The Ben Maynard Program
"Tell Your Story". Everyone has a story. Not just the famous. This is a guest driven program but when we are "guest free", It's just YOU and ME! I love music and we will talk a lot about it. Enjoy the ride!
#podcast #benmaynardprogram #music #tellyourstory #music #spotify #maynard #videopodcast #thebenmaynardprogram@buzzsprout.com #socialmedia #journey
The Ben Maynard Program
EP. 88 Meet Shannon Cox and The Birth of Talking Rock Fan Podcast
Ever wonder what happens when a hard rock enthusiast meets a music lover with deep bluegrass and country roots? That's exactly what unfolds in this special preview episode featuring Shannon Cox, my partner in an exciting new podcast venture called "Talking Rock Fan."
What makes our musical chemistry work is how differently we've experienced rock music. Shannon grew up surrounded by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn (even seeing them live shortly before Conway passed) before discovering Kiss, Judas Priest, and eventually thrash metal. Meanwhile, I've been obsessing over album liner notes and collecting specific pressings of favorite records since childhood. These different entry points create fascinating conversations when we discuss the same bands.
The episode takes several unexpected turns through musical territory many fans might overlook. We dig into Rick Springfield's surprising heaviness beyond his radio hits, with Shannon discovering the bluesy depth of Springfield's "Snake King" album. We swap stories about the thrill of finding forgotten albums in record store "cutout bins" - those discounted sections where commercial failures often hide artistic treasures.
Our mutual appreciation for Kiss solo albums reveals how deeply personal music collecting becomes when you're chasing not just the music, but specific memories attached to particular pressings or editions. As Shannon puts it while describing his own collection spanning from "The Beatles to Slayer," sometimes the breadth of what you enjoy matters less than how deeply you connect with what speaks to you.
Whether you're a dedicated vinyl collector, a casual streaming enthusiast, or someone who remembers the thrill of discovering new music before algorithms made recommendations, this conversation captures why sharing musical passions creates such authentic connections between people.
Want to join us on this journey? Subscribe to The Ben Maynard Program wherever you get podcasts, and keep an eye out for the launch of "Talking Rock Fan" coming soon. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram: benmaynardprogram
and subscribe to my YouTube channel: THE BEN MAYNARD PROGRAM
I also welcome your comments. email: pl8blocker@aol.com
Hey there, everyone. Welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Thanks for being here. Today's going to be a really fun one. Okay, but before we get started, a little bit of housekeeping to take care of.
Speaker 1:As you know, this program is available wherever you get your podcasts. It's available on all of the streaming platforms. Okay, so just search the Ben Maynard program. Boom, it's there, go with it. You got it. But please subscribe as well. That way, anytime there's a new episode that posts, it sends a message right to you and there you go, okay, however, if you can't resist some of this, and maybe even a little bit of that right there then, and you're watching here on YouTube, then please also subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 1:Give me a thumbs up. The likes, the likes on the videos are very, very important. Okay, so please, on the episodes, even if you're into it for five seconds, 10 seconds, whatever it might be, just give me a thumbs up. All right, those are really, really important. And then, come on, you got to leave a comment too. All right, please leave a comment.
Speaker 1:I reply to all your comments. Honestly, in the history of this, of this, this podcast, I think there's one comment I haven't replied to. Okay, that is it. So with uh, oh, oh, and also, last but not least, follow me on Instagram. Okay, simply, ben Maynard program. Oh wait, no, here's a second. Last but not least, I just against my better judgment, I just opened up a Tik TOK account. Okay, it's under the Ben Maynard program, all right, so go to TikTok and, just, I don't know, follow me on TikTok. All right, the Ben Maynard program. That is it all right? So, as you can see, there are plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure Without any further ado.
Speaker 1:This guy right next to me here, his name is Shannon Cox and it's a fun story and Shannon and I we're kicking around some things. The reason why Shannon is here is because him and I are really doing our darnedest to try to get another podcast up and running. It's called Talking Rock Fan. All right, it already has a Facebook page, so go look it up, follow us on Facebook and we're working on some stuff. This is kind of like almost you know the sitcoms or other programs. When there's another program, that kind of like ties into it as characters, they kind of sort of mesh together and then one kind of branches off the second one onto its own. Well, this is kind of what that is here, okay and so yeah there you go.
Speaker 1:We're just, we're doing a little test here, we're doing a little run, we're going to have some fun because Shannon and I are both music lovers and we like a lot of the same stuff. But, as you're going to find out, we are like completely opposite on some things too, and that's what's going to make it fun. So, anyway, uh, again, without further ado, here he is. Oh no, I'm sorry. Here he is Shannon Cox. How's it going, shannon?
Speaker 2:It's doing great, Ben. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Of course, man, Of course. Look, we've been. We've been at this, God, we've been at this at least two months, right, yeah, and this will be the first time that we'll have some stuff out into the world there for people to chew on people, to watch people, to make fun of all that good stuff right, people can look at me now and go.
Speaker 1:Oh God, he's going to break the internet. Before we kind of get into a couple of topics, why don't you just tell the audience about yourself a little bit, give them a little background? Oh man.
Speaker 2:I'm from the South United States, grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee, currently live in Indianapolis. Currently live in Indianapolis, father of four, happily married, have a huge background in country and bluegrass when I was a kid, became a rock fan in the early 80s and just really started going all over the place on music. I enjoy live music and, as you guys will find out, we we entered some music at different times and that's where the opinions can differ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tell, tell everybody kind of what your where, where your wheelhouse is in the rock space.
Speaker 2:I'm more hard rock heavy metal. I enjoy some of the faster stuff. I used to be an old school thrash kid in high school Took a few years off, kind of delved in the country for a little bit in the 90s and then found my way back home.
Speaker 1:Back home.
Speaker 2:I did. I like to tell people. I graduated from cassette tapes in 1990 to CDs and my collection just exploded from vinyl and cassette to CDs of hard rock and heavy metal. I have everything from, oh my goodness, the beatles, all the way up to, uh, slayer, I mean it's, it's all over the place, and in between you can't get any different than slayer and the beatles.
Speaker 1:So I'm all over yeah, those are really like two. You know the opposite ends of the spectrum for sure I'm uh, I'm kind of driven mood by my mood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yesterday I had rick springfield blasting while I was cleaning a room okay, what were you playing from rick?
Speaker 1:oh, his greatest hits too.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, the the the new one yeah, yeah, I found it on apple music and popped it in and I couldn't believe how heavy he is compared to what I've heard on the radio.
Speaker 1:Pleasantly surprised okay, and this is a great place to start. This is a really, really great place to start because I love rick springfield. I've been a fan of rick springfield since jesse's girl. Okay, because that's when he really, that's when he really came on the scene big time in the united states. Now he was, I I remember, even earlier than that. Um, there was a friend of mine growing up, his name was greg and his sister dawn. She, that's where I first heard of rick springfield and she had these early, these uh albums from the 70s that were featuring, like Rick, as he was like a superhero, he was wearing a you know the outfit and everything else, and I mean, you know, when I'm 11, 12 years old. So I'm just really really starting to get into music and I didn't kind of it didn't kind of click with me. And then in 1981 I hear jesse's girl on the radio and I'm hearing it's rick springfield. I know that guy and and I really became a fan at that point.
Speaker 1:And then subsequently, the album after that was, uh, success hasn't Me. Yet the big hit was Don't Talk to Strangers, another really really good song. And then in 1983, maybe his well, I don't, it might be, if it's not his hardest album, his heaviness as far as heaviness is concerned, it's certainly right up there. Maybe top two or three is Living in Oz and there's still some pop sensibilities about it, but it gets into some real crunchy guitar, some real heaviness, and I love that album. I love Rick Springfield. I don't know what's on Greatest Hits 2, but maybe you can kind of run it down for me as well.
Speaker 2:He has a re-recorded Jesse's Girl on it, closing the album. I can tell you that for sure. But I'll tell you how I got. While I'm bringing this up, I'll tell you how I got into Rick Springfield.
Speaker 2:Originally my aunt used to babysit me for a little while and her two daughters loved Rickick springfield and so they would play jesse's girl and and stuff like that on their, on their radio, on their turntable and what I didn't know at the time. The reason they were into him was because he was on a soap opera and they would make me watch him on this soap opera and then then I would get to listen to the music. So I kind of was like I don't want to listen to this guy. You know if he was just on the news or not the news, but on the soap opera, yeah, here I have the track listing for this. Um, it starts out with a song called I'll make you happy, very hard, very hard song. I loved it, yeah. Um, then he kind of goes poppy kind of party stuff after that with will I like this party up down beautiful. You wasted actually his little little hard rock.
Speaker 1:does it say what albums these songs are from it in that track listing? You got to dive a little deeper then. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:He's got one. It must be a re-record, called World Start Turning. It says orchestral version World Start Turning.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember what album that is. I've got several Rick albums.
Speaker 2:There's a lot that I don't have because he's been very prolific, but go ahead yeah, he's got a song with, uh, sammy Hagar on here called party at the beach. Of course that's typical Sammy right? Yeah, um, who killed rock and roll? That was pretty good. Exit wound is fantastic and Little Demon Live. I like that song live.
Speaker 1:That's. That is off of, that's off of the Snake King.
Speaker 2:Okay, I download that one. I haven't listened to it yet because after listening to the Greatest Hits, I went and went and just add a bunch of his albums to my playlist and just haven't went through them yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me double check. That one Whoops. That one is off of pretty whoops library. That should be off of the snake king. Um, where is it there? It is, yeah, oh wait, uh, yeah, yeah, that one is that one is off of the snake king. That one came out, I think, in 2017.
Speaker 1:That's a the entire album of the snake king. It's it's. There's a lot of religious overtones to it. Uh, because rick is rick is was raised catholic, okay, and he was raised in the catholic church and so on. So there are a lot of religious overtones to that one that there's a lot that I still have to try to decipher and pick apart. But, um, that one there, the entire album is very bluesy. A lot of slide guitar on that. Uh, yeah, a lot of um, um, a lot of in and out, but it's it's very blues, bluesy some. It's not real heavy, but, um, it's not real light either. So that that album and I like that album a lot the uh, the title track on that album, the snake king is, is so, so good on that.
Speaker 1:There's there's. You know, there's a lot of good stuff on there. I'm trying to. I'm looking at the. I'm looking at the the track listing right now. But. But in fact the last song on the album. It's 12 tracks. The whole thing's like an hour long. It it's like 10 minutes the last, the last track. But it goes through so much stuff too and it's very interesting and if you give it a listen you'll get where I'm coming from. But it's so cool. You brought up Rick Springfield though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll be my next listen. Then I'll listen to that here shortly.
Speaker 1:All right, continue with your track listing on Greatest Hits 2.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's not too much left. I mean he greatest hits too. There's there's not too much left. I mean he has, um, that one. I don't remember that one didn't stick with me. Uh uh, it's always something automatic. Okay, lose myself. And then the new version of Jesse's girl, which, okay, it's just a little bit faster. Jesse's Girl to me, is what it reminded me of. It's 16 songs, 51 minutes. I'll definitely have to give the Snake King a listen to, because I like epic songs, huge Pink Floyd fan. I love Dream Theater, especially the epics. If they're. If they have lyrics, it's great. If not, I'll take them as they are right. Some bands I only like their, their music without lyrics.
Speaker 1:People learn that from me well going over that track listing. There's not, I'll be honest, I do. I mean I I'm looking at my stuff here. I've got like five or six rick springfield, uh, rick springfield albums and I would say most of those songs on that on the greatest hits too, are probably going to be post 2000, and like nine or ten, because there's there's another album on there I think it came out in maybe 08, 09, called Venus in Overdrive, okay, and the title track's awesome. It's about I don't even think it's three minutes long, but it's such a cool song, but it's just a really, really good song. I won't say it's hard and heavy, it's not poppy it. There's a lot of production to it, though there is a lot of production, um, but it is so good and the lyric, the lyrical content on it is wonderful. And this is what people don't understand about Rick Springfield. I mean the girls love him because he's good looking, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Even at 75 or 76 years old the guy still looks amazing. But you know, for the lay person, they hear Rick Springfield and automatically they just go to Jesse's girl and they think that's what Rick Springfield is. And he's not. I've seen him live several times and that's when you really get to know an artist is when you see them perform live. You know not just what you hear on the radio, because that's all just that's selected by the management, the record company and that kind of stuff and uh and well, I mean and radio doesn't play whatever they want anymore.
Speaker 2:I remember jesse's girl and he had a big hit with the sammy hagar song, which I love both both versions, sammy's and his and I actually knew sammy's before.
Speaker 1:Him loved it I've done everything for you. Yes, and there's a. There's a. There's a story to that too. Um, something like um, when that song, after it, was on the charts and it got big, um, sammy received a gift from Rick. He received, like a bottle of champagne and and oh, no, no, no, I'm sorry, it was the other way around, or wait, how was it yeah, I think it was a that that that sammy sent rick a bottle of champagne and a dozen roses and basically said there was a note that basically says like you've done everything for me, because because, like you said, you knew the song before rick released it, but really it wasn't mainstream until it came out on rick's album.
Speaker 2:No, the album that came off of didn't even sell well at all. Right, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So so you know, rick took that song and, and I mean, made Sammy a lot of money. Oh, that's all.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, yeah, the roses and the champagne were just a drop in the bucket for the royalties that Sammy's drug in off that I'm sure Exactly. Sammy's a pure businessman, so I think that's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So all right, we don't. We don't have to make this a whole Rick Springfield episode. But no, that was really cool. You said you were listening to Rick Springfield, because I do. I really I enjoy Rick a lot, and he's one, he's a good interview and two, he's so much more than what probably 85, 90% of the people even know. He is, so Agreed. So what? So tell us a little bit more about your, you know, like your tastes in music.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. Well, early 80s I was introduced to Kiss, judas Priest, bob Seger, george Thorogood and the Destroyers. Yeah, yeah, cash conway, twitty, loretta, lynn, tammy wynnette, george jones. Uh, blues brothers, even though they're they weren't technically really a band, I guess you could say, yeah, um, it's actually. My favorite soundtrack of all time is the the blues brothers movie. It's one of the few vinyls I actually own. All right, just because I'm actually going to mount it on the wall behind me here. Probably at some point there'll be a backdrop. There you go. I just, I just love Jake and Elle Woods. You know, take on a lot of songs and things, love some good Motown.
Speaker 1:Actually, I loved Poison Motley, white Snake during the eighties era there you got me thinking Wait, wait, wait, who's making love to your? Lady while you were out making love, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You got to love all of that that's a good one.
Speaker 1:That's Jake and Elwood. That's Blues Brothers, right there. Anyway, I'm sorry, you're great, you're great people, that's. That's. That's jake and and elwood. That's blues brothers, right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, I'm sorry, you're great you're great, the the jailhouse rock, that their cover of elvis's jailhouse rock is just phenomenal. Oh, wow, um, yeah, um. Then we had I got into the harder stuff when I got into high school, but I kind of transitioned from Poison, motley, aerosmith, then Metallica came along, megadeth, anthrax, then it was let's see, grunge came through and wiped out everybody. I jumped into that for a little bit. Alice in Chains is still probably one of my favorite bands of all time. I still follow them to this day, even Jerry Cantrell's solo.
Speaker 1:Which he's really putting a lot of focus on right now, too, is his solo.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of shocked into that. But yeah, I don't like it as much as Alice in Chains but I enjoy Alice in Chains. They've got some albums that I could probably do out of episodes on just alone right, because they're albums that everybody sleeps on. I I picked up a couple of their albums, didn't you know they were out? Just listen to them, because they were in the bin, you know, in the little uh cutout bin. Yeah, three, three dollar CDs you know here, take them, just get them off my shelf, took, took them home. I'm like, oh my God, these are now some of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Okay, hold on. You said the cutout bin and for those of you who are not necessarily music geeks or nerds like we might be, the cutout bin at your album store, your record store, let's put it that way your record store. Now, when I was now, shannon and I we've got a little bit of age difference between the two of us, not a ton, but enough anyway. But when I was a kid, the cutout bin.
Speaker 1:You go through the albums and you see the corner cut on the album cover. I know I've got like one or two right here on the shelf and it was that meant it was reduced. And the reason why they cut the corner off the album cover is most record stores, if not all of them, had a policy that if you didn't, if you bought something and you didn't like it, you could return it and get your money back. But if an album costs $5.99 and you get it out of the cutout bin for $399, well, you can't take it back and you're not going to fool somebody and get $599. They're going to give you your $399 back.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of part of why If you're lucky With that. If you're lucky Because I had one record store. The guy called it the as-is bin. You bought it, you got it. You know, take that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's kind of really what the cutout bins were for people, the bargain bin, whatever you want to call it. You know, and, uh, you could just get some great stuff and it's not because it wasn't a bargain bin or a cutout bin because the stuff was. It wasn't necessarily because the stuff was no good, just to what you were saying. You had some alice in chain stuff that you, you, you didn't even know that they had released. There wasn't really, no, no, a hullabaloo made about any of it. So you're finding it later on and if you're finding it and not knowing it's released, obviously there's a whole bunch of other people out there that didn't know it was released as well. So record store is going to try to get some of their money from it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I easily on one trip because to get to my local record store was an hour drive from where I live Holy cow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it was in Knoxville, Tennessee, and so when I went I went what they called packing for bear. I went expecting to bring back a box of stuff and I always did, always clean house. It wasn't for the new releases. I went in to discover stuff and when Nirvana came through and grunge came through and squash so many great albums I have at least 30 CDs I counted up the other day that came from the cutout bin. I got Dog Eat Dog by Warrant. I got Subhuman Race by Skid Row Pull from Winger. They're all cutouts and I got them a few years afterwards. I mean, Foreigner, I forget what the album.
Speaker 1:Mr Moonlight, mr Moonlight yeah.
Speaker 2:I got that one in the cutout bin. I mean there were so many that I just they're like nobody would touch him, man. They said we'll sell them and they would even sell them to you for like three, for $5 or something, and I just took a box. I said you got a box, man, and I did. I took at least 30. I counted the other day from one trip alone. That was all stuff like that. And it even went back further like um, oh, it was. Uh, my copy of girls, girls, girls by motley crew was in the cutout bin at that point. Yeah, you couldn't. You know, you couldn't buy it before, and before then I couldn't even afford it.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, In 87, 88, when that record was hot, yeah, you might not be able to afford it. But then, of course, if it's still sticking around at a record store six, seven years later, man, they just want it out of there. Oh, yeah and yeah. But to what you're saying. I mean, look, this topic right here is a show unto itself. When you're talking albums from from eighties, bands that were released in the nineties, that went absolutely nowhere, you know that's, that's a topic unto itself. Don't tell me you got Cinderella still climbing too. No, I got.
Speaker 2:Heartbreak Station Okay, heartbreak Station in the bin and I got Revolutions Per Minute by Skid Row out of the cutout bin a few years ago, but that was more. After I moved up here I got a record store Like I got three of them 10 minutes away. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 2:So that's a lot better, but it's. They do a lot of shopping offline and they do a lot of their stuff on eBay. So they don't like selling to the locals as much. They'd rather ship. It seems like, because locals come in and want to haggle On eBay. You just On eBay. You just, yeah, well, I'll go in and say, hey, here's this old Wasp album Still Not Dark Enough from the late 90s. I have it on CD, but I really dig the cover. I'd like to have the album. They're like it's going to be $35, man, and you're like, can I just buy it for 15? Like no, I can't help it, I'm a haggler. When you had nothing, you came up for no money. Man. You, you want to stretch that dollar every time you can, especially if you know it's been there several times.
Speaker 1:When you came in and nobody's looking at it, you bet, yeah, you've been in there three times and it's still there. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, I, I, the last time I went record shopping I didn't really well, I guess I did go record shopping. I was, uh, katherine and I, we had gone to portland for the weekend, we'd gone for a wedding and and, uh, we were headed back to the airport. So we were driving through downtown port Portland and I, just by chance, passed by a record shop and so I said, oh, got to stop and parked, we went inside. I spent about an hour in there and Catherine was bored to tears, but, but, but I spent about maybe almost an hour looking around and, honestly, I didn't really know what I was looking for. I was just looking and I knew if I saw something, if, if it caught my eye, then I would, I would pick it up, and, and, um, I ended up walking out of there with, um, I think I picked up two, two or three Rolling Stones CDs, um, um, and I'm trying to remember what else. I know I talked about it on the show, but that was back in like november, so, um, but but I did.
Speaker 1:I came across, I was looking through the albums as well, and I came across, sometimes the store can be just so big it's overwhelming, you know, yeah, but because if you start at a at nine o'clock in the morning, you won't hit z until about six in the evening and yeah, I didn't want to do that, but but, uh, I did pick up. Um, I picked up an album from angel. I have it, I have and I have the cd, but but there was this vinyl right here and and it was white hot, and I was like, oh, I got to get this and they were selling for $2.99. I said, okay, no, this is it and it was used, it was in the used record bin. But I was like, oh, no, I got to pick this one up.
Speaker 2:No, it's a bargain for that album. That's a great album.
Speaker 1:You've turned me on to that, onto that. I love that album. It is. It's a really good album. Uh, and I think it was their next to last. I think was their fifth album. Yeah, as a matter of fact, because you get the debut hell of a band, um, on earth as it is in heaven, yeah, then white hot, then sinful, yeah, so or wait, something like that. I don't remember, but but yeah, it was. Uh, that was a good one.
Speaker 2:The last time I went to the record store I'm looking at it right now, across the bar here I picked up Davey Lee Roth's Crazy From the Heat on vinyl. Oh wow, and it was used. But I talked him down to $13 from the $45 he wanted for it.
Speaker 1:He wanted $45 for a used record.
Speaker 2:Yes, holy cow, and this guy only does vinyl. Okay, he does shirts and vinyl, yeah, and the other two stores do. One does a small bin of cds and cassettes, yeah, and the other one's just like a full-blown store. If you go in there, you've got to have time. So I rarely go in there, just because I know I'll get lost and my wife does not have that kind of patience. She is not gonna put up, yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:She's like you got 10 minutes and then I'm leaving yeah, exactly, and you know, and look, not everyone appreciates music like we do, you know it. It's a lot of people, because it's what we're into, but it's really a very small percentage of people. When you look at the grand scope and your wife, just like mine, yeah, no, they can take or leave it and they would prefer to leave it mine, yeah, no, they could take or leave it and they would prefer to leave it, and, um, yeah, so we have to kind of understand that it would be inconsiderate of us to drag them around on something like record store day. That would be, that would be like I mean, like you know, kill me now for them, exactly do you, do you uh, do you curse on your show any, or you keep it limited I, I, I don't, but I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't stop anybody from doing it, because there's no, there's no fcc regulation.
Speaker 2:I'm just not a cusser by nature, I'm I'm I'm not the biggest cusser, but I just want to tell a quick story here about me and my wife. Yeah, yeah, she recently flew to to new orleans and so I was listening to the solo albums from kiss yeah, and jeans was in and the kids and me were driving her completely crazy singing living in sin on repeat and she's like this is so juvenile and I'm it is an 11 and 13 year old singing it and even our five year old was like Holiday Inn, holiday Inn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so on the way. When I went and picked her up like a week later, I had the same album in and the kids were in the back and when you wish upon, a star was on and she came in and sat down. First thing was what the hell have you got the Disney channel on for now? I thought you were trying to listen to rock and I'm like she goes wait a minute, shut the hell up. She goes are you fucking kidding me? That's Gene Simmons singing that. Welcome to my world, baby yeah.
Speaker 1:But see, I'm the same way when I get into something I'll listen to it straight for like a week or two, you know, and just want to just pick apart every note there is to it, you know, apart every note there is to it, you know. And but to what you're saying, you know, when you wish upon a star, a lot of people would think what in the world is Gene Simmons singing that song? For? How stupid is that? You know, and part of, and a lot of it, part of the reason why, when it came to the solo albums, Gene, one of the reasons why he got a lot of crap is because he was doing stuff like when you Wish Upon a Star.
Speaker 1:But then when you understand his story, his life, then you know why he sang that song and why that song sang that song and why that song. It. I mean that song meant so much to him from his childhood that when he had an opportunity to record that song was going to certainly be outside of his. Then he took advantage of that and actually I think he did a really, really good job with it and I think that's why I enjoyed his album a lot more.
Speaker 2:And now and I'm gonna get into that when I do my own video about it, but I sure I did not go into it with the viewpoint of this is kiss. I went into it thinking this is just an album I picked up and and and threw in to listen to.
Speaker 1:I didn't have the poster on the wall, I wasn't staring at the album cover, I just streamed it and now there's songs off that album that are a permanent part of some of my playlists that that I make yeah, I look, look like I said we, we can, we can do an episode on uh, on the solo albums here coming up in the future, but but I, you know there's I I like a lot of that stuff. I won't get into it because I don't want to spoil that material now, but you know, okay, so Record Store Day was like a couple weeks ago, I think it was. I think it's like two weeks tomorrow. Did you get out and venture? No, yeah, you know, I didn't even know.
Speaker 1:I mean, it used to only be one day a year and that was in April and it came and I did. I didn't even realize it, forgot all about it and and I'm not, I haven't been a big record store day guy over the years, but I want to do a little partaking, you know, and see what's out there. But I think there's a second one that comes up now in November, I think. I think so. I think that's been like the last several years. I tried to look it up and I couldn't find anything on it, but from my memory it was somewhere around um, because I think they brought it. They brought it into play because of the holiday season. I believe is why that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So if I went to record store day, I'd want to network, I'd want to find people who were like-minded that I could talk to and get some ideas, kind of like. You know, you and I met, you know on on Facebook and just kind of just started talking. I mean, look where that's led us. You never know, you never know what you're going to find. Um, and God forbid, somebody opened my eyes to an artist I never heard of before and I fall in love with. You know, that would be great, you know yeah, you know there's I've had.
Speaker 1:I had a guy on the podcast way back when in the beginning of this. His his name is Dennis, his nickname is Deep Cut Dennis, but I had him on then. You know, a few weeks ago I had Tommy Summers, from three sides of the coin on and, and, and, and, then and, then you as well, and all three tremendous music lovers and, and I mean I've got my, my good buddy, childhood friend, spaz, who comes on the, who comes on the podcast from time to time. We'll do, you know, we're big journey lover, boy, foreigner, geeks, and we've seen those bands numerous times and and so he's like the rest, the rest of our buddies that we grew up with, they they're not into music like we are okay. So so, when it comes to the music type stuff, you know, and we have to dive into things, no, spaz is my guy, but, but you, tommy dennis, there's a lot of other folks out there too.
Speaker 1:But in my world here, your, your, uh, the way I like to describe it, it you have a greater breadth on your music than I necessarily do. I like a lot of stuff, but I like to say that my music fandom or love is kind of like this but everything in that circle, man man, I just get into it and I want to know every. I want to know every lyric to all the songs. I want to know everything about all the band members. I want to. I want to know their kids names. You know it's just whatever. But but I, I I'm trying to learn to stretch it out a little bit more. I mean, you're talking about where you came from, you know, with bluegrass, and not just country, because I love country too. But you know, you really stretch it out and I think that that's just something that I have. I haven't done a lot of. I try. My circle expands a little bit, but it just doesn't get way out here like this.
Speaker 2:So, being a country fan, you know who Conway Twitty is. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I lived less than 10 minutes away from a venue in Kentucky called Tombstone Junction that sounds so good. It was an amusement park. It's defunct now. That's for another day. I can tell you about that. But my very first concert was Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, a few weeks before Conway passed away at Tombstone Junction, talking about having no idea of what you were seeing at the time. And now I can appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, we saw Ricky Skaggs, but Ricky Skaggs is Kentucky born and bred and still performs there at what they call the Bluegrass Opry, renfro Valley. Okay, I live 45 minutes from there. I couldn't get to a record store, but I could get to all these country and bluegrass venues All we wanted to we saw an hour away right, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:If you've ever heard of a Blackstone cherry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They're from Glasgow, kentucky. I grew up an hour and a half from there, but they have ties. Two of the guys in the band, their fathers were in a country band called the Kentucky Headhunters.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, I've heard of them. I don't know their music, but I have heard of them. Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2:They did a lot of covers unfortunately Not a whole lot of original material, yeah, but they were fantastic and they were hard rock for the time in the 90s of the country.
Speaker 1:They had a pretty good run, like 30 years ago or so. Right, they did, yeah they had Doomless Walker.
Speaker 2:They did a cover of Walk Softly on this Heart of Mine. Yeah, honky Tonk Walkin' Rag Top. They did a cover of, uh, walk softly on this heart of mine. Um, honky-tonk walking uh rag top. Uh, honky-tonk angel, I think was. Was that rock and roll angel? I forget the name of the song, but they, they were actually pretty good and some of their offspring, you know, grew up in the music industry and then when the headhunters broke up or actually I think they reunited they took blackstone cherry as their opening band and that's where those boys got their legs, from my understanding right. So the only time I've ever seen blackstone cherry is when they did like a 15 minute set of just covers to like 20 people or something. And now I want to go see them and you know they're going to be huge. At least I hope they're going to be huge.
Speaker 1:Well, they're actually Blackstone Cherry does very well across the Atlantic. They do real well. They're kind of like Blackberry Smoke. They do really well on that side of the Atlantic much. They're much bigger than they are here in america, which is is really odd because of their sound and what it is that they do. You think that that an american audience would just really gravitate more towards it, but they seem to do. I mean they're doing arenas over in the UK and they're doing, you know, like large clubs and theaters here in the United States. I mean they do well, here, what's that?
Speaker 2:There'll be third on the bill here. You know when anything.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, which is kind of head scratching, but that's I. You know, we could spend all day trying to figure that one out too. So, um, so I know that I want to try to get my buddy spaz to to head out with me to to record store day when it comes around again. So I'm going to be on the lookout for november. I'm going gonna be listening up and trying to pay attention, because I really want to just go out and run around to to some record stores. Our, our favorite record store when we were kids is still in existence. It's still around. It's um, it's called levels and I bought so much music there growing up and and, uh, I just remember I would go in there and thumb through the bins on the albums, the new stuff. Then I would go through the used stuff and yeah, because, yeah, they do a lot of used, a lot of used stuff there as well, always have, and I prefer the use because the new stuff is uh, you got to have the, the red vinyl or the green vital and everything's.
Speaker 2:If you walk into walmart or meyer or any of those places, they've got the brand new re issues and it's 30 bucks or 25 or whatever. Yeah, I, I got a megadeth live album. It's the Coke bottle version. I just realized that paid probably an extra 10 bucks for it. I've never taken it out of the sleeve. I got it because I'd never seen this album before. It's like a recording or something, but I'm like it was a special edition.
Speaker 1:And to what you're saying. Okay, when I when I graduated high school in 83, I had gone back to Missouri, my high school girlfriend, her family, relocated to Missouri. They invited me to come back and I went back there and I needed money. So, like a dummy, I sold almost every piece of vinyl that I had at the time. I got a whole $85 for it. I had Beatles albums in there. I sold nearly every single Kiss album I had. I think the only one I may have hung on to was Music from the Elder, whatever I had for Aerosmith, my Uriah heap albums, all that kind of stuff. So I sold all of that and I I'm certainly I regret it to this day, but in trying to um, in trying to get the and I don't even have a turntable anymore, but I still want to buy those albums back and so I do I go on eBay and I look for stuff and and I'm not, I don't want the new stuff when it comes to the kiss records I want, let's see, oh yeah, I want the old stuff.
Speaker 1:I want like okay, let me find it here Now, do you?
Speaker 2:still just have three of the four solo albums on vinyl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't picked up Peter's yet.
Speaker 2:I almost bought a Peter to send to you off eBay to see if I could swap you for your Paul, just for the heck of it.
Speaker 1:I'll just send you the Paul. I got two of them. I'll send you one.
Speaker 2:I'm just like well, I want all two of them. I'll send you one. I'm just like well, I want all four of them now yeah, yeah, but I'll send it to you.
Speaker 1:You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 2:I was laughing, I could trade you out because you need peter.
Speaker 1:I do, I do, I'll pick up two peters, if I have to, because, but, no, no, but, but. But like I had said, though it, when I, when I, when I look at these albums, they have to have all the, all the stuff in the posters, the membership forms, the merch forms. I got to have all that stuff in there, cause that's how I had them when I was a kid, and so that's what I really look for whenever I buy them off of eBay and um, but I don't want someone taking me to the cleaner saying oh this is $60 or whatever.
Speaker 1:No, I'll pay, you know, 20, 30 bucks. That's about it, that's you know. Outside of that, it's like no, come on, dude, All right, really serious. But but not only that. If, cause Casablanca had a few different uh labels on the on the center of the album, if mine was the purple Casablanca label, which was pre 375, then that's the one I want. So so I look for that stuff too, and, um, sometimes you gotta look a little harder than others and and uh. But but that to what you're saying. I want to go into the used bins and look through that stuff, cause that's where I know I stand a better chance of finding what I want. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, Absolutely. I even like hitting used to anyway flea markets and used furniture stores for some reason always have like a little bin of records or something. And I'll dig through. I found some Beatles stuff, Wow.
Speaker 2:I was kind of surprised. Yeah, you know, um I, because my mother-in-law is like the biggest beatles. Shout out, donna, she is like the biggest beatles fan. She has like a beatles room, wall-to-wall albums, books, the movies, if I mean. She has multiples of everything and she just keeps on collecting. She has the beanie babies and multiples. You know, uh, if you could, you'd probably have the kiss beanie babies or something, or funko pops or something they're.
Speaker 1:They're sitting right over there on the shelf and I didn't buy him. A friend of mine, he he gave him to me. He's cleaning out stuff and he sends me a text message. He says, hey, are you home? I'm in the area, I got something for you. I'm like, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Five minutes later he's at my door and he hands me a bag and I look, look at it and I'm like, oh my gosh, all right, mark, thanks, you know, but and I got my kiss bobble heads up here too from when they from? From when they they, when Paul and Gene had their arena football league team. Oh yeah, yeah, but you know so. So shout out to Donna, right? So my mom's, my mom's name is Donna too, and actually your mom, donna, is a huge Beatles fan. My mom is not. However, it was because of her playing the 45 of Let it Be over and over and over again, or not over and over, but playing it on our stereo and typing the lyrics out. That's really the thing that hit me and hooked me when it came to music. It was because my mom, donna, and the Beatles, just one of those things I probably misspoke.
Speaker 2:Donna is my mother-in-law, but she is like a second mom to me.
Speaker 1:She's the greatest, you're fine.
Speaker 2:My mother's Wilma, and she is the same way with Elvis. Ah, the only albums in our home Were Country and Elvis Gotcha, and it was more gospel Elvis than anything else, but she loved. When he came back with the comeback album we had to have, we had to go stand in line at the store and get it. It's Elvis. We can't do without Elvis in our house. Come on, the king he was yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I've got about 10 minutes left. You said that you were going to listen to the Sammy Hagar Concourse song, so I want to know your opinion. I'm dying to know.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Well, let's end with that then. Okay, we'll close up shop with this right here. So I did. I listened to it and that's a really good song. And you mentioned previous to us starting starting to roll here, that that tapping in the beginning from Joe sound was just, it was very, very Eddie Van Halen, like absolutely. When you hear that, it's like this is a Van Halen song, but then when you get past that, no, it's a sammy song, but but nonetheless it's a really good song, really good song I like it.
Speaker 2:All four, all four guys on that out on that song had their moments. Like sammy was singing, joe was doing the tapping in the beginning as a nod to eddie, but then in the breakdown he does his own solo, his own nod to his own stuff, but it still was in like the tune of a van halen song.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if I'm describing yeah, more, but but more on this, on the sammy side of it, though.
Speaker 2:You know the sam, the sammy era yeah, the later 80s, early 90s, for sure, Even Aronoff was pounding those drums. That's definitely not Alex on those drums. You can tell he didn't try to emulate Alex at all, he went harder pounding. I almost would have thought it was Bonham there for a minute just because Aronoff was hitting him so hard. But yeah, I really love the song. It's what Encore. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Good Night Encore. Thank you Goodnight Encore. Thank you Goodnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I only heard it the one time. And you know, sometimes you say yeah, it's okay, and then you got to listen to it over and over and over again. No, no, this one was good right out of the gate, right from the beginning to the end, and I kind of liked, kind of throughout the song, especially around halfway through the song where it sounded like the crowd was chanting Thank you, like there were, like the song was being played live, you know, and there was a crowd chanting Thank you. It was like thank you, thank you, thank you, you know over and over again, but that was really really really cool.
Speaker 2:Even Michael Anthony it may be the part you're referencing scene was where he is saying over and over again thank you, and I did as the backup. I mean it was, it wasn't. I don't know if it was emotional for him, but to me I can almost picture him being emotional, because those guys had 30 years of history before you know.
Speaker 1:They parted and were had to be close you would think, yeah, you would think you know. I mean, I mean it was michael and alex and eddie before dave. Absolutely, you know, yeah, and so you know. I mean they had history before dave and then, um, I I don't know, I don't. I. I mean I I've read sammy's book, but that's been probably 10, 12 years since I read sammy's book and I think it's probably 10, 12 years, since I read Sammy's book and I think it's it was.
Speaker 2:Are you talking about Red? What's that Are?
Speaker 1:you talking about Red? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I did it on Audible back in February.
Speaker 1:Listen to it. Okay, you know, and I know there was some stuff, but I just think that there was some stuff going on with Eddie. You know, you come to find out that that Eddie was the real driver behind that band. I mean not driver, but but he was the one that was the big influencer. It was like no, we're going to do it this way.
Speaker 2:And he was truly the visionary in more than one way. Yeah, sammy and Dave may have had a hand on most of the lyrics, but're 100 right that eddie was the driving force now in sammy's book. From what I remember, they kind of reworked michael's deal like two times after the 84 album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they did. Yeah, they kind of were like, hey, michael, uh, you know, this is the way it's going to be sign here or else you're not being as creative I this is the way it's going to be Sign here or else You're not being as creative.
Speaker 2:I didn't like that either.
Speaker 1:It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, yeah, I didn't like that. So it leads me to believe that there was just some stuff. I mean, there was just some stuff going on with Ed where it was. Maybe it was personal stuff, maybe it was substances that were kind of just messing with him a little bit and messing with his decision-making, or how he wanted to have control of the band, I'm not sure. And then, of course, later on, when they tossed Sammy aside, it was just more of the same.
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to talk about tossed aside, aside, look at gary chiron. Yeah, he's an afterthought in every, not in extreme. I I love extreme and I enjoy his music a lot. Right, that's for another day. But when it comes to van halen three, it's forgotten.
Speaker 1:Oh, most definitely. Yeah, people jump right from from like balance, which is the last studio record with with with Sammy, they jump and skip past Van.
Speaker 2:Halen to a different kind of truth, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you've got even greatest hits yeah, volume one in between, which was the that and that was really kind of the complete breaking point for sammy. Yeah, you know that's. You know that was kind of the straw that broke.
Speaker 2:The camera wasn't even on that album, on the greatest hits album no, no but I think one track, not one, but they could have at least had a live performance or something from him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think well didn't. Greatest Hits, volume 1, I thought that came. I thought that was pre-Van Halen 3.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe I'm thinking of the, maybe I'm thinking of the wrong Greatest Hits, because there's one where Sammy did a new song.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Dave did a new song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's Greatest Hits, volume 1. Because Sammy didn't even want to do a greatest hits album. Right, he was like, why do we need a greatest hits album? And uh, and that it had that song humans being from, uh, the twister soundtrack. And then, and I think then dave did two. He did two uh recordings and people thought, oh, maybe dave's coming back into the fold now, and that was kind of it and I'll tell you what a lot of people poo-poo it. But I love me wise mad magic. I just think. I think that's a great song.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know that the album is called the best of both worlds. It's a two.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's the one I'm thinking of yeah, that's the one that came out afterwards. That's got the frankenstein cover on it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, but both of those Greatest Hits albums don't have Sharon, and you're right. Greatest Hits Volume 1 was pre-Sharon, but you're right, even the double album Greatest Hits Is sans Sharon, right right.
Speaker 1:So to what you're saying, to your point yeah, they just the Sharon era very, very small, very short time frame, but completely wiped off the map. Yeah, the Sharon era very, very small, very short timeframe, but completely wiped off the map too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to revisit that album and see if I can find any hidden gems in it.
Speaker 1:Right, cool, listen, yes, I'm going to let you go, all right. So let me wrap up here real quick. Just stick with me. You got it, you got it. So, folks, look, this is just a taste of some of the stuff that you're going to get when Talking Rock Fan launches and officially launches. Ok, that's going to be coming up here pretty soon. We'll keep you posted on that, but this has just been a good time. This is kind of a peek behind the curtain. People, this is kind of what Shanks and I do, period. So this is nothing new for us. It could be something new for you. Just a lot of good stuff, and if you like-.
Speaker 2:Does this mean one of us is Dorothy and the other one's the wizard, or?
Speaker 1:I'd probably be the scarecrow I was going to say say look, one of us is going to be the scarecrow, one of us is going to be the cowardly lion.
Speaker 2:Okay there you go, there you go I like it also.
Speaker 1:Have no courage and the other one's going to have no brains.
Speaker 1:I've got the yellow already for for one of them. So I'm all right, all right, so, oh, okay. So, with that, people, um, as you know, this program is available on all of the streaming platforms. Just search the Ben Maynard program. It's right there. Boom, subscribe to it, okay, and you'll get your notifications anytime a new episode is uh is launched. Uh, next, if you're uh enjoying this on YouTube, youtube, then please subscribe to the channel. Give me a thumbs up. The likes are so very important, okay, and then, uh, you have to leave a comment, please. All right, you have to leave a comment. Um, last but not, and follow me on Tik TOK, tik TOK, tik TOK. Follow me on Tik TOK, the Ben Maynard program. That's where it is Okay. All right, with that, we're done. Thanks for being here. This is the Ben Maynard program. Tell a friend you got it, I'll tell more.