Relive the magic of rock history with our guests, John Guthrie and Greg Wheat, who take us back in their time machine to the iconic concerts of the late 70s. Imagine yourself in the crowd as Black Sabbath, Van Halen, and the Ramones rock the stage at the legendary 1978 concert at the Omni in Atlanta. Experience the surprise of an unexpected soundcheck by the Ramones, and feel the confusion of old-time Black Sabbath fans. Listen to the stories behind the scenes that shaped the musical landscape of that era and the lasting impact of these bands that continues to resonate in the music scene today.
Fast forward to 1979, as we revisit another unforgettable concert featuring these same giants of rock. Picture the energy and atmosphere of the stage as The Clash performs songs from their forthcoming and groundbreaking album "London Calling". Join our guests as they share their memories of being part of a select group to witness this incredible performance. We'll also delve into the meteoric rise of Elvis Presley following his 1968 comeback on NBC, and the influence of Colonel Tom Parker on his career. All this and more awaits you in this episode of Music in my Shoes. Don't forget to drop us an email, we'd love to hear from you.
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail,com.
Relive the magic of rock history with our guests, John Guthrie and Greg Wheat, who take us back in their time machine to the iconic concerts of the late 70s. Imagine yourself in the crowd as Black Sabbath, Van Halen, and the Ramones rock the stage at the legendary 1978 concert at the Omni in Atlanta. Experience the surprise of an unexpected soundcheck by the Ramones, and feel the confusion of old-time Black Sabbath fans. Listen to the stories behind the scenes that shaped the musical landscape of that era and the lasting impact of these bands that continues to resonate in the music scene today.
Fast forward to 1979, as we revisit another unforgettable concert featuring these same giants of rock. Picture the energy and atmosphere of the stage as The Clash performs songs from their forthcoming and groundbreaking album "London Calling". Join our guests as they share their memories of being part of a select group to witness this incredible performance. We'll also delve into the meteoric rise of Elvis Presley following his 1968 comeback on NBC, and the influence of Colonel Tom Parker on his career. All this and more awaits you in this episode of Music in my Shoes. Don't forget to drop us an email, we'd love to hear from you.
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail,com.
Music. He's got the feeling in his toe-toe.
Speaker 2:You've got the feeling and it's out there growing. Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge and you're listening to Music in my Shoes. As always, I'm thrilled to be here with the sound of Vic Thrill kicking off Episode 6. Let's learn something new or remember something old. So, jimmy, a couple of weeks ago I get a text from a mutual friend of ours and the first text that the person sends is a concert advertisement for a black Sabbath show with special guest Van Halen. And get this the Ramones opening up, yes, alright. Takes place 45 years ago, in November 1978, at the Omni in Atlanta, georgia. Second text is a review of the show that's by Bill King of the Atlanta Constitution, and I'm reading and I'm like this is insane. But what's even more insane is it turns out that you happen to know as well as Robert who sent me the text no, two people that actually went to this show.
Speaker 1:Very well, in fact, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, as luck may have it, we are lucky enough to have them both in studio as guests today. So welcome John Guthrie and Greg Weed to Music in my Shoes. I appreciate you taking the time to share your memories of this, what I think is an insane night, with an insane amount of bands that don't go together.
Speaker 1:So why don't you tell us a little?
Speaker 2:yeah, tell us a little bit about it, if you could.
Speaker 1:You know, we were huge Ramones fans and you know, in high school so we had their records and we heard it. We also were familiar with Van Halen, which you know, that album, it was their first album, 1978. And I guess we got permission from our parents and I was 15 years old. Greg, do you remember who drove? We headed down to the Omni and black. Did you guys take the station? What? No, you couldn't take the station 72 Oles Vista Cruiser. That was not going to be our ride that night. But yeah, we it was. It was a crazy show because we were waiting. We really went to see the Ramones. I knew, yeah, I was. I was familiar with black Sabbath and we were. We're anxious to see Van Halen, but oh, we're seeing we were there to see the Ramones yeah
Speaker 1:and we were standing outside and we heard the you know the snare and the and the drums get started and we're thinking, oh, maybe they're warming up. And we look inside the Ramones doing soundcheck, doing a soundcheck. So we went in and listened to their soundcheck and they played what do they play about? 10 or 12 songs, but I mean, it was a. Rock away beach was the first one, rock away beach was the opening, it was the road, it was the road. Wait, wait, wait. They played 10 or 12 songs at soundcheck or in the show. Oh no, for the show.
Speaker 1:For the show For the show For the show. But it was with the house lights on, so but there were, I mean, there was probably 50, 100 people and the Ramones were in the front row and you got a really good look at Johnny Ramone, which is, you know, there's a certain alien quality to him, but it was. It was very impressive.
Speaker 2:So, so let me just set the stage here for everyone. So I think you just said 50 to 100 people. Now this show is at the Omni. I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm going to guess it held 15,000 or so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 12, 15, something like that, 12. To 15,000.
Speaker 2:Somewhere around there, I don't want people think this is like a little club or anything. So the fact that only 50 to 100 people showed up for the Ramones and you're two of them, that's percentage wise you make up a large part of the crowd.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, I you know, back on episode two, we we revisited the Ramones Road to Ruin album, which is the album that they're touring on at this, this concert that you're at. I was telling Jimmy I just want to have something to do is my favorite Ramones song off of that album? Good choice. And then you know we talked about I like needles and pins. I'm against it. I want to be sedated. You mentioned Rockaway Beach. What else did they play? What you know what? What? What were your impressions of being in this big arena and only having you know 100 people watching and listening to something that was really important to you?
Speaker 3:Well, we were going absolutely nuts and I remember at one point looking back and seeing a very much older Sabbath fans, you know, with this confused look on their face, like like what are we? What are we watching right now?
Speaker 2:I bet that's true for sure.
Speaker 1:It was loud and it was. You know it was a very, it was just, it was immediate and it was pretty short. But you know they were the opening band, the warm up band, essentially because the opening band was Van Halen, who not a lot of people had heard of either. The only thing they were playing on the radio was the kinks cover. You really got me and I think maybe eventually some of those songs of course all made it to radio.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know, it's just really strange because, I'm not going to lie, I went and looked up on set list and check some things out and it looks like the Ramones only opened up that one show. Van Halen was opening up for Black Sabbath on on the end of the year on that part of the tour, but it doesn't look like the Ramones joined them at any other point. I don't know how they decided that that might be a good billing or how it got together, but I have a feeling that it could have been just the Ramones and not Black Sabbath and not Van Halen and you still would have been there, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, subsequently we would go to the Agora ballroom and see him, for you know, over the next three or four years, probably five or six times. But yeah, it was the stars aligned, kind of a solar eclipse of the combination of bands, but we were. We were in the punk rock genre.
Speaker 3:Yeah, earlier that day we got to see them and get their autographs at a record. Was that at Oz or Peaches, Peaches or Oz records and tapes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that was. I think that was Peaches records right on Peachtree, so we were all in.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That definitely is. So let me ask you a little bit about Van Halen, that album that they're touring for, the first Van Halen album. Two of my favorite songs are Little Dreamer and Ice Cream man and those I kind of like and those aren't necessarily, you know, the favorites. I think people want to hear Runnin' With the Devil, and you Really Got Me.
Speaker 1:Ain't talking about love, ain't talking about love.
Speaker 2:I think those are the things people want to hear. But I think Little Dreamer is so different for them, even though it's their first album. I just love that. And then Ice Cream man. It's just you want to be the Ice Cream man, you want to be singing that song, you want to just be living that moment. Did they play those, Do you remember?
Speaker 3:Yeah, dave came out with his Dave Sickle guitar. Played Ice Cream man.
Speaker 2:Awesome, very awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and David Lee Roth, I mean, is just the spryest. You know he's flying off the drum kit, you know every chance he gets and you know just an incredible. You know newness to Van Halen and really they kind of blew Black Sabbath away. You know I was biased, but pretty special.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I read the article I talked about by Bill King, he talks about that Van Halen had blown them away and that it had seemed to be something that most of the fans that were there really were there for Van Halen and a lot of them kind of left when when Black Sabbath came on. Now set the stage for Black Sabbath, you know they're kind of at the end of that first incarnation of Black Sabbath. They're touring for an album called Never Say Die. It's the final album with Ozzy Osbourne until 35 years later. All right, 1979, you know the following year, ozzy gets fired from the band.
Speaker 2:Then in 1980, black Sabbath starts a whole new chapter with Ronnie James Dio on vocals and Ozzy releases Blizzard or Vaz and nothing could have been better for both Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne to have that happen and they went kind of, you know, separate and ended up having, you know, much better careers than where they were headed. Because if you listen to that Never Say Die album, it does not sound like Black Sabbath, it sounds like any rock and roll band and nothing at all what you expect to hear. What songs do you remember Black Sabbath playing that night?
Speaker 1:Paranoid Warpigs.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to ask you did you stay the whole show?
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. You're trying to make it all the way through. It was a school night, we were 15 years old.
Speaker 2:I had a feeling that was coming. I really did.
Speaker 3:But think about it To see Johnny Ramone, Eddie Van Halen and Tony Iommi.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those three guitar players Come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is a pretty incredible night. So that was in November 1978. So if I go to December 1979, the Clash has the album London Calling, the single. On the album they're released. All right, the front cover is famous. Probably everybody knows the front cover. It's photo of Paul Simonin smashing his bass on the stage at a New York City show in September 79. And then they have the London Calling font, similar to an early Elvis Presley album and you know pink and I think it was fluorescent green or something that was in, and you know everybody knows that. I think that's considered, you know, one of the top photographs of rock and roll history by numerous magazines. But the back cover lists the band's names and the songs of the double LP. And one of the two photos is taken at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta, which you just happened to mention, the Agora Ballroom, and it was two months earlier, October of 1979. And in the picture I'm told you can see one, two or some other friends. What's the story behind that?
Speaker 1:Well, we were. I was actually in high school in a in a band I was the lead screamer for the stains. So we practice out in my parents garage and we were kind of a Clash cover band, maybe a little Ramones and Sex Pistols, but we we had been to the show at the Agora incredible Clash show. What time did you guys get there?
Speaker 1:We got there about probably four or five in the afternoon, so so you were first in line first in line by far, so we could be in the front row and Chris, who was the guitar player in the stains, and Greg and I were there. And so we're looking at we're out rehearsing in the bar and we're looking at this album. We're trying to rehearse play the easiest song on the album, brand new Cadillac. See if we can, you know, butcher that song with our band. And we said, Well, you know, look at there's this. It says it's from Atlanta, Georgia, this picture. And then Chris says, Whoa, wait a second. And he's got his hand on the stage and I'm kind of standing next to him, but he's on the board. We're on London calling. So then we knew we were famous, Right.
Speaker 2:So how does it feel to be not on the front cover of one of the most famous album covers, but to be on the back cover? I mean honestly for me I would be living off that moment. I would have that album cover sliced and a half and framed in my house and pointing it out to everybody that came in. I made you a framed thing of it at a point.
Speaker 1:My wife made me put it in the garage, but it's up on the wall. It reminded me. I thought about it because I used to look at the Kiss Alive gatefold and I see those kids at the arena with their hand-made poster of Kiss, with the peace signs, and I thought, man, they're so lucky. And in some way I felt fortunate as well, because to be 16 in 1979 and get to see the clash right before London Calling came out. So that's the thing, though, is it was right before London Calling came out.
Speaker 1:So you guys went there and they had the first record, and give them enough rope out and you're ready to hear all those songs right, exactly. Well, they opened with Safe of course, safe. European Home and played basically all of Clash, clash and give them enough rope, but sprinkled into all that were these new songs that I think they played six songs off of London Calling that night. Yeah, so it was the first time I heard London Calling Clamp Down.
Speaker 3:It would have been nice to sing along to those songs, but we hadn't heard them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what did you think? Because I remember the first time I heard London Calling the song it was Spring of 1980, was the first time that I heard it and I was like this is incredible One, because as it's a punk song, it's put together so well. I couldn't believe how good of a job they did with it. And then the second thing is the Beatles. When they said phony Beatle Mania, I'm like how can they say that on the radio?
Speaker 2:And ironically, as I pulled in while I was driving to the studio Arcade 160 Studios here in Atlanta, georgia, as I was coming here, london Calling comes on the radio and I listen to it and I don't get out of the car until the song stops. And then I come in and I was like wow, this is kind of cool that we're going to be talking about this. So you hear London Calling never heard it before. Again, I remember the first time I heard it on the radio I was like I got to call up, I need to hear it again. What did you think about the new songs when you heard them at the show?
Speaker 1:I was blown away and yeah, that you could take the clash and their sound and then elevate it with the production and composition that they had in London Calling it was such a move forward. But there was still an immediate accessibility to it and the crowd I mean. You know people think of punk rock and slam dancing but that's really not where it was in 1979. It was more like kind of a Pogo type of a little kinder gentler, maybe there wasn't a mosh pit, but no, I was blown away.
Speaker 3:I remember London Calling. The song that punched me right in the face was Clamp Down.
Speaker 2:Great song yeah that is a great song. There's not many songs that aren't good on that album. I don't think that they put any filler. I know a lot of times when people have double albums they'll throw in some filler. I don't think there really was any filler on London Calling.
Speaker 1:Right and the only the one cut that was going to be their single didn't even appear in the track listing the track listing Train in vain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't play that either.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, they didn't play that.
Speaker 2:Maybe they thought it wasn't commercial or something but, yeah, it's a great song.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always thought we were in a select group to be able to hear those songs for the first time live. It would have been nice to sing along to them. On the other hand, I wasn't upset when they didn't play Hateful or Death or Glory. Oh right, yeah that's true.
Speaker 1:So they didn't play Death or Glory. But you didn't know, I didn't know. You don't miss what you never heard of.
Speaker 2:So I know on that tour that they played Police and Thieves and Police and Thieves was a reggae song that they covered. So from that Bob Marley actually wrote a song to embrace what was happening he had moved to England by this time and embrace what was happening with New Wave, new Age, punk and all these different things and he called the Punky Reggae Party and he talks about the clash. He talks about a couple of different bands in the song and he really wrote that as a tribute to the clash, for what they did with police and thieves, making that go from a song that was, you know, only known to a small, select people to now this real large group of people. I love that song. That's a great song. I know it's not on London Calling, but I do know that they played it on that tour. Fantastic song.
Speaker 1:So I was in Jamaica when I was like 20 years old and the hotel I was at had a little reggae band and somebody said, oh, he plays guitar, get up there. And so like what am I supposed to play? I'm like, hey, you guys know police and thieves, and they knew it, and so we played that song together.
Speaker 2:But isn't that funny how this song can bring people together that you've never played with before. You're in a totally different country and you both you know you and the band know what to do. I think that's fantastic and that's kind of really the whole point of the show. You know I don't know, greg, if it was you or John, if it was you that kind of mentioned about how great it was being 15, 16 years old. Great time, you know, that's how this whole show when my mind started from talking about those memories and telling people about them, where they were, like, man, that's really cool, you should do a podcast and that's how I ended up here.
Speaker 2:And while it's, you know, music in my shoes. You know music from my point of view in my shoes. Part of that is having people that have experienced different things than me that are pretty cool, having them part of it, and I'm, you know, really excited to have you both on the show today. I've been looking forward to this ever since I got those texts, and that we could pull this off is fun and I think the listeners are going to really like it. Here's some things that maybe they're not familiar with, or places they're not, you know, not used to hearing the Agora or not used to hearing just these different places that we're able to speak about today, and I know for sure nobody else has seen Black Sabbath, van Halen and the Ramones.
Speaker 2:I never again, yeah yeah, that that will not happen. One thing I did want to mention, because I made a little note for myself tickets started at six dollars and fifty cents and went all the way up to eight dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine we couldn't afford the eight fifties? We got the six fifties.
Speaker 2:It's insane, though. What ticket pricing was back in. You know the day and what it is now.
Speaker 1:Did you get a t-shirt? No, no, no, we didn't. We, no, merch. It was all just indelibly marked in our, in our heads, and you've been saving it for a day like today. Exactly, music translates spirit and we can go back and listen to it again. Oh, greg, I heard you brought a camera.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I snuck a Kodak Instamatic camera into the show. No flash, of course. I didn't want to get thrown out. But yeah, I used the whole roll up during the Ramones and not one picture turned out. Mind's eye.
Speaker 2:Did it really happen so before we, before we let you guys go, you know, tell one the Agora Ballroom about how many people would that hold for our listeners?
Speaker 3:1300?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's 12 to 1300. So there was a little punk club called 688 that was at 688 Spring Street in Atlanta and all the punk bands would play there. And then they all started getting too big to play at 688 and so 688 would commission these shows at the Agora Ballroom. It was a bigger venue that, so all the bands like Ramones and Clash would play there. Who else did you guys see at the Agora?
Speaker 3:We saw the Pretenders with the original lineup in 1980 with James Honeyman, scott and Pete Farnedon, which was incredible.
Speaker 2:Not to cut you off, but the Pretenders, the first couple of albums are out of this world, that's incredible. And I think Chrissy Hine, you know as a female front person, did an unbelievable job and was the perfect person to lead them. I love the first few Pretenders albums.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the first one's punk. Yeah, and if you guys haven't seen the Sex Pistols documentary or it's a docudrama- yeah, I had no idea that she was that involved with the Sex Pistols.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't know sometimes about things until you see a documentary or you listen to music in my shoes, different things like that. I think that that's the cool thing about media today is that you have the opportunity to learn things back. You know, a long time ago, you know, you only heard things from a DJ. So if a DJ told you the sky was yellow, you believe the sky was yellow. And if they said that you know Van Halen played last night and it was the best show ever, you believed it. You might not have been there, but you really, you know, believe what the DJs had to say. I think today, with the way media is and you can go on YouTube and you can do whatever it is you want to find out information, you can find out what's true and what's real. You know David Lee Roth. I don't know if you've seen him lately, but when he sings he definitely doesn't sound as good as he used to, and I'm being very nice when I say that I actually mixed a show with him singing on it.
Speaker 1:this year I did a post mix of this band called Royal Machines. So Royal Machines is like this all-star band that plays residency in Vegas, and so in this particular show they had David Lee Roth, billy Idol. Billy Idol was the only really good one. So Billy Idol in 1980 on the Don't Stop EP, before his first album with Steve Stevens, right after Gen X came to Atlanta and played the 688 in. Greg and I were there. Oh, I always thought that was the Agora, so 688.
Speaker 1:That was 688 and the show didn't start until two o'clock in the morning because it was a bomb threat. So we were in trouble. People did those things back in the 1980, 17 pranksters yeah.
Speaker 3:Let's mess with the punk rockers.
Speaker 1:Right, there's probably some some teddies, as the the British punks called them.
Speaker 3:Now with the Agoura Ballroom, was a special place. That was a really amazing venue and if you ever get to midtown Atlanta and go to the hotel Indigo, behind their front desk is a wall of ticket stubs, kind of dedicated to the Agoura Ballroom, nice.
Speaker 2:Pretty cool. Oh, that's pretty cool. I like things like that, when people do things, dedicate something, trying to keep a memory alive of something that's no longer there, and do something. You know the tribute in whatever way, form, a fashion that they choose. I like when people do that.
Speaker 1:And the Agoura Ballroom was the ballroom of the Georgian Terrace Hotel, correct, which is right across street from the Fox Theater.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the Fox was host to many bands in that era too. Oh yeah yeah, cheap trick on the Boudicca tour, greg and I were there. Yeah, that was a good one On top of the world and you can't get any higher. You're on top of the way. I mean, that was in there. That was a heyday show. Uh, what about AC DC 1980, back in black at the Fox? Blew the roof off, wow.
Speaker 3:Mom wouldn't let me go to that one A lot of good music came out during that time.
Speaker 2:It's really funny. I'll tell you when. When uh Bon Scott died, I remember saying that's it Never gonna hear AC DC again, it's over. I remember Irreplaceable. I remember who I told it to and I remember that day. And then all of a sudden, back in black comes out and I was like what is this? Like unbelievable what they were able to do. I saw AC DC a couple of years ago with Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses singing because of uh, brian Johnson had some vocal issues, I think it was, or some hearing issues, I don't remember off the top of my head, but they got Axl Rose that came and come in and he actually had a pretty good job. So any other shows around that time, and agor or small places, the vapors, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it's 88 the vapors, yeah, yeah, nobody, really, I think, underappreciated band. Everybody thinks of turning Japanese, but they have two. They have two. Well, they put, they put out two solid albums. Absolutely, they fend in the vapors kind of one band that didn't come across the pond. That we wanted to see was the, the Paul Weller and the jam, but and the vapors actually put out an album in the last five years. It was really good. Yeah, and 2020, 40 years after their second album, they, uh, and Guy Stevens produced it from London calling right, yeah, he was heavily involved in the class and the class wrote that song.
Speaker 2:That is Midnight to Stevens.
Speaker 1:We called together the vapors Mm. Hmm, worth checking out.
Speaker 3:So I do have to mention. So Johnny and I, 45 years ago, we were at the you know it's all the Ramones the first time together, that's at the Van Halen Sabbath show. And then you fast forward 18 years. We're at their last show at the Masquerade Music Park. Um, so we were 33 years old then. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So then they broke up two months later.
Speaker 3:So that was, it's pretty pretty special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Absolutely. We thought we were old then. Well, and, and to add on to that, my first concert ever was with you, John, at the Agora. I'm sure you were there too, Greg, in 1983 Ramones.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:We're a happy family Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:That was good, I like that. You know you talked about Rockaway Beach, uh, earlier and a friend of mine called me when we talked about the Ramones in episode two and he called me up and he's like hey, I don't like the Ramones, but you're right. Growing up on Long Island you heard the Ramones all the time. They were played on the radio all the time like a regular band. We didn't realize they weren't as big in the rest of the country the way they were in New York and my buddy's, like you, thought that they were a surf band because they play Rockaway Beach all the time.
Speaker 3:And it's the furthest thing from the truth.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's funny how you have these, you know impressions and so forth, and then and it's obvious that you guys all have great memories of seeing the Ramones from all different tours, all different years from, you know, the beginning of their career, the end of the career. I mean that's pretty cool and I'm really glad you were able to share and let us and the listeners know all about that.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Jim.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Good to be here. I'm really excited about this, really glad that we could get you in here and that we could, just you know, share it with everybody.
Speaker 1:So we really appreciate it. I hope people aren't confused because John and I kind of sound alike, but maybe you can figure out who's who.
Speaker 2:I think people know your voice. Show producer Jimmy. The fans love you so they definitely will be knowing your voice for sure.
Speaker 1:Are you getting any emails to the new email address?
Speaker 2:It's funny that you mentioned that. I did get one. I got it from a person that said they really were enjoying the show and that they were making notes of songs that we talked about and that they were going to make these playlists and start to listen. Some of the songs were songs they knew. Some of the stuff they didn't know at all. They said they knew nothing about Pink Floyd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right they could not name one Pink Floyd song, but as they were emailing me, they were listening to Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, so I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool I've gotten you know email.
Speaker 2:You know that email. I've gotten a ton of texts, phone calls, messages on Facebook, similar stories where people like, hey, what you're talking about, you know, I forgot about that or I didn't know anything, but I want to hear something different. So it's new to them now, even though it's not a new song, and I really think that goes with our theme of learn something new or remember something old. I'm happy with the feedback. We always want to get the feedback. Don't forget it's musicinmyshoes at gmailcom. Again, musicinmyshoes at gmailcom. Awesome, hey, on that note, I want to thank John. I want to thank Greg. Thank you for being here. We really do appreciate it, thank you, thanks a lot Rock on.
Speaker 3:Hey, let's go.
Speaker 2:So, jimmy, we talked about London Calling the Clash kind of sampling the Elvis Presley album cover. Did you know that in 1968, in December 1968, elvis made a comeback on NBC television? Yes, it was glorious. It was glorious, it truly was. What I did not know was actually recorded a few months earlier. They didn't release it till it was around the holidays. They wanted to maximize their audience potential. It was his first performance in seven years. He hadn't played since 1961, which in any time frame is a huge amount of time, but I think in the 60s, the way that music was going and rapidly changing all the time, to me that almost seems like it's decades. Seven years, right yeah.
Speaker 2:So Elvis starts doing movies, his agent, colonel Tom Parker. He wants him to really concentrate on the movies, only wants to do songs that have to do with the movies and have the songs sell the movies and the movies sell the songs, kind of with his template. But at some point it runs out. None of us can still do the same thing. It doesn't go well. After time you got to do something different. Elvis eventually tires of it and he says I want to go back, I want to do some songs, I want to play live, it ends up relaunching his career. That could have never gone the way that it did. I mean, we know that he ended up doing massive touring. After that he had the Vegas residency, a whole mess of things that he was able to do because he finally said that, colonel Tom Parker, enough is enough. We're going to do what I want to do, not what you think I should be doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Colonel Tom still kept his claws in him, though he did he did.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the way he was making his money and he needed to do something and keep kind of control over him, however he could. Well, hey, listen. I really enjoyed having our guests with us today. I thought it was really cool to be able to hear about some shows from from, you know, back in the day, and people that were part of it you know to think that they're part of the back cover of London Calling to have seen the Ramones and Van Halen and Black Sabbath. That's cool. I think that's really what the show is all about Really remembering, reminiscing, you know, having guests come on talking about their experiences. I really think that's a lot of fun. That's it for episode six of Music in my Shoes. I'd like to thank our guests, john Guthrie and Greg Wheat, jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of Arcade 160 Studios here in Atlanta, georgia, and to Vic Thrill for our podcast Music. Again, you can connect with us at musicinmyshoes at gmailcom. Until next time. This is Jim Boge, and I hope you learned something new or remembered something old. Take care.