St Louis Park Plays That Funky Music - Part 1

Park Bench Perspective: First Albums, Concert Memories, and Music Discovery

Carlos Figueroa and Mike Hammer discuss music from their “park bench” perspective while joking about Carlos’s recent knee surgery and lack of musical talent. They reminisce about early records and where they bought them (Shopper City, Down in the Valley), including first albums like The Who’s Tommy, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Sean Cassidy, and Saturday Night Fever, and talk about influences such as an older sister and radio. They cover favorite artists and genres spanning the Rolling Stones, Doors, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon, Queen, Prince, punk (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop), and rap, and recall concerts and ticket-buying experiences including Paul McCartney, Neil Young (with the Shocking Pinks), Devo, George Strait, and Paul Simon/Bob Dylan. They briefly detour into early cable TV and music video channels, plug Foot Pain Authority insoles and Hammer’s Substack, and invite St. Louis Park musicians to join future episodes.

00:00 Park Bench Intro
00:32 Knee Surgery Catchup
01:06 Why Music Matters
02:24 First Albums Debate
05:05 Early Influences Stories
07:44 Guilty Pleasures And Queen
09:27 Punk Rap Country Mix
11:01 Concert Memories McCartney
12:50 All Night For Neil Young
14:19 Neil Young Breaks The Rules
15:21 Tailgate Heat and Chaos
16:11 Neil Young Live Memories
17:02 Kidhood Movie and Music Discovery
17:39 Hunting Punk Imports
18:34 Old School TV Tech
21:15 Cable Hacks and Early Videos
23:24 Prince and MTV Era
24:27 Albums and Genre Detours
26:39 First Concerts and New Venues
28:47 Adult Shows and War Stories
29:19 Sponsor Plug and Substack
30:44 More Music Ahead Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:25

How you doing, Mike Hammer? Carlos Figueroa. I am superb well, doing pretty good. Had a little knee surgery on Thursday and way overdoing it.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

But are are you on are you on uh prescribed uh medications right now?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Yes, but not the good stuff. They outlawed that years ago. I'm on just enough to ease the pain and allow me to go bowling yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Well, you know, that shows you your dedication to our listeners that you know, even even injured, you're willing to pull up a seat on the bench.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

We're gonna be uh yes, I have my ottoman in front of the bench, my proverbial imaginary ottoman.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Uh ice pack. Well, my camera, we're gonna handle one of my favorite topics uh today, which is music. Uh I love music, uh the sounds of music, the rhythms of music. I have no musical talent myself, and so I'm in awe of those that do. But uh let's start out our conversation.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Real quick, the people that are in you're in off musical-wise, I've tried to play guitar and I'm tone deaf, so it's like it's like the old uh square peg in a round hole. Uh you just keep trying, and it's just whatever. Can't carry a tune. Just ask my music teacher who kept hitting the piano chord key and kept saying, Hum this tongue. Just this this note. And I kept humming it. She goes, No, this one. I go, I am. She goes, You're not even close, not even close. And then there's people out the hallway laughing because they gathered around to hear it, and that was fun. But okay, so music. Music, people like Stevie C Anderson that uh plays great piano, won the every year, won the talent contest. It's a Snoopy's theme song.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

You know, we had we had a lot of music people that were very talented that we went to school with, and they're from St. Louis Park, and we'll get into that because I think this will be a multi-uh episode topic, but I want to kind of start out with what how music came into your life. So uh I'm gonna ask everybody here listening, pop in on the comments and and let us know what was your first album. What are albums? Albums are like big CDs. What are CDs? Well, imagine if streaming came on a disc. But, anyways, what was the first do you remember the first one you bought?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah, or it could be a 45. I want to remember when we could venture, because I think like Shopper City had a record section in Chopper City for some a lot of people that might remember that, and then Down in the Valley seems like it's been there forever. I think it was the beginning of time, yeah, and going there. But my sister would get my sister Michelle, yeah. She would get the 45s like Andy Gibb, oh nice Bee Gees and uh Amy Gibson, is it? Uh you're thinking of Debbie Gibson.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

That would have been way later.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

That would have been uh that would have been when you're in college, but trying to think of the the some of the ones because she'd stack up those 45s on that little record player that came in a suitcase like and you had to put the cylinder on her and her Leo and jammed him all day. But what about you? What I want to say, the one I do remember buying was the Who's Tommy. Okay, that's a good for some reason. It was probably the last thing someone talked to me about how cool it was the pinball wizard. Yeah. But I also remember getting the doors and getting the Rolling Stones. I remember buying Rolling Stones, some girls. You got it, and then I went and got the live double album.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

But that was a lot of money, actually. It was, it was, but you know, you got what, eight, ten songs. Double. My first one, well, there's the one I tell people and the one that's true. So the one I tell people is Fleetwood Max Rumors, which is one hell of a good album to start up with. Oh, yeah. I listened to the hell out of that album. But if uh truth be told, the very first album that I purchased was Sean Cassidy. I was like 10, okay? I was like 10, but the very first album I purchased. Well, actually, that's not true, because I don't know that I purchased it, but I do remember we had the Casey Jones and Roundhouse Rodney album in our house, too. Oh, oh but that's not music.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

I do remember Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Oh, that was huge. We were staying alive.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Wow. Wow. You were how long have you been sitting on that one? I don't know. It just comes into my head. You know, we don't have a video podcast, but he has a look on his face like he's so proud of himself for that line. It's amazing. Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Sometimes you get stuck on something and the bee gees has been positive.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So would you say your older sister was your first big influence, or what was it on the radio, or yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Um my first introduction led to Cross Milliot. Went over there and somebody carved into the wood door the Rolling Stones. And I'm like, Well, what is the Rolling Stones? I love my mom. R I P. But she goes, I think it's one of those music outfits, one of those music outfits.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

And then uh somebody the stones were big when we were in high school, like those those like Rolling Stones lips, you know, ironed on or sewed on patches were everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

The funny story is when I was like in fifth grade over there too, and I didn't know what this meant because I hadn't experienced that in fifth grade, but I had bad allergies in the summer, and always spring, summer, fall, whatever, seasonal allergies, and I my eyes were always bloodshot, and somebody came up and said, Are you stoned? And I'm like, I don't know, does that have something to do with the rolling stones? Rolling stones, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And then, well, this is actually we we were we are gonna have a special guest on some of these music episodes coming up who is from a younger generation, and I want to ask uh, I think I did ask her about Billie Eilish because Billy Eilish is somebody who maybe has allergies, but always looks stoned to me. I could not identify a Billy Eilish song if you uh it paid me a million dollars, but the girl always looks really stoned.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

A lot of those girl singers have trouble, a lot of them have gotten past it and gone on, but um sweet. Well, I mean I you know, yeah. I mean I did you know there's a documentary out just a segue real quick about Billy Idol. Yeah, how he's luckily still alive because he was big with the I mean I I kind of he came out of the air, but he was like the experimental pony with the sex pistols and interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I actually have now Cliff Clavenland, because just last night, well just last night, I was curious about the song that Billy Idol did a cover of by uh Tommy James and the Shondells, Money Mona. And I was thinking, what the hell is Mona Money? So I look it up and it's a very disappointing story. Apparently, Tommy James or the Shondells, one of them, yeah, had a tune. They had the music, they just could not come up with the words. And he's staying in New York and he looks across the street at the building, and it's the mutual in New York building, Mona. And he's like, Money, money, and like that fits, and that's kind of disappointing, I think, to me, because it's like, well, maybe it was a girl you loved, or it was a horse you had, or it was your first car, but no, it's just the name of the building across the street.

unknown 7:43

That was let down.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

It's funny, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

I like you, I believe. Enjoy a lot of different music. Yep. And I don't apologize like I used to because my heavy metal fans would be like, How could you be like, How do you like journey and how are you? And I'm like, because those are chick songs, dummy. And um, and then it's uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

These are fighting words. I can't let you say Journey are chick songs. Journey's the greatest rock and roll band of all time.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

But when we had high school, heavy metal was it Yeah, I get it. I get it. KC DC has chick songs, but they're cutting right to the chase. There is no floor play, they're just bam. And uh I was watching my pain medication, watching uh Buddy Man Rhapsody came up. Okay, great movie. And it's great. I love it. It's it's great, it's fun to watch, and and they took liberties, they say, but two of the band members were on set most of the time. So first saying it's pretty accurate. And whenever I finish watching that, that 15 minutes they play at Wembley, yeah, I go watch the real one. Yeah, and it's so it's actually more theatrical the real one than that one. And you watch it like Brian May sitting there and Roger going for real going, I can't believe we're pulling this off. He's just look at him, he yeah, he's on fire, and then also they're like, Well, I gotta do really good. Yeah, and Brian May's been one of those overlooked guitarists.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Well, also, also, also, PhD. He's got a PhD in hard science.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Oh, yeah, PhD, yeah, and and so did uh Johnny, uh the bass player, but I can't think of his name now. He was an electrical engineer too. Yeah, and the other one. Roger's gonna be a dentist, yeah. He was, he's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Interesting that you brought up different kinds of music because I actually love all music, and I've been to, we'll go through some of our favorite shows on a different uh episode, but uh they're gonna be pretty eclectic. And one of the reasons, one of the, you know, I mean, I was into, like I said, pop music and then rock and roll, and you know, 70s music is my jam now. But my cousin, uh Susanna, Susie Garcia, introduced me to this band when I was about 13 years old, the Ramones, and blew my mind. And she introduced me to Egggy Pop and she introduced me to the Sex Pistols, and I was like going, holy crow, this is Nancy. It was all of it. I remember I from the Sid Sid Vicious's uh Sid Sing's solo album, he had a padlock as a necklace. And I don't know if you remember, as a freshman, I used to wear a padlock as a necklace. I do in uh, I guess I don't know, it was hero worship of a heroin addict, Sid Vicious, but uh Lil Wayne came from that too. He was a little bit torn down and punk. I I then I actually really love rap music. One of the shows that I've seen, I saw the two live crew live at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. And then if I was to rate top ten best shows, top five, I think would be one that Pam got me to go to, which is George Strait. We saw uh Little Big Town, Chris Stapleton, and George Strait. Uh it's like five and a half hours out in Arizona, and it was amazing, it was fantastic, it was a great, great show. So I just love music. Yeah, remember about great shows.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Remember this is 20 years ago or something. There was a friend of ours got tickets to the Who, and the next day it was Paul McCartney. Yeah, the ex pounced on the Who tickets for whatever reason, and I got Paul McCartney tickets. I asked you and Chuck. Yeah. And I'm thinking, this is great. This is a date concert. I'm going to my best buds, going to a date concert. We stood there, and you guys even skipped going out to a free gaming?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

No, skipped going out during. Oh, yeah, during you're saying, yes, the cigarette addicts didn't go out and smoke cigarettes during that.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Because we sat there going, this is amazing. I can't believe he's he was like in your living room, yeah, talking to you, and they had all the tributes to Georgia just died, and and um uh John and his first wife. It was so that that was that what that was that show was goose goosebumps.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah. I mean, you know, he would start playing yesterday, and you're like, oh my god, all McCartney is playing yesterday right here in front of me. It's crazy. And it's always funny. People are like, well, his voice ain't as good. Well, you can't run anymore. What are you talking about? Things happen over time. It's it's you know what? It's 10 times better than yours will ever be. Your ears are bad, mine are mine got worse too. It sounds the same because my ears are bad. You know what? I this is actually where it's it's beneficial that I don't have a tremendous ear for music, because to me it sounded fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

It sounded great. I think it did too. The XL was where we were at, and that was early on, and it's always been known for good music. One of my other okay, just because of the history around it, why did I say history that way? I don't know. The history, historical parts for our lives, yes, the first Neil Young concert we went to. Oh my goodness, yes. Because we had to we waited in January at the Daytons at Ridgedale, back when you'd wait all night for tickets.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

No, sir. No, that's not what happened. We were that that was for Neil Young, we were out all night at the Met Center. At the Met Center, and I remember our our good friends, um, a couple of them had uh vans. They had old Northwestern median vans and they had like the backseat of a car just thrown in the back of the van. And so they hauled it up all the way from the parking lot to the line around the Met Center and were laying on that. I think you and I, at a certain point in time, I said, Yeah, cold, my feet hurt. I'm Cuban, what am I doing here? And we just left. We just went across the street to the Thunderbird hotel. And I remember kind of sitting in a hallway with my feet up on the on a radiator grate, but we ended up getting tickets, and then it was a fun show, and everybody hated half of the show.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah, well, we we I remember we got back in line, and people back then were like, Oh my god, somebody can't hold your spot. It was like it's gonna be 15, 18,000. We'll all get in. We're pretty close. We were like in the top 20, and uh, and that was yeah, you know, you're getting tickets as the sun's coming up because you're like, and now when you gotta go home, oh go to sleep for the day. I'm a teenager, but yeah, the the show because they came with the shocking.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, it was so you know, Neil Young, who is a musician who you know does he does what he wants to do. Nobody tells Neil Young what to do. Neil Young is gonna do what he wants to, and and this is actually really fascinating to me because it's the exact opposite of comedy. When okay, how does this patent Oswald tells this story, and I don't know who tells it originally, but he goes, if you if you if if you do a comedy show and you do it exactly like your album, yeah, the customers will be happy, but they'll never see your show again. Yeah, with a musician, it's opposite. If you don't play the songs people know that you sang, they'll kill you. Yeah, and so Neil Young did half the show as a band called the Shocking Pinks. They were like a 50s rockabilly band, and it was 50s rockabilly music, no Neil Young music to be found. And then I don't know if it was the second or first half of the show, it was a regular Neil Young concert.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And people didn't like it, and Neil Young really didn't give a shit.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I think he came out with the shockings and kind of in the middle of the second set came out with them. But and that was it had to be postponed. So this was like in the middle of July. Like, yeah, it was a summer.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

I remember the actual show. I remember it was postponed, and I remember the show was on July in the summer. Yeah, and I remember uh I remember part of the tailgating. Part of it is is I was I was um I enjoyed myself a great deal during that tailgating. We got one of the more exploratory drugs at the time there.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

We did, we did. It was hot back to the Thunderbird, yeah, for different reasons because we jumped the fence again to jump in the pool because we got there like eight hours before the show. That was a good idea. Yeah, and I remember somebody stumbled down the stairs on the way to the seat. There was some sawdust being used, a lot of sawdust.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

That's what they use to clean to clean up the the messy, sloppy stuff that comes out of people.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, and then not only clean up, just to kind of tamper it down. Tap it down, make it not as slippery. And then I remember the second half of the show, a lot more clarity, and it was it was great. So that's what he did most of his original Another Man comes a time. That's the only time I've seen him.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

You've seen him multiple times, haven't you? Seen him a lot.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Saw him twice with Crosby Stills, Dash and Young.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, and that was fun because Neil Young's an antagonist in the Well, don't you think that Stills wasn't that a tremendous amount of talent comes with the tremendous amount of idiosyncrasies, yeah, and pissed offness.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

But Stills was a great guitarist. When I saw him with just Crosby Stills and Nash, he kind of sat back. Well, Neil would get out front and he has a fan blowing on and he's always egging him on, like, I'm gonna wind out here. Because if you like Neil, you're gonna there's gonna be a wind out every song. There's no song that it doesn't tear into a uh a solo.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Do you remember one of, you know, every weekend when we were kids, me, you and Kenny, we'd either go to one of the Dales or we'd go downtown to see a movie. And we saw actually Russ Never Sleeps at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis when we were little kids, and I didn't know Neil Young from I'm like, I don't know, he's bringing out a harmonica and they're cheering. Why is that happening?

SPEAKER_02 17:26

And he needs to comb his hair and he needs to take a shower.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

And when he gets real big, he'll get an electric guitar.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Remember that? Yeah. So that was okay, that's okay. You go again on album and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, uh, you know, for me, I so when I found out about the Ramones, I would go. So this was before Knowwood was a um an enclosed mall. Yeah, it was like a it's actually kind of how it is now now. Um, but it there was a music land, a standalone music land, kind of where that shoe store is now at Nollwood. Uh-huh. And uh I remember going there and ordering, like, you know, I remember getting uh the Ramones It's Alive, uh Japanese import, and I had to pay them like 25 bucks, and it took like six weeks to come in. Wow, wow, and you mentioned Shopper City. I remember getting uh uh the Sex Pistols Anarchy for the UK at the Shopper City in St. Louis Park all places.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Interesting. I uh shopper city because it was that become Xare Shopper City because some guy named Zare, Zayer.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Hey, let me ask you this as long as this is nothing to do with music, but I remember something no one else remembers. So Xare Shopper City, right? Yeah, they used to have back in the day kiosks where you could bring in the tube from your TV because that there used to be a light bulb in your TV, and if that went out, you'd have to change it.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

But there were lots of different light bulbs, like think about it like connectors to your phone, and you had to go and and they had like a little chart, and you kind of matched it up to what yours looked like, and then you would just reach in underneath and pull out of the drawer the one, and then you would plug that light into your TV and it would work.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

It would work, yeah. Do you remember those machines? I remember those machines that that well, we had the Oregon Trail talk about oh you've died of dysentery. We remember standing there effing with the antenna for hours. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Put the aluminum foil on it, and and once again, not we're just gonna go with the flow here because this is something uh when cable first came to St. Louis Park, there were a lot of different ways. Like when we first got it, it was like a telephone wire connected to a little box that you would have across the room, and that was your wasn't really remote control because it's wired, but they also had these cable boxes where it was like a slider, you would slide it you know from left to right to get your channel.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

And this is where the first kid I knew that had remote control in his house was Mike Hammer because he'd lay on his sofa with a hockey stick, and he'd change the channels by sliding that slider because the cord was only so long, so it came halfway from the TV to the couch, and we weren't gonna like get up every time and change it. That was really you are a problem solver, my friend. Yeah, you don't talk about we'll get back to the music, but talking about um TV, and now we're really spoiled because if it takes too long to download, yeah, or all of a sudden they'll do this, you can watch it here, and if you don't finish it, they go, Oh, now you gotta pay for it because you didn't finish it. So so it's it's or the or the 30 seconds of commercials, and they give you the thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I'm like, oh my god. Tell me now. Like, how am I gonna? Yeah, exactly. I can't survive 30 seconds of commercials, and then we talk about how difficult it is sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

I just want to go get a coloring book and sit in the corner, you know, because it's difficult to watch TV, especially if you're trying to find a sports game. Yeah, well, it's a big game between the wild and somebody else, and it's like I can't find it. Why? Because oh, it's blacked out in your area. Well, of course, because we'd like to watch it the most. But I was thinking about that how we've circumvented TV to watch shows, yeah. And way back when, when cable came out, yeah, it started from the east to west, came out of Minneapolis, so people like by the Fernhill area or by uh that the city hall and stuff moving, and you'd hear like, oh, it'll be in your neighborhood like in a week or two or three. And they do it up the telephone poles. And if you didn't want to pay, yeah, if you you didn't want the movie channels, yeah, they put these filters on it. You can find that look like uh almost uh the diameter of a of a quarter and about inch and a half, two inches long, and they'd put in each one. People discovered working at K Gas and telling Steve Fulken, R I P about this. He's like, Oh, I'll be I'll come over. Let's go over your house. After work, and he was four years older than us, so he was a cool guy, still was. But he jumps, runs up the telephone pole, takes those filters off, and then I'm thinking to myself, besides my friends that I'll do it for free, I'm thinking there's ten dollars uh business commissioners commission for everybody going up there because all you needed really was two people. Because the statute of limitations has run, so I'm okay with you proceeding. Those spikes in the telephone poles started at about 10 feet, so you needed to boost up there, and then when you go up there, you're like, Don't hit the wires. It was always a good idea, uh, good suggestion. People like don't don't fall.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

So with cable, that was actually uh when cable we first got cable in St. Louis Park pretty early on. What could you see on cable that at that age was interesting? Oh, I know where you want to go, but I'm gonna talk about the music station because actually, before it was MTV, there was like a jukebox station, and that was the first time you got to see video. That really first because you'd hear the music on the radio, but it was always background, so you'd watch videos and you'd start to learn bands and personalities and marketing and stuff, and then that expanded my world a little bit in terms of music was was watching that, and then there would be shows like Friday night videos, and then bands were going crazy trying to do better videos and spend more money on them, and then one local artist that really had an early video when we were sopwars, and it was like, wow, this is cool, and it was the great song was Prince.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yes, little red corvette. That video, that song, that dad, that thing. Um, and that was one of the earlier elements. I remember absolutely getting that one going once again.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

My heavy metal friends who were like, Well, I'm like because he's an artist. I yeah, I remember, you know, I think I started with Purple Rain, but then I, you know, Dirty Mind. And I mean, there's just some really, really good music, some stream talent. And you know, we went to high school with, I think, some of our classmates were can be seen in Purple Rain in various scenes. Yeah. Um, so what you just did what album? God, I have a five-second memory. Oh, I you know, uh, we really you you're trying to throw structure on this uh on this episode, and everybody listening will say there's been no structure, but uh, you know, I'll throw out their uh I'll throw out their purple rain. Purple rain, great album.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

I remember two albums in there. One back to Neil Young. Yeah, when we got um the tape for Neil Young comes a time.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Um harvest. Well, there was a couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

There was um there was a couple on there. Do you want to Okay? Well, actually, one I'm gonna go to was uh Les Zeppelin. Yes, Les Zeppelin 4, because at the time they were all out, and that one had stairway to heaven, which was I guess any kind in that era, anybody that came in the guitar store. Yeah, that's what they want to learn how to play. And they started playing that rep, they'd kick them out. Get out of here, get out of here. Everybody wants to do that. But um so that and Ario Speedwagon. Yeah, Ario Speedwagon was big.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Every song on there was really that a lot of really, really bad lyrics turned to poetry young ladies received from their boyfriends after listening to a an album all about feelings.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

We didn't know quite what to do with that. It um it um it was um that was just one that was playing a lot, and it it was. Did you ever like listen to like a run DMC or uh uh a Beastie Boys or anything like that? Were you exposed to that at all back then? Or there was some.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

There was um I remember I learned about Guns N' Roses through you, and they'd been out for a while. I just was well, you know, in in in high school too, got kind of sidetracked by the dead. Yes, and that kind of hijacked me for a while. God bless them.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And uh we we actually do need a guest of the pod to come do a dead uh episode with Mike because I know nothing. Yeah, we'll get them. I I am I am in that camp that says I don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

But that's okay. You could be like Smitty when he goes to a bar and he loads the jukebox up for two hours with the dead. It doesn't bother me, it just I don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

There's a lot of things in this world I don't get, trust me. Yeah, it uh so Mike Hammer. Yeah, what was your first concert?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

I want to say it was probably the first big concert was that Neil Young show when we were seniors by then, dude. Oh no, no. I thought we went to an earlier one of his. What I do remember going with Brian Madge was to um Devo. Devo shot Devo North the Armory. It was funny, called me up, got tickets at Devo, and kind of knew who they were. And it was the freakiest, most one of the most interesting shows I went to. But uh um Devo, see that's good.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Well, bare naked ladies, so that was much later in life, but I saw a show of theirs at the Orpheum, and it was a great show.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

They put on a great show. We saw I saw them at XL Center, and it was the first event there because there was still sheetrock dust every year.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

They they d they just rocked. Have you gotten any I'm just all over the place, but have you gotten any tickets to this new amphitheater? They got like a ton of great shows line. Which one? The one uh they well, they call it Mystic Lake, it's all by Canberra. Well, I know the Abbott brothers are coming there with uh for the outlaws. Guns and Roses. I mean, there's just a ton of bands that are coming to it. I just I'm old, right? I'm 60. So my like my number one is I wonder what the traffic and the uh parking situation is gonna be. That's in my mind. I'm like, I'm gonna wait until people have gone and then tell me what the traffic and parking situation is. Either that or what's the good hotel to stay at, where I don't have to worry about driving. Or when the lottery get a driver. There's that. But Tiger Woods, if you're listening, I'm available to be your driver. Yeah. Um I cost a lot less than a WI attorney. Between calls to the president, yeah. But he's dating, I mean, in all fairness, he's dating like the president's niece or something, right? I mean, we're gonna we don't go there, but I mean it's not like you randomly picked a guy and it's like he's like he's like in South Park, they would call up the president too, because the president was Garrison, and uh he would tell uh Stan and Kyle what to do, but uh and Randy Marsh, the unsung hero of the show.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

But uh I remember seeing um with you, we were in our adult years, but uh Paul Simon.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I yes, we saw Dylan. We saw Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. That was uh yeah, I mean, I you know that's the show where I ended up in the medical tent. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about concert casualties on another show that we've all had several of them actually. The survival parts. That actually is a good show topic. All right, Mike Hammer. Uh, what do you think people should do after they get up from the bench and they start walking and their feet start hurting? What should they do?

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Whoa, you need to get yourself, you need to secure yourself some of the the best insoles out there. Go to footpainauthority.com. Get yourself these wonderful insoles. They go in boots, heels, and you can just pop them right in there?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Pop them right in and out and then they come in like a different shine, like different sizes. You just put in your shoe size and you get them. We put in the sushi.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Say that. And uh yes, and also triple ball if it's not exactly yeah, they're great, they're fun. And and what can people do to uh show their interest in you?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

You know what? Right now, go to uh systemsunderpressure.substack.com. Actually, I've got a section there now called the ballpark barrister.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

That is a great read. I've had people reach out to me that I haven't talked to in a while from the baseball world going kind of one of those nobody really wants to talk about it, but he wrote it out there, and that's a great read.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Yeah, no, so it I'm you know, I mean, I love baseball. Um, we're gonna have a uh a labor, long labor dispute come December, and I'm just trying to provide people with some uh information because you know, things like collective bargaining or or uh lockout, what do those words mean? And uh I'm gonna try I try to explain it in a way that uh you don't need to be a lawyer to understand. Got it.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

We barely touched the music.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

We barely touched the music, we got a lot more music episodes. Frank's old school, the the crooners, the the shows. Oh, yeah, no, there's so much, and you know what? I really do want to lean into some of the great musicians that we went to school with. I mean, St. Louis Park has a tradition of a lot of very, very talented musicians, and we want to give them justice. And uh, if any of you talented control, you know what our friend and uh neighbor Mike Schultz, yeah, and uh, but if any of uh the folks that are have uh a musical background from St. Louis Park, we'd love to have you on the show, so reach out to us.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Yeah, it it's music is like we say, it puts you in a place and time, stirs the memories, and it's it's just great. Music and dogs tell you where you were in life.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

You know what? That's something that you and I have talked about, and we'll have to talk about on the episode. But for right now, I think we've shared enough of our perspectives. And uh thanks for joining us on the bench, Carlson Hammer out Watching all the world go by now.