**** 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. ****

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. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Now Spinning. Today we have a very special episode for you guys. But first off, let's introduce everybody in the room.

I'm Jacob Zokvic.

And I am Noah Miller.

And I'm still Simon Medina. As far as we know, today is a little interesting because this is our first time interviewing an artist, like an actual album artist. We've had artists in here before, people who draw, but we never had someone who's, like, recorded a whole album before. And this person, I believe some of you might be familiar with him. We've had him on the show a couple times. He's a good friend of the show. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Like I mentioned, my name is Noah Miller.

Fantastic.

And like they mentioned, I have an album coming out. It's gonna be called Mutually Assured Destruction. It's gonna be dropping on June 6th. I've got a couple songs out now. And then at the time of recording, I'm working on getting clearance for a cover song, Pink Floyd cover off of the Wall. We'll see how that goes. I'll try and have it dropped by Wednesday the 22nd, so. Or Thursday the 22nd. My bad. But, yeah, so we'll see how that goes.

Very awesome. So I just wanted to start out by asking, have you ever released music before? Or is this, like, your first time really diving into it.

I've kind of released it anonymously under kind of a pseudonym of Xenix, I think, on audio. I've spelled it a couple different ways depending on, you know, where I've used it, but usually it's X, E, N, Y, X. And it's got, like, this character that I made in, like, I think, paint.net, just kind of, you know, the step below Photoshop. It's almost there, but so it's basically just like this triangle guy who's kind of like an eyeball himself and more of a rhombus. He's more of a rhombus.

I mean, I'll be honest, it sounds a bit like this is a profile you made in, like, middle school, college, early college. Okay, so which was, you know.

So which was like, you know, six years ago because of the pandemic. Like, I started 2019, and, you know, the pandemic kind of screwed things up. Yeah. We started like, around or. I started. You and I were in the first class I had.

Yeah, yeah, we should mention, of course, Noah is a LCC alumni. We're one of the last people to get the music recording for dmacc. Yeah, dmacc, like specialization?

Yeah.

DMACC is Digital Media Audio Cinema. Went through the program for that. I was initially going for the specialist, which included the video aspect as well, and TV production class with the three camera setup and the audio board and all that kind of stuff. And the prompter, the different camera stuff and change switchboards and all that. It was a little overwhelming for me. It's kind of when I realized I might want to strip back just a little bit. So I went back to just doing audio and kind of went through that. The capstone classes that I had with Brock that you and I also had, they were. Those were probably my favorite ones because we got to use the actual studio here at the TLC building. Yeah, no, that was just really cool. Being able to record bands and stuff. That's pretty much what I want to do as far as a career path. I know that field is kind of dwindling, but, you know, go ahead.

I just. You are the exact example of that. You don't necessarily need a studio to record an album anymore.

You.

You basically did this whole thing in your basement, right?

Yeah, yeah. Parents basement. Still live with the folks, thanks to them.

Nothing wrong with it.

Yeah. You know, live with them as long as you can and try to build a foundation so you can get on, you know, if you can stand them, which, you know, thankfully I can.

It's the economic situation. A lot of young people find themselves,

and I recognize that I'm kind of in a bit of a. You know, I'm in a position that not everyone necessarily has all the time. So, you know, there. There definitely is that. I kind of have opportunities that other people don't. So I am willing to recognize that

they'll be in the liner notes. Right. Every album, it seems like, has a mom and dad listed somewhere.

Take care of my parents. Some kind of thing like that.

Which is, you know, it's just great.

You can't make an album without being born. That's very important. That's probably the most important part of the album creation process. But I was gonna say, I think definitely those classes paid off. Cause I think this album does like the singles you put out so far. Sounds really great. I know you were mentioned earlier, like, it was like the snare was very.

Oh, punchy. Yeah, punchy.

That's what you like to hear.

Yeah, I find that it comes through a bit on Apple products, strangely enough, I mean. Well, I guess strangely enough, duh, they kind of specialize in that sort of thing. But I am Samsung gang, so. But yeah, so I don't know. I made this on my laptop in my basement and I had an actual amp like instead of just like an Orange Crush, like one by ten or something that I had.

You weren't using direct input, you were micing amps.

I was micing amps but I was also using some direct input on some tracks. The one that's on the album, it's called Eternity Psy. It's part of the Four Kings suite that I'm going to have as part of it. It does have re recorded guitars because the performances that I had on it, I needed to kind of redo them and make it just a bit tighter. That was one of the songs that even though I've had it for a long time, some of these songs date back to 2019 and some of them with my former project that I'm trying to get started off now. So. Also bonus, I need players to jam with. So if you want to hit me up, you know, just hit me up on. I don't know, I'll try and put some socials somewhere.

Sure.

But I have a YouTube channel and stuff like that, so you can follow me on there. It's just my name, Noah Miller. But back on track to the. Yeah, just. It was in my basement just on a laptop with, you know, the Mesa Boogie that you're not. Not a boogie. The Bogner that I got, I had some direct input on there as well. I actually ended up finding some amp simulators that I liked.

Nice.

So I was able to add a little bit more body to the guitars, a little bit more top end to some of the lead guitar sounds that I had on there too. So yeah, there's mix of live guitars and more importantly, live drums. Yeah. I'm also blessed enough to have the space and ability to record a drum kit and also have the ability to play everything incorporated on the album as well.

Very awesome.

Yeah. And that's, you know, not to overstate but like it's important for a musician to be able to do a lot, but when you can do everything. Yeah, it gives you so much more creative freedom and I'm sure for you it. It let you set your own kind of timetable and schedule for recording the album. And probably while there's, you know, added stress of having to do all of it. I assume there was less stress in that. You didn't have to find a bunch of people to do all this stuff.

Yeah, there are some sections where I'm not as confident in my solo ability. I'm much more confident in my, you know, rhythm guitar and, you know, just part writing in general. But with leads, I tend to have a harder time with my confidence as far as that goes. So I'll usually kind of outsource that and shout out to my girlfriend, Tatiana. She plays violin very well, and I would love to have her play on. On some of my tracks. But, you know, it's just. She has lot of other stuff on her plate and a lot of other things going on at the same time. And, you know, to. Also, she hasn't played violin in quite a while, so she would have to kind of brush up and get familiar with the key and all that.

Right.

Well.

And then it's such a resonant instrument, like, the recording requirements for that. You're gonna have to really kind of practice and figure that all out. But from what I've heard of your recording stuff so far, you've done a very good job. So I'm sure you're fully capable.

I've done the best job in the space that I can. The recording space is kind of awkward because it was my dad's man cave. And then the bedroom down there as well. And then my sister moved out, and then I took her bedroom and then moved downstairs after, you know, they wanted to kind of swap rooms with that. It's not exactly designed for. My dad didn't build the area in the sort of, like, oh, my kid's gonna have a studio in here one day. Like, it's kind of. I get what I get.

I've been there, like, once or twice. It's like seven foot by seven foot by seven foot. Right. It's. It's basically a little box I'm.

I'm working with about, I think, 140 square foot.

Okay.

I think you made it work.

I mean, it sounds pretty good. Sounds really good.

Yeah. It can get very cramped, and I've rearranged the setup. I mean, for the umpteenth time at this point, it's. It's taken a lot of different forms down there. So I've tried to find my. The best way of organizing it to where I can still walk around and record and run behind the drum set and start playing and whatever. And it's been a whole, like, run around. It can get kind of frustrating at points.

Yes. Sorry, I was gonna ask. So again, like just starting off with that, recording a whole song by yourself, you know, like where do you start with that? What's the first like. I know, does it go by like instrument or is there like for each song, is it different? Is there one you always try to start out with?

Usually I try and start off with scratch guitar. I'm not really too focused on the performance at that point because I know that's just to get the timing and it's for something so that the drums can kind of link up to. So I guess performance in that sense in being that I need to be able to perform with it. But usually at that point there's not a whole lot of pressure to get everything like picture perfect in the middle, but enough to where the drums can be solid. Then I'll record the drums and then depending on the song, kind of either bass or guitar. And with guitar I end up using like three or four mics, I think because I have two speakers. And then I've got like this one setup where I've got mic stand and then a thing that kind of goes off into a T and can hold like two mics. So I've got that on one speaker, it's vintage 30. And then I've got a G12 in the Bogner as well. So there's kind of more like metal esque tones from the guitar amp itself and then vocals after that, between, you know, after bass and guitar and then. Yeah, vocals tend to be kind of the bottleneck of a lot of projects. Usually I'll have all the instrumentals and stuff built up with all the instruments and the final performances that I'm going to have. And then the vocals will come on afterwards because I just kind of need like a little bit of space between where, you know, my mom works at home, so when I'm recording and stuff she can hear everything I'm doing. And with all the instruments it's fine. But when I want to do vocals, there's just something that gets in the way for me.

It requires a lot of confidence to record your own voice and listen back to it and say, yeah, that's good. And especially when your mom's upstairs, like you're not gonna start screaming, you know, giving it your full heart that you got to be pretty comfortable singing in front of your mother.

Yeah, it's. Well, it's, it's not that like I'm afraid of like hearing my own voice back or anything like that. Or you know, I can do like, you know, The Scream or, like, growl vocals or something like that, you know, if I need to punch those in, that's not really that big of an issue. But it's, like the straight, like, singing and stuff like that that I just need a little bit of space for. So there is, like, a little garden shed that we have that I used during the winter. I recorded this from, like, October to. I think it was done March of this year. So it took about 5, 6 months to fully finish. But, yeah, no, it's pretty much ready. Yeah, a couple of songs out streaming now. But, yeah, just needed that space to get the vocals done.

So two questions related to that. Do you think that the space itself contributed to the sound at all? And I guess my second question, I can kind of lump in at the same time, did you feel the need to put reverb and such on them to either mask the space or just get the sound you wanted? I'm kind of curious on all of those.

Usually I tried to get as dry of sounds as I could so that I could add the reverb and stuff onto it later. As far as the drums go, I've been recording drums down there for a while, just kind of trying to experiment and, you know, make my mixes sound better. So the room itself hasn't really given me much issue. I'm sure if I put bass traps in the corner and stuff like that did more to, like, you know, cut off the reflectiveness of the cement wall that is sometimes, like, right behind the drum set. Or, you know, in this case, it was kind of on the other side of it. Yeah, I did add reverb on some parts. Usually I would put reverb on the snare and the toms and kind of have it, like, sent off to a different, like, reverb channel. And then I would put a little bit of cake in there, too, just to add something there. But it's not like it's gonna overwhelm it because, you know, in the. It's gonna overwhelm the low end. You're gonna have a lot of mud down there if you put the whole thing in there. But, yeah, there's a little bit there.

Nice.

Cool.

So I was wondering. I'm listening to this. I can kind of pick out some influences, but I just want to know, like, what. What, like, are any artists in particular that you were, like, listening to a lot when you were making this or that you were trying to kind of. I don't know. I don't want to say, like, copy from, but, like, emulate you know, like,

what influenced it, with some of these songs being kind of older, like the ones from 2019, the diamonds one that's. That's out now is that's kind of an older track from my original project. I. I call it Turobano, but it went by a couple different names throughout its. Its thing. And that one was mostly kind of written by or mostly composed. Essentially. The parts were written by a former creative partner that I was working with at the time, and I just had a very big hand in arranging that and, you know, kind of helping it flow from one part to the next. And then I also wrote the lyrics on top of that. So when things kind of fell apart, you know, I felt like I'd kind of contributed enough to that that, you know, I could. I could still use that. And so around that time, we were kind of writing stuff along the lines like Almond Brothers, Genesis, things of that nature. We were also really big into. Yes, things like that. So old school Prague stuff. And then at least with this Mad Strat, the first single that I dropped, that one was more influenced, I want to say, by coheeding Cambria. I mean, that's going to be kind of a big influence that's going to run through my musical DNA until I die.

But I'm gonna put that on the bingo card, I think.

Yeah. People that have watched the POD or listened to the podcast before will know that Coed Cambria sneaks its way in

with you a lot every now and then.

She's cool.

I mean, very cool band.

Yeah. So with that, I guess the closest track to that, I can actually kind of pinpoint a specific track off of In Keeping Secrets. It kind of reminds me of, like, Al the Killer. It has sort of a similar riff there, but it's got a completely different bridge, completely different structure. So I think I did enough to sort of change that seedling of an idea. Some of these. I don't know it, I guess. I mean, working with that partner that I had introduced me to a lot of prog stuff. So it's. There's going to be a lot of prog elements that kind of make its way into it. I don't know. It's just a style that I've really just enjoyed for a long time, even if I wasn't entirely aware of it, because I'm also really big into, like, thrash metal and stuff like that. Megadeth is a very big influence on me, playing wise. They helped really help me develop my right hand along with Metallica. Yeah. So there's a lot of kind of old school thrash and progressive stuff kind of mixed in there, too. But I've also got some acoustic tracks on there. As far as that, I want to say, like, Fleet Foxes would be kind of an influence on that sort of thing, especially a track that's gonna be on there called Early Birds. That one definitely reminds me of kind of like Helpless Helplessness Blues from Fleet Foxes.

So, yeah, very cool. How long is this? I'm gonna be like, what's the total runtime? And then you said, also building off that, that there was a couple songs that are kind of like a suite together or something, that they're kind of linked together. So that was very interesting to me as well. I want to hear about that.

Yeah. So the runtime is going to be around 50 minutes. 45. 50 minutes. It's going to be like eight tracks. So there. There are a couple longer tracks. The title track, mad short for Mutually Assured Destruction, which is kind of what the whole album is just kind of based off of, lyrically wise, theme wise. Just kind of how things just kind of get in the way. Be it anger, be it personal belief, be it stuff like that, personal, you know, beef. Sometimes it just causes things to fall apart. And it's not always entirely one person's fault. It can be both people's fault at the same time. Although there might be one party that may be more guilty than another. So, I mean, but everybody suffers. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's. And that's like the going to the geopolitical term, usually Assured destruction. It's very important to, you know, thematically understand that, like, everybody suffers when there's a problem.

Yeah. And the title track of that is kind of about a relationship that, you know, they're both, like, throwing stones and they're both in walls of glasses or glass, but, you know, and they try and work it out, but there's just something that's just beneath the surface that just can't quite be resolved. And so there's just. It just falls apart. And, you know, they could talk it out, they could figure it out, but there's just nothing left. It's kind of, you know, no real gains after that point. But. Yeah. So the. The suite there, the Four Kings suite.

Can I hazard a guess real quick?

Yeah.

Dark Souls. Four Kings, right?

I mean.

I mean, that's a Dark Souls boss.

I mean, they. They. I think they based that boss off of that kind of idea. But it was. It's mostly, you know, to do with cards because it's, you Know diamonds, hearts, you know, clubs and spades. So diamonds with revolution time. That one relates to the. The cards, but also like, oh, shiny. Like, you know, this is cool. We got a cool thing. These are cool ideas that were coming up with. You know, we're playing cool stuff and then we have hearts with Eternity. Sigh, where it's like, you know, we've run into some problems. You know, I'm having a hard time getting through to you and, you know, it's. You know, I'm tired of talking. We got to do something. You know, things are getting kind of dire and then it sort of. On the back end of that track, it gets into like, well, nothing really Matters at the end of the day, you know, it's more trying to kind of, I guess, let go of that sort of anger because it's sort of built up throughout the album. Then you have Mutually Assured Destruction, which kind of mentioned the, you know, the themes off of that.

What's the suit for that one?

Clubs.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, makes sense.

It's also kind of a play on. I believe this quote is attributed to Einstein, but I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and clubs and stuff like that. So it's sort of an illusion of that. And then with Spades, it's a song called Spiders and that's kind of like. Along with Mad Mads, like I think nine minutes. And then Spider Spades, that one's going to be like about 11 minutes, 10 and a half. And that one again, Mad and Spider were also kind of co written with that creative partner helped arrange and wrote the lyrics for him as well. But yeah, so that Spider is going to be kind of long. It's going to have a number of different sections. It's going to have a jam section. I don't know, there's a couple jam sections, actually. There's a seven. Then there's like a normal, like minor key section. And then there's where the vocals will eventually come in. After that, until the End, I think is probably the strongest material we've ever written. You know, it's just kind of a shame that it all sort of ended up the way that it did. I don't know.

You made it your own and you. And you made it happen. That's the other thing is that, yeah, it might not have found release.

That's kind of what I. What, you know, what I was kind of afraid of with that was that, you know, I don't know if he's actually going to do anything with these songs, you know, I hope he eventually does. And I'm giving him the writing credit to eventually do that because I'm not saying that it's purely my stuff, because it's not. I'm not trying to, you know, like, steal that or anything.

It's very mature.

I mean, I, I, you know, I feel a sense of entitlement because I helped write that stuff. And, you know, there's definitely Spiders. That one is very different from how we had initially written it and from how I. I guess he eventually wanted it because I showed him kind of the arrangement that I have on the album and he. He didn't really like it. He didn't really like the key changes that I made. He didn't really, you know, kind of think that it fit, but I don't know it. To each their own, and we're not working together, so this. This version is mine, so you can make your own version, you know, And, I mean, and with this, I'm not trying to throw, like, any kind of shade at my creative partner, you know, I really hope that he's doing well. I really hope that, you know, we both kind of find peace through this. And this was sort of what this album was, was me trying to find peace through this whole thing was, to me, for me to just kind of set this to bed finally and just kind of move on.

Good way to. Good way to handle it in a mature way. So is there. I know you obviously just finished recording an album, but you're gonna look to keep writing music in the future.

Yeah.

And are you keen on the solo aspect or do you think the group dynamic is going to be more fruitful?

I would love to have a band. I would love to have other players to play with and stuff like that. I really liked what we were doing as a group. I just want to be on the same page with people. I just want. And not to say that I want full creative control or anything, because I need help with certain things.

It's very normal for a group to. To need each other, but to rotate people in and out, I mean, that's. There's so many of those most famous bands of all time that give a lot of credit to one dude, and it's like, that's just not the reality of the situation sometimes. Those guys that were there for one album are hugely influential.

Right.

I was actually kind of going through this with one of the future episodes that we're gonna do, the desert island ones. And, I mean, I Guess, spoiler alert. But I was looking at black market from Weather Report and you know, people love Weather Report for Jocko. You know, Pierre Erskine and every. Everything like that. But Adrian Thomas, you know, Chester Thompson was on there. Like it was. Yeah, no, it was Adrian something. I can't remember if it was but his last name. But yeah, it was like people kind of overlook some of the bass players and stuff like that.

I hate to cut you off, but I think we're coming near the end, so maybe we can reiterate. Where can people go to find this album?

Pretty much anywhere you stream your music. It's on Spotify. It should be on Apple Music. I know, it's on YouTube Music. And yeah, the full album will drop on June 6th. The singles are Mad Strat and Diamonds Revolution Time. So yeah, there's that.

And the artist's name is just Noah Miller. The album name is Mutually Assured Destruction. All right, very cool. We, you know, we are ostensibly a vinyl record club, so I'm. I'm not gonna pressure you into getting a physical Reese anytime soon, but just get one. Maybe, maybe after you make it big and are all famous or something, maybe we can go back and get this one on vinyl.

Yeah.

And that will retroactively give. Give a reason for us to have talked about it.

Yeah, no pressure.

Cool.

We really appreciate you coming on here and talking.

Hey, I really appreciate you giving me the time to talk about it. I mean, even as impromptu as it was.

Loved hearing about the creative process, everything that went into this album. But yeah, if you're interested at all in coming to any of our meetings, we are currently on our summer schedule, which you can check out on our website, which will be linked with the show, all of our past episodes, past playlists, past meeting themes, future meeting themes, anything you'd ever really want to know about the record club. You can find it all there. Thank you all for checking in. We hope to see you next time.

Bye. Bye.

Featuring the faculty, staff, students and others that helped to make Lansing's premier college what it is today. LCC Connect MidMichigan's connection to Lansing Community College. To find out more about our featured programs or to listen on demand, Visit us@lccconnect.org

LCC Connect Voices vibes, Vision

Lansing Community College Performing Arts is proud to present summer stage under the stars featuring a 10 minute play festival directed by Paige Dunkle and Shelley Peterson. A wonderful variety of styles and concepts for this evening of theater, including please silence your cell phones by Natalie Kowalski, A play within a play this comedic piece pits a die hard actor against that one person in the audience who always forgets to silence their cell phone. Featured at LCC's outdoor amphitheater July 23rd through the 27th at 6 7pm in the event of rain or extreme heat, performances will move into Dart Auditorium. For more information, visit LCC.edushowinfo. all performances are free to attend. Hi, I'm Melissa Caplan and I host a show called Galaxy Forum on LCC Connect. It's all about the creativity in our classrooms and on campus here at LCC and the connections we have with the community. You can catch Galaxy Forum here on LCC Connect or listen anytime@lccconnect.org

My name is Dale Pazinski. I'm 19 years old and this is how I Live United. I've always been kind of a computer geek and I found a way to use those skills to help the homeless in my community. For people facing hard times, computer skills and a basic resume are so important. It may seem like a small thing, but it makes a huge difference in people's lives. So with United Way, I created a program where I work with the homeless. Together. We go through their whole job history, write a resume, and then save it on their very own USB drive. We provide workbooks and training certificates. I even budgeted for cupcakes so we can celebrate as a class. When one of our people gets a job, that's huge. When somebody says, hey man, that job that you helped me apply for, I got it. That's what Living United feels like to me. My name is Dale Paszinski. I help people achieve financial independence. So I don't just wear the shirt.

I love it. Give, Advocate, Volunteer Live united. Go to liveunited.org brought to you by United Way and the Ed Council My next move is an enrollment event for new and returning adult students. If you're 25 or older and thinking about taking classes at LCC, this falls the Admissions Office welcomes you with a chance to learn about funding opportunities, program offerings, support services and more.

My next move takes place Wednesday, June 25th. Register to attend at LCC.edu mynextmove, LCC

Connect voices, vibes, Vision

this is Time Signatures with Jim Irvin, a podcast and radio program presented by the Capital Area Blues Society in Lansing, Michigan. Most any contemporary musical style can trace its roots back to the blues. Time Signatures explores the blues and its musical connections with captivating interviews, lively discussions and news from the world of the blues. And now, here he is, your host, Jim Irvin.

Baby well Hi there, and thank you so much. Parker. Welcome to Time Signatures. I'm your host, Jim Irvin, and I'm pleased to welcome two local blues musicians from the greater Lansing area for this episode. Ray Elshire, former frontman to the legendary band those Delta Rhythm Kings, and Andy Wilson, also a TDRK member, but also stepping in it and the springtails. Now, guys, I know this is a quick intro, but there's a lot to talk about here. I'm genuinely glad to have both of you here. Welcome to Time Signatures.

Thanks for having us.

Let me start off by asking you guys, where did you guys get your start in the musical journey? Ray, I'll start with you.

Mine was really in my living room after I got out of the Army. My brother was a musician all through high school and band and whatnot, and was picking up guitar. And as he picked up guitar, I ended up picking up the harmonica that I got from a friend in the army that never really. I just had it.

Oh, wow.

And learned to play, and we kind of learned to play blues together. That's really where it started.

Andy?

Well, I came from a musical family, so my parents were both musicians and all of my siblings, so I had piano lessons when I was five. I picked up the harmonica when I was seven, started playing the trumpet, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old, but not the blues. You know, I studied classical music and jazz, but at an early age, I liked. Well, actually, one of the things that brought me to the harmonica was I liked Huey Lewis in the News.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, you see, I picked up that harmonica, I was playing a few things, and then I see Huey on MTV jumping around playing that harmonica.

He made it cool for our generation, it was cool.

And he's still one of my favorite players. He's a great player. And by the time I got into high school, I was into Winton and Branford Marsalis, who at the time were really kind of saving jazz for the 1980s.

Yeah. Where did you guys get your baptism into the blues? Where did it start for you?

So I actually, interestingly enough, even though I was a harmonica player, I was not interested in the blues until, oh, I was 20 or 21 years old or so. I was at Michigan State, and I started being interested in that. And I. So what I would do is I would go to the record store and I would get the latest blues magazine, and I just read through it because I didn't know anything about it. And any article about someone that sounded interesting to me, especially if they played the harmonica I would go back and buy the records, and that's when I discovered Gary Primage, Rod Piazza and those guys, more modern players. It wasn't till later that I got into the original guys. So at the time, I was studying engineering at Michigan State, but I was taking a few classes with the jazz professors at the time. Andrew Spate on the saxophone and Peter Dominguez on the bass.

Okay.

Both kind of took me under their wing. And I was studying chromatic harmonica with them. And Branford Marcellus, one of my heroes, came to Michigan State.

Oh, wow.

And gave a clinic. And when we all finished playing, he shook his head because we weren't that good.

And.

And he said, you guys gotta listen, you know, to the greats of your instruments. And so he went down the line. Everybody said Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie. He got to me. I was expecting him to say toots Thielman or someone, a jazz harmonica player. He looked at me, he paused for a moment, he said, sonny Boy Williamson. And then he kept going. And so I kind of thought he was blowing me off. But when Branford Marcellus tells you you got to listen to Sonny Boy Williamson, you listen. So I went to Tower Records and I bought my first Sonny Boy Williamson record. And that was my introduction to the real classic guys. And it led me into Little Walter, became a huge Little Walter. Oh, yeah, Big Walter. And when I say Sonny Boy Williamson, I mean, I was just telling the student this. If I just say Sonny Boy Williamson, I'm talking about Sonny Boy 2. There's of course, Sonny Boy 1 as well, which I don't know if you know the story of that.

I don't.

Favorite of mine. So they were both fantastic players and singers. Sonny Boy 1 was probably the better songwriter, but Sonny Boy 2, in my opinion, was the better harp player. And the reason there's two of them is that Sonny Boy 2 stole Sonny Boy 1's name.

Oh, wow.

So he, he, he. Sonny Boy 1's real name was John Lee Williamson. Sonny Boy Williamson. And Sonny Boy 2's real name was Alex Miller.

Okay.

And Alex Miller learned all of Sonny Boy 1 songs and just went around saying he was Sonny Boy. And he played gigs and everything and. And then he did his own stuff too. And he ended up hosting a real famous radio program called the King Biscuit Flower Hour.

That's a common thing in the blues world of the late 40s and 50s. Sure. You know, there's a story that Little Walter once shot a guy who was impersonating him and.

And in fact, Smith, George Smith.

Called himself Little Walter. Walter. Ticket gigs out on the West Coast.

He was in Los Angeles, Walter was in Chicago. They didn't really cross paths.

Okay.

He knew all the songs. And who could tell him? It wasn't like you YouTube the guy and knew what he looked like.

Not back then, anyway.

Yeah, nobody did. Yeah.

Well, Ray, how about you, man? What was. What was your baptism in the blues like?

Well, really, it was, you know, I kind of had a few blues records coming from the rock and roll side of things.

Okay.

Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones and tracing their roots back to the. Who wrote that song? Yeah, who wrote that song? And then buying records at Elderly Instruments. It was simple enough. Music with a 12 bar progression. It was simple to understand. Was it simple to play? Well, but it was simple to play. And that's all we did. My brother and I would sit around and play together. He'd play either his acoustic or eventually an electric guitar. I'd play some harmonica. And we went to a few parties and played some parties for some money and called the band Delta Rhythm Kings because that's what my brother's Dixieland band that he had in high school was called.

Okay, now I gotta turn the page

a little bit here.

You started talking about the foundation of those Delta Rhythm Kings.

Well, it didn't become those.

Okay.

Until much later when I realized there was a band called the Delta Rhythm Delta Rhythm Kings that played with Roy Rogers.

Tell that story. I need to hear that.

Well, we'd say what the name of our band was and they say, I've heard of you. Didn't you play with Roy Rogers? Or. We, you know, we had the record even or records of his.

Wasn't there a Delta Rhythm Boys too?

There were probably several Delta Rhythm things. There's probably more than one Delta Rhythm Kings. And finally we just said, we're those Delta Rhythm Kings. And we settled on that after we met John Davison, the guitar, our guitar player. And he lived on Delta River Drive and it just made sense to keep using that name. Sure. We actually formed more than a duo.

When was that, Ray?

That would have been 88 or 89. We met John through a posting we put up on the bulletin board at Elderly Instruments. And he was taking lessons from Frog and Frog told him he needed to play with people. Wow, there's. If you look at the Lansing area Mid Michigan blue scene, there is a lot of intertwined.

Yeah, I'm seeing that. Yes.

Person. That person. That's why the jam session scene here worked so well for so long. And still does to a good extent. Much more than some other areas. Yeah. Because there's this community of people that are friends and played together and learned from each other and, you know, the Blue Society getting started had a part in that. Sure. And the way those Delta Rhythm Kings worked. First it was just me and John Davison on guitar and my brother Rod on guitar.

Okay.

And we would practice playing T bird fabulous Thunderbird songs in my basement. And we finally. Our first gig was on a hot. At a Halloween party in my dirt floor garage on pallets. We put wooden pallets down in there.

That was your stage.

And we got shut down by the cops because we were too loud.

Oh, man.

We did have a drummer, but he. He was a rock drummer. But he's of some note. Joe Quick, he played with us at that show.

Four albums, 28 years. I mean, you guys had a hell of a run.

Yeah.

What do you attribute that to, honestly?

Well, I've always said the biggest thing was that we were friends.

Okay.

We were. We became friends first. And the band grew out of that. And the other people we brought into the band didn't stick around very long if they didn't stay friends.

It was fun. And, you know, I didn't come into the band until 1999. One of the things I always attributed to is. And. And it's amazing how rare this is. Maybe when we got away from it, that's when it started to fall apart. But we practiced on a weekly basis. Every week we went over to Johnny D's basement and we played. It wasn't a hammer away. And really we got this work to do and we got to do. It was. We were enjoying ourselves and having fun and learning a few songs. And it. As slow as it was to get there, since it was weekly, you kind of need that. You can't get together with an eight piece group and play once every two months and expect things to work.

So how did you go from the four piece to the eight piece band?

Well, originally it was me and Rod and then we added John and then we needed a drummer and we ended up with a drummer from a rock band that Rod played in. Not Joe Quick, somebody else, about 90 or 92. There were a couple other, you know, we were seeing the Downtown Blues Band, which was the Roots of Root Doctor.

Sure.

And the Uptown Band at the Green Door.

Yep.

And we added a bass player. And once we added a bass player, we fired him after, I don't know, a while, a year, half a year, I don't know. Because he said one night at rehearsal, why don't we play something else beside this Muddy Waters. You're fired. Yeah, I did it almost on the spot immediately. Wow. Because he wanted to play something more complex. And he was relatively a beginner too. And he didn't. He didn't dig staying in the blues pocket. And our next guy was George Hirai, who's Was still in the band until the end. And we still play with regularly. And found out he played baritone saxophone. And. Oh. And Rod said, well, I can play some bass. So we'd switch off. He'd play some sax and Rod would play some bass and we'd have one guitar. And we added Jill Messing, who I saw first saw sitting in with the Downtown Blues Band, I think, and a band called Blade in the Blue Tea. She was in.

Okay.

And I think Johnny played guitar with them briefly. A few gigs. Although I'll be generous to Blade since he's passed. It didn't work out.

Okay.

We'll just say that.

Sure.

And I said I needed to be a better harp player. And I can't do that if I'm fronting the band and singing all the songs. So we should have another singer. And we brought Jill in.

Okay.

That's around the time where I met you guys.

That's about 93, maybe. It was. Yeah, it was that lineup.

Yeah.

And we added a. Another horn player. First it was Dave Wooler who play. Came down to our blues jams that we hosted at Capitol Hill Station, which is one of the clubs that I would say is.

Never got to see it. Never got to see it.

Yeah, we were playing pretty regularly. At least once a week, sometimes twice, sometimes two nighters on weekends. And we had this jam thing going on for a little while mostly that I hosted. And John wasn't always in it.

Okay.

And neither was Rod because they had day jobs that precluded that. And.

Gotcha.

I was a teacher and apparently I didn't care. But we would do these. These gigs. And then in 96, with that basic lineup, replace Dave Wooler with a saxophone. So we had two saxes. We went to the ibc, the International Blues Competition in Memphis, representing. We won the contest they had at the art festival.

Okay.

And we went.

How'd you guys do society?

Well, in those days, if you represented a blue society, you went right to the finals. So we were in the finals. Wow. On the big stage at the Daisy Theater, which was like weird, weird, weird. Because it's always packed into a little tiny bar stage or a.

Not much bigger Than this, Than the studio here?

Eh, corner somewhere.

Yeah.

Banana stage. And so it was weird. We didn't do well.

Okay, but you went.

I'm sure. But we went and we were amazed to see. Wow, this is like blues heaven down here on Beale Street.

Yeah.

You know, generally speaking, there's local bands that are as good or better than the national touring bands. They just got families. They don't want to live that crazy life.

Sure.

And so a chance to see bands like that, the best of the bands like that from all over the world

kind of was an impetus to work harder, better and do more and make work on your show. And. Yeah. You know, and I took over the band and said, if you guys want a lot of gigs, I can get you a lot of gigs, but you have to do things the way I tell you to do them. And so we got a little more professional.

Okay.

And we got a little more into what should we look like, what should we play. Thinking about how the whole thing fit together. And I got serious about the business end of it and started booking gigs a lot harder.

And it was pretty fortunate because that was getting up on the time when the short lived swing revival of the late 90s.

And I recognize that.

So I. Well, in 96, I turned 21, I started going to Capitol Hill Station.

Okay.

And that's when I met you at the jam. So yeah, there was a Tuesday night jam, but then there was a Thursday night jam that you ran that was called Cool Ray and the Snake Handle.

That was my. One of my side projects and my main side project.

Great players. Jason Strothe, I think was playing bass.

Yep.

And you might had Wade and.

Or something like that. And there were two guitar players for a while. Sometimes it was Johnny.

But the way it worked is technically. And the Snake Handlers wasn't an open mic. It was an. It was a closed mic.

Okay.

It was a.

It was a jam session, but it was an invite only kind of jam session. You didn't go there and just show up and complain, hey, when's my turn? No, you. It was a band that had a lot of people sit in. And on Tuesday it was an open mic. Everybody got to play. So I ended up hosting the open mic with Kathleen Mendoza at the time.

Walters.

Walters now. And our band called Blues Express.

All intertwined. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So we were doing Tuesday nights. I was coming back and I was riding my bicycle over there with a backpack full of harmonicas from East Lansing and riding back at 2 o' clock in the morning. It's crazy. But I come back on Thursdays.

Andy ended up doing fill ins for us when we didn't have somebody. He. He'd do a gig, you'd fill in. And eventually we just.

And I'd come sit in with the delta rhythm. And in 99 he asked me to join. And it was interesting. It blew everyone's mind.

That was just after the first record. Really. Yep.

It was after the first record. At the time you had two saxophones. You had Chad and George. Chad had just come back in. And what was interesting about it was I was a harmonica player, but I was doing this kind of William Clark type stuff where you play a chromatic harmonica and you do horn parts with the horn section. So they hired me to be in the horn section on harmonica, even though that's not.

I could not do what he did. So if I'm singing, I can't play harp at the same time.

Right, right, right.

Because you're singing.

Yeah. I was not playing my trumpet at the time, but I come in here, we got a couple saxophones. So fairly quickly I decided I ought to oil up that horn and play some trumpet with these guys too. So I started off on just the easy ones that were in B flat or something like that. And then pretty soon I was back on my horn. And I'm glad that the band encouraged me to do that because I still love playing my horn. I ended up in my 30s going back to school and getting a jazz trumpet degree. So very cool. Yeah. But that was partly because of the Kings.

That first record had. We recorded at Tim How. Tim Hauser's studio in Owasso. Because he knew our drummer.

Okay.

And that drummer, Bob Carter, stuck around for a long time.

Yep.

He actually made us better. And pretty much you can say that about almost every drummer we had. As we hired a new drummer in those early years, they came and went fast. And for various reasons.

Yeah.

They didn't cut it or couldn't cut. Cut it because of the family obligations or didn't get along with us very well or.

Right.

Whatever. And Bob was recommended by Frog.

Oh, there you go.

Another.

Another tie to Frog.

Yeah.

And Frog would come to our gigs and sit in and.

Sure.

Including a quite memorable one at a beer tent.

Okay.

Down at Riverfront Park. Adado. Riverfront Park. That involved walking on tables and, you know, show stopping kind of stuff.

Okay.

That we wrote that. Let's do it like Monkey Song with Greg Smith, the sax player from the area. And he since moved to Chicago and became an artist. I think he quit playing saxophone, at least for a while. Very tasty player. And so that song ended up recorded live at Royal Oak in Royal Oak at the Memphis Smoke. They had a good recording set up there and recorded a couple shows live. And we took a few of the songs when we did our second record in 2001, and we just used that live version of that that became a highlight of our stage shows because of the. Right. The swing revival that was going on. People love that song.

Yeah. I. I need to have you talk about some of these songs. I mean, you've got some great stuff. Do it like monkeys and 300 pounds of joy.

And

there was a couple of others I had written. Oh, the Gumbo Blues, that was another one.

That's an old Dave Bartholomew song. A New Orleans musician.

Okay, okay. But some of the other stuff, I mean, you've. You. You came up with some really off the wall titles.

That's partly. That's John Davison's doing.

Okay.

Because he would always pull out old records. He had a massive collection of records.

I mean, I think £300 we got from Howlin Wolf.

Yeah, that's Howlin Wolf song.

And.

Oh, okay.

We just made our arrangement.

See, I'm also learning, guys. You gotta forgive me.

It's also, I believe. Was it Hansen. Thunderbird. Cover that on a record.

Okay.

With Daryl Newlish.

Sure.

Singing. Yeah.

Well, I know you were a bigger guy back then and, you know.

Well, for a while it was. I don't want to play that song anymore. I'm not £300.

Right.

And it feels My heart's not in it. So, you know. And sometimes that songs would come and go because you can only fit so many in a show.

Sure.

We could only remember so many. And until we started having charts, which Andy conveniently wrote most of.

Yeah. I did the arranging for the horns, basically.

Okay.

Once we got those written down, then it was a little easier to pull stuff back out and go back in and do it that way. A lot of times it was just, we think this song is cool. We want to do it. Sometimes we would change it a lot. Sometimes we would just. It would come out sounding like us, you know, we weren't trying to be a cover band. That sounded exactly like the original.

Right. Yeah. You want to be your own band. Sure.

And that's also a thing in the blues world.

Well, as time went on, we did do more and more originals. You were writing more and more.

Yeah.

Probably by our last record, which was Swine of the Times, I bet you over half of that was original material.

I think about half of it.

Yeah. Okay.

But earlier on, we'd be lucky if we'd write a song or two to make a record.

They didn't always go on the record. Some of the ones we wrote didn't go on a record or. I don't like using the term wrote. I like to use the term made.

Made up.

We, you know well. And took the raw materials. That's us as players. And we each played a part. Even though the original didn't have a horn section, we came up with one. We'd change the lyric structure sometimes.

Sure.

To fit our soloists. And I heard that on an old blues record. Oh, here's one I made in the studio. Banter. I might have been muddy.

Yeah.

And they'd talk about it and. And then the song would be on the record. And I. I just latched onto that. Oh, I made that. There's some songs that are. Some people think I wrote, but I didn't write them. I might have heard them once on a radio and wrote down a couple verses and then wrote a couple more to go with it and pieced it together. Sort of crazy. Quilted a song together out of the parts I remembered, without ever going back to look up the original. Right.

But, Ray, we did have some good times, especially on the last record, I think, where we did kind of collaboratively write a song. You came up with some lyrics.

Definitely. And that's usually a lot of times

the two of us were working together. Find some chords, write some horn parts, and next thing you know, like, I Don't Want no More is a good example. I think that's one of our better songs.

We brought that out at a. At a rehearsal. I brought it out and said, I got this. I got this lyric. I like it. And I sang it how I thought it should go. And we messed around with a little bit, and then we let it sit. And the next week at Elderly, where I worked and where my brother Rod worked, Rod said, you need to put that on the chord progression of Stray Cat Strut. Yep.

Wow.

And when we did that, it worked. And we wrote a horn chart for it and ended up with what we think is a pretty cool song.

Yeah, very cool.

Very cool. The whole band really contributed to that song in one way or another.

And that's really how most of them. A lot of times a song would get drug out at a jam, and we'd say, that works pretty good. Like that. Let's do it like that. And, oh, we need a. We need A horn part for this. And somebody. One of the horn players would play something and say, oh, this would work good.

And Johnny D be playing a chord. He didn't even know what it was.

Yep.

And we just have to say, do that again.

Do it just like that.

You can't tell Johnny to play a diminished chord, but if he hears a diminished chord, he'll play a diminished chord. And. And we just had to say, do that again.

That. That was an interesting thing about our band is there was a range of educated musicians.

Right.

And Janelle Christie, she's got a doctorate in classical saxophone and studied in France.

Wow.

She's technically really skilled. Andy went to school. Some. Others had a lot of experience. Chad. Chad Bamette had a lot of experience playing in local bands, even from a very young teenage years.

Yep.

The only people I was ever in a band with were my brother and John Davison.

And. And so we had to learn to communicate together. It wasn't like we could just speak.

School talk. Could you write it down?

Say, play these or just be an ear player. Half the band was really a play by ear type of player.

Some couldn't. Some wanted the charts bad.

Wow.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Now really wanted charts. Yeah. Because she didn't listen to that kind of music two decades before or, you know.

Sure.

For years and years before.

And she could play anything you put in front of her. You didn't have to worry about how hard the chart was for you. Just wrote whatever you wanted to play, she'd play it. But she. She really would like to have written music.

Listen to the COVID of Jeep's Blues on the record. Right. Oh, man.

Okay.

She slays it.

She played the alto sax. Her husband Chad played the tenor.

Really? What. What got us the most recognition was that first recording we did with that lineup with Boxcar. Bob Carter on drums, Andy and Janelle and Chad and George in the horns. And we did it at Glenn Brown Studio.

So really three of our four records with pretty much that lineup. The first one, I think we had Ian Knox on saxophone.

Ian Knox was on. Yeah, he. Actually. No, the first one was Greg.

The very first record was kind of a different lineup.

Yes.

Sex and then.

Then let's Do It Like Monkeys was with. With Ian knox. And then 2001, we did change every night and every day. And then in 2000. What was it, five. We recorded just the way we like it.

He's got crib notes over here.

Yeah. I gotta look at my notes because.

And I'm just. Now I. It just came to my attention as I was doing some other work that we never got any of this stuff up on Apple Music and Spotify and stuff. So I'm gonna put that up.

Oh man.

I'll send you a link. You can put that in your show notes.

That's a cool thing to be announcing right here.

Yeah, absolutely. For the first time we're gonn have at least I think just the three records and we may not do the

very first one but might be hard to do. It was recorded well.

We'll see if I've got it in good enough quality. I'll do that one too. But I've got the other three ready to go so I'm going to get those up and by the time this airs they should be on there.

Yes.

Well thanks for having us.

I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming. And also to the viewer, to the listener, to the follower, I want to thank you guys for being here because if it wasn't for you, we would. We wouldn't even be able to do this. It wouldn't be possible. Jim Irvin reminding you that keeping the blues alive is everyone's responsibility. Preserving the history of the blues one story at a time. That's my mission. Until next time. So long

this has been Time Signatures with Jim Irvin presented by the Capital Area Blues society in Lansing, Michigan. For more information on CABS, visit capitalareablues.org you can find this episode and past episodes@lccconnect.org the Time Signature's theme song, Michigan Roads is used by permission and was written by Root Doctor featuring Freddie Cunningham. Until next time, keep on keeping the blues alive.

Examining the issues and topics that affect our lives from the local level to the world stage. Listen to the programs of LCC Connect anytime@lccconnect.org

LCC Connect Voices vibes vision

Lansing Community College's dual enrollment program offers the opportunity for qualified high school students to earn college credit while working towards their high school diploma. Dual enrollment lets students receive educational advancement in areas where the student's interest is displayed, especially in courses and academic areas not available in the student's high school. To find out more information about dual enrollment, visit lcc. Edu

Lansing Community College's Business and Community Institute provides businesses with customized synergistic trainings that realize logistical opportunity. Learn more about the future of business today at lcc. Edu bc.

This is WLNC 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.