#218 - Geezers Of Gear 5 Year Anniversary

0:02 Hi, Sarah. Good morning, Good afternoon, good evening, wherever the hell you are. Good afternoon now. Yeah. Oh, so if it's afternoon, that means the dogs are awake, and soon we shall be hearing from the dogs. The. Dogs will be joining. The It's 5:00, so come on, we've got to talk fast, because by 5:30 they'll be walking. Geezers of dogs? Geezers of canine? Yeah. So thanks for joining me today. I thought it'd be fun to have you along. This is a very special episode. And I can tell you that in January of 2019, I never thought necessarily that this was going to go for five years.

0:47 I was pretty committed to it. Like, I didn't want to, you know, just start something and do a couple of episodes and be done with it. I was really into this idea of doing a podcast, but I'll tell you, and we were just talking about this off the air. Podcasting is hard and I don't think people know this, but half the time you're sitting there talking to yourself and there's not a heck of a lot of stuff going on with that podcast. And you know, I know that you're a, you're a big stats person. Maybe you can share some of that information with us. But you know, I will tell you it's quite an accomplishment that we're here talking on our fifth anniversary of of Gears of Gear and not only have have we survived, but we've thrived. We've done very well.

1:32 We've got loads and loads of fans and listeners and guests and sponsors which we're going to talk about here in a minute as well. But you know, most don't survive and most never get past certain, you know, thresholds or whatever, and they give up. And you know, just like most things in life, you don't lose until you quit. And I'm a bit of a stubborn ass. And so I don't quit very easily. And so I got past that part where people were listening to five and then calling me or texting me and saying, Marcel, you're an idiot, would you just shut up already? Like you're talking nonsense? I don't care what your favorite three concerts were or whatever. Then don't listen.

2:19 Then don't listen. I mean, that's the great thing about podcasting. There's a bazillion of them out there. Go to the next one. Go listen to one about why you have to get up to pee in the middle of the night or something. I'm sure there's lots of pee podcasts or, you know, vegetarian podcast. Whatever it is you're into, I don't care. But you know, The thing is, we've managed to carve out a following and we've managed to carve out sponsors and we've managed to survive. And what are share some of those stats with us? Yeah. So I was looking today and you'll be surprised like what percentage of the podcasts actually succeed. And there is a 50% chance that any podcast is going to pod fade with more than half a million churned out yearly, only 20% survive.

3:07 So that, I thought, was like. Let me let me unpack this. So there's a half a million podcasts that come out every year, new podcasts, and only 20% of those live past that. Year point past past year. Wow, that's incredible. So that means that means 400,000 podcasts are dying. New podcasts, not not existing podcasts. 400,000 new podcasts are dying every year. And here we are, five years in and we've survived. And like you said, it is hard work. There's a lot of planning behind it. There's it's not just OK, someone jumps on and you chat. There's a lot of behind the scenes, especially now with social media.

3:52 You know, like everything that you do, you have to spend time. You have to think of ways to do it, to say it. And you, I always keep on saying you have to be seen, but I've known people with, you know, my other little business that I do as well. They've come in and they've gone. Oh, I'm going to do a couple of videos like you've had friends. Oh, I'll come and do a podcast. They think it's easy. They do maybe 10 maximum and then that's it. They've given up, you know, and they can't. You know, people are doing podcasts, I think, for the wrong reasons sometimes. And I'm not shaming anyone. You know, during COVID, a lot of people went, oh, Marcel's doing that thing over there. It looks pretty easy. I'm going to go create a podcast about the entertainment or roadie business or the lighting business or sound business or whatever it was.

4:39 And some of them were good. You know, I listened to all of them. Every time I saw a new one pop up in the industry, I listened to it. But I knew. Like, I knew I went, You're a pretty busy guy or girl. I know that As soon as this industry pops back up a little bit and their shows again, this podcast is disappearing. So why should I invest my time into your podcast if I know you're not gonna continue to invest your time into it? So I think with geeses of gear, I think five years ago we developed a trust platform where I told people, I'm gonna keep doing this, like this thing's gonna grow. It's gonna become something. I want you to be a part of it. And so we've got listeners today that have been listening since the very first episode.

5:24 Lots of them. But I do believe as well it's because and you know, don't get a big head here now myself, but it is because you love doing it. You love doing it. I said to you when I first started, you know, you wanted one a week. I was like, OK And I was like, what about you try for two a week, you know, like I was trying to and you was like, yeah, I love it. Don't worry, I'll give, I'll allocate these days. Now if you didn't have the love for it and you and you was like, I find time. What, what? Whatever, whatever you want. So I find time. Now that's what you need. And hopefully it comes across in the podcast that you know you love it and now I love it. So I. Got to be honest, I don't love them all. So, you know, there are podcasts where I'm sitting looking at the timer on my screen wondering, you know, can we cut this one a little short?

6:10 Could it be 40 minutes instead of 60 or whatever? And you know, it's all down to the guest. And I mean fortunately out of two 100 and however many episodes it is now, 218 or something, about 210 of those have been incredible. And maybe 10 or 15 have been kind of like, you know, still great people still, you know, But I love stories. I love people who come on the podcast and take over, like believe it or not. And I know people think I love the sound of my own voice. I actually hate it when I go back and listen to podcasts. I I cringe at the me parts and and I love the them parts, right. So, So yeah, I do love doing it when when it's a good guest. When it's not a good guest, it feels a little bit more like a job and like something that I have to be a professional and and work my way through.

7:04 And, you know, I think the audience knows that too, because I get calls like Eric Loder is the classic podcast. Well, sponsor, fan, guest, host, whatever he wants to be, he's been at in our podcast, but and Eric will call me, he'll call me from his car and he'll be like, you know, Marcel, that guest, I'll tell you what, he was boring and, you know, great guy, great business. But what a boring guest. And it's it's a style, you know, if it's just AQ and a thing. I'm probably not the world's greatest interviewer. I'm trying to pull stories out of you. Yeah, you're trying to lead the way and for then if you want to just take over. So on that note, I'm going to take over, no? Go ahead, give us some more stats. Podcast Stats.

7:50 Yeah, well, actually I did. There was a couple of other ones. And as far as like downloads, so you know how many listeners is good for a podcast. Now I was looking at it and if you've got more than 32 downloads, you are in the top 50% of podcasts. If you've got more than 121 downloads, you're in the top 25% of podcasts, more than 74178 downloads, you're in the top 10% and then more than 1123, you're in the top five podcasts now roughly per episode. We are, you know we're we're actually in the middle of between 25% and 10%.

8:30 Oh yeah, it depends. I mean, we have a lot of podcasts that over time go into the thousands, but usually it's in the hundreds to 1000. Or whatever. I'm talking like the first week, you know, but in that market already. So you know that's that, that's well. We're in a very niche business, too. Like a lot of these podcasts are about, you know, going to the gym or about cooking, or about just general subjects. We're in a very, very nichy, very small, very focused audience. And so, no, I mean, I'm, I'm super grateful and happy for the fact that people instantly like, I mean, we can pop a podcast up and one of the great things about podcasts is you can see how many listeners you're getting, how many YouTube views you're getting, but you can see it real time and you can see what countries they're coming from and stuff too.

9:24 So by the way, I mean I bet if you went into statistics on how many get outside of the US, the US is about I think 45 or 50% of our audience. The rest is outside the US And you know we're real big in Canada, big in the UK, big all over Europe. We get listeners in China, Australia, countries I've never heard of are listening to our podcast. So it's incredible. Anyways, back to the stats, Sarah. Actors. Yeah, I know, I know. But just because I know you listen to him, I listen to him as well. But who has the most successful podcast in? I mean, not always top, but definitely Top 10. Exactly. Exactly. Joe Rogan has.

10:05 And then a very close second, that's where we are. So, you know, we're not far behind him ourselves. Well, like. Us in our industry. You know, in our industry, I feel like I was a pioneer because people are like, what the hell are you doing? Marcel, why are you doing this? Like, this is stupid. Nobody's going to listen to this. Joe Rogan, in a much, much bigger way, was a pioneer. You know, a few years before I ever started a podcast, Joe Rogan did it. And friends and people were saying, Joe, what are you doing? Like you don't have time to do this. What a waste of time. Now the guy's making, I don't know, $20 million a year or something doing podcasts. I mean, it's incredible.

10:46 And I'm not here for the money, believe it or not. Like, I know people know that I'm an entrepreneur and a capitalist, but at our level it's very hard to make any money podcasting. And and really the reason we have sponsors is to cover our costs and expenses and everything else and hopefully at the end of the day to have a little left, to be able to invest into some marketing, to grow the podcast. And you know, if we grow it to a certain point, then who knows, maybe you actually do make a a dollar or two, but that's certainly not why we do it. It's not the goal, it's not why I got into it. It's more about all the other stuff, the more organic stuff. Any more stats? Exactly.

11:28 And it's fantastic. No, just, well actually just the average podcast is uploaded once a week, so that's like the average one. And the length of it is around 44 minutes, but it did vary between 20 minutes to an hour and a half. So again, we're kind of like in the middle of everything where where we should be basically, OK, we've got some casts that are an hour, some, some of them are three, but the three ones are because it's really, really, really interesting. Well. That's a lot of stories, you know? And there's a couple that I can think of that we've had to cut into two episodes. Like one was Doc McGee, and that was just, it was part because he had to go into a meeting and we had to finish it on his drive back home.

12:15 And the other one, I forget what the other one was that I know we cut in half. But yeah, I mean there's been a couple of them that were that long. But as far as the number of episodes, one per week, I was thinking about that, you know, five years. So that would be 200 and 52160 episodes would be 5-5 years at one a week and we're at about, I think as we sit here we've recorded 220 and so, So we're a little bit off, we're a little bit off that one a week average. We need a holiday, Marcel. We also. Had COVID. We had COVID in the middle of this thing and the industry was pretty shut down and there were no sponsors and stuff like that during COVID. So so yeah, I mean I'm, I'm proud of what we've built. I'm, I'm really happy.

13:04 I'm grateful to be in the position that I'm in. I'm excited to have a producer who is an awesome person sitting across from me here right now. And I I feel very good about 2024 for this podcast and one of the reasons is, is the sponsors. And you may notice we didn't have any sponsors at the front end of this. It's because I really wanted to talk about them all for a minute, and I won't take much time because I know this might get boring for competitors of these sponsors or even for some of our listeners. But first and foremost, elation. You know, Eric and his amazing team have been with us since the very, very beginning. Not only are they a sponsor, but I know that Eric listens to pretty much every single episode.

13:49 And he listens on his way to work or he listens when he's on the treadmill and he will call or text me often and he'll critique my work. He'll critique the guest and say he was a terrible guest, She was a great guest, whatever. And he'll correct me. He'll sometimes call me and give me facts. Sometimes, you know, like, I had no idea I said something false and he'll call and correct me. And sometimes it's political, like sometimes he'll call and say you shouldn't have said that and whatever, I'm, I'm a big mouth and I'm going to say what I'm going to say. But recently I was talking about a gentleman named Rich Fuller, who who was the founder and owner of a company in Portland called Hollywood Lights. And I called him Rich Fowler.

14:39 And I haven't spoken to or about or with Rich in a very long time. So it was an easy mistake to make. I apologize for making that mistake. But of course Eric with the photographic memory aid for, you know, thousands of years, he corrected me on it. But I we appreciate elation very much. Again, small break during COVID, because everybody shut down their marketing department during COVID. But very small break he came back on very quickly after. Other than that small break during COVID, Elation has been with me since day one. They believed in what we were doing, They believed in me, they believed in the branding, they believed in our audience, in our messaging, and we appreciate it. Similarly, ACT Entertainment with Ben Saltzman at the head. Ben has been a supporter, a believer in the podcast. He's been on the podcast a few times and ACT is a big company. There's no shortage of brands and and ideas and thoughts to promote when it comes to ACT, so I love having them as a sponsor. There seems to be no end insight. Both ACT and elation seem to be in for the long run, I hope. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that, but they're still on board today, Five years in.

15:54 So very, very grateful for both of them. And then we get into some, some sort of unique sponsor partners, the first being Stratum Pro who started with us mid 2022. And I'm so grateful for Stratum Pro. They're a small company. You know if you compare them to either relation or act, they're probably, I don't know, 5% of the size or 3% of the size or something. But Daniel and and Tori, his wife who who run the company and own the company are amazing people. They came to us and Daniel said, would you even consider me as a sponsor And I looked at his company and his branding and everything and I said of course I would.

16:35 You know, you, you you guys are like the heartbeat of America. You're a small up and coming production company in the Midwest. You're working hard. You're doing the right things for your customers. We'd be honored to have you as a sponsor of the podcast. And again, they've been with us almost two years now. They haven't indicated that they're leaving anytime soon. So we're really excited about what's been happening with Stratum. By the way, they've grown a ton in that period that they've been with us and so that's exciting. And then Main Light, I mean what can you say about Main Light? You know it it they became a sponsor after my Cannon bought the company. But I've been a fan and a friend of Main Light for many years when it was owned by itis and I'm super grateful to be partnered with with such a great company and a growing brand. And Mike Cannon is a good friend of mine and somebody I respect very much.

17:28 And so we're proud to to represent and we're super grateful to have them on board as a sponsor. And I think either myself or maybe Sarah have mentioned previously, but we have two more sponsors already signed up. I'm not going to tell you who they are. I will tell you they're both Canadian companies and great brands. We're really looking forward to promoting both of them. They've both committed for a full year, for all of 2024 and hopefully beyond. And that leaves us with only two more spots to fill. And we're talking to several companies, most of whom you have all heard of and will know and love. And we expect to get those deals done in the next week or two.

18:10 No pressure, Sarah. So. Yeah. Again, I've said it 100 times. I mean, this podcast is not, you can tell. I don't have a super professional studio or anything. I'm in a room in the house. And you know, we don't put a huge amount of money into promotion or marketing, but we're starting to put some. But there's costs. I mean this software that we're recording on the microphone that I'm recording on the mixing console, I'm recording on, these are all expenses. The time that I'm taking out of my day and and out of my company, I'm taking time away from my company to do this. So there are costs involved in running this podcast. We wouldn't be able to do it without our sponsors. So thank you very much all of you. We appreciate you very much and look forward to promoting your companies and talking about you for another year. This year we'll talk about you again on the 6th anniversary. And so, yeah, Sarah, anything to add about the sponsors at all? I know you've gotten to know most of them because you talk to them every week about new promos and stuff. I know.

19:15 I I just, I just love it. Now, the communication that I have with everybody, yeah, it's it's brilliant. And as I said, we always trying to ramp up. Oh, coffee, by the way, by the way. I just finished my cup of coffee called coffee. My second one today and so Speaking of sponsors, they're not really a sponsor but they're they're a friend and and a partner of us. But you know, they don't pay to sponsor the the show, they they pay to help people in the industry. They. Pay into a charity which for me? Is just as important, more important, Yeah. And you. Always. Forget Gears of Gears of Gear Gears Source. Come on, I know you're so dumb, you know? Yeah, that's.

19:56 Everyone says seriously A. Bit self indulgent by promoting Gears Source but obviously none of this would happen without Gears Source. I mean Gears Source allows me the time and and ability and and opportunity to do this podcast also has connected me to most of the guests, most of the sponsors like through my career with Gears Source. Is is why this even happens. So of course I forget to mention Gearsource, But you're right. Another great one. Yeah. So what was I gonna talk about next? I wanted to talk about just some of our favorite episodes. And when you have 200 and something episodes over a span of five years, you know, it's it's it's there's a lot of good ones.

20:44 And I picked out 15 that I think for whatever reason are really, really super important to me. If I had to keep episodes in a vault and I can only pick 10, I'd probably stretch it to 20 or something and say come on, let me keep 20. But Fifteen was really hard because there's another 15 on top of these that were equally important to these ones. But just for the sake of doing a podcast, I had to pick 15. There's a lot of sort of honorable mentions in there and and some funny flops and stuff too. Like when I had a Co host on board in the beginning because I thought that's what you needed to do for a podcast. And and in reality I think it it became much better when it it when I didn't have the pressure of moving out of the way to let somebody else talk all the time. As you know Sarah, I think it became better. So nothing against my prior Co host, but I think we became better when when it became sort of a solo person host, podcast don't.

21:44 You go get rid of me. Well, you're not really a Co host. I mean sometimes you. Are but you're. You're the the person behind the scenes that makes sure it's all working. And yeah, but what's? His face, then. Good job. Sarah, you know it's what you're like 2 month anniversary and it is 2. Months for me. You've been kicking ass. So no, it's been honestly, if I look back three months to today, I think we're a completely different podcast today than we were three months ago. So that says it all right there. So starting. These are all just in numerical order, so it's not that one is my favorite or 15 is my favorite. These are just in numerical order in history. So the earliest one that's on my top 15 list is, and I'm going to try not to get a tear during this one. But Tim Brennan, who was always one of my favorite friends, you know, since I got into the business in the United States, I met Tim very early on.

22:44 He became one of my favorite friends. As anyone who knows or knew Tim, I should say, would attest to it's a complicated friendship. And you know, so one day he'd tell you he loves you and the next day he'd say go fuck yourself and hang up on you. And but I miss him dearly. I miss him every time I go to Vegas. And so listen to the episode, though Tim says some amazing things during that episode and sorry, I'm breaking up a bit, but listen to it. It's episode nine. One of my favorites. Maybe my favorite next, a little more fun, is John Wiseman. And so John again, one of my best friends in the entire industry.

23:29 One of the people I've looked up to since I got into the industry, probably without argument. The very best account exec in the entire industry. The guy that you'd least want to have to compete against in the industry. Tough as nails, but a heart as big as anything. I mean just the guy that will do anything for anyone to help you at any given time, but he will crush you in a deal if he has the opportunity. But on his very first episode, he was actually really nervous. He didn't really know what to say or what not to say and all of those types of things. And I remember the conversations we had leading up to it were were very funny because he thought, you know, that this was a really serious thing and he had to be really careful and stuff.

24:18 And if you know John Wiseman, you know there's not much of A filter there that can be applied. And during this episode he told a story which goes down in my memory as probably one of the top five stories ever told. On the podcast. He told a story of when Mickey Kirbishly came over to Australia to interview for a job with John at Verilite. And at the time, John was a severe drug addict and alcoholic. He was drinking a bottle of Jack or whatever and doing, you know, an ounce of blow every day or whatever. And a severe drug addict and heavy, heavy drinker most of the time didn't know where he was and stuff.

24:58 But they went scuba diving off the beach and John said come on Mickey, let's go go get in the water and do some scuba diving. And so they're underwater. And because John is still drunk from the night before or whatever, he threw up in his regulator. And. So all these chunks are coming out. Sorry for the visual, but all these chunks are coming out from his regulator and all the fish started coming and eating away at it and just like swarming him basically. Right. So him and Mickey both panicked and they were like, we got to get to the surface and boom, they stood up. They stood up and they were in like waist deep water. Like they thought they were out in the middle of the ocean. They're in waist deep water about, you know, 10 yards from the beach.

25:42 And all these kids are looking at them in horror. And mothers, like, what are these guys doing? They just stood up and they're on the beach, right. So just a really, I mean, you had to hear him telling the story 'cause it was absolutely hilarious. So that's episode 12. John's been on the podcast a few times, but do yourself a favor, go back to 12 and and look for some of the stories. John has incredible experiences, incredible knowledge. He talks very openly about his drug addiction, especially on this episode, and the fact that he literally almost was dead and wouldn't be alive today if he didn't finally make the decision to borrow the money from his parents. This is a guy who ran Vera Light, who was at a very high position at light and sound design, who was literally on top of the world of of concert lighting. And he had to borrow money from his parents to go to rehab and it saved his life.

26:42 And I think that's something like 27 years ago or 28 years ago or something. We talked about it again recently on the podcast, but he's he's very proud of the fact that he's clean and sober. He talks very openly about addiction. He would help anybody through it. He has helped many people through it. The guy is is a St. with sort of devil's clothing. You know he's he's got a big mouth and he says some very unpopular things at times, but he's he's an amazing guy. So go listen to episode 12 right after. It was episode 13, which was Mark Brickman. And for those of you who have been asleep for 50 years, Mark was the lighting designer for the entire career of of Pink Floyd and did some incredible things, including one of the most iconic lighting looks ever, which was that big round circle of VL fives.

27:35 I think they were actually, he tells me on the podcast. But I forget what they were. Maybe it was VL fours or something, I don't remember. But, you know, doing this whole, like, I don't know, sort of a kaleidoscope effect in this circle. And you know, if you go back and look at any live Pink Floyd videos, you'll see that look and you'll go, oh, that was Mark Brickman. And I mean, Mark did so many other incredible things. He's just a Wildman. He's so much fun to talk to. He told some great stories on the podcast. Go listen to episode 13, Mark. Mark is absolutely an icon and a legend of our industry. I'm super happy and proud that I was able to get him on the podcast.

28:17 I should actually have him on again to talk about his art and the other things he's doing now. But do yourself a favor, Listen to 13. This is becoming the Eric Loder episode right now because it's like the third time I've talked about him already. But episode 16, you know, talking about his career and everything else. And I would. Sorry, Eric, I'm going to say it. Nothing really extremely amazing about the episode itself other than two things. One, it was Eric's 50th birthday and Eric refused to do the podcast Geezers of Gear until he was officially a geezer, which he decided was 50. And so he always told me Nope, not ready yet when I'm 50. And so literally the morning of his 50th birthday, probably 6:30 in the morning, his time, because he was going to go play golf afterwards.

29:12 And so we recorded about a probably 6075 minute podcast, got through the whole thing right. At the end of it I went to click stop on the recording. I realized I hadn't started the recording. So what it was is I had started the recording earlier. Then we started talking. And then I went, OK, let me start recording And I clicked record again and I shut it off. So I turned off the recording for the entire recording. We missed it all. And I went, Eric and he goes, yeah. And I said, I don't know how to tell you this. And he said what? And I said I screwed up. And he said what?

29:53 And I said I forgot to hit record. I screwed up. I didn't record anything. We just said he goes, oh, well, this is, this tells you who this guy is and the quality of person that this man is. And I'm serious. He goes, Oh well, let me go pee, grab another cup of coffee and we'll record it again. I. Was like. Are you serious? Like, you're waiting to go out and play golf. It's your 50th birthday morning. You're with your family. You just did an hour and a half with me, and you're going to do it again. He goes, yeah, what else are we going to do? We got to do it again, you know? And I was just like, I was shocked. I I was so embarrassed and so upset with myself. But I was just so, like, grateful that there are humans like this on the earth.

30:38 So listen to 16. If nothing else, just you know, in honor of of Eric Loder who's who's just an awesome dude and a great friend of the of the podcast episode 19 and 20. This is one of those ones that stretched across two episodes because it took a while and it was recorded, I think either early in the day, then late in the day or maybe even 2 separate days because of his schedule. But you know, it was a funny episode because this is Doc McGee and if you don't know who that is, again, you might have been asleep for the last 40 or 50 years, but probably the most legendary rock'n'roll manager ever managed. Skid Row, Mötley Crüe, Kiss, Bon Jovi. I'm just going from memory here trying to remember some and a lot of other bands, lots and lots of huge bands in the sort of 80s and 90s era.

31:34 Still manages KISS today. I don't know how that's going now that they've just done their final show, final live show. But you never know with KISS. They've done many final shows and they're still going. But anyways, Doc McGee, you know, I'm a fanboy, so I'm, I'm asking questions going, uh huh, like just dying for the answers, right. One of the questions I asked him, I actually asked him because I had had scene, the movie The Dirt. And the Dirt, for those of you, including Sarah, who probably don't know is Mötley Crüe wrote a book called The Dirt. Or someone wrote a book on Mötley Crüe called The Dirt, and it literally was the dirt on their career.

32:17 And so Netflix made a movie about it, and it was a fairly honest movie. And there's a scene in it where Doc McGee, their manager in the movie, is standing on the balcony at a motel and he's looking down at the pool at just total debauchery. You know, it's it's total full on debauchery. I think this was the one time when it was Mötley Crüe and Ozzy Osbourne's band and Ozzy was like snorting ants off the the floor of the pool deck or whatever, and just crazy shit was going on. And and Doc McGee looks at the camera and he goes, you know, I've managed Skid Row and Kiss and Bon Jovi.

32:59 Nothing ever prepared me for this shit. And it was just really kind of a funny moment. But in the movie they they said that Mötley Crüe fired because Mötley Crüe fired Doc McGee at one point. And they said they fired Doc McGee and it had something to do with the bass player Nikki 6's mother, something that Doc McGee had done against Nikki Sixx's mother or something. And so I asked Doc, I said, was there anything in the movie that was untrue? And he said, actually, you know, the the one thing for sure was was how I was fired and why I was fired by the band. And I said, oh, really? And he said, yeah, you know, they said it was something about Nikki's mom. It had nothing to do with Nikki's mom. And I said, So what was it?

33:45 And he said, and Sarah, you may or may not know about this. You might be too young to know about it, but I think it was in. It was, I think, still during the Cold War. And there was a concert in Russia, and I forget what it was called, but it was a huge heavy metal concert in Russia, and it was Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne. Lots and lots of heavy metal bands. And a bunch of them flew over there on the same jet. And it was just like, again, debauchery, just total flu on mayhem, partying and craziness and stuff, right? There's all kinds of stories about what happened. But so one of the things was the Russian government absolutely would not allow Pyro. You couldn't have any kind of Pyro on the show. And so Doc McGee went to everybody's teams and said, hey, you're not allowed Pyro, You're not allowed Pyro. What?

34:41 You know, Mötley Crüe, Pyro was a big part of their show. They were a very theatrical band. And no, no, Pyro, you can't have any Pyro. Well, Bon Jovi, who I believe closed the set, had Pyro. And so they felt like Doc McGee gave favoritism to one of his other artists and they fired him because of that because they didn't get Pyro and and Bon Jovi did. And you know, the one other thing I will mention about the Doc McGee episodes is one of the greatest lines and I use it all the time and I repeat it all the time. One of the greatest lines ever. So I asked him, I said, you know, we were talking about sort of the state of the music business. Today, as everyone knows, the music business has changed very much.

35:24 It's gone from touring to support record sales to record sales to support touring to. Now they tour just to make a living. And record sales for most artists like Taylor Swift's still sells a bazillion records or whatever, but most artists don't make any money selling records anymore. Selling music, selling downloads, whatever. They're making all their money touring. And so I said with all the changes that have happened in the music business, if my son, let's say my son, is 19 years old and he's super passionate about music, like he is racing and it's all he ever wants to do. He only ever wants to be a musician and he wants to make a living in music. And and this is, this is his entire life, his world, his universe, What do I tell him today?

36:10 And he said, that's a good question. Let me ask you something. And I said what? And he goes, is he any good? And I said, I said let's pretend he's really good. He's very talented, he's good at. And he goes and I said why do you ask? And he says well, because everybody's a bull rider till somebody opens the gate. And that to me just like was Bing. You know he's totally right. Like the world is a bunch of of of posers for the most part. And then you have the few people who really do put in the effort and really will put in the work and make things happen. The rest of us are are, you know, bunch of posers. So anyways, great, great episodes 19 and 20. Doc is an icon.

36:57 Doc is a legend. Listen to his stories, It's super fun. 23 is Howard Ungerleider, who is a great friend of mine. Howard happens to have been the lighting designer for the band Rush since the very beginning of time. He did almost every live show they've ever done, I think outside, he says on the podcast. But I think it was two shows that he wasn't with them on. I think one was an award show and and one was something else. But other than that, he did every one of Russia's live shows ever in the history of time, like for 50 years or whatever. Right. And and you know, I'm Canadian and I'm a bass player. And so a bass player in Canada, you were either a Getty Lee Rush fan or you were just not a bass player in Canada in the 70s and 80s, right.

37:46 And I was a bass player in Canada. And so I had every base that Getty Lee from Rush ever had. And I was just a massive fan. And I didn't know Howard back then. I didn't know him until I got into the lighting business. But great friend, great guy. But anyways, on this podcast on episode 23, Howard tells probably I can't even say probably. It is the number one story I've ever heard in 200 and however many episodes of our podcast, this is the greatest story. I was in tears laughing and it's it's a story about a pony. And I'm not going to tell you the story now, but go listen to episode 23. Do yourself a favor.

38:26 You will thank me later. I promise Howard is an amazing guy. Again, another legend. Every one of these people is a legend, but Howard's a legend of lighting still at it today. I talked to him almost weekly at this point and listen to episode 2332 is another sad one. I had Bob Shockrel, who at the time had just retired from Roby. And Bob of course is one of the three founders of High End Systems really smart guy. He he was kind of the business at High End Systems. Richard Bellevue was always the the brains, the designer the the creator at High End Systems.

39:09 And Lowell was like the marketing make people happy guy who showed up at trade shows and made everybody laugh and stuff. But Bob was the guy who had to count the money and make sure there was enough in the bank and make sure people got paid and he was the business behind High End. And I gotta tell you, it's eerie now. But when I was recording this episode 32 and you'll hear it on the podcast, there were a lot of moments where Bob just couldn't think of really simple answers and really simple timelines and really simple. And my mom is is in a home with dementia. And so I recognized it and I didn't say anything, of course, and it never would. But I recognize something was going on and there was some sort of a a brain thing happening with with Bob, a memory thing, and didn't really think that much of it.

39:57 But I heard very shortly after that the reason he resigned from his job was because this. I don't know whether it's dementia or or Alzheimer's, but it was really becoming much more of a problem for him. And as far as I know, and I don't want to misspeak, but as far as I know, he's still among the living today and is living in a home. And his wife Carol is is dealing with some horrible things at this point. So wishing the best for all of them. Bob is an amazing guy. I hate to see anybody go through this. I'm watching my mom go through it. It's terrible. And many people listening, probably everyone listening knows someone who's been through it. It's terrible, terrible sickness. And yeah, so again, not that there's anything terribly incredible on this podcast episode, but I felt like it's an important one and people should listen to episode 32. I'm 40 again.

40:55 I'm a bit of a fanboy. Hartley PV from PV Electronics. I was APV dealer growing up in the musical instrument business, and I think my second bass amp I ever had was APV. The first one was a piece of shit and the second one was APV. And I've had PV bases, I've had all kinds of PV equipment, PV sound systems and stuff over the years. And when you're APV dealer, you know it's almost like a cult and and you go to the trade shows every year and listen to this guy speak. And at NAMM they always did this thing called the PV pre show. That was just a big event. And I remember seeing Pablo Cruz at one of the PV Pre shows and I was like, what's Pablo Cruz doing here?

41:38 And they released a keyboard, which was probably one of the first massive mistakes that PP made at the time. But again, a really, really great episode from a standpoint that I believe when we recorded this, he was in his late 70s and still sharp as could be, still could talk about things that happened in the 60s and 70s. And one thing that comes through on this episode #40 is, is his bitterness towards sort of the move of the entire industry to China from a manufacturing standpoint. He was proudly American, made in Meridian Ms. for many, many years.

42:19 And it just got to a point where first of all it was becoming harder and harder to compete, especially with sound systems and amplifiers and stuff with with companies overseas. And again it comes through on this episode that he's he's still a bit bitter about it. He still doesn't like that change in the industry. There's some other things that he was a little bit angry about. But it's a great episode. It's it's definitely worth listening to. And again, I love quotes. One of the quotes he made was that if you chase two rabbits, both will escape. Think about that one for a minute. That's a really, really good one. And of course, I actually really. I. I equate everything to dating.

42:59 So if you think about you're at the, you're at a bar and this has happened to me, by the way, you're at a bar and it's almost, it's almost time to go. It's like Last Call has been called and you've got 2 girls on the hook right now and you're you're like, well, but that one's a little better looking than this one. But this one's got a car, which means I don't have to walk home. And, you know, and you're like, going, oh, which one, Which one? Which one? Boom. They're both gone. And now you're like, what the hell just happened, you know, a minute ago I had two. Now I got none. So, you know, just it's one of my favorite quotes that I've ever heard on the podcast. Though again, for for all the wrong reasons. Episode 48 with Craig Burrows is is another one of my favorites. Very deep talk topic.

43:51 Craig had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and tells the story of how he sat in front of the doctor with his wife and and was given that news and they both cried for a few minutes and then Craig just kind of wiped his eyes and looked up at the doctor and said OK, what can we do next? The doctor said, Craig maybe you didn't hear me. You know, you have you have unsurvivable, inoperable Stage 4 cancer. You know what you need to do next is just prepare for for the ultimate end. And Craig, you know, to his blessing, Craig didn't accept that diagnosis. He didn't accept that that end.

44:35 He just said, OK, what do we do next? You know what's the next thing we we need to do here to get past this. And so this was episode 48. Had to be, I don't know, 2019-2020, probably 2020 and and Craig's still here today. He's healthy, He's completely cancer free, 100% cancer free. He he had a couple of relapses along the way where where he had to go get some other things done and stuff. He's been through hell for a few years over it, but he's alive today. He's healthy today. He's still my friend. I talked to him last week and, you know, anybody listen to the meeting. Him back from the show.

45:15 Yeah, yeah, we should get him back. I mean, Craig is such a a voice of positivity and and just such a great guy. And everybody listening to this is like, Oh my God, Craig's amazing. I love Craig. But give a listen to episode 48. It's it was during COVID, so it was kind of a depressing time anyway. But but Craig was telling us this story and he had kept most of it pretty secret. So this was kind of his coming out party on the podcast talking about it. A lot of people, I think, listened to the podcast and went, Oh my God, I had no idea. So yeah, really, really great. Episode 78, Cosmo Wilson, one of my other favorite people. So I know I say this about everybody, but there are probably 20 of my favorite people in the industry, and Cosmo's one of them.

45:59 Again, just a great guy, Super positive. There's there's no surprise that Cosmo has as many friends as he does. And I always say it the downside for Cosmo is that Cosmo is always posting on Facebook that we lost so and so today or we lost so and so today when you've got as many friends as Cosmo does and we go through COVID and let's face it, some of the people in our industry are not the healthiest people in the world. We don't live the healthiest lifestyles, especially on tour. And Sarah has had a touring background as well. So you know that, but you know, again, nothing terribly special. This was the first time Cosmo was on the on the podcast, him telling his story, how he got into lighting to begin with, who his inspirations were. He worked his way up, he always said yes and then figured it out.

46:53 He just worked his ass off. And now Cosmos, the LD for some of the biggest bands in the world still and is just so well loved and probably one of the the most loved people out there. Like the guy who gives and gets the most hugs at every trade show. So it's just another fun episode 81. I don't need to say much about this legend, Faye McMahon. You know, there was some funny stories on it. You know, Faye, you know there will be some funny stories on it. There are some great stories on this one. And just listen to episode 81 and 85, if I were to guess, was probably in about March of 2020 and we created this group called the COVID Crew, which was myself, John Wiseman, Eric Loder, Ben Saltzman, and who am I missing?

47:45 I'm missing 10. John Featherstone, of course. And you know, again, all people who tend to know what's going on in the industry, great group of people, a mix of manufacturer, you know, lighting exec designer and then me, whatever the hell I am, and just talking about what we thought this all meant, you know, what's going on? Like everybody had cancelled shows by this point. Everybody knew that this thing was a big deal by this point. And I remember John making some statements about John Wiseman making some statements about like he kept setting bars and he said, I'll tell you what, if the I can't remember which car show it was, but it was something in Germany, maybe he's the Berlin auto show, I think it was.

48:33 He said if the Berlin auto show cancels, you know, this industry's done, we're screwed. It's over. And then he said if the Olympics cancel, we're done. This industry's over. And both of those things and everything else cancelled too. And guess what? The industry's stronger today than it's ever been. So you were wrong, John. But a big one that we were all wrong about was on that podcast. We coined this phrase day 91. And the way I described it was, you know, spend 90 days improving yourself, upskilling yourself, cleaning up your company, fixing your books, whatever it is that you've been putting off for a long time that you now have the time to do and decide what you want to look like on day 91, which is the day that we come out from all of this, in reality it was like day 591 or something, right? And we were way off on our estimates of it being a 90 day problem.

49:32 There are a few people out there, and Huntley Christie was one of them who who knew it was going to be a long problem. Huntley basically went to his team and he said, you know, we've got at least 18 months of this. We need to buckle down and figure some stuff out right now because we're screwed. And Huntley was one of the very few. He acted quickly. He cut a lot of his staff, he cut a lot of his expenses, he closed a couple shops and he just really hunkered down and got ready for the storm that was about to hit and everybody went. He's overreacting, and people had so many bad things to say about Huntley back then. Guess what? He did better than so many other people did because he cut his expenses. How? Did he, how did he like, know that the the, the feeling or what? Well.

50:15 Like, I don't know what episode number that is, but if you search for Huntley Christie on Geese of Gear, it'll he says why on there? But it had everything to do with a couple of other prior crisises. And I if I remember correctly, it was 911 and then the financial crash in like 2008. And he remembered that he had downplayed one or both of those. And the impact and the length of time that it took to come back from those things was much worse than anybody had anticipated. And he felt like this was at least equal, if not worse than those two. And he was exactly right. So, you know, I know it's hard to go back and listen to stories about COVID and to what we were going through at the time and stuff, but it's actually also really interesting. It's a it's a great snapshot of a very terrible time and some pretty smart people talking about it and just bouncing around it.

51:14 And you can laugh at us too, because we were stupid as hell. We were so wrong about so many things, but we were trying to figure it out and we were trying to help people in figuring it out. Again, another legend. You know the ACDC story is amazing, but probably the most legendary production manager that ever lived. Jake Berry Episode #129 Great Stories, Funny, awesome. Listen to it. Unfortunately, most of these you can't view yet because that we didn't do YouTube until just recently. But you can go to anywhere you get a podcast, or you can go to geezersofgear.com and just search for either Jake Berry or search for 129.

51:57 Either way, you'll find it. Episode 162 is somebody that in the US everyone will know, but probably outside the US you're all going who? Bob Gordon. And so Bob Gordon did lots and lots of cool stuff that I didn't even know. I learned a lot of it right here on this episode, but a couple of the big things he did, The guy was a visionary when it came to product selection. And so he was the guy basically who discovered the flying pig guys and and brought the whole hog lighting console into America and did very, very well with that obviously. And guess what? When that started going away because High End bought Flying Pig Systems and he was going to lose the distribution of it, What did Bob do but go out and found this small German company called MA Lighting and then rode the wave of, you know, MA1MA2MA3.

52:51 You know, I mean, just an incredibly smart guy, a great product picker and just a funny dude with some great stories. You know, I don't know how old Bob is now, I actually do. But I won't tell you. But his memory of of these stories of things that happened in the 60s and 70s just incredible. So he's a great storyteller. And then finally the 15th one. That is one of my favorites is episode 181, and it's probably one of the greatest storytellers we've ever had on the podcast for the simple reason that the guy doesn't forget anything. And so Jonathan Smeaton was talking. I don't remember it was like a Diana Ross show or something, that he was talking about something that he did in like the 70s.

53:38 And he told you what gel number he was using on her because she liked this color versus this color and stuff. How the hell do you remember that? Like how do you remember the gel number that you were using on a show in the 70s? And so he just, the guy tells stories like nobody else I've ever known. He tells them in great detail. He tells them with a perfect memory of them. And I just, I can't do that. Like, I won't remember people's names. I won't remember the name of the venue we were at. I won't remember the name of the artist that I was working for, you know, I remember the most important things, like, did I eat breakfast, you know, But everything else is kind of, you know, blanked out at some point, right.

54:21 But when I'd be on a. Tour as well I would, sorry to interrupt you. When I'd be on a tour, we'd go back to, you know, a venue and I'd be like, have I been here? I was like, no, I haven't. And then everyone was like, you, Sarah, you've been here for five times. Yeah, that's. And I worked and I'm like, oh, yeah, of course. I'm sorry. Well. Something pulls it together, you know, like something. There's there's an association where where it's like, oh, I remember these toilets, you know, or I remember catering here. You had to go up fourteen sets of stairs and around a corner where everybody almost dies. And yeah, I mean there's always something that you associate to that place but back to meet and so one of the stories he starts telling the story.

55:04 I was doing a small tour in Europe and with Frank Zappa and you know it was I think he said it was A1 truck tour or something and we we get to a club in I think it was Lucerne or wherever somewhere in Switzerland and and you know it's it's an upstairs club and kind of a cool place and and Frank's having a really great night and the audience is way into it and stuff and he stops part of the way through. And I hate to even tell this story because I'm screwing it up for everybody else but go listen to it anyways because hearing him tell it I'm getting goosebumps again right now.

55:46 I get it. I got it at the time. I'm getting it again. But anyways, he, he says, you know, halfway through a song, Frank stops and goes, we're on fire and and the audience goes, yeah, yeah, Frank, we're on fire. And he goes, no, the place is on fire, get out. And so they chase everybody out of the venue. And the crew was told grab whatever you can and just throw it out the windows or whatever. And so Jonathan grabbed Frank, had this famous guitar called the stereo guitar, and he threw it out the window and it hit a tree and snapped in half and fell to the ground or whatever, right? But anyways, they're standing outside a bit later and just kind of looking at this smoldering building. And you turn around and look over the lake and there's just like this layer over the water.

56:38 And there happened to be another band in town at the time recording an album, and they wrote a song called Smoke on the Water. And Jonathan was there. I mean that to me, like, it's the first song I ever learned on guitar. It's the first song everybody ever learned on guitar. I owned a guitar store and everybody, every amateur, wannabe guitar player, walked in there and went and screwed it all up. But you know that that's my youth. So that story, for whatever reason I was so involved in the story, listening to it, I didn't see the end coming.

57:19 And then when it came, I was like, no way. I was just shocked, right? I was blown away and and again, I just got goosebumps again, now, you know, best story that was ever told. Well, right up there with with the pony one and Sarah, if you haven't heard the pony story yet, you got to go back and listen to the pony story because it is freaking funny. So yeah, those are my top 15. Sarah, that hasn't been here long enough to have a top anything yet. She can only tell you the top ones that by the way, every podcast we record now, Sarah sits in the background, she's in the green room listening, taking notes. She's a a very busy note taker.

58:00 And and then after the podcast she'll tell me all the things I did wrong. Of course. And yeah, so we're trying to figure out how to get Sarah to be able to do what Jamie does on the on the Joe Rogan podcast where I say, hey Sarah, can you look that up and she can look something up and go well as a matter of fact and tell us, you know, whatever answer we're looking for. So yeah, some great episodes, Listen to all of those. Listen to all of our episodes, of course. But those 15 are really, really great, all for different reasons. Most of them are because of stories, but some of them are just because of sentimental reasons or other things. But all really great episodes and and certainly the 15 that I picked out as as really, really super important. So if I didn't pick you, I'm sorry, but it's not because I didn't like your episode.

58:51 It's just because these ones had something that I needed to. I don't know. Bring along. You didn't. Pick my one more. So I'm. Sorry, maybe maybe our 40th anniversary or something. That'll be that. May sure remember that. Time, yeah. Yeah. So anyways, thanks again everyone. Thank you for listening to this for as long as you have here. 59 minutes of nonsense and five years. Wow. We appreciate each and every person who listens to this. We love our sponsors. Thank you so much. Keep listening, Keep watching on YouTube. If you have any ideas for guests, please bring them.

59:33 We love the ideas that we've been getting. Sarah reaches out to every single person. Of course, we don't put every single person on because we need to make sure it's going to be interesting, or at least make an attempt at making sure it's going to be interesting. And some people guess what you think. You're interesting. Maybe you're not so interesting. And yeah, and also sponsors. We have two more spots to fill. We have lots of people talking about those spots, but the two spots are still open. We need them closed before the end of February or January. And Sarah, anything to add? No, you've covered everything. Go check out episode #1 as well. It's bad episode one. It's bad. I think as any kind of a creator, whether you're creating written stuff or a book or an album or a anything, OK, When you go to your first one, you're embarrassed.

1:00:23 You know I'm gonna make. Some shorts and call it the embarrassing number Jesus. Please. No. Please. No. Anyways, thank you again everyone, and we'll see you on the next episode. Bye. Bye.