**** Producer's Note: The following is a general transcript of LCC Connect's weekly radio program. Contents include but may not be limited to podcasts, program imaging, announcements, and PSAs. More detailed and accurate transcripts of the podcast episodes featured in this broadcast can be found at LCCconnect.com or by following the links provided in the show notes of this episode. ****

It's time for Stars on Sports, a

podcast radio show dedicated to sharing stories about our athletic program at lcc. Past and present.

Lansing Community College athletics has a strong tradition.

25 national championships, over 190 all Americans, 19 MCCAA all sports trophies.

Stars on Sports will introduce you to individuals that have contributed to our program success and give you the backstory on what it takes to develop it.

We'll also dive into and break down the topics and issues facing athletic departments across the nation right here at lcc.

This is Stars on Sports. Hello and welcome to another episode of Stars on Sports.

Sports.

I'm joined today by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter and our producer, Dadalion Lowry. And gentlemen, as I head into this podcast each week, I've told you before, there's usually a theme that crosses my desk or I hear throughout the week that makes me want to bring it here and to discuss and as we end the season or end our year, our academic year, our sports year. You know, we've talked a lot about defining success on this program, but looking back and seeing like did you get the most out of your team? And read a lot of articles lately on evaluating coaches and such and what to look for. And there's so many like generic topics, but one I saw break it down in like three questions and which led me to our topic today of transferring the power of belief, which again we talked a lot about belief before but we'll dive into it more. And even that fictional character according to Dadalion and Chatgpt, Ted Lasso. But did the team improve? Did individuals improve and was it a positive experience? And I thought, you know, those are three good questions we should ask each of our teams, each of our departments. So then it made me dive deeper into how and so listening to a couple podcasts that I like to listen to and then talking to someone that referenced the book the Magic of Believing, which was written a long time ago, but one of the first books on how belief can change your mindset, how belief can lead to success. So we'll dive into that a little bit but it really talked about leaders job is to transfer the power of belief. So you know, looking up something that talked about inspiring believing. But we both, all of us here know what we think belief is and how important it is. And it just made me think about how leaders do that and how successful leaders do that. And we'll go through a couple examples and maybe you have some examples of coaches in your past. It's not just belief, that's the individual's role on the team, but a coach's role is to get the team to believe in itself to be successful. So that was a lot. Don't know where this will go. It could be our shortest podcast ever. But it just. I've. Over the last week, three times this thing has hit me that I have started reading the book the Magic of Believing. And again, we've talked about stacking wins and bricks and things here too, which lead to belief. And, you know, we'll dive into a little bit about belief versus confidence, which I think we have hit in before, but we. What's your first take, gentlemen, on that?

This is a tough one for me, just at the point of the year and everything else. That being said, I believe that the belief system, you know, you've done a great job of building it, whether it's with a team or just yourself. If it takes. The difference between hoping, hoping is that you're hoping that you do well. If you have a high belief system, it's expecting you expect to do well. And so if you can have a team or people that have high expectations, their belief systems are going to be really high. If you've got a lot of people that are just hoping to do well, that means their belief systems aren't necessarily as high.

And I agree, because one of the things is those with the highest belief, belief is important to success. When you look at teams that have been successful, they had the highest belief system and they're just like, you know, the neat thing about working in the world of sports is there's different ways to do things. You know, each coach has their own personality, their own leadership style, their own way. You know, whether it's yelling or calmness or strategic or fun, but each one had. So there's a lot of different ways to instill belief, but it's not easy.

No, I think talent without belief is the P word that we don't like to say a lot, but talent without belief is just potential.

We don't like that word because the frustrating thing to me is reaching one's potential. And if someone didn't, that's disappointing to me. And there could be a lot of variables in that. It could be their own work ethic. It could be not a good team combination, thousands of variables. But that is one of the measuring back to success. And the power of belief is reaching that potential. Again, it goes back to the little thing, the process, building that belief system over time. And how do you do that? And I believe we've talked about how important captains are on the podcast before, but in this case, from what I've researched and what I wanted to focus on is the coach's role in that because again, just looking back on a season and how do we get better? And one of the things from the book and learning to make belief stronger is reframing mistakes, reframing failures. And how do good coaches do that? Is it too optimistic? Is it non realistic enough? But I do believe that successful coaches find ways to, to change that failure or change that lack of success quickly and strategically. That it moves the team back in the right direction or it minimizes how much that failure impacts that team. But it starts with trust in a belief system. And in the end, and I wanted to save this to the end, but trust is a big part of building that belief. Belief system that they got to buy into. What the. I mean if the coach is dancing in front of them, trying to like lighten things up and they don't have that trust or buy in, they're just going to think what an idiot. But you can do crazy things and change different way of getting things across by having that buy in. One of the examples they talked about who was, you know, when researching this was Phil Jackson was a name that came up regularly, a basketball coach at the NBA level with the Chicago Bulls coach Michael Jordan and was real successful. But you know, he was a real calm person, didn't yell, but got that team to do things that you wouldn't think would be, you know, because Michael Jordan did pretty intense and pretty competitive. But you know, he would have them journal, read books, run their offense with calm. And you think that that work. And the example is he had some interesting personality down there that you thought would never like read a book. But he got them to do it and it became part of their identity and also led to a lot of success because some of the members on that team needed to be reeled in a little bit. So it's important for the coach, starts before the season even starts of having that plan, having that vision of how they want to see it. Because when looking for someone, when looking for a coach, you know, podcast said that you want them to see more before anyone else, you know, see something before it happens. And that is, you know, part of the belief system, believing that it can happen. And I think the good coaches do that is seeing more before. But it starts with preparation up front. So the belief is the result and it's such an important result in success. But it's all the other things of daily and how you do it daily. That helps build it and stack it.

Belief without talent will still typically outwork and outperform others. Have you seen in your roles, have you seen teams that have maybe not had as much talent but have performed at high levels because of belief systems that have been either put in from maybe a young age at the youth programs or at the high school level?

Yeah, you know, every. When you go into every season, your goal is to win a championship. And how realistic is that? Only one team in that four or class win the championship and sometimes the best teams don't win the championship. And sometimes it's teams that just play the best at the end. But part of playing the best at the end is that belief in that you can do it. And I would argue some of the teams that have won state championships or national championships here at LCC or when I'm at Mason were teams that just develop that belief system that this really can happen. I mean, because that's the other thing. Everyone wants to win a championship, but do they want to work towards it? Do they do the off season stuff? Do they do that? But throughout the season, as you build momentum and build that belief system, that's what really you need to win a championship. Because if you don't believe you can do it, then you're not going to. Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. So I have seen teams, I mean, my first year here, our women's cross country team just got better as the season went on and just gelled and believed in each other as runners and there was no really star runner and they ran as a group and, you know, peaked on the right day. You know, I had, you know, a bowling team and a high school level that just, you know, started to believe.

I feel like you're throwing this at me now. So, yeah, I mean, you guys are actually describing my bowling team. We are not the most talented group, but yeah, we managed to made it to the final roll off at LCC's bowling league three years now. We ended up being second place the very first time we got in. And then these last two years we won the championship. Definitely not the most talented. I'm not going to say that we don't have good players because we do. I got two guys that are awesome, myself and the other two individuals on our team. Not as brilliant when it comes to the talent side of things. And it's kind of funny that you're talking about, you know, captain versus coach, because I am the team captain, but I don't consider myself a very good coach. But we do have a guy who's almost an unofficial coach on the team and he tends to be more positive about winning than than anybody else. Now myself, when we got to this last year, we actually just were at the complete bottom in the first half of the season. And then I came in, I was like, we can still do this. We've got another half of the season and whoever wins this half, we can do this. I will say that's where the belief came in. And I think we started to like just really kind of pile it on from there. My question though is when you don't truly believe as the team captain or coach, how do you convince yourself?

You typically, at least in my research, it typically doesn't happen. And so we're talking about the positive sides of the belief system, but there's the other side of the belief system that is not positive. And if you don't have a strong belief system in whatever it might be, that's why you see teams, programs struggle year after year after year because it is contagious. Just like the positivity thing can be contagious to leading to positive outcomes and experiences, the negative piece is very contagious too and will lead most often to negative outcomes, negative experiences. And you see that in sports a lot with programs that struggle. And it doesn't matter who the coach is or who the team is, it's a belief system that this program is bad, broken.

Yeah.

And it just keeps repeating the process. And so you need to have a strong, strong leadership role in the belief system.

And I agree there's a lot of things that take to be successful and win a championship. Luck, talent, leadership, positivity. And so that to your question is if you don't believe in the team, you're not winning a championship. But can it change? It takes a lot. It's again, it's back to getting back to the basic and restacking those bricks and build and finding wins, finding ways to change that belief system. So depending on when that happens, but frankly, most teams by two thirds of the season probably know where they're at. And it going to have to be little changes that make that belief system change so that you can successfully make a run in the postseason.

And when you said that though, when you said believe in the team, see, that's kind of of I think where my belief system as the team captain was different because I did believe in the team, I thought the team could do it, but I wasn't exactly believing in my own abilities. And this is where it's going to be a little bit different because most time your coaches and your team captain, well, I guess the team captain would play, but your coach isn't going to be playing on the team. So I believed in the team. It's just my own ability.

But even in your case, you had prior success, which really helps the belief system.

That is true.

You had been there before, so it's pretty much the same team. So you knew it had the potential to get there. But to your point though, you gotta separate it because you know, another thing I like our coaches to do is work individually with kids because as a group you gotta break down the individuals. And if your best player is having a slump or something, you gotta help them figure it out. And not even your best player, any player. So that can maybe change. One person can spark a team to change, to be successful. But the belief system in your bowling team had to change for you to turn that season around. Fortunate for you, you had the past experience. I believe that you knew this team could be successful to cutter's point. Those teams that haven't, it's even harder to. But it still starts with the coach because the other, the, the team itself is. It doesn't know any better. So unfortunately, sometimes it's a changing coach. To my original premise here in the world of teams that have coaches, it starts with them on helping to instill that belief system, continue to work on it and build it. And there are different ways to do that. And I know in coach Cut's program he does a lot of the things, you know, a couple of things that a coach can do to help change it is first they have to have faith in their ability. They brought this team together. They got to, you know, believe in them, have to have faith in their ability. Visualization, which I do know you use a lot of, can help help them see what they need to do goes a long way nowadays. And getting even broken down even further. Focus. That's another word that, you know, when I listen to people talk about how to be successful, you got to be desperate and focus. If you don't have that desperation or hunger, it's going to hard to be successful. Once you have that desperation, hunger. You got to focus on your goal, focus on what you need to do and, and get rid of that external noise to be successful. And then what I mentioned earlier, another tactic is reframing lessons. I have a plaque in my office. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn instead of lose. But again, there is a negative side of this that I like to focus with Ted Lasso on the positive side. Coach Cutter. But there is a negative side to. To this. And I think that the part back now to the Book of the Magic of Believing was one of the first books on what the power of belief can do. He talks about talking to yourself. Tell yourself your subconscious mind is what's going to help you believe that you can do something. And we've talked before about that, about talking to yourself. Don't listen to yourself, I think is what we talked about. But your thoughts take shape. One of my favorite quotes, and I didn't look it up before I came here, but in every speech I gave at the high school level, your thoughts become your words, your words become your habits, and your habits become what you do. Technical difficulties in the background. I wouldn't call it technical difficulties. We know what the problem is.

We just can't fix it.

So the listeners, basically, we. We have two different screens, and they're just kind of mixed up right now. So I keep having to turn the chair around just to figure out we

had a solution for.

All right, so what was the quote again?

Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, and your habits kind of become who you are. And.

Yeah, absolutely. If you're looking to destiny.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

Which one?

I think the top one there.

Okay.

So your thoughts become your words, your words become your behavior, your behavior comes your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.

And it starts with your thoughts attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi. Yep, yep. So, but if you're looking to turn around a team, a program, a business, or anything else and you haven't had success, yes, the visualizations are super important. But one of the, like, the gold caveat is you have to immerse yourself into whatever it is that you're chasing and be able to kind of touch it and smell it. And that might mean you have to go to a program that is having success, but you have to be able to see what it looks like. You. You're not going to just be able to build this big mansion without understanding how to stack those bricks and understanding what the outcome is going to look like if you do stack those bricks. And so it's very important to be able to kind of see and touch and taste the things that you are trying to get to. And if that's a struggling team, then you have to look at what the strong teams look like.

I think that's a great clarification, actually, because you're right. And we talked about you don't know what you don't know, but usually when you hire a new coach, they have that goal. But I would encourage coaches to go see who won the championship last year, what did they do? And I know you've done before, like researching three championships and seeing what stats they have and such. So great point of going out there and finding out who did it and learning from them and digging into how they did it. Now in sports, you think rivalries or competitive. Not anger, but anyway, just that. But I want to learn from the best and I would encourage our coaches and we want to be the best. So hopefully programs are coming to us. And I have learned, you know, even though like you see in coaches compete on the field, that they do share information. Especially if you run a similar offense or something. Yeah. If you don't have that experience, you gotta in some, you know, like teams go and visit, you know, like that go to go to the national championship one year to watch it and see it and feel it, to understand it. We've talked about experience before, so yeah, I mean, normally coaches think they know what it takes, but one of the best ways to learn is from those that have done it because yeah, you can't just visualize something if you don't know what the reality is of being there. And I think the good coaches, they have the motivation to do that. They're always learning that their goal heading into the season. So hope they've done that. Preparation and having a plan in place and having a specific plan is important because that's what builds again, connection, then trust and the focus to be better every day. Because the other neat thing that I learned about, or I knew about belief but reiterated with this is it's contagious, good or bad. Back to your point. You know, we've always talked about one bad apple can ruin a barrel. And we know that in sports and teams. But it's also even back to one person getting hot, that celebration. We've talked about how contagious the high five is in sports, but so is one person's success because again, the team, if they're connected and close and trust each other, that can help build that belief system to spark maybe a turnaround that it could be one person.

It's so contagious that in any sporting event you can find moments that totally shift the flow and momentum of any event. It's extremely contagious. And you can't necessarily know when it's coming, but you can definitely see it you can definitely, definitely feel it. And once it's there, you're like, either this is awesome or this is terrible.

Yeah, back to. It could lead to a great team that has an unsuccessful season. And, you know, you asked me earlier if I've experienced team that their blue C system led to a championship. And I think all of us can look back through sports and find teams that have done that, you know, underdog that went on to win. There have been movies made about them, and it just, again, you just see it and it's just fun to be a part of. It's fun to watch that belief system become one and just take them to a whole nother level and you see positivity, you see joy, and you see success. Yeah. There's so much more. We could dive into this. I didn't even get through half of my notes. But again, just a good conversation as where I'm at in our school year. As I reflect on our year and our, you know, trying to help our coaches be better on what we need to look for specifically in our programs and even on, you know, you know, we continue down the path of being better leaders. How to. How does that take place? And I think for all of us, especially, you know, even our love for Ted Lasso, which we didn't even dive into today, is believing. All right, so let's go to the food portion of this podcast. And I starters on food. I tried to look up different questions than food, but the food ones are fun for me, so. And we kind of might have dived into this because again, in the end of our last podcast, we were talking about Pen Station fries and ranch dressed.

Did you try them yet?

I have not tried them yet. Penn Station, I need to go. That's a great point.

I have to admit that I actually, the next day went to Penn Station because I was in the mood after that.

Okay, I will have to go. So, again, talking about fries and pinsation, we might have talked about this, but what's your ultimate comfort food? The one you never give up, no matter what? I think I. I don't know. I thought I knew yours. Cutter, I can go first if you want, so you can think about it, which I normally do. Mine's ice cream. I mean, I'm a sugar aholic. Unfortunately, I've told you before, that's probably not good for me, but I like candy, I like sugar. But ice cream, my one, I would never. I. Our family just loves ice cream. I mean, I like potato. I mean, there's so many things I Could go. But if I had to pick one, it'd be ice cream. Cutter. Dadalion. You got any to throw out there?

I think pretty consistent with probably going

to be right along with him.

Just letting you know it have to be pizza.

Yeah, I'm on board with.

Really? Yeah.

I mean, it's pizza.

Couldn't. Couldn't even fathom the thought of not being able to have pizza.

And the beauty is you can change it up so much and it's still so good.

Yes.

You too did that.

Oh, yeah.

Pizza. Easily. I mean, it's the one food that I always enjoy. I mean, even when it's bad, it's good.

It feels like a celebration when you're having pizza.

Yeah, I like pizza, too, and I eat pizza a lot. I mean, at least once or twice a week. I think it should be a family tradition. Like on Fridays, you have pizza after a long week. And there's many different directions. You go, like, I'll call my wife. I'm picking pizza up on the way home. Which one you want?

I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I give you the bonus thing. And if we're talking sugary stuff, Reese's Peanut butter cups.

Oh, solid answer.

That's it right there. Gotta pound that one. I thought for you, Cutter. Doritos.

Those.

I could go without them.

Really? Okay.

I mean, they're great, but I could go without them.

Okay. I thought pizza or Doritos with you. I thought it'd be a little more extravagant for you to die in something I didn't like her for. But it's pizza, man. Okay.

I mean, the only other thing I could think of that I might say would be subs, but okay, you know, it's still pizza.

He's the bowling champion. It's gonna be pizza.

Okay. All right. Well, that's again, all I have. And until next time. Go stars. Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studio. Engineering and production assistants are provided by D'Dalia and Lowry. And you can listen to the episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand@lccconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit lccstars.com thanks for listening. Be sure to join us next time for more Stars on Sports.

Go, stars.

Get on down and celebrate with me tonight. We'll all go wild after our victory. Calm down. Go out. We'll all have a real good time.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Now Spinning, the official podcast of the Lansing Community College Vinyl Record Club. We meet twice a month to listen to vinyl and talk about music. Stay tuned to learn about how you can get in touch with us and attend our meetings. All right everybody, welcome back. Thank you for tuning in again to Now Spinning. Today we're going to be talking about our meeting we had on the 18th of March and the theme was Nocturnal Music. Before we get into that, I want to make a special shout out to real friends of the show that actually exists this time, the SFC Record Club in Fujikawa, Japan. We just recently had a very nice virtual meeting with them. It was really great to learn about their setup and how it's different from ours. And, you know, just to talk about music in general, we're looking forward to maybe even having them on the show at some point. Stay tuned for that.

We will see. Very lovely group of people. Thank you for listening to the podcast and checking us out. It's very much appreciated.

It's very good. Without further ado, though, let's jump right into this playlist here.

Well, let's hold on one second. Who's talking right now?

I missed. Oh, goodness, I'm sorry. I forgot what my name was. Let's go with you first. What's your name?

Hi, my name is Leo Ackerman and

I am Jacob Zokvic.

I'm still Simon Medina, despite reports you may hear. All right, let's talk about music now. Actually, now that we know what people's names are. Starting off the meeting, we have. Get your bingo cards out. We have the Beach Boys with. With me tonight off the Smiley Smile album. I love this song. It's very wholesome. It's a very great. It's a great intro, mellow, just a chill jam.

Yeah, most of Smiley Smile is like that. Just very chill, very lax, very nice to throw on in the back.

Lo fi, laid back, that kind of thing. I like this album quite a bit.

So after that, we've got Eine Kleine Nacht Musik by Wolfgang Omdes Mozart.

One and only.

Yeah, the one and only. Probably his most famous song, arguably one of the most famous classical songs of all time. Interestingly, not released during his lifetime. They found it after the fact and Sony went, hey, this is pretty good. And in modern times especially, it has really taken off. Like I said, it's probably his most famous song. So the meeting theme was nocturnal music. Night music. Eine kleine Nachtmusik, in English is just a little night music. Very interestingly, they have no idea why Mozart called it that. So again, it wasn't released in his lifetime, so it never got, like, a real title. And he wrote a ton of sonatas and things that would have been performed at, like, private homes of the wealthy and stuff like that. So maybe it got performed, but probably not. But the point is, they have no idea why it's called that. They suspect he was just writing in his log and he needed something to call it, and he probably was. It was probably nighttime and he probably thought, this is a cute little song. Eine kleine Nachtmusik. I brought this in because it's. To me, it's night music. But if you listen to it, it's just a Bouncy, romantic, sort of classical song. And I don't know if it has anything to do with night, but I happen to really like it.

It's very nice.

It fits the theme. Of all the songs on here, it fits the theme the best. Because it's like you said, it's just called night music.

Who knows why?

Glad that they really rocked with the Mozart B sides. You know, of all the artists, you know, who in the world could have expected Amadeus Mozart to have produced Heat?

Yeah, there you go.

All right. After that, I think we have Shemeika, right?

We do. We do have that after.

Shamika is a Fiona Apple song from her record. Fetch the bolt cutters in 2020 to me. Fetch the Bolt Cutters feels like a very ramshackle, like, jazz bar at midnight, and at the piano hunched over, you have the most unhinged woman that you've ever heard, and it's incredible. It isn't really night music in the traditional, like, oh, you're gonna relax. You're gonna, you know, put on some, like, Sade and chill out. It's like.

It's like going out at night music almost. You know what I mean? It's not quite like nightclub, but it's like, let's have a good night, you know?

Sure. Yeah.

Real wild. The piano playing on this is fiery. Fiona, as her career has progressed, has grown more and more experimental, and the cabaret influence, especially is played up on her later releases. And it makes for a very theatrical, real entertaining listening experience. Might take a little bit of getting used to because the production is very. It's very amateurish. Very amateurish. She recorded it in GarageBand by herself over the span of a few years. Taught herself the program. I think that gives it its own, like, ramp. Its own little appeal. You know, it's. It's very diy, but at the same time, it has, like, the refinement of someone who is trained in cabaret singing and piano playing and is just all around a great storied alternative singer songwriter.

Yeah, well. And, like, you know, Fiona Apple's always been kind of experimental, you know what I mean? A bit out there, but, like, a lot of the early stuff was clearly meant to break into top 40 and to finally say, like, oh, no, I'm gonna do this on my own, and I'm gonna experiment in the way I want. You get so much more of the artist in the art that way, and you get to really experience something new and exciting in the music. And, yeah, nailed it.

Bouncing off of that, we have Underground by Tom Waits. Another entry in the sort of nighttime, freakish cabaret thing.

Yeah.

He is so interesting.

Just a fascinating human being. I don't know if he smokes cigarettes or if he eats them, but, yeah, he's coming. One of those moves, you know.

What a voice.

Yeah.

He started off with forgetting the name of his debut record, but that was very much like a. Like a smooth kind of like closing Hours, I think it was called something like that.

It was. It was kind of like club music in a way. No, not like. Not like a dance club, but you know what I mean?

But it was like a nighttime. Like, I'm going to sing some pretty songs for you in a Tom Waits sway.

Yeah.

And later. Later on in his career, and I mean by like six years maybe. So not that much later. He just went fully unhinged. He decided to do what he wanted with the most chaotic instrumentation he could think of. Xylophones, washboards, you name it. I haven't listened to much Tom Waits. This is. It's one of the few times I've heard this song. Loved it, thought it was fantastic.

Yeah, my. My introduction to Tom waits was Shrek 2, but he has a song in that soundtrack. But I remember buying a CD when those were still a thing. A used CD of Bone Machine is, I think, the album. And that's. That one's, like, really weird, you know, like right in the height of him being just a weirdo and just going like. I don't know if I really understand this, but I do like it. Pretty interesting.

Good. Yeah. Do you want to mention the next song? Anything to say about A Thriller by Michael Jackson?

Oh, boy. So we were talking about how those previous songs were really nightclub songs. This is a nightclub. This is a barn burner. Okay. When you throw this on. On any dance floor, if the dancers are cool, people are gonna start dancing. It's Thriller. It's Thriller by Michael Jackson. It's a classic. Rest in Peace, Quincy Jones. The arrangement is. It's perfect. Every little instrument fits in its own pocket. The production is super clean. Michael's vocals are. It's Michael Jackson.

Yeah.

You know. You know whose vocals really nail it, though?

Who?

Vincent Price.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

You know, he didn't get paid for that. Yeah. It was just a favor to Michael Jackson. Apparently, Michael Jackson sent him, like, a gold record, but no money. And he was just like, I mean, cool, thanks. But also, you made lots of money. But Vincent Price was a very funny dude, so I'm sure. I'm sure he took it in stride and probably Thought it was pretty silly.

Not much else to say about it. It's Thriller. You've heard it. I know you've heard it.

You're gonna hear it again.

You in the audience, you will hear this again. I know you will.

We're talking about you specifically right now.

Yeah, yeah, Dave,

Listen. Ethan, you're gonna listen and you're gonna like it.

All right, moving on. We have a little bit of a shift in tone. We have 99 miles from LA by Art Garfunkel. The other half of Simon and Garfunkel

famously didn't get along.

No, not friends.

But even without Paul Simon, I think this song really does stand on its own. It's very, very. I think the word we used in the meeting was tasteful.

Yeah, tasteful.

It's just very nicely arranged. His vocals are delicate. It's very soft.

Well, he's a great singer, though.

I mean, this is nighttime. This is like nighttime. Nighttime music, if that makes sense. It's tranquil.

Right.

It's not quite for you to fall asleep to, but chilling.

Right.

Music to be content to.

Yeah. So after that, we've got Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart, which I brought in. I have loved this song since I was a kid. It's got it all. It's cool, kind of a dance sounding song, but you listen to, like, the bass and the synth in it, and it's really good. It has just a super sick guitar solo. Just like out of nowhere, you're just like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Like that's. That's how you close out this song. It's just epic guitar solo. Corey Hart, just a artist from Canada, just always wanted to be a musician, became a musician, and it worked out for him. He's got a couple other songs that I can't remember the name of right now. I'm sorry, Corey. But yeah, it's. It's one of those songs that is very obviously about night. Is very obviously about a certain kind of person and a certain kind of vibe. And yeah, like we said about Thriller, it kind of fits in a nightclub in a very great way. And I've not been in a nightclub in many years, but I can tell you there's usually some dude wearing sunglasses.

Absolutely beautiful. My only observation about this is that if you took the most stereotypical, like, 80s rock, pop, rock elements and you put them all into one song, this is it. This is the most. Possibly the most 80s sounding song to ever be conceived.

But I'm afraid, stilled to perfection.

I did. No, I don't mean this in a negative way at all.

No, it's all there.

Anything you want.

I remember being so proud when I put this on, and I looked over to a table of students, and they were all just kind of, like, bobbing their head to it, and I was like, yes. I brought in the right one. I brought in the right song.

It's like this. It's like. Instead of this being, like, a mishmash of stereotypes, it's like, oh, this is the end result of, like, what this decade's sound is supposed to be like. It's supposed to sound this awesome all the time. It's all downhill from there.

Yeah.

Pack it up. Pack it up. They did it. I don't know if they finished it, but

what else we got? What else we got here?

Let's take a look here. We can talk what you wanted to talk about.

Marvin Gaye. So next up is actually Marvin Gaye.

Wow. All right. This song is I Want you by Marvin Gaye. I'm forgetting the record. It's from.

The record is also called I Want you.

It looks like it's called I Want you perfect. So I want you from I Want yout. The arrangement on this one is spectacular. I mean, the strings are it. The strings are so much in the best way. Like, it is so over the top and dramatic, but in a way that's just like. Yeah, it just. It gets me pumped.

Is this. Is this a Motown recording? Do we know?

I don't think it's like Motown.

I know for part of his career, he was Motown.

No, this is late 70s. I don't think he was still working for them at this point.

Early on in his career, he was a Motown artist, but I think he switched to some other label. I don't know. I don't know my Marvin Gaye history, unfortunately. But this song rocks. And fun little trivia about this is the main theme from I Want yout is sampled in Kendrick Lamar's the Heart Part six, which is actually how I first heard the sample or first heard the song really was through that. And I just. I don't know. Sampling's very cool. Shout out. Marvin Gaye. Great music.

Fantastic. Coming up after that, we have a couple songs that were actually brought in by students from MSU from specifically from. What was it? The MSU Vinyl nights people. And I just wanted to shout them out as well. Very great group of people. Fun concept. It's a lot like our meetings, but slightly different in an interesting way. I like it a lot. It was very fun. Time going there. A couple days ago, but they played, let's see, Knights by Frank Ocean.

This is. I listen to this all the time in high school. Have either of you listened to Blonde by Frank Ocean?

I know of it, but not. I haven't listened to it a lot.

It is the alternative R and B Bible to me. Oh, it is like, every song is smooth and emotionally evocative and it culminates with nights straight in the middle of the record. The beat switch in this song happens at the exact middle point of the album. Um. It's. It's one of those songs that I have really have a hard time putting into words.

A.

Because I'm so familiar with it. And it's really hard to express something in words that is so familiar to you because. Well, I'm sure it's impossible to imagine it being alien to someone else.

You could express it in words, but probably, you know that, like, word count thing that you get for every college paper, you're going over the word count limit, probably. And that's special because it means. It does mean a lot to you. And that's. It's. It's. It's so exciting to have a song like that. But, yeah, when you try and describe to somebody like, well, I need to explain to you the entire history of R and B first and, you know, that sort of thing.

You don't know how good Odd Future was. This is why this is so good. It's. It's a whole thing. That's that. It's. That's all I can really give you. It's a whole thing. Please go listen to Blonde Changed My Life when I was 14. We'll probably change some other people's when they're older than 14. Hopefully.

We can hope.

We can hope. We can pray.

And then, yeah, following that song up, we had another Frank Separate Frank, also

brought in by one of our guests from msu. Apparently, they're big fans of Frank's over at msu.

And this was Let Me Love youe Tonight by Frank Sinatra. And I have to say, this was. The record this was played off of, was possibly like. It was a little bit. I don't even know how to describe it. It was a little crusty.

It sounded like a memory.

It was a little muffled. Yeah, it was like it was playing in the next room a little bit.

And people used to. And they still do, but people used to just love Frank Sinatra. And I'm sure that record got played a million times. And there's some old lady somewhere that. That probably knows exactly Every scratch on that record because she put them there, because she listened to it so many times. It's profound. I'm a big fan of Frank, you know, a bizarre, bizarre sort of musical artist from a different time, but just extremely well known for the right reasons, because he sounds great, you know what I mean? Yeah, but yeah, it's a good one.

The friend of the show. Yeah, sure, sure. Why not? Why not? Moving on, we have, let's see here, Night Drive by Gauche. And this is an artist we've played a couple times before, I think.

Yeah, we've had. Noah has brought in Gauthier a few times and we've never played somebody that I used to know. And we got to be honest, man, go listen to other songs by Gautier. That song is great, but all of it's great. And a little teaser, we might be doing a deep dive into Gautier's discography at some point. He's only got like two albums, so that'll be good. Three.

Sure, yeah, that'll be. We can work with that.

Yeah, we can squeeze three albums into 30 minutes, hopefully.

Yeah. But yeah, great, great artist though. Very interesting discography from what I've little I've heard already. I gotta do my research for that still. I gotta get it probably taken after Dune, but, you know, we'll see. But right after that we have another artist, this one who's. We played a couple times before. Not, I don't think solo, but his. His band, which is Steely Dan. We're talking about Donald Fagan here with the Night Fly and this album. When I heard the theme nocturnal music, this was probably the first thing that popped into my head because, you know, the whole thing is basically kind of a concept album about like his childhood and like the way like his upbringing, like the 50s and stuff. But it's like told from the perspective of kind of like a radio DJ at a. You know, in like a jazz station. And I thought it's really fascinating. This song is the one that kind of sets that up. It's just a really smooth jazz, fusion, jazz, rock song. I just love it a lot.

That's my personal favorite Steely Dan related record. I think it was the first Steely Dan record actually. No, the first album really to be recorded with fully digital equipment. Which one, you can tell the quality even now is pristine. It sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. And two, knowing Steely Dan's like striving for perfection, of course he was gonna be the first one to do it. He's always wanted that, like, crystalline sound and he got it. He got it right here. I keep bringing up the arrangements, but, like, all of these songs are arranged so well. They just sound great. And Donald Fagan on the Night Fly, honestly, I think he. I know he gets clowned for his stealing Dan vocals sometimes. I think he sounds excellent.

Oh, yeah.

All across the Night Fly.

Yeah. It wouldn't be Steely Dan if the vocals were like, perfect and pristine, though. That's the charm of it is that I call it. He sings a little bit.

Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. It's not the same. It wouldn't be. If he was like a perfect, like, smooth singer. It wouldn't be the same. You know, it's a little. He's a little bit of a goblin and, like, that's the beauty of it. That's what we love about him.

Like, I don't want to Nat King Cole singing about dying behind the Wheel. That would bum me out.

Right.

I want this weird dude to do it. That's what brings me joy.

It fits. The music. Mm. The lyrics, anyway. The music. The lyrics, definitely. It fits. But yeah, Steely Dan, great band. Donald Fagan, great artist.

We love you, Donnie.

Great, great guy. Moving on from that, we have let's see the numbers by Radiohead off of the album A Moon Shaped Pool.

Yes, this is an interesting one. Radiohead is usually known for their alternative rock stuff like the Bends or OK Computer or Creep. Unfortunately, after Kid A, they took a bit of a shift towards post rock and electronic music. They kind of sat in that for a bit, mixing alternative rock and electronic music. But after the King of Limbs, grossly underrated record, by the way, they shifted it into art pop and these really lush string arrangements and contemplative personal lyrics, which Radiohead, I'm not gonna say they aren't a personal band. I mean, a lot of the songs

are very, like, flirted with those ideas, but before.

Yeah, they flirted with them. But A Moon Shaped Pool is the first album to feel like this isn't like, about, like, the ills of the world or, like how the Iraq war is bad, you know, like, it. It's about their lives and it's about the emotions that they're feeling. There's a song on the record that's just detailing Tom York having a panic attack in a train station and, I don't know, the personal nature of these songs, plus the more subdued instrumentation and gentle production. It might be my favorite Radiohead record. I'm not sure it's been a little bit since I've revisited Radiohead records. But yeah, the numbers, excellent song. Go check it out. Also go check out the version with Tom and Johnny and a CR78 drum machine. They're just. They're just in the woods. Two dudes with a guitar and a drum machine. Excellent.

It's very cool.

All right, what else we got? What else we got?

We've got a song that I enjoy, Cape Cod Kwasakwa by Vampire Weekend. This whole album is just fun and really good. Listen, in my opinion, what do you think?

It's Vampire Weekend. I've split their career into like two phases at this point. Like, this is their, like, Ivy League. This is their, like, Ivy League fun time record. I love it. I love it to death. I think it's delightful. I love the Suku's influence in this stuff. I think the way Vampire Weekend uses like traditional, like, African style guitar playing in their music is something that I don't know if any other, like, American bands have done.

Oh, let me at least get into

it at least since Vampire Weekend.

Sure, I get you. They've even got a couple of like, reggae songs, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love the way they pull from, like, Afro Caribbean music. I think it's awesome. We love you, Vampire Weekend. Go listen to the new album too. That one's great.

Yeah, very cool. Following this one up, we have something a little bit different, which is Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. And we didn't play the whole song.

No, we should have. Yeah, it's good.

Listen, take an extra 20 minutes.

This song is awesome. And it's. It's one of those songs that's like kind of a rock song, but also like, borders on like, high art, you know what I mean, in its classical influence and stuff. And, you know, like, I was a band kid in high school and stuff and I played trombone, but I was always jealous of percussion because they got to play with fun stuff like bells. You know, just big old tubular bells and whacking them with big old hammers and bing bong, bing bong. And you're just like, yeah, I'm all about that. And it's. It's such a cool sound. And the instrumentation gets very interesting too. You know, there's a lot of electronic kind of sounding stuff in there. I remember in, in the meeting, one of the conversations that was being had was like, people didn't think this was creepy until Halloween. Like, people just thought it was awesome. And it is like, it's. It's really Complex, while also, like, just using the sounds that it needs to still, like, move you.

It's like Prague's reaction to minimalism, almost.

Ooh. That's a good way to say it. Yeah.

We love you, Mike Oldfield.

Yeah, I don't know if I know any other. I'm sorry, but I don't think a lot of that has made its way through pop culture.

I can't name anything off the top of my head.

If you have any Mike Oldfield, please bring it into the record club.

We would love to share more of this.

As long as it's not 20 minutes long. We're probably not gonna be able to listen to the whole thing, but bring it in.

Bring it in, please. Just show it off, Eve, just so

we know it's real.

After that, we had a song by Ray Charles. We were particularly interested because it sounds like really early Ray Charles. We looked it up, literally, like, before we sat down to record this podcast, and it was from the compilation on

Spotify says 1949 to 1952. So this is really old, super old stuff.

And you can hear it. You can hear it in the quality of the sound, definitely, but the quality of Ray Charles as a musician still there.

Absolutely. And then the last song that was played, something called Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen from the album that's also called Darkness on the Edge of Town. And this is a nice little song. As far as the nighttime theme goes, this one fits pretty much perfectly, I think. You know, it's like I said, Darkness on the Edge of Town. It's very evocative, you know, in terms of the lyrics and such, which so

much of Springsteen is.

No, yeah, he's definitely a very. A lot of artists, like, when they write lyrics, they go really, like, in deep into, like, metaphor and stuff. But Bruce Springsteen's pretty, like, straightforward. Like, he just tells a story about a dude and, like, that's it.

It's relatable.

Yeah, that's the thing about it.

It's especially relatable to people in, like, the 70s. But it's still pretty relatable now.

Yeah. I mean, not this album, but the album, I believe, directly after this or two after this was Nebraska, which is, like, probably the. One of the most very relatable, I think, just having grown up in the Midwest, like, it's very real. It's very present. You know what I mean? It talks about a lot of themes that are very relatable to me especially, but it's a good album. This one is also very good. But we got to talk about a couple different albums besides the one that we're actually talking about, naturally. I think that does wrap it up for today, though. If you're interested at all in attending any of our meetings or listening to past podcasts or looking at any of our past playlists, you can check out our website, which will be linked with the show. Everybody's welcome at our meetings. Whether you have been collecting for your whole life or you never collected any records before and you're just interested in music, the only requirement is that you just have to have a desire to hear something that you didn't hear you've never heard before, and a desire to share your passion for music with others, basically.

And maybe a desire to eat pizza. That's a good thing to bring too.

Don't forget about the pizza. Thank you all for tuning in. Thanks especially to the SFC Record Club in Japan and as well as the MSU Vinyl Nights people. Happy to meet up with you guys. We'll have you on again sometime soon. All right, well, bye everybody. Thank you for listening in. Bye bye, Bye bye.

Love you.

Love you very much. Goodbye.

Sharing the voices of lansing community college visit us@lccconnect.org lcc connect voices vibes vision.

Every year, the Dental Hygiene Clinic at Lansing Community College provides essential services to people in the Mid Michigan community. Open to the public, the clinic is led by a licensed dental faculty and provides a platform for LCC dental students with the opportunity to hone their dental hygiene skills. Associated fees apply to clinic services. To find more information, visit LCC. EDU DentalClinic.

I'm Steven Cutter and I host a show called Coach Cut's Corner here on LCC Connect. Coach Cut's Corner is about Lansing stars, baseball program, mental performance and just getting better in everyday life. You can always find more about LCC Connect Shows and listen on demand@lccconnect.org

the

Alzheimer's association and the Ad Council present the story of Tom and Levi.

Tom is the smartest man I know. He's been a professor at two major universities, been a teacher for over 40 years. One day he told me that he was having problems in his classes. I think one of the students had asked the question and he didn't remember the answer. I also noticed that he was letting his class out earlier than they were supposed to let out and he was telling them that he was doing it as a favor to them. But I think in reality he just wanted to get out of there. I was really starting to worry because I saw something was wrong.

Levi and I talked about how it would change our lives, but he was there besides me, and my love for

him was just immense.

When something feels different, it could be Alzheimer's. Now is the time to talk. Visit alz.orgourstories to learn more.

A message from the Alzheimer's association and the AD Council

Studies have shown that learning a new language can positively impact your concentration, memory and overall communication skills. The Adult Enrichment Program offers the opportunity to learn fundamental Spanish speaking, reading and writing skills through cultural activities and in person conversations. No prior experience necessary. Visit lcc.edu keeplearning for more information.

This is WLNZ Lansing. You're listening to LCC Connect, a weekly program that features the Voices, Vibes and Vision of Lansing Community College. To find out more about LCC Connect programs or to listen on demand, Visit us@lccconnect.org LCC Connect, voices, vibes, Vision.