00:04 - Aaron (Host)
Wow, we did it. We did it. Everybody take a breath. It's nice and chill in here. Hey, what's up everybody? What's going on? We're here with Chris W Howland of Hetty Wax. Fiends Say what's up, Chris. Hello everybody, chris man what's going? On. You got a lot of stuff on your plate.
00:24 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, you do. Yeah, you know, I'm out here on a little business and pleasure trip.
00:31 - Mel (Host)
Welcome to Portland.
00:32 - Chris (Guest)
Thank you. Thank you, Huge fan of the town. You know it's kind of my home away from home.
00:42 - Aaron (Host)
Right on, yeah, yeah.
00:49 - Mel (Host)
Isn't that? For a lot of people, though, like I feel like Denver and Portland are so closely connected, they like either if you've lived in Portland, you lived in Denver.
00:54 - Aaron (Host)
Well, a lot of people like that. Yes, yes, like I misunderstood you know it.
01:00 - Mel (Host)
There's just that like a common thread.
01:03 - Chris (Guest)
There they're the same towns with different weathers. True. A very progressive bubble accepting they're accepting communities, and then just this art and music.
01:19 - Mel (Host)
Yeah, the music man.
01:20 - Chris (Guest)
Both of us, these towns, have it figured out.
01:22 - Aaron (Host)
Get up on your money. Yeah, there you go. Oh, you're good. I know for like for us, when we go to denver and like last year we did a thing at ophelia's and and we go every year for the dicks run at fish and all that. It's one of the only towns that we go to. We travel to that. I'm like I could live, live here I could
01:43 - Apple (Host)
live in.
01:43 - Aaron (Host)
Denver it's cool.
01:44 - Apple (Host)
We actually thought about it before moving to Portland. When we moved out of Vegas it was like Denver or well, colorado or Seattle, and then it ended up being Portland.
01:55 - Mel (Host)
No, we can't live too far from my grandson.
01:57 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, I had a short list of places and it was like NOLA.
02:03 - Mel (Host)
Okay.
02:05 - Chris (Guest)
But that would have just been a disaster.
02:09 - Mel (Host)
We all need to know our limits right.
02:11 - Chris (Guest)
San Francisco, which was, you know, prohibitively expensive.
02:15 - Aaron (Host)
Expensive. Yeah, seattle as it is now. Yeah, so, chris, tell me about, like, the idea of starting Heady Wax Fiends? Well, wait, let me take, take that back, don't do that yeah what is it for people that don't know?
02:28 - Chris (Guest)
so heady wax fiends, is the community? First, um coming out, covid, uh, I'd taken a really long social media break, um, and I needed it. I needed, I needed that community back because I wasn't doing what I do for fulfillment. So I wanted to start a music appreciation group, first and foremost, and a place where there's no gatekeeping at all.
03:00 - Aaron (Host)
So anybody can join.
03:03 - Chris (Guest)
I love that people are in there and engaged that don't own turntables or collect records. That's cool, that's super cool. My whole life kind of is I've gotten into Like Obsessive band Fan bases or vinyl records. There's a lot of attitudes and there's a lot of gatekeeping. There's kind of Bullshit hierarchy. Fan bases or vinyl records there's a lot of attitudes and there's a lot of gatekeeping. Right, there's kind of bullshit hierarchy.
03:29 - Aaron (Host)
Always.
03:30 - Chris (Guest)
So our core tenants is that everybody's exactly the same Right, and we have some rules. Rule number one don't be a dick.
03:43 - Mel (Host)
Oh my gosh, that's our number one rule. Rule number two don't be a dick.
03:44 - Chris (Guest)
oh my gosh, that's our number one rule rule number two don't shit on anybody's appreciation oh, that's dope and rule number three is no unsolicited gear advice right okay, dude, you should be using this, yeah, yeah yeah, um, the our members with a Crosley suitcase player and like three Taylor Swift records Are as important to me as people with ten figure rigs, you know systems we call rigs. And ten thousand records.
04:21 - Mel (Host)
Thank you for doing that Just on behalf of everybody. Truly, yeah, and it was hard For a while, it was Um, so thank you for doing that Just on behalf of everybody.
04:25 - Chris (Guest)
Truly, yeah, and it was hard for a while it was, it was tough. You had to meet, you had to to regulate we did and, um, you know, we, we were, uh, all friends at this at the start, of friends, of friends, right, and it's grown to 7,500 people, Holy shit, yeah, and it's self to 7,500 people. Holy shit, yeah, and it's self-polices now, but there is zero tolerance for being that guy.
04:55 - Aaron (Host)
Don't be a dick man. Yeah, yeah, I think rule number one actually covers rule number two and three.
05:01 - Mel (Host)
Yes, it does.
05:02 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, be fucking nice. And then, um, about a year in, I came to the realization that we had a member who was sight disabled and was using a reading program to read the group to crawl the site yeah and so artists and title titles required on every post, and I'm also progressively having a harder time reading album covers on my cell phone. So it's about inclusivity. That's the most important part of it.
05:36 - Aaron (Host)
Wow, okay, I understand the desire of yours to foster community, because that's what no simple road is doing, but what was it that made you feel that way about the membership, about like it needs to be inclusive to the guy with the crossley suitcase thing and the guy with the ten thousand dollar rig, because you could have trauma of?
06:02 - Chris (Guest)
going through it myself in other places.
06:04 - Aaron (Host)
You know, what I mean.
06:06 - Chris (Guest)
They're like oh, you didn't see real fish, you know yeah you guys know what I'm talking about.
06:11 - Aaron (Host)
Yes, I know exactly, or like you didn't see, jerry.
06:14 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, or like you call that, a turntable. You know what I mean. I didn't want anybody who had the potential to be incredible to not try because they didn't have a place. That's so cool.
06:36 - Mel (Host)
To evolve into being that person. Yeah, because you kind of get bullied might be a strong word, but you kind of get that. Yeah you get pushed into not saying something or not exploring something.
06:46 - Aaron (Host)
Also. You get fucked with enough. You either leave or you feel like you're not a part of.
06:52 - Chris (Guest)
Or you become the person that is.
06:54 - Mel (Host)
That's very true, that's true.
06:56 - Chris (Guest)
And I was very guilty of that for a while in social media, the suicide of Jeff Austin um, and then I didn't think anybody was reading it like why would John Bell care what I think about widespread?
07:14 - Apple (Host)
panic or why you know?
07:15 - Chris (Guest)
yeah, and then, um, I was like I'm never doing this again. I don't love everything. Who cares? Yeah, I have so much to talk about, about what I love, and that was the deal. Like Blake, my really good friend, blake, from the get down.
07:33 - Mel (Host)
Shout out Blake.
07:35 - Apple (Host)
We all are. Yeah, we all love the get down, yeah.
07:38 - Chris (Guest)
We were having an issue for a while like getting the buy-in, and Blake was like, if Chris can heart react. Every radio head post in this group. You cannot talk shit about things that you don't like, right? Um, so I guess I kind of just outed myself there, but um I have gotten the most from fulfillment, from people being like I didn't know I could be like this and I've seen some of my troll ass friends buy in and then you start to see it in other parts of their lives yeah yeah, and the thing about it is it's so easy to be that guy on facebook.
08:22
I don't have to look you in the eye and be like you don't know anything about me. You put it into this old adage like you used to get punched in the face for talking to people like that. This anonymous kind of thing of Facebook. The community is everything. I married my wife and then I created Hedy Wax. So this is your kid. That's it. Yeah, that's your kid, yeah.
08:54 - Aaron (Host)
And you said that she is an integral part.
08:57 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. So big shout out to Chelsea and my partner, eric Myers, his wife Jesse. They've made sacrifices that nobody sees and the support that nobody sees, because even though we have this really engaged, rabid fan base, there's a lot of insecurities that will come in and pressure insecurities that'll come in and and pressure. It's like really frightening sometimes to you know, like push something that nobody knows about. It's not already like kind of an accepted thing. Yeah, so I tell people all the time like she is, uh, she's heady wax fiends. Member 0002.
09:45
If I'm 0001, she's 0002, and behind every great man is a much better woman and behind every okay, man is a even better woman yeah yeah, and she's my biggest fan, she's my biggest supporter. She doesn't let me dwell on the misses or the losses, just constant reminder of like you just did this thing that is incredible, yeah, yeah. So kind of out of this Facebook group there became this idea of like a subscription-based record club okay and it was all a shout to david johnson, I know you're gonna hear this.
10:32
He he said uh, what, what club should I join? And I offhandedly said send me 40 bucks a month and I'll ship you record. That was january 2022 and um, we shipped our first release in february 2022 of 200 albums. What?
10:49
was the first release so kendra morris nine lives, uh, off the coal mine label, um, out of ohio, very soulful, funky, she would like she would fit on a bill with the late great Sharon Jones, and that label was already very popular in our community, right. And so at the beginning it was like anything we can get right. And then we were like we have to add some value to this. So we did, uh, we borrowed kind of the Japanese OBI, right, which is this, like you know, artwork and information thing.
11:38 - Mel (Host)
I love that, by the way, so much I really love that and those first releases we got.
11:44 - Chris (Guest)
We were writing like kind of info cards, right, um, and we would get them autographed. So that was our first release. Second release I reached out to the buddies in the kitchen dwellers and they're like, yeah, and that was the one where I was like I'm going to be able to do this Right.
12:03 - Aaron (Host)
Like holy shit, this is my life right now who I'm gonna be able to do this right.
12:07 - Chris (Guest)
Like holy shit, this is my life right now. That was the release, and then our third record was um, a band out of new orleans called naughty professor. Okay yeah, and it was just stuff we could get, and that first year we did buy monthly releases. Blake found a record at Mississippi Records here in Portland by a an old British funk band called Ultra Funk.
12:35
The name of the album is Meat Heat and the cover's even better than the name so we're like well, we gotta reach out and see if we can figure out how to license this thing and make it work.
12:52
It was so easy and that was our first exclusive color, so the basis of our group is exclusive variants, right? So, like we like, this polyrhythmics release was a color you could only get through us and since then that's been the thing, right, that's been the thing. And and we've. We finished our first year with a band from marriott, ohio, and Oyo's banjo player is a gentleman named Bobby Robbins Stock from Just a Jar Printing who does a ton of show prints, and he designed our OBIs for us. He did bad example, you didn't get the print.
13:44 - Apple (Host)
He did. I'll get you the print. He did it.
13:44 - Chris (Guest)
I'll get you the print he did an exclusive print for the goose album and um, that's came from my partner, right. So Eric Myers is my partner in this. We're the two principals, if you will.
13:56 - Aaron (Host)
Okay.
13:56 - Chris (Guest)
He is in West Virginia. I'm in Denver so he has a family tree of musicians uh, out there in Appalachia. It's like I like to call it, the Tyler Childers Sturgill Simpson family tree, got it. So we have kind of that focus. I'm in Denver, so you got the jam. I got some stuff there and then Blake's out here in Portland and when Blake recommends something, we do it.
14:27
There's a blind trust there with me. So yeah, and then we moved into the next year and we had a relationship with Kitchen Dwellers Management Company and they said, hey, you want to do a goose EP.
14:42 - Aaron (Host)
Shout out to the 11 group.
14:43 - Chris (Guest)
The 11 group Yep, and I said uh yeah, fucking, and then uh kitchen dwellers mirror made was going for insane amounts in the group because it was only a 500 pressing when it came out. Okay, I said give me a thousand of them. You know we did that one next and it's just been. That's kind of how it's worked.
15:07 - Aaron (Host)
So, as a member of the of Hetty Wax Fiends, how does it work? As you as a member do you pay monthly and then you get an album?
15:15 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, so we have a three payment plans right.
15:19
So a six month payment plan is basically a dollar a day for the year and it auto renews every six months. Then we run a three month payment plan and you can pay monthly and you get a record of the month release every month. And then you know, the hard part about this is timing. There's a ton of stuff I want to do, but it's coming out of time where I'm already committed. So we started a thing called the Fiend's fault exclusives, and fiend's fault came from the Facebook group. It was like man, somebody posted this and I fell in love with it. That's a fiend's fault, fiend's fault, yeah. So those are smaller runs of like a hundred exclusive copies and then we combine shipping on all that stuff.
16:04 - Aaron (Host)
That's dope so you're, you're guaranteed to get something kick-ass six times or three and you don't know what it is uh we know, you know we do announce.
16:13 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, um, a lot of people will not stream it until they get it. Um, and the most fulfilling thing in my life, outside of my wife's adoration for me, is to see a post in the group that says I had no clue what this was. I never would have found it without the record club and, holy shit, I love this. And that is honestly, the big records are great Like the goose record was great but the stuff that we're helping come promote is the most fulfilling part.
16:50 - Mel (Host)
oh yeah, I have to say I know exactly what you're talking about we always say that yeah, like we put out an episode that maybe somebody from the east coast has never heard. This. You know west coast, uh, you know band, and then they're like holy shit, you've introduced me to my new favorite and I don't know why that feels so good to like connect because we're not in it. You know what I mean?
17:11 - Aaron (Host)
we just put it out like if you think about like you probably you too when, when we were teenagers before the internet, the coolest shit was to turn your friend on to something new that they had never heard before. I I mean, that's how I got turned on to the dead was somebody was like you need to hear this music and that the right way and that's the only thing that was cooler that you.
17:35 - Apple (Host)
You heard it yourself and then you couldn't wait to turn people on to. That's the best thing in the world is hearing new music you love, but then having that to take to your friends and be like dude. You got to come over and listen to this with me. We did a lot of that when we were young.
17:50 - Chris (Guest)
We got to smoke a joint listen to this it's always been such a massive part of my personality to do that, and the record club is like the epitome of that feeling. Like our first artist, kendra morris, that we talked about, um, she hasn't played a show since she started working with us.
18:12
That she doesn't meet one of us wow wow, really yeah yeah, and it's the it's, that's awesome, you know, I mean, and she writes the best autographs on her albums and stuff and like, yeah, she, we've become pretty close friends and she's like man, like I never expected this and it's changed, like my career and success in touring and stuff, wow, and Torin was like man, I'm so sick of having to talk Like jokingly.
18:50 - Aaron (Host)
Another person asked me about Hedy.
18:51 - Chris (Guest)
Waxby, he's like enough. Quit telling them to say hi, to me it's not going to stop.
18:58 - Aaron (Host)
That's awesome man, yeah.
18:59 - Chris (Guest)
And then so, going into year two, we, uh, we're working with this band called cutler station. Um, they're a bunch of dads with real jobs and then they make music okay right and um, they were like hey, we want to do a record, but we're not really sure we want to put the investment into it. So we're like, all right, we'll pay for all of it and you could take your copies at the end, are you?
19:28 - Aaron (Host)
talking like a live album or studio. That's a studio album, so you paid for the studio time and everything.
19:36 - Chris (Guest)
Not vinyl mastering on, so not the studio time, not vinyl mastering on. Okay, so not the studio time. Okay, Like they had a release and you know CDs are still profitable in the Midwest and that part and it was recorded for like streaming and digital.
19:50
I got it and we had gave all of our subscribers a surprise bonus record the first year, which was a Cutler Station record, and we were like man, that that went really well and like where else can we do this? And then my partner found an artist, john Ingram out of, I think he's in Charleston, west Virginia, and we did the same kind of thing and coming into this year I was like I want do this is the new goal, right, there's music out there that deserves to be on vinyl, because it's good enough to be on vinyl, but it's not backed by a label, it's not, there's no machine behind it. So we've worked out this model. It's no cost to the artists. So I jump in vinyl, vinyl mastering right, it's already mixed, it's been recorded, and then I'll pay for that.
20:48
I'll pay for the expanding the artwork to jacket format. We have a relationship with a pressing plant in uh, cleveland, ohio, called gotta groove records and they make fantastic pressings, right. So we press what we need and then our payment quote, unquote to the band is like here's a run of black for the merch stand and for the website, and the ability to get that music out that wouldn't have got out without us is my life's work.
21:28 - Mel (Host)
wow man, congratulations like wow how are you finding these people? Yeah, that was good yeah, because like that is kind of Like Cutler.
21:37 - Aaron (Host)
Station.
21:37 - Mel (Host)
Yeah, like a needle in a haystack.
21:39 - Chris (Guest)
So Cutler Station comes from Eric and his circles. Okay, right, and I've had relationships with musicians over the years as a fan and a friend, really Like they're just people. You guys know that, but a lot of people don't think they're just people. Yes, you do one of these releases, like Kyle Tuttle we're doing in the same format. That's it's May. That's our record of the month this month. Cool, he is the mayor of progressive bluegrass in Nashville.
22:10 - Mel (Host)
He plays with everybody.
22:12 - Chris (Guest)
People are calling me now Right. Hey, I was talking to Kyle, what's up? How do I get? I want to. I want, want that total deal. Yeah. And another big thing is like you do artists right and their management company has a roster.
22:34 - Mel (Host)
It's very similar.
22:35 - Chris (Guest)
It's relationships, man, and you treat people with respect and you do them right, and I market harder to the artists than I do to our base in a way. Yeah, I totally understand keeping my promises, treating everybody with respect, like not, I'm not getting rich man. This is not a thing that's gonna, to like, retire me at 50. Being fair, and that's how I find it.
23:04 - Mel (Host)
That's really awesome, because upstairs you were saying like this is your passion project, you're not trying to pay your mortgage, whatever. That keeps the pressure off. It makes it fun. And you can continue to go and you can have these spikes and all the different connections, but then that expectation of having to put food in your mouth is not there and it keeps that passion burning.
23:27 - Chris (Guest)
yeah, that's dope, yeah, and I mean the thing is we smaller? So that's how it kind of works. I mean, I've, I've been faking it for a long time. This is the year where it's really self-sustaining and you feel? Like it's. It's doing its own thing now. Real easy now, wow. And the first year I looked at it as a like. A burden might not be the right word, but it was scary. It's an honor now.
24:06 - Mel (Host)
It is an honor. Now Congratulations. I mean, how many years we're like three years in.
24:11 - Chris (Guest)
This is my third year.
24:12 - Aaron (Host)
That's a pretty short time to feel like that, Chris Good job man, and not for nothing, but like we had people coming to us telling us to have you on. Yeah.
24:22 - Mel (Host)
Multiple people yeah.
24:24 - Chris (Guest)
And thank you, because I I'm not great at uh marketing or advertising. It kind of feels like spam. And this situation felt like my opportunity to talk about this and it's not going to sound like a commercial.
24:42 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, man yeah, yeah, we're just hanging out what you're saying something you said at the beginning of it.
24:47 - Apple (Host)
I think the most important thing you're doing is what we try to do is, like you're saying, there's so many people in this world that that they concentrate on what they don't like and being a critic and putting people down.
24:59
You took your passion, turned it into something amazing, created a community where no bullshit is allowed. So, like you said you I'm sure, like you said, there were some hurdles at first, because people are prone to picking on each other and being a credit. It's like none of that. So you're also teaching these 75 100 plus members now how to be cool to get along and then they're going to pass that on. And that's just amazing what you're doing and the love behind it and the passion.
25:25 - Chris (Guest)
It's the best place on Facebook and I can say that confidently.
25:31 - Aaron (Host)
Right on, man. You know what? I haven't even been there and I believe you, yeah.
25:35 - Mel (Host)
I'm not on Facebook, but I'm tempted now.
25:39 - Apple (Host)
Yeah, just for that.
25:40 - Mel (Host)
Seriously for that, for the community, like you were saying, like I think, at first when we started, no Simple Road, I don't know that that was our goal or our thought or anything.
25:49
It was just there was no exactly, but as it started to develop and you start to develop this community one of the reasons why we have you on is because so many people in our community knew about you and it's like we need everybody to know about what's go, what you're doing, what's what's going on like. That's, that's our album. You're part of our album you know what I mean.
26:12 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, man, and can you explain something to me, chris, like, and I guess I kind of know this from growing up, but, like I, I'm sure that people there's people listening that don't get it. Why? Vinyl?
26:26 - Chris (Guest)
the intention of it. So I despise silence. So there's always music happening, but it's in the background okay um, I have a task when I go. I call it. My listening lounge is where all of my records are at and it's a recliner and it's like the uh, the old uh maxell thing with the tape my phone stays outside the room when I go in there and I don't think about anything except for what that person is trying to say to me.
27:09
Whoa it sounds like a meditation it is, and I sit here with this like tangible tangible thing and I like read liner notes and you know what I mean and that's that's it.
27:22
I mean I was a bit of a pirate, if you will, for a long time I have a pretty bitch in digital music collection, so the obsessive collection thing is not new at all and in a way it felt like a way to it was the best way to support artists to buy this direct from them, Like with merch you guys talk about all the time like buy the merch.
27:42 - Aaron (Host)
Buy the merch man.
27:43 - Chris (Guest)
A t-shirt or a record is a million Spotify streams right For real. But I also celebrate every format whenever possible and, like I said in, how you Wax Fiends, like you do not have to be a record collector to be a member of the group and you're going to get turned on to a bunch of music. I have broadened my music so much from seeing what other people are doing.
28:14 - Aaron (Host)
What I know. I know you said you don't want to talk about yourself, but I have to know what was your first like mindblowing musical experience in your life.
28:23 - Chris (Guest)
Polaris 731, 1998, fish. I was on a fishing trip with my buddies. Pre-cell phone, all that I did Alpine, two Nights at Deer Creek. Then came home and I was like, oh sorry yeah. Yeah, I grew up in a really Music household, okay, but you know we don't Know anything about it. It's like To quote my Spirit animal, ruth Lane. More I don't know shit about, fuck Right, cause I Like Keys, open doors. You know what I mean. Like the theory isn't lost on me, but I have always been able to listen really, really well.
29:11 - Aaron (Host)
That's a to me, that's a talent. That really is a talent To be able to focus like that. I remember there's a band called Leon the third and they came out with this release during COVID, called antlers and velvet, and it completely blew my doors off Like this. This band somehow tapped into how I was feeling emotionally and made music of it and we had the good fortune of having them on the show a couple of times and I've become friends with the guitar player and we were texting one day and I was told him what I just said. I was like I don't know how you guys did that and he said that's why we love coming on no simple road, because you guys are deep listeners. You hear the music the way that we're intending it for it to be heard, and I think that, um, I think that comes from psychedelics, maybe doing psychedelics and listening to music.
30:12 - Chris (Guest)
Massive proponent of psychedelics?
30:14 - Mel (Host)
Well, I definitely will say yes, but also, like on a personal level, I love words, I love how they a personal level, I love words. I love how they're put together. I love lyrics. When Aaron and I first got together, we would write literally pages and pages of notes to each other, just because, like it was like our little Romeo and Juliet thing and I just I have I journal, you know, like I absolutely love words. So when you're putting some, sometimes I can even kind of lose the music and just focus in on just what is being said, so like there's something about that listening that draws you in like nothing else I can remember times in my life of being physically transported by the music I was listening to.
31:06 - Aaron (Host)
I like listening to electric ladyland on headphones. You're fucking gone. That's it. You're out. Dark side of the moon.
31:16 - Chris (Guest)
Bye, you know, okay, computer, see you later, like yeah, and it has this ability to take you to a place in your past. Oh yeah, positively, or sometimes sadly.
31:28 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah.
31:29 - Mel (Host)
But isn't the same songs I'm sorry, but one great thing about that is is that like sometimes, and it brings you to a sadness, it like soothes you also. It for me there's a I've have had that a lot. There's definitely times where I like I don't want to listen to a certain song because it brings you to a place you don't want to go to. But like I've had a lot of recall with older music and memory that has helped to soothe those types of feelings and so that's another like music is medicine, you know well, I was gonna say something too, because I read it was an article you did with somebody.
32:04 - Apple (Host)
I was reading it this morning, uh, and it was talking about, uh, the desert, like your island discs. Oh yeah, and the third one you named, because I forget what what the first two were, but it was smashing pumpkin, siamese dream Was the third. You're like today, smashing Pumpkins, because that album, every song on there, depending on what mood I listened to it in that album was one of them that helped save my life, along with a lot of other music, which is probably all of us where music can save your life and turn you around, but every you around, but every song on there, depending on how I listen to it it can make me cry like, cry like sad, or tears of elation and happiness.
32:47 - Mel (Host)
It has that, that's, it's so alive.
32:48 - Apple (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I saw, that on your day and I was like, oh fuck, yeah, I love chris already. It was a lot of things that I can't see, touch or understand.
33:08 - Chris (Guest)
And every time I listen to it there's a new slide whistle or like a handbell. And the name of this band is Talking Heads is almost a perfect record to me. Talking Heads are my absolute favorite band of all time, oh wow. Yeah, and to get a little nerdy, a very specific window of coming out of the remaining light in Light, with the big band Blue, adrian Blue, on that second guitar, bernie Worrell. They had two of everything and it was outrageous and I would do despicable things to see that lineup of that band.
33:54 - Apple (Host)
You know what I mean, but it's there.
33:56 - Chris (Guest)
I get to listen to it and I was talking to people about this last night. It's all the things that I really like. Have covered a Talking Heads song and made it their own.
34:12 - Mel (Host)
Right.
34:12 - Chris (Guest)
Like I mean Cross-eyed, and painless by Phish. Phish's cross-eyed and painless oh Lord.
34:17 - Aaron (Host)
Come on, Lord. That's the first thing that comes to mind.
34:20 - Chris (Guest)
Oh Lord, I hope they play every run I go to.
34:26 - Aaron (Host)
Did you get to go to the Sphere?
34:27 - Chris (Guest)
No, unfortunately not.
34:29 - Aaron (Host)
Chris.
34:30 - Chris (Guest)
I know.
34:32 - Aaron (Host)
Just when you have the opportunity sell your house, whatever the fuck you gotta do you particularly.
34:42 - Apple (Host)
You are going to shit your pants it's the sound anyway, the whole thing with the sound going to blow your mind, dude.
34:53 - Aaron (Host)
I cried for four nights.
34:55 - Chris (Guest)
I bet and like one of the things. When I moved to Colorado I really wanted to be a string cheese incident fan because I had gotten a BNP CD of probably fish and there was a filler of cheese and I was like what the hell is this Exactly Got to?
35:20
Denver was scraping by for a year or two, like concerts were not, yeah, like rent was hard so my first stream cheese incident show is big summer classic at Red Rocks, and yonder played before and they played this girlfriend is better. That changed my life. So that's my second musical moment and, um, I didn't see as many cheese shows after that night as Yonder shows. And in high school if you had told me that I'd be traveling for a band with a banjo in it and uh, and that was like a preface too, to kind of move into that thing.
36:08
But, like you know, uh, there's an album coming out. Uh, it's a tribute to stop making sense. Oh, wow, you may not be familiar with it. I can. I can show you some singles on my way out, but Lorde covered Take Me to the River. It's probably one of my favorite things I've heard in a few years.
36:28 - Aaron (Host)
Whoa, okay, really yeah yeah.
36:31 - Chris (Guest)
Paramore is on there. Oh my gosh. There's a group called Girl in Red and they did Girlfriend is Better, which is just that's me. That's my song. I have a shirt that says I got a girlfriend with bows in her hair and nothing's better than that. And Chelsea wears bows.
36:52 - Mel (Host)
Oh, Okay, I just have to know what was it about string cheese?
36:57 - Chris (Guest)
I know I love them, but for you you what I lost fish and I was a man without a band and I uh I did some like film friend stuff. Uh, I can't. I grew up in ohio so hookah was kind of a big thing. Um, acoustic hookah, acoustic hookah sorry yeah yeah, acoustic Kusakuka.
37:16
Yeah yeah, kusakuka. Um and I, I wanted to live in Colorado. I was born in the West and lived all over the place and grew up in Ohio, so it felt like home. And then I like looked up driving to a job interview one day and Red Rocks was like up there and I was like this, is it Right? So I was looking for something and I always have been um, after you know, after Jeff Austin, I was hopping around trying to force that feeling on things that were there, I know.
37:54 - Mel (Host)
I know you want, you want to put it somewhere you have that energy for something and you want to put it.
37:59 - Aaron (Host)
I know somebody that's listening that's like yep. Me too. I know exactly the person Yep.
38:03 - Chris (Guest)
And then I saw Billy Shanes and that was that. Yeah, and in my life I've always been very sniper-ish, if you will, about my listening habits. I want to hear every fish show from this area to that area Every Billy. You're a researcher, but the record club has turned me into a shotgun and I listen to more variety than I ever have in my entire life.
38:28 - Aaron (Host)
That's what no Simple Road has done for me. When we first started this, I would put on the dead and fish. That was it, like nothing else Nothing wrong with that. No, if that's how you want to do your thing, do it, man. I'm I'm no, yeah, but doing the show blew my mind. It, it opened my eyes up to the wider scene that was. It was actually pigeons playing ping pong.
38:54 - Chris (Guest)
That's Chelsea. Grew up in Maryland Like. Grew up watching them playing pizza joints and stuff Like yeah, yeah, Say what you will.
39:04 - Apple (Host)
It also opened you more we talked about this to listen to the older stuff again too. Because you used to not like some of it. You don't.
39:11 - Aaron (Host)
I still have a hard time with the grunge stuff. I can't, I can't. Yeah, it reminds you of certain things.
39:17 - Apple (Host)
But a lot of times you would listen to stuff out there. You'd be like, oh, like, if it was rap or this or anything else you'd be like I'm going to the house.
39:24 - Mel (Host)
Now he hangs out all the time it was so cool to like the three of us Like we have tons of musical tastes and you know in common. But then when somebody's really not like mostly Aaron, he's not into a lot of the stuff that Apple and I are into and it's just great to have that camaraderie of like yes, cause, well, that's what the record club is.
39:45 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, no, it's great. My job to listen to everything to find something. Yep, and I also think that's a talent too, chris, to to be able.
39:59 - Aaron (Host)
That's a talent too, Chris, to to be able to listen to stuff and pick it, pick out the, the one that's got the mark.
40:08 - Chris (Guest)
Yep.
40:09 - Aaron (Host)
Do you know what I mean? At least for you.
40:10 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah and the. You know, I think why we've been successful is that I do this for my loyal subscribers, not for me. I tell people all the time if it was Chris Holland's record club, it would be traditional bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, sad and sadder country that's a subgroup sadder country Americana, that's a subgroup satyr country americana, like that's me. Senior songwriter. Um, you know that's what I gravitate towards, but it's my job to listen to things that other people love as much as I love what I love.
41:00 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah.
41:01 - Chris (Guest)
And the other tenet kind of of the community is like I don't appreciate everything but I recognize appreciation and if I see somebody who loves something as much as I love the thing I love, we good, like I got you. Oh yeah, yeah, I love the thing I love.
41:22 - Aaron (Host)
We good Like I got you.
41:22 - Chris (Guest)
Oh yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying yeah, there's bands I don't get, but I respect it because I've been there Like I've where. It's everything you know.
41:33 - Mel (Host)
Chris, do you play music? I don't play, I mean not just on vinyl, but you know, yeah, put the needle down.
41:40 - Aaron (Host)
Okay, okay, you don't need to the old joke was, I play a mean iPod. I'll bet you're fucking great to have a late night trip fest DJ.
41:51 - Chris (Guest)
It's not bad.
41:54 - Apple (Host)
Here, chris, take over.
41:55 - Chris (Guest)
You're in charge tonight, and speaking of that, I just recently put all of our releases on all the streaming platforms, so if your listeners out there want to give it a shot, safely search Hetty Wax Fiends Record Club wherever you stream music and you'll find us.
42:14 - Aaron (Host)
Okay, we're coming to Denver for dicks.
42:18 - Chris (Guest)
I was thinking that too I'm undick-feated, oh really, oh you are oh yeah, okay, we'll have to party together.
42:25 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, let's hang out. Yeah, for sure.
42:27 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, we live about. It's like five turns, 15 minutes, no traffic.
42:32 - Mel (Host)
Oh my gosh.
42:33 - Chris (Guest)
Bat roads, holy shit, I like it I was so mad that first year because I got shut out of Red Rocks. I don't do over phase, you know what I mean. So, I got shut out of Red Rocks and I was like this is a soulless soccer stadium and conversing oh my God, how wrong I was.
42:53 - Aaron (Host)
We found last year, we found, at least for me, the sweet spot in the venue and I'm not. I'll tell you off the air. Remind me to tell you, I got mine too. I'm not giving it up.
43:06 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, what a great way to end my day job is. I run a landscape company.
43:16 - Apple (Host)
Oh cool.
43:16 - Chris (Guest)
So kind of like Mother's Day to Labor Day. Oh, it's a lot yeah and I'm like catch my breath at dicks. Uh, like all these portland seattle people come, you know. Uh, shout out team, shit show is what we call ourselves shout out to the show. Yeah, and we, we have seen like weeks and weeks worth of live, a lot of music, in one spot. You know, I know where they're going to be. Yeah, I love, I love Dick so much and it's like it reminds me kind of the lawlessness of my early.
43:55 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, it reminds me of the dead lot back in the day, fish lot back in the day A little, a little grimy, a little dangerous.
44:02 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, right.
44:03 - Apple (Host)
Reminds me a lot of the silver bowl. Yeah, that kind of test, like you said this Vegas, yeah, oh yeah. This stadium is soulless.
44:12 - Mel (Host)
And then you drop the right band in there and it's like oh it just needs love the first year we went to Dick's, Aaron and I went on our own and we only got tickets for one night and we were there through the lot and I mean we basically got miracle. We didn't we had to. We paid, not like 20 bucks, 30 bucks or whatever. But like I never went on like dead tour and nothing like that. I didn't go on fish tour. I just enjoy concerts and music. But having that happen to us at that specific venue and that four fish it was, I felt like it was like a blessing, Like we were being knighted.
44:50 - Aaron (Host)
You know what I'm saying. Like, you have been anointed by the fish fans.
44:53 - Mel (Host)
They want you to be here is how I took it. They want you to hear what's what's here. And then, ever since then, I told her I was like I, that's my favorite spot.
45:01 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, we're not missing.
45:02 - Mel (Host)
Mexico. Don't, that's my favorite spot. Yeah, we're not missing this Mexico. Don't get me started on the sphere, whatever, but Dix is my all-time favorite, will stay my all-time favorite. I love that. You can sit with your people, your posse. You can just sit wherever you want, unless you're on the floor, like there's so many elements to it. I love being in the desert. I love that. It's just such great memories, great vibes and when you look around you see everybody with their crew and it's dope.
45:29 - Chris (Guest)
It's so dope and it's the end of tour too. Yeah, and my absolute favorite thing about Phish and I haven't seen this with very many other artist acts is that, no matter what they're doing, it's somebody's absolute favorite thing that's in the audience.
45:47 - Apple (Host)
Oh, yeah, yeah.
45:50 - Chris (Guest)
And maybe I was like you know what I mean. But like my wife, she changed the way I look at a lot of things because she loves everything. She does not have a negative opinion about music and I was watching her dance to everything's right and I was like how the hell, can I not have fun next to this woman like you?
46:10 - Mel (Host)
know during that she sounds super fun jaded right out of me, yeah, oh yeah right on yeah um, the other really cool thing that we've started to do.
46:21 - Chris (Guest)
I want, I want to make sure we can cover this is um so the OBIs. It was a lot of labor. We had to like hand bend them all, so we started to move into these.
46:32 - Aaron (Host)
It's a will you explain what an OBI is for people so?
46:35 - Chris (Guest)
OBI is uh. It's like a Japanese paper strip that goes around the album with some information Uh, mainly on uh. Around the album with some information okay, uh, mainly on uh.
46:51
American records in japan where they explain everything that uh is in english okay so we moved to these uncut hype stickers, right, and I have a lot of friends from the lot art world and fan art world and so we started to support them by having them do an illustration, and I was writing the write-ups a lot. I wanted to work for Rolling Stone until print media died, right when I got to college, kind of, but then I was like you know, I thought I was sounding the same over and over again. So now we have our members write these hype stickers for us. Oh shit. So I would be like, hey, man, I know you can't tell anybody. I got an early mix of this. I know what you're saying. Listen to this. Give me 100 words. So it's really important to me to support our people, right? Yeah, we've done quite a few now, and then we have started to do like some art prints based off of these two. Like this is the last hype sticker I wrote was for Baylor Fleck Drive.
47:58 - Aaron (Host)
Okay.
47:59 - Chris (Guest)
And this is the banjo player from Oyo that runs Just a Jar Press Okay.
48:03 - Apple (Host)
And I love, it is the banjo, player from Oyo that runs Just a Jar Press. Okay, and I love it.
48:07 - Chris (Guest)
I love it because it's like another Layer, layer. Yeah, I love art too, so I can support art.
48:14 - Mel (Host)
That's really dope and innovative of you to have somebody that loves it. Of course they'd want to do it, why not?
48:22 - Apple (Host)
And then it's coming in and it's easy for them. Yeah, it's easy for them Of course they'd want to do it why not? And then it's coming, and it's easy for them. Yeah, it's easy for them, yeah, yeah, everybody wins. You've tied so many things together. This is amazing.
48:31 - Aaron (Host)
I think, it's very innovative. I know that you said that you don't want this to pay your mortgage. I think that it should. I mean, I really I do, I'm just saying like yeah it's your thing, man, like I totally get where you're coming from. I understand, but I feel like something like this could be like when you look at the stadium of dicks everybody in there should be part of Hetty Waxman.
48:56 - Chris (Guest)
I love it. Do you know what I?
48:57 - Aaron (Host)
mean.
48:58 - Chris (Guest)
Oh, yeah, but you get where I'm coming from, like everybody in there loves music and I think that that is a defense attitude. Okay, To not overextend. Make bad decisions to make money.
49:17 - Aaron (Host)
Look if this thing I'd be okay with it.
49:19 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, like I wouldn't mind traveling to indie record stores for a living. You know that doesn't sound horrible but I can take ballsy chances, because I'm okay if you know what I mean and that that's kind of needed in a way. But I've, like I said, it was frightening and now it is so exciting.
49:45 - Aaron (Host)
Fulfilling is validating Um so if somebody wants to join, yeah, what do they do?
49:53 - Chris (Guest)
So we have a website how do you wax fiendscom? Uh, and if they have any questions, they can email me directly info at how do youaxfiendscom okay uh, they can find me on facebook and shoot me a message there too. Uh, we have a little bit of an instagram presence, but not much like. Um, I always tell people, like, ask me everything that you need to before you start paying me money yeah, it's a lot easier to not do it than to kind of go back and yeah, and um, we have some really cool stuff coming up.
50:31
Uh, we have a couple really portland releases coming up, okay, um, so I'm in town tonight. Uh, I know, this is, this is weeks ago. Polyrhythmics is playing at the Get Down and we are recording this show to do our first live album.
50:53 - Mel (Host)
Congratulations. Thank you.
50:55 - Chris (Guest)
You deserve that. That has been my number one goal since the beginning.
50:59 - Aaron (Host)
And you're here.
51:00 - Chris (Guest)
I try. The idea was to do it where I live, in Denver, right, but my best friend owns an incredible venue in Portland.
51:09 - Mel (Host)
Yes, he does.
51:09 - Chris (Guest)
Yes he does so this is one of the best days of my life right now, this day that I'm sharing with you.
51:18 - Mel (Host)
I'm glad to be part of one of the best days of your life. Thank you so much, man.
51:23 - Chris (Guest)
Man, it's the raddest thing that we've done so far, and I can't wait.
51:28 - Aaron (Host)
I just absolutely can't wait. Great band.
51:30 - Chris (Guest)
Like you said when you read about my desert islands, yeah, there's a live one in there. Live albums Are Every bit as important to me as studio albums. You have A live one Austrian Cheese Incident yeah. Elko from Realtors. Rock of Ages from the band with the horns yeah. I want a live album that says Hedy Waxbeans on it. So bad, you got it.
51:58 - Mel (Host)
I do. Here it is. I have a wonder Does Hedy Waxbeans have a mission statement?
52:05 - Chris (Guest)
I think the mission statement is the tenets of the community, right? So the mission statement would be to not have a genre theme to what we do and artists forward. To what we do and artists forward uh, work with the smaller people than the big labels. Right, like um, I want to create 500 overnight brand new fans of an artist and sell a bunch of more tickets for their shows.
52:47 - Aaron (Host)
You know, Keep the music going.
52:48 - Chris (Guest)
Dude, that turns me on so much.
52:51 - Mel (Host)
You're like the fairy godmother man I see your shirts at all of our shows.
52:57 - Chris (Guest)
You know I'm in between merch runs, but I'll get you guys some gear. I'll get it to Blake. We'll trade you. I'm in, I'm in.
53:03 - Mel (Host)
I feel like you're some gear too. I'll get it to Blake We'll trade you.
53:05 - Chris (Guest)
Right on, man, we'll trade you. I'm in, I'm in, yeah.
53:06 - Mel (Host)
I feel like you're the fairy godmother for the artists that are underrepresented. That's one of the coolest things that you can jump. Maybe a ticket sale that was going to be 100 tickets to 250 because you've got these people that are-.
53:22 - Apple (Host)
And now they got gas money to the next city exactly and I I knew, I knew this was like it's super exciting and cool getting records and holding those, like the last few days we've had those and like looking at them and everything. But now hearing the story of what goes into that is even more special and more community-based and more love and everything it fits with.
53:47 - Chris (Guest)
No simple road so well yeah yeah I mean, there is such a personal experience to every one of these that I've done.
53:55 - Apple (Host)
There's nothing like holding an album pulling those out, especially the colored marble ones, I mean because I bet. I mean like you don't know what you're getting. They're all different and like open looking at them, it's just like so cool holding that and adding to what used to just be the like the black vinyl. Yeah, because I remember the old vinyl, like when they started doing what was it? Styx did it, and some of it with the laser etching in the album that you could hold and the light would hit it right you could would hit it right, you could see this stuff like like album there's.
54:33 - Chris (Guest)
There's nothing like an album. It's also very intentional, so I spend a lot of time coming up with what these colors, the colors really, yeah, and the names of them.
54:38 - Mel (Host)
So bailiff like drive he's in this old woody old school car.
54:40 - Chris (Guest)
Sorry, you're good, you're good. So I found this and my buddy Dylan was like side panel swirl colored vinyl Side panel swirl. You know, or it could be a song, or I'll find out where the artist is from.
54:58 - Mel (Host)
Is your buddy Dylan, a photographer.
55:00 - Chris (Guest)
And it's cheesy, but I love it.
55:03 - Aaron (Host)
I love that shit. Growing up that, but I love it, I love that shit. Yeah, growing up. That was all of it. I remember, like you said, styx.
55:10 - Apple (Host)
Yeah.
55:11 - Aaron (Host)
I remember in elementary school going to the record store with my dad in California and buying a Styx album and bringing it home and like that thing was like a magical transportation device that I was holding, like I taking the plastic off and like the smell of it, and then, like you said, putting the album on and reading all the liner notes, and and you were you were super lucky if all the lyrics were inside the jacket or on the back or something then and then you were just sitting there like watching and reading as you listened and that's gone. There's a lot of people now that have no frame of reference for even what I'm saying.
55:56 - Apple (Host)
They're like uh-huh, what that?
55:57 - Aaron (Host)
feeling, but this gives those people and us an opportunity to feel that Refill it. And feel it for the first time if you haven't before.
56:07 - Chris (Guest)
So our March release is JD Crowe and the New South, the New South commonly known as Rounder 0044. Okay, I was at Bender Jamboree the first year, hanging out with Jared Walker mandolinist for. Billy Streens Band and I said hey, hey, man, like I think old in the way, and hartford aeroplane are the most influential albums on what you guys do.
56:35
He's like, yeah, can't argue with it, but what do you know about this album? And uh, he even wrote it down for me like as a note and it's in my uh like frame box of that festival with the set list that we saw and all that I got him to do liner notes for me on an insert for that release and like it meant the world to me, and then I found out it meant the world to him.
57:03
Oh, yeah, so to be able to, like you know, kind of pay back some of these really important people in my life. And there's this thing where I've done some albums for people. Chelsea gets one next January. Yeah, it's about time. You know what I mean. It's about time. Yeah, and like there's some ego projects of mine too, I try not to let those. I sprinkle them in. Yeah, but I joke all the time. Like Bailiflex Drive, it was very expensive pressed once, so I spent way more money to buy a thousand than buying an overpriced copy on Discogs.
57:43 - Mel (Host)
Right yeah yeah yeah, chris, are you up on the Owlsley Stanley Foundation and what they're doing?
57:49 - Chris (Guest)
Absolutely All right. Yeah, and you guys just had them on right. Yeah, I haven't got to that one yet. We've had them on a few times.
57:55 - Apple (Host)
They're our most returning guests.
57:56 - Mel (Host)
Yeah, because they come back when they do their releases Four or five times yeah.
58:00 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, so the first release that I had from them was Doc.
58:07 - Aaron (Host)
Oh, okay, you can hear the tapping of the feet.
58:12 - Chris (Guest)
In album and I've always said this thing about about artists. Like a good artist will make you listen to everything they've ever done, but a great artist will make you listen to everything they've ever done and everything that made them do what they did. So Billy Strings made me the biggest Doc Watson fan, right as one of his major influences, and that album was. I think it was the second album Chelsea ever bought for me, which is a daunting task Buying you an album.
58:49
Yeah buying me an album I'm like. Give me a gift card to the record store. I'll go out and find what I need.
58:57 - Apple (Host)
Yeah, yeah.
58:58 - Chris (Guest)
So it goes back to Phish. That's how I found out Talking Heads weren't a radio hits band. Yonder gave me this appreciation for John Hartford that I absorb everything he's ever done. Billy Streams, Doc Watson. It's not just those, those are just really solid examples, but that's the thing I tell people all the time is that you know that this band is gonna change your life when you're going back to the influences yep, yep, wow, king sunny all day, like from listening to trey band.
59:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and I mean, like that's my obsession level is I'm like got to hear it all yeah.
59:46 - Aaron (Host)
And then and what's trippy about that? When you do that, when you like, make that commitment to go back and listen to the influencers of the shit that you're into. When you do go listen to the band that you love, you can hear the influencers playing through them. And it's fucking wild sometimes.
01:00:04 - Apple (Host)
I got it, I got, I got a. Well, they're not a silly question, but I'm sure you guys will. It just dawned on me thinking about this, talking about lps and everything. I think it was one of the first things in my life in my childhood, like probably seven, eight years old, that started to teach me in a way, kind of OCD, but also respect for things, because when I would touch my old my sister was five years older than me when I would touch her albums without permission or her showing me what to do, it would be my ass, yeah, it'd be like you don't hold it like that and it goes like that. And then I adopted that. And then when you like you were saying when you went to the record store with your dad and you bring home that stick sound, you were so careful, oh dude, taking it out each piece of it, because there's so many pieces to an album too, especially if you get a double one or one that you know.
01:00:55 - Chris (Guest)
Those gatefolds and you're so careful with it.
01:00:56 - Apple (Host)
It goes in a special place for you to admire when you're not holding it and listening. And it taught me it was probably one of the first material things in a way, that taught me like respect for something which then turns on to yourself, and then also the kind of OCD behavior I got that like that with my discs when we lived together.
01:01:17
That's one of the few fights we ever got. It is because I had a great CD collection and I'd come home and he'd be lit. I was like, yeah, listen to my music, but they'd be laying on the ground in the wrong cases. Yeah, Like they get a thumbprint on it, throw it on the ground, put another and I'm like yeah like a LP.
01:01:36 - Chris (Guest)
Is art contained in art.
01:01:39 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, oh dang, that's some better shit. It's a dang.
01:01:45 - Chris (Guest)
That's some better shit, right there, um, like it's, uh, there's art on the front, there's there's the art you bought, and then you know, I think, uh, you know, intelligent writing is art too so we start to get into that, and it's just like you asked me why it's the intention I get it, I yeah I love that it's so bringing it back around.
01:02:04 - Aaron (Host)
I love that so I there's different weights of vinyl there is. So what's the difference, man? Can you explain it to me? Do you know I?
01:02:14 - Chris (Guest)
mean I'm not the best dude to talk about. I think it's marketing a lot okay some of the really well-made records are heavier okay, okay. There's a company in Salina Kansas called Acoustic Sounds and they have a label called Analog Productions and they will get the rights to the Beach Boys catalog and run it as a 45 and put it over two discs and it's 200 grams and I.
01:02:48
I see that most of what we do is our standard 140 gram. Okay, um, we've done some 180s. I refuse to like market it as a 180. I just let's talk about what's on it, not how big it, how much it weighs. Yeah, yeah, okay, all right.
01:03:01 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah I've always wondered that. Well, thank you that some of those ones I have in the bait.
01:03:03 - Apple (Host)
Let's talk about what's on it, not how big it, how much it weighs.
01:03:04 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah.
01:03:05 - Aaron (Host)
Okay, all right. Yeah, yeah, I've always wondered that. Well, thank you.
01:03:07 - Apple (Host)
Some of those ones I have in the bay, those are for my mom, for my mom's stuff, swing records and ones for the cause. She has up the ran like the, the, the Victorola, the one, the 76s, some of those things are like weapons.
01:03:22 - Aaron (Host)
They're so thick it's like a dinner plate.
01:03:24 - Apple (Host)
It feels like it's like holy shit.
01:03:26 - Chris (Guest)
But you know, in like the 70s they moved this product. They called the FlexiDisc and like they sound incredible.
01:03:35 - Aaron (Host)
And they don't warp.
01:03:37 - Chris (Guest)
You know what I mean.
01:03:39 - Aaron (Host)
So, who knows, I gotcha.
01:03:41 - Chris (Guest)
To me, it's about who pressed. It is usually what I'll pay more attention to, because there is really incredible pressing plants. You have one here, cascadia, pressing. They're in. Is it Oregon City?
01:03:58 - Apple (Host)
Okay, yeah, yeah, I think it's Oregon City.
01:04:01 - Chris (Guest)
So we did a release with Asher Filero.
01:04:03 - Aaron (Host)
Oh, hell yeah.
01:04:04 - Chris (Guest)
Asher Filero band album and, uh, I got to go watch it be made at a pressing plant the very first time I got to see a record be made like a keystone moment in my life. Yeah, like this, the whole time like yeah. But then, um, I was just in west virginia to help my partner pack up a bunch of records and we went to God of Groove, where we do things, and that was really cool too. It's obscene. It blows my mind to think about how it works.
01:04:37 - Apple (Host)
Isn't it crazy?
01:04:38 - Chris (Guest)
Too hard. You've seen the microphone or microscope pictures.
01:04:44 - Aaron (Host)
It's just peaks and valleys, nope, yeah nope, I put it on, works.
01:04:48 - Chris (Guest)
There's like an old calvin and hobbes uh strip two where his dad tells him that how the record spins it's not traveling the same distance, so travels and is like minds blown about it all. It shouldn't work like if you really think about it, like you put a piece of metal on a piece of plastic and you have to have a preamp right, because the signal is so low and then it just fills a room with magic.
01:05:20 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, it's fucking wild man, so I get it.
01:05:23 - Mel (Host)
I have one last question or however many questions, but aside from your favorite kind of music, like you were saying, you've got the sad cowboy music. What's an album that is really dear for you that has not in any of the genres that you talked about, that you love?
01:05:43 - Chris (Guest)
um Etta James at last, oh wow that's that's. That's solid, that's out of the park. I can hear, I know what it is as soon as the needle hits it.
01:06:05 - Aaron (Host)
I feel like that with.
01:06:06 - Chris (Guest)
Louis.
01:06:06 - Aaron (Host)
Armstrong. What a Wonderful World.
01:06:09 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, yeah.
01:06:10 - Aaron (Host)
That one does it to me.
01:06:12 - Chris (Guest)
Over the Rainbow. The original version. Oh yeah, I mean that, yeah, and then, like the albums I grew up with, my dad was a Pink Floyd freak. My mom is probably the biggest Cars fan ever.
01:06:29 - Mel (Host)
Cars self-titled makes me sick you know, what.
01:06:33 - Chris (Guest)
I mean, and Animals makes. I've lost my father a number of years ago, but I put on Animals and we're hanging out.
01:06:42 - Mel (Host)
Oh yeah.
01:06:43 - Chris (Guest)
Sorry, that was five no hey, that's okay.
01:06:46 - Mel (Host)
I'm down with all of them. I'm down with all of them. Animals is one of.
01:06:48 - Apple (Host)
That's one of my favorite albums of all time.
01:06:51 - Aaron (Host)
How about of all time? Of all time? Yeah, all right, chris, we know you got to get back to the get down.
01:06:57 - Mel (Host)
To more fun.
01:06:58 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah you, If you had a magic wand and you could make an album for any artist, living or dead.
01:07:09 - Chris (Guest)
Whoa Pizza tapes oh.
01:07:14 - Aaron (Host)
Solid. That didn't take that I was expecting you to be like hmm.
01:07:17 - Apple (Host)
You almost didn't finish the question. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:21 - Chris (Guest)
So for a long time it was Prince the Loring Park Sessions.
01:07:26 - Mel (Host)
Okay Dang.
01:07:28 - Chris (Guest)
It's been made unofficially.
01:07:32 - Apple (Host)
I don't own it.
01:07:32 - Chris (Guest)
I would never buy a bootleg, but the pizza tapes man, that deserves to be on vinyl. I hope to get to a point where I can sit at that table to have that conversation.
01:07:49 - Aaron (Host)
maybe I'm there, maybe I just I think you should just try.
01:07:51 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, man, all they can say is no man, yeah, I never know, until you ask just the the giants on that thing and the like uh, ease of it there's. It's very light. It's some of the best acoustic music I've heard. They're laughing between takes that was a hot one.
01:08:10 - Mel (Host)
You guys hear that.
01:08:13 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, that would be it, without a doubt. And I get to ask all these people that all the time If you were me, what would you do? I love that prompt, because there's always at least one person that wants something that's coming and I can't tell, and then there's like one thing that I'm like that's a great idea, and then it happens yeah, that's man, that's dope. That is my favorite question to ask everybody, so can I ask three? Of you the same question, man this is like my after party icebreaker.
01:08:51 - Apple (Host)
I have to think about this so the question is if I was you, if you could make any album?
01:09:00 - Chris (Guest)
that either repress it because it's hard to find, or never. Never got the vinyl treatment. What is it?
01:09:10 - Aaron (Host)
Wow. That is a tough one.
01:09:14 - Mel (Host)
How does it feel that's tough. That's a huge challenge, wow.
01:09:23 - Apple (Host)
Yeah, that's very tough.
01:09:25 - Aaron (Host)
The only thing that I could think, and I'm not sure if it came out on vinyl.
01:09:28 - Apple (Host)
That's what I'm trying to think Everything I could think of like I had on vinyl or it was on vinyl I'm trying to think of.
01:09:35 - Chris (Guest)
And that's okay if it was already out.
01:09:37 - Aaron (Host)
Shady Grove yeah.
01:09:40 - Chris (Guest)
Impossible to get.
01:09:42 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah.
01:09:42 - Chris (Guest)
I'm hoping they repress it.
01:09:44 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, yeah, that's I think. And that's only because I've been playing guitar Since I was 12, and Three years ago I decided I was gonna start Learning how to pick bluegrass and I've Barely Getting there a little bit. And Just recently I put on that album and I don't know why I never thought of it before but I was like, oh my god, I can just play with these guys hey man if I see if I see one come up available, it's yours.
01:10:14 - Chris (Guest)
Oh thanks, man.
01:10:15 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, so I've been I've been sitting down here just playing along with that album for the past few weeks and spectacular. That garcia grissman stuff is just and and and we're friend friends with sam and and knowing sam and and his dad and like that whole thing is, yeah, so that that would be mine if I, if I can stretch the boundaries of decency oh no, here we go well like, let's put it in.
01:10:38 - Apple (Host)
There was something I would love to have, on, which this is I know it wasn't on album because it's a concert we saw, like if I could transport you in a time machine to the radio head show we saw here at Moda. So it was the first radio head we ever saw together and it was a special one. They hadn't played here in like 20 I think 14 years it had been a long time to a tour.
01:11:03
Tom was like you know. We haven't been here in a long time. I apologize, we're going to do something special. And they did Creep Unlike I'd ever heard it in my life.
01:11:12 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah.
01:11:12 - Apple (Host)
Encore that night they were saying there's some clip-its up on YouTube of it, but to have like a have that on LP, that would be my holy grail. To have that radio head july 16th 2016 whatever I think that was the date to have that recording of that night to be able to hear again the way I heard it and that night desperately needs a live vinyl release right yeah can you like what the fuck? And that's fair to expand on.
01:11:47 - Aaron (Host)
Yeah, anything a live recording of them doing their thing on lp yep, and here's the, here's the really like mind-blowing part of the whole radio head our community. There's people in our community. They're like I never got into them and I'm like what, how is?
01:12:07 - Mel (Host)
that possible? Yeah, I was a late bloomer to radiohead. I mean, I like their grunge stuff a little bit, but I wasn't like deep into them until 2017 and I was like no earlier than 2017 because we were we were up on in rainbows, yeah when in rainbows came out, that would be fair to say.
01:12:26 - Aaron (Host)
If you like psychedelics and ketamine man, go go listen to fucking in rainbows sometime right go put on and then, once you get on that, go listen to the entire cab.
01:12:33 - Apple (Host)
Pablo honey, their first release is very different, right?
01:12:37 - Chris (Guest)
what an impressive fan base.
01:12:39 - Aaron (Host)
What a passionate, educated oh yeah, that's a that's. That's a nerdy bunch of I talked about recognizing yeah, that and things.
01:12:49 - Chris (Guest)
I don't get um mad respect for radiohead, what they've, what they've done, and how they do it, just like the communities they built. It's almost Grateful Dead-ish, fish-ish whatever you want to call it. It's like yeah.
01:13:07 - Apple (Host)
And as an audiophile and a listener, I've listened to all their stuff so many times.
01:13:16 - Aaron (Host)
I always hear something different, your new shit, your hair like with the headphones on.
01:13:20 - Apple (Host)
It's like I didn't hear Tom whispering that in my right ear in the distance that last time, and they like so much is going on there. Um, they're also my vote for who should play the sphere next, okay, so well, last but not least, all right.
01:13:36 - Mel (Host)
I mean, I don't know what the album name is but, I, I have two, I have two and and I guess it's an emotional reason I grew up and my family, we had this great big house in the Bronx and there was a lot of partying that would happen and these parties were centered around music, as usual, these, you know, vinyls, and there was a lot of Spanish music, but disco music was the thing, and both of my uncles would dance like they knew how to do this twirls and lift and the whole thing. And both of these, both of these remind me of my uncles and and it just, I guess it's just an emotional thing for me it would be Casey and the Sunshine Band and James Ingram, two totally different out of the blue, but james ingram his voice. Anytime I hear his voice I want to cry like there's something that wells up in me, kind of an imprint from when you're a kid that.
01:14:36
Exactly that's from magoo, like it, just that for me. And and pete is the casey and the sunshine band.
01:14:41 - Apple (Host)
Just the fun and the silliness and yeah, I can picture him, that's pete's all-time favorite band of like.
01:14:49 - Mel (Host)
He's seen them like 20 times, you know, and so those beats fish totally opposite um sounds, but those two just kind of do something emotionally for me that I would love to just put headphones on to or put you know and just listen.
01:15:03 - Chris (Guest)
Fantastic responses, I know you all better for right on um, all right.
01:15:10 - Aaron (Host)
so for everybody listening, go to headywaxfiendscom, correct, and you will find out everything you need to know and if you have questions for chris, you can hit him up at info at headywaxfiendscom.
01:15:25 - Apple (Host)
Is that right? Absolutely.
01:15:26 - Chris (Guest)
Yeah.
01:15:27 - Apple (Host)
Chris.
01:15:27 - Aaron (Host)
Chris, thank you, man. Thank you for what you do I got to say from one weirdo to another congratulations man.
01:15:35 - Mel (Host)
Yeah man.
01:15:36 - Aaron (Host)
Thank you guys Seriously For fucking making the thing that matters to you matter to other people and giving them somewhere to call home and be with each other. Cause you know what, man? We live in a world that is um increasingly divisive and we can't talk to each other anymore, and it's scary and weird and fucked up. And anywhere that it's safe for us to be together and hang out and get to know each other, it's the best shit yeah.
01:16:06 - Chris (Guest)
That's what matters right now.
01:16:07 - Aaron (Host)
So thank you, man.
01:16:08 - Chris (Guest)
Thank you guys, I really appreciate it. Thanks for being a part of NSR man so much fun yeah, and good luck tonight.
01:16:13 - Mel (Host)
Yeah, right on.