Ep. 14 – Marc Douglas Berardo

Marc Douglas Berardo is a thought-provoking songwriter whose songs mine the deep feelings and lessons gleaned from real-life characters and situations. Along with slick guitar chops and an onstage presence that uses humor and deft storytelling, he rallies an audience and leads them into a deep and almost spiritual experience. It’s an adventure that brings to mind James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Guy Clark, or Steely Dan with a touch of Mark Twain or Hunter S. Thompson for good measure.  

Marc's first music show was in a biker bar in Allston, MA, in 1987. Since that day, he has never stopped performing made-up songs. He has opened for or shared the stage with heavyweights such as The Doobie Brothers, The Pousette-Dart Band, Jimmy Lafave,  Catie Curtis, Martin Sexton, 10,000 Maniacs, John Hiatt, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Buffalo Springfield, Kevin Welch, Lucy Kaplansky, Eric Andersen, Ruthie Foster, Eric Taylor, David Olney, Red Molly, Kim Richey, Will Kimbrough, Walt Wilkins, Ari Hest, Dan Navarro, Kenny White and Livingston Taylor.

Berardo has performed at numerous nationally known songwriter festivals.  Most recently, He headlined at the 2025 Tucson Folk Festival, performed at the 2025 Grand Mesa Songwriter Festival, and the 2024 Red Lodge Songwriter Festival.  He has been nationally recognized for his music and performances at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Song contest, Telluride Troubadour Contest, and the Sisters Folk Festival.  He won the 2013 Rams Head Onstage Rammie for Best Show of the Year.   Berardo was a finalist at the Kerrville New Folk Song Contest and the winner of the Wildflower Art and Music Festival Song Contest. Marc has participated in several well-regarded song workshops and performance excursions in exotic locations, including Costa Rica, the Florida Keys, Bimini (Bahamas), and Belize.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to another exciting episode of Acoustic Northeast, where we bring you the singers, songwriters, and acoustic music scene of the Northeast. United States, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I am your co-host, Dave Goldenberg, and I am your co-host, George Malice. We are brought to you by, first of all, here at there.com. That's run by Elisa Zuckerberg, where you can post your gigs, and she sends out a newsletter every Thursday, and you can find out what's going on in the tri-state area, which means New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. We're also brought to you by Hudson Harding Folk Radio Promoters and WBXO Internet Radio, where you can hear our shows on there also.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And you can listen to our podcast, well, right now, wherever you found it, because you're listening, but also on YouTube and AcousticNortheast.com and on all platforms. And we will also be posting video performances of our guests, and we have a great guest today, George. Who do we have?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

We have Mark Douglas Barardo in the studio today. Mark, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Appreciate you coming up. Can you kick us off with a tune and intro it for us, please?

SPEAKER_03 1:25

If I must.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, I mean there with a deal is a deal.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

I'm here, you know. Yeah. Uh all right. Well, I um I made up this song. I think it I always say it took me till I was about 52 to learn the lesson of the song. And I wrote it in 10 minutes. So it's called I'm Listening Now.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I thought what you wanted was someone to point you with the wind. Thought what you wanted was someone that started you up again. Thought what you needed was my wind advice. I know you didn't need to hear it twice. And I guess that I was caught up in my own dreams. I wasn't listening to any of your verses. Before you go, I hope you know you have my found darling. I'm listening now. And I thought I'd be the judge. I tried to put you on the stand. And I'm softening the hard places that you led. And I've talked to you till you were blue in your pretty face. Talked all over you, backed you up into a tiny space. And I guess that I was caught up in my own dreams. I wasn't listening to any of the yours, it seems. But before you go, I hope you know you have my vow, darling. I listening now. See, there's a dance between two people, takes a lifetime to learn. Gets more complicated with every little turn. While you were trying to tell me that your feelings were real. I was trying to tell you how you should really feel. And I guess that I was caught up in my home trees. I wasn't listening any of the ours to see. But before you go, I hope you know you have my listening now. I'm listening now.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

That's I'm Listening Now by Mark Douglas Barardo. That's that's a great song. And and it gets me to wondering, um, you know, there are a lot of a lot of folkies and folk musicians endure, singers, songwriters endure as opposed to to rockers. How are you different as a singer and especially as a songwriter now than you were, let's say, 30 years ago? Uh well, I'm more myself.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

You know, you start off probably imitating the stuff that you you know listened to growing up or whatever hit you at a certain time. So I'm probably more just honest about what my strengths are, who I am, and what I want to say. You know, you try to you hopefully try to find a voice, some some something that's that sounds like you. So I think that mostly. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

But how does lived experience play into it? You know, when I you think of young rockers, they're they're dri they are driven, it seems, mostly by by hormones. Sure. Um what what drives you as an artist to be able to do? Hormones.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

No, you know, you get into it because you want to meet girls when you're young, or or vice versa. Um whoever you want to meet. But the truth is I never really I I had uh uh some older brothers that were rock and roll guys, and I saw it, you know, I had my brother Chris, who I worked with for many years and continue to on and off, uh, was 10 years older than me. He had bands in the basement all the way to him being a rock and roll guy out in LA. That never um appealed to me. There was something I I didn't realize it at the time when I was young. I just I wanted to uh be able to play and sing sort of in a self-contained way. It seemed personal and it seemed um uh I never really had any designs on on rock fame or arenas or anything. It was more exciting just to to play through my feelings, if to be honest, you know, to to say what I wanted to say in some in whatever that was at the time.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

So you kind of cut your chops from what I from what I know down in um you went to Florida.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah, so the the short of it was that I went off, I didn't get a guitar till I I was leaving high school because I saw I saw my a pal of mine had a guitar at a party and the girls were paying attention to him. So it was not so pure, you know, it was it was that I I was like, give me that guitar, you know. And I thought it was the hormones at first. It was the hormones at first, sure. You know, but I but I I went to um Boston to Northeast University and I brought a guitar there and I didn't go to class pretty much. I fell in with some guys and I just played the guitar and did that, and and it came pretty quickly to me. So I um I uh um pretty much had like my first I started playing in dorms and parties and stuff, but then I like a first gig ever after about a year of playing for a couple older men sitting at the bar at a place called O'Brien's, which is kind of punk rock club uh down the street from where I was living in Alston, Mass. So I was off to the races. They they didn't pay me because I wasn't very good. They let me drink a couple free beers, which I thought was pretty great, and it's been like one long day since then. But uh I saw it was cold in Boston, and I um had a Hertz rent a car map of the state of Florida on my little apartment wall, and I was like trying to get on a tea train one day, and I was like, I'm out of here, it's just too cold trying to get my glove off to find change in my pocket. So I went down to Florida with just wanting to play in the corner of bars and whatever, just sing, you know, not really even my songs at that point. Like nothing, I hadn't really made up anything worth singing. What were you playing back then? You know, like the songs that uh really that I still love, the artists I still love, the the things that are hanging on your wall here at the studio, uh Jackson Brown and James Taylor. James James was a huge influence. Um the guys I fell in with in uh Boston were big uh Grateful Dead guys, so that world kind of opened up into bluegrass music, stuff like that. And what I found when I got to Florida after a little while down there, I I ended up in a town called St. Augustine because it smelled like Cuban food and it was beautiful. And there was a little room called the Mill Top, and it's it's still there, it's just it's a little different than it was, but it there were songwriters. And I didn't know there was a world beyond like Van Morrison or things you played in bars at the time, Kenny, you know, loggins and Messina, where there were people making up their own songs, and there was like guys coming through who had their own records, and they'd have this it was it was pretty incredible, and somehow I talked my way into being on staff there, which meant I played pretty steady in the late afternoons before the nighttime music came on uh for like three or four days a week. But the the beauty of it was that I was in the room watching people that were very accomplished and great songwriters. I didn't know about the world of like Nashville songwriters. There was like guys like Tony Arata and Pierce Pettis were there all the time playing Kevin Welch. I'm at there, who's a hero of mine now. Playing in St. Augustine. Playing in St. Augustine, and where they'd come to play at the time was the milltop. Uh because they had a I saw Rick Denko of the band there, things like that, you know. But it was a tiny room, like a tree house across from a Spanish fort. So I learned so much. And it and there was a guy there named Don Oja Dunaway, who is sort of a legend in Florida. And he is a legend in Florida, in fact. He's um he was a great songwriter who had written some songs that other people had cut in in the world, the Nashville, mostly bluegrass people. And he was heavy and deep, and I would sit and listen to him. He was very unique in his way of playing guitar, and he he got inside of songs, and he taught me that it wasn't the recording you're trying to play, it's the song. That's what interests me. I I wasn't trying to emulate records, you know, like a cover band or something. I wanted the song is what got me. So I was off to the races once again.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

That was kind of like your songwriting 101, you know, down there.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Yeah, it really was. And I I knew it while it was happening too. But the only downside was I wasn't I didn't wasn't a good songwriter. So I'd go every day, you know, getting my heartbroke sometimes, seeing something and just thinking, like, well, I should go get a job, you know. But uh I never did. Don, I had this little apartment on the ocean. It was a great town, very affordable at the time. And the phone would ring uh old phones, you know, when we used to have phones, like a curly corded phone. I'd and I and I had a little, I was young, so I also was running around a little bit at night after I'd play and getting up to stuff. So I was not always feeling great at seven in the morning. But he would call me on purpose, and he had a real slow way of talking, and he'd just call me up and say, Hey man, I wouldn't even say hello, he'd just be like, Man, have you heard that new song by Rascal Flats? You know, that guy gets his heart broke by his wife, and it's very heavy, and you you should listen to that. Also, you should come to the milltop this afternoon with some new songs. All right, bye, and hang it up, and I'd be like, Oh no. So it would get me off you know, off my ass, and I'd I'd try harder. Yeah, but there was a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Obviously, um, you learned how to write.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

So yeah, you know, at least I saw how to do it. Yeah, yeah. There was no like no one sat down.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

There was no songwriting class. Yeah, I never did any of that. It was just the people that you ran into, the people that you listened to, and the people that you played with. And the experience of it all.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

There was another thing going on at the time, too. There was a southern rock world happening down there. So at night I'd be out seeing guys like, and I ended up joining the guys that a band called Those Guys that were also had Artemis Pyle in the band from Leonard Skinnard and Banner Thomas from Molly Hatchet. That was a whole other world. But within that band, there were some guys that were would really sit down, like, let's get together and write. That was a brand new idea to me. We'd go to places on the road like Tybee Island, Georgia, or something, and sit in a little hotel room and make up a song and just get a song. And I don't know what happened to a lot of those songs. Some of them they're still probably doing some of them, but it was like two worlds that were both equally interesting to me, though my heart was really in what was happening at the milltop, which was songs. How how long were you at the milltop? Man, on and off, really, for like 10 years. It felt like I was there, left. I went out to California for a little while and tried it out there, but I ended up back in Florida, back at the milltop. So we were you doing odd jobs then to pay the bills, or did you? No, I was lucky because I really wasn't. You know, I've had very few jobs in my life because I could always also I had another bat I could swing, which was I could go and play like bar gigs, which I also did a lot of, like in a tourist town, you know, you could play happy hours all over the place, whatever you could do. Sometimes back then on a Saturday, I'd play three times in a day, you know, moving a PA around, just playing constantly. And and and what I did learn too is playing other people's songs. Once I got the concept that the song is what you're trying to get inside of, I it was that's also a really great place to learn about songs. When you get inside of them, you take them all apart, and you know where all the bones are buried, you know where your where the fingers go on the guitar, and it it you know, that helps.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

So when did you realize that you were a songwriter who could actually aspire to a career doing exactly that?

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Well, there were guys that came through the mill top that had their own records, and that they were, you know, relatively unknown people at the time. Like guys like David Wilcox, say, for instance. That was that world that they were showing up and they had like their own CDs. That was a brand new idea then, like you made your own or whatever it was. And that, you know, I wanted that pretty badly, but um, it was a guy in Milford, Connecticut that had been a friend of my older brother Chris's. They had met down at Key West in the late 70s. His name was Michael Brandon, and he had a little record label that started called The Hayloft in a barn in this built a really nice studio right on Gulf Beach in Milford, and I was home from Florida, and he said, you know, we should make a record of your songs. And I was like, Well, I don't know, my songs aren't so great. He hadn't really heard them yet. And uh he heard a few uh one night, and he said, Um, I don't know, you should probably go write some better songs. And the sportsman in me, because I also played high school sports, I went home and for some reason that night I wrote a song called Stephen Marshall, which uh was a long sort of a story song about a guy, and it it felt like a real song, and he got kind of blown away, and then I was suddenly making a record with him, and that led to other things and uh doors opened up. So suddenly I realized there's a place for that. So I was doing both things for a while, kind of playing whatever cover gigs I could, but really really aspiring to just get to a world where I could just play my songs.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Cool. You know, um before you were talking about basically learning to play so that you know you could meet girls. Yeah. But but you have um some women in your life that you play with. Yeah. Let's cover that a little bit because um I saw you recently up at the Town Crier with Abby Gardner. Oh yeah. And um I was I was blown away by your collaborations with her, and I know you play with somebody else too, but talk about that a little bit, how important that is in it's incredibly important.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Like Abby is is, you know, one of my closest human friends, and we're incredibly tight. I mean, we speak it pretty much every day. And uh but we also have this easy thing that we fell into of being able to sort of write songs. Uh, that's not always easy for me, sharing that space. We met in uh Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest about 20, I think we put it at about 20 years ago or something like that, 2006. And then uh she was in Red Molly, which was such a popular group. So I was like sort of the often the most I think I opened up for them more than anybody, and I got tight with all of them. So our collaboration's easy um and our friendship's really easy, and that that helps. So and I love playing with her on stage. I I you know we some people you just can find you can see around the corners. You got good chemistry. Yeah, it just feels it's easy. As fun as people say it looks like you're having that much fun, it's yeah, it's true. And fun is definitely what I'm after when you get up there. Like I don't think the other thing I learned pretty early on is that y you don't want to be a serious and heavy all the time. People are just like you. They they want to feel things, but they also want to laugh. Like you you want to feel all the things. So some of it is make them laugh and then and then hit them with something that that means something and you know carry on above all things. So speaking of of fun, why don't you uh play another song for us, Mark? Speaking of fun, you say this one while we're getting at it. This is a song uh this wouldn't be my choice today, right now, here in your at your podcast to play, but we're talking about fun, and that was a big part of it for me. And once I got out to touring around and having that kind of thing, I realized that it is my idea of fun. So this is a song called This Is What I Call Fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Gotta travel by airplane, roll by van. This has always been my perfect plan. Big stage, corner of the bar. Good songs take you far. Where's the whiskey? Where's the fear? What I gotta do to have it come down here. Whole thing never gets old. Run ahead, west into the sun. I can sing another one. This is what I call fun. Man, I'm always up for another show. I'm checking out of here. It's time to go. It's Texas, Portland, Maine, blowin through your town like a hurricane. Yeah, I love a little room. Becoming tired running on fuse, the audience will get you high. You're never gonna wanna say goodbye. The port boy running to the sun in the always, sing another one. This is what I call Man. I have played in every place. I got neon in the window in a little bit of space. If you got something you gotta say, gotta go out there, gotta blow them back. Only makes me blue, but this is what I know how to do. Make a good noise all night long, chasing down another song. Let the portable run hit me into the sun. I can always sing another one. This is what I call fun. And after the borderline I find all these friends of mine. It's good to see you from time to time. I love I love these. Love these friends of mine. Man, you're up and you're out by noon. The whole thing just ends too soon. The truth is when I'm alone, my dear fun is going home. Poor boy run hit me into the sun. I can always sing another one. This is what I call fun. After the show, it's hard to put it down. So pass that guitar around. Sing me the pretty one. This is what I call fun. And I can always do another one. This is what I call fun.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

All right, Mark Douglas Barard.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

That was a little early in the day for that one.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

That that was was great. And and I think you really tapped into something, which is that we do this because it's fun. It it it scratches an itch. But I want to ask you about stagecraft. So you've come a long way from playing in the corner in a saloon happy hour to commanding the stage. How do you build your sets? How do you work with an audience to make sure it include storytelling to that they have the experience you want them to have?

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Well, uh for me, much of it is unplanned. And that's that's part of the fun, as well as uh good things can happen in there. Um I also was uh influenced in a way by that sort of improvised idea, like a sort of a grateful dead idea that also the songs don't have to be the same each night. Um but also the the stage raps don't have to be the same. So I tend to kind of just you just you have to be alert, you have to be present, you have to be your head on a swivel in the room and and um just react more than anything. So there are there are also though the the the showbiz trick is that you do have some gags and some little things that you can lean on to kind of get you back to center uh on certain nights, you know, certain stories, the certain things get repeated sometimes. But they're they're platforms, they're diving boards before you heave yourself into the pool. Uh so over the years it's just that the more you do it, it's about being comfortable and you'll make them feel comfortable. And if you're if if you feel something, they'll feel something if you uh if you do it right.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I want to take off on that a little bit. I want to talk about your website because of course it's the best way for fans to. Keep in touch. And one of the things I noticed is you do blogs. You know, you keep your fans up to date on things that happen with you on the road and stuff like that. Um there's a was a pretty funny story in in one of the blogs when you were down in Key West. Yeah. And but I think fans really they want to know more about you. And I think you've really touched on a way to keep them in touch with you and wanting more.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Well, I'm glad to hear that. You know, to me it's like I don't I I don't want them to know too much. Some of the early stuff I saw in the folk world was very like revealing, like open up the book to see everything. And I grew up in a world where you didn't see I was at the tail end of like you didn't really see Jackson Brown until you went to go see him. You know, there wasn't like a a website or something where he told you everything. Here's the name of my dog, here's the pictures of my house. And that mystery is still a little bit uh interesting to me. So what I try to do is just give them, you know, I like to write those little vignettes, those little stories about stuff that's going on, and it exercises my mind. But it's just enough. You know, uh you want people to feel like they're still want to find things out, not necessarily about you. You don't you just don't want to bore them too much with you know, everybody's got a website now. Everybody can have a blog, everybody can make records, everybody can do everything now with technology. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, it's true, but not everybody has the talent that you have, and you've refined that and you've got a great fan base. So yeah, I I just find that really interesting how you went about doing that and keeping people in touch. But let people know what is your website.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

So the website is MarkDouglas, and that's M-A-R-C MarkDouglas.com. Um because my last name just confuses people. That's why three names also. We're not gonna go into that. Yeah, it's not even common. But uh yeah, so markdouglass.com. Um and you know, I just try to write every once in a while um things that entertain me. So I figure if they entertain me, they'll what brings you to a song?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Because you you know you write about characters and and interesting.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

What um I found that interesting early on when people could do sort of a study of I like the language of like people who have jobs and stuff, you know, that I things I would never do, some sort of oil worker or something, you know. I like the language that's a lot of people. Things you fancy things you fantasize about in a song. Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, right. There's something about it, like being able to be that sort of keen observer to to I you know, I like humans, I like talking to them. I've after years and years and years of doing this kind of work, you meet a lot of people at at all uh both ends of the of the spectrum. You know, some are in despair, some are fun and wild, but everybody's got a story to tell in some way. So I like that. It seemed obvious to me. So some for a while I was writing a lot in the third person just it interests me, and also to keep the heat off of myself, maybe, you know. I don't know if the world needs a bunch more songs about relationships and stuff. Uh it's fun to write until they're in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, they do, George. It's just it's just that for me it felt at the time, you know, it wasn't where I was at.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

You work with um other songwriters and and emerging songwriters a lot. You've done a number of retreats and workshops. You used to run um you used to work with Phil Sagana of Town Crier fame and do retreats down in um down in Costa Rica.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

That's right. We had a lot of fun doing the that sort of thing, and Phil So Phil who who has run and owns the uh Town Crier since 1972, he's reminded me of that a lot. Um that was the kind of place too. That was that was a really important thing to me. Uh my friend, uh a high school friend, a grammar school pal, had his parents had his dad had a farm in Millerton, New York, and we would drive by the town crier when I was like 13, 14, whatever. And I I one day we just got like the they used to print stuff, you know, before the interwebs and all that. There was a beautiful flyer they'd make for all their shows. And the names of the people there were people whose names I knew, John Sebastian or um, you know, the guys from the band or something. I was aware of who these people were, and it was fascinating to me that they were in that room. And then one day I got into my head when I was about 15 with a with a fake ID uh from like, you know, you know, from the Newport School of the Arts or some made-up place. Uh Livingston Taylor was playing. And I was a big James Taylor fan. And um I think me and my buddy who who had a job at the Wingfoot Club in Mamarinick, New York, George, you might know that place, as a shoe kit guy, he had money.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I'm not allowed in there. No, yeah, I'm not allowed in there either.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

But he was in there shining shoes or he did so he had cash money, a lot of tips. So we tried to do a classic like Las Vegas bribe of Phil Sagonner to get us a table down front. And Phil Sagoner absolutely he doesn't really remember this, because but he with disdain put the money back in front of us on the table and we're like, take your money back. And then to embarrass us, I think, or just to prove a point, they like Las Vegas style brought a table down and planted it right towards the side of the stage in the front where we sat there and put like a bottle down for us, and they just kind of laughed at us.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Do you realize that that's the only time Phil gave money back to somebody?

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Well, years later, uh, you know, Phil's a tough character. He's he's been running that place for a long time. He's had a lot of uh influence over a lot of people. And I I uh was playing with Livingston Taylor about six years ago at the town crier. And there was a big sign, and it said it said, Livingston Taylor, Mark Douglas Barardo, sold out. And I was like, Yeah, and Livingston Taylor said to me, We're in the little dressing room, said, Let's go, uh, let's go talk to Phil. He he liked getting at him too, and I did too. So let's go. We walked right over to him. Phil was had his head down with his glasses down at the bottom of his nose, and he was going over the numbers and the books, and he's looking at doing whatever he does, you know, running a successful club. And there's a huge sign right next to him that says Mark Douglas Barard. Livingston Taylor, Mark Douglas Barato sold out. Livingston Taylor says, uh, hey, Phil, uh sold out. Pretty good. And Phil Zagoner didn't even look up. He said, could be better. And that's the way that's my relationship with him. I just love the guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I I'm sure by the time this podcast wraps someday, we'll have many, many stories about Phil and many of the other characters. What are some of your favorite places to play?

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Well, I'll tell you, the town cry, I must say, because George mentioned his name earlier. The when I finally got to play for the first time at the town cry was me and Chris Brown. Ooh. Because Chris wanted to play there and I wanted to play there really badly. So we figured we'd combine forces. And we really worked Phil over, you know, like, and he finally acquiesced. He said, Well, if you fill up the room, great. If not, you'll never play here again. Like, you know, real challenging. And we I think we got a bust together of people from like Larchmont area and stuff where we were playing a lot and got them all up there and did a good job, and and it was a great success. You know, it was it felt great because I always wanted to be, I always wanted to play there.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

So you want to I gotta tell you my Phil story quick. It's it's it's 10 seconds. I I went up and I played the open mic. I don't know who was, I think Don Lowe was was hosting or whatever. So I played, and then I went up to the bar to get a beer and I stood next to Phil. And Phil puts his hand out, he goes, Hi, I'm Phil. I own the place. He goes, he says to me, He goes, Um, what do you do for a living? Because I know it's not music.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

He's a rough. He would call me up. This is how he would book gigs. He'd call you up, he'd call me up and he'd go, not say hello, not that sort of thing. And I hated talking to him on the phone. He was like, it just made me nervous. And he'd be like, This is Mr. Phil Sagonner, the town crier since 1972, instrumental in the many careers of men like Richie Havens, Miss Bonnie Ray, team to name all these people, like go through this list of people. Mr. John Sebastian, I've started many festivals, I've done a lot of things. I have an opportunity for you as an opener. If you don't call me back in five minutes, that opportunity goes away and he'd hang up a click. And I don't have to call him back, like, uh, Phil, what is it? He's like, Why are you calling me? Why are you calling me back? It's like you just told me to call. He's like, No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

I'm like, Oh, we're gonna do this dance, like whatever. Tell me what it is.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Like, say yes first.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Like, you have to say what the act is, Like, just say yep, say yes first.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

We should just do a show and call up performers that have played at the town crier and get their Phil stories. We could do a full show on maybe two or three shows on that. Maybe we have to roast him.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah. But he has to be he has to be there for it.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

You know what I love about him in the end of it all is that he really treats you though when you're there, you're playing there, you're you're you're an artist and you're in show business. Yes. Like he like he you know, you create that world. He he m he's made it that way. He he didn't treat me any differently than he probably did treat Richie Havens or any of those great people that played that club over the years. Uh it was the same.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, he introduced me to somebody one day. He said, This is this is uh Dave Goldenberg. I'm a fan of his. And I thought, wow. He's really helped a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah. That's great. You know, and in the um and in the business today, there's not a lot of clubs that have been along around. And he he really takes care of the older folkies that are still out playing. He still gets them booked, even though they may not fill the they may not fill the room. But yeah, he does take care of them.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

He's a loyal guy. He really is.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Okay. I'm getting I'm getting the um the signal from Dave over here telling me Mark needs to play another song.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Well, we were talking about third person uh songs, and this is uh like a sort of story song.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

It seems Okay, and you're gonna be taking us out, so let's just say thank you so much. This has been a very um a fun. Yes, a f a fun, a fun discussion. Thank you for taking the time to join us.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Thank you guys for having me. Uh this is my idea of fun. I wasn't kidding.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I got one more question for you. Yes, sir, before you play your song. Because I remember I remember talking to you when you were up at the crier after the show when we had first met. And I, you know, asked you to do the podcast, and um and we were talking about questions. And you had said something about when you do an interview, you'd get tired of answering the same questions all the time. Is there a question? I know I'm putting you on the spot. No, no, no, you're not. But remember this discussion that you would like people to ask you. I know. This is a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Uh I think you've asked a few. You know, uh I I don't mind telling my back the origin story is interesting, I think, with any anybody, how they get to something and how they do it. The question I didn't like, I think, is what we were discussing is when they ask, well, when you write songs, a lot of people they say, well, who do you write first? The lyrics or the media. Right, right, right. That is exactly what we're doing. It's like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

You know, it's well the next interview that we do is gonna be with a guy named Frank Cartelli. Uh, and those are the questions we're gonna ask him. Nah, Frank's the best.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

He's an Aerudite interesting guy. We'll have something insightful to say about that.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

And you are gonna be playing his one of his uh gigs up there, I think, in um the old church series.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

Oh yeah. Is that yes. Are you guys playing? I did it once before, yeah. Is that in November? I g November, yeah. It's October. November, you know. It's November. And who else is playing? Frank's here. Craig does in the room. Craig Bickard. Yeah, one of the one of the really a great songwriter. I really look forward to that. That's a beautiful series. Frank puts his heart into everything he does. I miss the Sundays at the Cafe Nine. Those were great. But the series at the church thing is also wonderful. And you know, Frank is a not only a great songwriter, he's just a big, beautiful soul who it gets people into rooms to make them feel stuff. He'll do it from every angle, and that's what makes him uh the character that he is.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Couldn't agree with you more. Okay. So you're gonna play one last song.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

Yeah.

unknown 33:39

What are you playing?

SPEAKER_03 33:40

So I I met a guy in uh I was living in Northern California, and everybody, all the people there were my neighbors, were all former members of psychedelic rock bands like the Moby Grape and the Strawberry Alarm Clock, because it was the land of the it was the land really truly of the last of the 60s sort of San Francisco scene. They all moved to the mountains, and it was in Bonnie Doon, California, where I lived above Santa Cruz. I'd go to a place called the Brookdale Lodge, and I would drink in the afternoons as a younger guy, and there was a guy there seemed like he knew everything there was to know, and everybody thought he was a genius. And later, after a lot of hours in, I realized he was a bit of a casualty of that time. So this is his song called Lightning.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

1966, the world was just waking up. Coming to San Francisco, the Beatles played candlestick. Everything was feeling brand new. The beat poets had all but left North Beach, and the scene had moved to the park. In the middle of all that, my man Lightning lit up the dark. He was born Charlie McChristie in an East Coast suburban town. He was a country club kid with a silver spoon playing on the fresh-cut ground. All the teachers called him brilliant, and all the girls, they loved his face, but he could not feel the love inside. First chance he got, he lit up out of that place. Like lightning. He was off and on, and then he was gone. Took a scholarship to San Francisco State, had all the promise in the world. Soon discovered pills in the carousel ballroom. He told me about those free love girls. It didn't take love to change him. And Lightning stopped going to class. He told me a few hits of Owlsley will do that to you. Said a few hits of that put you on your ass. Yeah, his hippie friends called him Lightning, and that suited him just fine. Back to mine was working fast, working over time. He had the idea for the space phone. Personal arithmetic machines, but the drugs kept the genius bottled up. Those things remain just dreams. Could not bottle light in. That was flashing. It was often done. Brother, he was gone. They were throwing around the eye chain. They were dancing round the fire with the heart find a place on earth. That wasn't getting any higher natural feet. Escalino lightning passed, his acid test, but he could not feel the love inside. Left him disillusioned, depressed. Lightning drifted further west to a beach shack in La Hyna. By then he was just a mess. The dope was replaced by hard liquor and an anger inside. For lightning, the free love dream was over. For lightning, it was a lie. He drowned one night in Kauai. Trump stole and cheap champagne. His Hawaiian friends at the funeral. Man, they didn't even know his real name. That's just a thumbnail sketch of lightning. He came, then he left. See, one minute you're here, then you disappear, your life lost in the firmament. You are like lightning. You are flashing. You are off and on, and then you are gone. You are fighting.