Steve Sciulli - Botanical Bioneer

Musician and composer Steve Sciulli chills back with Papamutes and explains his new form of bio-communicative music, a collaboration with living plants as they respond to the flow of information and changes in their environment.
From his early days in the band Carsickness to his current "Singing Life of Plants" relaxation and meditation audio vibes. Steve tells Papamutes how it all came about, and with the right frame of mind we too can experience the "Singing Life of Plants." So, chug a beer, hug a plant and listen in.

Transcript

Speaker 1:

You're listening to Unmuted with Papamutes.

Papamutes:

Welcome to Papamutes everybody. Today's guest on the Papamutes Podcast is Steve Sciulli. Steve is an accomplished musician and composer. Steve has been playing music all over the country for more than four decades. He's old as crust. Steve is so old he took his driver's license test on a dinosaur. I could say that because Steve is a friend of mine from the old neighborhood, a wonderful place called Bloomfield in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Steve is on the podcast today to talk about his botanical musical compositions. Incorporating his music and association with live sounds generated by plants. That's right, plants. Don't touch that dial. You want to stay tuned in for this one or tuned up, whatever works for you. All joking aside, Steve is a great guy, a talented musician, and I'm happy to have him on the podcast. Steve, welcome to Papamutes.

Steve:

Oh, it's great to be here on a Sunday early afternoon.

Papamutes:

It's a beautiful day. What's the weather there? It's cold here, about 35.

Steve:

Oh, it's actually quite beautiful outside. The snow sparkles and the dog loves it, and there's quiet all around. So, the winter is a nice blanket of silence.

Papamutes:

Now you're just outside of Pittsburgh, right? Or you're-

Steve:

That's correct. Up north.

Papamutes:

So what is a botanical musician in your description?

Steve:

It's a work that I made up because I needed some descriptive sentence when I sent people various things for bookings. But basically, lately I've been trying to collaborate with other species, inner species collaboration, one way to do that is with plants. So early on about six or seven years ago, I've came up with a... I found a group of people who are able to develop a device that would read the electronic or the electrical signals that are generated naturally on all living things, including plants. And these devices would measure the electrical signals as they move through the leaves and down through the roots, connecting a current and turn these electrical signals into MIDI musical instrument digital interface for musical instruments to understand. So from there I can give them voices, the plants give me the signal and I give them the voice in which to sing.

Steve:

But what I found out after early experimentation was that it's a true collaboration because whatever the plants were playing, I would pick up a flute or an instrument, a synthesizer or whatever instrument I had lying around, and I would perform with them. And I found that the plants were actually listening and offering harmonies, offering space. I would offer the plant some space to develop motifs for themes. And then I would accompany it and the plant would come back with a harmony to whatever I was playing or if they wanted to take a lead line, I would become familiar enough with its little signals that it wanted to take a solo. So a botanical musician is two things. One that plays music with plants, or the plant itself as it's playing the music.

Papamutes:

So what are you attaching to the plants?

Steve:

Well-

Papamutes:

What are you coming out of and what are you attaching to the actual plant?

Steve:

Well, I have several devices. The one I was trying to get to work today, it comes from an experimental community, Domifar in Italy. They've been developing plant sensors since the 1970s. I have others that come from California and others that come from Philadelphia, but this was the one I was going to use today, but the plants aren't speaking. So basically, I don't know if you could see this or not, but I'll pull these out. And this goes into the root of the plant, touches the root and the clip touches the leaf.

Papamutes:

Like a prong for people who are listening, not seeing it.

Steve:

It is. Yeah, it is.

Papamutes:

Like a prong. Okay.

Steve:

In other devices use little sticky pads that go directly on the leaves, so it all depends on the device. But the interesting thing of course, is manipulating the sound and listening to the harmonics and listening to the little subtle differences that the plants to develop. It's also... I found it's in a way curious because when we started with the plants, a little background on it. I had the device for a number of weeks before I jumped into it, I had to prioritize because I was working on an album at the time, the album was called High In The Mountain. And one song I was working on was called Driftwood Maps. And on that particular album, I decided to play every instrument, even if I've never touched the instrument before. I would either buy, borrow or rent an instrument, an example would be a banjo or a mandolin or an instrument of that nature.

Steve:

So one song in particular, Driftwood Maps was really difficult for me to play on instruments I've never played before. So it took a couple of days of trying to come up with how to perform the lead motif. At one point I got so frustrated, I decided to turn the gear off and just go chill out and that's when I noticed, "Oh, I have the plant thing sitting there, let me listen to the plants and maybe that'll just help me drift off a little bit, and come up with ways to do what I needed to do." So as we plugged the plant in, within a period of a few minutes, the plant started playing back to me what I was struggling to play down in the studio. It was playing the actual song I was trying to work on. So at that point I realized, "Oh geez, this thing is listening and it's communicating. It's trying to shake my hand to tell me that it's indeed listening to me." That was both a revelation as well as frightening because I realized at that point that the plants are always listening.

Steve:

It's never passive. It's always something that's offering feedback, whether we hear it or not. So at that point, I decided to leave the plants on for a number of hours, including... into the night. And as the earth rotated into evening, you could hear the differences in the textures and the speed in which the plant was of course corresponding, even simple things like cloud cover over the sun made a massive difference in what we were listening to. If I was in the back room and I heard a change in the modality or the melodic structure, I realized that the dog just walked into the room where the plants were, and the plants were reacting to another entity in the room-

Papamutes:

Now are you... excuse me, when you say the plants are talking or making sounds or what have you, where is it coming from? Is it coming out of the plant? How are you hearing it? Is it through the speakers, through the plant?

Steve:

Right. The plant is offering me the electrical signal, meaning note on duration of the note, note off. But this device will offer something very basic in which, what the plant is actually hearing, but to me it offers... there's no coloration or... so it offers a sonic fatigue after a while. So you can also hook it in via MIDI. So at that point, it can go into any type of musical instrument that offers MIDI, like software based synthesizers or pretty much anything these days. And so at that point, you could give it choices to what it wants to play, usually you can't fight the plant. So if I give it a sound that I think is pleasant and I want to hear, and the plant doesn't want to play it, well, then I have to switch voices until I find something that the plant finds more enjoyable to interact with.

Papamutes:

Now, would someone else be able to hear that?

Steve:

Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Papamutes:

Or is it just... A non-musician, would they be able to hear this plant vibration so to speak, or sounds?

Steve:

Of course, it's like any other musician sitting there playing music, it's coming through an amplifier or it's coming through headphones. It's... I go of more leaning towards using this sound as a form of stress reduction and meditation and relaxation. So a typical plant session, secret life of plant concert would be people lying on yoga mats with lights down, or maybe a few candles lit and the plant's hooked up going through an amplification unit and it's in stereo, so it can self pan. And since it's the plants become their own GPS device, it all of course depends on time or day and other geological things that are happening.

Papamutes:

Interesting. Now, I read... did some research, of course. And there was a situation where the first time you incorporated it, I believe it was in Bloomfield where you... the pot or the plant fell off your seat and you finally got to the gig and the plant was screaming. Now, when you say screaming out of the speakers, so the people would hear you-

Steve:

This was at Howlers on Liberty Avenue, which is rock now. But yeah, it was in Bloomfield. They had a full rock and roll PA set up that's able to handle loud music. And here I had the plant going through it. So when I'm saying it's screaming, it literally was shaking the walls of the place, high frequency that was uncomfortable. But I found that as soon as I walked around to where the bar was, in other words, out of sight of the plant, the plant started calming down, it started catching its breath in away and slowing its own internal heartbeat down until it got to a point being almost water color-ish textures. And at that point I would walk around to be visible again, to walk into the room where the plant was, and it would start screaming again.

Steve:

I stopped short on my way to the gig and the plant fell onto the floor of the car. And I'm at the stop sign and I'm trying to shove all the dirt back into the plant, yelling at it saying "Not on my watch, you're not going to be pulling a Keith Richards on me. You pull yourself together. We got a show to do." But having said that at the end of the day, the plant has no bar tab, so.

Papamutes:

That is true. Now, the people at this place at that time, were they hearing this noise? Were they hearing this...

Steve:

Oh. My goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Papamutes:

Okay. Did you explain to them the situation? It would be strange. I don't-

Steve:

I try not to explain too much because people have their interpretation, and every interpretation is somewhat valid. But right after a while, the plant started calming down and I realized, "Okay, this is a rock and roll club. This is not a yoga studio." So I slowly walked towards the plant with a lighter and a pair of scissors and the plant can senses your intention. Early on with experiments of plants and plant consciousness, they were using plants as a form of lie detector. The plants could tell when they were lying. There's a wonderful book called The Secret Life of Plants, came out in the 1970s. And it was written by an ex IBM scientist. And his work with plants and signal. And... But my point is, the plants sensed that perhaps I was going to do it harm. So as I walked up to the plants with the scissors, everyone in the audience was yelling, "Don't do it. Don't cut the plant. Don't cut the plant."

Papamutes:

Really? Wow.

Steve:

So, I did ended up did cutting a leaf off the plant and the plant went dead silent. And I realized, "Okay, this is the end of the show." But curiously enough, several people from the audience came up and they were arguing who was going to get the leaf that I cut. And I eventually gave it to a person and they... It was like the plant it groupies, so.

Papamutes:

Wow. So have you ever tried to attach it to marijuana plant, and see what kind of vibes you got it off that?

Steve:

I'd rather not answer that.

Papamutes:

All right. So what about some people that might say this sound's really bizarre and they're skeptical. I'm not one of them, I'm all in, but-

Steve:

Yeah, whatever. Whatever.

Papamutes:

Whatever... just either they get it or they don't.

Steve:

I'm a musician. I've worked in a number of scenarios. I've been a musician all of my adult life. Ultimately-

Papamutes:

Since Car Sickness.

Steve:

Car Sickness, Ploughman's Lunch.

Papamutes:

Car Sickness. That was the greatest band name. I remember Car Sickness, that was classic.

Steve:

Well, that was put together in this late 70s, during a gas crisis, and people were personifying their cars so much at the time we realized this... And also there was a band called The Cars, which I didn't like that much back then, so.

Papamutes:

Right. Well, no, I remember. Now just to backtrack a little, are those people... you're still in touch with the band members?

Steve:

Yeah. Good question. Yeah, we are... I have a band with the drummer, Dennis Childers called Standing Wave, and we've been... So at this point we've been playing music together for over 40 years. So there's something unspoken that goes deeper than music when we play. And Carl Mullin, the lead singer and chief songwriter has gotten together with us again, and we're rehearsing new songs the first time in... goodness, I don't even know, over 35 years. And we're going to go into the studio and record a new album. Hopefully it'll be out late summer, all new material that reflects where we are today in the world. And so it's going to be interesting, and I'm also personally working on my own album right now, so... But what were we talking about?

Papamutes:

Skeptics, but we can-

Steve:

Oh, no, no, no. That's a good question because ultimately it has to be good music. It has to be somewhat of a music snob. So it has to be something that I want to listen to, if it's not then it's not working. I unplug things and try again some other time. But ultimately my goal for anything that I do, any project I do is used to be that if I was walking down the avenue and I heard the stuff coming out of a club or a space somewhere or a bar would I want to go in?

Papamutes:

Lou's Bar.

Steve:

Yeah. Well, it has to make me happy as a musician first-

Papamutes:

I hear you.

Steve:

... and foremost. So, even if you're skeptical and you don't believe in any of this stuff, it still better be good music, because even if you don't believe it, maybe you'll like the music. So, relax just enjoy the sounds.

Papamutes:

I listened to some of your YouTube stuff and I was in the trance. I was like, yeah, I'm... The water in the background it was awesome. It was great. How far have you traveled to play music? Not just with plants, but just from Car Sickness till now?

Steve:

Well, with Car Sickness, I was on the road for 18 years. Living in a van, traveling from city to city, sleeping on floors, but it was great. We were young and we were-

Papamutes:

The good old days.

Steve:

Yeah. We were like sailors going from port to port. Later on I had a duo with a woman who played quartz crystal singing bowls, and I focused mainly on enhanced Japanese shakuhachi. And we played all over the country from everywhere, from Key West to Anchorage, Alaska, and everywhere in between. So we were on the road with that for another easily 11 years. And it was interesting, at some point we'll sit down and I'll tell you about my observations on all that, but...

Papamutes:

Yeah. Absolutely. Now you play multiple instruments. How many can you play? Some of them I can't pronounce because I looked up some information. I was like, okay.

Steve:

Yeah, yeah. I always say that I play whatever the song needs, but it's a blessing and a curse because you... Let's say a guitarist, they know their instrument and they become comfortable with it, and over the years they become really good on their instrument, when you're playing a lot of instruments. My thing is I always want to remain a beginner on instruments, because at that point there's no boundaries, and there's no limitations because you don't know what's right or wrong. There's no muscle memory. So you don't repeat things. Everything is brand new. It's wide open vistas and the horizon is never close. So, when you're newer on an instrument that's when it's most fun. But having said that, probably my main instrument is as a synthesizer, since I've been playing synthesizer since the early 70s followed by the flutes, world flutes and Dobro, which is a lap steel guitar.

Steve:

I try to focus on instruments that are microtonal. Instruments that slide, can and have the possibility of sliding between the notes because usually if you look at music as a healing modality, almost in all cultures it involves the notes between the notes, not as opposed to the Western culture, which has note on, note off, maybe a half step up, half step or a full step up. And mathematically there's some issues with that but that's why I prefer microtonal. And having said that, I recently got involved with modular synthesis and this is offering a whole new set of joys and dilemmas, mainly because when you spend time creating a patch, meaning you get a patch cord and you plug this in into this, and then add into that and you could spend a month or a couple days or whatever, a couple hours and you come up with a sound that you really enjoy.

Steve:

But in order to move on you have to destroy that sound. So it's like you want to live with that sound as long as possible, but at the same time you need to create other sounds. So I liken it to Tibetan sand mandala people, monks, who spend better part of a month or so creating these elaborate mandala's made out of sand, but then at the end of it, they blow it all away. They sweep it up. No longer exists. And so it's that type... perhaps not that deep as intricacies, but I seem to think of it in the same ways.

Papamutes:

So if you could hypothetically take a different profession outside of music, outside of plants, what would it be?

Steve:

Psychic ventriloquist.

Papamutes:

Wait, I got to wash this down with some beer. Hold on.

Steve:

I like the idea. I tried this out actually. I got the psychic part down, but the ventriloquism was a little difficult. I bought a ventriloquist album on Vinyl, but I got it at goodwill and had a lot of skips and stuff. So my ventriloquist all developed a stutter. Can you imagine being at a place, a club and the ventriloquist doll was up there and it's telling you really personal stuff about your carburetor in your truck, or you better get that extended warranty.

Papamutes:

I get those calls every day. All right. So I tell you what, Steve, I got some segments here. I gave you a briefing, just a fun thing that I like to have my guests go through. Papamutes t-shirt is on the line here. So you got to pass this test. I'm joking. No test. No, don't worry, Sister Dolorita... Did you go to Mac? What grade school did you go to?

Steve:

Yeah. Immaculate Conception. Yes.

Papamutes:

Right. So don't worry. Sister Dolorita is not going to come up and ask you-

Steve:

Sister John Joye has my yoyos.

Papamutes:

Sister...

Steve:

She's timeless. You know that?

Papamutes:

Yes. I'm sure. Funny you should say that because the first segment's called dead or alive. She alive still. I don't know is she?

Steve:

Let's say yes.

Papamutes:

Okay. All right. All right. So basically I'm going to give you celebrity and you just tell me if you think they're dead or alive.

Steve:

Okay. First off, I don't follow popular culture that much.

Papamutes:

I think you'll recognize these names.

Steve:

Well, even my stuff is so obscure that I've only just discovered me two days ago.

Papamutes:

Well, let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot. I think you'll recognize these names and I'm not trying to stump you. I just do it for fun. So here we go. Dead or alive. Frank Zappa?

Steve:

Dead.

Papamutes:

Dead as a doornail. Yep. Since 93, exactly. Alice Cooper?

Steve:

Just had his birthday yesterday. Yes. He's alive.

Papamutes:

He's alive. Iggy Pop?

Steve:

Iggy Pop, shirted or unshirted, definitely alive.

Papamutes:

He's alive. Yes. Tom Savini?

Steve:

Definitely alive.

Papamutes:

Are you sure?

Steve:

Yes. A hundred percent. Well, yeah. That's a good question. That's a trick question, isn't it?

Papamutes:

That is a trick question. Michael Nesmith of the Monkeys?

Steve:

Yeah. Rest in peace, Michael.

Papamutes:

Yes. Charlie Watts? That's a no-brainer.

Steve:

Charlie.

Papamutes:

It's very little curve ball. Actually, you should know this one. Rocky Bleier, football running back, Steelers.

Steve:

I have a sweatshirt of his. If he's still alive, I got to get it back to him.

Papamutes:

50, 50 shot. What's your gut instinct? Rocky Bleier or 70 Super Bowl Steelers. The whole nine yards.

Steve:

Steelers, huh?. Dead. Dead.

Papamutes:

No, he's alive. Poor Rocky.

Steve:

I don't know.

Papamutes:

Burt Reynolds, actor?

Steve:

Oh, dead rest... Definitely.

Papamutes:

Debbie Harry, blondy?

Steve:

Definitely alive.

Papamutes:

You're on top of that. Two more. Joe Namath, famous football player?

Steve:

Oh yeah. I just saw him on... he's on MeTV all the time pitching something. He's alive.

Papamutes:

Like a hundred years old. And Pittsburgh, I think he's from Pittsburgh actually. And another Pittsburgh boy, last one. Michael Keaton, actor?

Steve:

Oh, he's absolutely alive.

Papamutes:

All right. You blew right through that. Except for-

Steve:

I have no concept-

Papamutes:

Except for Rocky Bleier. That's okay. Don't worry.

Steve:

I am no sport.

Papamutes:

All right. This might be a little tough. This one's called celebrity nicknames. Okay. I'm going to give you a nickname. You try to tell me who it is. Now I'll give you a little heads up. No pressure here. No pressure. This is a sports celebrity. Retired Pops, Pittsburgh sports baseball. I know you know it. You just can't-

Steve:

Jimmy... I don't know.

Papamutes:

Baseball Pops.

Steve:

Jimmy Duran. No, I don't know.

Papamutes:

Willie Stargell.

Steve:

Willie Stargell. I don't know.

Papamutes:

That's okay. We forgive you for your sins. Sultan of Splatter?

Steve:

Oh, George Romero.

Papamutes:

Close.

Steve:

He was in the previous segment.

Steve:

Savini?

Papamutes:

Yes. Tom Savini. The Chairman of The Board?

Steve:

Chairman of The Board? Musician.

Steve:

Frank Sinatra.

Papamutes:

Frank Sinatra. Now I don't know. You might get this one. The Fab Four.

Steve:

The Fab Four. Yeah. Right.

Papamutes:

I need an answer. I can't assume.

Steve:

The Beatles.

Steve:

The Beatles.

Papamutes:

The Beatles. The Man in Black? Musician.

Steve:

Yeah. Johnny.

Papamutes:

Johnny Cash. Hi. I'm Johnny Cash.

Steve:

Hello.

Papamutes:

Slow Hand?

Steve:

Oh yeah. Well, we won't go there. Clapton.

Papamutes:

Yes. You don't like him.

Steve:

No, he's boring.

Papamutes:

Interesting. Last one.

Steve:

His music's boring.

Papamutes:

Here's the last one. I don't think you'll find him boring. The Lizard King?

Steve:

Yeah. I know who it is, and-

Papamutes:

I need a name. Come on.

Steve:

Okay. I'm going to give you a name and you use it as an anagram to figure out his real name. Mr. Mojo Risin.

Papamutes:

There you go. Correct. Jim Morrison. You're doing good. Doing well. All right, here we go. Last fun segment. I appreciate you coming along. These are celebrity real names. I'm going to give you the real name of the person. And this is multiple choice. So you have a couple choices.

Steve:

You're funny.

Papamutes:

There we go.

Steve:

You're funny.

Papamutes:

Who was born, Courtney Michelle Harrison? Was that Courtney Love, Courtney Cox, or Cher? Courtney, Michelle, Harrison. Courtney Love-

Steve:

I wouldn't know, I-

Papamutes:

Take a guess. Take a guess.

Steve:

It's almost like the other two Courtneys are obvious choices. So you go with the one that's so far out that perhaps it's designed to throw you. So I'm going to say Cheer.

Papamutes:

No, it's Courtney Love.

Steve:

Yeah. That's what I thought, I-

Papamutes:

There you go. All right, now here's one and I might butcher this name, Farrokh Bulsara. I might be saying it wrong, but is it Fred Sanford, Freddy Mercury, or Jackie Chan? Farrokh Bulsara.

Steve:

Freddy Mercury.

Papamutes:

Correct. Correct. Paul David Hewson, H-E-W-S-O-N. Again, I might be butchering it. Paul David Hewson.

Steve:

[Inaudible 00:28:53]

Papamutes:

Correct. Didn't even need the... He's on fire.

Steve:

Yeah. I will swallow or whatever, almost.

Papamutes:

Two more. Vincent Damon Furnier. Is that Vincent Price, Vince Vaughn, or Alice Cooper?

Steve:

Oh, what was the last name, Furnier?

Papamutes:

Furnier.

Steve:

F-U-R... The Coupman. Yeah. All right. Last one, David Van Cortland. Before I give you the three names, David Van Cortland, musician. Is that... Oh, actually I fucked that up. I just gave you the answer. So, if I give you the multiple choice, I'm going to give you the answer, right?

Steve:

It was simple Papamute. It was-

Papamutes:

David Crosby, David Crosby, David Spade, or David Hasselhoff?

Steve:

What's his real name?

Papamutes:

David Van Cortland.

Steve:

What is choices?

Papamutes:

David Crosby.

Steve:

We know it's called David Crosby. So, all right.

Papamutes:

It is David Crosby.

Steve:

It is David Crosby.

Papamutes:

Yes.

Steve:

Why is that?

Papamutes:

I don't know. I never knew that, but...

Steve:

So what was it? Van, Von.

Papamutes:

David Van Cortland. He was born David Van Cortland, changed his name to David Crosby.

Steve:

Van Cortland, Stills, Nash & Young.

Papamutes:

Yeah, doesn't work.

Steve:

That's a lot of work. Lets give for law firm.

Papamutes:

Do you have... This is just a hypothetical... a celebrity crush. Yeah. Like some of you-

Steve:

Are you asking me?

Papamutes:

Yeah. Yeah. Who would that be?

Steve:

Yeah. Well, No, I can't say that I do. But I there are musicians that I admire totally.

Papamutes:

It could be a man crush. I had a guy may crush on Sylvester Stallone. [crosstalk 00:30:43]

Steve:

Brian, I admire his thinking and how he theorizes about broad concepts. I appreciate people like George Harrison, who in the center of the storm could remain calm and become observant. But I work at such a frequency let's say, that I am self informing myself as I go on. My future self is influencing my current self let's say. And everything that I do be becomes iconic and then lost into the jumble within a matter of milliseconds.

Papamutes:

Makes sense to me.

Steve:

You know I'm joking, right?

Papamutes:

I read a quote at the end of an article that you... I think it was Pittsburgh, it was a paper or an online thing, anyway. I wanted to know if it's your quote. It says you can only grasp change by the rate in which you experienced it. Is that your quote or is that someone... you're quoting someone else? I like that. I just was curious.

Steve:

No, it's probably my quote or I adapted it from something, but sounds like something I would say, but it's so true. It's... Yeah. You can only grasp change by the rate in which your ability is to understand it or else it's confusion and... or you dismiss it. So that's what we're looking at, even with the plant music and things. There's a liminal consciousness shift in a general sense, in a sense of mass consciousness shift. These things happen sometimes generationally, sometimes in hundreds of years. But we think in terms of music and how it's representative of the culture in which we live in. So, as soon as you're... Well, first off, all history is represented I think technologically, by its musical instruments. So, the instruments usually lead the way in technology and then it's filtered through and other things.

Steve:

So with plant music, all of a sudden it opens people's mind to, "Hey, these things are alive. And maybe I don't want to cut this tree down. Maybe I should pay attention to climate change." It can open the mind to bigger topics that were weren't relevant before you heard plants sing. And so, all of a sudden you're able to grasp a concept that you didn't even know existed before it. So, it's that kind of thinking, it's called liminal. So it's where you reach a limit and then you push against it and go beyond it. And then you look back at what you didn't understand before hand.

Papamutes:

Interesting. So what does 2022 have coming for you? What can we look forward to?

Steve:

A lot of great music. We're still being careful as far as going out into clubs and [crosstalk 00:34:17] all that stuff. We're... And I lead a lifestyle that's perfect for self quarantine. So to me it's like everybody's catching up to what I've been doing for years. But I'm working on a new album of electronic music, working on another plant album and working with my band, my various bands. And there's more things happening than I can possibly take on. So I try to be very selective on what I want to take on and what I want to do. It has to be something that I resonate with not only on a musical level but emotional and physical, by physical I mean how many steps are there? Do I have to log the equipment up of-

Papamutes:

Exactly. Right.

Steve:

... from the car. So everything is offering opportunities everywhere. And it's just a question of now that I'm a bit older, I realize I can say no to things as well as yes.

Papamutes:

Exactly. Exactly. Steve, it's been great. I'm glad you came on. I'd like to have you on again sometime, maybe in person.

Steve:

Let's do some plant music next time. Let's do a little plant segment where we can actually physically hear the plants. And, yeah. Go to the Facebook page, Steve Sciulli singing life of plants and... or just Steve Sciulli and find out where I'll be doing this... I'll be doing some Zoom shows as well with some live shows, starting in April. There's a lot happening. There's a lot to take in and thanks for having me. And we'll-

Papamutes:

We'll talk to you soon. All right, Steve. Take care buddy.

Steve:

You bet.

Papamutes:

So you have it. Steve Sciulli, the botanical musician. Steve's not really that old, I was just busting his balls early in the program. He's probably younger than me actually, looking forward to springtime when we can tap into some plants and maybe I can hear some music coming from them. I don't know. We'll see. That'll be interesting. Working on a couple more podcasts coming up in March. So, until then take care of your plants. They may save your life. Take care.

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