Matt Connarton Unleashed 10-24-26

0:02 Speaker 1: You're listening to Matt Connerton Unleashed on WMNH 95.3.

0:07 Speaker 2: WMNH 95.3.

0:33 Speaker 3: Old oak road, grey bird skies. She wakes early, slow to rise.

0:46 Speaker 4: A little dispute, a house on roost.

1:00 Speaker 5: Take the old.

1:03 Speaker 3: Oak road Follow the old oak road Never come home, never.

1:12 Speaker 6: Come home Never come.

1:16 Speaker 3: Home Never come home, never come home Never come home

1:39 Speaker 3: On board ship, song reaches live. Silence opened, the secret broken. Lives unbound, soon run aground.

1:56 Speaker 7: Sail on.

2:06 Speaker 4: Never reach home.

2:09 Speaker 8: Never reach home Never reach home.

2:19 Speaker 4: Never reach home Never reach home.

2:43 Speaker 9: Shining new stream Bears no retreat Hotel by river Pulse held by.

2:54 Speaker 3: Finger Little body found Cold ribbon bound.

3:04 Speaker 6: Take The old road road Follow the hard.

3:20 Speaker 7: Old road Never return home to me Never reach.

3:31 Speaker 10: Home Oh, that is haunting, isn't it? Old Oak Road. One of the many fascinating songs from a project called Bring Your Own Hammer. And we've had people on the show recently to talk about it, but today we're going to be speaking in just a moment with Richard McMahon, a historian who's heavily involved in the project, and I can't wait to talk with him. He's waiting for us. And we're going to open up that dialogue in just a moment. But welcome, everybody. This is Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from the studios of WMNH 95.3 FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire.

4:23 Speaker 10: And, of course, you can stream the show from anywhere. Go to mattconnertonunleashed.com for all of your live streaming options, social media links, contact info, show archives, etc., etc. Today is Saturday, October 24, 2026. But let's go ahead and bring Richard McMahon. He is with us via Restream. Hello, Richard.

4:46 Speaker 11: Hi, Matt. How are you doing?

4:47 Speaker 7: Good, good.

4:48 Speaker 10: I'm glad to have you on. I've really been looking forward to this. And, you know, we have had a couple of artists on who are involved in the Bring Your Own Hammer project, who have recorded things for it. So it's really interesting. And, you know, if I understand your role in the project correctly, you kind of find fragments of people's lives in historical records. And then the musicians who are involved in the project turn those fragments into songs. And The project sort of explores 19th century Ireland and includes people whose lives are in some cases only briefly documented.

5:27 Speaker 10: And your role is, I mean, is historian, is that the correct way to kind of label, if I may, what it is that you do in the project?

5:38 Speaker 11: Yeah, I think that's a fair description of my primary role, at least. I mean, I suppose the project originated when I was actually sitting in the city archives in New York, gosh, maybe 15 years ago. And I was looking at the case that Old Oak Road is based upon. I came across it in the crime records, the district attorney indictment papers for New York. And it was this statement made by a woman describing arriving into New York. She was heavily pregnant. And then later it was discovered there was a dead body in the room she was staying in.

6:11 Speaker 11: And it was the body.

6:12 Speaker 12: Of an infant.

6:13 Speaker 11: And the way she told the story and her sense of disorientation, I was immediately grabbed by it. But I was also struck that if I put that into my normal historical work, you'd probably get lost, get lost in a page, a sentence or two, maybe a footnote in an article. And I thought that was doing a disservice to the richness of the way she told the story and the kind of sadness of the heart of the story. So I had this idea, well, what if someone else was to take this source and create something from it, an artistic, response to the source and really put her story front and center.

6:47 Speaker 11: And that was the initial spark, I suppose. And since then, I've been sort of collecting lots of these kind of different archival materials relating to different aspects of Irish history, Irish American history, and encouraging artists to create new material from it.

7:02 Speaker 10: How do you kind of figure out, I mean, is it something that you know instinctively when you come across one of these stories or one of these people who, you know, again, you know so little about them, but other than something very interesting happened to them. But, I mean, do you know right away, oh, this might make an interesting song? Or do you have to kind of sit with it for a while to come to that conclusion? Or how do you figure out what to pass on to the artists?

7:30 Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a great, great question. I mean, in some ways, the less we know about someone, the better, because it opens up the space then to have a creative response. If we knew more about them, maybe I'd make it into an academic article or make it part of a book. But the fact that we know so little about the characters often helps sort of develop a kind of imaginative response to the source. So it can be a little bit hit and miss. You know, at the start, I would share an awful lot of material with the artists.

8:01 Speaker 11: Sometimes, you know, 3000 pages of a document and say, you know, just go in and explore it. And actually, we got great material from that as well. But more and more, I've been kind of tailoring it, I think, picking out particular sources that I think might suit particular artists.

8:15 Speaker 10: So how did this all begin? How did Bring Your Own Hammer, did you say 15 years ago was when you started this project?

8:22 Speaker 11: Well, I first had the idea for it in the early 2010s, definitely, when I was working.

8:27 Speaker 13: In New York.

8:28 Speaker 11: And then it took a little while. Initially, I reached out to Cahill Coughlin, who's a fantastic Irish singer-songwriter. Unfortunately, he died in 2022. But through the late 2010s, we worked quite closely together to try and develop a project. And the more we worked on it together, the idea initially was that he would record an album based on a variety of different sources. But the more we worked on it, the more realized we needed to bring other people in. So we had this idea, well, why don't we expand it and invite other artists into the project?

9:02 Speaker 11: And we really didn't know what we were doing at the start, which was good. You know, we had to kind of learn and develop it as we went along and, you know, try and figure out how will this work? And it really, it was actually an artist called Eileen Gogan, who was the first person to produce something for the project. And she produced this quite extraordinary kind of eight minute song working with another artist on the project, Mike Small. And a really kind of striking piece. And I think that really gave a shot in the arm to the project because other artists heard it and they kind of responded and they could see how she had done it.

9:37 Speaker 11: And that really got the ball rolling. So it was trial and error. And it took a while for us to all feel comfortable, including myself, about what we were doing. And I suppose I tried to make the artist feel comfortable so that they didn't feel they were being judged, that there wasn't a kind of professor waiting around the corner to tell them they got it wrong or something like that. I wanted them to feel they could be as creative as possible with it and just see where it brings them and i've i've really tried to stick to that um yeah you know occasionally we might say well i'm not sure if that fits historically but very very rarely i mean most of the time the the artists really respond to it in a really respectful way but really imaginative way sure So, you know, it took us a while to get going.

10:22 Speaker 11: And then it was, I suppose, 2022 when we released the first songs from the project. And I suppose that marks the kind of beginning of the public face, if you like, of the project.

10:30 Speaker 10: Gotcha. Do you ever run into a situation where maybe, you know, you have a story that you think would be, well, this would make a great song, but then for whatever reason, maybe whoever, you know, the artists who get involved in it, maybe it just doesn't work out and you have to kind of, you know, walk away from that one?

10:50 Speaker 11: Yes, that happened. So I got very early in the process. I would get a little sort of feeling, oh, it's a real shame that no one is working with that particular source. I go, you know, there's real potential for that to be a really nice song, you know. And Old Oak Road is actually an example of that. So actually what I started doing with, I have to say, considerable reluctance was sketching out lyrics myself. And so creating a kind of lyrical template for that the artist could then respond to. So Old Oak Road is an example, that first song you played of a song where I wrote the lyric, Mike Small then set it to music and then Cahill, Coughlin and Ja Wobble came on board to play on it as well.

11:30 Speaker 11: So it was a kind of genuine collaborative effort, but it came, I suppose, initially from my fear that that initial spark that had come from the project from that source wouldn't be used by someone. So I kind of, I ended up stepping into the breach myself to kind of fill the, fill the gap. Okay. But sometimes, you know, a brilliant source doesn't, doesn't always spark off a song, but a lot of the time it does, you know, if the, if the source is really strong and there's a great story to it, I'm usually fairly confident that someone will respond well to it.

12:03 Speaker 14: Sure.

12:03 Speaker 7: Sure.

12:04 Speaker 10: So tell me about the process of, um, when you've got, you know, you've got the source, you've got the, the idea, you've got the story and the person it's about. Do you then, um, Do you then go to a specific artist who's involved in the project or has done something in the project already and present it to them specifically? Do you sort of or do you put it sort of out there to several different people who are involved or do you try to pull in somebody new to the project? What's kind of the process there?

12:32 Speaker 10: Or maybe it changes depending on the story.

12:34 Speaker 7: I don't know.

12:37 Speaker 11: It's changed over time. So at the start, I would upload an awful lot of material onto a kind of Dropbox. And people could go in and have a look around and see if it suited them. And that was, I think in principle, that's great. I think that's a really interesting way to work. But I think people, you know, they could go in and they could have a look, but maybe they weren't sure what exactly they would sort of go with or what would fit. So increasingly, I've tailored it. I've said, oh, that source would really suit me.

13:06 Speaker 11: this artist. I think, you know, there are a couple of artists I've worked very closely with on the project. So Michael Small, Mike Small and Michael J.

13:15 Speaker 15: Sheehy.

13:16 Speaker 11: And sometimes I come across a source and I kind of know that in their hands it will be, it will work. You know, I have a sense that it would suit them and they're great. You know, they've, you know, decades of experience in writing songs as well. So I have a lot of trust in them. And they're also very good at coming back to me and saying, actually, this doesn't work or it doesn't suit me or I've tried it and it doesn't work. So there's that degree of trust and that we won't be– nobody's going to be offended if it doesn't work out.

13:45 Speaker 11: And if it works out, it's fantastic.

13:46 Speaker 10: Yeah, we had Adrian Crowley on the show and he was describing how you would send him– stories that might inspire songs. And is he one of the artists whom you've worked with a lot? I kind of got that impression through my conversation with him that he might be kind of one of the go-to artists to work with in terms of these songs and these stories.

14:12 Speaker 11: Absolutely. Adrian's been a mainstay of the project, a wonderful kind of contributor to the project. He initially came in on the as I say, there at the very start of the project. And he brought Adrian on board. And Adrian is, I think, distinctive in his approach in that he will, you know, take a source and he'll work something incredible out of it. But he's actually one of the composers on the project who does his own kind of historical research as well. So you'll find that he's headed off and he's found something that he's particularly interested in.

14:48 Speaker 11: Or he'll ask me, you know, Richard, do you have anything on shipwrecks? And I'll go, okay. I better go around and find what I can find out about shipwrecks. So he's actually very proactive in, you know, taking on board what we have to offer, but also digging out his own material. So, I mean, he's been, he's been fantastic for the project. I mean, he wrote, I think one of the cornerstone songs of the project, which is a song called golden streets, bitter tears, which I'd advise people to check out because it's just a wonderful Irish American story at the heart of that song.

15:17 Speaker 11: You know?

15:18 Speaker 12: Yeah.

15:18 Speaker 10: That was one of the ones that we played actually when we had him on, um, Yeah, My Grief on the Sea was the first album for the project, correct?

15:27 Speaker 11: That's right, yeah.

15:28 Speaker 10: Okay, and it's about sea journeys and migration from, you know, about leaving Ireland and some of the tragedies there, as the title My Grief on the Sea would imply. Why was that kind of the starting point for the project, or was it even intended to be the original starting point?

15:47 Speaker 11: It wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be Law and Order, which is the album we're bringing out this year. But it just developed organically.

15:55 Speaker 16: Yeah.

15:56 Speaker 13: Yeah.

15:56 Speaker 11: So this is part of the reason why the new album is a double album is that we've been building it up for quite a while. But that first album, it just the songs all came together and gelled very nicely as a collection of songs about the sea. And we were very struck that Irish historians actually, even though Ireland is surrounded by the sea, the sea is central to Irish history. Actually, historians hadn't written that much about it. So from a historian's point of view, it was really kind of fascinating.

16:22 Speaker 11: And we liked the idea of looking at the sea as something that offered you something, a promise. It held out the promise of something better. And yet it also held out the peril, I suppose, of the migrant journey, the tragedy of it. So there was that lovely kind of dual aspect to the sea, the kind of promise of the sea and the peril of the sea. And then the fact that the sea doesn't care one way or the other, I also thought was quite nice, you know, a quite a striking kind of dimension to trying to understand Irish history, 19th century Irish history, the kind of just the difficulty of it, but then the sense of endurance that people had as they took that sea journey across the Atlantic.

17:03 Speaker 17: Yeah.

17:03 Speaker 12: Yeah.

17:04 Speaker 10: Um, I know the, the, the things that we played on the show when I, you know, talked with Adrian really, uh, really kind of, uh, It's just amazing. A lot of these songs, I describe them as haunting. I was very, very impressed with what I was hearing. It really kind of puts you into the moment. I'm not even sure quite how to describe it the right way, which I guess in a way is a good thing because... You know, it shows that the music really moved me in a way that's hard to even put into words. I'm also curious, when you bring a story to these artists, are you ever surprised at what comes back?

17:48 Speaker 10: Is it ever something that's very different than what you had in mind, or maybe it even sort of not changes the story, but maybe what they come up with kind of maybe affects the interpretation of the story, at least that you had in mind for it? Are you ever surprised?

18:08 Speaker 11: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's always a great kind of moment when I get to hear the finished song and hear how it's developed. I mean, I guess the title track from the new album is a very good example of It's called From the Tombs and it's a kind of continuation of the story from Old Oak Road, which you played at the beginning. And Old Oak Road is, as you say, very haunting. I think fits the source extremely well. It kind of captures that story, the sea journey. But for this song, the kind of sequel song, continuing the story when she's in prison, the writer, Mike Small, took a really different approach, which really kind of took me aback because he wrote a pop song, really.

18:49 Speaker 11: And it's kind of, for me it was sort of, Oh, that's really, really interesting. It never occurred to me to, to write a pop song about a woman in prison in New York in 1882. Um, but I thought it worked really well. I mean, and then there's a great collection of people on there like, um, Bernard Butler from Suede and Virgil Oller from the Cranberries and June Miles Kingston from the Communards and Marcus Holdaway from the High Llamas. So they all bring this different textures and different dimensions to the song.

19:18 Speaker 11: It was, for me, just wonderful to see it all coming together and what a brilliant job Mike did of pulling these different strands together and making me think about how we present these stories. You know, it would never, ever have occurred to me to do it like that. And so from a kind of historian's point of view, you're like, oh, yeah, you can do that and it can work. And you can tell these stories in different ways and ways that maybe, you know, in theory seem jarring or out of sync with the source, but actually work really well.

19:51 Speaker 11: So yeah, from that point of view, it's been amazing to see how people work with material.

19:55 Speaker 18: Absolutely.

19:56 Speaker 10: Yeah, we are going to play that one as well at the end of our conversation. We'll play that one too, From the Tombs, which is really good. And then the, so it's a double album and it comes out November 13th, if my notes are correct. And so bring your own hammer. It's something that obviously there's an endless source of material for this. I assume that this is a project that's just going to keep rolling on and will keep releasing more music into the future?

20:27 Speaker 11: Yeah, I hope so. I mean, the double album, we might have to take a little break after a double album. It seems a little... a little ambitious and adventurous to have a double album as your second album. I don't think that happens. That doesn't happen very often.

20:40 Speaker 13: Right.

20:40 Speaker 11: So we might take a little, as they say in Irish, sospyog after that, a short break. But yeah, there are other projects in the pipeline already. So there's quite a famous chief of police, a guy called Chief O'Neill in Chicago, and he collects an awful lot of Irish language material And when he left Ireland, he wrote an account of his life at sea as a young man. So I think we're going to return to that idea of the sea and Captain O'Neill, because he has these incredible adventures. He gets shipwrecked off the coast of Hawaii, and he describes taking the ship's monkey, which they picked up in Indonesia, and, uh, strapping it to his back and swimming to the shore with the monkey on his back.

21:27 Speaker 11: So, uh, if we can't make a song, if we can't make a song out of that one, I think we'll, we'll, we'll retire. But I think, I think there's just wonderful material out there. They're incredible stories, you know, that we want to, that we want to bring to life and let, you know, let people hear about them and know about them and, and feel something from them as well in a way that they mightn't do with a written history or a kind of, uh, a conventional history. So, uh, yeah. Uh, yeah, we'll do our best to keep going.

21:54 Speaker 11: I think would be the, would be the response to that one.

21:56 Speaker 10: Oh, fantastic. By the way, I haven't asked you the obvious question yet. Where does the name come from? Bring your own hammer.

22:04 Speaker 11: So that's in some ways I wish I knew because the, the, the name comes from Kyle Cox and he wrote to me when we were starting the project and he had a list of different names, I think potentially for an album. Um, And I wish I still had the email, which I don't have because I moved jobs. And anyway, it's a long story. But that was top of the list. And so he came up with the name. And I never, strangely enough, I never asked him why. I thought it was a great name. And I think it kind of means, you know, the Irish Margaret experience.

22:42 Speaker 11: You know, you're on your own. Bring your own hammer. Get to work. You know, it's going to be tough out there. I think that's where it comes from. But actually, I never checked with them. So there's a nice mystery to it, I suppose, at least.

22:54 Speaker 10: There is, yeah. Your theory, though, makes a lot of sense. That makes total sense. Very good. Well, Richard, I really appreciate you joining us today. I've been really looking forward to talking with you. I find the project, the whole thing is just really... quite fascinating. And like I said, in a moment, we'll play from the tombs and of course the double album coming out November 13th. So, uh, right around the corner, as we say, um, where, where's the best place for people to go online to keep up with, uh, with the project, bring your own hammer.

23:26 Speaker 11: You can visit www.byohammer.com or you can check out our band camp page where you can, you can download the material, you can order the vinyl CD and, and that's through Dimple Discs, which is the record label that puts the albums out.

23:42 Speaker 10: Absolutely. And what about people who just want to follow you, Richard McMahon, for people who want to keep up with what you're doing, or maybe someone who even wants to reach out, maybe they're interested in getting involved in the project in some way, or have a story that you should know about?

23:58 Speaker 11: Absolutely. So I'm a historian based at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, and And so if you look up the web page there, you can find my email address, which is richard.mcmahon at mic.ul.ie. So drop me a line. Yeah, I'm always interested to hear from people with interesting sources and stories or song ideas. So feel free to run them by me. Or if you just have any kind of questions about Irish history or some of the history to do with the project, I'm very happy to answer any questions that come through.

24:31 Speaker 10: Oh, fantastic. Richard McMahon, thank you so much. We're going to play that track, uh, from the tombs. Uh, so we will let you go, but, uh, we'll, I'm sure we'll do this again in the future. You know, obviously, um, as you indicated, this project is going to keep rolling on and, and again, you've got the double album coming November 13th. So we will, uh, we will certainly have you, uh, back again, but I really appreciate you joining us today. And, uh, keep up the great work. Like I said, it's a really, it's one of the most interesting, you know, I interview a lot of musicians on the show, but this is one of the most interesting projects I've ever had the pleasure of getting to, uh, to discuss with, uh, with someone.

25:03 Speaker 10: So I really appreciate you joining us today.

25:08 Speaker 11: That's wonderful, Matt. Thank you. It's lovely to hear. And it's nice. It's nice, particularly to hear from the American side. There's such an American dimension to the project. So it's, it's really nice to get the opportunity to talk to people based in America and get their feelings and responses to the record. So thanks a million for the, for the interest and for the support.

25:25 Speaker 10: Oh, you are very welcome.

25:26 Speaker 15: All right.

25:26 Speaker 10: We'll let you go. We'll talk again soon. Richard McMahon. Thank you so much. All right. Richard leaves us and we're going to play this track now that he, he discussed from the tombs. And again, the album, the double album comes out November 13th, but let's give this a spin.

26:03 Speaker 19: From the tombs on Elm Street, the light begins its daily retreat.

26:15 Speaker 8: In the bars, boys from the piers, drain their glass.

26:27 Speaker 4: With the girls from the markets On Lennon Street, she can't.

26:30 Speaker 7: Sleep A breath heavy among the.

26:32 Speaker 4: Noise of the city On Lennon Street, she can't sleep.

26:34 Speaker 3: On Lennon Street, she can't sleep On Lennon Street, she can't.

26:37 Speaker 4: Sleep On Lennon Street.

27:00 Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you.

27:32 Speaker 15: She can disappear No sun, no moon No scars.

27:39 Speaker 7: Here In the sun she recalls the.

27:46 Speaker 15: Ship The rising sweat and ocean's dew A passenger from there to.

27:55 Speaker 4: Here A servant sickly and queer A passenger from there to.

28:01 Speaker 5: Here, a servant sickly and queer. A passenger from there to here, a servant sickly and queer. A winged girl from Ireland, bound for Blackwell's Island.

28:33 Speaker 7: She is tired and it is.

28:49 Speaker 15: Gone The warden says it won't be long A short walk to the prison car Slow steps, slow steps, slow steps.

29:29 Speaker 15: We were girls of mine, of the black line. The wayward girl from Ireland, bound for Blackwell's Island.

29:34 Speaker 7: The wayward girl from Ireland, bound for.

29:37 Speaker 10: Blackwell's There it is from the tombs. The project is Bring Your Own Hammer. And thank you again to Richard McMahon for joining us this morning. All the way from Ireland. I am of Irish descent, by the way. That's why I have such a big head. I got this big Irish melon on. You know, I look like a South Park character. That's what I always say. Irish people have big heads. I can say that because I'm Irish. But anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you that. But thank you again to Richard McMahon for joining us this morning.

30:36 Speaker 10: I was really looking forward to speaking with him, too, because the project is so interesting. And we have had a couple of the great artists who are involved in the Bring Your Own Hammer project. His explanation, too, of where the name came from totally makes sense to me. So I think his theory is correct. But he wasn't entirely sure. because the person who had come up with the name, unfortunately, passed away, apparently. I did not realize that in 2022. But I really like it. I encourage you to check it out.

31:06 Speaker 10: And it is on Bandcamp. If you just search Bring Your Own Hammer on Bandcamp, you will find it. But we go on. Welcome, everybody. Of course, this is Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from the studios of WMNH 95.3 FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. And you can stream the show from anywhere or almost anywhere. It might not be available in, I don't know, North Korea or something, but... If you go to mattconnertonunleashed.com, you can find all of your social media links, contact info, show archives, et cetera, et cetera.

31:37 Speaker 10: There is a searchable archive, too, on the website. So if you are looking for a specific episode or guest, you can find it that way. You can find an even deeper archive at my regular, my regular, my general website, mattconnerton.com. But please check out mattconnertonunleashed.com. I think you'll be glad that you did. And we have a call. Let's see who's online here. Hi, welcome to Matt Connerton Unleashed. Who's this?

32:07 Speaker 14: Hello?

32:11 Speaker 10: Are you the Phantom? The Phantom. The Phantom called. That used to happen a lot when we were on in the afternoons. I think the Phantom might have been our most frequent caller. Anyway, live radio, what are you going to do, right? Of course, I do want to remind you, by the way, Matt Connerton Unleashed is sponsored by Matt Connerton Hypnosis. I think I know that guy. So if you are interested, if you're curious in learning more about hypnosis, you can go to my website, mattconnerton.com. You can even schedule a free consultation.

32:45 Speaker 10: I'll tell you all about it. Let's see.

32:47 Speaker 20: All right.

32:47 Speaker 10: The Phantom is calling again. Let's see if we... Hey, finally got through.

32:51 Speaker 21: How are you doing, Matt?

32:52 Speaker 7: Good.

32:53 Speaker 14: Who is this?

32:54 Speaker 17: Ronnie.

32:55 Speaker 7: Oh, Ron.

32:55 Speaker 10: Oh, my goodness. How are you, my friend? How are you? I haven't seen you in so long, for obvious reasons.

32:59 Speaker 9: Yeah.

33:00 Speaker 10: How are you doing?

33:00 Speaker 13: Oh, I know.

33:01 Speaker 17: I'm doing good.

33:02 Speaker 18: Good to hear your voice.

33:03 Speaker 21: But I have to say, that guy's got a real mellow sound, something I.

33:07 Speaker 13: Could listen to.

33:08 Speaker 10: Oh, do you like that? Did you like that song?

33:11 Speaker 22: I did.

33:11 Speaker 13: I did.

33:12 Speaker 23: I was like, I wish I could have heard it more than once so I could have followed the words.

33:16 Speaker 12: But I just like the sound and.

33:18 Speaker 10: No, I don't know.

33:19 Speaker 24: The instruments, the voice, it was good.

33:21 Speaker 10: I might play it again later in the show, you know, because it is a three-hour show, so sometimes, you know, we repeat things later, and of course, you know, it breaks up into one-hour blocks for the weekday replays. So I might play it again later, but I'm glad you liked it. It's interesting, too, because Richard McMahon was talking about how it's such a tragic story, but then the artists involved in the song, they took a tragic story and kind of made a pop song out of it, and it's fun. I don't know.

33:48 Speaker 18: Well, anyways, it's good to hear your voice.

33:50 Speaker 22: I'm just chillaxing, and have a good day.

33:52 Speaker 11: Good weekend.

33:53 Speaker 18: All right.

33:53 Speaker 10: Thanks, Ron. Good to hear from you, my friend. Take care.

33:55 Speaker 25: Bye-bye.

33:56 Speaker 10: Bye-bye. All right, Ron. Well, that was a nice surprise. Haven't gotten to talk to Ron in a long time. Let's see. I also do want to remind you, too, before we go any further in the show, about our amazing sponsor, Xtrilly, a great rideshare company originating right here in Manchester, New Hampshire. But they are recruiting riders, of course. So if you would like to be an Xtrilly passenger, perhaps you're tired of your current rideshare companies that you've been using. We won't mention any names.

34:27 Speaker 10: You know the big two. But maybe you'd like to try something new and hopefully better. You can try Xtrilly. If you go to the website, sign up at Xtrilly.com slash ride 953. Just like I always spell Connerton for you, I will also spell Xtrilli. It is X-T-R-I-L-L-I. So if you go to X-T-R-I-L-L-I dot com slash ride 953, you can sign up. You can get the app, be a passenger, try it out. I think you'll be very happy. And, of course, every rideshare company needs drivers. So if you'd like to drive, make some money.

35:02 Speaker 10: They are pretty generous with their payouts. If you go to Xtrilly.com slash drive 953, you can sign up to drive. I will spell Xtrilly for you one more time. X-C-R-I-L-L-I dot com slash drive 953. Sign up today. And, again, thank you to Xtrilly for supporting the show and for being one of our many great sponsors here today. at WMNH 95.3 FM. So we appreciate them tremendously. I am going to play, and I'm sort of calling an audible here. We hadn't... Oh, I just got a message.

35:39 Speaker 8: Oh, you know what?

35:40 Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and play this. Our next guest has arrived. I'm going to go ahead and play this song because we referred to it in my conversation with Richard McMahon. from Bring Your Own Hammer. This song, we had featured this on the show before. It's called Golden Streets Bitter Tears from Adrian Crowley, featuring Bridget Maypower. This is also really good, but it's from that same project. So if you're curious to hear more about Bring Your Own Hammer, and again, all of the music is available on Bandcamp, and you can even get it on vinyl.

36:08 Speaker 10: But check this out. We'll give this a spin, and then we'll see where we go from there. But Golden Streets Bitter Tears, Adrian Crowley featuring Bridget Maypower. This is really good.

36:20 Speaker 18: Hurry, hurry over the waves There are riches here aplenty

36:30 Speaker 18: Truly blessed is this land And our days are heavy with honey If you saw me, you wouldn't know me For all my finery Even the ditches here glitter and shine.

37:22 Speaker 18: Long gone are my days Of desperate perdition And no more shall I suffer Devil hunger pains Here.

37:42 Speaker 26: I walk with the best of the town In my crown of glory.

37:52 Speaker 18: And long gone too are my.

37:57 Speaker 26: Misery chains.

38:03 Speaker 27: Golden streets, bitter tears. Golden streets, bitter tears. Golden streets, bitter, bitter tears.

38:44 Speaker 26: Fortune springs eternal From the Arkansas river Wild fruit hanging low Along the eerie canal.

39:04 Speaker 18: Great high windows of shining houses. Some of them even touch the sky.

39:30 Speaker 27: Golden streets, bitter tears Golden streets, bitter.

39:38 Speaker 7: Tears Golden streets, bitter.

39:43 Speaker 4: Bitter tears.

39:49 Speaker 27: Golden streets, bitter tears Golden streets, bitter tears Golden streets, bitter, bitter.

40:05 Speaker 10: Tears Your next customer could be listening right now. My name is Matt Conerton, and I want to get your business heard on WMNH 95.3 FM. I'll help you to create a professional commercial and connect with listeners in the Manchester area and online. For advertising information, email me, matt at mattconnerton.com. That's matt at matt, C-O-N-N-A-R-T-O-N.com. Let's put your business on the air.

40:47 Speaker 4: WMNH.

40:48 Speaker 2: Rip the knob off.

40:50 Speaker 10: Are you ready to make a change in your life? My name is Matt Connerton, and I'm a certified hypnotherapist. Hypnosis can help you change habits, overcome obstacles, and reach your goals. Sessions are available online or in person. at Birchwood Salon in Hooksett. And your initial consultation is always free. Visit mattconnerton.com. That's Matt, C-O-N-N-A-R-T-O-N.com to learn more or book your appointment. That's mattconnerton.com.

41:22 Speaker 23: In times of crisis, you need a law firm that stands by your side. With over 40 years of experience, Craig & Gatsoulis is dedicated to fighting for your rights. As former state prosecutors, our attorneys have the knowledge and trial experience to provide an aggressive defense against any charge, from DUIs to homicides. If you've been injured, our compassionate team will assess your case and fight for the compensation you deserve. Serving all of New Hampshire, Craig and Gatzoulis is here when.

41:49 Speaker 2: You need us most.

41:50 Speaker 23: Visit craigatzoulis.com for a free consultation. Craig and Gatzoulis, your advocates, your allies.

41:57 Speaker 10: Still using the same rideshare apps? Maybe it's time to try something different. Meet Xtrilly, a new way to move with upfront fare estimates, convenient booking, and no surprises in your ride pricing. Whether you're heading to work, meeting friends, or going somewhere special, make Xtrilly part of your journey. Xtrilly, your ride, your choice. Sign up now at Xtrilly.com slash ride 953. That's X-T-R-I-L-L-I dot com slash ride 953.

42:26 Speaker 7: 953.

42:27 Speaker 25: Bring your kitchen to life with Queen City Cabinetry. Located at 87 Elm Street in the historic Sunbeam Mall in Manchester. Open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They can be reached at 603-222-2007 or on the web at queencitycabinetrynh.com. Come see the possibilities. Queen City Cabinetry, another proud sponsor of WMNH.

43:00 Speaker 10: Hey, everyone.

43:01 Speaker 28: This is Rob Azevedo, host of Granite State of Mind, and I want to tell you about Pembroke City Limits and the historic Suncook Village. PCL is an award-winning bar, restaurant, and music venue where there's live music five days a week and twice on Saturdays. Everything from blues, country, folk, funk, and a whole lot of jazz. We have 12 craft beers on tap dedicated to local brewers in the area and some of the friendliest bartenders around.

43:23 Speaker 20: Please come visit.

43:24 Speaker 28: Pembroke City Limits at 134 Main Street, the historic Sunkook Village, only six miles outside of Manchester. Open Tuesdays to Wednesdays, 4 to 10. Thursdays to Sunday, 11 to 10. Pembroke City Limits, where it's all about the music.

43:38 Speaker 29: Diz's Cafe is the place to put a smile on your face.

43:41 Speaker 2: Judy and the crew will take care.

43:43 Speaker 29: Of you, bring your appetite, and treat your taste buds right. Diz's Cafe is always a winning choice. Breakfast, lunch, or supper. Diz's Cafe. at 860 Elm Street in downtown Manchester. Dine in, take out, or make a reservation.

43:59 Speaker 14: Call 603-606-2532.

43:59 Speaker 2: Eat, drink, and be happy.

44:00 Speaker 14: Diz's Cafe.

44:10 Speaker 30: And your own personal or business computer needs? Trust Groland Computers, located on Elm Street in Manchester. Groland handles computer repair, virus removal, and custom-built systems. Are you looking for budget-friendly options? Check out our selection of fully inspected used computers. We offer tailored, on-site solutions. No unnecessary expenses here. Visit Groland.com or call Groland Computers at 603-645-0101.

44:32 Speaker 10: Your tech, your way.

44:33 Speaker 30: Trust Groland Computers.

44:43 Speaker 14: Nana's Kitchen and Pizzeria.

44:46 Speaker 16: From Nana's hands to your plate, tradition, love, and taste that's great.

44:53 Speaker 31: Slow fermented dough, flavors so true.

44:59 Speaker 16: Each bite a story made just for you.

45:04 Speaker 17: 603-232-9366.

45:09 Speaker 14: Nana's Kitchen and Pizzeria. 15 Dartmouth Drive, Auburn.

45:14 Speaker 4: New Hampshire.

45:17 Speaker 32: Nana's Kitchen and Pizzeria.

45:29 Speaker 13: Seven times out of ten, we listen to our music at night. Thus spawned the title of this This.

45:39 Speaker 1: Hour on WMNH is sponsored by CGI Business Solutions, located at 5 Dartmouth Drive in Auburn.

45:42 Speaker 2: They serve all your.

45:43 Speaker 33: Business needs, including employee.

45:47 Speaker 34: Benefits planning, corporate design and business administration, investments and wealth management, and customized business insurance solutions.

46:11 Speaker 14: Their phone number is 866-841-4600 or on the web at CGIBusinessSolutions.com.

46:23 Speaker 1: Behold the harmony of airwaves as you immerse yourself in the captivating frequencies of WMNHLP.

46:29 Speaker 2: The sonic heartbeat of Manchester.

46:32 Speaker 1: Transcending through the ether at 95.3 megahertz frequency modulation. Our transmissions emanate from the zenith of 1000 Elm Street. Stranger into the heart of our creative realm at 119 Canal Street.

46:44 Speaker 2: Where innovation and sound collide.

46:46 Speaker 1: We bear the imprimatur of Manchester Public Television Service in the venerable city of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

46:53 Speaker 2: Enrich your auditory journey with the depth of our licensed residents.

46:57 Speaker 1: Dispatch your missives to WMNH953 at gmail.com or traverse the virtual corridors of WMNHradio.org. Engage with our sonic vibrations by communing with us through the digital channels.

47:09 Speaker 2: Your radio beckons.

47:11 Speaker 1: Eager to enthrall you with its mesmerizing cadence and envelop you in a symphony of boundless auditory wonder.

47:22 Speaker 2: WMNH, rip the knob off. We're back from the break.

47:28 Speaker 4: Matt Connorson Unleashed.

47:41 Speaker 7: Guitar solo On the surface where Thank you.

48:34 Speaker 12: In your knees are portable phantoms Breeding chaos within your dreams.

48:43 Speaker 35: Yet you live reality Balladrum, paradox Familiar strangers fill the void Nothing ever.

48:52 Speaker 36: Stops Will we ever be what we are? Astral texture on a plane Touched within the stars.

49:07 Speaker 7: Save us, we're wrong.

49:25 Speaker 36: Rub our eyes But.

49:36 Speaker 12: Once we find our way To.

49:46 Speaker 17: The light We'll finally see What's inside.

49:49 Speaker 7: Decay, flooding with sin Thank you for watching. Like your thoughts, the mind is a present. We're all trapped within. On the surface, we're all alive. Breaking, sinking, far on the rise.

50:49 Speaker 36: But once we find our way to the light, well, finally say what's inside.

51:16 Speaker 10: That is Fathom Farewell. The song is called The Light, and that ought to get the blood pumping. I really like that a lot. Welcome, everybody. This is Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we're live from the studios of WMNH 95.3 FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. And you can stream the show from anywhere. Go to my website, mattconnerton.com, or mattconnertonunleashed.com, the new website for all of your live streaming options. You can go to both. Go to both. Check them out. But right now, joining us in studio, we have Nick Pino, someone who I've not seen in a very long time, but Nick is very active in the music industry and, of course, the owner of Last Chance Booking.

51:55 Speaker 10: And Nick, welcome back.

51:57 Speaker 20: Thank you, Matt. It's been way too long.

51:59 Speaker 10: It's been a very long time since we talked, my friend. But the reason you are here today is, of course, you are back in the game, shall we say.

52:08 Speaker 33: I am.

52:09 Speaker 37: The official return date in the first show is set for April 2nd at the Bungalow Bar and Grill right here in Manchester, actually.

52:17 Speaker 10: I still haven't been there, but everything I hear is really good. So that's going to be, what's the date again? April what?

52:24 Speaker 37: April 2nd of 2027. That's our first official show back.

52:28 Speaker 10: Okay. It gives you a lot of lead time too. Now who's going to be on the show?

52:32 Speaker 37: We're actually now booking for that. I just started as of today. This is the first announcement that LC Show's Last Chance Booking is back, actually.

52:43 Speaker 10: Okay, excellent. Now, when was the last time, because like I said, you're getting back into it. So when was the last time that you were active with this, with Last Chance Booking?

52:54 Speaker 37: The last show I did was actually way back in 2019.

52:58 Speaker 20: Jeez, wow.

52:59 Speaker 10: Do you remember what the last show was?

53:02 Speaker 37: Uh, I believe it was a split with, um, it was up at, I want to say Charlie's Hill.

53:10 Speaker 10: Okay.

53:11 Speaker 37: And I know there was a two day festival. We had a rap and hip hop night.

53:15 Speaker 4: Okay.

53:16 Speaker 20: Um, and then we also had a metal show as well.

53:20 Speaker 10: Okay. Um, and then, so, so why the, uh, I mean, did the pandemic have something to do with it? Because obviously, you know, you talk about 2019, we know what, uh, what, yeah.

53:32 Speaker 37: Around then things kind of went downhill. Um, I also moved to Florida for a little bit. Um, so I've been moving a lot around the last, few years and, uh, just getting my feet set so I could come back.

53:48 Speaker 10: And why, uh, fathom farewell. Uh, that's one of the songs that you asked us to play this morning. Um, and you're not, just to be clear, you're not in the band, right? I'm not in the band now, but it's obviously, is that a band that you've worked with or you intend to work with or.

54:00 Speaker 11: It is.

54:00 Speaker 37: I want to say they go way back to when Rocko's was still here in Manchester.

54:06 Speaker 10: Oh, I remember Rocko's vividly.

54:07 Speaker 3: Yep.

54:08 Speaker 13: Yep.

54:09 Speaker 10: With the wall of mirrors behind the stage.

54:12 Speaker 6: Yep.

54:13 Speaker 20: Yeah, it was always crazy there some nights.

54:15 Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, it could be. So, I mean, why now? Like, why come back now in, well, it'll be 2027, right?

54:29 Speaker 10: What is it that got you back into the game?

54:31 Speaker 37: I feel like I'm just more back to a point in my life where I'm able to commit the time, the effort, because booking shows, let's face it, it takes a lot of time. There's a lot that goes into it, especially as a solo promoter.

54:48 Speaker 10: Now, tell me about that, because when I've interviewed you in the past, and again, wow, it's hard to believe it was so long ago, but it really was, you had other people that you were working with. At one point, you were working with Scott Perry.

54:58 Speaker 13: Yes.

54:59 Speaker 10: Did you guys, wait, was it you and Scott, too, who were doing the TSA podcast?

55:04 Speaker 37: Scott was doing that, but he did come on with me.

55:09 Speaker 10: Okay, because Scott was doing, yeah, TSA, the siren agency. Um, but that was separate from what you were doing, right?

55:15 Speaker 20: That was separate. Okay.

55:17 Speaker 10: But you guys, but I did interview you guys together at one point.

55:20 Speaker 12: Yep.

55:21 Speaker 20: Yeah. We've done a lot of work together.

55:23 Speaker 13: Yeah.

55:24 Speaker 37: Scott Perry. Um, there's also New Hampshire booking. Um, if you know, Richie Downs.

55:31 Speaker 19: Yep.

55:31 Speaker 20: Um, another familiar face.

55:34 Speaker 12: Yep.

55:34 Speaker 37: Um, and he's actually working with the bungalow here in Manchester now.

55:39 Speaker 19: Yep.

55:39 Speaker 17: Yep.

55:40 Speaker 10: Um, So you're doing this by yourself this time, right?

55:45 Speaker 2: Yes.

55:46 Speaker 10: You are last chance booking, so to speak.

55:49 Speaker 20: It's me, myself, and I, yes.

55:50 Speaker 10: Okay. And why, I mean, is that a decision that you made consciously or is it just kind of how things have worked out?

55:57 Speaker 20: It's honestly how things have worked out.

56:01 Speaker 37: Honestly, you know, I'm coming into it slow with like a couple shows. And I just find it easier to work by myself. And then if I need some help, I can bring people in.

56:12 Speaker 7: Yeah.

56:14 Speaker 10: For people who don't know what you do exactly, because obviously a lot of people in the scene, both locally and in the music industry broadly, already understand this. But for someone who doesn't know anything about how the business of music works and how the industry works, what is it that you do exactly? Because you say booking shows, but you're really the promoter, right?

56:36 Speaker 12: Yeah.

56:37 Speaker 10: I mean, in terms of being a concert promoter, what does that entail? For the layman, what does that entail?

56:41 Speaker 37: A lot of it entails reaching out, emailing different artists from around the country. Sometimes we have artists that are out on tour from across the country that'll reach out to me. And if I'm able to book the date, then I have to reach out, secure a venue, secure the date. And then go from there. As soon as we get everything official, I start booking, reaching out to the local bands here in New Hampshire and surrounding areas. And then come the day of the show, you know, after promoting and doing everything I can to get the word out, I run the show from doors to loading in the bands.

57:28 Speaker 37: Pretty much everything falls on me to make sure it runs smoothly.

57:33 Speaker 10: It may be too soon for this question, but so far, because you're just getting back in, but so far from just getting back in, is there anything you've noticed right off that's just kind of different about how this all works or is the process basically the same?

57:52 Speaker 37: Honestly, what I've noticed is that there are so many bands that I've worked with over the years that they're just not together now. So the hardest part for me is really finding those groups that are still together, that are out there playing and just getting familiar with all the new venues.

58:13 Speaker 12: Yep.

58:13 Speaker 17: Yep.

58:14 Speaker 10: Well, one of the bands, so we'll play another song because one of the bands that you sent me, was a track by Actor Observer. And it's funny because when I saw the email, I remembered Actor Observer from... So I don't think I've met any of the guys in the band.

58:33 Speaker 6: Ever.

58:34 Speaker 10: But I've been a fan of theirs from afar. Again, I've never met them. Because of you.

58:40 Speaker 3: Yes.

58:40 Speaker 10: Because I became aware of them originally because of you. Because when I interviewed you before, they were one of the bands we featured. So I was thrilled to see that they're still together. Because as you said, a lot of bands have come and gone.

58:51 Speaker 20: I was surprised.

58:52 Speaker 37: Actually, I only learned that they were together when I went to see The Used in Boston, and it just happened that night. Actor Observer was open, and I remember booking one of their first shows.

59:04 Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah. So I was very happy about that, because I think these guys are a great band. I do need to get them on. Maybe you can help me with that. put me in touch with them. But let's play this track. This is called Found Wanting, and the band is called Actor Observer.

59:15 Speaker 7: When what you think you want Is kept.

59:19 Speaker 38: Locked behind a door.

59:29 Speaker 12: End up searching for a key Till you forget what it was for Till all you know is wanting.

59:45 Speaker 7: That constant need for more A hunger.

59:48 Speaker 4: That can't be sated A yearning.

59:50 Speaker 5: With no source The yearning becomes a habit From the habit pathways form Carving rivers in your conscience Being.

59:57 Speaker 4: Forced with every storm.

1:00:06 Speaker 7: The feeling had a half-life Caught in the currents of my.

1:00:19 Speaker 38: Mind Another paper boat.

1:00:22 Speaker 7: The rushing water swept away A lesson that I will never learn.

1:00:47 Speaker 17: And so I.

1:00:49 Speaker 35: Drift further down So far from where I thought I'd be by now And I admit, though I'm not proud.

1:01:03 Speaker 12: I can see I did this to myself.

1:01:06 Speaker 38: A shame to say.

1:01:15 Speaker 7: To swim upstream and I'm afraid.

1:01:17 Speaker 12: That if I ever find the key I'm sure that room behind.

1:01:23 Speaker 38: The door will be completely empty I.

1:01:26 Speaker 7: Find my joy in short supply I didn't know that this feeling had a half life.

1:01:37 Speaker 17: Caught in the current.

1:01:52 Speaker 7: We'll be right back. entire tracks from an album.

1:02:53 Speaker 12: I can't carry on this weight, so pull my feet up from this throne of reverberate. I can't carry on this weight, so pull my feet up from this throne.

1:03:15 Speaker 38: Take my nails into the grave.

1:03:18 Speaker 12: I'll forge a new path. I'll forge a new path.

1:03:25 Speaker 10: I love it. That is called Found Wanting. The band is Actor Observer. And we've got Nick Pino from Last Chance Booking here with us in studio. And Nick, you and I were talking off air and I'm glad you validated this for me. So I know I'm not losing my mind because I said to you, I could swear that Actor Observer, that their name was a little different in that it was originally it had a slash between actor and observer so it was act so the way you know you would say actor observer but the way it was spelled it was actor slash observer and they did take that out probably if i had to guess and if i you know if i ever get them on the show i'll ask them about this but if i had to guess they probably found their name just being you know screwed up on posters and flyers everywhere and we're like let's just get rid of the slash it's more trouble than it's worth, if I had to guess.

1:04:14 Speaker 20: That is, yeah, a good guess, actually, you know?

1:04:17 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:04:18 Speaker 20: If you don't, I'll have to ask him sometime here.

1:04:22 Speaker 10: It's like the band 30, you know, everybody knows the band 38 Special, you know, hold on loosely and all that from the 80s. They, at one point, the band, the way it was originally spelled was because it was, you know, like the name of the gun. So it was 0.38 special. And they eventually, they dropped the point and just because it was, I.

1:04:42 Speaker 20: Can see how easily it could be missed.

1:04:45 Speaker 6: Yeah.

1:04:45 Speaker 10: And this was while they were on a major label, you know, but it just got to a point, a point where it was like, you know, the, we don't need the point because it's just getting in the way and people are, are getting it wrong all the time. But, um, So, Nick, how do you find the bands that you want to work with? Obviously, you're a big fan of Actor Observer, and you've worked with them. What is kind of your criteria in terms of artists that you work with with concert promotion?

1:05:09 Speaker 37: Generally, I look for artists who at least have a couple decent recordings. It doesn't have to be a full album, but I have to have something to be able to promote. So although I'm open to new bands, I love booking first-time shows. The one thing I do usually require is that I have at least one or two decent songs so I can put out and promote them on the show.

1:05:38 Speaker 10: Right, right. So if somebody wants to work with you, what's the best way to reach you if they're interested in having you book a show with them?

1:05:51 Speaker 37: The best way to reach out right now is by email at lastchance2021takeoveratgmail. com.

1:06:05 Speaker 10: Lastchance2021takeoveratgmail. com.

1:06:07 Speaker 14: All right.

1:06:08 Speaker 10: And where does the name come from, Last Chance Booking?

1:06:11 Speaker 37: So, believe it or not, I started this way back in 2008.

1:06:17 Speaker 20: I was still in high school.

1:06:19 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:06:20 Speaker 37: And myself and Taylor Gagnon, I don't know if you remember him from way back when.

1:06:29 Speaker 10: The name is familiar to me. Of course, Gagnon's such a common last name around here.

1:06:33 Speaker 37: It is, but I originally started with him booking shows and And that's what we came up with.

1:06:41 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:06:41 Speaker 20: And then over the years, as.

1:06:44 Speaker 37: Kind of the whole crew changed, we went through a lot of changes, expanding. In the end, it ended up just being me. And, you know, I stuck with it. We already had the logo. And actually, I got a tattoo now.

1:07:00 Speaker 15: Oh, you do? Yeah.

1:07:02 Speaker 20: Of the little LC shows diamond.

1:07:04 Speaker 13: Yeah.

1:07:04 Speaker 17: Okay.

1:07:05 Speaker 10: Well, now you're stuck with it.

1:07:06 Speaker 20: Yeah, stuff for life. That's why I had to come back, actually.

1:07:09 Speaker 10: Well, there you go. There you go. By the way, so you said you went to Florida for a while?

1:07:14 Speaker 20: I did, yeah.

1:07:15 Speaker 37: I moved down there with my sister to just get away from everything up here, you know?

1:07:21 Speaker 10: Did you get involved in the music scene while you were in Florida? Did you do anything down there?

1:07:25 Speaker 20: Unfortunately not.

1:07:26 Speaker 37: I was only down there for about maybe six months or so.

1:07:30 Speaker 10: Oh, okay.

1:07:31 Speaker 20: Gotcha. So before I.

1:07:32 Speaker 37: Could really get set up and... I really don't know much around Florida. So, you know, it would have taken a lot more. It's actually easier for me to come back and start booking shows up here and then expand down there later on.

1:07:47 Speaker 10: Gotcha. So what is the skill set that you have that is required for what you do? And I kind of probably can guess some of it because I've also done what you do. I haven't been in that part of the game for a while, but I used to book a lot of shows back in the day. Um, like what, for, and I asked this question too, partly for anyone who's interested in getting into being a promoter, that, that side of the business, like what, what is kind of the skillset that you feel that you need and that you possess to be able to do this successfully?

1:08:18 Speaker 37: Honestly, you, you just have to be really driven. You have to, you know, put in a lot of hours. Um, it's a lot of caffeine, but let's say we run on caffeine because there are some nights I'll go into a venue on show day and, you know, the middle of the afternoon and I'm the last one to leave. So you got to be able to go long hours. You got to be able to multitask.

1:08:43 Speaker 10: You got to be really organized.

1:08:45 Speaker 20: Organized.

1:08:46 Speaker 37: You know, you can't just walk in there day of a show and expect everything to run itself.

1:08:52 Speaker 20: You got to direct all the traffic.

1:08:55 Speaker 17: Yeah.

1:08:55 Speaker 10: And that's a good way of putting it. And you have to be able to communicate clearly too, because that's the biggest, you know, as someone who's worked on both sides of it, the biggest complaint that a lot of musicians have is, is about promoters who don't communicate clearly. Although you often, those horror stories that you hear often come more from festival settings and Oh, big time, yeah. I don't know how many guests I've had on the show who've just had terrible... You know, festivals are great because you get in front of a huge audience who might not otherwise see you, so you get to expand your fan base very quickly, and it's the ultimate networking opportunity, all the industry people that you meet, too.

1:09:35 Speaker 10: So festivals are great, but man, I've heard some horror stories over the years about just poor communication at festivals.

1:09:41 Speaker 20: I've had it happen. I've even had.

1:09:44 Speaker 37: touring bands drop off last minute. Obviously, you know, there are circumstances where there's nothing they can do. You know, you get a van breakdown, anything can happen when you're out on the road.

1:09:57 Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, the, the shows, uh, that you put together, do you try to, do you try to keep it so that all the bands are kind of in a similar genre or do you like to sort of expand out? I, I used to, when I would do shows like, Back in the day when I would book shows at Millie's Tavern, for example, and it might be four bands or five bands, I took some criticism for this and some credit, depending on the point of view of the person telling me their opinions about how I approached it.

1:10:32 Speaker 10: But sometimes I would really try to just mix it up and take some risks. Um, it wasn't like there was a ton of money to be made to begin with, with a show like that, you know? So, you know, why not take some chances? And again, not everyone agreed. Some people did, but I mean, like, how do you approach that?

1:10:52 Speaker 37: Honestly, I've always been a fan of mixing it at least to an extent, you know, that way it's, it appeals to more people and you're not wrong there. Honestly, if you want to make money, Um, booking and promoting shows is very hard.

1:11:09 Speaker 20: It's difficult.

1:11:10 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:11:11 Speaker 37: Um, for me, it's always been more of a hobby, you know, I try to break even, but, um, it's kind of like gambling really.

1:11:20 Speaker 6: It is.

1:11:21 Speaker 10: It's very much like, it is very much like gambling. I mean, even live nation, you know, not that we should ever shed a single tear for it, but even live nation loses money on some shows, you know?

1:11:31 Speaker 37: Oh, it happens all the time. So, you know, you, you've got to go into it knowing, um, And having that money there, and that's what actually makes myself different from other promoters. I'm not backed by anybody. Any show I do, it's self-funded, so it falls back to me.

1:11:51 Speaker 10: All right, so in your experience, so this is really a two-part question. Part one.

1:11:59 Speaker 10: Well, here, let's get the bad part out of the way first. So part one, I want to ask you, what's the worst experience you've ever had with a show? Or at least as much as you're willing to say about it. But then the part two, well, I want to know your best experience. But let's get the worst one out of the way. What's your worst experience ever booking a show? All right.

1:12:19 Speaker 37: So I had a two day fest up in Lebanon, Maine. It was actually at Charlie's Hill where we'll be going to April 4th.

1:12:27 Speaker 17: Yeah.

1:12:28 Speaker 37: And, um, At the time, there was a sound guy that was absolutely horrible. It was a hip hop night and we couldn't get the headliners on. And I just got so frustrated. The headliners, they dropped off.

1:12:43 Speaker 10: What do you mean you couldn't get them on?

1:12:45 Speaker 37: He couldn't even run the sound to get the backtracking and everything up and running so the groups could play.

1:12:53 Speaker 10: Was it a sound guy who's not used to that type of scenario?

1:12:59 Speaker 13: No.

1:12:59 Speaker 20: It may have been.

1:13:01 Speaker 10: Sound guys can be stubborn.

1:13:02 Speaker 37: Maybe he was more, you know, into the metal nights and stuff, but I'm not sure.

1:13:08 Speaker 10: I've seen that in real time happen where you've got to notice. I love sound. I've run sound myself. It's very hard. And there's a lot, I've met a lot of great sound guys, but there are those sound guys who just are, if they find themselves in a position where they have to do something they're not used to, they're a little mad about it.

1:13:30 Speaker 20: Yeah.

1:13:31 Speaker 10: I've seen that play out right in front of me.

1:13:34 Speaker 37: And there's actually, so sound is one thing you can't get wrong. So let me just say this. I do not run sound. That is the one thing I don't do.

1:13:44 Speaker 17: Yeah.

1:13:45 Speaker 37: But back to the point there. So eventually I got so pissed off. I had a can of Mountain Dew and we were arguing and I go up and I just flashed this guy in the face with my Mountain Dew there.

1:13:59 Speaker 10: Oh, geez.

1:14:01 Speaker 20: And that's how the night ended.

1:14:02 Speaker 10: I was going to say that definitely had to be how it ended because nothing, I'm sure nothing else happened beyond that. At least nothing good.

1:14:10 Speaker 7: No, no.

1:14:10 Speaker 20: Thankfully it didn't get worse. You know, there was enough people to pull us apart, but.

1:14:16 Speaker 10: Jeez. All right. So that was the worst one.

1:14:21 Speaker 20: That was definitely one of the worst ones, you know? Oh, one of the worst ones?

1:14:26 Speaker 10: One of the worst. You got something else that's on par with that?

1:14:30 Speaker 20: So I might have mentioned this before, but.

1:14:34 Speaker 37: Back in Seabrook, New Hampshire, I believe it was a Lions show.

1:14:40 Speaker 10: Okay.

1:14:41 Speaker 37: The sound guy was obnoxiously drunk. We showed up, half the PA system was out.

1:14:47 Speaker 13: Oh, wow.

1:14:48 Speaker 20: And, you know, I was renting equipment anyways.

1:14:51 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:14:52 Speaker 37: So, you know, I could have gotten what I needed. So we showed up with half a sound system there.

1:14:58 Speaker 14: Oh, no.

1:14:59 Speaker 10: That I've never had happen to me. I've never seen a drunk sound guy drunk. That's terrible. Yeah, that'll ruin the night. All right, what's your best experience?

1:15:09 Speaker 37: All right, so one of my best, I'm going to say, is it's actually a band called It Lies Within. They're out of Flint, Michigan, actually. Unfortunately, they're no longer together. But I'd say my first tour, kind of booking a couple dates with them, their vocalist, Zach, he was just really inspirational. And, you know, whenever I was down, he kept me going and really. You know, he was always positive with things. So we always had a lot of good shows. We went out, had a lot of good times, and I never had one bad night with them.

1:15:53 Speaker 10: Good.

1:15:54 Speaker 37: It was actually a tour with them that I once burned cereal.

1:15:57 Speaker 22: Huh?

1:16:00 Speaker 37: I one time burned cereal when I was on a tour with It Lies Within. It was them and the Party Fowl. And as like a tour manager, I had to make problems go away. Well, one of the guys from the party foul told me the marshmallows in their cereal were not big enough. So me being dumb and young, then I put the cereal with the marshmallows in the microwave and kind of forgot about it. And it, it turned into really good rice crispies for a 10th of a second before turning to rock hard cement. Um, So that's the story of how I burnt cereal when I was trying to be a tour manager with them, actually.

1:16:48 Speaker 10: Okay. The marshmallows in the microwave, does that make them bigger?

1:16:52 Speaker 37: That was my thought and logic, but honestly, no, it does not make them bigger.

1:17:01 Speaker 20: It just turns them into plastic.

1:17:03 Speaker 38: Yeah.

1:17:05 Speaker 11: All righty.

1:17:06 Speaker 10: That didn't go where I expected.

1:17:08 Speaker 20: No, you never know.

1:17:09 Speaker 10: You never know. You never know. All right. Well, very good. Very good. Do you have a, uh, favorite, uh, artist to work with? Like an all time favorite who you've worked with, who is just amazing.

1:17:19 Speaker 37: Um, I will say I have had one group, um, abandoned by bears.

1:17:27 Speaker 20: They're actually all the way from Sweden.

1:17:30 Speaker 6: Yeah.

1:17:31 Speaker 37: Um, But honestly, I can't really pick a favorite. It's hard because there's so many great artists. There's so many out there that just put so much work and dedication. And just unfortunately, it doesn't really go anywhere. And that gets back to, you know, getting back into things nowadays. It's hard to figure out who's still together.

1:17:57 Speaker 10: Right, right. Well, we're very glad that Actor Observer is still together. And at the end of our conversation, we're going to play another track that they, apparently it's a collab, as they say. I don't know if that term was being used broadly yet. The last time I interviewed you all those years ago, a collab. That's what the young people say.

1:18:16 Speaker 37: It was a long time ago, so that might have been before those days.

1:18:22 Speaker 10: But they did, Actor Observer did a song with God's Eyes. Another great band that you sent me called Means Well, and we're going to play that in a couple of minutes. But, Nick, it's wonderful to see you. It's been a long time.

1:18:35 Speaker 20: It really has. You know, I never forgot about you.

1:18:39 Speaker 37: And then, you know, when I was coming back, you're actually the first and only person that I thought of.

1:18:45 Speaker 20: Matt Connerton.

1:18:47 Speaker 10: Well, thank you.

1:18:48 Speaker 37: I got to find out if he's still doing it. anything and come make the official announcement here with you.

1:18:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

1:18:54 Speaker 10: Well, I'm very glad you did. I'm very glad this worked out and that you're back at it. Um, and, uh, you know, and, and please, you know, send us whatever, whatever music you want to send us. Cause you always send really good, really good stuff. Um, there are at least, you know, you certainly did back then. So I'm, I'm excited to see, um, some of these bands that you're going to be working with going forward and how these shows go. I'm sure they'll go great. And, uh, you know, it's, it's, I'm glad you're back in the scene and back doing what you're doing.

1:19:20 Speaker 10: So thank you. Yeah.

1:19:21 Speaker 37: I'll definitely send you some more. Um, actually right now there, I don't know if you heard about it, uh, Guys like us, like Anna Safira, all of them are doing like a one-time comeback show.

1:19:34 Speaker 4: Oh, wow.

1:19:34 Speaker 20: It's not one I'm promoting or anything.

1:19:37 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah.

1:19:37 Speaker 37: But that sold out in a day at Bungalow and was moved to Hampton. And unfortunately, it sold out before I found out about it.

1:19:46 Speaker 10: Oh, no kidding. But those are some old bands I used to work with. Anna Safira is great. Did I meet them through you? I've interviewed them a bunch of times.

1:19:56 Speaker 20: I believe so.

1:19:57 Speaker 10: The last time would have been quite a few years ago, but I think I've interviewed them like four or five times over the years.

1:20:03 Speaker 20: Yeah.

1:20:03 Speaker 10: Yeah.

1:20:04 Speaker 37: They, they honestly, they were one we worked with quite a bit. Unfortunately, you know, they're not around. Um, if you remember ballast, they're very old.

1:20:15 Speaker 10: I had them on the show.

1:20:16 Speaker 20: They're playing, uh, that kind of one-off reunion show as well.

1:20:22 Speaker 10: Um, this'll sound weird and random, but, uh, ballast has actually been to my apartment because, because there was a short time. It was before I was doing, uh, this show here at WMNH, but there was a, a, a very brief time when I was actually interviewing, um, uh, the apartment Jenny and I live at, we had bands come over and I'd set up my equipment there and we would interview them there. I would interview them there in the kitchen. So they've been in my kitchen.

1:20:54 Speaker 38: Wow.

1:20:55 Speaker 10: I had forgotten until you mentioned them that I had ever even interviewed them at the apartment.

1:21:02 Speaker 37: I think possibly the show that I booked with them, I may have still been in high school when I booked them. Because I started in 2008 when I was still in high school.

1:21:16 Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow.

1:21:18 Speaker 20: Geez.

1:21:19 Speaker 10: Wow, yeah. Ballast. No, it's cool though about, and I remember spies like us, but I don't know if I've ever interviewed them. I might've though, because the name, I definitely remember the name. I may have interviewed them. I've interviewed a lot of people, Nick. It's hard to remember it all. It all blends together.

1:21:36 Speaker 20: There's so many.

1:21:37 Speaker 10: It just becomes a blur.

1:21:38 Speaker 20: After so many years, yeah.

1:21:40 Speaker 10: Yeah, it really does. It really does. And watch it turn out that I'm wrong, that it wasn't ballast that we had at the apartment. But I think it was. I think it was. I might be wrong though. Anyway. Uh, well, very good. So, uh, Nick, before we wrap up too, and again, we're going to play that track means well, which I love. It's so catchy. Um, remind people again, where's the best way for artists? Cause you know, a lot of artists listen to the show. A lot of musicians. It's very, it's a very industry centric show.

1:22:11 Speaker 10: Uh, how can they reach you?

1:22:13 Speaker 37: Uh, right now, the best way to reach out is that last chance 2021, uh, TakeOver at gmail.com.

1:22:24 Speaker 10: Okay.

1:22:24 Speaker 20: That's the best way to contact. I check that every day.

1:22:28 Speaker 37: And as of now, booking is officially open for April 2027.

1:22:34 Speaker 10: All right. Very good. Very good. Nick Pino, thank you so much for coming in. And we're going to hit this track again. This is a collab. This is Actor Observer with God's Eyes. And this is a great song. This is called Means Well. Check it out. Nick, thank you again. Thank you, Matt. You got it.

1:22:53 Speaker 7: It's well, it's nothing to me.

1:23:25 Speaker 12: Just what I need Another deadbeat dragon in spade You hide behind.

1:23:31 Speaker 17: Your gun and stand But an action still.

1:23:34 Speaker 12: Brings consequence The blade of death, the pain of pain And all that I've ever wanted to do.

1:23:55 Speaker 17: This world.

1:24:11 Speaker 7: Means nothing to.

1:24:19 Speaker 13: Me.

1:24:19 Speaker 17: This world.

1:24:24 Speaker 7: Means nothing to me.

1:24:35 Speaker 12: The word is your blood Bound.

1:25:00 Speaker 10: To your fate.

1:25:05 Speaker 17: Spouting the promises you couldn't keep.

1:25:07 Speaker 9: Pessimistic, it just feels so horrible.

1:25:11 Speaker 7: I got a voice from a small window.

1:25:16 Speaker 12: Pessimistic, it just feels so horrible.

1:25:47 Speaker 17: Oh, yeah.

1:25:51 Speaker 10: Oh, that is Means Well. That is Actor Observer and God's Eyes Together. I really love that track. I'm a big, you know, as I indicated, a fan of Actor Observer. And thank you again to Nick Pino from Last Chance Booking for joining us for a bit, catching up with him and all that he is doing in the scene. I'm actually going to sneak in because we have time. I'm going to sneak in one more track from Actor Observer just because I like this band so much. This is called Pyrrhic Victory.

1:26:20 Speaker 7: Petty rains on a parade of gurneys and tourniquets Stained.

1:26:30 Speaker 24: With the blood of those caught in my wake We all celebrate while she's walking away I wouldn't.

1:26:47 Speaker 17: Let you drown.

1:26:51 Speaker 7: And yet I dragged you down.

1:26:57 Speaker 16: I couldn't hear the sound.

1:27:05 Speaker 15: Of your stifled breath.

1:27:11 Speaker 7: Over my cries for conquest.

1:27:29 Speaker 13: Yeah.

1:27:42 Speaker 35: For the moment when you get everything you want does it look like you pictured or did it bleed for more only leave you with less when your eyes adjust to the settling dust say.

1:27:58 Speaker 38: What you have done to.

1:27:59 Speaker 7: The ones you love for your one true love.

1:28:06 Speaker 10: There's blood under.

1:28:08 Speaker 7: My fingernails bleeding It's a shame. I couldn't hear the.

1:28:41 Speaker 12: Leaving love to pick up the straps on your bed And you're spoiled A sad kid in a party hat With.

1:28:50 Speaker 7: Her care and affection Just not.

1:28:53 Speaker 38: Enough for you Was it.

1:28:56 Speaker 4: All a distraction?

1:28:58 Speaker 38: But you've got.

1:29:00 Speaker 12: Better things to do Are you really so blind? Have you forgotten who stands behind? Every bright man, every bright man, every bright man. All the greatness that you seek is apparent victory. You just watched your love wither away in the name of your big glorious pain.

1:29:46 Speaker 38: A voice of greater esteem. Hey.

1:30:23 Speaker 10: If you listen to Matt Connerton Unleashed, you already know me as a broadcaster and an interviewer, but there's another side of what I do that I'm incredibly passionate about. I'm also a certified hypnotherapist, helping people make meaningful changes in their lives, whether that's building confidence, managing stress, overcoming fears, changing unwanted habits, or getting unstuck. I offer private hypnosis sessions online and in person. and your initial consultation is completely free. Maybe it's time to find out what hypnosis can do for you.

1:30:56 Speaker 10: Visit mattconnerton.com.

1:31:04 Speaker 7: From the tombs on Elm Street.

1:31:22 Speaker 19: The light begins its daily retreat.

1:31:27 Speaker 7: In the bars, boys from the piers.

1:31:31 Speaker 19: Drain their glasses.

1:31:32 Speaker 8: And dance with the girls from the markets.

1:31:40 Speaker 15: On the street, she can't sleep.

1:31:45 Speaker 27: Her breath in.

1:32:00 Speaker 4: On Lennon Street, she can't sleep.

1:32:03 Speaker 7: On Lennon Street, she can't sleep.

1:32:05 Speaker 4: On Lennon Street, she can't sleep.

1:32:08 Speaker 9: Wayward girl from Ireland, bound for Blackwell's Island.

1:32:47 Speaker 15: She can disappear No sun.

1:32:51 Speaker 4: No moon No.

1:32:53 Speaker 15: Scars here In a cell she recalls the ship The rising sweat and ocean's dew A passenger from there to here A servant sickly and queer A passenger from there to here, a servant sickly and queer.

1:33:18 Speaker 5: A passenger from there to here, a servant sickly and queer. A winged girl from Ireland, bound for Blackwell's Island.

1:33:44 Speaker 15: Down for.

1:33:50 Speaker 7: Mine Down for Blackwell's.

1:34:01 Speaker 15: Island She's tired and it is dawn The warden says it won't be long A short walk to the prison.

1:34:11 Speaker 4: Car .

1:34:16 Speaker 15: .

1:34:20 Speaker 7: .

1:34:22 Speaker 4: .

1:34:33 Speaker 7: .

1:34:39 Speaker 5: .

1:34:44 Speaker 15: The wayward girl from Ireland Bound for.

1:34:49 Speaker 7: Blackwell's Island The wayward girl from Ireland Bound for Blackwell's Island.

1:35:22 Speaker 10: I had to get that in for Ron. From the Tombs, from the project Bring Your Own Hammer. And we played that in the first hour, for those of you listening live on Saturday, October 24. And then Ron mentioned how much he'd like to hear it. He called into the show, which is unusual. We don't get a lot of calls on Saturday morning. But Ron called us, which was nice. It was nice to hear from him. And he said he wanted to hear it again. So I said, well, maybe later in the show, because, you know, it is a three-hour show.

1:35:52 Speaker 10: And the show does get split up into individual one-hour blocks for... replays throughout the week. So I said, Oh, maybe we'll play it again. So there you go, Ron. I hope you're still listening. And thank you again, of course, to Richard McMahon from the project, bring your own hammer for joining us in the first hour. I was very happy to speak with him because what an interesting project it is. And I really enjoyed talking with him. And of course, thank you to my friend, Nick Pino. Hadn't seen him in a hell of a long time, but it was nice to have him on the show too, from last chance booking.

1:36:20 Speaker 10: I'm glad he's back in the game. booking and promoting shows in the area. Very cool. Very cool. And gave us a chance to play some actor observer, a band that I'm a fan of because of Nick. He's the one who first turned me on to them. And of course, I fathomed farewell, a band that I was not familiar with, but we played one of their songs as well. And so lots of great stuff. Thank you all for being here. I do want to remind you, of course, that Matt Connerton unleashed is sponsored by a Matt Connerton hypnosis.

1:36:49 Speaker 10: Yes. No relation. No, I'm kidding. Actually, there is another. I've said this. If you're a longtime listener, you know this already. You've heard me say it. There is actually another Matt Connerton right here in New Hampshire, but he's my uncle. So almost doesn't count. Kind of an unusual name. That's why I have to spell it for everyone. But yeah, Matt Connerton hypnosis. If you're curious to learn more about how I can help you, you can go to my website and schedule a free consultation. Consultation is always free.

1:37:17 Speaker 10: Go to mattconnerton.com. That's Matt, C-O-N-N-A-R-T-O-N.com. And, you know, we can talk about how I can help you make change and improve things and whatever it is that you need to do. I'm your guy. So if you're curious about hypnosis, I am a certified hypnotherapist and I do online sessions and I also see clients in person, of course, at Birchwood Salon in Hooksett. I also want to remind you about another great sponsor that we took on recently here.

1:37:45 Speaker 2: Xtrilly.

1:37:47 Speaker 10: If you need a ride and you're interested in becoming a passenger with Xtrilly, perhaps you're not thrilled with your current rideshare options, give Xtrilly a try. I think you'll like it. You can sign up at Xtrilly.com slash ride 953. I'm going to spell that for you. X-T-R-I-L-L-I. Xtrilly.com slash ride 953. And if you'd like to be a driver... for Xtrilly and make some extra money. And the payouts are pretty generous. I suggest you check it out. Again, if you're not satisfied with your current ride share driving options, check out Xtrilly.com slash drive 953.

1:38:26 Speaker 10: Sign up to drive with Xtrilly. And I'm going to spell it for you one more time, too. X-T-R-I-L-L-I.

1:38:33 Speaker 13: Xtrilly.

1:38:35 Speaker 10: So we're very honored and proud to have them as a sponsor. One of our great sponsors here at WM & H. We have quite the impressive roster of sponsors and advertisers and supporters, and we are grateful for all of them. We do have a little bit of time in the second hour at Numero Dos. I wanted to, a couple of music industry things. One of them involves, and we talked about on the show, what was it, maybe two months ago? There was a story in the music industry news about David Lee Roth canceling his current tour.

1:39:07 Speaker 10: And we speculated and talked about that. You know, what might be the reasons for that? You know, I had my theory, of course, I think it's because he frankly just can't sing anymore. But there's some other Van Halen related news that has emerged that's got people online chatting quite a bit. But there's an angle to this that no one else is mentioning that I want to point out. OK, little backstory just quickly. And I've been on a kind of a Van Halen kick recently, so I've been paying a little extra attention.

1:39:36 Speaker 10: You know, I go through these phases because Van Halen's always been one of my favorite bands, but then I go years without listening to any Van Halen and then I'm like, ah, time to listen to some Van Halen again. And I'm a big fan of, you know, sometimes fans dismissively refer to it as Van Hagar, but I actually prefer the Sammy Hagar era to the David Lee Roth era. I'm like the only Van Halen fan on earth who says that out loud. It's like I'm the uncool kid in the room, but I don't care. They were every bit as successful, if not more so, by some metrics with Hagar as they were with Roth.

1:40:08 Speaker 10: So, you know, just saying. I love them both for different reasons. I love both Dave and Sammy. They're different flavors, but I prefer Hagar. He's got the pipes. Dude can sing. And I think 5150 is my favorite Van Halen album to this day. I love 5150. the first one with Hagar. Anyway, the reason they've been in the news recently is, well, I shouldn't even say recently because I feel like there's this controversy that just sort of goes on and on. But Alex Van Halen, not too long ago, I guess within the last year probably, right, his autobiography Brothers, which is really an autobiography of his story with his brother, Eddie Van Halen, who passed away a number of years ago.

1:40:56 Speaker 10: there's been some controversy. I haven't read the book yet, but there's been some controversy about it because not so much because of what he says in the book, but because of what he doesn't say. So the book focuses on, in terms of the band, Van Halen, apparently, the book focuses entirely on the David Lee Roth era, and he completely snubs Sammy Hagar in the book. which is surprising to a lot of people and frustrating to a lot of people. But part of what I wanted to mention, because I feel like people are missing an important detail with this, the latest controversy is this.

1:41:40 Speaker 10: He said in an interview very recently, Alex Van Halen did, because obviously he's doing a lot of interviews to promote his book. He said in an interview that they called Michael Anthony, the bass player for Van Halen, before Wolfgang Van Halen became the bass player, when they did the reunion tour with Roth. Michael Anthony was left out, and Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang, who now has a very successful career as a solo artist, but Wolfgang became the new bass player. And this upset a lot of people, maybe not enough people, because the tour still did gangbusters numbers, but it wasn't a true reunion because Michael Anthony, the original bass player, was left out.

1:42:25 Speaker 10: And by the way, if you ever want to do a deep dive on this, and we don't have time to do it today, unless we circle back to it later in the show, if we have time. I don't think we will. But Michael Anthony's history in Van Halen is very, very interesting, but also disappointing in a lot of ways. When you learn about how the Van Halen brothers even conspired with David Lee Roth very early on to screw over Michael Anthony financially, And in terms of contracts and rights to the royalties and rights to merchandise money and all of it, they really screwed over Michael Anthony.

1:43:05 Speaker 10: And Michael Anthony took it, he put up with it, to stay in the band because apparently from his perspective he thought better to stay in the band and deal with this terrible mistreatment than to be kicked out and then no longer be in Van Halen.

1:43:22 Speaker 10: But And then Hagar, you know, obviously Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony are very close friends. And so Hagar did a lot to protect Michael Anthony financially. When Hagar joined Van Halen, he insisted that Michael Anthony's share in everything be reinstated or he wouldn't join. So he played some hardball there in joining the band because he was appalled at the way that the Van Halen brothers, along with David Lee Roth, had treated Michael Anthony. It's all rather troubling if you really dive into it and read what's available about it.

1:43:55 Speaker 10: Noel Monk, in his book, he was the original manager of Van Halen during the David Lee Roth era. And Noel Monk, he has a great book, which I have read. It's called Running with the Devil. He talks about a lot of the mistreatment of Michael Anthony and how David Lee Roth and the Van Halens just screwed him over. And they screwed him over over the course of decades. I'm building to a point here. So when they did.

1:44:20 Speaker 10: Well, when they did the reunion tour with Sammy Hagar, which would have been in what? Oh six Oh five Oh six. Um, they, uh, Michael Anthony was, was essentially a, a hired gun at that point. He was a paid employee. The Van Halen said successfully pushed him out as a business partner entirely. And he was basically a hired gun at that point. Um, But then by the time you get to the first reunion tour, the first official reunion tour with Roth, you know, and you can find the press conference on YouTube, Michael Anthony is nowhere to be found and instead it's Wolfgang Van Halen.

1:44:58 Speaker 10: And in a recent interview, so everyone always assumed, and I think this is still the case, you know, Eddie Van Halen, first of all, didn't like Michael Anthony anymore, and had a lot of negative things. There's kind of an infamous Howard Stern interview where Eddie Van Halen really goes in on Michael Anthony and trashes him along with Hagar because he was mad at both of them.

1:45:23 Speaker 12: So.

1:45:26 Speaker 10: So Eddie Van Halen wanted Michael Anthony out, but a big reason was he wanted his son, he wanted to play music with his son. And Wolfgang is an incredible musician, one of those guys who can play anything. So the thought has always been that it's as simple as that. The Van Halen brothers have decided they hate Michael Anthony, even though, by the way, the only people ever to say a single negative word about Michael Anthony are the Van Halen brothers. You know, just like with Sammy Hagar. Whoever says anything bad about Sammy Hagar other than the Van Halen brothers and, of course, David Lee Roth.

1:46:10 Speaker 10: But anyway, just an observation. But everyone else talks about Michael Anthony like he's the greatest guy in the world. And he probably is. And if you've ever seen an interview with him, he comes across that way. He comes across as a really great dude and a very talented musician. Very talented bass player. Although I never liked those bass solos he would do. That would be the one thing I would nitpick. They're a little long, a little much. Anyway, Alex Van Halen in an interview said that They actually called Michael Anthony about the reunion tour with Roth.

1:46:45 Speaker 10: Because he addresses it, basically it comes up, and he says in this interview, everyone always assumes that Eddie just wanted to play with Wolfgang, so we pushed Michael Anthony out. But that's not true. We called Michael Anthony, but he never called us back. But we did try. We did call him. Now, here's the thing that everyone's missing about this. By the way, I'm going to play the audio. Actually, I'm going to play the audio first. This is a little snippet of audio from this interview on a podcast.

1:47:12 Speaker 10: It's from a YouTube channel called Upload Records. I'm just going to play this little clip, but then I want to point out something that I feel like everyone, everyone else is missing because everyone's mad. Well, here, let me just play this. Let's play this first.

1:47:25 Speaker 14: So, uh, everybody, nobody showed up.

1:47:27 Speaker 9: And then one day Ed and I were playing and there's this bakes comes in and it had a nice feel to it.

1:47:33 Speaker 10: And we let him behind the curtain.

1:47:34 Speaker 2: It was Wolf.

1:47:36 Speaker 20: So, and we did call just so you can just put the record straight.

1:47:40 Speaker 14: We did call Mike cause we owed him that. And we did call him and he just didn't answer.

1:47:45 Speaker 2: So, so you tried.

1:47:47 Speaker 11: Yeah.

1:47:48 Speaker 2: He had the same manager.

1:47:49 Speaker 37: Come on.

1:47:49 Speaker 38: You know, and I'm not angry at him.

1:47:52 Speaker 14: You know, I love Mike, but.

1:47:54 Speaker 10: You know, it was important for the band to, uh, he's back in the local.

1:47:57 Speaker 14: He was my drinking buddy.

1:47:59 Speaker 10: You know, the, the Ed and Dave with a, all right, here's what I think. So, well, first, what, what are people mad about? People are mad because people are claiming that Alex Van Halen is lying and and that he's lying to make himself and Eddie look better. Like, no, no, no, everyone everyone assumes that we pushed, we pushed Michael Anthony out of the band because Eddie wanted to play with his son in the band. But that's not true. We actually called Michael Anthony. We called him because we owed him that.

1:48:34 Speaker 10: So everyone's mad because they're saying, well, Alex is just saying that to make himself look better and to make Eddie look better. Now, you can see how it might be possible that a call was made. And that maybe there was just a breakdown in communication. Did anyone literally call Michael Anthony? Alex says they had the same manager. Did they call the manager and say, call Michael? And then just somehow communication broke down. That's very possible. But the thing that I think everyone is missing about this is, this is what I want to point out.

1:49:17 Speaker 10: Alex never explicitly said, no one else has noticed this apparently. I feel like I'm the only one who notices this. Alex never explicitly says in that clip that they called Michael Anthony about the tour because they wanted him on the tour. He never says that. It's almost his exact words. Let me back it up a little bit.

1:49:41 Speaker 38: I'm not angry at him.

1:49:46 Speaker 10: No, let me back it up a little more. Pay close attention to exactly what he says. Oh, wait, back it up a little more.

1:49:54 Speaker 14: Cause we owed him that. And we did call him and he just didn't.

1:49:57 Speaker 10: Cause we owed him that. Cause we owed him that. When I hear that, you know what I think? In other words, he's saying, cause we owed him a call because Michael Anthony has always said he found out with everyone else. When he saw the press conference, the press conference announcing the reunion tour with David Lee Roth and it's Wolfgang on stage. I think what Alex Van Halen was saying is, I don't think he was saying we called him to offer him the spot on the tour because we wanted him on the tour.

1:50:32 Speaker 10: When he says he owed him that, that's a key phrase. We owed him that. In other words, I think what he's saying is we owed him a call to let him know what was happening because we weren't just going to not tell him. Because that's pretty bad. That happened to me once. I mean, obviously not on that scale, but there was a band I was in who decided to do a reunion. I was the original bass player, and they just got a new bass player and didn't tell me. They apologized later. And I ended up back in that band later on anyway.

1:51:01 Speaker 10: It was the jinxed. And it was fine. It wasn't even a big deal. But they did kind of not bother to tell me. before publicly announcing the new bass player. That was kind of rude. But again, it was a long time ago, and who cares? But I think when he says we owed him that, because he says it very casually too, we owed him that. You know, I know I sound like I'm really nitpicking this, but if he had said more emphatically, we owed him that, Then I might think, okay, you owed him, you clearly believe you owed him something important if he said, we owed him that.

1:51:45 Speaker 10: Okay, then I might think, okay, so you owed him, so you're acknowledging that he was important to the band, so maybe you mean you owed him a chance to be in the band for the tour. But instead he just says it very dismissively, we called him, we owed him that. That sounds to me like he's saying, yeah, we owed him a call because, you know, he was in the band and, you know, we should just let him know, hey, dude, you're not going to be in the band on this tour. That's what I think everyone's missing.

1:52:10 Speaker 10: Everyone says, oh, Alex is lying. I think he's probably telling the truth. I think there probably was a call. And somehow communication just broke down and the message never got to Michael Anthony. But I think somebody probably did tell him to let him know, hey, there's going to be a press conference announcing a new tour. You're not included because you're not going to be on the tour. That's what I think he means when he just says, we owed him that.

1:52:33 Speaker 12: So.

1:52:35 Speaker 10: Doesn't make any of it okay, by the way. I do want to be clear about that. Even if my theory is right, doesn't make any of it okay. Michael Anthony should have been on that tour. He should have been still in the band. And the way they treated him is horrendous. Again, if you know anything about it, it's really bad. It's really bad. I remember a number of years ago, Eddie Van Halen during one of those periods where he was really on a tear about trashing Michael Anthony at every opportunity. He said that he claimed in an interview that he actually had to teach Michael Anthony how to play every single note of every song and that they would turn on a video camera so they could record the process so that Michael could study it to make sure that he really had the songs down, which...

1:53:19 Speaker 10: completely contradicted everything else that had ever been said about that and everyone knows everyone knows it was bs and then sammy hagar made a video uh you know really going at eddie van halen for for saying these things but anyway the van halen drama continues it's it's almost worse than it's ever well i can't say it's worse than it's ever been but um because the band doesn't exist anymore, but effectively. But yeah, anyway, I just wanted to point that out and say, I think that there's something in what Alex Van Halen says that everyone is either missing or misinterpreting.

1:53:55 Speaker 10: We are rapidly approaching the top of the hour. We've got to get to a break. Show some love to our... amazing sponsors. And then when we come back in the third hour, for those of you listening live on Saturday, we've got, uh, Brent Hajek, uh, from the band wooden overcoat. And I can't wait to talk to him. Cause I really liked this project a lot. I believe he's on the West coast or he might be in Seattle. I'm not sure exactly where he is or Portland. I'm not sure, but, uh, but he is in another time zone.

1:54:21 Speaker 10: I know that. Uh, so we're going to talk with Brent in just, uh, just a few minutes, but in the meantime, uh, Please, we want to show some love to our sponsors and advertisers here at WMNH 95.3 FM. So there is plenty more to come. Don't go away.

1:54:35 Speaker 2: WMNH, rip the knob off.

1:54:39 Speaker 10: Are you ready to make a change in your life? My name is Matt Connerton, and I'm a certified hypnotherapist. Hypnosis can help you change habits, overcome obstacles, and reach your goals. Sessions are available online or in person at at Birchwood Salon in Hooksett. And your initial consultation is always free. Visit mattconnerton.com. That's Matt, C-O-N-N-A-R-T-O-N.com to learn more or book your appointment. That's mattconnerton.com.

1:55:10 Speaker 28: Hey everyone, this is Rob Azevedo, host of Granite State of Mind, and I want to tell you about Pembroke City Limits and the historic Suncook Village. PCL is an award-winning bar, restaurant, and music venue where there's live music five days a week and twice on Saturdays. Everything from blues, country, folk, funk, and a whole lot of jazz. We have 12 craft beers on tap dedicated to local brewers in the area and some of the friendliest bartenders around.

1:55:32 Speaker 10: Please come visit.

1:55:33 Speaker 28: Pembroke City Limits at 134 Main Street, the historic Sunkook Village, only six miles outside of Manchester. Open Tuesdays to Wednesdays, 4 to 10. Thursdays to Sunday, 11 to 10. Pembroke City Limits, where it's all about the music.

1:55:47 Speaker 10: Looking for a flexible way to earn extra income? Xtrilly is now recruiting drivers in New Hampshire. Drive part-time or work around your own schedule, keep 75% of the gross fare after required fees, and get paid weekly. Ready to get started? Visit Xtrilly.com slash drive 953 and sign up to drive. That's X-T-R-I-L-L-I dot com slash drive 953.

1:56:19 Speaker 23: In times of crisis, you need a law firm that stands by your side. With over 40 years of experience, Craig & Gatsoulis is dedicated to fighting for your rights. As former state prosecutors, our attorneys have the knowledge and trial experience to provide an aggressive defense against any charge, from DUIs to homicides. If you've been injured, our compassionate team will assess your case and fight for the compensation you deserve. Serving all of New Hampshire, Craig and Getsoulis is here when you need us most.

1:56:47 Speaker 23: Visit craiggetsoulis.com for a free consultation. Craig and Getsoulis, your advocates, your allies.

1:56:53 Speaker 29: Business Cafe is the place to put a smile on your face.

1:56:57 Speaker 2: Judy and the.

1:56:57 Speaker 14: Crew will take care of.

1:56:58 Speaker 29: You, bring your appetite, and treat your taste buds right. Business Cafe is always a winning choice. Breakfast, lunch, or supper. Diz's Cafe at 860 Elm Street in downtown Manchester.

1:57:12 Speaker 2: Dine in, take out, or make a reservation.

1:57:14 Speaker 14: Call 603-606-2532. Eat, drink, and be happy. Diz's Cafe.

1:57:23 Speaker 30: We offer tailored on-site solutions. No unnecessary expenses here. Visit Groland.com or call Groland Computers at 603-645-0101. Your tech, your way. Trust Groland Computers.

1:57:54 Speaker 25: Bring your kitchen to life with Queen City Cabinetry. Located at 87 Elm Street in the historic Sunbeam Mall in Manchester. Open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 30 p.m and saturdays 10 a.m to 2 p.m they can be reached at 603-222-2007 or on the web at queen city cabinetry nh.com come see the possibilities queen city cabinetry another proud sponsor of wmnh.

1:58:31 Speaker 14: Nana's Kitchen and Pizzeria.

1:58:34 Speaker 16: From Nana's hands to your plate.

1:58:38 Speaker 31: Tradition, love, and taste that's great. Slow fermented dough. Flavors so true.

1:58:48 Speaker 16: Each bite a story made just for you.

1:58:52 Speaker 17: 603-232-9366.

1:58:52 Speaker 14: Nana's Kitchen and Pizzeria. 15 Dartmouth Drive, Auburn, New Hampshire.

1:59:17 Speaker 13: Seven times out of ten, we listened to our music at night. Thus spawned the title of This.

1:59:27 Speaker 1: Hour on WMNH is sponsored by CGI Business Solutions, located at 5 Dartmouth Drive in Auburn.

1:59:31 Speaker 4: They serve all your.

1:59:31 Speaker 33: Business needs, including employee benefits planning, corporate design and business administration, investments and wealth management, and customized business insurance solutions.

2:00:00 Speaker 14: Their phone number is 866-841-4600 or on the web at CGIBusinessSolutions.com.

2:00:11 Speaker 1: Behold the harmony of airwaves as you immerse yourself in the captivating frequencies of WMNHLP.

2:00:18 Speaker 2: The sonic heartbeat of Manchester.

2:00:20 Speaker 1: Transcending through the ether at 95.3 megahertz frequency modulation. Our transmissions emanate from the zenith of 1000 Elm Street. Venturing to the heart of our creative realm at 119 Canal Street.

2:00:32 Speaker 2: Where innovation and sound collide.

2:00:34 Speaker 1: We bear the imprimatur of Manchester Public Television Service in the venerable city of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA. Enrich your auditory journey with the depth of our licensed residents. Dispatch your missives to WMNH953 at gmail.com or traverse the virtual corridors of WMNHradio.org.

2:00:54 Speaker 2: Engage with our sonic vibrations.

2:00:56 Speaker 1: By communing with us through the digital channels your radio beckons. eager to enthrall you with its mesmerizing cadence and envelop you in a symphony of boundless auditory wonder.

2:01:10 Speaker 2: WMNH. Rip the knob off.

2:01:43 Speaker 17: Thank you.

2:02:07 Speaker 4: You're a sundae, I'm the cherry.

2:02:11 Speaker 7: We are left outside a melted pool.

2:02:15 Speaker 4: We are only.

2:02:16 Speaker 22: Things we don't need. It looks so good.

2:02:44 Speaker 7: You're just a cloud, I'm the breeze. We are sunburned by a burning sun. from a tree you're growing flowers and.

2:03:18 Speaker 4: Seeds It looks so good.

2:04:12 Speaker 7: You're the sundae, I'm the cherry. We are left outside a mountain pool. We are only things we don't be.

2:04:47 Speaker 7: You're flowing water and you. Oh, it looks so good.

2:05:13 Speaker 10: Oh, that's a nice sound. That is called Home. The band is Wooden Overcoat, and that's from the debut EP, Hello Sunbeam. And Brant Hijack should be on the phone line with us. Brant, are you there?

2:05:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm here.

2:05:30 Speaker 10: Welcome.

2:05:30 Speaker 21: Thanks for having me.

2:05:31 Speaker 10: Absolutely. No, it's wonderful to speak with you. I really, like I said, I love the sound of that. That is so cool, the track Home. Obviously, I listen to all four songs. It's a nice listen. Your debut, this is, of course, the debut EP, right, from Wooden Overcoat? This is your first release as a band?

2:05:50 Speaker 12: Yeah.

2:05:51 Speaker 14: Yes.

2:05:52 Speaker 21: I've been making music for longer than this, but this is kind of like the The first time I decided to make it a real thing, you know?

2:06:01 Speaker 10: Okay.

2:06:02 Speaker 7: Okay.

2:06:02 Speaker 4: And you are.

2:06:03 Speaker 21: Make a band and put a name on it.

2:06:05 Speaker 4: Yeah.

2:06:06 Speaker 11: Yeah.

2:06:06 Speaker 10: Outstanding. And you are in Portland, correct? Portland, Oregon?

2:06:11 Speaker 2: Yeah.

2:06:11 Speaker 7: Portland, Oregon.

2:06:12 Speaker 10: Very good. Oh, that's right. It's Oregon. I know I said Oregon. I've... I've had people tell me it's actually Oregon, but I can never quite get myself to say it that way. Um, so what was it that made you decide to finally, you know, because as you said, you've been making music for a long time. It sounds like, what was it that, uh, just made you decide to put wood and overcoat together and what, why this moment did you decide to do it?

2:06:35 Speaker 17: Yeah.

2:06:36 Speaker 21: Um, that's a, how do I, how do I answer that question? Um, I think part of it is just, um, kind of finally getting my stuff together to, like, actually know how to record on my own. It's one thing to be able to make songs, but it's another thing entirely to be able to, like, pick and choose and, like, hone the craft over time and figure out, like, is this a thing that I could put together and make some sense out of?

2:07:09 Speaker 14: So.

2:07:12 Speaker 21: Just kind of slowly amassing gear at home and just doing it in my basement for a while, I started to feel like I had something to do with it. I don't know. It just kind of made sense to record an album. And so that's what I was doing. Eventually, I just whittled it down to four songs. And I don't know. I just got a group together, and it kind of all fell into place.

2:07:38 Speaker 10: So in terms of the beginning of it, so it really started out as a solo project is what it sounds like. And then was it after you were done recording that you decided to put a band together? Or was that kind of always the goal from the beginning?

2:07:57 Speaker 21: I I wanted to play with people, you know, like the, the goal was to eventually try to do it. But, um, yeah, for this particular EP and project, it was like, I did it all myself, the solo venture. And, um, my friend Brian, who actually is from Portsmouth, uh, he's long, long longtime musician. Um, he came over and just listened to some of it and was like, Oh, I played drums with you. Um, he used to play with the Dan Moss, um, with Doug Tuttle out there.

2:08:29 Speaker 14: Okay.

2:08:30 Speaker 21: I don't know if you're familiar with them, but, um, yeah, Brian's just like an ACE. He's, he's so talented and, um, just, yeah, it was very encouraging. And it's like, yeah, you should do this. Um, so that's kind of what, what happened was like, it just naturally felt good and, easy to do, uh, with, you know, some people I know. And, um, now it's actually a band we're going to record and a new EP together.

2:08:56 Speaker 10: Oh, outstanding. Um, when you do the new one, will the goal be to kind of do something that's similar? I mean, obviously, uh, you know, it's going to sound different, right? Because it's, it's all of you instead of one of you, but, um, are you going to kind of continue in the same vein as hello sunbeam or, or maybe see kind of where it goes with everyone's input?

2:09:19 Speaker 21: It's in the same vein, for sure. Sonically, it'll probably sound kind of similar. But the songwriting and the way that we're generally approaching this sound is evolving, I think, in a good way. Some of the instrumentation and the way that we're kind of layering the guitars and stuff like that, I think, yeah, it's kind of taking a new shape.

2:09:47 Speaker 10: Okay.

2:09:48 Speaker 15: OK.

2:09:49 Speaker 10: In terms of the of the EP and the songs on the EP, did you struggle at all with when you're bringing people into the project and you're putting a band together? Was it was it hard for you to kind of let go of, you know, because obviously it's going to sound a little bit different, even if the musicians that you bring in can replicate in. pretty good detail what you've already recorded. Obviously, you know, inevitably it's going to sound a little bit different. Was it kind of hard to let go of that and say, hey, let's see how this sounds now with all of us?

2:10:23 Speaker 10: Or did that come to you kind of organically?

2:10:29 Speaker 21: I think it's okay for me to, like, it's easy for me to let people do what they want to do with the music.

2:10:35 Speaker 10: Yeah.

2:10:36 Speaker 21: As long as it sounds, you know, pretty close. I just want people to kind of feel like they're making it their own, you know? And I think what we did do, like say like when we play any of these songs live, um, I'm, I'm like actually like really happy with the, the result instead of it being like frustrating that it doesn't sound exactly like the record. It's maybe something cooler to me when we play live.

2:11:04 Speaker 10: Yeah.

2:11:05 Speaker 21: Um, so yeah, I don't know. It's, it's kind of a thing that I, I just feel grateful that people like are interested in doing it and want to be a part of it. So I kind of take it as it comes, you know, and, and work with, with the people where they're at.

2:11:22 Speaker 14: Sure.

2:11:22 Speaker 10: Um, the people who you brought into the band, are they all people that you'd known for a long time or did you, uh, was, was there anyone who was just completely new to you who maybe you just happened to meet online and, and, you know, and, and, and thought, you know, this person might work or, or, or were they all musicians that you'd known for a while?

2:11:41 Speaker 21: I've known Brian for like 13 years or something, you know, a long time. And then Dylan, bass player, also a long time. And then our guitar player, Mac, I've met him through other friends. Mac plays in this band called Nick Normal in town, and they're like a punk band. And he's a friend. I don't know him super, you know, haven't been friends for a really long time, but he

2:12:12 Speaker 21: definitely was like a comfortable arrangement where everybody's you know happy to hang out and we're all kind of on the same page so um yeah i don't think anybody is in the in the group that's like a total unknown quantity um but mac is the newest to the friend.

2:12:30 Speaker 10: Group okay okay um i read I'm not sure where this quote comes from now, but I have this in my notes, uh, that you said, quote, recording this EP almost ruined my life. And I hope it sounds like it. Is that an accurate, uh, is that an accurate quote from you?

2:12:49 Speaker 17: Yeah.

2:12:51 Speaker 10: Expand, expand on that. If you would. I was a.

2:12:54 Speaker 21: Little, I can be obsessive about things and I was just getting really into it. And I was, I was going through some stuff in life with my, uh, my, my mother had cancer and, um, I think maybe I was putting a lot of energy into recording to kind of distract myself.

2:13:15 Speaker 17: Right.

2:13:15 Speaker 21: And I was, um, with my ex girlfriend and we, we were breaking up basically. Um, but I didn't know it yet. Um, but we, we'd been together for nine years. And so, um, recording this stuff just kind of was like this, um, it was an escape and just generally felt like it was like part of maybe some of the conflict that I was bringing upon the relationship, you know, it was just me doing what I had to do to cope, but also compounding some issues by, by like disappearing and doing this.

2:13:58 Speaker 12: Sure.

2:13:58 Speaker 7: Sure.

2:13:59 Speaker 21: If that makes sense.

2:14:00 Speaker 2: Oh, it does.

2:14:01 Speaker 10: It absolutely does. And, you know, I think a lot of artists can relate to that. You know, when you become sort of obsessed with something artistically and you use it, you know, you do use it to cope, of course. I mean, that's the best. I think that's the best kind of therapy, right? When you use whatever it is that you're going through, if you're going through something negative, but you create something, you create art with it, whether it's music or a painting or whatever it is. that then not only does it help you cope, but potentially other people, you know, so other people who hear your music in this case, it might help them too.

2:14:36 Speaker 10: So it gives you an opportunity to not only help yourself, but to help other people indirectly, which I think makes it, you know, really the best kind of therapy any time that you can create. So it sounds like, you know, it may have almost ruined your life in a sense, but it also helped save you at the same time.

2:14:54 Speaker 30: Yeah.

2:14:54 Speaker 17: Yeah.

2:14:54 Speaker 12: No, I like that.

2:14:56 Speaker 21: That's part of my motivation to make anything, you know, like remembering when I was 14 at a concert and just feeling so blown away by what these people were doing on stage and, you know, listening to old records from bands I loved and how much it impacted me. And it doesn't have to be a 14 year old.

2:15:17 Speaker 14: It could be anybody.

2:15:18 Speaker 21: But I just I love the idea that I could be creating something that could one day like impact somebody how I was.

2:15:25 Speaker 7: You know?

2:15:25 Speaker 21: Um, and yeah, I guess in a way doing it while you're going through stuff, it is sort of this therapeutic exercise. Um, yeah, with, with this record, I, I mean, I obviously was kind of joking, but I kind of do think it sounds like that a little bit, like part of the part of it is a little bit, um, sad and, and maybe there's some darkness in there.

2:15:50 Speaker 13: Yeah.

2:15:50 Speaker 21: And, uh, I don't know, I guess, that line was like a funny little quip of the moment to like, to try to say something that I think captures the essence of it.

2:16:04 Speaker 10: Right.

2:16:05 Speaker 13: Right.

2:16:05 Speaker 10: Absolutely. And then, so what about the title? Hello sunbeam? Because it, it seems like that it might be because as you said, you know, there's a lot of, uh, sort of pain, you know, in these songs. I mean, so what, what, tell me the meaning of hello sunbeam, the, uh, EP title.

2:16:21 Speaker 17: Right.

2:16:22 Speaker 21: Um, it just kind of came to me in a way that I don't really know why or where from. It just, it just was the title one day. Um, I, I like to think about it as kind of a, like how people say that to someone when they're like, um, you know, like if you greet somebody like, Hey sunbeam or hello sunbeam, like it's kind of, it could be in my mind, like almost sarcastic, like, you know, Oh, Hey there sunbeam, you know, kind of not feeling well or whatever. And, um, yeah, I guess that's the way I thought about it.

2:16:59 Speaker 21: It was, it was almost like, um, somebody saying that to somebody who's a downer.

2:17:05 Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, when you were recording this, so you on the, uh, on the original EP recording, is that all you entirely? Do you play everything, every instrument?

2:17:22 Speaker 12: Yeah.

2:17:23 Speaker 10: I've always been jealous of people who can do that. So what did you start with? When you were learning to play, what was your first instrument?

2:17:33 Speaker 21: Oh, yeah. When I was about 11 years old, I started on drums.

2:17:37 Speaker 2: Okay.

2:17:38 Speaker 21: And I also was learning how to play guitar around that time, but it was just really old acoustic guitar my grandma gave me. So I was really more serious about drums, and I did that. in a more like serious capacity for a long time. I would play drums in people's bands. So I was always kind of like doing both things, you know, trying to learn how to like write songs and make music. I eventually started to take lessons when I was like 16 or whatever to like understand kind of like songwriting and stuff.

2:18:12 Speaker 11: Yeah.

2:18:13 Speaker 21: Um, but yeah, mostly it was drums and that was the thing I was serious about. And still to this day, we'll play drums with people in their bands.

2:18:21 Speaker 14: Okay.

2:18:22 Speaker 2: Okay.

2:18:23 Speaker 10: Very good. Um, did any of these songs, uh, kind of surprise you at all in terms of how they came out when you were recording them? Like, because obviously, you know, you have an idea for a song, you have a, uh, an idea in your mind what it's supposed to sound like. But I'm curious because again, it's not like, it's not like you had any input. Well, or actually maybe you did. I don't know if you were getting feedback from other people, but because you were doing this yourself and not doing it in a band format, it's not like you had other people in your band to tell you, well, I think this song should sound like this.

2:18:53 Speaker 10: I think this song is finished, et cetera. I mean, were there any surprises? Did you surprise yourself at all while you were recording the EP?

2:19:02 Speaker 18: Hmm.

2:19:04 Speaker 21: I think, um, yeah, there, there were definitely things that happened during it where I don't know why. Um, I don't know how some things happened. They just kind of like appeared and it would be like a thing I came up with. Um, you know, in hindsight, if I pour over the tracks, I sometimes I'm like, man, that's a really weird thing I did there. And how did I come up with that? Um, so, um, Yeah, not having input was weird. I would try to show people occasionally, but it would never feel genuine. It's hard to gauge people's reactions when they're maybe just trying to be nice or something.

2:19:49 Speaker 21: Part of being in a band is also similarly hard. If you want to bring something to the table, it's kind of hard to read. Is anybody into this? And I think at the end of the day, I've learned that you just have to like really believe that it's like something worthwhile. I don't even know if it's good or bad. Like, I don't, I don't think it's possible to really know if something's good or bad, you know, in that way, like as art. But I think that you have to be extremely tuned into like, is this thing something of substance to you that feels like you're proud of it and that you like really love it?

2:20:31 Speaker 10: Yeah. You said, too, that you had narrowed it down to these, obviously you narrowed it down to these four songs. Out of how many? I don't think you put a number on how many songs you had to choose from. And the songs that didn't make it onto the EP, did any of those get fully recorded so that maybe they could come out? Of course, now you've got the band, but maybe they'll be released in the future.

2:20:55 Speaker 21: Yeah, I have nine songs from that time.

2:21:00 Speaker 13: Oh, okay.

2:21:01 Speaker 21: It could have been released as an album, but it was just, um, they are done there. They all got fully recorded. Um, and the problem was, how do I package this stuff into something that feels like cohesive? Cause, cause there were nine disparate sounding songs to me. Um, well, I think one or two of the ones that I recorded are going to maybe be repurposed for this new band lineup. Um, I don't think I'm going to release them as is, but there is one song I'm thinking of in particular that could be something that we play that I think I'm just going to re-record.

2:21:43 Speaker 10: Yeah.

2:21:44 Speaker 21: And the problem was, like I said, kind of packaging in an order that sounds good and sequentially makes sense to me, but also the tone of the songs. These four just kind of felt like a unit together.

2:21:58 Speaker 10: Yeah.

2:22:00 Speaker 14: But also.

2:22:01 Speaker 21: if I were to record or release all nine, I started to realize like how, how big of a task that was. Once I started mixing them, I was like on a timeline, just like, let's get four done. And it was, um, you know, it was a heavy lift to, to do everything. So, um, yeah, it felt good. Um, I was happy that I chose to just do a four song EP.

2:22:25 Speaker 10: Okay.

2:22:25 Speaker 11: Okay.

2:22:27 Speaker 10: Also, too, in the credits, it says you see the phrase only humans made this art, which I presume refers to. And this is a subject that comes up a lot on the show, AI and how AI is impacting music, how people create music and so forth. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on that, because that's I don't know if that's the first time I've seen that. a phrase quite like that explicitly included in the credits of something that may not be, I'm not sure, but, but obviously, um, you felt driven to include that.

2:23:00 Speaker 10: So I'm curious about that.

2:23:03 Speaker 7: Yeah.

2:23:04 Speaker 21: Um, I just want it to be very, very clear that I would never, uh, like generate anything using artificial intelligence to make something that I think is, um, I don't know. It's like a sacred thing and it should be raw and it should be maybe flawed. Like the, the output from me recording in my basement, um, it, it might sound, you know, edited and processed and mixed and all that stuff. But like, um, at the end of the day, I want there to be signs of, of human life.

2:23:44 Speaker 7: Right.

2:23:45 Speaker 21: It should be, um, detectable. And, I don't know, I put it in the credits to just make it clear that if there is a time in the future, because there might be, where we no longer can tell that this definitely wasn't that. And it means something to me for many reasons. But that was, I guess, the first thought. It's just like, now that it's happening, this was earlier this year, and it was even a thing then. I just don't want there to be any confusion.

2:24:22 Speaker 10: Right.

2:24:23 Speaker 2: Right.

2:24:23 Speaker 10: No, I think that makes sense. That makes sense. I haven't asked you the obvious question yet. Where does the name come from, Wooden Overcoat?

2:24:31 Speaker 14: Oh, yeah.

2:24:32 Speaker 21: I was reading a book, actually, and this author was talking about a wooden overcoat, which is like, I guess, maybe it's an Americana thing. Old writers would talk about a coffin.

2:24:48 Speaker 10: Oh, yeah.

2:24:49 Speaker 21: Sometimes it was almost like slang, you know, like a euphemism for a coffin, like old, old grandpa put on the old wooden overcoat.

2:24:59 Speaker 10: Oh, okay.

2:25:00 Speaker 21: And, uh, it just stuck with me because I thought it was so cool and weird. And then I looked it up and nobody had taken it probably because it's really weird. Um, but I don't know. It just felt, felt perfect for me. I, I was like, this is a cool band name. I'm just going to use that. And, uh, yeah it's still like similar to other things I've talked about just like I want to I want to feel like the thing has meaning and like it feels like a thing I could love you know instead of how do I package my band with a cool name like how do I make people want to think we're cool it's more like if I'm going to put a name on something, I just have to like, love it.

2:25:44 Speaker 21: And it was this book I was reading with just like the author was just like talking about a wooden overcoat like a few times. And I was just falling in love with this phrase.

2:25:53 Speaker 10: Yeah, no, I like it. Yeah. I think that's cool. And, and you know, the good thing too about having an odd kind of an odd name that you wouldn't necessarily expect is you're a lot less likely to run into a situation where you find out somebody else already has it or has already been using it for something. So, no, I definitely dig the name. Absolutely.

2:26:15 Speaker 13: Absolutely.

2:26:15 Speaker 21: Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it. It's just, like, distinguishing yourself among so many other bands. Like, friends of mine actually from Philly, Mac was on tour with them. They're called Eraser, and they're.

2:26:29 Speaker 14: Great.

2:26:31 Speaker 21: But there's like 10 bands called Eraser.

2:26:34 Speaker 10: Oh, of course. Yeah, as soon as you said Eraser, you probably heard me groan. I was like, oh, yeah. Well, I'll tell you just a quick anecdote. Years and years ago, I ran into a friend of mine who's actually... I don't want to embarrass him, but he's been on the show, too, with a new band. But way back then... I ran into him after we had graduated high school. I ran into him, and he's a musician, and he was telling me about this new band that he was in. And I said, oh, what's the name of the band?

2:27:05 Speaker 10: And he says, Intuition. And I was too polite to say it, but in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, my God, are you kidding me? How many bands are probably already using that name, Intuition? And then, swear to God, I ran into him again a few months later, like six months later. And I said, oh, how's the band? And he said, well, good, but we had to change our name. And I'm old enough that this is kind of not pre-internet, but pre-being able to just go online and Google who already has this name. But he goes, we got a cease and desist letter from somebody's lawyer who says we can't use that name because they're already using it for something.

2:27:47 Speaker 10: And I'm like, oh.

2:27:49 Speaker 1: Yeah.

2:27:50 Speaker 10: And in my mind, I'm thinking, geez, I shouldn't have been too polite to say it when I ran into him the first time. I should have just said it because I would have been right. But it's like, oh, come on, man. Intuition, really? But yeah, as soon as you said Eraser, I knew where that story was headed.

2:28:04 Speaker 17: Yeah, totally.

2:28:06 Speaker 21: I didn't want to run into anything like that. But more than anything, what I notice happens nowadays, nobody has lawyers. It's a lot of bands just like, independently making stuff but it's just that you'll get um mixed up with them in the different feeds of you know streaming platforms and stuff like when you try to look up that band or any of them like most bands that have a catchy name you'll see if you like find them on apple music or whatever it'll just be like three different bands all lumped into one.

2:28:42 Speaker 10: Name Yeah, it happens on Spotify, too. I don't know, I was thinking a little.

2:28:46 Speaker 21: Bit about that, thinking ahead of, like, how do I just, like, make sure that you.

2:28:50 Speaker 12: Can find me?

2:28:51 Speaker 10: No, that's very smart. Very, very smart, yeah. Absolutely. Unfortunately, some people have to learn that the hard way, but no, very, very smart, very forward-thinking. Brant, this has been wonderful. The time goes quickly. We'll start to wrap up, but I do want to... I do want to play one more song to close out the segment, but I'm going to let you pick it. What should we play from the Hello, Sun BBP to close out?

2:29:23 Speaker 21: Oh, that's a tough question.

2:29:25 Speaker 10: Put me on the spot.

2:29:28 Speaker 21: Yeah, let's do, I don't know, I think maybe I Knew You Would is probably.

2:29:36 Speaker 10: I Knew You Would, okay.

2:29:39 Speaker 14: That's the right one.

2:29:40 Speaker 10: Okay, okay. Anything we should know about it before we play it?

2:29:45 Speaker 21: Yeah, I don't think so.

2:29:47 Speaker 10: Okay. Well, very good.

2:29:49 Speaker 21: Thanks for having me on. This has been wonderful.

2:29:51 Speaker 10: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And, Brant, one other thing before we let you go. Where is the best place for people to go online to keep up with everything that you're doing, everything that Wooden Overcoat is up to, especially, too, because obviously you're going to be releasing more music in the future. So where should people go online to keep up with you?

2:30:10 Speaker 12: Usually I just.

2:30:10 Speaker 21: Post updates on Instagram, you know, for doing anything worthwhile, it'll be on there. And then I, um, you know, I think band camp, if you want to check out what we've done and, uh, be able to support us by giving us a few dollars, um, by the music on there. Um, and, um, I'm also trying to create a website just to like have as a central place for everything. Um, so that we don't have to use Instagram, um, But it's just woodenovercoat.com. So that's pretty much it.

2:30:46 Speaker 10: Outstanding. Brant, am I saying your last name? I'm just going to ask you, how do you say your last name?

2:30:53 Speaker 21: It's Hayek.

2:30:54 Speaker 10: Oh, I was way off. Hayek?

2:30:56 Speaker 14: It's okay.

2:30:57 Speaker 13: Okay.

2:30:59 Speaker 21: Most people pronounce it that way.

2:31:00 Speaker 10: Okay. Brandt Hayek. Okay. Well, very good. I'm glad I asked.

2:31:04 Speaker 13: All right.

2:31:05 Speaker 10: Well, excellent, Brandt. Thank you so much. We will definitely do this again in the future, of course, as you're releasing new music. We'd love to have you back on. Yeah, I'd love to. Absolutely. I really like Wooden Overcoat. And thank you so much for joining us today, and we'll talk to you again soon, I'm sure.

2:31:20 Speaker 21: Yeah, thanks for having me, Matt.

2:31:21 Speaker 14: Thank you.

2:31:21 Speaker 10: You got it, Brandt. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, that is Brant Hayek. Now I know how to say his last name from the band Wooden Overcoat. And we're going to give this a listen. This is another great song. Again, check out the whole EP. It's on Bandcamp. It's called Hello, Sunbeam. It's only four songs, so it's not a big time investment, but I think you'll be glad that you gave it a listen. But let's give this a spin. This is called I Knew You Would, and the band is Wooden Overcoat.

2:31:57 Speaker 7: Day by day a new one All in flame a new could All by myself in a black sea mountain made of water.

2:32:40 Speaker 4: I'm trapped in.

2:32:44 Speaker 7: A haze that felt so good Caught in the road Pulling down to.

2:32:51 Speaker 4: The bottom of the blood.

2:33:11 Speaker 7: To the bottom of our.

2:33:13 Speaker 4: Love Thank you.

2:34:24 Speaker 7: We'll see you next time. God in my mouth Pulling down to the bottom of the cloud guitar solo.

2:35:43 Speaker 10: A question for my listeners. What would you change about your life if you knew that you could? Maybe you want to feel more confident, reduce stress, overcome a fear or a phobia, change an unwanted habit, or finally get past something that's been holding you back I'm Matt Connerton, radio host and certified hypnotherapist, and I help people use the power of hypnosis to create meaningful, positive change. I offer private sessions online and in person, and your initial consultation is completely free.

2:36:18 Speaker 10: Find out if hypnosis is right for you. Visit my website today, mattconnerton.com. That's mattconnerton.com.

2:36:26 Speaker 35: When Matzo wakes up in the morning, he gets into the shower, and to the top of his lungs, he sings, I'm.

2:36:37 Speaker 7: The man.

2:36:38 Speaker 17: I do what I.

2:36:41 Speaker 2: Want because I can.

2:36:43 Speaker 20: All right, back to the radio show now.

2:36:45 Speaker 38: All the best, Jerry.

2:36:47 Speaker 10: Thanks, Jerry. Hey, everybody, welcome back. It is Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from the studios of WMNH 95.3 FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. Of course, you can stream the show from anywhere. Go to my website, mattconnerton.com. Well, you can go there, or you can go to our even newer website, mattconnertonunleashed.com for all of your live streaming options, social media links, contact info, show archives, et cetera, et cetera. If you are listening live today is a Saturday, October 24, 2026.

2:37:21 Speaker 10: So nice to have you all with me. Uh, we've got a little bit of time left. I did see, uh, some interesting music industry news. Boy, somebody is always in trouble for something, aren't they? Uh, this game is a bit of a shock, uh, music business worldwide.com. I'll, I'll, I'll explain the part. Part of this is not shocking at all, but I'll, I'll explain. Uh, Former Eminem employee pleads guilty to selling unreleased tracks that were later accessed 8 million plus times on streaming platforms. Here's what's shocking and not shocking about that headline, and then we'll get into the story.

2:38:01 Speaker 10: By the way, I did not pre-read this, so I will be learning and surprised, I'm sure, with all of you. But the not surprising part is the former Eminem employee pleads guilty to selling unreleased tracks. It's a story as old almost as the music industry itself, probably almost, but where, you know, bootlegs, everyone... Everyone knows what bootlegs are. It's when you get a recording of something that was not officially released. And I don't know how common... Well, let me put it this way. I'm sure it's not nearly as common now in the digital age, but...

2:38:41 Speaker 10: I'm sure that people do still circulate bootlegs on cassettes and CDs and probably not so much cassettes, but maybe cassettes, definitely CDs, you know, things still, uh, people still, you know, circulate those. I'm sure. Uh, but yeah, The part that is consistent here with present day is it's usually someone on the inside. If something leaks early, if an artist has recorded something that's meant to remain unreleased or it's not supposed to be released yet, but it leaks, it usually leaks because someone who works for them or maybe someone who is either on the team of the artist or someone who works for the record label who maybe wants to sabotage something for whatever reason.

2:39:22 Speaker 10: You know, it's always an inside job. It's not like somebody somehow from the outside breaks in and steal something.

2:39:28 Speaker 1: Right.

2:39:29 Speaker 10: Uh, when it comes to music, it's always an inside job. Um, that part is not a surprise that is consistent with how this works. This is obviously a form of bootlegging. What surprised me about it when I saw this headline was the 8 million plus times that this has been streamed. Uh, look, I mean, you know, bootlegs popular bootlegs that circulate on the market again if it's a you know to be old school about it if it's a cd you know there's not eight million copies of that cd floating around right but um my god uh And I didn't know about this until today.

2:40:05 Speaker 10: So it says here, and again, this is from musicbusinessworldwide.com, which is one of my favorite websites to get music industry news. It says, a former employee of Eminem has pleaded guilty to a criminal copyright charge over the sale of the rapper's unreleased music. Joseph Strange, 48, of Holly, Michigan, sold 10 or more audio files of the music to buyers online for approximately $ 50, 000, according to court documents cited by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Justice Department announced the plea on Thursday, October 22nd, in a statement.

2:40:42 Speaker 10: We won't get into the whole statement, but it says the tracks later ended up on public streaming platforms without Eminem's permission or prior knowledge. Prosecutors say the infringing files they identified have been accessed more than 8 billion times as of November 2025, citing data from several streaming services. The Justice Department estimates the infringement amount at $ 750, 000 or more. So three quarters of a million dollars. This is at least 15 times the approximately $ 50, 000 Strange received from the sales.

2:41:26 Speaker 10: Strange entered the plea on Thursday in federal court in Detroit in the Eastern District of Michigan.

2:41:36 Speaker 10: According to A. Tyson Duva, the Assistant Attorney General, quote, Joseph Strange abused a position of trust to unlawfully copy and sell unreleased music belonging to Eminem, profiting from works that were not yet authorized for public distribution. His conduct undermined both legal and artistic rights. The criminal division remains committed to protecting intellectual property, holding accountable those who seek to profit from theft of creative content, and working with our law enforcement partners to deter and disrupt these crimes, unquote.

2:42:12 Speaker 10: Strange worked for Eminem, whose legal name is Marshall Mathers, from approximately 2007 until 2021, according to the court documents. He was based at the studio Eminem used... in Ferndale, Michigan. There, Strange helped set up and run the computer system that held the rapper's recordings. Oh, so he knew how to get access, obviously. It says he also had access to password-protected hard drives containing Eminem's works in progress, which were not yet meant for release to the public. At some point, Strange copied 10 or more audio files from those drives without authority.

2:42:57 Speaker 10: Um, this might be, again, there's more and we'll, we'll go through the rest of it, but this might be a good time to remind people to, you know, everything that you do leaves a digital footprint. Um, so I guess what I'm saying is if you're working with an artist and you're going to, and you're thinking about stealing a bunch of their files, you know, Hey, if you can get $ 50, 000 for them, I don't blame you necessarily for being tempted, but look, everything you do leaves a digital footprint. It's really hard to get away with anything anymore.

2:43:34 Speaker 10: Uh, just don't do it. There you go. That's my lecture. Um, It says here, between July and August 2024, he sold and sent the files to buyers over the Internet without Eminem's knowledge or authorization. Now, that's an even clearer example of how, look, how does anybody think they can get away with anything like this?

2:43:56 Speaker 11: How?

2:43:57 Speaker 10: How are you not going to get, like, everything you do online leaves a digital record. It's not, you know, the investigators... looking into this, probably didn't have a lot of trouble putting all this together and assembling the evidence here.

2:44:17 Speaker 14: You know?

2:44:20 Speaker 10: How does anyone think they're going to get away with this? How many times on this show have we found stories like this where someone did something dirty like this and somehow thought they were going to get away with it? It's crazy. It's crazy. It says here. Yeah, between, that's worth rereading, between July and August of 24, he sold and sent the files to buyers over the internet.

2:44:49 Speaker 10: The Justice Department's, by the way, look, even like, I'd be curious to know what he used. Did he just use PayPal or something? I mean, there's going to be a record of this. Anyway, the Justice Department says that, quote, while no commercial release of the music or material within these files was imminent or even certain, professional efforts had been made to prepare some of the music for possible commercial release, in some cases including studio mastering, unquote. Strange Face is a maximum sentence of five years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on January 27, 2027.

2:45:29 Speaker 10: A federal judge will set the sentence after considering the U.S. sentencing guidelines and other factors set in law. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the recommended penalty in criminal copyright cases depends heavily on the estimated value of the infringement. The guidelines also raise the offense level when an infringed work was being prepared for commercial distribution. Sorry, I had to take a sip of my water. It's very, very dry in here. My throat's getting dry. I need another gulp of water here.

2:46:07 Speaker 10: Forgive me. It says here, Jennifer Runyon, who works for the FBI, said, quote, Today's guilty plea reinforces a simple principle. Accountability follows those who compromise the integrity of another person's creative labor. Detroit has always been a city where creativity thrives. And that's where Motown came from. And no one has the right to steal or profit from another artist's work without their permission. Today's guilty plea reinforces a simple principle. Accountability follows those who compromise the integrity of another person's creative labor.

2:46:51 Speaker 10: We also appreciate the cooperation of Mathers Music Studio throughout the investigation. Protecting intellectual property means protecting the time, talent, and livelihoods behind it, and we will continue to treat these violations with the seriousness they deserve, unquote. So that was Jennifer Runyon, special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit field office. It says here, Strange was first charged in March of 2025 in a criminal complaint that also accused him of transporting stolen goods across state lines.

2:47:23 Speaker 10: At that time, prosecutors said the copyright charge carried a fine. of up to $ 250, 000 while the stolen goods charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. In exchange for Strange's plea, prosecutors agreed to drop the stolen goods charge, the Detroit News reported. According to the complaint, staff at Eminem's Ferndale studio contacted the FBI on or about January 16, 2025, after discovering his unreleased music online. I know, I keep going back to it, but it's like, how does anyone think they're going to get away with this?

2:48:00 Speaker 10: It says the studio employees recognize an image of a list of the unreleased tracks being offered for sale online as one taken directly from a hard drive at the Ferndale studio. The FBI then located several people who had bought the music, and they identified Strange as the seller. The complaint stated that more than 25 songs created by Eminem between 1999 and 2018 had been played or distributed online without his or his label's consent, NBC News reported at the time. Eminem's spokesperson, Dennis Dennehy, said in March 2025 that the rapper's team was very appreciative of the FBI's investigation.

2:48:50 Speaker 10: Dennehy said, quote, The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem's artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated, let alone the enormous financial losses incurred By the many creators and collaborators that deserve protection for their decades of work, we will continue to take any and all steps necessary to protect Eminem's art and will stop at nothing to do so, unquote. When the plea deal was reported in September, Dennehy said it was satisfying to see Strange held accountable, adding that, quote, Strange's attorney, Wade Fink, described the charges as untested allegations and comments to the Associated Press when they were filed.

2:49:36 Speaker 10: After the plea... Fink said in a statement that his client had taken accountability for his actions and was remorseful over what had happened to his family, but that the case was a, quote, far more complicated and nuanced matter than a man just unabashedly stealing, unquote. Well, that's curious. I'd be very interested to know how it was more complicated than that. He also argued that commentary on the case from the Justice Department and others did not reflect the facts. Binks said, quote, again, this is the lawyer for Strange.

2:50:13 Speaker 10: He said, quote, the scope and character of the conduct are much different than what is being represented. Joe Strange is a good man whose children have suffered greatly in all of this. The hyperbolic commentary from the Justice Department and others bear little resemblance to the actual facts in the case. This is a much more complicated and nuanced matter than it is being made to seem. Nevertheless, my client has taken accountability for what he has done, has tremendous remorse for what has happened to his family, and has great faith, as I do, in the judges of our district to see this case for what it is, unquote.

2:50:47 Speaker 10: I don't know. I mean, it's the dude's lawyer. He's saying what he needs to say, but how else could you? I will be very interested. We'll have to watch this case carefully going forward. I will be very curious to see how they spin this, how the defense spin this as being nuanced and complicated, when to me it seems like a pretty clear case of somebody stealing just outright theft. I mean, I.

2:51:16 Speaker 10: Again, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but the guy did plead guilty. It says here, Dennessy told Music Business Worldwide that Eminem's team had no comment beyond the statements that it had already made. The strange case is one of the several recent legal actions over leaks of unreleased music. In July, see how common this is? In July, Ariana Grande sued unnamed hackers who she alleges stole unreleased songs, footage, and photographs from people in her professional circle and sold the material online.

2:51:48 Speaker 10: Grande's complaint claims that in 2023 alone, 45 unreleased songs.

2:51:53 Speaker 10: Were hacked, stolen, and leaked by defendants. In August, a Los Angeles judge cleared Grande to subpoena platforms and payment services, including Instagram, TikTok, and PayPal, to identify those responsible. In 2022, a UK hacker named Adrian Kwiatkowski I may have said that correctly, was jailed for 18 months for hacking artists' cloud accounts and selling unreleased music by acts including Ed Sheeran and Lil Uzi Vert for cryptocurrency. Police found 1,263 unreleased songs by 89 artists on a hard drive seized from him.

2:52:42 Speaker 10: Unlike those cases, the music in this case was taken by a former member of Eminem's own studio staff rather than by outside hackers. Okay, I need to correct myself on something. I was wrong about something because I said... At the beginning of this, I said that, you know, with this stuff, this is a form of bootlegging, effectively, even though the article doesn't use that term. And maybe we just don't call it that anymore broadly anyway because we are in the digital age, so to speak. And so stealing and sharing or selling these files is much more common than, again, the old school way of doing it.

2:53:25 Speaker 10: when CDs would circulate of bootlegs. But the thing I have to correct myself on is I said it's almost always an inside job. I was wrong about that. Clearly I was wrong about that because this article is presenting that, no, sometimes it can be an inside job, but actually it very often is an outside job.

2:53:42 Speaker 20: It's hackers.

2:53:43 Speaker 10: And I didn't really take that into account. Now, when I said... when I said what I said earlier about it, usually being an inside job, that probably is still valid in the context of, if you think about the old school way of doing it, you know, when things would, would somehow leak out of a recording studio and then a CD or a cassette appears on the market of something that's not yet released. Obviously that would be an inside job, but for something like this, yeah, I was wrong about that. I need to correct myself.

2:54:12 Speaker 10: It, it probably is more often not an inside job. It's hackers. Um, How those hackers find their way in? They might have somebody on the inside who's working with them, a disgruntled employee or somebody who's just in a tough financial spot. But it sounds like, you know, I was wrong about that. It's not necessarily always an inside job. One more thing. It says here in a separate federal case. Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison on October 6th over a streaming fraud scheme that prosecutors say brought him more than $ 8 million in royalties.

2:54:47 Speaker 10: That was the guy. We talked about that on the show, too. That was the guy who created all these various AI artists, put them all on Spotify, and then created all these bots... to go and stream all this music and rack up those royalty numbers. And he was conspiring with other people to do it. But that's the guy. Because I remember that. $ 8 million in royalties. That's the guy. Imagine how many different fake artists he had to create and then all these bots he had to create. And this went on for years.

2:55:26 Speaker 10: This was a project that went on for years. Because that sounds time-consuming, does it not? But there you go. So that'll do it. We're just about out of time, my friends. So thank you all for listening today, and thank you to everyone who participated in the show today. Of course, it was great to see my old friend Nick Pino from Last Chance Booking earlier in the show, and I really enjoyed in the first hour also talking to Richard McMahon from the Bring Your Own Hammer project, and thank you again to Brant Hayek, now that I know how to say his last name, I think I'm getting it right now, from Wooden Overcoat, such a great project.

2:56:01 Speaker 10: So thank you to everyone who joined us. Thank you to everyone who listened. Thank you to everyone in the chat room. Sorry I didn't get to acknowledging all of you. And if you missed any part of today's show, it will be up in just a little bit at wmnhradio.org. Also at my website, mattconnerton.com and mattconnertonunleashed.com. And on your podcast, Platform of Choice, et cetera, et cetera. But we are going to go ahead, and I think I'm going to play. I'm going to play one more song from Wooden Overcoat.

2:56:28 Speaker 10: Again, the EP is called Hello, Sunbeam. Make sure you check it out. But let's end the show with this. We didn't play this one yet. This is called Heaven Right Now. And again, this is from Wooden Overcoat. The EP is called Hello, Sunbeam. And that's it for us for now. We'll talk to you all a little bit later. Bye, everybody.

2:57:06 Speaker 7: Thank you. We are meant to be Don't want anyone.

2:57:16 Speaker 4: To see.

2:57:45 Speaker 3: Things that make us right.

2:58:23 Speaker 17: Thank you.

2:58:58 Speaker 7: We'll see you next time.

2:59:29 Speaker 1: You are listening to WMNHLP 95.3 FM, broadcasting from the top of 1000 Elm Street. Our studios are located at 119 Canal Street and licensed to Manchester Public Television Service in Manchester, New Hampshire.

2:59:47 Speaker 33: Contact us by email at WMNH953 at gmail.com or through our website at WMNHradio.org.