The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview Ancient History (part 2)

Studio owners Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) and Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) interview the band Ancient History with Thomas Martin Scott and Larry Easterling (part 2). 

Follow Tom Scott on YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/@thomasmartinscott

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Well, I was I was on a on a carnival. Um we had a carnival they have what they call the front end, which is all the games, the rides, and the back.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

The carnival ship. No, no, no, no. I wish. I wish.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

All right. All right. And uh there was a carnivals used to be like circuses years ago, more traditions. And people the Renton family, uh, this one guy was a great you call him Barker, we call him Talker on the front. And he he had an offer to go down in the West Indies and take over an illusion show down there. There was a it was a carnival traveled by boat from island to island. Uh oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

And so uh And wh where was this in in Indonesia?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Is there a No West Indies that we still first was uh went to was Puerto Rico and then hit you know all the different islands, many different islands all the way down.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

When was that? Can you give me an idea of the uh let me see?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Uh it would have been um the late fifties. Okay. And um but uh that was interesting. I don't know if there's anything exciting uh uh uh in the way of a story about it, but uh but I got a couple of road stories when I had my own band, but I don't know, you got married there, you ended up with five kids or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Oh you didn't want to talk about it. What about you find out about that?

SPEAKER_04 1:55

What about the babes down there, huh? Yeah Yeah, the babes. We want to hear about the babes.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

It was pretty easy to get connected, let's put it that way. Now we're talking now. Yeah. But uh you had to be careful though, because um many times you were maybe if you did, you were making a visit to the doctor's office pretty quickly. Oh yeah. So because there was a belief that uh venerals disease was caused by sitting on too hot of a rock. Ah, I see. I don't know if we ought to put that on the video though. Yeah. Oh no, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

We can edit it or we can we can PG hold it directly. Yeah, of these videos, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

But uh yeah, it was it was interesting. We always had aerial acts. They they wanted to make it into more of a show because uh some of the the the games were not games, they were gambling, they were playing for money, so it was kind of a trap floating, so that that kind of covered the uh we were made a show. We had some good good acts. Yeah, good aerial acts. Um and our grandstand attractions were fun.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Did you stay in touch with anybody, like did you make friends with somebody maybe over the years, you guys?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

There's one person that that uh I did have some contact with when I was in the army, they had a um entertainment contest at each one of the bases. Okay. And then everybody from that in that particular era, this is the fourth time era, came together and the winners of uh and and put together a show. Uh and well, most of the people were professional entertainers and musicians who had been drafted. And uh one guy on the show, our only officer, was um and his name will come to me in a moment, but he was a a young uh gentleman from good-looking guy from Troupelo, Mississippi, great voice. And after uh we got out, he recorded with some guy and had a had he got made the charts. And then he married a gal who was on the Lawrence Walk show, and much of the rest of his career he was there was two couples on there. And um uh uh I ran into him after he was on the Lawrence Woke show, and they were they were out back of the where they had done the show signing autographs, and I thought, well, I'll go up there and say, Hey, I know you don't remember me, but you know, and he looked up and before I said a word said, Larry, and he remembered me. Trying to think what his name is now. Elvis.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Elvis Tupelo, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, it'll come to me in a moment, but yeah, but that was years ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Interesting person, we were when we traveled to different bases, we were in civvies. So nobody knew he was an officer. He's the only officer on the show.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

And uh the only time you knew was we were chucking in one place and they were gonna put us up in a barracks, and the supply sergeant was ordered to give us blankets, and it was a base that nobody had won from. They were kind of ticked at us. And so the and I guess the sergeant was ticked at having to get up and give the blankets out, and so he was throwing the blankets at each one of us, you know. And he just calmly walked up and said, Sergeant, you will hand the blankets to my men. Very quick, just like that. No one, you know. And he he knew he was and another time he was actually sweeping the cave the it was the same place that he was sleeping, sweeping the the uh stage off after the show. You know, and uh you can see he was not full of himself at all. And um and a sergeant was up there, started telling him, do this, do this, and he just again calmly said, Sergeant, you can ask me to do something, you don't order me.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

And he didn't have to say, Sergeant uh knew uh while he was ordering him the He didn't know he was an officer, knew he were on zivbies. So did he realize it the way The way he said it didn't have to say I'm a I'm a first lieutenant.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

The way he said it, you did realize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's kind of but he'd be out there loading the bus with the rest of us, you know. So but there was a a quality to his voice that you knew of authority, I guess you could say, you know. Yeah. Um but he carried it off. Hey, come on, where are we?

SPEAKER_03 6:13

You're visiting?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

You're gonna let me pet you finally. No. No, I don't know you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

I don't know you. I'm still a uh a gall dog.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

Yeah. So uh when you were uh in the West Indies and doing these things, were you doing your ventriloquists?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

When in the English-speaking countries I was, yes. And were you doing any uh music music though? No, it was all magic and and that. Um I even did a pitch. Um they have uh a little thing that it's it's it's a little thread that you can and a little piece of adhesive you can put it on your button and a little tiny mouse, and you don't see the thread, so you got this little thing you do, you know, and the mouse you wrap it up and and lay it and it flips over. So in the front and Mickey turn over, you know, and in French house, Mickey turn to flips over. So um, but um yeah, it was we did the levitation and uh blade boxes where you have the gal in the box and you she lays down and they start putting all these blades in there.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Yeah, you know, I like the ones where the cutter and a half and I always say I want that part of one that's probably the home.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

You think you there was a Las Vegas magician, they had a bunch of them on together on the show, and he had the funniest bit. They cut this person in two, and then the legs would get up and walk off. And all kinds of stuff. That's when magic, you know, years ago when I first started Illusions, we're not drawing anything. So the when I took with this the show was we called it a spook show, and we played in drive-in theaters, uh, carried a Bellalagosa oh movie, you know. And uh uh uh you it was a lot of persistent. We get teen you know, high school age kids up on the stage and so forth. And so the first part of it was um uh the burning of she is like there's this big um box the with slots you can look inside and uh uh board over here and you lay the girl down on a pick it up, put her inside, take a torch and you put it in, you see the flames, and then the sides drop, and there's a skeleton with the flames dropping. That kind of horror type things, you know. Uh uh theme. And then the last part was Orange participation, we had a um Frankenstein that was about nine foot tall, you fit on the head, and the arms went through. Yeah, and uh m the illusionist would uh end up having to shoot him and blood would come out of his eye and he'd fall over. And then the last one, uh at the back of his coffin, uh the the the stage was set up so that the truck was right behind it, so you could load stuff right out of it. And uh the lights would dim down on this coffin and you see this coffin open and this white glove hand come out and then face come out, the lights were low, and Dracula, you know, with the makeup and so forth. And it was what they we'd cue one kid, um uh make him a VS dooge, we give him a white t-shirt and we we'd you know, when all the this room always saw with all the monsters, uh we'd the rest of the kids would we'd get up, get up, get off the stage. And he'd just sat there very defiant. So the kid.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

And we uh Diracler would come over with his knife and and blood flow out and he would fall over. That's why the white t-shirt and the curtains would close on it. That was the end of it. Flashbot would go off for for Diracler to disappear, and and as the curtains closed. So um it was it was interesting. And and then after that, you know, the illusion started really drawing. You had Siegfried and Roy and you had uh all the big illusionists in Vegas and so forth. But it was fun, it was a great experience, and I took over the show. I I was an assistant and I played the Diracula part, but but um I took over the show when uh the illusionist and his assistant they were married and they were gonna she was gonna she got pregnant and then wanted to get off the road and settle down. So we uh we worked for four about a year, I think. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

So all in all, it was about a year after you took a oh you mean.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Yeah. And and it was a good experience for doing then I put together an illusion show with some ventriloquism for the grandstand attraction. And we had a a stage then that was built into a truck and the sides let down. And the this one led down, that was in one. We had a awning that went out over it, and you had footlights had in two, we had a cyclorama around the back of it, round inside truck that was in two with lights overhead, and then the back let down around the canvas cover went over it, and that was your offstage. You pull the props off and that sort of thing. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Do you illusionist understand what these new guys like Copperfield and the guys are doing, making the Statue of Liberty disappear? I mean when you when you see this stuff are are uh you got a pretty good notion of what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Some some things there are there are principles that you use, what we call load areas and that sort of thing. So there's some, you know, I do, but when you get into some of those kind of things that you're talking about, making Statue of Liberty disappear, no. Have no poo.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Yeah, and then this other guy, I can't think of his name offhand, that just does terrible things of hurting himself, uh puts uh a spike through his tongue and pulls a thread through and shit.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah, like that. Yeah, some of those you don't do that?

SPEAKER_04 12:09

Huh? That's how I get up and that's what I thought I'd bring up. No, anybody that does work cursing, uh, that's no big deal to anybody that's cursing.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

That's true. Yeah, I do I do understand that.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

And um talking about you guys uh working together and and doing things, coming back to Tom. Um I know you have a book with a bunch of pictures that you you want to tell us a little bit about the story. So you feel like doing that?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Well, yeah. All right, so we go. Okay. Uh this is in Lake City, Florida. Um 15 here. And that is the first electric guitar I ever had, my dad bought for me. As a uh Do you know what it is? Do you remember? It's an old craftsman.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Never seen any of that. Uh yeah. Um uh this was the band that I was with there, and we recorded, wrote and recorded a song in the radio station. And uh I feel like I'm being same age? Huh? Same age. We're all 14 and 15. Oh, man. And we recorded it in the radio station, and they put it on the air the next day, and we were instant stars at school. We we got booked for the prom, we got booked for the dances, we got, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

And what was that again?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Lake City, Florida. That's 1965.

unknown 13:35

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

This is I told you about uh playing this organ out on Melbourne Beach, and uh the bad habits coming and inviting me to join them. Well, this is me on the menu uh at the time, yeah. And and the bad habits. This is from the newspapers, why it's so grainy.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

And that looks like it was it would have been something something uh pretty heavy to carry around.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Well, we were playing six nights a week from nine to two.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Uh there wasn't Were you able to leave the stuff? It stayed there. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, you'd dust it off, and that was that was about all the contact you had with besides playing. Sure. And this was uh the same same band. Danny Swain and I met when way back, uh back when I was 12 and had a paper route, and he was 10. And uh we became friends, we'd fish together and whatever, ride our bikes together. And when I moved to New York City, uh uh, I told you about m opening for mom's Mabley. Uh, this is us open. He he showed up and I said, Why don't you just join me? And we'll so he sang Harmony with me, and we're doing all of my original stuff. Nice and uh opening for mom's Mabley there in New York City, that's 1970. Okay. Then this is uh 70. Uh, when I went to visit my mom in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Uh, my guitar case I painted all up. Then uh told you about hitchhiking across the country and ending up in Boulder uh and meeting Terry Ulrich. Uh it's that's my uh Glenn Campbell model ovation. And uh uh we hooked up as a duo, and he had a quarter of school to finish, so we hitchhiked back to uh Columbus, Ohio, and we met a photographer there who shot this picture for us. Then this is in Dayton, Ohio. Uh me and Terry and his brother, Larry, uh, and we're the three that played the whole ski season in Vale that I talked about. Oh, yeah, yeah, you talked about that. That I talked about. Yeah. And then this was a uh rehab ministry that I joined uh from 73. This was after I came back from Mexico, and uh Janie Hill uh ran the thing. And this is Genevieve, whom I married uh and you'll became my bass player and all that. Uh this was this was for my uh uh visa uh passport, whatever, to go into Mexico. And uh I wound up recording in Columbia Studios in Mexico City.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

And then this is in Germany in 78. This was my studio then. And uh that was real. That was that was uh top of the line recording for 1978, you know. Uh 10 and a half inch reels, and uh this was four-track, and that one's two-track, and uh this is still in Germany. Uh that's the Bitberg bluegrass band that uh we went on to win the worldwide talent contest. This is at the regional uh contest that we thought we couldn't possibly win, so we went home and had to get up the next day and and go back. Keep going, yeah. Yeah. And this is in California, uh, the worldwide talent contest. Right. And uh uh that's me. I had uh uh which who's missing? Bob Plurd. Bob Plurd took took this, and then I took the next one with him and him and not you. Yeah, with him in it and not me. And that's the only way we could do it. And this was where we won. This is the Bitburg uh Blazer newspaper. Um we're the best band in the Air Force. We won the whole worldwide contest.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

Yeah, you had a song that uh you guys played that was winning all of these contests.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Oh, we did it was a we had the same show.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

Oh, but a medi was it a medley? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

It was a medley. It was uh Foggy Mountain Breakdown and uh Rollin In My Sweet Baby's Arms and uh a couple other uh guitar instrumentals and that that was and this is what we won. That's almost life size. It's a little a little smaller than the actual. Then uh in 84, we were asked by that she's got our album right there in her hand. It was a cassette. Um we were asked by Alamogordo to be the official Welcome Home Miss USA band. Wow. Uh and so she's giving me I gave her our album and she gave me a kiss. I that's a cute trade. Kissing on your face. Kissing on my face.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

What is up with that?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And this is after that. Uh uh me and uh and there's Genevieve who was in that picture with the ministry.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Uh she was my bass player. There's our drummer, Tony Purazella.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Um, this is a mandolin I built.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Uh took a while we were in Fort Worth uh when I got out of the Air Force and we were playing full time again. I took a Lutheran course and built that interesting scene from scratch. Yeah. Yeah, I it was uh we were allowed to design whatever.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah, how did it sound? Did you like it?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

It sounded good, but I didn't design it right because it was my first time ever, and I didn't know what I was doing. I made the neck about that much too long. Oh and so you couldn't tune it up to pitch. Oh, the strings had snap.

unknown 20:15

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Uh I wound up cutting off part of the neck and putting a dowel in there and sticking it back together. Okay. But this this was our album cover. That that album that Miss USA was holding. Uh-huh. That's the album cover picture. This is in uh Lawton, Oklahoma, I believe. That was my guild SK-10. I wish I still had that. They they had to discontinue them. Gibson sued them.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Gibson made that Chet Atkins model that looks looks like that. Yeah. It's a nylon string, electric, uh, thin body.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And uh, oh man, uh, that was twelve hundred bucks back in uh '84. Uh and no telling what it'd be today, but they yeah, they sued them. They had to discontinue that guitar. Then we went to Austin, and this is when we opened for the Juds. That's awesome. When we opened for Ronnie Millsap. And this is when we opened for the nitty-gritty dirt band. That's Genevieve, and her sister was there. And we said, come on, get in get in the picture. This was a newspaper article when I got hired to be the sound man at the opera house.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

How long did that last?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

A couple of years.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Really?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah. So you saw some good acts go at the end. Oh, yeah. Well, I it's a long story. With that that's a strange place, uh employee-wise. Oh. People came and went and came and went, and and uh I wound up being the general manager of the place.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I wound up going to Denver. They were gonna tear the place down. And I'm like, no, you cannot do that. I was giving tours to people. So I'd learn all the history of it. It was built in 1913 and Lily and Gish played there and da-da-da-da-da. And I'd put people up in the balcony, yeah, and go to go on the stage, and the the acoustics are I've never seen anything like it. I'd be on stage, they'd be up there in the balcony, I'd go, can you hear me? And they'd go, Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just a phenomenal, and I'm like, no, you can't tear this down. So I found out how to get it on the uh Colorado Historical Society and jumped through all the hoops I needed to and went to Denver a couple of times, got the paperwork done and all that. And there's a plaque on the front of the building right now that says it's Colorado Historical Site. Nice. And I I'm happier about that than about anything that I did there. You know, yeah. This was a magical moon elixir travel and medicine show that was a lot of fun. It was an outdoor show at the Bachelor Syracuse Mine tour. And uh this is Lewis Duke, who played Professor Whitfield, and Drew Fowler, who uh I played on four or five of his albums, and me playing American Native American flute and playing a mountain man, and it was full of comedy and music, and it was just uh it was a variety show.

SPEAKER_04 23:40

And it was was that at the Sheridan?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

No, no, no. This was at the Bachelor Syracuse Mine out uh three miles outside of Uray. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Even before I worked with Rusty, or before I worked with Dennis Weaver, I worked with Rusty Weaver, his son. We worked together running sound for Stanley Jordan. Nice. And we played together in a band called Free Range Cats. And I was the bass player, and he's a phenomenal bass. He is.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I got to play with him once with uh Rusty, with Ralph Dinosaur uh and uh and uh Mike Stein and Yeah, well my uh Free Range Cats was him and Mike Stein and me. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It was a trio, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

And then uh who were the rockediles?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

The rockediles was him and uh some other people.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

Yeah, yeah, but still tell you right people are right in that area.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Well in the in the array Ridgeway area, yeah. This is at the Sheridan Opera House when I uh ran sound for uh David and Keith Carradine. Robert was supposed to be there, but he missed his flight and didn't make the show. So that's us there on the stairwell of uh uh the opera house. This is me on stage with Keith. There's Keith. You can see the big clock. I'm way I'm way over here on the other side of the horn section playing guitar. And uh Ralph Loveday there. And this is back in the green room after the show with Writers in the Sky. I've uh that what a bunch of great guys.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Uh Ranger Doug, phenomenal Western swing guitar player. Oh, I bet. He's got that you know, playing. Yeah, and uh I said, man, that guitar is awesome. He just picked it up and handed it to me.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I'm like, uh, it's a 1937 Stromberg. Oh, wow. Re uh worth $50,000. And he just handed it to me. Oh man. I was afraid to touch it. Oh boy. And uh uh Too Slim took this picture.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Oh boy. And uh and and is that the same Too Slim as the tail drag and the tail draggers? I don't know. Yeah, there's I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, his real name's Fred. Oh yeah. But two they had their own TV show on the Nashville Network uh where they uh introduced Western movies and they'd do bits, comedy bits, and some music, and then you'd see the movie. And it was old, like uh uh old Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies and Tom Tom Mixed Mixed. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, they did that for quite a while. Then here's Eric Burden on stage. All right. I was I ran sound for that concert. Nice and I played the party after the concert, and Mel Gibson was there for the party, and there's him and and Eric together. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

And this is all up at the Sheridan.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

This is all at the Sheridan, yeah. And uh that's me singing with Rodney Crowell. He uh during sound check, I asked him uh if I could just sing harmony with him on because I've been doing uh Till I Can Gain Control Again Forever. I love that song. And I did, and he goes, Wow, that sounded good. That night I wasn't expecting during the show, he called me up. Oh and that this is this is actually a screenshot from a video. I took a video of the whole whole thing. But uh this is Stanley Jordan on stage. We're gett getting him set up with sound and stuff when Rusty and I were running sound for him.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

Would that have been at the jazz festival?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

No, that was uh that was in Mountain Village at uh some corporate event.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yeah, because I saw him down in the park and I think it was at the jazz festival.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah, oh he's played the jazz festival several times. This is after the show with Dennis Weaver, Jay, Jerry, uh his wife, and me. This is in the show. In that show, I played uh saxophone, mandolin, banjo, guitar, bass, and drums.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Well, you've no talent. What a show.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Everybody on that stage could play at least four instruments. I mean, that's it was a show. Yeah. You know, the Branson style, uh Vegas style show. I put oh yeah, I left that out. Yeah. Uh Native American flute in that show.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Then here's another show that we did there. There's Jay again. He and I have played in a couple of different bands in Texas, and then numerous shows up here. Uh Joe Pips and and Tim Forsyth. He just passed away a couple years ago, uh, and Jay and me. And then this is the blues show. And see, Tim's got his fiddle. Here he's playing saxophone.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Um, and Joe's playing guitar, and he played bass and saxophone, and I'm playing bass there, and uh Jay's on guitar, and then uh Dennis Weaver playing Chester. Uh he did a thing in Gunsmoke where he taught Miss Kitty how to play the guitar.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Oh yeah. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And it went over so well that he's been doing it ever since. Him and Miss Kitty and Doc had a trio.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

And they played like Branson shows and things for a couple of years. Yeah. The three of them.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

What was her name? Amanda Blake.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Amanda Blake. Yeah. Yep. And uh he could sing. Yeah. And he can play the guitar. I mean, he was he was multi-talented. Uh uh in this he did. He came out with the limp and the whole minor. Marsh and Dillon. Mr. Dylan, I need some help.