Strung Out Episode 219: TOM LOUNGES, KEEPING THE MUSIC ALIVE (AND LOCAL)

Join us on this episode of Strung Out as host Marty McCormack sits down with the legendary Tom Lounges! Dive into Tom's fascinating journey from a young record store owner and radio DJ in Northwest Indiana to becoming a pivotal figure in the Chicago music scene. Discover Tom's insights on the ever-evolving landscape of the music industry, his experiences mentoring young artists, and his dedication to supporting original music. Plus, get an inside look at his record store, Tom Lounges' Record Bin, and hear some entertaining stories from his decades-long career. Tom's website to his world is https://tomloungesentertainment.com. Don't miss this intriguing conversation with a true music industry veteran! #StrungOutPodcast #TomLounges #MusicIndustry #livemusic #chicagomusic

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Strung Out, the podcast that looks at life through the lens of an artist. Your host is the artist, writer, and musician, Martin Laurence McCormack. Now here's Marty. And I have with me, uh, probably one of the most important people in Northwest Indiana and the suburbs of Chicago. Tom Lounges, and you are, uh, you are a record store owner?

[00:00:35] Mm hmm. You are a promoter? Yes. You have been in the music business for Since 1977. Right. And you have rubbed shoulders and have helped so many artists. Yeah, just for the listeners, a little bit about your background. Did you grow up here? I grew up in Highland, Indiana. Graduated 1977 from Highland High School.

[00:01:00] I had no ambitions of what I wanted to do. Uh, I took a, I had to take a course called radio television communication, which Highland never had before. It was like brought in. It was, you know, I believe things happen for reasons. Mr. Fetty was the teacher. He just came in and I want to say they lasted two years and the course was gone.

[00:01:20] So it was right at the perfect time. And he challenged me. I really didn't do all that well, uh, in school. And. I was kind of doing the same in his class, and he started saying, What are you going to do with your life, Lounges? What are you going to do with your life? I'm like, I don't know. And, of course, what I occupied my time doing was doodling the Average White Band, uh, logo with the buns and Aerosmith and Kiss and, you know, all the cool, uh, rock logos.

[00:01:45] And I wasn't a great artist, but I had fun doing it. And he goes, Well, what do you, you know, you like music. Why don't you do something with music? I said, Well, I'm a mediocre singer, although I did a little rockabilly early on in my life. Um, I can't play an instrument to save my life. Uh, what am I gonna do?

[00:01:59] He goes, well, you like the radio? And I said, yeah, I listen to him all the time. He said, well, who's your favorite DJ? I said, well, right now it's gotta be Larry Lujak. Oh, Uncle Larry, he was my boy. And, uh, you know, I used to deliver newspapers. And I'd listen to Bob Surratt Bob Lujak. And always loved Larry.

[00:02:15] And, uh, a couple days later, Mr. Fetty walked in. He threw a book on my desk. It was Super Jock. The story of Larry Lucek. Banana yellow cover. You couldn't miss it. And, uh, he said, read this. Maybe it'll open your eyes to something. I did. I read it. Probably the first book I ever read all the way through. And, uh, it did.

[00:02:35] By the end of that course, it was a one semester course. I had taken my spring break and I was studying, uh, sine waves and transmitter law. And back then to be on radio, to be any kind of broadcaster, you had to have a license. It was like being a pilot, a driver, anything. Uh, so I had to get it from the FCC and there was a requirement and tests.

[00:02:55] It was quite a long test back then, as I recall. And I studied on my spring break and I went to the Dirksen building in Chicago. I got my FCC license. First test I passed with flying colors. I was very proud of myself and I thought I am going to be the new Larry Lou Jack. Well, that was not meant to happen.

[00:03:14] Uh, to, uh, you know, one of the things for young folks that I always try to explain to them is you get what you deserve and what you need, not always what you want kind of to quote the stones, paraphrase the stones. Um, I couldn't get a job in rock radio to save my life. I couldn't buy my way in. There was very few opportunities for a new DJ.

[00:03:36] Well, my dad knew somebody at a small local station and he said, uh, you know, you could write some news copy and do some broadcasting, things like that. So I got my feet wet with that, uh, copy boy, basically. And then after about four or five months of doing that, they said, hey, we have an opening, uh, overnights if you want to learn the board and engineer.

[00:03:54] Jumped on this McMartin board. It was primitive. Big pots like this. Oh, I love the old days. Yeah, it was the old days. And we had transmitters that we had to take readings on and calibrations. I mean, it was actually work. Wasn't like today's digital everything on a laptop. So, I started engineering for, uh, Black Gospel.

[00:04:14] That was my, my first jump into radio. I would run the reel to reels, the old church services on Sundays. At night, uh, that was a new morning, but at night there was a minister. His name was Reverend Harold Patton, and he was from a local church and he was fire and brimstone, and it was like being in a blues brothers movie with James Brown and the, uh, the, the, uh, outfits they had and, uh, And he came in and his, some of his guys came in and they had all their, their glory clothes on and be the hand in the air.

[00:04:48] And we're playing mighty clouds of joy. Andre crouching, the disciples, uh, Thomas a Dorsey, the godfather of gospel. And I'm going, what the heck is this stuff? So right there in the studio, right there in the studio, they would dress up in their robes. And I'm in this little glass box watching this. It was like culture shock for sure.

[00:05:07] The white kid from Highland. And, uh, He, you know, I was reading rock books because by then I was addicted to books, so I'm reading, you know, I remember it was a book called, uh, Everybody's Lucifer, Mick Jagger. It was a take off on, you know, Sympathy for the Devil. And he mistook the title, saying, Everybody is Lucifer.

[00:05:24] He goes, No son, you're not. And he was basically gonna save me. And he taught me in the long run. I learned more from him than probably anybody. He taught me about Thomas A. Dorsey. He taught me about all the black gospel groups. He talked about, uh, the Dixie hummingbirds and all the great choirs. And then we started going into, uh, Quincy Jones.

[00:05:47] Robert Johnson, um, all these great pioneering, you know, black artists from different eras, different styles. And by the time I left, which is only about a year, year and a quarter, I was there before I got fired. And that was an interesting story. Um, And I, I learned about this. I learned about black culture.

[00:06:08] And he goes, you probably thought rock and roll started with Elvis, didn't you? And I said, well, I kind of did. And he goes, no, let's go way back. So we started doing field blues and all this stuff. And that's how I learned the history of music. So you were taught. I was taught. By the master. By the master.

[00:06:24] Yeah. Yeah. I learned an appreciation for gospel music, blues music, jazz music, and to this day, I mean, I have a blues radio show. I would never have had that if it hadn't been for starting there. So again, it's, it's, you get what you need, not what you want. If I had started in rock, I probably wouldn't be doing this anymore because it's a one trick pony.

[00:06:45] And it's changed so much. It has. It has. So that was, that was kind of cool. And just a brief nugget in there, I did get fired because it was a religious station primarily. Uh, I, and at the end, when you're in radio, if there's something and you get dead air, there's usually a pile back then, there's a pile of records and the program director would put a black marker through what you can't play.

[00:07:07] Well, it said fill with music it was Christmas and I said, okay So I'm going through these really dull boring records and I found I found Jingle Bell Rock and I played it and the owner of the station because I happened to be there The other engineer is running late because of snow he came from Chicago and it was Eddie Arnold's version Oh my God.

[00:07:28] And I, the owner came in and he goes, who's playing the devil's music? And I'm like, what? And he goes, who's playing this? I said, well, I guess it'd be me. I'm the only one here. And he goes, you're fired. We don't play songs that say rock. Wow. So, but he wound up going, well, where's Gene? I said, well, Gene's not here.

[00:07:44] That's why I'm here. And he goes, well, maybe I was a little. Cause he goes, I don't know how to run this stuff. He goes, stay in, you know, so I wound up losing my job a week later. They found a reason. Everyone in radio has a great, how I got fired from radio story. And you folks that are watching and listening to this, you have to understand Eddie Arnold, There's no Elvis.

[00:08:07] No. He was as twangy as they came. Oh, switch back. We cover, uh, um, you know, uh, Eddie Arnold, uh, A rose must remain, the sun and the rain. Mm hmm. You know, to each his own, to each his own. One and only you. Right. That song, um, but, uh, that's, it's So you got, you got Cam. I got Cam, yeah. Wow, Ryan Fitzgerald is going to love hearing that story.

[00:08:35] That's great. I jumped into Night Rock later. I went to work for Headcrusher. Night Rock had just started. It was on the same station at night, they broke her time. But that was with, I wanna say Bobby Ski fish started there. Oh, wow. All these different big cats were there. Sure. And I was clearly not in that league yet.

[00:08:51] So then they left there and they went to 1 0 4, or, I'm sorry, one. Oh yeah. 1 0 4 FM WFLM in Ground Point. And that was pre digital. So, I wound up going to Headwish Records, who ran the show. They brokered it, and they ran it, and provided the music. And, uh, I couldn't get on there. Even though I, that was, I was more up to speed.

[00:09:12] But, uh, they threw the bone at me and let me work in the store. So I learned music. I learned, you know, Wishbone Ash. All these groups I never would have played at home. I learned all that working at Hedwig's. Again, you go where you need to go. And there's a guiding force behind you. Eventually, something opened up and I got to, I don't want to say intern, more like sit in, and co partner, co chair with a guy named Kevin Weber, who we used to call Kid Rock.

[00:09:37] He was a long haired dude, used to play Nugent and Budgie and ACDC. And we had Van Pudlow, who was our director at the time, Don Nelson, and everybody had their thing. Van was more into the John Lennons, the birds, the softer edge, cool hippie stuff. Kevin was balls to the wall metal, you know, and hard rock.

[00:09:57] So I learned a lot from them. Well, then they threw the newspaper at me. It says, You want to, you know, Oh, I started writing for the newspaper. And then Hegwisch said, we're in the red, we're bleeding. So we're going to stop it. I said, dude, this is my first job. You can't do this. So Hegwisch, Joe, God bless him, said, I'm going to give you three months.

[00:10:15] You turn it around. You can be the editor. And that's how you, and that's how I got into, I was a failure as a writer. I mean, I was a horrible English teacher or student. And, uh, I got thrown in the deep end in the pit. In radio and in print. And eventually I pulled it into the black in three months. I became the editor.

[00:10:35] Hegwisch remained the publisher. I stayed until we, uh, Joe and I had a butting of the heads over the cover. Um, he had wanted Boston on the cover. We had already done Boston on the first album. I go, eh, we don't want to do that again. I was more into the punk and the emerging band so I put the Plasmatics on the cover.

[00:10:55] Very brutal. Um, we did not get along after that. So eventually I wound up leaving and I got pushed into the nightclub business. Well, it is something to go from Eddie Arnold to the plasmatics. That's true. In the course of two years. Right. Right. So, uh, yeah, I learned a lot in a short amount of time. Uh, then I went into nightclubs and Hegwisch and the newspaper got me into nightclubs because I would go as a representative covering things, you know, as a journalist and I get a call one day.

[00:11:25] And it was from the two primary owners of Point East. And they said, Hey kid, you know, we see you here all the time. Blah, blah, blah. We, uh, at that time it was a disco. It was built as the ultimate disco. Well, disco died at Point East. The original, uh, disco demolition was done there way before the Sox part.

[00:11:45] Really? I didn't know that. See, that's a great, it's in Mitch Michael's book. Mitch is the only one that actually remembers. They killed him. Destroyed the club. They ripped the doors off. It was, it was horrible. Five police districts came out and it was very out of control. Like Woodstock, people stopped on 30 and walked.

[00:12:01] I've got pictures of it. It's pretty wild. Oh, well, we'll have to get those pictures. Yeah, there's some, there's some funny stuff. So this was before Steve Dahl? This was before Steve, it was Steve Dahl. Oh, it was Steve Dahl then? Yeah, it was Steve Dahl and Teenage Radiation. It was Roman and all those guys.

[00:12:15] But, uh, it was kind of the dry run. So when the Sox guys said, we didn't know, I don't think so. They knew. They knew it was going to be out of control. Bill Vick and all those guys. But, uh, the reason I got that job is Disco was dead. So I got a call from the owners and they said, hey, you know, we know how to run Discos like nobody's business, but we don't know anything about rock and roll.

[00:12:36] Would you be interested? Your name keeps coming up on the list. They didn't really know me. But, uh, J. O. at Svoboda's next door, he recommended me, a couple of the, uh, the band guys did, a couple nightclubs did, because I was always in the clubs, and they said, this kid seems to be on the, on the rise, you know, why don't you talk to him.

[00:12:55] So they threw me a ridiculously low amount of money, which at 20 years old was like, Nirvana. It was like, oh my God, it's a pot of gold. I didn't know what I was worth. I wound up working for Peanuts, but I, again, learned so much about bookings, about management, about advertising. I wound up running their newsletter.

[00:13:15] Um, I still work a little bit with the radio side, uh, with WMET, the loop, bringing in the jocks, the Patty Hayes, the Dan McNeils, Dan Michaels, and, uh, Mitch Michaels. And, uh, that led to other clubs, JJ Kelly's Club Dimension, you know, Star Plaza, spent several years there as a talent consultant with Charlie Blum.

[00:13:36] Um, my girlfriend at that time was a floral designer, so she strung the ribbon down the summer cut for the opening. And I was there when the Oak Ridge Boys closed the curtain. So, I never worked for the Star, but I was there for 80 percent of their shows. Wow. So, again, it's all been a learning experience.

[00:13:54] And the Star Plaza is no more? Now, we had one chance to play there with the, uh, uh, Indiana, Northwestern Indiana Philharmonic. But, uh, let's, we're gonna take a little break right here. I'm talking to Tom Lounges, who is, uh, uh, legend when you think about everything that went down in the music scene in the Chicagoland area.

[00:14:16] And you're watching or listening to Strung Out. Hey, want to show your support of Martin's artist endeavors? Buy me a coffee is an online site that makes supporting Marty easy. In just a few taps you can make a payment of any amount and no account is needed. You can also decide to become an ongoing supporter.

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[00:15:15] When I was a kid, it lived under my bed.

[00:15:21] When I was older, it lived in my closet.

[00:15:27] Nowadays it likes to live in my head. There's just no way I can dodge it. Theo is a friend and the it's with me wherever I go. We know Theo a fall, but a friend, and it's going to be with

[00:16:01] whenever there's something new, it holds me back

[00:16:07] if there's a change. It gets real mad,

[00:16:12] when I wanna leap it attacks, how can something so good be so bad, dear? Fear is a friend and a foe. Fear is with me wherever I go, we know. Fear, a foe but a friend. And it's gonna be with me to the end, I think.

[00:17:10] I see it lives in you when I look in your eyes. Let's work together and find a way

[00:17:21] to get over our fear and through its lies and finally make our fear obey. Fear is a friend and a foe. Fear is with me whenever I need it. We know,

[00:17:47] but a friend and it's going be with end

[00:17:57] is a friend and a

[00:18:03] is with me whenever I go.

[00:18:11] And it's going to be with me to the end, I think. We're back at Tom Lounges. Hello. You are bringing up a really important thing for anybody that wants to be

[00:18:46] in this business. It's the idea that you learn along the way. Right. There is no I mean, I was given, uh, Kenny Rogers How to Succeed in the Music Business book. Okay. So I think we all started there. Yeah, and I, you know, I read it and, but, you know, I mean, it's one thing to hear about somebody's success, but it's another thing trying to pursue it.

[00:19:10] So you were doing the nightclubs. Doing the nightclubs, still writing. Um, Night Rock was gone, which was the magazine I did. Night Rock Radio was gone. I had moved on. Yeah. And through a lady I met through Night Rock who was looking for her own path, Linda Matlow, a wonderful photojournalist. She called me out of the blue and said, Hey, I'd like to shoot some pictures for Night Rock.

[00:19:32] And I said, Sure. So I was taking, you know, everybody worked for free at that point for the magazine. So she and I bonded really well and we started covering everything. Film, live stuff, uh, you know, Interviews, shootin publicity kits, and Linda and I became a crack photojournalist team. We were amazing, I gotta say, we really were.

[00:19:53] Uh, we played off each other, we were both really good at what we did. She was an amazing photographer, one of the best in Chicago. Um, bar none. What we wound up doing, she helped open the door for other magazines. So I started writing for, uh, Imagine Magazine in Connecticut, Goldmine Magazine, Relics Magazine out in New York, the Grateful Dead mag.

[00:20:14] Uh, I worked for Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Video Rockstars, you name it, if it was a glossary and it was sold at Walgreens, I was there. Wow. I got such a kick. I'd walk into Walgreens, get my prescription, like, there's three magazines, look, that's my name. Wow. It was pretty cool. It is cool. That led to, uh, doing some video stuff with some of the people I met through like MTV and things.

[00:20:36] I was in a couple of videos for MTV. Um, it's just one thing led to another. My writing took me all over the place. I wound up writing for the Times, my newspaper here in Northwest Indiana. And that was, I want to say 1982, I think it was my first column. And I'm still, every Thursday you can open the paper or go online and read my column.

[00:20:58] I've been there about 42, 43 years now. Uh, always, uh, I started as the youngest. And I'm the oldest. And that's how it worked. Wow. Um, let's take another break. Okay. Yeah, because I see that, uh, uh, Yes, we're gonna have to go, I'm gonna have to go work. You're gonna have to go work, but when we come back, uh, we're going to continue this, uh, journey with, uh, Tom Lounges, where we're talking about his career.

[00:21:28] And really, it's an amazing thing because your career is the arc of rock and roll. One of the things I do want to mention, uh, when we come back, I didn't stress on it, is when I teach or mentor young artists of any kind, I explain to them the importance of diversity, the importance of being a jack of all trades, and not just, you don't have to be a master, you have to know enough to get you by because the entertainment business is always shifting and morphing and evolving.

[00:22:00] Vinyl, for instance. Vinyl was in, I was the king, it died. What do you do? Well, that's when you go into nightclub. Or that's when you go into management. Or that's when you go into bookings. You have to love. You have to know it all. Yeah. And appreciate it. And that's why, since 1977, I can say I've always worked in the music business.

[00:22:20] Yeah. All the different variations. One of the few people I know that has worn so many different hats. And still do. And still do. And you have, you know, when we, when we get back. We're going to have to talk about, uh, you know, the, the various artists that you have, you know, it's a who's who it's a who's who, and, uh, what an interesting and exciting career that you have.

[00:22:43] And what's the name of your record store? It's Tom lounges, record bin, B I N. And it's at two 18 main street in downtown Hobart. It's seven days a week. It is part. My wife calls it my man cave is like art museum. Everything in there was stuff given to me by the artist. So you'll see real artifacts, and I can tell you a story.

[00:23:04] She says, you're the golf pro of rock and roll. Tell a story about that. Tell a story about that. People will come in and say, what was Prince like? What was Waylon Jennings like? And then there's the pictures, and there's the artifacts, and it's legit. I can actually tell a story tied to everything. Well, that's a good reason for people to make a journey down there to Hobart, then, to see it.

[00:23:24] Because And I love that she calls you the golf pro of rock and roll because that's the best way, you know, that's the best way to describe you. You are a golf pro. Once you get to a certain age and you don't play in the pros anymore, well, you tell stories of the glory days. Well, when we come back, we're going to continue along that path.

[00:23:42] But also, I really do like this idea of like mentoring for the next generation. Because, um, you know, we can't look 20 or 30 years into the future, but it's a rough and rocky road to be in my music. There's a few young kids I met when they were 14, 15 that I've worked with over the years, and they've got the talent.

[00:24:01] They've done it themselves. I am not some Spengali. But, they, uh, they, um, they were along for the ride. I helped open the door, and then they just ran through it, kicking and screaming. And I'll talk about some of them when we come back. Perfect. We'll be back after this break. You are on Strong Out. Don't go away.

[00:24:22] Just to touch would mean so much. Would it kill you to try? You do try. You do. Try just to keep me hanging on

[00:24:50] on.

[00:24:57] Turn the back on love, only fools Baby, only fools Turn the back on love, only fools Just a kiss with passion Well, show me you still care You still care You still care Just the look of desire Would make me feel alive Feel alive Feel alive Baby, only for you

[00:26:59] Um, uh, Um, Uh, transcript.

[00:27:33] Hello, I'm Polly Chase, here with artwork by Marty McCormick. This is titled Dream. It's an 8 by 10 pen and ink drawing. Be lovely in an office or child's room. Anywhere you need inspiration to let go and see where your dreams can take you. To inquire about pricing and to view other pieces of Marty's artwork, go to martin mccormick.com.

[00:27:58] We're back. We are back. And, uh, we just actually did a, uh, a whole other show in which we were talking about switchback. But, uh, we are going to pick up on the, uh, other side of this break. I want to ask you, uh, in this final part of this podcast, uh. The next generation that's coming up, I kind of touched on it.

[00:28:22] So much has changed in the music business. Yes. And so much of it has now kind of polarized in the sense that you have big business running these Taylor Swift's and these kind of acts. And you, yet you have the regional music, you have local musicians and your radio program that you do as well. Uh, you are getting some very, very heavy hitters that come in.

[00:28:49] And I, I think I know why it's because there's really no, no real home. You know, people, there's no home for free thought, um, and free form. I started out as a young man, listening to free form radio. When FM first came out, it was the bastard child of radio. AM was everything, uh, which I grew up on AM radio, as we all did with the little transistors under the pillow.

[00:29:15] But FM is where you heard, uh, Prog Rock and King Crimson and Pink Floyd, the early Sid Barriers. And it wasn't commercial. They weren't three minute songs. They weren't four minute songs. They were 18 minutes and eight minutes. And, um, so freeform radio for me was always like the great Western planes. You could pretty much travel and do whatever you wanted.

[00:29:41] Then it went away, uh, cause FM became like AM. It was hit driven, um, and that's how it was in the late 70s, early 80s. And when I had the chance to go with Night Rock, uh, it was the, the, the message of Night Rock was We do what we want, within FCC rules, of course. So we would play Nektar. We would play Budgie.

[00:30:05] We would play Captain Beyond, Dancing Madly Backwards. We would do all these obscure things and turn people onto these, these musics. And, uh, along the way, we were learning too, because we would start challenging each other. And say, have you heard this one? No, I got this one. I bought this from Germany.

[00:30:23] Let's try this. And you'd hear Kraftwerk from France or whatever. Um, you would do all these different things. Um, so that was, that was part of the expansion. When it came to getting to middle age ish, uh, maybe even pre middle age, I started getting, because I started getting known. I was in the daily newspaper, I was doing radio, I was, you know, there were pictures of me with rock stars.

[00:30:50] So I would have some of my former teachers and people I went to school with that were now teachers. Would say, Hey Tom, would you talk to my class? Would you come in? I said, sure. Always happy to give back. 1984, well, it was before that I was still with Night Rock. And I was asked to do J day, which is journalism day, uh, as we called it back then, and it was at Purdue Cal in Hammond, uh, Barbara Mayer, who was the journalism teacher at Highland high school.

[00:31:20] Although I never took journalism there because I was a ne'er do well student, as I mentioned, uh, I, she did come to respect what I was doing. And she said, we're having J day, which is to bring kids into the campus, to visit and pursue journalism as a career, as a profession. So I said, sure. So I thought I was going to talk to this little class because they showed me and it was a tiny little classroom.

[00:31:43] And I thought, great. Well, then a couple hours later, they said, well, we're going to move you to a slightly bigger class. And then the next day they're like, well, we got more students interested. We're going to move you to this. By the time they were done, I was in a giant auditorium and I needed a microphone and a podium.

[00:31:58] And it was like, you know, you see on television where the college professors are talking and kids are all the way up the thing. It was, how did I get here? My first speaking engagement, and I had no idea of bounce back on a microphone. I was like, confused. I was hearing my own voice in my head and losing track.

[00:32:17] Uh, but it was an experience. J Day was one of the first things I did where I actually went out and started trying to educate and talk to kids. Uh, I later was brought in to Barbara Mayer's class. In 1984, I, I did Highland High School Journalism. Some of those kids have gone on to amazing things. Um, Rick wound up working with, uh, he followed my footsteps at the Times and other stuff.

[00:32:41] I think he wound up with the BBC or something. I think he went overseas for a while. Um, this young lady wound up after high school going to Arkansas or somewhere down south and working for a chain of local community papers. And Ken Shiroa, who is, I guess, my prized student and we're still friends. He has went on to author several books.

[00:33:03] He went into radio. He worked in country, US 79. He is a songwriter. Uh, he's a publicist and there's a picture of him and Mitch Michaels hanging in the record bin. When I come in and I put on my hat of golf pro, uh, I can tell you about Ken. He was 16, maybe when I met him. But he was one of those along with the other two and a handful of other students I would come in and I would have a stack of At that time.

[00:33:33] And I'd say, okay, this is what I do. Blah, blah, blah. And there'd be 30 kids in the class and seven or eight of them, you see the light bulbs go off and Rick in particular, he years later, he, uh, he said, you don't want to, when you walked in, I almost didn't come to that class, but I saw you walk in and black leather pants, long hair and a chain belt with a stack of albums.

[00:33:56] And he says, This is his work? That's a cool gig. And he said, I saw a guy who loved going to work every day. Yeah. Because that's the way you presented it. And he wound up, and I would always challenge him. I'd say, here's a bunch of records. Who thinks they can do this? Come up, take two or three albums, take them home.

[00:34:13] They're yours to keep. All I ask is you send me a review. And keep it within these parameters, like an editor would. And I said, if I like it, and I think you've got talent, I'll publish it in Night Rock. And then by that point, it was eighties. It was Midwest beat or Iliana beat because I had taken it over from head, which, and, uh, I said the hardest part of being a writer, like the hardest part of being the next Larry Lou Jack, uh, as I mentioned earlier, is getting your foot in the door.

[00:34:40] I said, I will publish you. You can build a portfolio in my magazine, which is in three States. And that's how we started. And they all, well, not all, but some of them went on to do this for a career. I love the fact that you're talking that people that are in this business need to wear different hats. Yes.

[00:35:01] Is that, you know, for the younger people that are saying, I want to do what this guy is doing. What do you recommend now? It's a harder world. Yeah. It's a harder world. Obviously learn technology. Um, which is where I stagnate. I just can't wrap my head around a lot of this internet stuff. Crazy stuff. I married a woman, my wife Alice is all about, uh, like tablets and things like that at school.

[00:35:29] She's a media specialist, went to school for it. So there's many a night I'll be in my office and all of a sudden you hear a swear word come out. I'm like, I feel like Ralph Kramden, help me, the computer froze, or I lost this or whatever, whether it's an audio file or a article or something. So I do have that crutch and I've been lazy about learning.

[00:35:52] Cause I got house, you know, I don't need to learn anymore, but, uh, the students, I wound up doing not only those classes, but I, I taught at. I shouldn't say taught. I guest lectured at Valparaiso University for a music class. I did Purdue. I did IUN. Um, I helped with the rock and roll at St. Joe College. I helped with the adult rock and roll history class.

[00:36:17] And I even went to Harding Elementary, one of my neighbors, when I lived in Hammond as a single father. Uh, was a teacher at Harding Elementary. And he said, would you mind coming to the class and talking? The kids on the street think you're the cool guy. You're the cool dad. That's great. And I said, sure. So I went in there.

[00:36:34] We wound up doing a mini course. Um, they were so fascinated because newspapers were still the thing. Internet wasn't around, phones weren't around. So they're like, wow, you're in a newspaper. And I told them you could do it too. They didn't have a school newspaper. So I said, let's do a challenge. How many people want to be on my staff?

[00:36:54] Then we had elections. You're a publisher. You're the sports writer. You're the entertainment writer. And they picked, like, it's like a student council. They went in and picked. And, uh, we actually, over the course of, I want to say it was two weeks, they'd come in three times a week, two or three weeks. And I actually brought in prizes, advertisers.

[00:37:14] I said, you have to go out with your parents to local businesses. You don't charge them. You just say, look, we would like to, uh, run your ad in our school paper. It won't cost you anything, but we have to build the ad. They couldn't give them like their business card. They had to build it and create it. The old days.

[00:37:31] With hand and border tape. You know, pre computer. So they had an ad department. They had a sports writer who would talk to some of the jocks in the school and the high school kids. Then they had the entertainment writer. Because everyone wanted to be an entertainment writer. That was the one they wanted.

[00:37:46] Looked at me and said, well, you get to meet stars. So I tapped one of my local celebrity buddies, Brian Middleton, who was a mix, hit mix guy on B 96. Everybody, all the kids listened to B 96 Sure. With all that music back then. And I brought Brian into the classroom. He was somebody I found when he was under age.

[00:38:05] In fact, he was, uh, spinning records in a roller rink. And I was so impressed with this kid and his ear and his knack for mixing. He was, he was amazing. And I said, I am not worthy. You know, I mean, I was a mixer, but I couldn't touch what he did. I brought him to jubilation, which was a nightclub when it was still an alcohol bar before it became a, a, uh, all ages club.

[00:38:28] I had to be legally responsible and say, you know, I'm gonna watch out for him. I'm music director He will work for me under my careful eye. Brian is still doing it. He worked for all the major stations. I still see him He's got his own son. Who's a spinner now working in a roller rink like wow Uh, we became dear friends.

[00:38:45] We dj'd each other's wedding and You know, it's a lifelong friendship. And I met him because he had talent. So, basically I brought Brian into the classroom. These kids interviewed him. And then what I did is whoever sold the most ads, or wrote the best story, judged by the school body, Right. Got prizes. Oh, wow.

[00:39:05] Now I was tied to the Star Plaza Theater at the time. Wow. So what we did is I talked to the star, Charlie, And I got a block of tickets for the Osmond's Christmas show. So they could win four packs of tickets so the students could take their parents out and say, look what I did. I'm in 5th grade, 6th grade.

[00:39:26] Because it was elementary, it was 5th and 6th graders. And I just won a pair of tickets. I just got a hundred dollars in tickets. Thank you all mom and dad. That's great. You know, uh, and you know, teaching the kids to do that media part of it. I think the media part of it is so crucial with music with, uh, and especially for artists today, I think, uh, especially with the social media because record labels are really, they don't exist, um, the ones that do.

[00:39:56] Um, you, you, you. Kind of mortgage your music record labels. If you went to Warner brothers or Sony records or whatever, they had their own publicity department, their marketing department, their A& R, which was artists of repertoire. They would help you pick songs, put you with songwriters. It was a machine.

[00:40:13] Um, most record labels downsize. And the first thing they cut was publicity. So there was no publicists anymore. All my friends that were in publicity form their own companies and they were now outsourced. And I became one of those people for a while. I didn't really like being on that side, because I felt it wasn't honest journalism.

[00:40:34] I'm basically spoon feeding the public, Well, Marty's album might suck, but it's the best thing since sliced bread. Trust me. You know, that kind of thing. You're a mouthpiece. And you're representing. And it's an honest living. Um, and someone has to do it. But now, now an artist has to do it. For self review.

[00:40:52] Themselves. Yeah, themselves. You know, they have to get on and, uh, uh, wear that publicist hat. And everything they, I mean, that tells me your experience is so viable now. Because none of that stuff exists anymore. That's true. So, are you going to become a professor? Ha ha ha. I like guest lecturing. Okay. I like speaking and I am generally, uh, I still do it from time to time, not very often, because there's not really any journalism classes.

[00:41:21] Like shop class, it's gone. Yeah. They're not teaching it anymore. And civics, that's gone too. So some of these things have to come back and, and you, you have to, uh, I think it's important. People can reach Tom through Facebook. And Tom Lounges, L O U N G E S. Lounge with an S on it. Lounge with an S. And get in touch with him if you have a school and you want to talk, you know, have him come in and talk about the music business.

[00:41:51] Cause you're on the level where it makes all the difference, I think. And in the last couple seconds here, the local scene. Local scene is, uh, goes in waves. When I first got into it, the local scene, I was a child of the sixties, of the fifties, but in the sixties I came of age and we had amazing, we had the Ides of March, we had Shadows of Night, we had the Buckinghams, we had Crying Shames, on and on and on.

[00:42:18] Then that morphed into the next generation with Off Broadway, The Hounds, Survivor, Gambler, all these great bands, M& R Rush, they were doing their own music and they were Play in big rooms like Point East. Yeah. Suddenly it became all about cover bands again because it came down to the almighty dollar. And now it's tribute hell.

[00:42:42] Yes, it is tribute hell. Everything is tribute this, tribute that. It is no longer a tribute. You are literally ripping off the original artist and saying, I'm going to play their music and not have to pay for it. Right. You know? Right. So, I mean, I do book tribute acts. I can't say I'm free of that. But I really try to encourage and always have encouraged original music.

[00:43:03] A couple of quick stories. At the record bin, we used to do open mic before COVID in the back room. I would broadcast it. I had ASCAP, BMI, and CSEC licensing. And we did my equivalent of what would be a tiny desk concert. We would have local celebrities play. We did open mic. We did all ages, everything. Free coffee, never a charge.

[00:43:25] And I encouraged original music. And we'd broadcast it. And I had some families that really Removed by it because it was during the desert storm years and you know, everybody was deployed in the middle east I had parents come in and say Thank you, because I got to hear my son play his song while I was in the desert Wow, because we would always post the website.

[00:43:47] We could listen. That's so cool One dad found out he was gonna be a dad the son said i'm gonna play this for my little brother And the dad's probably scratching his head. We don't have a little brother and at the end of the song he goes dad in case He didn't figure it out We're going to have a baby.

[00:44:02] Wow. And the dad came back several months later and it was around Christmas. Gave me a big bear hug. He walked in in uniform, hugged me and had tears in his eyes. And he said, you brought my family to me. Wow. And I thought, what a service, you know? And I thought I'm in a little store in Holbrook, Indiana.

[00:44:21] With a little tiny broadcast box, but we're doing it. Dave Davies played there. Jim Peterick played there. The, the guy who played cello for Sting's band for a while did a chamber group and we had open mic. It was open to everybody. So that was a pretty unique thing. And the reason I brought this up is there was a 14 or 15 year old kid named Getty Trezak.

[00:44:42] Getty was so impressive. He brought in people. He impressed all the older musicians there for this open mic. I now work with him a lot. He is now graduated high school. Uh, through John Huber and the foundation that they have at the Spot Studio. He just got a thousand dollar grant, uh, to help him. And that, this foundation, it gives grants to students who are 22 and under.

[00:45:05] Go to, uh, the Spot Studio, uh, for more details. You, anyone that's 22 or under that is serious about music can enter. There's some criteria, you'll have to read about it. But it is definitely something cool. Uh, back when I was booking Lake County fair in the mid, uh, teens, 20, 20 teens, uh, there was a 14 year old girl who was doing a band called Capernaum, which is, uh, I guess a town in the Bible, it was Christian pop.

[00:45:32] And, uh, I was so blown away by this band of all kids. One was 12 and, uh, they, uh, they kept winning battles and things like that. And I stayed in touch with her and her family. And today she is Leanne Stutler. Uh, she's well known. She's got several hometown albums out. She went to Columbia. Um, anytime she had a question or Geddy has a question or any of these kids that I really believe in.

[00:45:59] I'm a phone call away. I don't have all the answers, but if you want me to bounce something off me, I'm happy to do it. Even though the times have changed, I don't have all the answers. Well, any of you, uh, that's a wonderful invitation to reach out to Tom. And, uh, we could talk forever because you are just, we'll have to pick this up again.

[00:46:19] I want to thank you, though. You've been here for the regular musician, you've stood up for us original artists, and you've really held up this part of the world to allow live music, and you're still doing it. Always will. Will you die with your boots on? I will. I will. I will retire, but I'm not going to fully retire, even though my wife would like that, I think.

[00:46:43] Aha! The one thing, I'll close with this, it's one of the things I say. When I'm doing an original music showcase or a songwriter night or whatever, I'll say how many Beatle fans? Oh, yeah, how many Zeppelin fans? Oh, yeah, how many Stones? Oh, yeah, and I say you realize that there would be no Zeppelin No Beatles, no Stones if they hadn't written original songs and somebody was there to support them Wow If you want to have another superstar band or even a mediocre good band that you like Because the day of superstars, I think, are over because of the media explosion.

[00:47:17] But if, if you want a band to have a career and you want to go out and buy their records, you want, if you're a Zeppelin fan, somebody had to be there when they were playing in the basement, in the garage. Right. The Stones, whoever, the Kings. Right. And if you don't support the original artists now, music will die when those artists die.

[00:47:38] That's very true. And I can hear the, uh, the National Weather Service. Yes. Up in the background in the radio studio. We have a big storm coming in. Big storm. But I like that, that, uh, you have to support live music. And that's one thing I tell my audience with Switchback. I always say, thank you. For supporting live music, because this is what gives it, this is all we have left in a lot of ways.

[00:48:03] So we'll, we'll pick this up again because, uh, there's, there's so much to talk to you about, and I hope you really do get some people talking to you and reaching out to you. All right. All right. Thank you. Much fun. Come to the record bin. And, uh, let me give you the tour and that's, uh, Tom lounges, record 18 main street, literally next to the art theater.

[00:48:25] And across from the post office, the two biggest buildings in town. You can't miss it. Well, how close are we to Elkhart right now? Um, um, it's a bit of a drive. Good. Well, that's where the storm is. So his place is sick. Yeah, it's a bit of a drive. Enjoy. Enjoy talking to you guys. And we'll, we'll pick you up later next week.

[00:48:45] for supporting Strung Out. Bye bye. Stay safe. Thank you for listening. For more information about this show or a transcript, visit martinmccormack. com. While there, sign up for our newsletter. See you next time on Strung Out.