For My Hardcore Fans: My Ultimate Album Experience! 1 hour 43 mins

http://JoshuaPWarren.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren in my studio in Las Vegas, Nevada, and this is going to be long. So don't even start listening unless that you've got some serious time to kill or you're extremely bored because this is something I'm producing for the hardcore fans of my music album that you can find on Spotify and elsewhere called I'm a Little Bit Weird. This is basically a short audiobook, and I'm going to actually play all the full songs for you. I'm going to play actually 12 songs or instrumentals for you in full that I created, and I'm going to tell you the story behind each piece of music. So this is the kind of thing that you want to listen to if you're prepared to really sit down and absorb yourself into it, maybe like on a long car ride or a plane flight or maybe a little every day when you're in the shower or something like that. But at the end, at the end, I will have a bonus song for you that I have never released. But I will tell you right now that this bonus song has some strong language. I mean R-rated. Well, like it's it's got the F word. That's it. So if you don't want to hear the F word, well then I will I will warn you again before I play that at the very end. But don't skip ahead, okay? You have to listen to this entire thing to make it there for your reward. But uh so yeah, aside from that last song, these are all pieces that I released in 2025 on my album. Uh uh like I said, it's on Spotify, it's in other places. So if you like these tracks and you just want to hear them back to back without me breaking them up and telling you the stories beforehand, well, you just go to one of those platforms and uh listen to them. And I you know what? I wish I could tell you I would get a nickel for that, but honestly, this is this is insane. Like most people would never guess this. When you have a song, say like on Spotify, and somebody streams it, how much money do you think the person who created it gets? Take a guess. You might say a penny. Oh, I wish. It's not even a penny. As a matter of fact, I just went to uh Google AI here. I said, How much money does the average person make? Blah blah blah. When you says artists generally earn between 0.003 cents and zero point zero zero five per stream. Not even a penny on Spotify. Uh says, of course, you know the exact amount varies based on factors. On average, that means that if you had one million streams of a song, and that's a lot, if you had a million jelly beans in front of you, you would probably be stunned what to see how many that uh jelly beans. If you you could have a million streams and you might make three or four thousand dollars. So uh playing music on the internet does not make you money, and uh that's why you have all these musicians and singers who have to go on tour constantly and grind themselves into the dirt because you you make more money off of live performances and ticket sales and merchandise. So this is not a moneymaker, uh, there's no doubt about that. And that's why I also want to explain that I make music as a hobby, and I do this for joy. Um I I started playing music really seriously when I was in middle school. My mom and dad actually when I was when I was uh uh younger than middle school age, my mom and dad um they knew I had interest in music and they bought me a guitar and they uh a big full-sized big man guitar, you know, and I was I don't know how old I was. I went out maybe like eight or nine or ten or something, and uh they got me lessons with this local guy who was there. I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, so he was an old old uh balladier there in Western North Carolina, real nice guy. And uh I went to his house and and he gave me a couple lessons, but I it just uh the guitar was too big and my fingers weren't fitting the instrument properly. And uh but that was my first brush with like trying to study music in that in that regard. And then when when my sister was born, she at one point said she was interested in playing the piano, and so my mom and dad got a piano for my sister, and she just you know kicked around on a piano for a day or two and lost interest. But I went down into the basement where the piano was and I started playing it, and uh it connected with me. And before you knew it, I mean I was able to start playing stuff like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and The Pink Panther and The Entertainer, and I mean it just it can't it kind of started falling into place for me, and then I started making up silly songs, and I would do this for fun. And by the time I was in my twenties growing up there in Asheville, which has a big bar scene, I mean, there were times when I would be offered uh positions to play music. Somebody'd hear me playing somewhere. For example, one time I was playing at uh when I was in college at UNCA, and uh there was a music instructor who just heard me messing around on the piano and came up and started saying, like, you could make money playing. Uh people would offer me jobs um playing in a in a saloon or whatever, and uh I considered it, but I never wanted to do it because I was afraid that it would turn this thing that I enjoyed into something that would bring me stress. Um taking money for this would uh would kind of taint the experience and you know being being on the clock and being criticized, and I just didn't want to ruin it because I I enjoyed it so much. And over the years, I mean I I have continued to do some things that are sort of semi-pro, I guess. I mean, I've composed some music for uh independent movies and and TV stuff, and I I compose bumper music for my podcasts and everything, but um I I'm not a professional musician at all. And so uh this is just something that I just have always done because I enjoyed it. It's it it gives me a lot of uh uh it's a it's a stress reliever, actually. And when the day comes when I decide to quote unquote retire, if that ever happens, probably what I'll do is just sit around and make music all the time. Um and I tell you that because that um this album is a compilation of many different pieces of music that I have uh written as well as songs over many, many years under different circumstances. I'm gonna tell you the story behind each one. That's why I say this is gonna be a long recording. And uh, yeah, some of them I did sing myself, actually. Uh I do a little bit of singing. I I don't kid myself, I'm not a good singer. I mean, uh I have my own little karaoke machine in my living room that I can do for fun. I've only sang karaoke in public twice, and I was extremely drunk both times. And I believe that that's how it's supposed to work. Uh but but I I I, you know, I'm not a singer, and so uh if I have a song that I think deserves a serious singer, then I will go out and I'll hire somebody to do it. And uh there are people out there, they're often called studio singers, they're guns for hire. You go out there, you pay them, and they uh they'll sing your song for you, and then once you get that recording, I mean you own it, you can go uh manipulate it on a computer, you can change the the pitch of that person's voice, or you can change the pace uh and then just kind of stick it in there. That's pretty common in the industry. So some of these songs uh I did sing, and I'll tell you which ones, and then in other cases, you know, I I hired somebody or or asked a friend or something like that uh to do the singing part, and that's why I call this the Joshua P. Warren Band. And I don't want to give the impression that I am the guy, you know, who's like Billy Joel who writes it and performs every bit of it. Um I do write all the music and lyrics. Everything you're gonna hear, I've written the music and the lyrics, but I don't always personally perform the music or sing the lyrics. Uh and I'll I'll tell you more about that as uh as we go on. So look, I have uh I have many more songs and pieces of music that I haven't released, and I will be composing more. So before we get started here, I I will just ask you this right up front. Um if you enjoy this kind of thing, go to my website, joshua pwarren.com. There's no period after the pee when you go to that website, joshua pwarren.com, and sign up on the homepage there for my free and spam-free e-newsletter, and that way I can uh email you directly and tell you when I have new stuff. And I give away a lot of stuff for free. As a matter of fact, if you sign up for my e-newsletter, you're going to um you're going to receive some free goodies immediately uh in an automated email there from me just just for signing up. So Joshua P. Warren.com. Okay, man. This is such this is like the beginning of the greatest adventure. You know that that's one of my uh I love that song. Glenn Yarborough, the Hobbit. The greatest adventure is why lies it. That's what I feel like right now, because I see all these songs in front of me. I'm like, okay, here we go. Here's the story. Um the first thing I'm gonna play for you is a song that I composed when I got back from dinner one evening. My wife, Lauren, and I. My wife is Lauren Warren. Everybody laughs about that because she married like the one guy in the world who has a name, a last name that rhymes with her first name. I always say she sounds like a superhero character, you know, like a Lois Lane or Lauren Warren and I. We went to Red Lobster one evening here in Las Vegas. And uh we we had a great time. And uh yeah, I I you know, I'm I'm starting to see a pattern here. I I think I had a few martinis that night, so I was feeling pretty loosey-goosey. And we got back home and we have a little chihuahua, and her name is Dolly. And Dolly is the sweetest little dog you've ever met, you could ever meet, but she is obsessed with food, which is actually kind of a positive thing, because y she you can train her to do anything, because she's just all she she's so food oriented, but and uh I often keep little turkey pepperonis in my refrigerator. That's that's my attempt at trying to be healthy. Uh well, they're not pepperonis, they're only turkey pepperonis. And uh boy, she loves those. And so every day, at least once a day, at some point, you know, she comes up and sh she gives me the old Jedi mind trick and she wants that pepperoni, and I give her a pepperoni. And of course, what dog doesn't like cheese? So after dinner that evening, we came back home. Lauren was upstairs, and uh, I go over to the refrigerator and I open it, and I turn to my left, and there's Dolly sitting there with steely eyes, just giving me that Jedi mind trick and thing, like, give me that pepperoni, dude. Give me that damn pepperoni. And so I look at her for a minute and I go, Would you like pepperoni? Or would you like some cheese? And then she sh her eyes shift and her ears move and say, Would you like pepperoni?

SPEAKER_06 13:20

Or would you like some cheese? Would you like pepperoni? Would you like some cheese? I can give you pepperoni.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Or I can give you some cheese. And all of a sudden, this stupid song pops into my head. And uh I take out a pepperoni, toss it into the air, this beautiful art, she leaps, snatches it right out of the air, and I walked upstairs, I went into my studio, I closed the door, I sat down, I came out a half hour later, and I said, Lauren, come downstairs and listen to this song I just made. And I played her this song that I have been some people, believe it or not, have said that they believe this song is genius. Now, I would not say that about myself, but some people have said that. Here it is. This is the song called Pepperoni.

SPEAKER_06 14:43

Would you like a pepperoni? Would you like some chicken? Uh, up. Would you like a pepperoni? Oh, would you like some? I can get a pepperoni. I can get pepper.

SPEAKER_07 15:16

Yeah, what's your road?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Now I could have made that song longer, but I think that was probably enough. Don't you? It's funny, I was thinking after I produced that, this would be perfect for some pizza company out there to use as an anthem. Maybe I can sell this to a pizza company, but so far nobody has come uh knocking on my door to to pr to promote their pizza with that song. But here is what does stand out for me. There is a lady who listens to all of my podcasts, and after I released this album, I'm a little bit weird, she uh emailed me and she said that she was taking her son to school, as she does every day, and she played that song and he loved it, and now every day just about when she's taking him to school, he says, Play the pepperoni song, play the pepperoni song. And I thought to myself, that that made the whole thing worthwhile. I don't care if I don't care if I ever make a penny from that song. It makes it worthwhile to me to know that there's at least one kid out there who goes to school and is just like play that pepperoni song for me uh in the morning uh on the way. So I don't know. That's uh that's the fun part. See, that's that's the joy of all this. Well, here the next track I'm gonna play for you uh is called Let It Fly. And if you followed my work, then you know that I am real big on manifestation techniques. I'm always looking for ways of taking your thoughts and trying to stay positive and optimistic and then to sort of magically project them and turn them into a uh a positive physical reality. Because, you know, like let's face it, I mean, life is tough. I mean, we know how the story ends, we know where we end up at the end of the story, and so along the way, you're looking for any edge you can get, any benefit that you can get to to manifest positive things. And if you sign up for my e newsletter there at joshuapeewarren.com, you'll you'll see the kinds of tools that I use to help me. And I have found, however, that of course one of the most powerful tools in the world is uh is music. Because when you listen to a piece of music, it it really does transform everything uh that you're experiencing. I mean, you you forget about things that were worrying you in some cases, or you know, you can listen to a wrong piece of music and it can remind you of all the stuff that sucks in life. So I try to stay away from that at this point. You know, I'm a middle-aged man, so I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't need to listen to sad songs. So I decided that I was going to try to compose something that I felt would uh lift my spirit and make me feel like I my imagination could soar and I could I could really just accomplish anything, something that would pump me up when I was about to do some type of a manifestation uh uh experiment or a ritual or anything in order to project something positive out there. So I sat down in my studio and I started messing around. I didn't know where it was going, and uh I created this piece of music which I listen to to this day as often as possible, but especially if I am about to try to project something really positive into the universe uh to manifest something positive and powerful, and that's why it's called Let It Fly. And here it is, you know. Now, along the same lines as Let It Fly, I also was thinking again about this idea of sort of taking what's in your mind as a vision and uh taking things that are negative and transforming them into something positive. Uh it kind of goes back to I I wrote a book called Use the Force, A Jedi's Guide to the Law of Attraction, which you can read as a free PDF in multiple languages if you go to joshuap.com. In that book, um, you know, one of the quotes I put in there was from um I can't remember who said it. It might have been Helen Keller, but basically the the the quote was like, Whenever you'll find that whenever one door closes, another opens. And so that's true. I mean, um I've always thought that things in life that bring you pain are actually positive. They're valuable for you. They're they're showing you what not to do. It's like having that candle flame there, and if you put your hand over the flame and you don't feel the burn, then it's gonna destroy your flesh. You feel the burn, and that's painful, and that tells you to pull away from it. So you learn from pain. Pain teaches you what not to do. And uh I believe there is a destiny for all of us and some kind of a fate, and uh you're gonna you're gonna get there one way or another, uh, via the carrot or the stick. And I prefer the carrot. But if you are going in the wrong direction, boy, that stick will beat your ass. And so um it's important to think about the idea of transformation, of taking something that you might think is is negative and then flipping it around and turning the lemon into lemonade, that kind of deal. Uh and that's what transforming is about. It's it's taking something that you may not like, and instead of just brushing it aside and ignoring it or hating it or letting it well up inside you and boil into this negative thing, you uh you you just look at it head on and you say, Well, what's the benefit of this? You know, what is this trying to teach me? How is this transforming me into a different direction? And I was thinking about that and I sat down, I was just messing around with beats and everything, and I came up with uh this piece of music. It's called transforming. I spent many, many years in Puerto Rico. I love the place, doing all kinds of research into well, the Bermuda triangle and the the Caribbean and the whole history there. I actually lived in Puerto Rico for a full five years. And uh I probably would still be living there if it weren't for some of the damage that the hurricanes do, and you know, it's just awful what what people go through when those hurricanes hurricanes rip through the Caribbean, and then also you know, it's kind of inconvenient to live on an island out there when you do what I do in terms of connectivity and all that, but uh I lived in a town called Bocaron, and if you know anything about Puerto Rico, well um San Juan is where everybody goes and it's in it's in the uh the I guess the northeastern corner, and I was sort of opposite of that. That's where I lived, on the southwestern corner. But uh there in San Juan, you know, you had some of these great cigar lounges where you'd sit around, smoke a cigar, have a little glass of fine rum, you'd have that warm Caribbean breeze flowing through there. You might step outside and hear the waves crashing in the distance. Man, I love that vibe. And uh so something about that, I don't know, that atmosphere is that brings me peace. And now that I live here in Las Vegas in the desert, you know, I miss I miss the uh aquatic uh maritime culture a lot. And one day I woke up and it was a Saturday and uh you know I went to the bathroom and I was just I don't know, I was like reminiscing, like, oh it would be it would be so nice right now to be in the Caribbean just chilling out, you know, doing that beach thing I did for so many years, and then this this music just sort of floated into my head, and I immediately I thought is uh is this something I've heard before? Or did did I just create it? I didn't know. But I went into my studio and uh I composed this piece of music. And you know, these days when you compose a piece of music, you have access to all this technology, so you can go in and you can get beats and and loops and samples and you can, you know, play with all that stuff in addition to adding your own original things. But one thing about this song, I believe this piece of music is the only piece of music on this entire album. Um yeah, I mean I I might be wrong, but it's it's the only piece of music I can think of right now where I actually created every single thing that you hear. Uh I manually did the beats, I did all the music, um it was I put my fingers into every single note, and I'm actually surprised that it turned out uh sounding as as smooth as it did. Uh it was difficult. And uh one of my friends who is a far better musician than I, he listened to it and he said, This is a really intriguing piece of music because he said it sounds so simple, but if you really listen to it, it's it's very complex. There are a lot of layers and there's a lot going on there. And um I think that sort of you know sums up how I feel about the mood I was trying to capture that um you know was taking me back in time to uh an environment, an atmosphere where things kind of seemed simple and relaxing, but there was a lot happening behind the scenes, deeper layers under the water, I guess. So anyway, that was a Saturday, and uh that's when I composed this song, and it's called Easy Saturday. Actually, I I keep saying song, I shouldn't say that, it's a habit, because some of these are songs and some are pieces of music. This is a piece of music, an instrumental, and it's called Easy Saturday. Here we go. But back to reality. Of course, I uh I've already talked about our little chihuahua named Dolly. And you know, Dolly's she's funny. All chihuahuas are funny. I uh maybe I shouldn't say that. I I have seen some chihuahuas on television that look downright scary. But Dolly, and we we get her DNA and everything, she's a full-blown chihuahua, and um she's a very sweet dog. Uh and she's but she's a she doesn't like other dogs. Um and she but she's a she she's a good protector, you know. If somebody comes to the door, she goes nuts, but everybody loves her, and they're always every time Lauren uh takes her to the groomers or whatever, they always talk about how much they like Dolly. And Dolly not only is she real sweet and gentle, and uh and very respective of boundaries. Uh like for example, I mean, I'm I I have seen her and I'm sure a lot of dogs are like this, like go right up to some food that I'm gonna eat, and she knows that's my food, and she doesn't mess with it. But what's what one thing that's funny about her is that her uh her tongue sticks out half the time. And so uh that's that's a charming feature and a pet. And so she you can imagine this little like light brown, chubby chihuahua with with her tongue sticking out, and she looks uh silly and funny, and she's very sweet, and everybody loves her. And so I thought, well, maybe I should do a song here I go again. Maybe I should do a piece of music that uh would be uh a funny compliment to her personality, that like a badass piece of music. And uh they don't do it too much anymore, but you may remember there was a time on TV shows, these reality shows especially, where they would have these um shots where a person would have something like a GoPro camera on a on a helmet, and the GoPro camera would be pointed at the person, and then the person was usually running around doing something frantic, you know, they're they're rafting or they're repelling or whatever the hell they're doing. And so so the the person's face is uh always in the center, but the world around it seems all warped and kind of chaotic, and uh for some reason I I just had this vision in my mind one day. Uh I saw her running around the house and rooting around looking for food and stuff, and uh because that's just what you know, I got like I say, she's she loves food. Uh and and so I was thinking it would be funny if you had like a little dog cam that was on her head that was pointed at her, and you could sort of see her running around, like leave a trail of pepperonis or something like that. And uh I know this is getting pretty crazy what I'm saying, but uh uh use your imagination, all right. So I had this I envision like this shot of this silly dog like running around motivated and this music playing in the background that uh does not really match the personality of the dog, but somehow exemplifies the uh the motivation of the dog. And so I made this piece of music called Dolly, I think. Well, there you go. Have you had enough? Have you had enough? You've been listening for a long time now. So if you've had enough, I don't blame you. But there is still more to come. And in fact, I am going to be singing in the next two songs. Um when I was in high school, I uh I was, you know, I was kind of I was always joking around. I was kind of a class clown kind of guy, and you know, I I got along well with people and it whenever there was a piano around, I would jump on it and I would uh knock out some kind of uh a little funny tune that I had created in my basement at my house. And so uh there were a lot of people who kind of knew me as I was similar to the the weird Al Yankovic of the high school because I could just sit down and play these songs that were funny. Uh some that I uh created and some uh some that I didn't create. This is one that I created though. I've always uh had this fascination with uh with the water, you know. Uh that's one of the reasons that I moved to obviously Puerto Rico, and and so that's why I miss being around the I mean I I the there's a there are a lot of benefits to living here in the desert in Las Vegas, but I definitely get to the point sometimes where I'm like, I miss some water, I need to go back and hang out with you know on the beach. I need some beach time. And uh I became a certified scuba diver when I was 19 years old. And I just I don't know. I was just well, I'm I'm a Scorpio and I don't know if you believe in astrology or not, but that's a water sign, so maybe it has something to do with that. But uh I just always liked like Popeye and just the whole idea of the the maritime culture. And so uh I don't know, at some point I sat down, I was messing around on the piano, and I came up with something called the Sailor Song. And this was just something that I only played for fun, just like most of my stuff. And then years ago, I gosh, I don't know what year this was. I could sit down and research it, but I'm not gonna do the years ago um well I I created a paranormal investigation team called Lemur, L-E-M-U-R. It stands for the League of Energy Materialization and Unexplained Phenomena Research. And we were very, very active for many years. We were on lots of TV shows. And technically the organization still exists. Uh I I never uh called it quits, but uh as time went on, uh, you know, all the members we just we grew up and we we got you know we we we became adults and started adulting and we all moved to different places and and it just sort of we naturally uh dissolved. But there was a time when we needed to buy some expensive uh investigation instruments and uh uh we were trying to figure out how to get the money for it, and uh just about everybody uh in the team had some kind of musical talent. And so uh we said, hey, why don't we uh do a concert? We'll do a concert to raise money to buy instruments, and uh that was especially helpful because uh two of my cousins, Micah Hanks and Caleb Hanks, are uh extremely talented musicians and singers, and they were uh experienced when it came to like setting up local gigs and everything in Western North Carolina. So we went to uh a place uh uh in Asheville called the Grey Eagle, and one night we did a concert and we uh we actually we spent at least a couple months like doing band practice. I mean, like this is the only time I've ever actually done that kind of thing, and it was fun. And uh we we went to uh the Great Eagle and we had uh a packed out crowd and we did like a legitimate two-hour concert, and some of the stuff we did was covers, but then we tossed in some of my originals, and uh here is me uh sitting there on the stage playing the piano and singing the song that I wrote. Uh so this is all me. Uh this is called the Sailor Song.

SPEAKER_03 49:04

This is his first concert, so I want you guys to be extra receptive to Warren. Treat him like he's your first kids. I tell you what, Josh, that was so good.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

You know, we're gonna let you go ahead and sing another one, man.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Well, you know, folks, earlier in the night I mentioned that I am immune to the effects of beer. That is because I went on a paranormal cruise in 2004 and drank 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We went down through the Bermuda Triangle. We went to uh the Bahamas and investigated pirate torture chambers. And you know, when you're out there drinking every day, you don't know eventually if you're drunk or if the ship is just moving into a storm front. Chances are you're drunk. But uh I love it. That's the life for me.

SPEAKER_09 49:53

Being out there on the sea. Scarvy, all blue sky, blue water, that's salty air, seagulls, lighthouses. Ah the life at the sea, the life of the ocean. That's the life for me. I like it so much that I wrote this little ditty here. It's called Sailor Song. I hope you like it. Now you really have to be drunk to sing it. And you need to be even drunker to really listen to it, so I hope you'll you'll work that out on your own. I'm an old sailor! This is my song, saltwater's behave, and the sea is my home. I know it's about fighting, I know it's about fish, I know it's about women, I know which is which. Have to understand what happens to a man when he gets the ocean in his blood, and he has to leave the land. I'm a sailor, and the tide rolls up, and the tide rolls down, and the tide rolls up again, and my face turns a shade of green, and I think I'll hurl me gin. And I breathe in deep that ocean, air and I hear them shigos cry. And I look back up with the sailor's grin, and I toss that sailor's sky. I'm an old sailor, this is my song, so water's behaving. The sea is my home. I know it's about scurvy, I know it's a VD, and old diarrhea's no stranger to me. A shark took me leg and a go, took me high and I lost both people, sword caught me five, but you know, and you know, and you're a sailor, you're a sailor, I'm a sailor. Yes, you know, and you know, you're a sailor, you're a sailor I'm a sailor I'm a sailor thought I was in a Billy Joe concert Oh man Alright, so that was from the Lemur concert at the Grey Eagle, that one night only historic event.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

But I also played and sang another song that night that I wrote when I was a teenager. When I grew up in western North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I grew up on a little farm with all kinds of stuff. Uh you had you know, horse and goats and chickens and ducks and rabbits and um but I always was fascinated by monkeys and uh you know I never really got to I never got exposed to monkeys in person unless you went to a zoo and uh I guess that's how you know I I think most people in our country uh would say that. But I always thought monkeys were funny and fascinating. And uh there was a time in my life when I I thought like, man, if I had a million dollars, I'd I'd buy a monkey and a gyrocopter, you know. Now I realize that I wouldn't want to own a monkey. That's that's an incredible responsibility, but and uh I've I've had some pretty cool experiences uh where I got to see monkeys in the wild. I mean, uh one time I was on a boat going down this river and uh Belize and Central America and there were wild monkeys swinging around and um I don't know. I just monkeys are I will always think monkeys uh are are funny until one does something terrible to me. Uh and I wrote this song just because I was sitting around just being silly by myself, um with the piano. If you if you give me uh a piano and you leave me alone for an hour, it's dangerous. You don't know what's gonna happen. And so uh I wrote this song, which is silly, and uh when uh the the song when I really get going on this, it the the the sound is so explosive that the people at the Great Eagle who were recording it were not prepared. And so it actually gets really hot at one point, meaning that the like the volume gets too high and so um it it's a little bit distorted. But that that should give you an idea of just how how hard we hit the highlights on the song when we really got into it. It's called Glorious Monkeys. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

Request, please. No, no, no, no, Josh. I request Josh, you sing one, man. Yo, please. Sing that Josh place. Have a fan out there. Come on, people, you can laugh.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

A little bit louder than that. Earlier in the night I mentioned the monkey nuts up at the front. That's the uh the place.

SPEAKER_09 55:57

Monkey nuts? Why would I like sing You are a perverted sick twisted man?

SPEAKER_02 56:05

It's the company we keep, ladies and gentlemen. Please feel free to get up and come up to the front of the stage and stand and jump up and down. Please go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

I was a lawyer before I met these guys. Well, you know. I wrote that song, the uh Sailor Song. And thank you.

SPEAKER_09 56:22

I got another little ditty hair I wrote. It's called Glorious Monkeys.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

And people always say, Warren, how on earth did you come up with this song Glorious Monkeys? Well, you know, I've lived here in Asheville my whole life. And so you can imagine my shock when one day I went into my living room and there was a uh a monkey that had broken into my house. It's a true story. This is a I would not make this up. You can imagine my shock. It was it was really going well, ape shit, frankly. I know. I know that's bad. I know that's bad. You rascal. We just couldn't do a G-rated show could be. No, but you're talking about monkeys breaking into people's houses. Well, anyway. I said, damn you monkey! You're tearing up my furniture. It was running around, bouncing off the walls, sealing the floor. I finally chased him outside. Again, true story. And when I got outside, I was absolutely so stunned I almost soiled myself. Well, maybe I did, but I'm not gonna say that on stage. I looked up in the trees, and I'm telling you, from tree to tree, bushes to the ground, everywhere I look was nothing but it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Yet we all wrote our own little parts to it, so I'm not sure if this is a nightmare, but we're we're gonna be. You will always remember Glorious Monkeys, though, I guarantee it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

They're glorious, shall we boys?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Well, that was fun now, wasn't it? Uh here in Vegas, uh yeah, you have all the lights and the glamour and the glitter and and such, but if you drive thirty minutes from the Vegas strip, there is a little town called Boulder City. And Boulder City was created to house the workers who made the Hoover Dam. It was at that time called the Boulder Dam. And Boulder City is a very interesting place because that uh they don't allow gambling there. And uh I don't even think they let people drink there until like the 1960s or something like that. It's a very quaint, charming, beautiful little town. It's the kind of place where you could literally film a Hallmark movie. And I have a tour there called the Haunted Boulder City Ghost and UFO Tour. And uh very easy walk, nice flat ground, and um it's it's it's it it's popular. I mean, you know, people come from all over the world to to Las Vegas, and a lot of them make that 30-minute uh trip out to Boulder City, not only to just kind of like see something different, especially if you're gonna go visit the Hoover Dam. I mean, it's you you gotta go to Boulder City. Um but when you go on this tour, I mean, you hear stories that even that shocks people who have lived there forever, you know. People who literally live there their entire lives, they take the tour and they go, like, I never I never knew this stuff. And they sometimes they think that I've been making stuff up for the tour, but uh then they research it, they're like, I'll be darned. So hauntedbouldercity.com is uh where you can go if you want to take that tour. But uh it's funny because one night I'm a very vivid dreamer, and one night I had this dream that I was in a park there at Boulder City, and it was there was like a festival going on and all these people were enjoying themselves, and there was a band on a little temporary stage, and they started playing this song called Boulder City Life about sort of like the the experience of being one of those guys who came there to build the dam. And I I dreamed this, and at one point I woke up and and the song was so clear that uh I do have a little audio recorder that I keep next to my bed as often as possible. And uh I even took my audio recorder and I I I I hummed a little bit of it into the audio recorder so I wouldn't forget it. And then the next day I got up and I listened to it, and it was one of those things where I was like, is this something I've heard before? Or did where did this come from? And you know, it turns out, you know, this is just something that came out of came out of the ether. I don't know how that happens. That's why I believe that humans are much more than meets the eye. We are mentally connected to some other spiritual source. And uh the song just came to me, and I sat down and the music was definitely there, and then I I wrote the lyrics. The lyrics are kind of funny because they're I don't know if you call them Easter eggs or not, but there's some stuff that's kind of like stuck into the music that wouldn't necessarily make sense to the average person. Like, for example, Howard Hughes used to stay at uh one of the hotels there and uh you know, Howard Hughes was um he was uh neurotic, I guess you could say, and one of the things that he would do was uh urinate and uh like mason jars and put 'em outside to be disposed. I he didn't like to use a toilet for some reason. My wife uh cracks on me when I say toilet. I guess I say toilet and I I I suppose sh it's supposed to be toilet. I toy at it. I toil it. I toy at it. And so uh there's a line in there where it says every day some yeller juice would appear outside his door. And uh most people would probably hear that and not have any idea what the heck I'm talking about, or even give a shit. But um that is uh that's the kind of like nuance that I was going for when I wrote this song. And uh the f the crazy thing is I put this song out there uh I hired a singer to do it, and then I put it out uh at first as a local contest, and I said, here's an example of this song. Um send me uh a submission if you want to do a cover of this and you'll win a prize. I didn't get a single submission. I got contacted by one guy and he says, This version's so good, there's no need to do to do another version. So I don't know, I had all these nice prizes that nobody got. But um the thing that shocked me the most, however, was one day I got a call from the uh history museum there in Boulder City, and the lady said that she loved the song so much that they were gonna go build a a whole new exhibit in the history museum there and have an animatronic. Figure. A full-body animatronic figure sitting there in a rocking chair with a banjo singing this song in the museum for visitors to enjoy. And it it worked out great because uh Boulder City is where the Zoltar machines are made. You know, like Zoltar, the fortune-telling machine that you've probably seen all over this country? Well, every single one of them comes from Boulder City, Nevada, uh, from a company called Characters Unlimited. And I actually had the honor of going over to their factory and having the owner take me on a tour and show me all around and tell me everything about how they make them. That's actually uh I I turned it into an ep one of the episodes for my podcast. Um so they have this amazing animatronic factory there, and so they uh they took advantage of that and they have turned this song that you're about to hear into a song that is performed by this animatronic figure in the museum uh along with all the pictures of all the the workers and he's you know the the the the animatronic, he's sitting there rocking back and forth, strumming that banjo, singing this song, and uh there's a sign that has the lyrics next to it. Um and even though I didn't do the singing, they did ask me if I would record the words that he was saying, because in the beginning he he has a little introduction, so my voice is actually coming out of an animatronic figure, and it's all because of the song that you're about to hear.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

It is called Boulder City Life Roy came from Tancy in 1931. He took Svidel and he sat in the middle of a train that barely ran. Uncle Samson built stamp for six cents in food. He camped in the desert, he sweated in the weather, but he kept a cheerful mood. They dynamite explosions then killed some of the best, but he all the rocks and ragbox and laid into the risk. The knots were hard on dirty cards, and they couldn't have no beer. But stuff gives a little while, Roy Flix fiddled and made it through the years. When Uncle Sam said, see the damn it turns up if you like. Over a saddle, trust more of the city life Roy's buddy, got a job at a hotel in the town. And then he hide a road on dragon baggage up and down. Frank Sun showed up one day, splitting with his pride. He slap Roy's 20 and said there's plenty if he helped me try and hide. Then how are you gonna wear no shoes today? Because he's poor. And every day some yellow juice will appear outside his door. The knots are called on dirty cots and they couldn't have no beer. Sunkin' a little while, Roy Fixville, and they made it through the years. When Roy's job went to the mob and they told him, take a hive. Roy said, I'll try some more. People smiled for photos at the dance great engineering, and ice cream shops and candy stores spoke in the public. Because everyone wants pictures of the wing picture of the public. Yeah, you tried around that. Now I'd been in town since 1935, and Roy had his eye on her, but she was awful shy. He asked her if she'd go with him out to see the dam. They ate some cheese and crackers there in California, ham. The sun was purple on the rocks, the breeze was warm and calming. They sucked a little while, Roy plays filled until the sun was dawn. Roy said it's paradise and she became his wife. He knew that he was here to stay in his older city life. Yeah, Roy said it's paradise, and she became his wife. He knew that he was here to stay in his older city life.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

When I was in middle school, I was part of the strings program, the school symphony orchestra, and my uh primary instrument was the viola. And I really wasn't that good at it. Uh I mean I was okay, but there were people a lot better than me. And I also could play a little bit on the uh violin. Even though if you're a music person, you know there's a different uh clef and it's a different type of uh way of reading music and all that. Um but uh I bring that up because in the in the Boulder City song, I wanted to have that fiddle part in there. And so um it's played with I think it's called double stops, where you you have you know uh multiple strings creating that harmonic sound. And I actually hired a lady just to play that fiddle part on the song, and and she just nailed it. She did exactly what I what I wanted her to do. And that's it's it's just it's so fun to come up with an idea like that and then contact a real musician and have them come back around and and give you what you are hearing, you know, in in your mind. And uh when it comes to this next song, this is an example of one of those one of these like weird twists of fate. Um as a paranormal investigator uh I was working at uh at uh uh also as a host at a radio station, and there was a famous country singer who uh came to Asheville and it was around Halloween time, and they were doing some kind of a promotional tour for her, and they said, Hey, let's uh have somebody take her on a ghost hunt. And so they came to me and they asked me if I would take this country singer on a ghost hunt, and I said, sure. So I arranged a ghost hunt at a haunted house and it went great, and she was a really wonderful, nice, sweet person, and uh I I could I'm sure she'd be okay if I gave her a name, but I won't. Uh and then I came I became friends with her uh her producer and uh even though I'd met him as as a ghost hunter radio guy, I mean he kinda I told I told him that I would do I did music a little bit here and there, and so he kind of left that door open, like, well hey, send me any ideas that you have. I'm sure he was just being nice. Well, once I moved to Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is um it's connected via these or at least when I was there, uh these very uh rugged, poorly kept, winding roads with a lot of potholes and stuff that just kind of like cut through the jungle all over the place until you get to a major roadway. And one day Lauren and I were in this rural part of Puerto Rico, we'd be driving on some back road. It was like an hour uh drive to get to where we were going. It was a nice, beautiful, sunny day though, but we were in a particular place where I mean it was kind of the middle of nowhere. And uh at one point I looked over and not far from the road there was a a little bit rawny ordering and he was sitting at the base of this tree and he was drinking a medallia, which is the flag of the beer in Puerto Rico, and it comes in this kind of light copper-colored ham. Everybody drinks a medallion, you get them for a buffer. Medallia light. I think I they call it I think it's called medallion, but I don't think there's just a regular medallion. I think they're all medalli. So here's this guy sitting at the base of this tree, and again, I probably saw this guy less than ten seconds as we were going down the road. I don't remember if I was driving or Lauren was driving, but if we're going down the road and I just look over and I was surprised to just see this guy in the middle of nowhere, and he had this look on his face just crestfallen, like he was having a bad day. I don't know if it was the worst day of his life, but he was having a bad day. And he was just sitting there with that beer, and I can see him right now as I uh reflect on this. And I don't even think Lauren saw him. But I said to Lauren something along the lines of that guy, where did he come from? He looks like he's having a bad day, he has a salary pressure, but at least he's drinking a beer. And then right after I said that I thought to myself, a really bad day is if you're not even drinking a beer. Like, that's even worse. Whatever a day he's having, at least he's drinking a beer. But what if he's not even drinking a beer? And then voila, this song pops into my head, and I was like, that could be a country song, not even drinking a beer. And I bet that music producer guy from Nashville might be interested in this. And so when I finally made it back to my house, uh, I think it was a couple days later, um, I sat down and I was like, I'm gonna turn this into a country song from the Blue Ridge Parkway and North Carolina where and so I uh I wrote this song, I hired a guy to sing it, I sent it to the producer guy in Nashville, and um nothing happened. So that's how it goes. But now at least we can all enjoy the inspiration from this lonely man with his medallion beer in Puerto Rico. I don't know who he was, but he probably he would he would have no idea that I, the great and terrible Joshua P. Warren, am sitting here talking about the eight seconds or whatever that I saw him on the side of the road and the uh chain reaction that created. So here is the song that I wrote because of that experience, and it is called Not Even Drinking a Beer.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:40

I thought that she planned my birthday bash. I took a long shower, even shape my mustache. But when I got home, there's a new lock on the door. My guitar's on the lawn, and she don't love me no more. A sick monster heart, she said what's the point? Cause I flirted with the cash, you're at the barbecue joint. So now I'm just sitting here. Not even drinking a beer. It's awful sad to be here. Not even drinking a beer. I visited on the old parkway. What the meat put nothing means that I should live this way. I picked up my daddy's guitar. All I could see was her eyes and every star. I sang alone about the night that we met. I lost a woman with a smile. Like the sun set. So now I'm just sitting here. Not even drinking a beer. I've lost everything so dear. I'm not even drinking a beer. I've never been good with words, but I danced just to make her laugh. Together we cried, we asked ourselves why this whole world can sometimes be so mad. So mad at the yard when she got home from work. She might think that I had gone dessert. Or she could speak. I played her myself. Romps I would never ever treat her so wrong. I sing about things I would do. Finally saying how deep. How did the other So now we're just sitting here? And we are drinking a beer. We toast a cats with a cheer. And now we're drinking a And now we're sharing up. I've never had such a damn beer.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:46

How cheesy was that, huh? But you have to admit it had a bit of charm, right? I mean I I'm still hoping that Garth Brooks will ring me up one day and and want to do a version of that. But uh you know it's funny, when you make these these songs like I do just for fun, and you don't have you know anybody looking over your shoulder, you you don't really have any expectations coming from it, and you're just doing it because that's your your hobby. Um sometimes I I come up with an idea for a song and I put it out there, and then somebody will listen to it and uh take it literally, and they'll be like, Oh, are you having problems with your marriage or whatever? I'm like, What? Well, you just wrote a song about a guy, you know, he's breaking and and this next song is is uh an example of that uh because when I was living in Puerto Rico, I was living in this little town called Boca Rome, which is uh in English that is uh anchovy because apparently at one point this was a big fishing village. It was like a Popeye village, and all these fishermen would go out and they'd fish for anchovies, I guess. But um they were they got fished out long ago. And so uh I I decided at some point I was gonna write a song about Bocaron since I was living there, and nobody'd ever written a song about Bocaron. And so I sat around and I was like, Well what rhymes with Bocqueron? What rhymes with Boca and I'm going down the list because that's the first thing you do sometimes, I guess. Excuse me, at least I do as a as a songwriter. You say, Well, what rhymes and uh Boca Roan and Alone uh seemed like a nice fit, and so I was like, Okay, well, how about a story about this guy who is in Bocaron and he's trying to get a girl and uh then uh you know she breaks up with him. I mean, like you know, there's only like a handful of plot lines in life, and so he says, Hey, I'm gonna go out and just party and I'm gonna find a new lady or whatever, and then uh so uh it's like just another night alone in Bocaron. I mean, that made sense to me. I was like, Oh, that sounds good. So I write this song that you're about to hear called Bokaron about this guy who's talking about you know his woman dumping him or whatever, and he's going out trying to find another lady, and then uh and then I of course I start getting the messages. Is everything okay between you and Lauren? People take it literally, and I say, Well, yeah, uh maybe some people can only literally write what's happening in their lives, but I'm not one of them. I have a big imagination. I've written novels, and you know, I can I can imagine uh uh circumstances that have nothing to do with what I'm experiencing. So yeah, uh I I I just I've always thought that was funny that like you can put a work of fiction out there, whether it's a a a song or or a novel or a movie or whatever you're creating, and there there will be people who think that you are uh being sort of autobiographical in a way, but um that's not the case for me. I mean, I guess maybe ever maybe everything is somewhat autobiographical. How can you can't step outside of your own skin, so I guess to some degree you can only work with what you have in your past experiences. But I always thought that was funny that people would think that when I was uh making this song I was talking about my own life. But no, I was just imagining this other dude. And um I mentioned before that Caleb Hanks, my cousin, is a very talented musician, a great singer, and uh I contacted him and I said, uh, will you uh perform this song? Well and perform this and record it. And uh he was delighted to do it, and he did a great job. And this could be done in many different styles. This is the style that he chose to do it in, but it could be done in lots of different styles. So here is uh Caleb Hanks singing the song that I wrote. I wrote the music and the lyrics as I did with all these things, and it is called Boca Rome.

SPEAKER_11 1:25:30

And alone we begin it this time doing my best and what I done to hide the light, it's gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:01

Okay, this next piece of music I'm gonna play for you is the last piece of music from my album called I'm a Little Bit Weird, and then after that, I am going to play my bonus song for you that is R-rated, that has the F word in it. So I'm giving you plenty of warning and notice. If you don't want to hear that, I've never released this song before, but um it's that's my big finish. That's my big grand finale. But uh stick around for that if you're that kind of person. This uh piece of music, however, is is short and I um I played it on the ukulele. I've never been to Hawaii. Uh you know, I live here again in in Nevada, so I mean I'm pretty much on the west coast, and but still, I mean it's a long plane flight out there to Hawaii, and I imagine I'll make it out there one of these days. And it's funny to me how that um cultures sort of uh spread their traditions and I was looking it up like why why is a ukulele a Hawaiian thing? And I say it's because uh see AI says the ukulele is considered Hawaiian because although its ancestors were brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants, it was modified, named, and popularized within the islands to become a central symbol of Hawaiian music and culture. So apparently in the eighteen eighties there were immigrants from uh Portuguese immigrants from Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, and they brought these little small guitar-like instruments to Hawaii. And um that's where it all came from. So it's it was a European tradition that got spread to Hawaii, and now we we think of ukuleles being associated with Hawaiian music. It's funny how that kind of stuff works out, isn't it? But uh I I love ukuleles. Uh you know, it's funny how I was mentioning earlier that when I was a kid uh my hands were too small for a full-size guitar, and now that I'm a big grown man, uh sometimes it's a little hard to play a little ukulele, but they're fun to play. And so uh so sometimes I'll break out of ukulele and just strum around and be silly with it. And so um this is a little tune I came up with on the ukulele and uh there's not much to it really. I just call it uh Hawaiian style. It's uh I don't know, it's one of those things that I don't know, might make you feel a little bit peaceful. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and listen to Hawaiian style. Enchanting musical journey. And now it is time for the big uh climax. And uh I'm gonna tell you again right now, I'm about to play a song for you that contains the F word. So uh now would be the time to uh stop listening to this this production if you are offended by that. And I uh you know it's uh everybody is so damn sensitive these days. And I don't know, I'm uh maybe I'm just getting to be a grumpy old man, but I what I most of my life people were not as sensitive as they are. And um everybody again, they people take things literally, it seems like there's less of a sense of humor out there. And um I watched an interview one time with the guys who make uh South Park and uh the interviewer said, Is there anything that you want make fun of? And they said, Nope. And I I I can't say that I would go that far. Uh I mean I if I if i I I I I do believe there are boundaries, but um I will make fun of a lot of stuff and uh m much more than maybe today's young people will will make fun of. I don't know why young people are so sensitive now. What what happened? Well anyway my wife uh Lauren and I, we uh we watch all these true crime shows all the time. I bet you're that kind of a person. Uh that's why they're so popular. I've always been interested in true crime, and I don't know, I guess it's it's just so unbelievable what these siccos do and you can't wrap your mind around it. And in uh in 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested. And it turns out that he uh he became famous for not only being a a serial killer, but also uh a cannibal. And so he would he would uh he would get a hold of a man and eat him. And now look, there's nothing there's nothing funny about uh killing a man and eating him. Actually, they're kinda well, you know what? There actually is a little bit there is something kind of funny about it. People started making jokes like you know, uh what does Jeffrey Dahmer call a man running down the street? Uh fast food. Or um Jeffrey Dahmer was eating five guys before it was a thing. I mean, like we there's this whole there's a whole thing about uh Jeffrey Dahmer jokes, and you know, I I think uh maybe enough time has passed. I if you uh if you knew if you uh knew somebody who was killed and eaten by Jeffrey Dahmer, then you definitely do not want to continue listening to this. So I'm sorry for you. But um there we have to laugh sometimes at the absurdity of life, at how ridiculous uh uh things are, how insane uh things are. I mean, again, we're all gonna die, so we know how that goes. And if it brings you any solace, well at least Jeffrey Dahmer ended up being murdered himself. So I presume he got to feel for some period of time what it was like to be on the on the other end of things. I uh I was sitting around one day and I was I don't know what I was doing, I was reading something or watching something about Jeffrey Dahmer, and and uh I thought, man, this guy would fuck them and eat 'em. He would fuck 'em and eat 'em. And uh and there you go. The creative process kicks in, and I came up with this song. It just ball occurred to me. And I sat down at the piano, and here it is, I'm just singing it. It's just me sitting at the piano, and I sang this song, and it's called Fuck Em And Eat Em. There once was a fella named Jeff. I say he was a pretty good chef. Go to the bar at night. Then he find a fella he likes then he fucking leaders. All right. Wow, you have made it to the end. How did you like that song as the big finish? That is the extra bonus R-rated song. Good for you. You should you should feel good about yourself if you made it through that. Well, I guess to summarize everything, uh again, this has been it's been a long, magical, enchanting, charming musical journey. And um so at this point, here's what you can do for me, all right? You've you've listened to this for free. You haven't put out a penny. As a matter of fact, I put out money just to post this thing. So uh go to joshuapwarren.com. Click the link to the Curiosity Shop, buy something cool there for yourself or a loved one. But most importantly, on the home page, please sign up for my free and spam-free e-newsletter, and uh that way you will not only receive some incident-free gifts from me, but you will also be able to uh get access to more music and more fun and weird uh things like this that I will continue producing the rest of my life, I guess. Uh all that and more at joshua pwarren.com. And uh you know, think about this. Like I say, you haven't paid anything for this, you didn't have to sign up for it. I'm not that kind of a guy. I don't I don't like make life hard for you. So if you've enjoyed this, please send a link to uh a friend who also might enjoy this kind of thing. And uh but that just kind of that helps the momentum and that helps keep me going. So I hope you've had fun. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious. I'm Josh Whippy Warren, and until next time.