Ep 275 Claremont Drive

Let your mind drift back to the good old days. You're cruising in your car with the windows down, the radio up and your favorite girl (or guy!) by your side hoping to hear your favorite song. You might head to the local burger drive in or perhaps just park under the moon-lit sky as the tunes played. 

Memories.....that's what Baby Boomer Rock n' Roll is all about! They play a variety of songs from The Animals to The Yardbirds.

So hop in your car and take a ride into the past via…Claremont Drive.

Transcript

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Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike.

Oh, you remembered your name this week. I remembered my name this week. Good for you, such a good boy.

It wasn't one of those days. You want a treat? Well, is it a cigar? No. No.

No, but I do have a cigar for you. Oh, nice. A placentia.

A placentia. Did I tell you it was so funny when somebody, when they showed me this box? I sent you the picture. You know what it is.

You work in a cigar shop. And they said, oh yeah, you got to have one of these things. And he said it real fast.

These are fantastic. They're placentias. Excuse me, a who? A placenta? I thought he said placenta, but it's a placentia.

Placentia. Placentia, yeah. And of course, that went on for like 20 minutes.

You know, it's not bad. If you slice it really thin and roll it, it's great. Oh, God.

Talk about smoking the placenta. I guess you could. I've heard people eating it.

People eating it. I don't know about that. Wait, placenta or polenta? Polenta, I'll eat.

Polenta. I'll eat polenta. What about placenta, polenta? Oh, hell no.

Say that 10 times fast. No, no, no. However, I made a cowboy stew the other day.

Fantastic. How'd you make him stew? Did you, what, you kill his horse? Yeah, I did. And use his horse for the meal.

All right. That sounds good. So we got some guys in the studio here tonight.

We do. Who are they? Claremont Drive, everybody. Hey.

They brought their own fans. Look at that. Look at that.

They just drove in off of Claremont Drive. Yeah, they did. Those are the winners of $20 gift cards.

We're going to hear that. We're going to hear about that. Yes, we are.

Yes, we are. Absolutely. How you guys doing? Good.

Awesome. Awesome. Fantastic.

You know what we're going to do? We're going to go all the way back to kindergarten, and we're going to start over here. And why don't you just introduce yourself to everybody. Talk right into the speaker.

Tell everybody your name and what is it that you do? My name is Ron McKee, and I'm a singer. And I'm one of the founders of the band. Yeah? Yeah.

Excellent. Excellent. Next.

That was quick. I'm Don Smith. You know, you guys can adjust that.

You can put that down a little bit. Because, you know, it's like, it's very tall. Yeah.

There you go. Look at that. Sometimes smaller is better.

Yeah, that's right. 50 years of playing, and I just learned that. That's excellent.

Like I said, Don Smith, bass player. I was the newest member last year, so I celebrate my one year with the band this month. All right.

It's great to be here. Of course. Yeah, of course.

Dennis Byer, guitarist. All right. Been in the band a half a dozen years, maybe.

Maybe, if I remember. Hold on. I'm going to pause this for just a second.

Speak in this microphone again. Hey, let's go back. Get your hands off my button.

So we're just going to go right back in. You're going to introduce yourself. Three, two, one.

Hey, I'm Al Conrath. I play a little guitar, a lot of vocals, a lot of harmonies. Original member of the band.

We've been together going on 17 years now. Okay. A little guitar, like a ukulele? Yeah, it's only about 18 inches.

Okay. Now he's just bragging. What about glockenspiel? No glockenspiel.

No glockenspiel. Nobody plays the glockenspiel in here. So 17 years ago, 17 years.

17 years. So how, you know, because that's right about the time I met Ted. Because when I met Ted, he wasn't in a band.

So you guys kind of put this whole thing together right about the time that I met Ted. Yeah. Actually, we put... What's that? He was in the appellate business.

Yeah, he was. Yeah, I know. I used to get pallets from him every once in a while to burn in my backyard.

Yeah. Actually, the band started as a joke. Me, Ron, and one of the other fountain hunters, we would just get together in his basement.

Didn't know crap about music. And we'd play three songs and we'd go home. We'd laugh about it.

His wife, who we lost last year too. She come down one day and says, I got a perfect name for your band. I said, what band? We don't have a band.

The Dead and the Dying. Because we're all old. So I actually went home.

I made a fictitious website and told our friends, go on there and mix a few comments. I went on BandMix and said, the Dead and the Dying are looking for a bass player and a drummer. Six months later, I get an email.

Is the Dead and the Dying still looking for a drummer? No, they're dead and they're dead and they're dead. They're dead and they died. They all died.

And we didn't know anything. The drummer, he's played in a festival, I think. Well, he can come here one time.

He's going to walk out and say, I'm not playing. Well, it turns out he was worse than us. And then we found Ted and we got together and we started, you know.

And we got Rich. And we got Rich and then we let Rich go. Yeah, Rich was a... Well, we eventually found a guitar player.

And our dream, I asked these guys to indulge my bucket list. And if we could go to Bally Doyles and play in the Battle of the Bands. We weren't battling anybody.

I just wanted to be able to be on stage, play three songs, 10, 15 minutes, three songs. You're done. We got done.

And I said, well, thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. This has been fun.

And Ted looked at me and said, what do you mean done? We'll see you next week. And we just kept going. Yeah.

The Dead and the Dying performing their number one hit, I See You. And it was Ted that said, we got to change the name. Everybody's going to think we're a Dead and the Dying band.

I mean, a Grateful Dead band. And Ron lived where we were practicing. Or Gothic Metal Band or something like that.

Yeah, I lived on Claremont Drive in Darien. And so that's how we got the name. Yeah, I kind of figured that.

And I actually know right where Claremont Drive is. That's what I figured out, where that came from. And so obviously, y'all rehearse at your house.

Yes, now we do. Yeah, we're back to his house. Okay, okay.

And it's just unbelievable. The first time we ever played was Key Wester. When it was there.

When it was there. But you knew the bouncer, right? Yeah, I knew Cleo, the DJ. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He says, come on up. You guys can play here. There's nobody here.

Just come on up and play. Yeah, there's never going to be nobody here. There's not going to be anybody here that's going to play.

There's about 125 people there. We've got the perfect place. That sounds exactly like where we want to play.

But the fact is, we were just thrilled to death to be able to go on a stage and do this. Well, what they call the stage, because that was a tiny, tiny stage. I played there, but that stage was not as big as this room.

Well, little did we know, he told a couple friends and they called. Well, about 40 people showed up. They had one bartender, one waitress.

She was running around like they ran out of burgers. We knew 13 songs. Yeah.

That's it. And you played them all twice. We did, we did.

And I don't think we played any one of them correctly. And they came up afterwards. You guys are great.

Oh man, you guys. And encouraged us to keep going. But man, were they liars.

Oh my God. We thought about naming the band, You Suck. That way when they started yelling that, we thought we were doing good.

We kind of nixed that idea. Oh, that's funny. That's funny.

So that was your, that was your first like official gig. Yeah. Unofficial, official gig.

Okay. Did they invite you back? Yes. Oh yeah.

Yeah. They thought we were Grace Hanks and sliced bread. I wish we had video right now, because the look of surprise on his face when he said, yes, they did.

It's like, he still doesn't believe it. Well, then we went to an American Legion in Joliet. And there says, hey, would you guys like to have a band? Lady goes, oh honey, we can't afford a band.

And I says, well, then you'll love our price. Like a lot of bands, we're free. Well, come on in.

So we went there and. Big turnout there too. Big turnout there.

And one of the best negotiations that I ever had was Bill. Remember Bill from the Crow Club? Did you know him? The previous? Oh yeah, yeah. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Right. Right. I wanted him.

I says, Bill, what is the chances of getting our band to come in here? You know, getting a chance to play. He goes, he was kind of gruff. What's your name? It's Claremont drive.

Never heard of you. Yeah. Uh, I says, he says, you're any good? And I go, I think we suck, but people seem to like us.

He goes, that's the most honest answers ever gotten here. Pick two dates. Wow.

Without doing this. Nice. Yeah.

So it was pretty sweet. And so, and how often do you guys play the Crow Club? Um, around three times a year. About three times a year.

And has that been like since almost day one? Uh, it was two and then it went up to three and then it went up to four. And then we cut it back to three because we found other places. No, no.

Every year though. Yeah. Just about it.

It's been just about every year since you guys have been together. Oh yeah, every year. The Crow Club.

No kidding. We do our fan. We used to do our fan appreciation night there.

Yeah. We still do. We used to do the Halloween party.

Halloween party there. We got canceled this year. So, so which one of you lives out in this area then? I live in Plainfield.

Okay. So you're in Plainfield. Also, we're practically neighbors.

Okay. So you're close and you knew of it and all that. So you're the one that hooked up in that.

Okay. Wow. That's pretty good.

That's pretty interesting. Yeah. And when Bill died, we went, um, we went to his wake.

We were the only band that they had a picture of at his wake because he, we called him up and took a picture with us and he put a picture of him. We were the only band that he had represented there at his wake. It was pretty cool.

He was a real nice guy with his little, uh, his, uh, DB monitor. Uh-huh. Go over a hundred.

Go over a hundred. Closely. Go freaking walk up there and unplug you.

Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Well, we're usually pretty, we're usually louder than that. Oh, yes you are. Yeah.

But he's not there anymore. So it doesn't matter. Yeah.

I'm, I'm trying to remember if we started playing there when he was there. I don't remember. I don't remember anybody showing us, you know, you're going over a hundred.

So I'm thinking it was, it was after that. You sit right at the end of the bar there. Do you know where Rita, you know, Rita? No.

Like a staple. She's right at the corner bar. He would sit right there and he'd look and he'd go.

Wow. Wow. No kidding.

Okay. Well, that's, well, one of the, um, the trumpet player in our band, his son-in-law. Right.

Eric. Okay. Oh, so you know all about it.

Maybe you guys know all about it. Hey, why don't you hear, you guys do the podcast. I'm trying.

So when you first started, so when you first started, you know, putting this stuff together as a band, what was, what was the music? Obviously you guys are kind of known for baby boomer rock. Cause baby boomer rock and roll. We, um, it was basically sixties and some fifties.

Okay. Um, and as we evolved and we changed in players, Dennis came along about three, four years ago now and opened up our library a little bit more Eagles, uh, you know, BTO. And we got a, we figured our, our fan base is getting a little older.

Sorry, fans. But we had to go into the seventies a little bit more in a couple of eighties songs. But, uh, and we do have the greatest fans in the world.

Yeah. They follow us everywhere. No matter where we go, we sell out.

I mean, it's, it's, um, we're not, we're not playing the United center. Don't get me wrong. But, uh, we play up at Shanahan's one of the nicest, best fricking bars for music six nights a week.

Everywhere we go, we need reservations, get reservations. They only hold 70 people get reservations. We sell out all the time.

Wow. You're talking about the Shanahan's over in Woodridge. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Do you know Richmore? No, I, you know, I've been there only a couple of times.

Uh, but I, but I know. Nice guy. Yeah.

Great music guy. Don't try to get booked there. Yeah.

Too many people. I was talking to the guy at the house. I don't think Cadillac groove would fit in that place.

They wouldn't. That's if I remember, it's not a big stage and it's kind of a low ceiling too. Yeah.

I went to Hollywood casino because we're saying, well, it would be cool if we could get our foot in the door there. And, um, talk to, I think is, I forget the guy's name, Scott, whatever. And I says, you had Cadillac groove back here last week.

He goes, yeah. He says, where did you put everybody? He goes, dude, it was wall to wall people. Our people need a place to sit.

Again, sorry fans, but it's the truth. They need a place to sit. You know, they're not going to stand all night.

Like your group. Yeah. Oh, there's quite a bit of, bit of seating there though.

Cause it wraps all the way around the bar. I mean, if you're on the other side of the bar, you might not be able to see the stage, but at least there's a place to sit. Correct.

And we've got some fans that need to sit. And I mean, definitely do. Like what? Two of them.

Oh no, we've, we've got a, you know, you'd be surprised. We've got a very wide range of people that come out. We've got 30 year olds and we've got 80 year olds that come out and see us.

If we come out and see us, we're going to take one of those seats. Okay. Yeah.

That's perfectly fine. Perfect. Yeah.

I remember I saw you guys, gosh, it may have been very early on for you guys. Cause you played a small bar over in Medina. Yes, we did.

Cause I, I grew up over in that, over in that area. I, where I lived, I was, I'm, I was able to pretty much walk there where I grew up. What was the name of that place? I can't remember it now.

Um, yeah. Irving parking. Has it? It used to be like gas notes or something like that.

It's changed hand a couple of times, but it's, uh, it's still going. Yeah. I can't remember what it was, what it was called.

They had good deep fried bacon there though. Okay. Deep fried, deep fried, deep fried.

Hey, we got to eat also. I mean, you know, I know this artery is hardened up instantly when I heard deep fried bacon and then we put butter on it. Yeah.

Of course. But, but yeah, cause I went there and I remember you guys did a lot of, you know, you had some Beatles and stuff in that area. Ted got us that gig.

Okay. And, um, um, we only played there once. There was some argument, close the door, open the door, close the door.

No, you can't have the door open, close it. Or I don't know what happened. We never made it back there.

So, um, yeah, that was boy, but that you were there then. Yeah, I was. Oh yeah.

I went and saw you guys. That was an hour. That's when we really suck.

But it was packed. I mean, it wasn't a big place, but the people were packed in there like sardines. I remember I was lucky enough to get, get a spot and lean my elbow on the bar.

And it was, I was actually pretty darn close to you guys. But like you said, it was packed in there really was. Wow.

And, and I can't, yeah, we were really bad back then. I mean, we're bad now, but back then, in fact, our tip jar. What are you saying? We suck.

We're number two. We're, we're not ones to beat the tip jar to death, but we tell them, Hey, you know, I need to throw a dollar in there and throw $2. All this money goes for a great cause.

It goes for our music lessons. And we need it. And we tell him, you know, if you put $300 in there, we'll just pack up and go home.

You had the place to yourself. Play your jukebox and be happy. Yeah, right.

Here's the music you want to hear. So, so over the years, have, have, has your client has your clientele have, have your fans changed a little bit? Uh, well, we've lost some people along the way. We probably lost about 15 of our friends, you know, over the years.

If anything, it's just grown. Yeah. I'm just, I guess, I guess what I'm, what I meant to really say is, have you been able to reach a younger crowd? Have you been able to branch out a little bit? Somewhat younger.

Yeah. And last year I've seen a lot of younger couples out. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they're out for the dancing though. They're going to come for our new drummer now.

Cause he's only like 38 or something. He's 42. So he's a baby.

When we were going through interviews with, uh, with drummers, our drummer had to leave. Um, he came to one of the interviews. He's 44 years old.

I almost wrote him off. I told these guys, he doesn't even know our music. Half this music is older than he is, but he really interviewed really good.

And we brought five guys in and he was head and shoulders above anybody. And that's before we heard him play. Right.

Just through the interview. I knew he was going to be good. And he's smooth as silk.

I mean, he's just really. Paul, don't let that go to your head. But you know, we bring a song.

Hey, have you heard it? Never heard it. Well, listen to it next week. Comes in like he's been playing it for a hundred years.

He's he's as smooth as a Corvette. I mean, he's really, really good. So it's my job a lot easier.

Except now the chicks are leaning toward him and kind of hurts our feelings. You hear that girls? Yeah. Hey, there's nothing wrong with sloppy seconds.

You know, you gotta have a lure to bring them in. You gotta catch them first. We're not as fast as we used to be.

Well, that's the advantage to having an older fan base, because the ladies are easier. Exactly. See, that just goes to prove, you know, doesn't matter how old you are.

If you're in a band, you're doing it for the chicks. That's right. Because, you know, it's not the money.

You know, it's not for the money. If I'm doing it for the chicks, I want somebody young. They can carry my shit out.

Like that old guy used to say, I get like two girls at a time. So in case they fall asleep, then they got somebody to talk to. And instead of selling T-shirts and tanks and stuff like that, it's shawls.

Shawls. Shawls. Big market.

One of the things, I mean, I never thought we would get to the point where we're at, you know, I hear, you know, hey, you know, Cadillac Groove is playing Q-Bar. We've played Q-Bar. They're playing Heroes West.

Yeah, we're playing there June 6th. Yeah. Oh, you know, Cadillac Groove's playing Heroes West.

Yeah. We've played there. They played the Crow Club.

We've played there. They played Ottawa. We've played there.

So it's like, ooh. So you're doing okay. Yeah, we're doing all right.

Either that or we're doing really bad. Yeah. Yeah.

I was thinking about that. Cadillac Groove sucks. No, I don't think so.

No, it ain't that. But yeah, our fan base has grown. I mean, I started taking over the Facebook page six years ago.

We had 300 people. We're almost to 1,000. Yeah.

Our email list is around 500. So they, you know, whenever we ask of these people, I mean, they just respond. They're fantastic.

We were going to have, if you didn't have the scaffolding here, we asked about 20 girls if they would come up, bring some. We love Claremont Drive. Bring your cameras.

We were going to pull up in Ron's SUV, get out with the shades on, and they were going to take pictures and scream like it was the Beatles coming to an interview. Right, right, right. But the scaffolding kind of ruined that idea.

I'll do it. I'll do it. We had like 20 people who were willing to do this.

We try to keep the fans really involved with what we do. At break time, we don't go sit in the corner, you know, or go outside, smoke a cigarette. We rub elbows with everybody.

Yep, yep. And we try to learn all their names. Yep.

And it holds a lot of water when somebody can walk in that's seen you the last time and you go, hey, Joe, hey, Kathy, thanks for coming. They look at you like, wow, you remember us? And the hugs go all around, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We get them up there to sing songs with us. Like we do Boots, Made for Walking, and get all the women we can find, jam the stage with them, give them these sheet music, you know, kind of thing, big bold graphic prints so they can read it. And they really think we're bad at that song.

Oh, my God. But it's great fun. They enjoy it.

They love it. You know. When we started doing that, you know, you could get one person, one girl, two girls up to do it.

Now we go, are you guys doing Boots tonight? Yes. I want to sing. They're like lined up.

They want to be up there singing with us. And it's one of our biggest sticks. I mean, people go crazy.

Women of all ages. All ages. Yeah, yeah.

Excellent. You know, I think a lot of the- Coming up and they're a little rascal. That's reserved for Blue Chip Casino.

The Blue Hair Casino. You know, I think the way venues are changing would help your genre of music as well. You know, I've been doing this a long time.

You guys have been doing this for 17 years. You know, 10 years ago, a lot of the places that we all play pretty regularly were trying to cater towards a younger crowd. So you had the disco nights and the house nights and the DJ nights and all that stuff.

The decor was different. The music that they would play piped in was a little bit different. And I think there's been a change.

I think people are trying to get back more toward hearing actually music that's written and people play it on guitars. Right. You know, not on computers.

And, you know, it's amazing how I have to search long and hard now to find a band that has a DJ in it. You know, remember, we went through that whole era where every band had a DJ in it who stood back by the drummer and had turntables and the whole bit. I think that stuff's going away.

And we're getting back to, I don't know if I want to say the golden age of songwriting a little bit, but kind of in a way we are. You know, younger kids are listening to music that is 20, 30, 40 years older than they are for the songwriting. Well, you, I listened to one of your podcasts and I don't know what band.

Thanks. There's only 270 of them. Yeah.

He listened to one of them. So are you trying to say we should listen to more? They listen to more, but they can't remember. You had mentioned that there was bands out there that are using click tracks, you know, backtracks.

That is, that's embarrassing. I mean, it really is. They can get away with that.

And people don't know. They don't know yet they're supporting these guys. It's like, I mean, God love you, you know, play music, but it's kind of like, I don't know.

I could never do that. Well, speaking of classic music. Yeah.

I think it's time we take a little break so they can get their stuff together and we can hear some of their music. Give me one second because I don't want to, I don't want to leave it. I don't want to leave it at the point where we said these bands all kind of suck.

Okay. Who said that? You weren't talking about us, were you? These bands all kind of suck. Well, we're going to take a break right now.

I was going to call our lawyer. But there was, but you know, there's, there's, there's two schools of thought with that. Okay.

Use using a click track. That's one thing. Click track is just right.

And that's keeping everybody on, you know, on time. Okay. That's fine.

But I think you're referring to the episode where we spoke very heavily about people that use prerecorded tracks and backing tracks and backing tracks in the vocals. And there's two, there's two different schools of thought for it. I mean, there's some people out there that are, they're doing that and they're making a lot of money doing it and their fans don't mind that.

Great. That's for them. But then there's people that come out to see your band, right? And that's not their thing.

They want to come out and see your, your bands. I mean, I mean, there's, there is two schools of thought. I'm not a fan of it, of using those tracks in the whole bit, but yeah, there's, there's definitely people that are out there using it.

That was actually my favorite podcast because to this day, Ray said something that I loved. I'll never forget that he said it. It was, it was in this podcast.

We were talking about, we were, we were talking about writing original music and the fans that, that are willing to go out to listen to original music versus the fans who don't want to listen to original music and just want to hear it exactly the way that you're used to hearing these songs on a recording. That's what we try to do. We try to do.

Right. Well, he said, he said the people who want to hear it exactly the way it's supposed to sound and aren't willing to listen to original music, you got to kind of throw the responsibility back on the listener. It's lazy listening because you have to actually put forth an effort to listen to original music or listen to a cover song that is not played exactly like the recording.

Right. You know, you've got to be, you got to be willing to put the effort in to listen to the original. We don't play anything like the original.

And on that note, we need to take a break because I'm hoping that these guys will make it through this podcast. So we'll be right back. Okay.

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier.

Get ready for the Bus Stop Blues show that takes you deep into the soul of the blues with classic hits, road stories, and live jam sessions. Hosted by blues man, Kevin Purcell and me, the one and only Road Bill. The Bus Stop Blues is two hours of nonstop blues, banter, and badassery.

Check out the Bus Stop Blues podcast at thebusstopblues.com where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, or any other major podcast platform. Up on board, the Bus Stop Blues, where the blues never stops rolling. And now for the first time tonight, we're going to take a little ride down Claremont Drive.

Yeah, we're going to do a song. The guys indulged me because an old girlfriend broke my heart. And her name was Susan Therese Dugan.

She's no longer close. But anyway, I should have just looked at her initials, STD. And I'd have known what I knew we were in trouble.

You okay now? I'm okay. You get a shot? I did. Okay.

Didn't you go out with your sister? I did. I cheated on her with her sister, Vanessa. VD? VD.

Hey, but there's a happy ending to the story. I'm dating a girl now. She's, her dad's a doctor.

Dr. Silvan. Her name is Penny. Penny Silvan.

Okay. Sounds like my doctor. He had two cases of VD in his office.

All right, with that one, let's do it. To Susan, wherever you are. Well, here's my story.

It's sad, but true. It's about a girl that I once knew. She took my love and ran around with every single guy in town.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Keep away from her. I miss her lips and that smile on her face, the touch of her hand and this girl's warm embrace.

So if you don't want to cry like I do, we'll keep away from her on our round soon. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. She likes to travel around, yeah, she loves the magic put you down.

People let me put you why, she goes. How was all the guys in the moral of the story, I don't know. I've been in love and my love still grows.

Ask any girl that she ever knew, we'll keep away from her on our round soon. Oh, keep away from that girl, cause I don't know what she'll do. Keep away from Sue.

She likes to travel around. Yeah, she loves to put you down. People never put you wise.

She goes out with other guys. And the moral of the story from a guy who knows. I fell in love and my love still grows.

Ask any fool that she ever knew. Keep away from her all around Sue. Oh, keep away from that girl, cause I don't know what she'll do.

Keep away from Sue. Awe. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Very nice. Very old.

So, yeah. Hence today here. Hey, I'm there too, boys.

You know, when I was in high school, I got my first car. Had a tape deck in it, right? For those young people listening to this show, it was this plastic enclosed thing with like this ribbon in it, and you had to use a pencil to tighten it up every once in a while, otherwise you get eaten up in your thing. And had to put a matchbook underneath it so it could double track.

Double track. Yeah. Yeah.

So my, and my mother was really big into like going on to like, you know, Time Life magazine and ordering everything that they would offer as memorabilia. So she had all kinds of plates and statues and figurines and trophies and all that stuff. And I would love when she would get the music, right? Well, she started, she started collecting these cassette tapes of music from the fifties.

Columbia House? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. It was Time Life.

Oh yeah. Time Life. Time Life magazine or Time Life club or whatever it was.

And so the first thing that they sent you in the mail was this plastic vinyl folder that had one, two, three, four, like 16 cassette tape folders. There's slots in it. And then once a month they'd send you a different cassette tape.

So it took you like, it took you like over a year to get all the cassette tapes. But I still have the thing. I have no cassette tape to play in.

I still have it. But it was all kinds of stuff like that on there. And here I was this high school kid cruising down the street, playing these tapes one after another.

One would end, it would come out, bam, go back in that case. The next one would go in there. And all my friends knew I had that.

So I became the guy that drove everywhere because every single one of my friends loved that music when I was in high school. It is timeless. It is timeless music.

It is. Absolutely is timeless music. We went to a recording studio and did a CD.

And when we got done, they gave us the CD and we all go to our cars. We're going to go have lunch. And I'm not in the car.

Five minutes. The phone rings. It's Al.

Our music on the radio. Because they put it in the CD player. It was like that scene from.

That thing you do. That thing you do. Yeah.

We're yelling. It's our music. And he's freaking out.

It's crazy. It's a CD. What's a CD? No.

Oh, that's great. Before we get too far, I got to, I got to, before I forget to do this, the secret word is runaway. Runaway.

Runaway. All right. So.

The password. Go further back. Del Shannon.

Del Shannon. So there you go. Email us before the March 26th.

And yes, you will get a chance to win a $20 gift card. There you go. And the fact that you're listening to the podcast, which makes these guys happy.

Yeah. That's right. We love that.

We see the smiles. We need more listeners. Yeah.

You guys want to sponsor us? We need sponsors too. Well, we were going to ask you guys the same thing. Can you get us some good gigs? You know.

It sounds like you guys are doing pretty well on your own. Who's doing your booking? We just need some roadies. Yeah.

We all need roadies. So who does the booking? Yeah. We're both.

And we get help when Tom Hartman a couple of times. We got a couple of gigs from Joey DeMarco and stuff. Sure.

Sure. Do you know what? We have a hard time. We cannot crack any kind of festivals or any kind of concerts in the park.

It doesn't matter. We've had emails, EPKs, everything. Mike has got an answer for you.

I've got an answer for you. But I don't think we're going to talk about it on the podcast. No.

No. Nobody else wants to hear about it. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll talk about it after the podcast. I've got an answer for you on how you can do that.

But I can't tell you this, though. There are several organizations that are responsible, and this is to any musician out there. There's several organizations that all they do is book talent from municipalities.

Wow. That's all they do, right? Pick a park district, really. Just call a park district.

That's usually where most of it happens. It used to be things like the Jaycees and stuff like that. But call the local park district and talk to whoever answers the phone.

Who books your talent for your festivals and stuff? And more times than not, they're going to say, here's the contact name and the person's email. Oh, that would be awesome. But start going to your park districts.

But I've got something for you. I guess we've never mentioned their name on, and I don't think we have permission to mention the name of the organization I'm talking about. So we'll do it.

I've noticed there's a lot of municipalities advertising on Facebook that they're looking for bands to fill their summer. I live in Frankfurt, and every Sunday night they do a gig out there in the park. Right.

And we'll be the first to admit, we're not a 30 closed on a Saturday night band. But when you see bands playing Sunday at 1 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 5, we could easily do that. I think we would do it justice.

We just can't seem to crack the door open. So maybe we can help. I'm at that point too.

I looked, who's playing tonight? I look, what's the start time? 9? Nope. Nope. We used to start at 9 o'clock.

It's crazy. We used to go out at 10. Oh my God.

Well, you know, it used to be that way. You know, back in the late 90s and early 2000s, every place started at 10. It was 10 to 2. 10 to 2, 10 to 2. Even further back.

Yeah. In the 70s. I got one for you.

I played in another band, and these guys were sharing the billing at a place, and they're playing second. And so we're sitting there watching. They get it all done.

We help them load off and all that stuff. And now it's like 1 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning. All right, I'll see you guys.

Have fun. Where are you going? Oh, we're going to go eat. I'm going, you're going to go eat? It's 2 o'clock in the morning.

Oh, we'll find a Denny's or something. And we'd have 10 or 15 bands go with us, too. Breakfast after the gig.

There's one thing you can do when this band is put on wait. There's no doubt about it. Well, I remember the days when you had the 4 or 5 o'clock bars that were open, and they played till 4 in the morning.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's harder and harder to get, you know, liquor license that will go that way anymore.

Only if it's like unincorporated or something. There's still some unincorporated. So years ago, I played in Harvey, and they closed for an hour.

What they would do is order up all your drinks, lock the doors, dim the lights. You wait in an hour, they reopen. That's all they had to do.

They closed long enough just to sweep and mop and meet the health code, and then they'd open back up again. Yeah. But their liquor license wasn't always valid, though.

That's the thing. You know, your liquor license ends at a certain time. That's most people have a liquor license until 2 a.m., but that's why the bar closes at 1 because they've got to get everybody out by 2. Right.

Yeah. Right. They have to stay in this.

Can I ask you, Mike, you guys don't use iPads or anything, do you? We use iPads, but it's for our PA system. It's not, you know, nobody's looking at lyrics, nobody's looking at chords or anything like that. We have a wireless PA system, and everybody on stage is responsible for their own in-ear monitors.

We don't have wedges on the front of the stage or anything. We've all got in-ear monitors. So I use my cell phone more than I use my iPad, but I have it mounted on my microphone stand.

If I need to hear my guitar a little bit more, I'm responsible for putting a little guitar in my monitor. If I need to hear the piano a little bit more, I'm responsible for putting the piano. There's no, you know, hey, Eric, I need to hear the piano.

I mean, that's embarrassing for you, the sound guy, and, you know, everybody else. Well, actually, we took a turn for the good about three years ago. We were lucky enough to find a couple of sound guys that would do our sound for us.

They don't do anything but come in, plug in, and run the board. Right. So they're not dragging speakers in and stuff like that.

Dario Cruz and Matt, man, oh, man, they are such nice guys. And they, I don't know, why are you guys helping us? Is this your senior, you know, way to help out the seniors or something? Community service. Community service, yeah.

Setting up for the pearly gates. But we, you know, we do use iPads, and the music's on there. I don't need it all the time, but I'm old.

Man, there's not that much. But we are working on this. We're doing some research on how to remember a little bit more.

And strange enough. Prevagen. No, true.

If you smell rosemary, it increases your memory. I knew rosemary. She didn't like that one.

I smelled her. She was not that good. She wouldn't take a shower.

It's a hygiene thing. Yeah, rosemary didn't like when I did that. She was uncomfortable with that.

If you smell rosemary. Yeah. Especially after a shower.

Yeah. Okay. So what about you guys playing nowadays? Got anything coming up in March or April? April and beyond.

You know what, I wrote that down so I wouldn't forget. Corned beef dinner. Yeah, but by the time they hear this, they won't.

Today is March 24th. What's our next event? We're playing Manhattan's on 327. It's out in Carroll Stream.

And on 411, we're playing Gulliver's Pizza and Pub in Orland. That place is still there. I haven't been to Gulliver's.

Roosevelt? I haven't been to Gulliver's in probably 10 years. Oakbrook Terrace. Oakbrook Terrace.

They started having music once a week, once a month there. And then we started playing there and they said, well, this is working. So now they're having music all the time.

Every time I drive past that place, it looks like it's empty. There's no cars in the parking lot. No, I'm telling you.

Wow. And then we're playing a little place in Edison called Mugs and Manor. Okay.

That's a nice, great chicken, if nothing else. And we were- And they have quite a mix of people. Remember, they have people flying telewires.

Yeah, yeah. We were honored to be asked to play at the St. Baldrick's- Nice. Fundraiser in- In Westmont.

In Westmont. Yeah. At the Fremont Bar.

Fremont Bar. That's on April 18th, April 19th. I was going to say, you guys are going to donate any hair? Well, Al doesn't have too much to donate.

I donated last year. Yeah, yeah. It comes out by itself anyway.

It doesn't matter. He saves it all year. Then we're at Shanahan's on 425.

And then on 5-2, we're at the Crow Club. Nice. So you guys are playing? Yeah.

When are you playing? People are- He thinks I know my schedule. He thinks, gee. Well, that's like me.

They tell me where to show up, and that's where I get to be there. We play so much, I check my calendar on Monday to see where I need to be. I can't remember them all.

Now, do you eat before the show? No. I do not eat before show. That's, I don't know.

That's my thing. I've never been able to do that. I get on there.

I mean, I'm the lead singer of the band. I get up there, and I'm all bloated, belching over the microphone. Yeah.

Well, tell your friends they have a new item on their menu. It's the Pelican Burger. It's delicious, but the bill is huge.

Oh, gosh. There's a button. There's a button for that.

We can tell him don't quit his day job because he's not going to make it as a comedian. So, social media-wise, where can people find you? Claremont Drive. Their MySpace page.

Well, if it's old enough. ClaremontDrive.com is our website. You can find us on Facebook.

That's about all we can do other than our emails that we send out. Instagram. We're too old for that.

I don't know if any of our fans would even be on Instagram or whatever. Oh, they would be. Yeah? Everybody's on Instagram nowadays.

It's tied in with Facebook. I'm not. I don't know if that's about it.

It's tied in with Facebook. You can tie it in with your webpage, the whole bit. Oh, maybe we'll have to look into that.

I may have trouble getting a text back and forth. Who is this? It's like, I don't know. So, how about taking us out with one more song? Yeah.

All right. We're going to do another Deion song called The Wanderer. Ron, you forgot your sax, right? Yeah, I did.

So, all right. Well, you'll have to use your own. He's got to play his nose whistle.

Well, close. Kazoo. There you go.

All right. All else fails. This is going to be interesting.

Do some kazoo. Same setup, guys? You're singing and playing? Yeah. These guys are all doing some backups? Yeah.

All right. Very good. He's the only one that can remember the words.

Okay. I think I'm the only one that owns an acoustic. You are.

Not buying one of those. No, but I don't have a bass acoustic. Yeah.

And a mighty fine acoustic, by the way. I love Alvarez acoustic guitars. The kids bought me this like 35 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, I thought about maybe I should get a Taylor or something. I can't.

I can't give this up. I have two. I have two Alvarez acoustics I absolutely love.

I have one that looks almost exactly like that one. Yeah, this is about 40 years old. Yeah, the one that I have is 30 years old.

Yeah. I have the light-faced one that's a Blumster. Yeah, nice.

It's beautiful. Yeah. You could have brought it tonight.

I didn't know you had one. No. Okay.

You were playing guitar. You've only been in a band. I'm a bass player.

Yeah. Let's see if I remember this song. All right.

Are we ready? No stick for this one. No stick for this one? Well, we haven't stopped recording, so go ahead. We're getting there.

I'm making a new fist of iron, but I'm going nowhere now, because I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around. I'm never in one place. I roam from town to town, and when that can't beat which one, All right, let's go, Ron.

I'm sure it'll have its back. I'm sure it'll have its back. I'm never in one place.

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