It's very Midwestern. A lot of welps and hopes. Yeah. Was it Puff Daddy? How's he doing?
Producer Chris might be the most interesting person you've never met. I don't think I like being touched by strangers. Chris, look that up. You can't. I'll look it up.
I'm on it. You got it. You can look it up. No, I'll look it up. Here we go.
We're professionals. Do they have batting cages at Birdies? Um, not officially. Yeah, he had shingles. I don't know if that played into or not.
So, what do you do? You can't possibly do this for a living. Hey, welcome in to your favorite 90 minutes every week. I was told 75, but well, we're going to kick you out for the last 15. Perfect.
Yeah. Uh, this is the Hamco Live Hot Ticket Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Cecil, editor-inchief. Can I tell you something about my name? I This is I hate this about my name.
You've been using a fake name all these years. No, but I'm considering changing it. Chris, can I get a little more in my headphones? Turn just my headphones up. Um Josh Cecil is hard to say.
The sh of Josh and the of Cecil. They they kind of run together. Yeah, it's I hate it. Go Joshua. And I feel like, well, I thought about that, but most people just call me Cecil, but when I have to introduce myself professionally, I feel like Josh Shisha.
Joshua. Hi, Josh. I feel like I develop a speech impediment halfway halfway through my introduction. Anyways, hold on. You have a magician name.
What's that? Oh, yeah. Oh, it was Court Cecil. Yeah, I went by Court Cecil for a hot minute. So, maybe we go with that.
Go back to Court Cecil, which I like. What about Jock Cecil? Yock. Jack. Jack Cecil.
Jaco. I like Jaco. Yeah. Jaco Cecil. No, that sounds too Irish.
Oh, the Patty's place. How's your mom? What were we saying? Welcome to the show. Editor-inchief of hamco.com with me as always.
By God, he's a global icon and national treasure. You've already heard him speak and frankly was probably been enough. But that's Tyler Meechum. Tyler, say hello. You got plenty more coming.
Good morning. And while you haven't heard him speak and you've yet to see his face, he's over there behind Video Village. That's producer Chris. Producer Chris, good morning. Good morning.
Um, listen, Video Village. Still brought to you by lmmproducts.com, makers of fine leather goods in Anderson, Indiana since 1975. Go to lmproducts.com and use code hamco. Save yourself 25% off at checkout. Get yourself a new guitar strap uh or a uh cover for your journal if you like to journal.
I'm told that's good for you. Maybe a gratitude journal. Anybody journal here. Brett, you journal. I do.
All right. Well, save it for the interview. Brett, we'll get to it. Don't worry. We'll get to We'll get to your journaling habits.
We're going to read your journal on air. I'm pulling it out, right? Prove it. No, I'm pulling out my Is that Ellen Products guitar strap? Let's see that.
Yeah. And I don't even I'm not pandering. I It's the only strap I use. Only strap I have. That's nice.
Yeah. Southwest, right? That's right. Yeah. What is that?
Works well with this outfit. It does. The linen shirt. The south blue. There's a pop of blue in there.
Great guitar straps. That's go to lmroducts.com and use code ham code. Save yourself 25% off a guitar strap just like that. Hey, how was your weekend? Oh boy, it's a lot of mic rumble that I don't care for.
It had to happen. It was an itch that needed scratched. Uh, how was your weekend? What'd you do? Uh, a couple highlights.
Um, uh, the parade downtown, Noblesville, Fourth of July parade. Okay, that was good. It went off. Yeah, I wasn't in town, so I wasn't sure. I knew the fireworks got delayed.
Yeah. Till like 11:00. That was I wasn't up for him, but yeah, that was a highlight. I'll leave it at that. Okay.
Yeah. short and sweet. Um, my other highlight was not the weekend, but it was last night hanging out with you guys. Oh, come on. No, it was it was Come on.
Yeah. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, I should introduce our guest. I didn't introduce our guest. Oh, yeah.
Typically, I would do that and I thought, well, maybe I'll do it during the interview, but then I just moved on to weekends. This is our special guest in studio, Brett Wiscon, singer, songwriter, author, journaler, journalist. Not really a journalist, but barely a journaler. Journaler Brett Wiscon. More with Brett here in a little bit.
But Brett, what did you do this weekend? What did I do? Do you have some gigs? I had a gig uh Saturday night and I drove for Lyft a little bit in between. Yeah.
Nice. Yeah. Nice. During your set breaks. During set breaks, stuffing down the driveway.
I got to get back here. Close enough. Where'd you play at? Uh, I did a private party in Zansville. Okay.
So, around the pool before the the rain came in. Nice. It worked out well. And then, yeah, I drove some people around and slept in. Nice.
Journaled. Uh, Christopher, what did you do? Not much. I hung around Nolesville and um enjoyed the parade and that was my weekend. Oh, we whittleled during the parade.
You whittleled? Yeah. We were just old men sitting on his porch carving sticks. Did you have a corn cob pipe at all? No, we were whittling one.
I love it. Well, good job, Papy. Uh, my weekend I was in Columbus, Ohio with my fiance, Ginger. And fiance, hello. Stop the presses.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's when did I propose? Back in December. Congratulations.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. No, I didn't know.
I didn't know. I mean, you didn't invite me last night to Sids to tell me, but we could have filled you in on all this. Yeah, it would have been nice to know all this before I sat down with you, but Well, you know, we wanted the element of surprise in our sight. It's working. We have a saying.
It's save it for the pod. Save it for the pod. We actually did use that phrase last night and we didn't save for the pot. Anyways, uh Columbus, Ohio, watched some fireworks, uh had some steaks, that sort of thing. It was good.
All American. Yeah. All right. All right. Uh Chris, could I still get more in my ears?
It sounds funky. Let's just turn them all up. I don't know which which headphone is mine. I think you're turning him up and me. But that's okay.
He's the host. You're turning me on. I can tell you that much. And remember, when we get a th000 subscribers, we're going to reveal Chris's face and let him turn you on as well. How far away are we from a thousand?
Uh 999. Let's see. Hold on. Can I Can I share some stats that you shared with me about the total viewing hours? Minutes.
Was it minutes? I think you shared with me we had 42,000 minutes of people watching this stuff either on YouTube shorts, YouTube. What was it? You were probably making it up. I I was not making it up.
Let me That's pretty good. I was impressed. That's more than one person. People have a lot of time to waste. That's right.
Well, I think a lot of people put us on as background noise to fall asleep to. Yeah. You know, they're going to love this episode. Yeah. As I read from my book.
We're reading all seven books. Hey, well, that first one's pretty quick, but it'll still put you to sleep. Uh, we are at 140 subscribers. 140? Yeah, we need 860 more.
What's going on over there? Nothing. trying to get and you wonder why our subscriber count's so low. Uh let's see. We've got double what I thought.
At least it would be. That's impressive. Thanks, Brent. Uh where did I even find all that? Okay, we've got uh 24,000 views.
Uh 175 hours. My numbers were off, but this is in the last 28 days. I don't know about lifetime. Okay, but anyways, enough bragging. Enough bragging about our mediocre success here on the podcast.
Uh Brett, let's get into Who is Brett Whis? Let me get my journal. Hold on. Now, I will tell you this. You're not going to remember this, but I met you.
I have a good memory, so try me. Okay. I met you try I was trying to think on the walk over the year. I can't recall the year. It would have been probably I don't think I was divorced yet.
So 20 it's always a good barometer. 2022 or 2021 somewhere in there. You opened for Will Hogue at the Hi-Fi. Yep. 2022.
Okay. Yeah. So 2022 I bet you early in that year I believe. April maybe. Yep.
It would have been spring. Yeah. Thanks for letting me play with you that night. Jeez. Well, if I recall right, I tried I think to get you to play for with me.
It was like a last minute thing cuz it was the day before his opener couldn't come or whatever like he usually brought someone with him and so they called you up said right away said get let me get Whiscons on the phone. Yeah. And I was sitting around with my feet up waiting for that call. Like a little red phone over here. Yep.
It was just the hi-fi sticker on it. Ah, it's the high. Yeah. So Will is my favorite songwriter. Oh, nice.
You got to open up for him. What was that like? What was Will like? He was really nice, man. He was cool.
We uh I bought his vinyl that night and uh we chatted and he was appreciative of me, you know, stepping up and stepping in and uh I think did I almost open for him another time or no, something happened where I he was like cuz I was putting my record out, the Lay Bloomer album that summer and I was putting it out on vinyl and he's like, "Well, when you put it out, man, I'll buy your vinyl." And I feel like I sent him a message on, you know, Instagram or something or his manager or something and they bought the vinyl and I shipped I think now now I'm we don't have to be accurate on this podcast. Well, I mean I do write fiction. I do write fiction for a living, but we had the conversation at least about him buying my vinyl as well. And I mean I still have his vinyl and uh just a good dude, you know, and uh we didn't spend a ton of time together. We didn't record a podcast or anything, but we did chat, you know, he chatted me up like an equal, you know, he wasn't big timing me, which you always like to see with with artists, you know, he's had some success, too.
And uh that song on the Chevy commercial, right? Strong or strong. Then he had nominated for the ACM, I think, for uh songwriting. Uh the Eli Young song. God, what a great song.
That sounds like a Crowfield song to be honest. I mean, it should have been. It should have been and you probably would not be feeling wouldn't be doing a podcast with these bubs. You'd be on your yacht somewhere. Yeah.
But yeah, great dude. You know, it was it's almost like you said, it's almost like another life ago almost, even though it's only been four years, but um that crazy. Yeah. Can I share a Will Hog story? Are you going to top me real quick though?
I I want to go back to you opening up for Will Hook. Yeah. What I remember most is that damn leather jacket you had. Oh yeah. Yeah.
It was a good one. Such a great leather jacket. Was it the brown one? Yeah. It was on the cover of the Late Bloomer album.
But, you know, funny story about that. I I've kind of gone through some changes in the last year or two and I traded that leather jacket in early this year to a consignment store in Broadripple. So, it's available unless somebody already picked it up. And I got a new leather jacket because it was I was going to say you made some changes. Did you go vegan?
No. Well, no. I'm still using leather, but but I went quit drinking, of course. But uh but I it was time for that jacket to be gone. You had to shed your skin.
Had to shed my skin, literally. But if you go to Broadripple at uh whatever that Newman and Company, you may find it there on the rack if Okay. If you're interested, I think I know the Newman's actually. It's off 65th and College. Okay.
Yeah, it may be there with your name on it if you if you like it that much. That's all I'm saying. All right. Is that Amanda Newman? Do you know?
I don't know. Used to have a consignment place in Caramel. Well, Amanda's Exchange. Yeah, I think they're sister company, so it must I'm pretty sure we can't give away all this free advert. I had her They might sponsor the next episode.
I knew her kid. Oh, yeah. Uh, tell me your Will Hog story. I'll make I hope it's the one I I know. I'll make it real quick.
Uh, I was lucky enough to open up for him a long time ago. Um, and I think we were in Virginia Beach and we had a great night. We sold a bunch of merch, but when we were leaving, we couldn't find our the cash box and you live and die by merch sales on the road. Exactly. Especially opening up like you get band gets a hundred bucks to share five people and it's like it's you're lucky to not lose your leather jacket on the show.
Bartering your leather jacket for somebody had somebody had taken our cash box and we were all bummed out about it and Will so nice, so generous gave us a hundred bucks and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Wow. You lost it or someone stole it? Someone took it. Damn.
Yeah. But didn't get You think it was Will? You think it was Will that actually took it? Here. Hold on a minute.
I got it. Okay. Came in some money. It was a drunk fan. It was a drunk fan that accidentally took it when they were grabbing their stuff.
Oh, was Yeah. And they called us the next day and we got it. Oh, that's great. So, so you jipped. No.
A few months down the road, we saw them again and gave him the hundred bucks back. So, what about the bottle of Jack Daniels? Uh, no. cost. I'm sure.
Yeah, I donated that to your liver. All right. Sorry. That's not the one I was thinking of. Do you know which one I'm thinking of?
When you opened I think it was him at some college. You won like a Battle of the Bands or something. Do you remember this? Yeah. We'll save that for another time.
Save it for another pot. Yeah. Man, you've lived quite the life, haven't you, Tyler Mum? That was not on Will. That wasn't on Will.
Oh, okay. I thought that was Will. That was on Blessed Union of Souls. Oh. Okay, we'll say that first.
Cocky jerks. Are they cocky? No, I have no idea. I know. They believe.
Yeah, that was one of their songs. They had a few They had a few hits, man. I believe that was it. Yeah. Uh, let's go back to Brett.
Let's go back. Brett, how did you get started in music? Uh, wow. That's an existential question. That'll keep us here for a while.
But uh how I really got started was just listening to the radio. Okay, that's good. And uh you know what the radio is? FM radio. Yeah.
In the car with my dad. Uh did you have a common like uh musical? Like my parents were into country. I wasn't into country at the time. I No.
Well, yeah, it was a common thing. He was just uh a big fan of the old the oldies, which was back then, you know, now 80s and 90s are the oldies, but uh back then was the ' 60s, you know, in the early 70s, so the Beach Boys and Eagles and uh even like uh Dell Shannon and and uh Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons. Sure. So I just listen and hear the voices and I don't know it just kind of seeped in and then I would as I got older I just continued listening to the radio and singing along and thinking no that'd be kind of cool to do whatever they're doing like how do you get your voice on the to come out of that box over there right and uh you know fast forward 75 years and I've had a few songs on the radio and now I'm retiring and becoming a journalist so it's been a full circle moment. When did you uh pick up the get fiddle over there?
That's the guitar. Uh yeah, that that specific one I just got the No, no, I picked up playing it. I tried to play when I was about 16 because I'd started a band, but I was, you know, the lead singer. And what was the name of the band? The first band was called the Owls.
I like that. I was a big Hoodie fan. Oh, that's good. Yeah. And still a big Hoodie fan.
I'm going to see Hoody tomorrow actually in Chicago. Yeah, nice. Windy City Smokeout. Nice. They're reuniting.
Uh but yeah, who you know again with Hoodie coming on the radio in in '9495, that's when I was really into music and and I heard them and I was like, "Wow, that doesn't sound that hard." Well, it wasn't that. It Well, may I just felt like I could relate to them and what they were singing about because, you know, right before them was Pearl Jam and Sound Garden and Nirvana and it was like I just I'm not that angsty. Yeah. I mean, I'm like what, man? It's so bleak out there.
Black Hole Sun. Wow. But then Hoody's holding my hand and only wanting to be with me and I'm like I can I think I can get behind this. and their videos were fun and uh yeah, so they I had postered them on my wall and and it was just one of those things where I just really latched on to them. And that's interesting that you mentioned that sort of the difference between because in the 90s it felt very much in kind of the rock pop rock world there was this divide and on one side was your Pearl Jams and your Sound Gardens and Nirvana Foo Fighters whatever and then over here was like Hoodie, Sister Hazel, Matchbox 20, Counting Crows.
Yeah. Although Count and Crows were still a little bleak in a way, but they didn't sound as bleak. But they had No, exactly. They were jangly. Yeah.
Yeah. Jangly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I I always geared drifted more towards I liked I liked everything, but like my writing, my song style, my preference would be more towards the hoodie end of that spectrum, too. Good. I'm glad you're on my team and I'm yours. Yeah.
And so you get inspired by Hoodie. We go. What happens next? I mean, how do you uh I get a record deal? No, I'm just kidding.
It's pretty easy, really. I go on star search. Three and corner stars for what's No, I just man, I just was tunnel vision from then on for 30 years, you know, like I'm going to be a musician. I don't care what happens. I don't care what I lose, which I've lost a lot over the years.
Uh, I'm just this is me. This is what I'm doing. And it was a great run. I mean, I loved it. But now that it's been, you know, a couple years now, I've I've come up for air.
Um, and I can hear it in my voice when I breathe. Yeah. It's uh, but rewinding back to then, yeah, I just I had a band in high school, graduated, went to college, went to Marian College here in town, now it's Marian University. Are you from Indiana originally? Uh Chicago originally, but but grew up in northern Indiana.
Okay. And um Pride of Plymouth. Plymouth, Indiana. Scott Sky pilgrim. I was a pilgrim.
Always in forever. Yeah. Uh is that where the big blueberry festival is? Indeed. Labor Day weekend.
Did you ever play the Blueberry Festival? I did. Yeah, I played it, you know, in high school. My buddy Andy Green, who was in my first band, The Owls, and and then we became uh who did we become? Oh, no.
The Brett Michaels. No. What was our I can't believe I'm forgetting like uh our name in in uh in high school. Anyway, we had some iterations of of the band, but Andy Green was always in that in that band and he lived right in the park area where the Blueberry Festival went on. So, we set up outside his like he was homeless.
No, no, he lived under the bridge. Well, he had a he had covering. Oh, good. But, uh he had he lived right there with a lot of foot traffic. So, we set up in his front yard.
That was like I think maybe one of our first gigs was right there. So you got you hijacked it. Absolutely. No permit. Yeah.
No permit. We were like Rage Against the Machine before Rage Against the Machine. So this was 96 97 probably. And then the J-birds, that's that's the name of the band. That's when we really started taking off.
Our senior year of high school. Yeah. We played Surf and PHS. There's video of us on YouTube of the J-birds playing this. It's called Surf and PHS.
Pull it up. Chris High School. So, it was the big like end of the year party for the high school and we played in the uh like cafeteria, but there was a stage. I just watched this a couple weeks ago. Oh my goodness.
It was I was so bad. But I had so much charisma and I just I had the the swagger and it didn't matter. Everyone loved it. Do you guys look back at those early gigs and you know technically they were horrible but I never felt like I was having more fun than like early on when you're naive enough to not really compare yourself or to hear yourself in a way that you're hearing the best version of what you think you're going to become. That's what's in your head.
Not like this like constant criticism edit going on in your head. Those early gigs are some of the most fun for sure. I don't know. I was always pretty pretty cool with myself. Come on, do it better, Josh.
Uh, I just loved it. I loved being on stage. I loved just the attention. I mean, I was getting because I was a real quiet kid for the most part and introverted, but for whatever reason, when I got on stage, I was Yeah. It's interesting.
Yeah. Like I'm very uncomfortable in like if we were to have a a party 20 30 people I would be super uncomfortable. Yeah. But put me on a stage in front of a I'm I'm the same way. People I'm like the social anxiety goes away when you're on stage.
It's like you can control the scenario. Like you don't have to talk back to them. If they say something to you, you just start your song. But if they say something you like and think you can respond to, you respond to them and you have your friends up there with you to banter with and it's I think it's like I know what to do in this situation with my my bandmates. I know what I'm doing.
You put me in a social situation. I don't really know what I'm doing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I've always been socially awkward, believe it or not.
You believe it. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty obvious, especially it doesn't take much convincing. Down to the bare essentials here.
It's pretty fair. Hey, but to go back to the Blueberry Festival, like that is a that's a huge festival. Like it is huge. Yeah. My uh kids went up two years ago, I think it was now.
Um or some of my kids went. Um but I guess there's like a gigantic fireworks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And my son claims there was a giant fireball. Not just fireworks, but a like an explosion. They do it up. Yeah. That's their Super Bowl.
And that's Labor Day weekend. Labor Day weekend. Yep. So go to Indiana for the blueberry festival this Labor Day weekend September. I don't even know what Labor Day weekend is, but it's like the first weekend of September or something like that.
Yeah, the first full weekend. Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. So, let's fast forward. The J-birds.
Wow. The J-Birds. We Well, we went we graduated. It was It was pretty hard. It was my dark period.
Yeah. We all graduated high school and then we went our separate ways, you And I'm told you had a relationship with Andy's girlfriend at the time. Yeah. Yeah. I married her.
I married her that last 6 months. It was uh you know. So you shotgun wedding. You graduated. You come down.
I went to Marian. Andy went to Purdue. Uh and then some of the other one of the guys was actually was still in high school, but four of us all graduated and left. But uh you hit uh Broadripple pretty hard, right? Yeah.
Yeah. I I met I'm sorry guys, but I'm not used to talking before 10:00 a.m. I met Chad Moore Duff, who uh we know who's who's still playing guitar with me in the in my new Billy Joel project. And uh I didn't really start a band freshman year of college. I I played guitar.
That's when I started taking guitar lessons, but I was still like wanting to You didn't play guitar until the freshman. What What were you doing in college? I just sang I just sang. I was front man. Jim Morrison, you know, jumping around and uh Okay.
I was just the face of the franchise. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a nice face. And thanks. Hey, even at this hour, you know, the voice I don't care for, but the face. Yeah. If I could just And what you're saying, not a fan of, but right.
What's what it's coming out of. Yeah. It's really that's how I've gotten so far. I mean, really, that's I mean, let's be honest. I know what sells.
Um, yeah, I finally got a band going. I had a couple like bands. Uh, one was called uh, Virtuosity. Uh, we didn't do much. We played a little pizza joint.
We played a few games. Do a lot of Jiraquay. Jaqu. Yeah. Yeah.
Virtual Insanity. Okay. That that was Virtuosity. Dang. Nice.
Uh, then Great Scott came along in 2022. 20 2002. Oh god. Yeah. towards the end of college and that's when we really like started playing Broadripple all the time and tour touring a little bit, you know, Midwest, East Coast a little bit and and they referred to you as the Bard of Broadripple.
Is that correct? They actually referred to me as the uh the Bruce Springsteen of Broadripple. Wow. Or the Eddie Veter, one of the two, but I mean, give me a break. I'll take the Bard of Broadripple.
Yeah. So, that was 2002, you said. Yeah. So, I was living in Broadripple in 2002. Oh, you were?
Yeah. The Compton Street Apartments right there next to the high school. Oops. Yeah. You were straight out of Compton.
Straight out of Compton. Yeah. Right by the Einstein bagels. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I just dropped somebody off there the other day on my lift to drive from the dentist office to, you know, I don't I don't mind being like I drive for Lift now. It's fine. I think it's super interesting. Yeah.
Yeah. I meet some cool people. Yeah. I was going to say you must have some I already have some cool stories. Yeah.
Yeah. And I also have some sad stories, you know, because I bet some people are just down on their luck and and it's uh gives you perspective about how good your life actually is. Mine in particular, even though I'm not don't have a yacht, but I mean, I have a lot of good things in my life. So, do you make them listen to your music? Uh, you lock the doors.
You keep locking the doors until they give you a compliment till they add you. I mean, I do talk. I mean, if they ask, I mean, sometimes it's just me not talking cuz they're not talking. If they strike up a conversation, I'll I'll engage. But if not, I'm just driving them to their spot.
But if it comes up, we talk and they're like, "Oh, can I find you?" And I'm, "Yeah, yeah, you can." So, it's good way to market your show, you know, your face. Although mostly they're seeing the back of my head, but you know they know I tell them I'm pretty attractive while I'm like I know you can't see me only in the rearview mirror. This is my best angle, but you know I throw them a business card behind me, you know, and say just throw it back up. Just look look me up. Just Google me.
Uh where were we? I don't know. Went down a tangent. Uh but you're also an author. Yes.
How? I mean, this is stack it up, baby. Look at this. Encyclopedic. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
This is number eight. That's I just brought my copy of Oh, gotcha. Seven's on. Look how thick seven is compared to the rest. It's kind of crazy.
Well, you made the print bigger cuz we're getting older. Yeah, I did. So, you don't you can't do this when you're There's five words per page. Okay. So, tell me about this.
Those are all in order. Yeah, if you want. What did you um at Marian? What did you study? Business, believe it or not.
I believe. But I monkey business mostly. But uh but I was, you know, I've always been kind of a a creative kind of weirdo writer like writing poetry, you know, when I was in 12 or 13 and trying to figure out how to write lyrics, but it came out as poetry mostly. Did they say he's a sensitive boy? Yeah, they did.
They did. I got a lot of that time. Yeah, I was. And I still am, man. Um, and I even in high school I wrote uh in English class I wrote uh a book like as a project called Night of the Owls actually going back to my band name and uh to be quite honest it was pretty much a complete ripoff of the movie Days and Confused or a lot of those elements were in there.
Sure. there was a moon tower scene or something like I I like kind of was like h this could be but you know I don't know it was short uh it was fun though it was fun to just kind of get into that world but I never really thought I'd mean that was 1997 or whatever and my first book came out in 2013 I think I released it so that was you know whatever that is 17 years later so what the genesis of these books really and I think I mentioned I brought Tyler another book from a different um book series, but there's this book series down below. Bring it up, Tyler, so we can just get an idea. Yes, sir. Here you go.
So, this is book one of the Travis McGee. This is your pseudonym, John D. McN. No, no, no. I wish this is the book series that kind of inspired me to write a book series.
Um, this concurrently with my dad passing away. So I wrote I read this book series and then my dad passed away and that book series you know it was over because the the author had passed away in the 80s or whatever. So I discovered this book series later on. Okay. But I had read that book series.
There's like 22 books in that series. It's killer. It's great. And then as my dad, you know, after my dad passed away, something in my brain was like, oh, I would love to still talk to my dad, which we all would feel that way if we, you know, when you lose somebody. But then I was like, but I would also love this book series to continue.
So, I'm going to just write my own book series kind of in that vein and have my dad be the the lead character. And that way, I'm still like he's his memory is still there alive. And that's great. and his backstory was kind of uh you know partially inspired by you know that first book especially was more about my dad than like the character evolved over the years but the jumping off point was my dad although he was never a private detective and he never killed anyone that we know of that we know of and I mean his secrets are gone I mean they're buried with him so so this is uh the Bear Whitman series yes it's a series and I thought you know The first book was more just cathartic. Let's let's write about it.
Let's get through the death of my dad. And did you intend to like I'm going to start a series? No. No. I was like one one out, one and done, I thought.
And then as soon as I finished the first book, I was like, oh, maybe I'll do a second one. I just wrote the second book as the first book was done and then it just kept going and then I was like, I've done two. I guess I could do three maybe. So Bear Whitman is a private investigator. Is this like a detective?
Yeah, he's based in Chicago. Um, he's kind of a just a rough and tumble guy. He's a big guy. My dad was a big guy. I'm kind of a big guy, I suppose.
And uh, you're a tall drink of water. I'm a tall drink. There's no question about it. Yeah, I've lost some weight, of course, but my dad was more of a His name was Bear. Barry, so we called him Bear.
Oh, nice. So, that's where the bear came from. Um, but there's been an evolution over the years of the character and uh, just as there is with me, with all of us in this room, you know, we've all hopefully evolved over the years and I wanted to kind of work through some issues of my own through these characters and through the stories and I think a little cathartic. Oh, so cathartic, man. And you've read, have you read?
I've read No, not all of them. Just the last three. Um, okay. But I I can't It is so impressive to try to But can you imagine sitting down to write a book? No.
The uh like where to start? There's a quote. I don't know. I don't know how it works. I can't remember the the famous person that said it, but uh there's nothing scarier than a blank page or something like that.
Um it was an author that Shakespeare might have been Bill Shakespeare. I think it was Billy. But it's it's interesting and and fun for me to read them because I've known you for a long time now. Um, you met me probably about 2013. Yeah.
Yeah. About when the first book came out. But I mean, I know you haven't read those yet because they weren't they were out of print by the time. Yeah. Um, they're so in demand.
They're out of print. But I can see like Bear as like an amalgamation of you and your dad cuz I can see um just little things in the story lines about how he changes and I I can relate it to changes in your life. You know me personally, that's which is cool. It is a fun read for me, especially knowing you because I'm reading it as just just to read, but then I'm also like, "Oh, I can see, you know, this." Yeah. Some of it is definitely autobiographical.
I'm not going to deny that. But some of it is fictionalized. Like that time you killed a guy in the in the Caribbean. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That was like I know that's Yeah, I definitely did that. Now, this murder at the Blueberry Festival, I still That's why I'm, you know, growing the beard. I'm kind of on the run right now. on the lamb.
How did you guys how did you two meet? Set the scene. I had just moved back uh to Indiana from South Carolina and he we had a mutual friend and uh when I moved back he kind of connected us. Mhm. Yeah.
Which was about 2013 or 14. Yeah. Then it was probably 14. Yeah. Yeah.
And we met at Al Emporium, right, for our first sit down. Yeah. Had some wings. Yeah. And some beers, I believe.
So Vince was my brother Vincent. Vince was there. Was he there for the meeting? Or was he just there? I think he just showed up.
You guys had a meeting. Well, we had a sit down. I mean, you know, we met specifically to to meet. I think I brought my brother as like just muscle in case I was a weirdo. In case it got wild, things got weird.
I mean, this rockstar, you know, Kenny Loggins over here. Yeah. And then I right away I'm like, you want to be in my band? You want to join the band? You want to come over and play?
Yeah. H that's fun. And yeah, he's And now we're still we're locked in, man. Yeah. Now, is the mutual friend Mark Bryan?
It is. Yeah. Okay. Should we Grammy winner? You want to talk about that at all?
I'll see him tomorrow. I can bring Oh, yeah. I guess you're going. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. We were actually supposed to meet at Hood two years ago, but uh Yeah. Came late. She had a gig, I think. Yeah.
I came after literally the show was over and I walked in. I still I didn't Mark had left already, but I saw Gary who's our percussion player and uh he plays drums. He played drums on my new record actually, Gary. And he's played he played drums on Broadripple. He played drums on a lot of my stuff, early stuff I did that I recorded with Mark, you know, full circle moment.
I got posters of Hoodie and the Blowfish on my wall in the 90s. And then I party on their tour bus in, you know, the early 2000s and I end up recording and writing an album with Mark, you know. I mean, that's got to be pretty cool. Yeah, it was pretty cool. The fact he still wanted to work with me after I desecrated his bathroom on the tour bus.
I thought that was says a lot about his character. You know what? Maybe that's what sealed the deal. Yeah, it might have been. You know, like, oh, it's like that was an alpha move.
I want to work with this guy. This guy He's got enough around, man. Judging by what by what he ate, this guy has it. There's no question. It being diarrhea.
All right, that's good. Should we move on to whatever? Whatever. The new album, the new books or the my Yeah. So, the new album.
Let's talk about the new album. Let's do it. Yeah. New album coming out. Where is it?
It's out. It came out June. No, no, just kidding. Yeah, because I I I could go off on on digital streaming platforms, but I'm I'm going to kind of keep it politically correct here. But well, we're not making any money off them.
So, I got a big I got a big problem with Spotify and all the big streaming services because the artists really get ripped off and I've been getting ripped off long enough. And uh for this new album, I just said, you know what? I'm not going to put it on anything except for my website. And if people want to find it, they can find it there. And I mean, I'll promote it that it's out.
And you know, now again, these are not my songs. These are cover songs. Yeah, we should talk about that. Name of the album, the music that made me love it because full circle, it's these are some of the songs. I mean, there's a lot more, but these were some of the songs that inspired me to become the artist I am.
And if I'm correct, it is just you redid cracked rear view. Yes. Front of Actually, back to front is how we did it. Yeah, we wanted to change that retrospective. Yeah.
No, we did put a crack review song on there. We did put Time on there. Oh, great song. We put it, you know, I did this the playlist or the tracklist order and and I did put times the eighth track, which was also the eighth track of Crack Review. Cuz I'm, you know, I'm poetic.
Yeah. But it's terrible. Honestly, it's just not that good because time. Well, me this the band's great. I'm like, man, am I really I'm not Darius Rucker, am I?
But it's pretty good. I don't know. Did you hear? I haven't heard that one. Okay, check it out.
It's good, but it's like, man, it's hard. I mean, you know, it is hard to cover songs you love and have like a real attachment to. Yeah. And a band that I'm like, I cannot f this up, you know? This is my band.
And I think we found our own, you know, we honored the original with all the song. We did 11 tunes with all the tunes. There's some that are way more uh have our own stamp on it that really don't I mean they sound like the original but we do we put our own like King of Wishful Thinking from we that song the way we did that I'll talk I'll take that that put that on my tombstone how well we did that song and changed it up I wouldn't have done PA with it though I mean tuba and accordion like but it worked for whatever reason what's the website where can I find it just at Brett at wiscons.com you should be able to find it but with time you know we we it sounds more like the original but also I'm not Darius so it doesn't and it it doesn't have the time the chime that there's only one vocal and it's mine but we do have Johnny it kind of it's like a mix Johnny from collective soul played drums on it which is great and uh he lives here in Indie but it with that specific song it it's almost like we married Neil Diamond Diamond and the Almond Brothers because it it there's Doug is a great producer and a great guitar player. Have you seen Doug? I've never I mean I know of him.
I know he's so good. He's great. And he's just like the last minute and a half of that song kind of morphs into almost like a Almond Brothers tune and uh not not to get too lofty, but but my voice almost is like a Neil Diamond imperson not impersonation, but it's got shades of it. You've got your own thing. It Yeah, but it's got a little shade of of Neil Diamond.
I would say, you know, that, you know, when you pick a cover song, you're kind of like, okay, what do we want it to sound like? And let's get at least a little blueprint like, oh, let's let's marry Neil Diamond and the Almond Brothers, you know, and and with the Go West song, we were like, I was like, let's just vi I hate to sound like this, but let's just let's vibe this out, man. Let's strip it down. We stripped it down, man. There's It's acoustic bass.
There's, you know, there's there is a sax solo actually, but it's, you know, the original is all upbeat and which is great of it time. Yeah. 1990. I loved that song when it came out and I heard it on the radio. Never thought 35 years later I would record it and put it out on an album.
But it people that have heard it are like, "Wow, that's killer." Love it. Yeah. Let's go through the tracks here. We've got uh You Got It Roy Orbison. Yeah.
Anything you want. Okay. Rio by Jackson Rum. I'm not familiar with that. Familiar with that?
No. He's a buddy of mine that passed away. He was a great musician and kind of a mentor to me. He was in based in Cleveland and he sadly passed away three years ago and he was young and I always loved that song and uh so I wanted to honor him with that. Give Me Three Steps, a Skard tune.
Yeah, man. I had the box set in high school. I just always loved Skinner back back then and we kind of bluegrassed that song. So that's that we kind of made it that style. It was it was fun to do that.
Excited to dig into this uh king of wishful thinking go on and on by Steven Bishop. Oh, did I know that you you would know that if I Yeah. And we made that more of a rea vibe. I love that song. I love what we did with that song.
Illinois by Fogleberg. Nerberg. I love that song, too. Gosh. And since I was born in Illinois, I thought, oh yeah, let's do that one.
Okay. Yeah. Already Gone by the Eagles. The Eagles. Could have done 50 Eagle songs.
We We settled on that one. Uh Time originally by Hoodie and the Bluefish. Yeah. Ever heard of them? I'm not familiar.
Uh Southern Cross and Nash. Okay. Yep. Here's a Here's Water Runs Dry by Boys to Men. Yeah.
Boy, that's a dark horse. I didn't see that one coming. They were a huge influence on me, man. I think they opened up for Dan Foggleberg in the 90s if I'm not mistaken. Just Breathe by Pearl Jam.
Yes. Okay, man. That's great. I'm going to dig into this. Yeah.
Pretty eclectic mix. Yeah. I like that. It's almost like a mixed tape, you know, and that's kind of that's my life is a mixtape. I think this is an interesting exercise we should all do.
Like that. Who am I in a mixtape? Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?
I'm setting you up for future success right there. All right. We're going to have you back on and we're going to go through each of our mixtapes. I don't know if I figured out on Spotify. Sorry.
But are we going through these piano driven or is that just an exercise? We'll do that later. Okay. Cuz I really got around. I want to touch I want to touch on the book.
Okay. I I just I'm on brettwiscons.com. All right. And we can get the books. Well, I guess you said some of them are out of print.
So, yeah. Maybe not all of them, but but you can you can read them on your Kindle if you have they're all on Amazon for for Kindle as well if people do that. But I do people still I I still love reading physical books. Now I am looking into seeing if there's a uh a uh made to order like print one at a time. Print on demand.
I'm trying to figure that out with with who I use. Um because that could be cool then because then I don't have to print you know because there's a minimum to print. I don't want to I don't have all kinds of ubs of money. Sure. To just print all these books again.
So if I want the books, I can go to your site. I can also go to Amazon. Yes. And the new book is available at my website like where you will get a physical book. But if you want to read the other books, you'll have to go through.
Got it. And I want to touch on this briefly because this is what reminded me of it. You had an Eagles tune on here and you said something I could done 50 Eagles tunes. If I was ever going to do a tribute band, I would want to do an Eagles tribute band. Yeah.
You are part of a tribute band called New York State of Mind. Indeed. Or are you You said you're Billy Joel band. You're playing with Billy Joel or you're doing a Billy Joel tribute. No, it's a tribute.
Got it. Yeah. Got it. Tell me about that. How'd that come about?
Uh cuz you're in it, too. Yeah. Tyler hasn't played a gig yet. We're still kind of He's still not in the band. Still in the audition phase.
He's still auditioning. It's a long audition. I told him to just lock the door in his room and learn the songs for like eight weeks and then we'll get back to him. Still there. Um, I just, you know, I love Billy Joel.
I love the Eagles, don't get me wrong, but I around here I thought I don't know if there's there seemed to be a need and I love the music of Billy Joel and I know a lot of people love the music of Billy Joel and I don't play the piano. So, I like to make things as difficult as possible. Makes it hard, but I also love thinking outside the box. So, I thought I've played 4,000 gigs. I've been a frontman.
I know how to sing. His songs are kind of right in my wheelhouse, I feel like, in terms of his uh range. And I hired Tyler's dad to be the pianist. And he play who can play. He can handle it.
He's great. And I thought it'd be cool to do just instead of, you know, all the the traditional uh tribute bands or impersonators where the guy sitting at the piano trying to look like Billy Joel. Like I'm like, "No, let's there's enough of those. Let's do it this way." So, it's different, but we're still honoring the music. We're playing the music in the original key.
We're playing, you know, keeping the form of these songs. We're not trying to pula pula eyes them or bluegrass them, which would maybe be cool. Blue blue blueg grass Billy Joel might be cool, but people want to hear the songs how they heard them and off the stranger in 1976 or when I think it was 7675. So, that's what we're doing. We're honoring the music, telling the stories.
Love it. Yeah. Any any gigs with that project? Yes, we will be here in Noblesville actually. Federal Hill August 29th.
That'll be Tyler's first gig. So, blow it, man. Pressure is on. There's going to be few thousand people there. Nobody in the front row looking at you like this.
No, wrong string patch. But it's it's, you know, Tyler wasn't in the original group. We had we didn't I didn't I thought of Tyler, but I was like, let's keep it bare. He didn't think highly enough of me. But but but as we got into it, I was like, who could I use and abuse and just get the most out of for the minimal amount of money, right?
And I thought of Tyler. He's your guy. And I was like, he likes playing with his dad. Like I thought that'd be cool. Like him playing with his dad and like, you know, working the songs out.
And I've known Tyler for now what, 12 years? Yeah. And uh I thought, let's see what Tyler's up to and see if he's available because I wanted not just a little extra piano here and there because his dad doesn't have four hands, but then I only have one guitar player. I'm not playing guitar at all. I'm just singing.
And there's some songs that could use a second guitar and there's some songs that could use some, you know, a second vocal, harmony, whatever. This guy's like your Swiss Army knife right here. He can do it all. So, and he can open a can. Yeah.
And he can open a can of whoops. Yeah. All right. So, August 29th, August 29th, we're opening for a Gar Brooks tribute. Oh, boy.
A little G who just announced that he's kicking off his new stadium tour. Oh, I missed that. Here in Indianapolis. And all the tickets are the same price. Yeah.
154, I think. That's what it was. That's impressive. Until they get on the secondary market, right? 3 minutes later.
But until then, that'll be cool. Until then, that'll be cool. Where? What stadium? Lucas Oil.
Uh, no. He's doing uh Bankers Conco. What? What is it? Bankers Bankers Life.
Bankers Conco. So, he's doing two nights at Banker's Life and uh that kicks off the the tour. Is that this year or next year? Yeah. Uh I want to say I love Gar Brooks.
I've never seen him. They go on sale next week. I almost put a G Brooks song on the album, but which one which one would you have gone with? That summer. Mhm.
You know. Oh, yeah. That's spicy. I didn't realize how spicy it was. I didn't either, but when I first heard it.
Yeah. But I'm like going back, oh my. But I love G. And he covers uh Shameless, which is a Billy Joel song. And uh Full Circle.
Yeah. Oh, no. I was thinking that that's not a Billy. He's so good, man. I love Dylan.
Yeah, he's great. I love Gar Brooks. It's great. Great entertainer. All right, let's get into the ham co.
Is there anything else I want to talk about there? Let me just make a couple quick announcements here before we get into the top five. Uh, couple things to be aware of. Number one, and probably most important, Tyler and I will be at Primeval this Saturday. We're playing Primeval Saturday here in Noblesville.
If you're not doing anything, stop by, have a few pints, listen to some music, throw some requests at you at at at us. No, at yourself. Keep them to yourself. I'm sticking to the set. No, I always say write them on a $20 bill and throw them up at wad them up and throw them at my face.
I like that. Anyways, uh we're playing Papa Meech is joining us on that or no? I I can ask him. Okay. Yeah, I'll ask.
He might be busy working on his Billy Jewel. He's got that. He's got Yeah, man. We We put in a lot of work for that first gig anyway. So, are you playing anywhere this weekend?
No, I know. I'm hanging with my daughter this weekend. Bring her out to Primeval. Yeah, maybe not. But yeah, maybe not.
No. Maybe. Is that all ages? Yeah. Oh, okay.
My daughter. There's board games and stuff to play there. It's fun. Saturday. Yep.
It'll be our second gig of the day, so don't expect much. Wow. Okay. Well, thanks for Tyler's voice will be shot. You won't notice, but What time is that gig?
Uh, I think you usually do 6:00 to 9, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 6 to 9. All right.
That's probably evil. Uh, second thing is next Thursday, not this Thursday, but next Thursday is the Heroes and healing concert out at Federal Hill. We had our friends from Brotherhood Designs, the firefighters out of Fischers that were on here two episodes ago promoting that. That's their big concert. It's uh four bands, uh country music, uh raising awareness and funds for fallen heroes, uh firefighters and other first responders that have uh been injured or died in the line of duty.
So, we want to make sure we get out, promote that. Um go to brotherhooddesigns.org, get your tickets for that. And then we teased this last weekend or last episode. Uh I'm gonna go ahead and just tell you it's TradeUp Fest September 19th at the uh arena at Innovation Mile. Riverview Health Arena at Innovation Mile.
That is our concert we are promoting. Um I still can't say who the headliner is, but I think I can announce that next week. But it's a sort of a hybrid festival. So we got outdoor portion that's free. Just come bring your chairs, enjoy the live music there, and then a ticketed event inside the arena.
Outdoors, I can go ahead and tell you who some of those people are. We've got the Failers, they're going to be there. Uh Lost Anchor is going to be there. Distant Soundwaves will be there. Um Fousey and the All-American Ghetto Band will be there and Aiden Brown.
And then I'm still working on the closer for that. I hope to hear back from them today. So, September 19th, be on the lookout for more information about that. Um, you can go to tradeupfest.com to check that out. And we are celebrating the skilled trades industry.
So, there's going to be a lot of uh skilled trades folks out there. And there's going to be something called the trades village. If you've ever thought about, do I want to change careers? Maybe the skilled trades is for you. Go check it out.
There'll be some hands-on ways to get involved and uh test how to trade. So that's tradeupfest.com. Those are my announcements. That takes us to the Hamco live top five. Hamco live top five top five top five top five.
That's pretty good. Is that you singing? As far as you know. Top five. Today's category, actually, Hample Lab Top Five brought to you by moonshot games.
Uh, wonderful game store here in Noblesville, Indiana. Come downtown, visit us. Uh, go to moonshotamestore.com. Get yourself a new game or some gaming supplies. All right, our category, Hamco Live Top Five.
I said piano driven songs because you had the Billy Joel thing. I thought that'd be a nice tiein. Yeah, let's get into it. Let's waste no more time. Tyler, give me one of your um I've just forgotten the artist.
Hold on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The way it is. Bruce Horn.
Oh, yeah. Okay. If it's good enough for Tupac, it's good enough for me. That's what I'm saying. It's for me, it's piano driven.
And for my selections, I wanted it to have like a piano hook, like a a signature line that when you hear, you're like, I know what song that is based on the piano. Can the piano support the whole song? Yes, it can. The way it is. I can't argue that.
Just the way it is. The way it is. Yeah. Uh Brett, you got one? I do.
Have a little faith in me. John Hyatt. That's great. I love John Hyatt and that song. That's the only one I have.
He's a Broadripple guy, right? Yeah, Broadripple guy. Yeah. Went to Broadripple High School. And it's Yeah, it's just piano and his voice, you know, it's it's one of my favorite songs.
Um, yeah, in general. All right, Christopher, I went with uh The Whole World by moment here. The whole world in my hands. No, The Whole World by Outcast featuring Killer Mike. I was I listened to that on the way over here.
I really like that song and I love the piano part of it and the piano stays kind of present and drives the whole song through the whole thing. Okay. Killer Mike and Outcast. Correct. Okay.
Uh I'm going to go with we talked about him earlier. I'm going to go with Long December. Kind of gross. Well done. I heard um Adam from County Crows, Adam Durz say that is one song he never gets tired of playing.
Really? Long December. Yeah. So, I'm going to go with Counting Crows. He gets tired of singing it the same way.
But does it Yeah. Does he play it like two two four time? Uh that's a solid first four to start. Man, this is going to be tough. By the way, we have uh created a playlist on Spotify that you can check out called Ham Co Ivory Tickling Jams.
Simple enough to type in Hamco Ivory Tickling Jams. You can go check out all the songs that we suggested. Now, we're just pulling our some of our favorites from that. We're going to it down to the top five. So, let's keep going.
What do you got, man? There's you guys put stuff on here that I would like to take, but I won't. I'll stick to my selections. I'll go with um I'm just going to steal it. Piano man.
Oh, how Yeah, it's hard not to pick that one. Yep. I can't wait to play that with you, Tyler, at Federal Hill Amphitheater August 29th. August 29th. I'll be providing the accordion sounds.
Yes. Great. Yeah, great song. I used to cover that uh just on my guitar. Oh, nice.
Which was weird. Like there's Piano Man on guitar. Hey, man. Yeah. Uh that's a good one.
Give me another one. I'm going to stay with the Billy Joel theme and do New York State of Mind. Yeah. Uh last time we played at Sid, you hopped up there and played that song with uh No, I did uh That wasn't New York State of Mind. She's Got Away.
She's Got Away. Oh, that's right. That'll be my next song. Thanks for Well, no, you only answer. Oh, okay.
All right. New York State of Mine. Chris, what do you got? I'm going to go with The Truth uh by Handsome Boy Modeling School. Of course, man.
This guy's pulling away Modeling School. I've never listened to that on the way here, just so I would know what it sounded like. I've never heard of that. I haven't either. We can always count on Chris for some obscure references to get in there.
And we appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's I mean, we had your time to shine last week, but I don't want you to expect much out of this list. Oh my gosh, there's so many good songs on here.
I'm gonna go with one right now. Van Halen. Oh yeah, that's a great little riff. It's iconic. It was in a Pepsi commercial.
Yes, it was clear. Clear, right? Yeah, Pepsi Clear. I don't know if I ever tasted a Pepsi Clear. I did.
I definitely did, but I don't remember anything what it tastes like. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.
There's eight. We got to will this down to five out of that. So, just go ahead take care. You got The Way It Is, Have a Little Faith, The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby, and The Range, uh, Have a Little Faith, uh, John Hyatt, The Whole World by Outcast and Killer Mike, A Long December by The Counting Crows, Piano Man, Billy Joel, New York State of Mind, Billy Joel. What was that other one you said by the boys that model the model boys?
Handsome Boy Modeling School. Handsome Boy Modeling School. What was the name of the song? Uh, the truth. The truth.
I'm gonna tell you the truth. That one's off right now, man. All right. Strike that from the record. Uh, should we start with the ones?
I like when we start with the ones that are definitely on there. Yeah. Yeah. The way it is. The way it is.
Yeah, for sure. That's in there. Um, I think Piano Man is a no-brainer. I'm going to say this. I don't think we need two Billy Joel songs on there.
That's fair. I think Piano Man's a better representative of the Billy Joel catalog for and it says piano in the title. That's true. So, New York State of Mind, get out of here. Yep.
Uh, we got to get rid of one more. The whole world. I think you already you already eliminated that one. All right. Well, if we haven't The minute it came out of your mouth, it was eliminated, I think.
But definitely listen, just because it didn't make the Hamco live top five doesn't mean it's not a good song or a great song. Doesn't mean it's not a great song. It could be a great song. A wonderful song. It could be a wonderful song.
It's going to stay on the playlist. It's going to stay on the playlist. Go check out the playlist because there's a lot of great songs on there that didn't make the top five. November Rain. November Rain by Guns and Roses.
I mean, just going through some of the uh the uh honorable mentions. Desperado by the Eagles. Goodness. Imagine John Linen. How does that not make your top five?
Yeah. Clocks by Coldplay was a great choice. Yeah. Rosanna by Toto. Okay.
Love that. Um, anyways, Thousand Miles, Vanessa Carlton. Talk about a classic piano riff. Yep. Anyways, there's the Hamco Live top five.
Hamco live top five. HAMCO LIVE TOP FIVE. I REALLY LIKE THE way I layered those vocals stacked up. Good job. Good job.
Turn that. You did that all in one take, right? Simultaneously. Uh here we go. Listen, we're going to start to land the plane here.
Um we mentioned our gig coming up this Saturday at Primeval 6 to9. Make sure you get out there and check that out. Show Primeval some love here in downtown Noblesville. Brett, you got anything coming up besides the 29th? Nothing of note really.
Um, you play Zensville a lot. I do. I I've really scaled way back on my solo gigs and that's by design. Um, you know, if people want to buy the book, that's great. If they want to stream the music, that's great.
if they want to come see the Billy Joel band August 29th. August 29th. I got a few at a I do have a Jazz Kitchen come gig coming up in November. Tyler's playing on that as well, which is not not a Billy Joel. It's it's the music that made me.
Oh, nice. So, it's one of those. It It'll be the third in a series of shows there that I've done, you know, kind of like the album. I will play some songs off the album this time, though. Okay.
Which will be cool. Still waiting on I want to plug this, too. I know. It's November. That's we still have fun.
I know, but I'm going to try and do it by the 17th of July, I think, is my deadline. Hard soft deadline. If you go to brettcons.com, uh you do some consulting, which I I do that as well. Find very interesting. Yeah.
So, if you're a young musician or or an old musician, you got you got some years under your belt, whatever, you provide some Yeah. Oneonone. Yeah. Just about the booking. Yeah.
Touring, writing, journaling. I think that's great. like because we didn't have that when we were growing up. I was just gonna say I remember now. Although then I'm like I don't know if I wish now because I I had to learn all this stuff.
But it would have been nice to have a resource especially around touring. Like how in the world do you know? I'll be like don't tour cuz you'll get your merch box stolen and all you'll get is a bottle of Jack D. I mean it's hard to tour as an independent artist, you know. It really is.
I'm not going to say don't do it. I'll tell you how I did it and maybe it'll help you and but it's it's hard. Yeah, but everything we do in the industry is hard. But I've done a lot of things. So, I think I do have at least a little uh voice that can speak to the things that I've done because I've actually done the work and I've done the the research and all that stuff.
And and I' I've found some things that have worked for me. And that's why I want to consult with people is because I've done some things. Here's what's worked for me. Maybe it'll work for you. and and hopefully I can impart some of that uh vast wisdom onto some of these.
Uh I love it. I think I think it's a great resource. Go to brettcons.com for that. Uh that's wis ns. Indeed, Wisconsin.
Uh okay, we got one last thing here. Trivia courtesy of Joe Rudy. Give me that trivia song, Christopher. trivia. We're playing trivia.
Trivia. We're playing trivia. Trivia brought to you by Rudy's Recycle Shop in downtown Cisero, Indiana, just off of State Road 19. Joe Rudy providing us with the trivia questions. He can provide you with a tuneup for your bicycle.
He can sell you a bike. He stacks them deep. He sells them cheap. He doesn't care about making money. He just wants to sell bikes.
That's Joe Rudies at Rudy's Recycle Shop. All right, gentlemen. Here's how it works. I'm going to give you the category, which is Oops. French philosophers.
R&B soul. R&B soul. Okay. So, you're going to bet one to 30 points based on your perceived knowledge of R&B and soul. Kind of like Final Jeopardy.
Do it. Okay. Y I don't know. Man, I'm going to be honest. I'm not good at R&B or soul.
I have neither. Um I'm going to say go there. Oh, I see. All right. All right.
So, if no one gets the question right, it comes down to who bet less. Is that right? Oh, perfect. less. Can you bet negative points?
Cannot. Okay. No. All right. Here's a question.
Are we ready? This artist produced Boys to Men's 1994 hit I'll Make Love to You. He produced more than 25 number one songs featuring Madonna, Whitney Houston, Eric Clapton, and more. He graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis and has a 17-mi stretch of I65 named after him since 1999. I wish I would have bet more.
I'll read that one more time. This artist produced Boyman's 1994 hit I'll Make Love to You. He produced more than 25 number one songs featuring Madonna, Whitney Houston, Eric Clapton, and more. He graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis and has a 17mi stretch of I65 named after him since 1999. Good.
Write your answers down. I'm going to need a full name on this. Um, John Cougar Melon Camper. John Hyde. Let's go around the horn.
I think we're all going to get this. So, it comes down to Well, I'm going to be embarrassed if I don't. Uh, Chris, what do you got? Price Chris. Is it Kenneth Babyface Edmonds?
It could be. I don't know. We'll find out. I too have Kenneth babyface Edmonds. Okay, Brett.
I have Kenneth Edmonds baby face. Oh, common mistake. Yeah. Yep. I have just baby face actually.
Full disclosure, I just have baby face, too. I was kidding. I think we all know the answer. Kenneth babyface Edmonds. So, it comes down to the bet.
This is the first time it's we've all had it right, I think. And it comes down to the bet. Chris, what'd you bet? 25. 25.
26. 26. 30. 30. I bet 10.
So, the guest wins. Big round of applause. Is that how you do it around here? Toss me softballs so I can win. Yeah.
You know, he wrote Water Water Runs Dry, too. He actually wrote that song that I put on my album. Yeah. Cool. Full circle.
So, you had to cut him a check. Yeah. Well, see, since I'm putting it out on just my website and I'm not getting money from it, it's just I don't I don't know any money anything. I don't take 100% zero. I don't think so.
We'll see what happens. I have a good lawyer on hand. Does anybody know why it's only a 17 milei stretch down I65 that's named after Kenneth baby? See, that's what the trivia question should have been. I No, I don't know.
I don't know. I was asking, does anybody know why? No idea. It seems weird that it's just 17 miles though, right? I don't know.
You know what? He has my favorite version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Oh, does he? Yeah. I have to check it out.
Yeah, I don't know it. I don't think. It's so good. That's great. Um, hey Chris, what are you listening to?
Uh, you caught me off guard. I can't remember. Um, skip me. Come back. All right.
Tyler, what are you listening to? Uh, here by Mumford and Sons and Sierra Frell. Great song. They're also They have one out with Stapleton. That's really good.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like that tune. But yeah, the one with Sierra Frell, I love. Okay, Brett, what are you listening to?
I'm mostly listening to my my own album on repeat. The music that made me just seeing if there's anything I wish I would have changed, you know. Yes. Uh other than that, Hooding the Blowfish Cracker Review. Yeah.
July 5th. I'm I've been listening a lot of J-birds. Have you The Lost the Lost album? Yeah. Were you saying July 5th?
What? Uh July 5th was the anniversary of that album dropping in in '94. So that was just a few days ago. Yeah. Yeah.
Um I've been listening to a lot of the Wilder Blue. Yeah. You love them? I love the Wilder Blue. I don't know them.
I should check them out. Texas man. If you like the Eagles, you'll love the Wild. They are like cool. They're like the Eagles.
Okay. In a lot of ways. Yeah. All right. Uh hey, we want to thank our guest Brett Wiscon for stopping by again.
Go check out his stuff at brettwisscon.com. You can stream the new album. You can buy the books. You can hire him to consult to figure out how to plan your next world tour. Uh, good luck.
Come see me and Tyler at uh the Prime Evil. Primeval this Saturday uh the whatever this is, July 11th. July 11th, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Uh, go check out tradeupfest.com. Go check out brotherhooddesigns.org.
And of course, if you haven't done so already, please follow us on all the social medias. That's uh Facebook, Instagram, and if you haven't, subscribe. Hit subscribe down below so you don't miss a thing. Thank you for tuning in, and we will see you at the next show. Hamco, over and out.
Sticking floors buzzing years cheap side I've seen for years tiny stage big time sound every lost kid homeward turn it up in the light bar late bar scream along like we're going to be stars every shout every star this is our night bar late bar lake bar scream along like we're We start. Everyone, every shout, every star. This is our night, our life.
