Tom Mendel

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. My guest today has been a first-call bass player in Chicago for decades, with an especially storied career in the Broadway pits in town, playing everything from Lion King to Hamilton, Wicked to Moulin Rouge and pretty much everything in between. Let's just say he's been in demand. But there's a lot more to him under the surface, if you know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, then you definitely gotta stick around. You won't believe the depths this guy will sink to. Of course I'm talking about Tom Mendel. It's a rare opportunity when you get to use scuba puns in your intro these days, so I'm a little bit delighted with myself at the moment. . . a little more delighted than normal. I'm recording this intro after I did my interview with Tom and it occurred to me that there were huge parts of his career and his life that we didn't even touch on because every time you start on a topic, there's five, ten tangents you can go off on. And of course we went off on many of them. But I decided not to worry about that and hope that you enjoy what we did talk about. It's not like it's exactly a short conversation. We covered a lot of ground over a lot of years and a wide range of topics. So I'm pretty sure you'll learn something about Tom that you didn't know before. I certainly did. . . his love of elephants. . . his short, if ultimately ill-fated engagement to Mother Teresa. . . his astounding skills in the visual arts, from watercolor to macramé, and the. . . {sound of shuffling papers} uh. . . Ach, I'm sorry. Ugh, sorry, that was for another guest. Let's just get to my conversation with Tom. All right. Welcome, Tom! Like I said, we start with your Social Security number and go from there. [00:02:14] Speaker B: 101-01. . . Oh, hi, Shawn! [00:02:18] Speaker A: That's right, yes. Can you tell we're old friends? So we'll try not to get too "inside-y" here on Chicago Musician. So, Tom, I've known you since 1987? Yeah. So Tom's probably the third person I ever met in Chicago. I think I met Kathy Daly, the stage manager, and Malcolm first. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Wow. [00:02:44] Speaker A: And then. . . so it's been a while. Tom is of course a 'Pump Boy & Dinette'. I've covered that quite a bit in some of my podcasts, so we won't dwell on that too much. But of course that was an important beginning for us. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Can you tell me how you got there because you started in 1985, is that correct? [00:03:08] Speaker B: '84. [00:03:09] Speaker A: That's when it started? '84? [00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:12] Speaker A: I think you're already wrong. It was. . . [00:03:14] Speaker B: No, no, no. I was the understudy in 1984, and then Jim Lauderdale. . . we all took over in April of '85. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:24] Speaker B: We started in November of '84. [00:03:26] Speaker A: Wow. So when I came in at '87, it was already two years into. . . this is already so interesting! Okay, so. So tell our lovely listeners what you did in 'Pump Boys & Dinettes'. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Well, I took the character of Eddie, who was the one person in the show that didn't speak. So it suited me very well. But I was a bass player. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Right. Had you done any acting before Pump Boys? [00:03:57] Speaker B: No. [00:03:58] Speaker A: And so you certainly did none during Pump Boys. . . So. . . Okay. [00:04:02] Speaker B: Kind of like you, Shawn! [00:04:04] Speaker A: Thank you so much. Yeah. But you were originally the understudy to Gary Bristol. [00:04:11] Speaker B: To Gary Bristol. Right. [00:04:12] Speaker A: And so they did it for six months, the original cast. Is that correct? Sixish? [00:04:18] Speaker B: I think it was like five, six months. Yeah. Originally I was asked to do the show. Michael Cullen asked me to do the show. [00:04:25] Speaker A: (Producer Michael Cullen). [00:04:26] Speaker B: And I had no idea that I was going to be the understudy and he asked me to do it. And originally I said, no, I didn't want to do that. But he paid me my salary as the understudy, so I said okay. [00:04:45] Speaker A: I think there were more than a few of those kind of arrangements on Pump Boys that were stated as something and ended up being something else, but. . . [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, quite a bit. But it was quite the experience for me. I been doing theater for a long time by then, and I had auditioned for this and I had to sing for Malcolm, and so that was cool. And when I came in, I heard Gary play and he was really a good bass player and really I was very impressed. As "together" as the show is (and Shawn, you know that I'm being a little funny here), I was given no rehearsal. They gave me a tape and I was just supposed to learn it on my own. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Right. It's not a show that's written out. It's like E7 slash, slash, slash, slash. And that's the songs with good information! [00:05:46] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:05:47] Speaker A: A lot of the charts are like, oh, don't play that. That's not the changes. And you're like, okay, what should I practice? [00:05:52] Speaker B: And so I took the show because I had two well paying gigs in December 15th and New Year's Eve. And Michael said, no problem, you can have that off. No problem. And so I'd never had a rehearsal. And on the afternoon of November 15th (he meant December), Gary pulled his back out and so I had to go on stage. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Of course. Of course you did. Right? [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:21] Speaker A: I think that's all of our story somewhere in Pump Boys. You know, when I did it in L.A., the first night I went on, I'd never had a rehearsal and I at least got a put in. And then I did it, you know. Hi, I'm Shawn. Nice to meet you. Let's do the show tonight. Pump Boys is so full of that, right? [00:06:39] Speaker B: It really is. And I gotta say, I was petrified that I had to do that, but I had done my homework. I memorized the show pretty much, but I didn't know any of the choreography. I mean, just kind of what was going on. And everybody was just so cool about it. I was scared. And then 30 seconds later, it was cool. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Everyone in the world who's ever done Pump Boys and Dinettes, it's a play with where the actors are the musicians. If you haven't listened to my podcast before, shame on you. But it's six people, but it's a ball to do. And everybody who's done it, from grade school to the senior home, has had the time of their life doing the show. So think forward, Tom, because this is funny. Think five years later when we're doing the show and we had emergency people fly in and we're like, we got you. There was nothing. . . we were so confident in how we knew the show. . . there was nothing someone could do that we couldn't get them back on track. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Exactly. They couldn't throw us. And the band was so tight. I'm really proud of the band, to tell you the truth. I. I thought that we. . . I thought it grooved really hard. I thought Malcolm was an excellent musical director. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:07:50] Speaker B: And actually you. You tore it up when you came in. And that. That's hard. [00:07:57] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:07:58] Speaker B: LM was. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Here's your $20. [00:08:00] Speaker B: It was 50, Shawn. Jesus. [00:08:02] Speaker A: What? Inflation! But, yeah, I'm proud of that, too. I think we played well every show. I mean, except for the shows where Ollie was drunk. Can I say that? I mean, it's okay. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Sorry, Ollie, I didn't. [00:08:18] Speaker A: Sorry, don't listen to this part, Ollie. No, but, you know. . . And I think even as actors, we knew. I remember this: late in the run when we had smaller houses and they might be quiet, but we knew. . . we had this confidence that we were going to get them. The smallest crowd to the wildest crowd. We knew by the end we would have them on our side. And for the most part, we could achieve that. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. And when he says the smallest, for the first four years, we were completely sold out. The last year, we sometimes have half size, sold out on the weekends, that sort of thing. But no matter what it was, we got them. And we got them very quickly. Yeah, they were in our pocket. [00:09:06] Speaker A: That was fun. At the Apollo Theater in Chicago. It's right under the L tracks down there, close to DePaul University. And it was just a perfect theater for this show. One set. It was at the time, it was what? 435 seats, I think? [00:09:22] Speaker B: I think that's right. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Sort of like raked and semi. . . you would call it a thrust if it was any deeper, but it wasn't that deep, but sort of that shape, a C shape. And the show just fit in there so well. The people who mixed it. Mary. And who was before Mary? Right. When I got there, Justin. Justin. They mixed the hell out of it. It sounded great night after night. So anyhow, blah, blah, blah, Pump Boys in Excelsis Deo. That's how Tom and I met. But like you said, you'd already been doing shows for a long time. Yeah. So I want to now step back, way back, even before that, and talk about you. You're a Southern boy. You're from Louisiana. [00:10:04] Speaker B: Well, I was born in Chicago. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Right, like that counts! [00:10:07] Speaker B: And my dad. . . we moved to Louisiana when I was three and a half, and I stayed there until two weeks before I turned 21. [00:10:16] Speaker A: And is that Monroe? East Monroe? [00:10:19] Speaker B: Monroe. Monroe or down there it's MAHNroe? [00:10:22] Speaker A: I will not attempt that because my dialects are so good. So why? Why move from Chicago to Louisiana? Why did your dad do that to you? [00:10:35] Speaker B: He had a fraternity brother that had a business and it was pretty lucrative, and he went down to do this. It was Coastal Asphalt. It was making highways for the state of Louisiana. It was a good job. [00:10:48] Speaker A: And did your dad do that here? [00:10:50] Speaker B: No, no, my dad. . . he knew nothing about that sort of stuff. He learned on the job. [00:10:58] Speaker A: He just knew a good opportunity when it came along. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Okay, so then you grew up in Louisiana. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:06] Speaker A: And how was that? [00:11:11] Speaker B: It was good. It was good. I feel that because it was a smaller place. . . You were saying it was Monroe and West Monroe, and we were separated by the Ouachita River, and Monroe was the more urban type area, and it's not very urban. But the cool thing is it was a little town, people knew each other. It was maybe a hundred thousand people total between the two cities. [00:11:40] Speaker A: So not that little. But a small town feel. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Small town feel. It was cool. I mean, I don't want to get too much into personal stuff, but my dad and my mom separated and I lived with my mom down there and we didn't have a lot of money. We never owned a house or anything, but didn't need to. My grandfather insisted I go to Catholic school and so I did. And they had no music program in my school, so I never, never learned music until after high school. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, this I think is interesting because you played no instruments? [00:12:18] Speaker B: No. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Through high school? [00:12:20] Speaker B: No. [00:12:20] Speaker A: You didn't sing in choir? [00:12:23] Speaker B: No. I think there was probably some sing along stuff that the nuns would do in fourth grade. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, Dominique-nique-nique. . . [00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that sort of thing. But no, no, there was no musical program at all. [00:12:37] Speaker A: Okay, so take us on that leap. What happened to you? [00:12:42] Speaker B: Well, my dad passed away the day before I turned 20. [00:12:46] Speaker A: That's right. [00:12:47] Speaker B: And I was really depressed and I started hanging out with some musicians and back then we started smoking this stuff and I don't think it was cigarettes, I can't remember. . . but I started hanging out with them and one of them was a bass player and he showed me Get Ready. . . da da da da da da da da da da da. He showed me that and I just spat it back to him. And so he was showing me some stuff and he let me play on his bass and he said, you ought to buy a bass. So I went and bought a bass on time. I was paying it off. . . [00:13:25] Speaker A: You were easily influenced, apparently. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I got in a band after I was playing like six weeks and got lucky because it was a pretty high profile band around there. And I was with a lady that we broke up and my relatives were in Chicago, so my uncle was up here and I had an aunt and uncle in Wilmette. And so I decided I was going to come up here before I went to L.A. So I called my uncle and he said, sure, come on up. And I drove up. Here's an interesting story. The day that I left Louisiana, I believe it was August 8th or August 9th, 1974. On the radio I heard Nixon resign. [00:14:16] Speaker A: That's a pretty good marker, right? [00:14:18] Speaker B: So I heard that happen. [00:14:19] Speaker A: That's the day you moved to Chicago? [00:14:21] Speaker B: That's the day I drove to Jackson, Mississippi, where my half brother lived. And then I went to Chicago the next day. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Interesting thing about my half brother, that is he was a bass player for what's his name? Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. [00:14:36] Speaker A: That guy? Yes. Love him. The greatest. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, and some Fifth Dimension stuff. And I asked him about playing bass and he told me two things. He said 'one finger per fret' and 'simplicity swings'. It was the best lesson I've had probably on electric bass. [00:14:52] Speaker A: So let me ask you this. Did you listen to music like a normal high school kid? Were you into music? [00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a big Beatles freak, for sure. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:03] Speaker B: They changed my life. [00:15:04] Speaker A: But did it ever occur to you that you would have musical talent? Or that just sort of occurred out of the blue? [00:15:13] Speaker B: I would hang out with my friends and we would sing Beatles tunes, you know, all that sort of stuff. At one point I had a badminton record and I played it left hand, left handed because I wanted to be Paul. [00:15:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:25] Speaker B: You know, that sort of thing. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Right. That was the generation. You were either Paul or John. [00:15:31] Speaker B: Right. Or George. My brother was into George. So I came up to Chicago with the intention to be here for two weeks. And my uncle said, well, why don't you stay for a little while? And so I did. And he said, if you are, you're going to go to college here. I was, at that point, almost a senior in college. I went to Northeast Louisiana University. He told me, well, if you're going to stay, you have to go to college. So I went to U of I. Chicago. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Okay, so wait, you were in college in Louisiana when your dad died? [00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:14] Speaker A: And then was that why you sort of dropped out? Or were you already sort of. . . [00:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah. He died my sophomore year and so I quit. I quit the second semester and totally freaked out because I found out that I was draft eligible and my draft number was 135, which meant that I was probably going to go. And they ended the draft just before. Just before I was going to be called in. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. [00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:49] Speaker A: So scary. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Kind of lucky. [00:16:51] Speaker A: But you couldn't be drafted if you were in college, is that correct? [00:16:54] Speaker B: Right. You had a college deferment. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:57] Speaker B: You know, and I didn't have like spurs on my bone spurs. [00:17:03] Speaker A: So many people do, though. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:05] Speaker A: "The hugest." [00:17:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:07] Speaker A: The biggest ever from what I've heard. Okay, so you, what were you majoring in originally? [00:17:14] Speaker B: I was an English and history major. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:17] Speaker B: And then some friend of me said you'd be better off going into pre law. Pre law business with a pre law option. So I tried that for a semester and I wanted to kill myself. So I. . . [00:17:30] Speaker A: So that wasn't a good choice for you. So I know this because you've told it to me before, but this uncle, this was your Uncle Dick, right? [00:17:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:39] Speaker A: So he's given you a place to crash here. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:45] Speaker A: But then he's the one who says you have to finish college. [00:17:48] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Okay. And did he pay for it or how was. . . ? [00:17:52] Speaker B: No, no, no. I paid for it. [00:17:53] Speaker A: Okay. So you worked while you were at U of I. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I worked at a Jewel. I was a checker at a Jewel. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:00] Speaker B: And so I went to U of I, and one of the classes I took was a music appreciation course and had this super cool teacher. And we were talking after class, and I told him I was a bass player. And he said, well, they really need a bass player in the jazz band. And I said, well, I don't really read notes, you know? And he said, well, they really, really need a bass player. So he talked me into it. This guy named Nick Valenciano was the head of the jazz band, and he auditioned me, and, you know, I could groove. And he said, great, you're in. [00:18:42] Speaker A: But you didn't read notes at all. [00:18:44] Speaker B: I had a. . . like a Carol K book. I could kind of. If I looked at it, I could tell what the notes were. Oh, that's an E, and that's a G. No, I didn't read it. I wasn't reading anything. And so it was, like, amazingly difficult for me when I first got into it. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Well, because in a jazz band, you're reading charts. [00:19:08] Speaker B: I'm reading charts. So I was staying in the practice rooms till midnight. I was just working on stuff and really took it seriously, and it went well. I think that one of the things that helped me out. . . I was playing some Doobie Brothers stuff when I was in Louisiana, and there was. . . I think it's Long Train Running or the bass riff at the beginning of it. And I went, okay, how does that look written? It took me almost two hours to write that out. 'Oh, okay, that's two 16ths before one,' et cetera. And so I finally worked that out, and I went, oh, this isn't that hard. So I just got immersed with reading. And so I was in the jazz band. And Nick introduced me to Marie Goodkin, who was the music theory teacher, who said, they both said, 'you really should become a music major.' And I'm going, you got to be kidding me. So I did, and it was the first time in my life I ever got a 'C'. [00:20:17] Speaker A: Was it C major or C minor? Badda boom! Thank you. [00:20:20] Speaker B: It was diminished. [00:20:21] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, Eventually. [00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:25] Speaker A: But what did you get the 'C' in? [00:20:27] Speaker B: In theory. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Okay, in theory. But you were starting from almost zero. [00:20:31] Speaker B: I'm in school with people that have been playing for 10 years and been reading all that. Not a lot of them could groove to save their lives. But they understood the genre, you know? So, I worked really hard and got lucky. The next year, they gave me a scholarship. They gave me a full scholarship on electric bass. They said it was the first electric instrument to get one at U of I, so. . . Great! Cool! So I did that. And there was this guy named Dr. Wang. He was the head of the jazz band, head of the jazz department or something. And he said, man, you got to really learn how to play the upright, you know? And I'd never touched one. So I started. Started to do it. And so I was asking around who to study with, and people told me to study with Warren Benfield, who was in the Chicago Symphony. And so I called him up, and I started studying with him at Northwestern. [00:21:30] Speaker A: So what were you practicing on? Did the school have a bass? [00:21:35] Speaker B: They had some of the worst plywood instruments that were ever invented. It was bad. It was really bad. [00:21:42] Speaker A: However, if you sound good on them, you're going to sound really good on a "real" bass. [00:21:46] Speaker B: That's true. That's true. So I went out and I bought a $350 plywood bass that was better than they had. It was still terrible trash. But I studied with Warren, and he told me that he thought I should get out of U of I. He said, if you want to be a music major, you come here to Northwestern or go to DePaul. And he said Northwestern at the time was $5,000 a year. Okay? I'm dating myself. That's 1976. [00:22:17] Speaker A: But it was a lot of money. [00:22:18] Speaker B: And DePaul was 3,750 bucks. I ended up at DePaul. They gave me a scholarship. [00:22:24] Speaker A: So you went to DePaul. [00:22:27] Speaker B: I went to DePaul, okay, and studied with him there. [00:22:32] Speaker A: And so where are you chronologically in years and credits now? Are you a sophomore by now? A junior? [00:22:41] Speaker B: Because I had changed. . . I was supposed to graduate in '75, but I didn't graduate till '78 because I switched to music. I had to get all the music courses in. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:50] Speaker B: I had very few other courses that I had to do. [00:22:52] Speaker A: And this is now your third university. [00:22:56] Speaker B: My third, yeah. [00:22:57] Speaker A: And usually, you know, credits don't transfer or not the right ones or you don't have them. . . [00:23:03] Speaker B: Some didn't. I remember I had a. . . I forget. There was a couple things that didn't transfer that I had to. [00:23:10] Speaker A: So you end up at DePaul. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:12] Speaker A: And now you're playing upright and electric. [00:23:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:16] Speaker A: And where does that put you, ensemble wise? [00:23:20] Speaker B: I started out in the second jazz band, and then I became the bass player first in the first jazz band. And they initially put me in the orchestra. And there was a guy. . . I'm not going to mention names. There was a guy that was probably near 80 that was conducting it. And it's the first time that I had played an orchestra. I think they had nine bass players or something. And the intonation on an E chord ranged from a C sharp to a G or something. It was like, 'oh, my God!' You know, it was way out. So I didn't enjoy it and I just said I didn't want to be in the ensemble. So they made me do some other ensembles, smaller ensembles, and so I did that. [00:24:09] Speaker A: So eventually you graduate from DePaul? [00:24:13] Speaker B: I did. I was first in my class. I graduated in music education. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. [00:24:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought that getting a performance degree . . . at the time, a dollar and a quarter would get me on the CTA. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Well, it still does now. Only it's a lot more expensive to get that dollar and a quarter job. Okay, so then what's your plan? What are you going to do? [00:24:41] Speaker B: While I was in college, I started playing in bands. And almost from the time I was at DePaul, I was no longer working at Jewel. I was just making money playing. Playing in bands like clubs and some jobbing bands, but mainly clubs. Sometimes I'd be playing until like 1:30 at night during the week and 3:30 on the weekends. I remember I had that gig for a while and trying to go to school, it was tough. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Wow. [00:25:16] Speaker B: But there were a lot of folks that I was hanging out with, they were doing similar things and we just became friends and. . . [00:25:28] Speaker A: And so at this point, are you still living at Uncle Dick's apartment? Or have you graduated to someplace else? [00:25:37] Speaker B: I was. He and I. They sold a building that they were in. He and I got an apartment together. And then I went out on my own shortly after that. [00:25:47] Speaker A: Okay, so you graduate from DePaul, and then when you're out of school and you're just gigging, are you making a living? Are you starting to? [00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I was working at the Pump Room. I was working in different places. A lot of the downtown stuff. And at the Playboy Club, I had the Sunday money gig there. And because I finished, I did my degree in music, I got asked to teach. And so I took a job in Wheeling and Prospect Heights or something like that, where I became the music teacher. The orchestra. [00:26:34] Speaker A: You were the orchestra director? [00:26:35] Speaker B: I was the orchestra director for junior high school, Holmes Junior High School and five feeder elementaries. And so I was taking violin classes and. . . [00:26:48] Speaker A: And teaching it at the same time. [00:26:50] Speaker B: And I felt like I was two weeks ahead of my students. [00:26:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:54] Speaker B: On those instruments. [00:26:55] Speaker A: Back to the Playboy Club. Is it true that you were the first person they ever asked to put more clothes on? [00:27:03] Speaker B: No, they insisted. It was contractual. [00:27:07] Speaker A: I think they even changed the costume designs once you were in the band, if I remember right, which I don't. [00:27:13] Speaker B: So that was quite an experience, actually, because I played it at the Mansion which moved to L.A. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Wait, there was a mansion here first? [00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah. On Astor Street. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Oh. Huh. They never invited me. [00:27:25] Speaker B: Oh, they were looking. You never showed. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess so. [00:27:28] Speaker B: And then I played the original Playboy Club. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Which is the Palmolive Building? It's right by the Drake. Right? [00:27:35] Speaker B: What's the hotel? What is it now? I can't remember. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Weston? It doesn't matter. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Maybe. That sounds right. [00:27:40] Speaker A: It's right there on the Magnificent Mile. [00:27:41] Speaker B: And then they moved right across the street from the Park West on Armitage. [00:27:46] Speaker A: The Playboy Club did? [00:27:48] Speaker B: On the second floor. [00:27:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Before it was all in L.A.? Okay. So then, how do you get into music? I think I know part of this story, but tell me, how did you get into theater? [00:28:03] Speaker B: Oh, so I'm in different bands, and one of the bands was this guy Rob Tomorrow, who's a conductor now, of all things, but a really great guitar player. And I'm playing with Rob and I can't remember who else is in the band, but Rob comes in. We're playing at the Bulls. The Jazz Bulls. [00:28:25] Speaker A: I don't know what that is. The Jazz Bulls. [00:28:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a very well named, well known club here in Chicago. 1916 Lincoln Parkway West. In that little cul de sac. [00:28:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:28:36] Speaker B: And that was one of the places to play that Wise fools, Orphans. Those were in the 70s, 80s, up into the 90s, that was. That was definitely a place to play. So I'm playing there and Rob comes in. He said, hey, man, I. I just got hired to play a show. And I went, yeah, okay. And. And he said, you want to do it? And I probably shouldn't say that. I'll be polite. I said, an effing show? And he said, yeah, well, it pays 750. I said, I'm there. I was made at. When I was teaching at homes, they paid me. Started me out at 11,000. 11,000 a year and then 2500 extra. I taught the jazz band, so I made 13,5. And so I was bringing home every two weeks, $373. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:29] Speaker B: And I'm working clubs at night just to supplement because I pay for rent and all that stuff. So they told me. They told me that. And actually I really enjoyed teaching there, but they were really nice to me. They. They understood. I said, I didn't know until I started that I was really a performer more than a teacher and that this is something I wanted to pursue. And they were very kind, allowed me to quit it mid year. And so the first show, it was a national tour of Godspell. Okay, Us. [00:29:59] Speaker A: And was this with the original cast that actually had Jesus in it, or was it a little later than that? [00:30:07] Speaker B: His name was Jesus by this time. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:10] Speaker A: So. But this is national tour, but was it emanating out of Chicago or. Who knows? [00:30:18] Speaker B: I think the producer. I forget this guy Harmon, somebody. I forget his name. I think he produced. He produced this. And it did. It was. Nowadays it would be like a low budget kind of tour, but it was more money than I ever made. [00:30:32] Speaker A: And so how long did you do this? [00:30:34] Speaker B: We started in. I think we started like on the day after Christmas. We played some. Some place on the south side in Orland park or something like that. Park Forest. It was in Park Forest. And then. Then we started the tour. It was a bus and truck tour. And so we did most of the east coast in Canada, and then actually we went. Went all the way down to Alabama. So it was a pretty big tour. But we ended up. So that's 1978, and it's the first time I'd ever gone to New York City because we were there. And so I got our. Our musical director put us up in his brownstone and so we had the third floor and it kind of looked like my apartment. So I didn't. I didn't know that was a big deal. He owned the Building. His family owned the building. It was like unbelievable. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So we went, we did the tour and the Marriott Lincolnshire bought it. Bought it. So they brought us in. Is it six or eight weeks or something like that? [00:31:43] Speaker A: At the. The Lincolnshire. [00:31:45] Speaker B: At the Lincolnshire. [00:31:46] Speaker A: And it was the. Already the. In the round. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:49] Speaker A: Performance space that it still is. [00:31:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So they bought the tour. And so we. We came in and did it. Our. Our Jesus character and said it was a guy named David Kauser and he was Robin Williams, Suite Mate at Juilliard. So they knew each other really well. [00:32:09] Speaker A: Oh, how funny. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so I did the Marriott, then they liked my playing and I became the house bass player there. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Did they do a subscription season then? [00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they did. It was a different producers before Carrie. Carrie came in, maybe the next year. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Kerry Walker. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Kerry Walker, he's. [00:32:29] Speaker A: He's the villain in part of this program. But yes, later to him. So how many years were you the bass player then? [00:32:38] Speaker B: From 79 to 83. And then I got asked to do some stuff downtown or. I. I actually did at Apollo. I did Harry Chapin, Lies and Legends. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Oh, that was the pretty long running one before Pump Boys, right? [00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It, I want to say nine months or something like that. Okay. That's where I met Hollis. [00:33:00] Speaker A: That's right. She was in the show. [00:33:01] Speaker B: She took over for Amanda McBroom, who's the lady that wrote the Rose. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. [00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we did that. But in the interim, I took a leave of absence because I got asked to do my first downtown show. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:17] Speaker B: I did Dream Girls at the Shubert. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:20] Speaker B: So that was fun. [00:33:22] Speaker A: That. Yeah, one of that was. So that's what, early, early 80s? That's 82 or three. Yeah, 83. That's one of the most exciting things I ever saw on Broadway. I saw the original production with Jennifer Holiday. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:38] Speaker A: And yeah. Wild. [00:33:41] Speaker B: She came. She came, saw the show. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:33:44] Speaker B: Amazing. It. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Well, that's all about the rhythm section. You maybe have never played a more fun show in your life, I'm guessing. [00:33:50] Speaker B: No, they had a band from a rhythm section from la and then they used the house orchestra here. And I won't be too political. They wanted to get rid of the strings because they didn't. Michael Bennett didn't like the strings and so the union only let them fire half of them and they had to rehire and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we do the show. It's an LA rhythm section. And a guy named Leon Johnson was the bass player, but he was on the road with Ronnie Laws. And so he. I took over for him after he did it for, I want to say shortly, four weeks, five weeks. And all I did was I came and recorded him and I just spat back what he played. And then they dug. They had, I think 10 bass players audition for the show. [00:34:36] Speaker A: What theater were you at? The shoot. Okay. And it sat there for a while. [00:34:40] Speaker B: It was. I want to say it was nine months. Nine months or so. So I came back to the end of Harry Chapin. I did the album. I did the. I did the. I did the album. I did it. I can't remember when this was. [00:34:56] Speaker A: So you did. You did Dreamgirls in the middle of the Harry Chapin run? [00:35:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:00] Speaker A: So like most shows you do. You didn't really do most of the show. You started it and then you ended it, Right? [00:35:07] Speaker B: Well, I did a lot of it. It just ran a long time. [00:35:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:10] Speaker B: I did. It was there almost a year, so. [00:35:12] Speaker A: And who was it already? Anita, by the time contracting when you got Dream Girls, or was it somebody before Anita? [00:35:19] Speaker B: The contractor in Chicago. At the time, theaters had individual contractors. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:26] Speaker B: So this was a guy named. Each house did. So this at the shoot was a guy named Leo Krakow. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Who was a violinist. [00:35:35] Speaker A: But he knew you grooved hard. [00:35:36] Speaker B: No, no. Mike Valter recommended me. I. I don't. Oh, I know it. I did. They're playing our song from the Marriott. And then we went to the Drury Lane water tower and Balters played on that, so. [00:35:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. There used to be a. Well, it's the Broadway Playhouse now. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:56] Speaker A: But it was a theater. Then it was movie theaters, Then it was back to a legit house. Right. It has had a long journey. Isn't that where you did a show with Megan Mullally? [00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we did. Which one was Soon It's Gonna Rain. What's that show? [00:36:14] Speaker A: The Fantastic. [00:36:15] Speaker B: The Fantastics. We did it with Robert Conrad. [00:36:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So. [00:36:22] Speaker A: And it was. Was that in the round at the time? That was. What was the configuration there? Seems like all those Drury Lanes were in the round. Evergreen park was in the round. [00:36:34] Speaker B: I. I think this was more of a. No, I think it was more of a thrust. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Okay. It doesn't matter. So you're. [00:36:40] Speaker B: So we. We. We did that show. I want to say that was about 81. I was married to Ellen Germain at the time, who is the mother of my son Ashley. [00:36:54] Speaker A: And she was a well known jingle singer. Right. Musician. [00:36:58] Speaker B: She. She got into jingles. She did amazingly well. Yeah. But we had. I'll brag we had one of the. One of the. The bands in Chicago at the time, Ellen. Ellen's band. [00:37:10] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:10] Speaker B: And we were playing it at Orphans and doing a bunch of stuff, and Megan came out and she heard the band and she. She met Jim Hines, who was our drummer. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:22] Speaker B: And ended up marrying Jim. That was her first husband. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Wow. If only you'd got hired to be Jack on Will and Grace, everything would have been so different. [00:37:35] Speaker B: I've been trying to talk to her, but she keeps changing addresses. [00:37:38] Speaker A: She's married to another Chicagoan now. She is the comedian guy. Yeah. I'm good with names. I'll put it in here in a second anyhow. All right, so you're. You're well on your way to theater worlds. [00:37:56] Speaker B: So I'm playing down there, but I don't even tell anybody that I'm playing theater. You know, I told no one that I was playing theater because I got lucky. What was the show? I did a show at the. What's the Little Theater by the Lyric Opera. What's the little theater? The Civic Theater. I did. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Oh, it doesn't exist anymore. Right. [00:38:19] Speaker B: We were doing a show there called Ladies in Waiting. And Ronnie Cober, who is. Who's deceased now, but is amazing Bary. Sax player, but also the copyist for. For. Com track Recording House. Yeah. The largest in Chicago at the time. There are five really big houses. And he was the guy. And I had been doing recording with Elliot Delman. Different people, but not. Not jingles. I had been doing more record kind of stuff. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:50] Speaker B: And so I played Ladies. I played Ladies in Waiting. And there was a snowstorm. I remember that happened. It was this great bass player named Sid Sims. It was. It was doing most of comptrack stuff and he got snowed in. He lived in. In Indiana. So they asked me to come in, and it was a funky thing of my kind of town in D flat. And this was Manny Mendelsohn's first job. Do you know who he is? [00:39:18] Speaker A: No. [00:39:18] Speaker B: He was one of. He just got writing for them. But if you ever saw the Rhapsody in Blue stuff for United Airlines, man, he wrote that. He was one of their main writers. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:27] Speaker B: So it's his first gig, so that I started working with him too. So I got that. And I went from doing nothing, And I did seven that week. And then you do two or three or you do 13. And then I started working with Dick Marks and different producers. So I was doing a lot of recording. So I told nobody that I was doing theater. I said I'm a recording guy. [00:39:46] Speaker A: So they wouldn't assume that you weren't available. Correct, Right. So the jingle, the jingle business, which was huge here for commercials and all kinds of recording and then it just disappeared. [00:40:01] Speaker B: SAG AFTRA strike of 2000 put the nail in the coffin because they struck for so long, they started getting scab singers and Chicago was strong. They said they wouldn't play on that. So they went to Indianapolis and Instead of charging $100 an hour, they did it for 45 an hour. And it just went sad. Instead of doing 200, maybe I did 251 year sessions. I think not. Soon thereafter I was doing 20. [00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And also synthesizers and tracking and all that stuff there. It just the, it's weird. I was never in the jingle world, but I know when I came to town, you were big in it. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:49] Speaker A: Well, I'll post some photos of Tom. We had a signal for Tom back in the day because in Pump Boys he had, you know, he still has nice hair, which, you know, screw him, but we had a signal for his hair. He had a mustache to play Eddie, the sort of inbred guy in Punk Boys. And he always had a beeper on. So we, the Pump Boys and Dinettes, had a three part hand signal that meant Tom, that you didn't have to say Tom's name, you could just do the signal. And everybody knew. But. So you always had a beeper on. Because if they call you for a session, it's like in an hour, can you come and play the. Or it's whoever responded first. Sometimes. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. And sometimes depending on who the secretary was, what house you were working, they had favorites. And so a writer would ask for me and they, they might be hoping that they could get their friend. And so if I didn't respond within a half hour or something, it was, I think I, I, I think I was one of the first people to get a cell phone here too, because we, we all started doing this just so we could. [00:41:57] Speaker A: As far as I remember, you never answered a beeper call during the show. But, you know. No, I'm a little hazy. [00:42:04] Speaker B: No, but sometime. No, I remembered that this, I'm not going to say her name, but I remember that she did it and I called back and it was like 45 minutes later. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't think you were available. It was like, damn right. And I told the writers and then they told her, wait for him to get back to you until you get. [00:42:23] Speaker A: So that was lucrative also, right? [00:42:25] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it was. Lucrative. And you got reuse. You were talking about synthesizers. When I first started doing jingles, there were. There were not. There might have been an ARP Odyssey. There might have been single note, a Moog or. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Or an abacus. Was that. Or Harps Liars. Oh, it wasn't that early. Okay. [00:42:47] Speaker B: But I was doing. I was working for Dick Marks as well, who's another famous. [00:42:52] Speaker A: Isn't he the father of Richard Marx? [00:42:55] Speaker B: Richard Jr. Yeah, I was working with Richard. Richard Marks when he was 13. He was singing when he went out to LA. He. He had a lot of money in the bank before he ever edited it. But I was doing. I want to get back to this one jingle I'm doing. I get called in to do a spot. And he said, merry Christmas. I said, what do you mean? So I came in and I played an open E for two measures and it was a national spot that was on the air for a year and a half. I went D for two measures and that was it. Because there was no synthesizer that could do it. [00:43:32] Speaker A: And they needed the note. [00:43:34] Speaker B: Yeah. My longest running jingle, I think, was Rice Krispies. And I. Dick. Dick did pop. You know, they had that Bob Bowker. They had big jingle singer, Snap, Crackle. He was pop. And. And he used to use his wife Ruth to sing on this stuff. And his son. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, they had nice vacations. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:43:57] Speaker A: So. Wow. That's. Yeah. I mean, they still record stuff here, but it's. It's so a lot of it is. [00:44:04] Speaker B: In house and because everybody. Now it's so easy to have Logic or. Or Pro Tools or whatever it is and do your stuff at home. A lot of the people that are writing commercials have. Have enough skills to play a little bit of keyboards and enough guitar. Sometimes they'll bring in a really good guitar player or a. A sax player for solos and stuff like that. But a lot. A lot of the stuff. [00:44:28] Speaker A: Or. Or. But the vocalists even. It's. There's the few favorites now that still do some. I mean, there used to be the. Who was. There was a woman used to tell me what. She did the vocal for State Farm is there. And like everything else on the planet. Yeah, she sang everything. Do you remember who that was? [00:44:45] Speaker B: Bonnie. And she. She was married to Tom Radke. And so that's an interesting story. [00:44:55] Speaker A: What's Bonnie's last name? [00:44:57] Speaker B: Oh, let me. I'll remember in a second. [00:44:59] Speaker A: Bonnie Franklin. No, no. Bonnie Rate. [00:45:04] Speaker B: No. [00:45:04] Speaker A: Okay, I'm not helping. Okay. [00:45:07] Speaker B: Bonnie Herman. [00:45:08] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Bonnie Herman. So if There was a guy when I did Ladies and Waiting, one of the bass trombone players on that was. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Ralph Craig and Jenny's husband. I don't know who Ralph is. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So Ralph played probably on a few thousand jingles. [00:45:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:25] Speaker B: You know, Chicago used to be the jingle capital. We did 73 of all the jingles in the United States were done here. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:32] Speaker B: So a lot of very top musicians and singers would live here for. You know, Sinatra would record here because he. He liked the. The engineer that was working here at Universal. And then he talked him into building Capitol Records in LA so he didn't have to travel. [00:45:49] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. [00:45:50] Speaker B: But Bonnie from Ralph had been doing a gig in Minneapolis, and Bonnie was from Minneapolis and singing in a club. And he heard her and he just got wowed. And so Ralph asked to see her, introduced himself, and he wanted to see her parents and meet her. And he says he does a lot of jingles and he'd like to represent her. He got an amazing fee for 10 years. I think it was 10% for 10 years to come to Chicago, put. Put her up and all this sort of stuff. Yeah, she's the one that sang State Farm is there. She had perfect pitch. She could. She was the main singer in town before her. Most jingle singers were hired, they were identified with the product. So if you, if you did Marble, that's who did that. If you did this, whatever the product, Bonnie was the first one that came in almost anonymously and sang on a lot of stuff. So let's cut back the union contract for SAG and AFTRA for after. Really, at the time, they negotiated that since we are identified with one product, we need to get paid every time it's aired in, every market it's aired in. And the producers agreed, and it's still that way today. And they never thought there would be a Bonnie Herman. So Bonnie gets in. In the heyday, and I'm not, I might be exaggerating, I think she was making 2 or 3 million a year. And her husband, Tom Reck, he was the first drummer, was doing, you know, tons of sessions, was maybe making 180,000, and he was the busiest guy in town. So that's. That's the difference in the contracts. [00:47:40] Speaker A: Wow. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Unbelievable. [00:47:42] Speaker A: Well, we're going to take a little break right here for what I call the interval as intriguing as ever, ladies and gentlemen. But we'll come back and catch up with Tom now in his present life a little bit more. And, yeah, some topics we haven't even brushed up against yet. You'll You'll. You'll want to come back for sure. I mean, I know I do because. Well, it's my podcast and you live here. I live here. Where am I gonna go? All right, we'll be back. It's time once again for the interval, that cherished moment when we step back, take a breath, refresh our coffee, answer the call of nature, and so much more. Yes, friends, the mellifluous tones of Tom Mendel on bass, showing once again that although he plays beautifully, he cannot follow directions. The interval is supposed to be two notes tomorrow. Two. One, two. That's an interval. What did you have, 17 plus overtones? I mean, it was lovely. The interval was, of course, sponsored by no one and serves little purpose other than to break up the interview. Let's talk to Tom some more. We're back with my guest this week, which is Tom Mendel, who. Which is. Who is. You were an English major. My guest. Who is. Whom. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Yes. Who is actually. [00:49:35] Speaker A: Well, no wonder you were a music major. So, you know, I don't know if you remember because you're not, like, now old and a grandpa. You're literally a grandpa. But I'm doing this podcast at all because of Tom's son, Ashley. [00:49:50] Speaker B: Very true. [00:49:51] Speaker A: Ashley himself, an accomplished musician of every instrument and every vocal ever written. I mean, he's great guy, but I've known him. He was, what, five years old when we were doing Punk Boys. [00:50:06] Speaker B: Quick, quick story. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:08] Speaker B: We did Pump Boys. There was a song in it. The Pump Boys had the four guys who worked in a gas station, hence Pump Boys, and the two girls who worked in the diner, hence dinettes. Oh, so there's. [00:50:18] Speaker A: I never. I never got that till now. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Well, you. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Ah, okay, that's. [00:50:21] Speaker B: You might get it. Some people. [00:50:23] Speaker A: I only got my part, but we. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Had tables in front of us that people would sit at the edge of the stage, at the edge of the stage. And the girls in the second act would sing a song called Tips. And my son Ashley, I think was five or whatever. They. He was very cute. And he would be up, up by the stage manager at the top of the. The back of the Apollo. And when Tips came up, they would go, tips, give me a tip. And he would come down and they. The people would see him and he'd come and he'd give each one of the dinettes a dollar. And then everybody at the tables would give them more. And it just brought down the house. It was really cool. [00:51:06] Speaker A: You're underselling it a little bit, though, because by the time I was here. Tips was always one of the hits of the show. And the girls were always so great at playing the people at the cabaret table, some of whom had no idea that they should actually give a tip. They were like they were watching tv, but the girls usually broke them down. But there were nights when it wasn't working at all. And then Ashley, little five year old Ashley at the soundboard had timing for days and the song was just about to die. We'd be in this vamp and Tom be going bonk ba da da, you know, really funky slap bass, electric bass thing. And right when it seemed like it wasn't going to work that day, Ashley would come down the 30 steps from the soundboard and give the girls each a tip in their aprons. They'd make him, the five year old sort of suggestively slip it into their aprons and then they would turn and nail the guys in the front row. Like the five year old's tipping us and you guys are just sitting there. [00:52:08] Speaker B: I mean it was a big stare. [00:52:10] Speaker A: It was, it could, it was hilarious. It happened several times in, in the years I was here. So. So I still know Ashley. He got married about. [00:52:23] Speaker B: He got married two. Two, two, two. [00:52:25] Speaker A: That's right. February 2nd of 2020, almost three years ago in Cozumel. Destination wedding. And I was invited was. Oh, it was just gorgeous. Married to a lovely girl named Soni or I guess Sonia. And now you're a grandpa. [00:52:41] Speaker B: I am. It's amazing. [00:52:43] Speaker A: Okay, tell us about it. Them. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Okay. I have a grandson whose name is Fox. Duncan Mendel. [00:52:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:52:53] Speaker B: And I had never heard Fox before. When they first said it, I was wondering it. It's great. Duncan is Sony's father's middle name and obviously he has my last name and he's, he's cute as a button. He's almost 16. He's 15 and a half months old right now. [00:53:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:53:12] Speaker B: And they, he was born in Minneapolis. [00:53:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:53:19] Speaker B: And the snow almost did her in because she's a California girl, she's from la, born and bred. [00:53:25] Speaker A: Oh, and dumped into like the snowiest Minnesota winter of all time. [00:53:29] Speaker B: One of them. It was terrible. [00:53:31] Speaker A: But good health care, good place to have a baby. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it was actually great. And they have a friend, I guess say his name, Ethan Embry, who's a very well known actor that a couple of friends that live in Atlanta or in the Atlanta area. And he said, well, why don't you come down and check it out down here. And they really liked it and they started looking for houses and they Bought one, I guess, five, six months ago. [00:54:01] Speaker A: So now there's the Mendel family of three in Atlanta. [00:54:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:06] Speaker A: And you're down there, what, every other day. Is that what I've noticed? Almost. [00:54:09] Speaker B: I'm coming at least every two months. [00:54:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:15] Speaker B: So I might have a show in between. [00:54:17] Speaker A: So how's being a grandpa? [00:54:19] Speaker B: It. It's everything that people say it. It is. You know, you don't. You don't expect it, and your heart just opens up and you're seeing this. This individual that some people say looks a little bit like I did when I was. When I was young, but he looks like his father and his mother and all of it, but he's an individual, and you're seeing him grow, and just the love emanates. And he's a character. You know, it's. It. It's maybe the second best thing that ever happened to me. And the first being when Ashley was born. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Oh, I thought it was when I came into Pumpkins. [00:54:59] Speaker B: That was the third. [00:55:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:55:00] Speaker B: That was the third. [00:55:02] Speaker A: Tom and I have quite a history. Here's another good connection with Ashley. Ashley for a while lived in Berlin five, six years, almost lived and worked in Berlin. And Tom was going to go visit him. And I had worked in BERLIN in the 90s a couple of times with Crazy for your. And I was kind of dying to go back to Berlin because when last time I had been there, it was a huge construction zone. You know, the wall had come down maybe 10 years earlier, but it was just Berlin was getting remade. So when Tom said he was going. I don't know when this was 2014ish. 12. [00:55:41] Speaker B: Somewhere in the brain. Second time. First time I went was right after Wicked close. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Okay. In 2009. [00:55:50] Speaker B: I went in 2000. Yes, 2009, exactly. [00:55:54] Speaker A: Thank you very much. I'm the host for a reason. But anyhow, he was going back, and I'm like, oh, do you need a concubine? Do you need a personal photographer? Can I. Anyhow, I glommed my way onto that trip and Ashley was there. He had a different girlfriend at the time, but we went and Tom and I had a great time. I knew Berlin inside and out. So I was like Tom's personal tour guide. And then with Ashley, we took a train and we went to Prague for the weekend and had just. I mean, if you haven't been to Prague, it's one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. [00:56:27] Speaker B: Gorgeous. [00:56:28] Speaker A: Berlin is not. But Berlin is maybe one of the most interesting cities on Earth. So kind of the two ends of the spectrum in Europe in some ways. But that was quite a trip. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I only went there three times, but I'd say that was my favorite in that the first time I went was January. I'd just gone to Egypt because I'm a scuba diver. And then I stopped in Berlin and I stayed there for a week. [00:56:57] Speaker A: Standard itinerary. Everybody scuba in the Dead Sea. Sea. The pyramids. [00:57:03] Speaker B: The Red Sea. [00:57:03] Speaker A: Yeah, the Red Sea. One of them. The Dead Sea. There's not that much, just salt, I guess. And then go to Berlin and then. [00:57:11] Speaker B: We went to Cabo after that. Then I went to. Met you guys in Cabo. Oh, yeah. [00:57:16] Speaker A: That's quite a. Quite an itinerary there. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that was amazing. But when Sean came, it was really good to. Actually they were living in a very nice place on the A four story walk up. [00:57:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:30] Speaker B: And when we say a story, it's not like a us story. It's like one and a half. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Right. And the first floor is not the first floor. That's zero. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:57:40] Speaker A: So there was one. [00:57:41] Speaker B: Yes, the fifth floor. Really? [00:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we got. We were in good shape there. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so Sean's. You stayed at a hotel Sometimes. And you stayed with us. [00:57:48] Speaker A: Sometimes I stayed with you. Initially it was in Prinslower bag, which was what had been East Berlin. [00:57:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:56] Speaker A: Which was now kind of the hippie, the hip hipster kind of area of Berlin. In fact, Ashley told me at the time it was called. I don't know what the name for pregnant in Germany is, but it was sort of like Pregnantburg, because there were so many young couples with having kids there. But it was very hip. And then after you left or you guys were doing something else, I went to a hotel and stayed a couple extra days so that I can enjoy myself and not be your slavish tour guide. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Well, you still were, but. [00:58:27] Speaker A: Yeah, but from afar. But yeah, I love. [00:58:29] Speaker B: The reason I really liked it was like Sean said he really knew the town. And so there was. You know, when I was going, I would have looked at some tour guides and said, okay, I'm going to go here, here and there, and Ashley to take me to someplace. But you kind of knew it inside out. So we. It was kind of an insiders. [00:58:46] Speaker A: Right. And then Ashley, having lived there for five years, knew like the neighborhood. So we knew the good place to go to eat or to go to Kreuzberg for the Turkish food. And he was playing in a concert that we went to hear Auf Deutsch. Hilarious rock bands and German rock bands. It's. It's kind of disturbing even. I don't know. [00:59:09] Speaker B: Do you remember we went. We had just maybe went to one of his gigs or we went. Went somewhere where we just ate and then we saw some of his friends sitting on the street at a table, maybe having coffee or something, vice versa. [00:59:23] Speaker A: We. We were at the table and some of his friends came. I love this because. Well, you tell it. [00:59:30] Speaker B: So they come up and they said they had just been to the movie. They went to see the Avengers. [00:59:35] Speaker A: And we're like, the what? Oh, the Avengers. That's fantastic. The Avengers. I'm like, oh, you mean the Avengers. Germans, really? They really speak good English. And almost all the young people speak really good English, but it's not quite as good as they think. So when they were like, oh, we just lost the Avengers and I couldn't understand them and. Oh, you mean the Avengers. I felt good for once about putting them in their place. That was the only time I ever felt good about putting the Germans in their place anyhow. Yeah, that was hilarious. Oh, that was fantastic. [01:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And Ashley's fiance at the time that he lived with, when he moved in, they had met Ashley. One of his best friends is a guy named Ben Kenny, who's an incubus. And as he toured with those guys and as she was actually doing, he was a gun for hire, I think in this thing. He was playing lead guitar for a rock band. And they went all over Europe and Ben said, well, give her a call when you. When you get there and she'll show you around. So we did. And she put. When they moved in together, she put stick. Little stickets of post it notes. Post it notes of what? Everything was on the wall. But the German word for it. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:10] Speaker B: So actually now I would say he's at least conversationally. [01:01:13] Speaker A: Oh, no, he's. He's fluent. He wouldn't say he's fluent, but he speaks really good German. Yeah, but yeah. Emma, however, was Serbian, so she spoke Serbian fluently. German fluently. Spanish, French, Spanish, French and really good English. It kind of puts you to shame a little bit. [01:01:33] Speaker B: And as she speaks very good Spanish and a little bit of Serbian. So there you go. [01:01:36] Speaker A: Anyhow, so I know Ashley very well. He's a great young man. And so I want to give him credit for. I don't know. During COVID I was not one of these people who was productive. I sort of curled up in a ball and hoped for it to go by quickly. And I wasn't particularly creative. And Ashley was in town I don't know if it was for Christmas one year, and we were talking about stuff, and he goes, you know what? You should do a podcast. And for some reason I said, okay, keep talking. He goes, well, you know, you think you're funny and you talk a lot, and so, you know, you could talk about something. And I'm like, I think I could. And I said, well, what would it take? And he having. He'd already, you know, Ashley's 40 something now, but he's lived a lot of life and a lot of recording sessions with his. [01:02:22] Speaker B: From. [01:02:23] Speaker A: With his mom and you. Forward. But he's recorded with a lot of bands. He plays drums, he sings, he's a. And he knew a lot of guys. [01:02:31] Speaker B: With podcasts, and he's a very good recording engineer. [01:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So I. I was. I was picking his brain, saying, well, aren't podcasts already done? And he's like, far from it. He goes, it's it. No. And I said, so what does it take? He goes, I'll make you a list. Here's what you need. These mics, this interface, you know, you've already got a computer and you know this. For this, you can have a podcast. He goes, look at it this way. Some people record it on their phone and they put it out there, and it's a podcast. If you get this minimal equipment, you immediately have a good sounding show. And so really, I don't know how. It struck me at the time as like, you're right, and I did it. And I'm really thankful that he sort of pushed me to get off the couch. And he's a good guy. He's a very nice guy. So I've met Fox Duncan, one of the first. [01:03:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah? [01:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so cool to see pictures of him now. He's already a little person, the grandkid. So speaking of being a grandpa, you had a hip replacement surgery. Isn't it weird? I mean, we're young guys and we're talking about old shit. [01:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. I work out a lot. I do a lot of stuff, and I just had no idea this. But I started hurting last December of a year ago. [01:03:46] Speaker A: For you, it was fast. [01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And it was hurting a lot. And I went to visit my brothers in Texas and I came back up and it was excruciating. So I went to a doctor and May 3rd had a hip replacement. And I was walking that day and I walked to Sean's place. It was a mile away that week. Two days later. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah, three. [01:04:09] Speaker B: Three days later. [01:04:10] Speaker A: And then he had to go back and have his hip redone because he. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Overdid it three times. [01:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, but. No, but. So now it's 6ish months later. And I. I was thinking today, watching you, it's like you can't tell that you ever had any sort of surgery on your leg. So good on you. [01:04:25] Speaker B: No, they're great. They just know what they're doing. I was. I swam a half a mile a day. [01:04:31] Speaker A: And last February, you could hardly walk. That was amazing to me. Yeah, it came on very. Some people. It's very gradual for you is like, you know what? My hip hurts to the next month going, I can't walk up the stairs. [01:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. It was really hurting. [01:04:46] Speaker A: The miracle of those surgeries is pretty cool. Speaking of your brothers in Texas, I also know your brothers especially. Fred is a friend of mine. You are one of three boys with my mother. [01:05:00] Speaker B: And then I have a half brother that's deceased. My dad was married twice. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Fred is my youngest, and my brother John is my oldest. And they both. John lives in Austin, and my brother Fred is mentally handicapped. And he lives in Jacksonville, Texas, in a halfway house and works in a shelter workshop. [01:05:19] Speaker A: I have to tell you, Tom is like the best brother you've ever heard of or met in helping his brothers, and especially Fred, you've spent how many years. Really? You're his caretaker? He's a ward of the state, Right? [01:05:35] Speaker B: Well, I'm his legal guardian. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:38] Speaker A: But he's in a group home in Texas and. Shepherding your brother with love through his life, from afar. [01:05:47] Speaker B: We talk every day. [01:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:50] Speaker A: I have to tell you, Fred is one of the funniest guys I ever met. He's a good friend of mine. Now, He's. I always see him when he comes up to Tom's here, and he's. He's got a great sense of humor, exceptionally clever. He invents things and. And I think it's. It's. [01:06:07] Speaker B: And he talks like that. Hey, Sean. [01:06:09] Speaker A: Well, it's, It's. It's heavy Southern, and I. There are many times I don't know what he says to me. I think you. [01:06:18] Speaker B: I have to ask him sometimes he's really attractive. He'll talk like this and bring him all wet. Fred, slow down. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah, but he's a good, good guy. And you've done an amazing job taking care of your brother over the years. And I don't know John as well because he doesn't come north very much, but it's a. You're an interesting trio of men. What was that like growing up? I mean. [01:06:46] Speaker B: Well, it was weird. Fred. I grew up in the 60s, really. I was born in 53, but when Fred was born in 54 and John was born in 52, so we're all a year apart. [01:07:00] Speaker A: Bless your mom, man. She was busy. And fat for most of the time. [01:07:04] Speaker B: But doctors back then are the ones that told women not to breastfeed. And they also told my parents that because Fred had spinal meningitis when he was a year and a half and he almost died. He had 105 or 6 fever or something crazy. His IQ is on the high zone as far as for mentally handicapped folks, but he has dyslexia and some heart failure. He has some problems. But the doctors convinced my parents that the best thing for him was to be in a place for. At the time, they said for retarded kids. And they sent him to a place called St. Mary's Training School, which was a Catholic run by nuns. And he stayed there until he became a teenager. And then my mom. By then, my mom and dad had separated and he lived in Texas, and my dad got him into place in Texas. And then Fred's been in a halfway house since he was 18, since then. But he's a great guy. He's amazing, too. [01:08:13] Speaker A: He is. He is fun to be around. That's for sure. Yeah. I was thinking about just the logistics of you having. Maybe this is too much personal information, but once you were divorced and Ashley was young, your son basically lived in New Jersey. [01:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:33] Speaker A: And your brother, who was dependent on you, lived in Texas, and you were very busy in Chicago. And that was good on you for, like, all you did for those. [01:08:45] Speaker B: Well, I think it's what anybody's gonna do, right. For family. [01:08:49] Speaker A: It's not what everybody does, though. That's what I'm saying. You did an exceptional job, and it's not what everybody does. [01:08:56] Speaker B: Well, thank you. [01:08:57] Speaker A: Because I know how stressful and how much work it was for you. [01:09:02] Speaker B: It's hard because you and I, we've been very lucky. I've just basically worked. You know, I've been very busy in theater. And at some point, I thought I needed to get back, so I did the TMA thing. I did that for a long time. Theater Musicians Association. [01:09:25] Speaker A: And then Tom was the national president for so long that they changed the name of the Theater Musicians association to the Tom Mendel Association. [01:09:34] Speaker B: Am I sitting? Yeah, that's right. [01:09:37] Speaker A: And it's not true. But that's what we always joke with him for. It's a Great conference within our union that advocates for musicians playing Broadway type shows, playing theater. [01:09:49] Speaker B: We have five in the afm. One's for recording, one's for theater, one's for the big orchestras, one's for the smaller orchestras, and one's for Canadian orchestras. [01:09:59] Speaker A: Oh, a. Yeah, so. But he was very big in that locally and nationally for a lot of years. And that was a lot of thankless work. I don't know. Thankless, but really hard work that you did behind the scenes on our behalf, Our us Other musicians, Theater musicians. [01:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I did seven years here. [01:10:25] Speaker A: Seven and a half, I guess, as the president. [01:10:26] Speaker B: As the president here. I was in TMA since it started in 94, whatever, when it started here. And then I was national president for five years. And that was tough because I was kind of had to design a program and so I was putting in 40 to 60 hours a week doing that. In addition to doing eight shows a week. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah. For no salary, by the way. [01:10:50] Speaker B: Oh, wait a minute. We got a $1,000 a year stipend. [01:10:53] Speaker A: Oh, I apologize. And I take back every compliment I gave you. No, but you really made that into a force of nature that does not occur in nature. That was hard work. And now there's. It's in place. It continues even without you. Even though we never. We thought it would just collapse and die. So. [01:11:13] Speaker B: No, it's doing well. But I think getting back to my family, I think the whole thing. And I saw that with Sean. I don't want to get personal, but I just said I had to go up. Sean's mother passed away and so we went to the funeral. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Tom drove all the way up to northern Minnesota. I thank him. [01:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And. But that's. He has a very close knit family. And. And I think my family is the same. My. My mom. It was like my mom was taking care of. Taking care of us. And she was killed in a car wreck. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Ironically, I was at Tom's mother's funeral because that was during Punk Boys. [01:11:56] Speaker B: It was right at the end. It was 1990. April 18th of 1999. No, we closed in 89 and she died in 1990. [01:12:04] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, like I guess you would know better than me. [01:12:08] Speaker B: Yeah, on that one. I would. [01:12:10] Speaker A: But I was at his mother's funeral. That was shocking because she was a vibrant 80. She was still 76 together and sharp and. And that was shocking. [01:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:22] Speaker A: My mom was that slow decline. But. But you're right, we. What we do for family. [01:12:28] Speaker B: I think it's the way you're raised and that my Mom. My mom kind of walk the talk. She. Some people, it's really. I don't want to get too political, but it's really a big thing to say that you're Christian now and all that sort of stuff and wear that on your sleeves was. She didn't have to do that. She just lived it. [01:12:46] Speaker A: My parents, the same thing. [01:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:48] Speaker A: They were Christians in their acts and deeds and not just in their speech in the best possible way. But it said that's a natural segue to being underwater. You're a master scuba instructor. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. [01:13:06] Speaker A: How did this fit into this life of yours? Oh, Tom Mendel in 19. [01:13:11] Speaker B: Here's a nice story. In 1976, Jaws came out. And I was with my girlfriend at the time at the Portage Theater and they had these wooden armrests and I can't think of his name. Who's the Roy Scheider, the scientist guy? I can't think of it. When he, when he snorkels down to. [01:13:38] Speaker A: Check out the ball, isn't it Roy Scheider? [01:13:39] Speaker B: No, it's not. Roy's the. [01:13:41] Speaker A: Oh, oh, Richard Dreyfus, are we thinking? [01:13:44] Speaker B: I think it's Richard Dreyfus. Yeah, Richard Dreyfus. When he snorkels down to check out the boat at night. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:50] Speaker B: And he looks in there and then the guy's skull falls down. I don't want to say it scared me, but I pulled the armrest off like that. And so I tell everybody I didn't even get go close to water for two. I didn't take a shower for two years. It just scared the hell out of me. [01:14:05] Speaker A: That was a scary movie. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah, but I was playing. I was playing a gig in Freeport, Grand Bahamas in 1978. And we're at a really nice hotel, but across the street was this place called UNESCO, which I'd never heard of, which is famous Underwater Explorer Society. And I walked and it said, learn to scuba dive $51 day. And so I went in, I was interested. And you walk in and they totally have you because it's three sides of. It's a pool, but when you walk in it's glass and it's a 15 foot pool. So you see the scuba divers in there and you go, wow, I really want to do that. So they talk. So I signed up for that. That's called a Discover Scuba class. And then I was in the ocean the next day and did it for a week. And I kept doing that for many years because busy doing theater, whatever. But finally I got certified doing it and I became a advanced scuba diver. And then I wanted to take rescue. And then the guy said, you know, you're really good at this. You ought to think about becoming a dive master. So I think that was 93 or something. And I said, okay, I was in Grand Bahamas. Oh no, I was in Grand Cayman. And so that's a really hard course, incidentally. Took a couple of months to do that, so I did that and then they took me in 95 to becoming an instructor. So I did that and I just kept advancing and teaching people and it was kind of like a built in clientele because I was really enthusiastic about it. So a lot of people I worked with in the theater and recording or whatever wanted to take it. [01:15:47] Speaker A: How many, how many pit musicians do you think you've certified in scuba over the years? It's a lot. [01:15:53] Speaker B: Now it's hundreds. I'm not sure it's hundreds. Even, even, like people not from here, even on the road. [01:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah, the train people. [01:16:00] Speaker B: I've taught about 800 people so far. So in 86 I became a master instructor. So that's, that's the highest you can get without being a course director. But in order to be a course director, you have to work in a scuba shop. And I'm not going to give up music for that. [01:16:16] Speaker A: But you've, you've given. What's the past tense? Dove. You dived? [01:16:21] Speaker B: Dove. [01:16:21] Speaker A: Dove. In some of the coolest spots on earth. Okay, you already said Egypt. [01:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been to 27 islands or something in the Caribbean. I've been to Egypt. I've been to Thailand twice. Philippines. I'm, I'm just. [01:16:39] Speaker A: Okay. The latest one is the coolest though. [01:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Last year, and there's a good story. Last year I went to Quito, Ecuador for the second time. [01:16:49] Speaker A: Why two times, Tom? [01:16:51] Speaker B: Well, because when Hamilton closed, I got to do that for the original run for three and three and a third years it closed. And I said, well, I'm going to do a bucket list dive. And so I went to, I, I paid to go on a liveaboard to, to the Galapagos. So I left on March 13th of 2020. [01:17:15] Speaker A: I wonder what could have, I'm trying to think of that era. What could have gone wrong? [01:17:20] Speaker B: Nothing could have gone wrong. But on March 15, the government closed the Galapagos Islands. In March 16, they closed it to all foreign travelers. You had to get out of the country or you weren't going to leave. [01:17:32] Speaker A: Out of Ecuador. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Out of Ecuador. So I Because of COVID obviously. So I had to change my plane ticket. Got it changed, everything's cool. And I get to the airport and my first flight after an hour and a half of trying to figure out what's going on, was canceled because I was supposed to go to Lima, Peru, and they had said no foreign travelers after midnight. And my flight was at 12:15am so they canceled that. So I scrambled and some friends really helped me out and I got on a standby list and I was the second to the last person to get out of the country. Get out. So last year, for my 70th birthday. [01:18:16] Speaker A: What? [01:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:18] Speaker A: I mean, I thought you were like 68. [01:18:20] Speaker B: For my 35th birthday. Oh, times two. I went. [01:18:24] Speaker A: Put it off for a while. [01:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I went to the Galapagos Island. It was amazing. Everything. It was fantastic. [01:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, folks, I've seen some of the pictures, all 2,000 of them or something, but, like life changing or was life created there? That's where Darwin went to study. And is it still. Does it still feel remote? I mean, it's hard to get to. [01:18:52] Speaker B: It's very remote. It's. Even though Ecuador claims it, I can't remember. It's either 6 or 800 miles off the coast. So you take a plane over there and you land in this island, I think it's called Baltra. And there's a. It's a small island, but the island, everything out there is very ecological. Like, the airport is the first fully ecologically. [01:19:22] Speaker A: Compliant or compliant airport in the world. Okay. [01:19:26] Speaker B: And then I went on this live aboard. It was the. It was the newest one there. And it was the nicest. It was really nice. But there's. They are so into the ecology and there's. There's no litter. There's just none. And if they see something in the water, they stop the boat and they take it out. So everything is pristine. And so you're seeing stuff. And it. You literally. It. You could think you were in the 1800s. [01:19:53] Speaker A: What, underwater? What did you see there that you can't see anywhere else or that you'd never seen before? [01:20:00] Speaker B: Well, there's endemic species. I've got a few thousand dives to my name now. [01:20:07] Speaker A: I've seen pictures of all of them. [01:20:10] Speaker B: Only the first 20. 23,000. So a lot of the species look similar, but Galapagos has some that are endemic to it. They have these iguanas that. The marine iguanas that go down there and they are built like a brick. [01:20:30] Speaker A: You mean they go underwater? [01:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, they. And they can Breathe like for several minutes. Like they'll be down. They can be done. I don't know how long they can stay down, but I would say 15, 20 minutes they can stay down. And so they're eating on seaweed off of coral and stuff like this. And you can just go right up to them and they're like, what is that, two and a half, two and. [01:20:50] Speaker A: A feet, three feet? [01:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, two and three feet long and just strident muscles. You can just see how tough these guys are. And they're just, they're just hanging out. None of this, none of the critters down there really are scared of divers. As opposed to other places in the world where they're dived out, where people have done weird stuff with them. There was lots of sharks when I was down. I've seen a lot of whale sharks in Philippines and other places. But we saw whale sharks at the two big dive islands are Darwin and Wolf. And our first dive we saw two or three whale sharks. [01:21:34] Speaker A: And how big is a whale shark? [01:21:37] Speaker B: The small ones, like the babies I've seen maybe or 15ft. The average about 40. And the big ones are about. In the Philippines, this guy was about 55ft. [01:21:49] Speaker A: What? [01:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they're really, really big. So the ones I was seeing down there are probably in the 30 to 40ft range. [01:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is why I haven't certified with Tom. I think that sounds scary. You love it. [01:22:03] Speaker B: You, I know you think there's nothing scary about it. Whale sharks are like puppy dogs. They, they want to have. I saw Galapagos sharks which are 5ft long, which are 12ft long and, and they're tough. And we, we saw some hammerheads. Like there's schools of ham. A lot of divers go down there because the mating season they go to Galapagos for that. Like I remember when in Cablo, I told you there's some of that going on there. But it really emanates out of the Galapagos. [01:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah. In Cabo. It wasn't the sharks though. It was those people in the resorts. [01:22:35] Speaker B: Boom. But anyway, it was amazing. And, and then the liveaboard, like there was a couple of days where they, we would take these little pontoon boats and we would go to an island and we'd see the, all the birds that you want to see, the blue footed booties. [01:22:52] Speaker A: So I know what a, I know what a live aboard is boat. Tell people what that is. [01:22:57] Speaker B: Okay. A liveaboard is basically a yacht that has X number of cabins. The one I was on had 10 cabins. And it could be two people to a cabin or just one. And they'll have a living area and a living room kind of area. And then the back of the boat is all for the divers. It's like all, all kind of for wetsuits. Dry suit. I brought dry suit. I was down there because it's colder down there and tanks and all that sort of stuff. This one was 200 and I want like 220ft long. [01:23:40] Speaker A: So how big of a crew then? [01:23:42] Speaker B: So the crew on it, I want to say, I want to say was 13. And this, this, this is a very expensive liveaboard I, I paid for, I just did it. But There was only 10 of us on it. It's very expensive. [01:23:56] Speaker A: And then so your own chef. [01:23:58] Speaker B: And so the chef that we had on this thing had, had won an award as being the best chef in Quito in Ecuador. And they paid the money to bring him. So he goes on there one week, one week a month or something, and he does it. So it's gourmet. Everything was gourmet. Every meal was gourmet. You get through and they just totally take care of you. And it, it, it's amazing. And you tip very well. [01:24:31] Speaker A: Well, on that, you know, you better not cheap out on that part. [01:24:35] Speaker B: No, no, it. And you really want to, but they take you to places you just can't believe. And the dive masters that are on it are some of the most knowledgeable definitely in the area. Some of the most knowledgeable I've been in the world. They just really knew it. They had this living room area where they had a 55 inch TV and they had dive charts on it and they would just map everything out and tell you what you're going to see. And then they show you the endemic species. We'll probably see this, we'll probably see these rays, we'll probably see these eels, blah, blah. This is what we're gonna do. And they did it for every dive we were on. And sometimes we were doing three, three to five dives a day. [01:25:18] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, I mean, so like, I mean, a vacation. Yeah, but like, totally educational. Blow your mind kind of. [01:25:27] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. [01:25:27] Speaker A: Stuff. [01:25:28] Speaker B: And this is all for divers and I would say for very advanced divers, because it's, it's, there's less occurrence and stuff like this. You, you got to know what you're doing. But it, it was one of my favorite things I've ever done. [01:25:41] Speaker A: That's so cool. Which is a good segue because when you were saying about the Bahamas Playing down the Bahamas. I wanted to do this earlier in the podcast, but now we're going to do it. So that was probably what you're playing with Lainey Kazan or something. [01:25:56] Speaker B: I did in eight. Started with her in 80. Yeah. [01:25:58] Speaker A: I know you played a lot of. And I've heard a lot of good Lainey Kazan stories over the years from you, but what I wanted to ask you. Okay. You've played a lot of shows, a lot of big shows, and a lot of personal backup band sort of stuff. What are your favorites? I mean, I can list some that I know were cool for you. You know, your rent here in town. Hamilton. Wicked was a major deal. Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots was pre Broadway. Right. You sort of almost wrote the book for Kinky Boots. [01:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:35] Speaker A: We knew you and Cindy worked out what you know. I mean, I joke, but in a way, Cyndi Lauper dug this or didn't dig this and stayed in if she liked it. And if you know Steve Aremus, who. [01:26:51] Speaker B: Is doing the Wicked movie now, he did Wicked and lots of other. Anyway, he was the MD on this or the supervisor on this. And we had just done the first. We had already rehearsed it in the. In the. In the. [01:27:06] Speaker A: So this is Kinky Boot. [01:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:07] Speaker A: Basically, you've done the Sits Probe. [01:27:10] Speaker B: No, we. [01:27:10] Speaker A: Or just band rehearsal. [01:27:11] Speaker B: We'd just done the band rehearsal, and then we're moving into the Schubert, whatever it's called bank of America at the time, I think whichever rendition it was at that time. And so we get done with that and I climb out of the pit and. And he. He says, tom. He says, sin, did you meet Tom? And she said, you're the guitar player. And he says, no, he's a bass player. He said, you're awesome. So we had a great rapport. We had met her. That. And you've done. You've done this with. You've done the last couple, at least. Every summer we do a Broadway in Chicago preview concert. Yeah. Summer concert. And it previews all the shows coming in. Well, we. The summer before, we had done Kinky Boots, and she was so worried about having a good band that she did it to tracks. And we were kind of insulted and she came out and did all that. And then she heard the band we were doing. She said, I wish I had you guys play, but she was totally cool. Really, really nice. [01:28:09] Speaker A: Okay, so that's a highlight. Tell me some other highlights. [01:28:13] Speaker B: I'm just trying to think. I got to play Last Ship, which was the Sting show. And as far as music Goes. And it was, for me as a musician is probably the most solely riching show I've ever played. It was amazing. And it was. Half the band was from New York and half was from. Actually some from Ireland and then local band. It was fantastic. And Sting, at the first rehearsal, I think I told you this at the first rehearsal, we're sitting on stools and I'm sitting here and then two feet away, he's sitting on another stool with his parlor. I'm playing acoustic bass, he's playing his parlor guitar. And we rehearsed for nine hours the first day and six hours the next day. Never a note out of tune, never a note missed on the guitar, and just the nicest guy ever. [01:29:11] Speaker A: But what about Sting? Thank you. [01:29:13] Speaker B: Okay, I'll be here all week. No, he. He was amazing. So that, that was cool. But I would say one of my favorite things. Got it. I've been lucky. I played a lot of. I've done over 100 shows here. But I think my. Musically, one of my favorite things was west side Story, just because of the challenge of it, because it was so difficult. I. I tell everybody that I'm a rock and roller that plays acoustic bass and was sentenced to the pit, you know, but I've kind of got it together and I really had to get it together for that show. So it was just, it was thrilling because it's kind of. Every instrument is. You have to be a very, very, very good player to play. [01:29:57] Speaker A: Isn't that wild? How a, how old of a show is that now? 70 years old? 60 some years old now. It's still such a hip score. I mean, go see the latest Spielberg version of it, which is so good, I think, but it's still cutting edge theater music. [01:30:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:16] Speaker A: You know, and hard as hell. I mean, it's. Everything's hard. [01:30:21] Speaker B: It's really hard. Yeah, it was really hard. And I think I told you this story. Well, first I was playing Joseph with. [01:30:32] Speaker A: Donnie, the one with the Technicolor Dream code. I've heard of that. [01:30:35] Speaker B: I played that for two years here. And then when that was about to end, the contractor for that asked me if I would go on the road with a show called Andrew Weber, Lloyd Webber, whatever that was Music of the Night. And I turned it down because I said, I got, I got. I said, I can only give you three months because I'm. I'm gonna play west side Story, which is only a two week run, but I really wanted to play. [01:30:57] Speaker A: You were really aiming for it. [01:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And so they didn't send any. Weren't getting any music. And I'm not going to sight read that score. So I went to DePaul Library and I. I found the score. Score for it. And it's, you know, how many parts are. So the. The base part was about a quarter inch big. So I copied what I consider were the four hardest things in the show. So maybe about 60 more than that. I made like seven pages, one chart, four and another. But these were like sometimes like 13 or 14 pasted on staves on each page. Right. So I really worked on it. We didn't get the music they finally gave it to. They gave it to us on the Saturday we rehearsed. Rehearsed on Tuesday, had a sound check and did it that night at the Chicago theater for two weeks. [01:31:54] Speaker A: I'm sure the presumption is that most people have played it or in some incarnation, but. Okay, so that's a cool acoustic bass highlight. What about some of your, like, shows like Lainey Kazan? Tell me a good Lainey Kazan story. Oh, God, where to start? Right? [01:32:13] Speaker B: She was a character. [01:32:14] Speaker A: For those of you who don't know, tell us who Lainey Kazan is. [01:32:19] Speaker B: I met Laney, a guy named Bill Lamphere, this great bass player from here, asked me if I'd go play for him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club and play her show. And so I did. She was difficult to get along with, kind of. But then she loved me there. And then she asked me to do gigs. I started doing gigs with her around the world. It was. It just became but original understudy for Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl on Broadway. And she. Barbers didn't sub out for a year and a half. And Barbara got sick one day and Lainey, Laney's mom, Jewish mom, just called. The press brought him in. And they also heard Lainey do it. And she got these raving reviews and she quit the next day. And she took. She took Barbara's musical director and it ended up marrying him and they toured. They played here at Mr. Kelly's, if you've ever heard of that place. Yeah, really amazing place. [01:33:18] Speaker A: So did Barbara, I guess, separately. [01:33:20] Speaker B: Right. So Laney was a big time guest on the. Was it the Dean Martin show. [01:33:29] Speaker A: Okay. [01:33:30] Speaker B: And she did it. She did that. She was. [01:33:33] Speaker A: Huge voice. [01:33:34] Speaker B: Amazing voice. Amazing voice. [01:33:36] Speaker A: I heard you guys play at the Fairmont. Is that right? They used to have a showroom. Yeah, and she blew me away. I mean, chops for days. [01:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we here, we play there, we do the Blue Max out At the, by the airport. What's the. The Hyatt? [01:33:51] Speaker A: Okay. [01:33:52] Speaker B: It used to be a summer room, but we would play like Las Vegas or, or what's in New Jersey. [01:34:01] Speaker A: What's the one of those? Oh, Atlantic City. [01:34:04] Speaker B: Atlantic City. We play Atlantic City and then we play Rainbow and Stars and stuff like that in New York. So we played a lot of the Playboy clubs and then we, we do. [01:34:13] Speaker A: And she did big charts, like the Sinatra ish band kind of thing. [01:34:17] Speaker B: I got to play. That was one of the reasons you stayed with and her, her musicians. The drummer that I usually played with was Eddie Caccavelli, who's from New York. He was Judy Garland's last drummer and he had played with who's who over there. And then on the west coast, another great drummer and great piano players that were on the, that were on the gig. It was really amazing, amazing musicians. But the charts, it was who's who. We, we would do Nelson Riddle. We would, we would name it just Rich, Richard, Florence, what's his name? Mats. Peter Matz. [01:35:01] Speaker A: Just the. A list of arrangers. [01:35:04] Speaker B: Yeah, and one of the things. [01:35:06] Speaker A: Plus list of arrangers. [01:35:07] Speaker B: One of the things that I noticed because a lot of times, I mean, it came down to where we would just do a quartet sometimes, but usually it was in small. The smaller sisters. We would do like a sex type pussy. We would have a sex player and a trumpet player and all these charts, when it reduced, they worked that way. And then we play Atlantic City or we'd play LA, or we'd play New York and we'd have 30 plus with a full string section and it's just filled out and you hear this stuff and you're surrounded by it. And I've met some, some of my dearest friends playing that. Mickey. Some, some great, great, great music musicians on it. Paul Simon's musical director, Mickey Rossi. Mick Rossi or whatever he goes by. He and I were playing in Atlantic City and now he's. He's huge. I first met him here playing with Hollis when she was the original Fantine here. And he, he was key to here. [01:36:08] Speaker A: Oh, in the Les Mis band. [01:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah, in the Les Mis band. [01:36:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:36:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, she, she had fantastic musicians, but she was. If her mother was in a room, you knew it was going to be a bad night, you know, that she was going to be on edge and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if not, she had pipes, she could sing. Yeah, she really, really amazing. [01:36:30] Speaker A: I mean, a lot of people know her now as somebody from my Big fat Greek wedding, right? [01:36:34] Speaker B: Yeah, she, you know, she's a big lady now and all that sort of stuff. But in the 60s, she. They had a. A Playboy shoot with her in Playboy. She wasn't a center for, but a Playboy suit of her in there. She was gorgeous. [01:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:54] Speaker A: All right, tell me some other career highlights. [01:36:58] Speaker B: Oh, my God, you put me on the spot. [01:37:01] Speaker A: Well, it's your career, your time to sell it. I'm trying to sell you the things I remember. [01:37:08] Speaker B: Talk about the pandemic when the pandemic didn't happen. Like when you were learning this recording here, I really shed. I really shed acoustic bass. And I was. I studied with CSO guys. I tell everybody I graduated from hopeless to piss poor. And now I'm up to, eh, you. [01:37:24] Speaker A: Know, cso, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. [01:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So I, I was doing that, but I had played Hamilton and then I was asked, I would ask if I would do the west coast tour. Alex Lacamore lack asked me if I would originate that tour, and I said I'd give him six months because I hadn't worked and I don't usually tour, but I did that. That was so much fun. I played with some amazing players on that and it was all west coast and it was. [01:38:00] Speaker A: Well, you love playing that show. [01:38:02] Speaker B: I do the thing, I don't know. [01:38:03] Speaker A: If any people, if you've heard of Hamilton, it's this musical about. Well, I mean, get the album about. [01:38:10] Speaker B: The ten dollar bill, basically. [01:38:12] Speaker A: But it is a bass solo. I mean, if you see it in the theater, every note you play and every thought you have about playing a note is audible the way they have the bass mic. [01:38:24] Speaker B: Well, here's an interesting story. You play four basses on the show. It's acoustic bass, both arco, you know, classical kind of. And pits, so jazzier kind of stuff. And then there's five string electric, which is predominant. And then every time the king is on, King George is singing a tune. You play hollow body electric to sound like Paul McCartney and all the hip hop tunes. You play keyboard bass. So I played keyboard bass on. I think it's five tunes. And the only time I had, other than for switching in between instruments, you might have 10 seconds, maybe we got 20 seconds here. That was amazing. The only time really time you had off for a minute or more was. [01:39:10] Speaker A: During the soliloquy at the end, which is in silence. [01:39:13] Speaker B: Which is in silence. That's the only time you have off in the show. But Alex Lacamore knocked it out of the park. The arrangements are. It Just fits so well. And it. You. This. Everybody. Tom Hipscom was playing drums. You know, Jim. Jim Woodlaski. I did most of my shows with down, but is playing percussion. He and I did a. What was the, the high school musical where they're jumping up and I can't. [01:39:43] Speaker A: The high school. [01:39:44] Speaker B: High school. High school cheerleaders. The. [01:39:50] Speaker A: One of those that didn't quite make it to. [01:39:52] Speaker B: He was on Broadway. It definitely was on Broadway. I can't think of the name of it. Anyway, Andres Ferreira was the drummer on that. So they asked Jim to play percussion on. Andres is the drummer for Hamilton and Broadway now. [01:40:04] Speaker A: Okay. [01:40:05] Speaker B: So they asked us to do that. And so he did such a great job. They, they wanted Jim to do it. I have to say that that is the hot seat in Hamilton because he not only plays classical percussion, but he's playing electric percussion and he's triggering, he's triggering the clicks and sometimes clickering light. [01:40:24] Speaker A: And, and yeah, the Ableton. Yeah. [01:40:27] Speaker B: Unbelievable. [01:40:28] Speaker A: So technical. [01:40:30] Speaker B: So the band was so good and so great. The string players were probably the last people hired because it was so difficult, because there's a lot of great symphonic string players here, but not a lot of them that can truly hit the pocket. You know, they can truly groove really, really hard. And that, that was. [01:40:49] Speaker A: And especially because Hamilton, the pants in those days, the pockets were really different. If they had pockets. [01:40:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right, Mr. [01:40:59] Speaker A: Isn't that. My understanding of the pocket is. Well, we'll talk about it later. [01:41:04] Speaker B: Deep grip. But anyway, that show was, was amazing. [01:41:07] Speaker A: And what I was trying to think. You did Jersey Boys. That was fun. I, I, I, they wanted to feature your dancing again. [01:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was only arrested twice. Oh, yeah. In the first, first show. [01:41:21] Speaker A: That's right. [01:41:21] Speaker B: I was a sub for Chuck on that. [01:41:24] Speaker A: Okay. [01:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I stayed with. We were doing Wicked. I stayed with Wicked. I didn't go to that. [01:41:29] Speaker A: All right. [01:41:29] Speaker B: And so I did that maybe I don't know, 30 or 40 times, but after, after Hamilton, after the tour, I was the first person to leave the tour. So I did seven months. I said I was gonna do six. And we came back and did Moulin Rouge. And that was really fun. That was a really fun show. And then we did Devil's Word, Prada with you. [01:41:53] Speaker A: That's right. [01:41:54] Speaker B: Which was really a lot of fun too. [01:41:56] Speaker A: It was fun. I don't know who ruined it, you or me. [01:41:59] Speaker B: I think it was a combination, Sean. [01:42:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:42:01] Speaker B: No, no, I think it was you. [01:42:02] Speaker A: They're still working on it. It's in London. Now, but it was a fun. It was a fun process that was cool to do. [01:42:09] Speaker B: It really was. And then so I went show to show to show. The last show I did was Wicked, and the actors were walking around without masks on. And I got Covid, like two weeks into the run. So I was out for 10 days the first time I caught Covid. [01:42:24] Speaker A: That's Wicked in another way. I just. We were gonna actually do for this podcast. I saw the Wicked, the movie last night, and Tom hasn't seen it, but he's seen all the press interviews. So we were just gonna review the movie Wicked based on very little information. And then I guess I. We both thought better of that. But I think this has been interesting. Is there anything else about your life we didn't talk about? And what's your inseam? What size shoes do you wear? I don't know. It doesn't matter. I think we've covered a lot of interesting stuff, a lot of which I did not know about you. I would have never asked you to be on here if I thought you were going to talk so much. [01:43:00] Speaker B: Are you going to pay my parking? [01:43:02] Speaker A: Yes, it's. Yeah, that's included. It's that and a gift box of cookies this time. Yeah, it's. [01:43:10] Speaker B: For those of you who don't know, Mr. Stengel is a premier baker. [01:43:17] Speaker A: Well, anything with sugar. [01:43:19] Speaker B: And whenever there's a show and Sean's on it, the musicians and usually the cast are richer. And I put that in a italics for it. [01:43:30] Speaker A: So. Yeah, so hire me if you want, you know, a sugar rush. It's not really that great on a resume I found. [01:43:37] Speaker B: Really? [01:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah, for, you know, to be a musical director. Hey, Bakes, usually they want someone who cooks, you know, for a sugar rush. [01:43:46] Speaker B: Call Sean. [01:43:48] Speaker A: That's right. If you want to be in front of the clique, just call the sugar guy. Anyhow, Tom, old friend, it's been a delight sort of laying out some of your life for both of my listeners. And I'm sure my ratings will at least double because, like, Ashley has to listen to it now. [01:44:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And Sonia. We haven't talked about Sonia too. [01:44:09] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, daughter. Okay. Daughter in law pitch. [01:44:12] Speaker B: No, no, I want. [01:44:13] Speaker A: She's a major singer. She is a major singer and the cutest girl. And so nice. But that's my gorgeous. [01:44:20] Speaker B: Their wedding was amazing, right? [01:44:22] Speaker A: Yes. [01:44:23] Speaker B: That was the best I've ever been to. But the thing that I noticed about she and Ashley is the way they raised my grandson. They are so committed and doing with so Much love. And she's amazing. So I just want to put that in because. [01:44:35] Speaker A: Oh, it's not bragging, it's when it's true. That's right. No, they're. They're good folk. Like you said. It's. It's so important how you're raised and it's. It feeds into your. Your life as you pay it forward. So I'm glad you're getting. You have the time now to, like, be a part of their life and. And to get out of my hair for corn's sake. [01:44:59] Speaker B: For corn's sake. [01:45:00] Speaker A: I gotta remember to post those pictures of pager mustache hair. It's good. It's Tom Mendel. It's the essence of Tom Mendel. [01:45:07] Speaker B: Don't do it. [01:45:09] Speaker A: Don't do it. You can pay me back my parking fee for that. Anyhow, thanks for coming on. I hope you enjoyed it. [01:45:16] Speaker B: This was so much fun. Thanks so much. [01:45:18] Speaker A: I, you know, I didn't interview you for the first two years because I was too intimidated. [01:45:25] Speaker B: He had better. He had better guess. [01:45:27] Speaker A: Well, you know, I have to say. [01:45:28] Speaker B: What I have to say. [01:45:28] Speaker A: So. Anyhow. All right, thanks for listening to Chicago Musician. And be sure and come back for our most. Next time will be a scintillating interview. I'm sure. Like. Like they all are, right? [01:45:41] Speaker B: They are. Yeah, they are. [01:45:42] Speaker A: That's right. Read the script. Thank you, Sean. I've enjoyed being on and what an opportunity. [01:45:49] Speaker B: Remember, you heard it first on roller derby. [01:45:51] Speaker A: That's right. All right, thanks stuff. Thanks again for listening to Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Sean Stengle. Happy holidays and see you all next time. [01:46:05] Speaker B: Mr. Stengle. Or would you say Sean E. Poo? [01:46:11] Speaker A: Not on this podcast. That's on my fans only. Fans only podcast Shawnee Poo. It's a specific kink, if you will. All right, well, too much information. [01:46:27] Speaker B: All right.