back of that Willie thing because we're gonna,
I know we're, we're wrapping up, and this isn't even my story, but I, it's one of
my favorites stories that I just heard.
Jim Conrad: This is about storytelling.
Dave Chesney: So we all in this room know Jim Burns?
Great, uh, local blues man, uh, from St. Louis.
So, uh, the little town I live outside of here, White Rock, uh,
Blue Frog Studios has an artist, uh, perform on a regular basis.
One being Jim Burns, uh, a fan favorite, and he told a great Willie story that,
uh, Jim Burns had met Ray Charles, uh, when Ray used to come and do the
telethon here, he was always the big superstar, close out Sunday afternoon.
So backstage, Jim tells a story that the first time he was, uh, in the
same room as Ray Charles, he felt compelled to tell him that his next
door neighbor in St. Louis actually gave Ray his first recording contract.
So there was immediate click between Ray and Jim Burns and over the years
they became quite good friends and, uh, so when, uh, Ray passed, he
was, uh, invited to the funeral.
So he goes, and of course, a star cast of people to get up to say a few words and
Jim says, I'm sitting there and Willie Nelson gets up and he says, you know,
all of us here, you know, are gonna miss, uh, Ray, a great friend of, of all of us.
And, uh, everybody here in this room knows that Ray was very
passionate about playing chess.
And he said, we've all probably had to play a game of chess
with Ray at some point in time.
And, uh, he had a special kind of chess board that, I don't know whether it made
some type of audible noise, I'm not sure.
That doesn't matter with the story, but, so Willie says, so the last time I saw
Ray, he said he of course roped me into a game of chess and he kicked my ass.
So I looked at him, I said, Ray, next time we play, can we leave the lights on?
Jim Conrad: Frank.
Dave.
Don, thank you so much for being part of my podcast.
Thank you.
The stories are fabulous, so thank you very much for coming.
Frank Gigliotti: Thank you, Jim.
Dave Chesney: Thanks, Jim.
Don Shafer: Thanks, Jim.
Jim Conrad: That was episode 7.
What a wonderful journey with my very special guests, Mark Holden, Don Shafer,
Frank Gigliotti, and Dave Chesney.
As well, we talked about the neuroscience and the evolutionary roots of music
in a wonderful essay by Dr. Aditi Subramanian about the neuroscience
of music and why it matters to us.
Thanks for listening.
As always, it has been a pleasure.
Oh, and remember, we are all stories to be told.
I'm Jim Conrad, and this has been Conovision, the spirit of storytelling.