Latest / Your Dark Companion Podcast / Majestic Memories: Behind the Curtain | Mike Schwedler | Ep 228

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Majestic Memories: Behind the Curtain | Mike Schwedler | Ep 228 · Your Dark Companion Podcast

• Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Ryder, sports talk? Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We had a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams. Don't do it. Wait. You said tip. Yeah. Tip. Okay. With a p. I would Keep jamming. The ticket, Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off set. Is this a cool night or what? I thought somebody would hear that and go, bullshit. I'm back, bitches. We are? Okay, she says we're live, then we're live. Heidi, it's Your Dark Companion, another edition. Now we've, already done something today, and I'm not sure what's going to run when. But, the whole idea was this. I got to thinking about the Majestic Theater, the grand old Majestic Theater in Dallas. And, I started thinking, you know, I'd really like to go in there and just see, get behind the curtain, see what it's like. And then that golden bulb of enlightenment went off over my head. I said, you know, you do know somebody who is probably very capable of making that happen. That somebody is this guy. He is Michael Schwedler. He is the general manager of this place. Hi. Hey, Mike. We go way back. We do go way back. Way back to Oak Cliff. All the way to Oak Cliff, Justin F Kimball. Yes, sir. But then I thought, but wait. I know somebody else who would probably like in on this. And that somebody else is my friend, mister Chad, the great Chad Stockslager. This sounds very much like something that would be up your alley. Oh, yes. I'm pleased to be a part of it. It's a true privilege to be on the stage once again. Yes. We are on the stage of the Majestic Theatre. Now, earlier today, you were talking about that time when the Majestic was part of what was known as Theater Row here in Arthur Berg. This was like in the forties, the fifties, something like that. Sure. Mhmm. And I remember when I was a little kid, upon occasion, my parents would come downtown on at night when the city would be all lit up and everything. And you would go down Elm Street and there would be theaters, several of them. Six, seven, how many were there? There were nine at the peak. There were nine total. Yeah. Well, for most of my coming of age adolescence when I first kinda kinda figured out what was going on, four of those were left. Down the way, there was the tower and the Capri. And up this way, there was the palace and the majestic. And over the years, downtown kind of dried up, the theaters went out of business, but the Majestic stayed. And the Majestic over the years has turned into a music venue, and I would imagine many of you have been to shows here at the Majestic. And Michael is the guy who arranges these. And what I wanted to find out was just how it is that you do what you do because that's a big part of the business that I know very little about, about how all that works. It's not funny. Well But you don't have to answer that now because I got a couple other things to get into with you. I do remember the first music event that I came to here, and it was probably 1971, '72, I wanna say. And at that time, we had a lot of the music venues around here was you had Memorial Auditorium, known today as the Dallas Convention Center Arena. You also had McFarland Auditorium, a wonderful place to see a show. You had the State Fair Music Hall, another excellent place to see a show, but that was really about it. There were some over in Fort Worth, but over here in Dallas, that was about, what you were left with. And it was really neat, I thought, that the Majestic was going to put on a show there and I really wanted to go to it. I probably would have gone to see anybody, but it helped greatly that the show I was going to see was the Jeff Beck Group. Yes, sir. At a time when, they just put out the Rough and Ready album, I believe. My Jeff Beck Group album too. He was never better Agree. Than then and that's Sayin' Sign. Those those killer players in that band. Oh. All those guys. Incredible. Well, he came through here and he had a singer who he didn't let sing very much. And when he did sing, you could tell that there was good reason for that. He didn't have that whole band with him, but still, it was Jeff Beck and they were up there doing those songs and it was great. I had no complaints whatsoever. So that was my swim, first swim through the Majestic. What was yours? Do you recall? Well, I came here as a kid, as a little kid, to to see a movie back before there were there were any well, I guess there were some live music shows off and on back then because they had this wonderful stage, but mostly it was a film house. And I came here to see A Hard Day's Night as a a kid. Yeah. My grandmother brought me here to see that. Maybe the second week it was out. And we came here to see movies a lot. I didn't see a concert here until much later, till probably into the eighties Yeah. Where I came to an actual live music show. We did do a, back in the day before the Observer hit town, Buddy Magazine was the music paper monthly, music monthly, And they had their week their yearly Buddy Music Awards. And we were involved in that. And I remember coming to that and there were some performances that that may have been the first time I was here for a concert was for the Buddy Awards. Yeah. Do you remember your first time here? I can't, actually. I don't I was looking at my little list of shows here. I mean Do you keep a list of shows over the years? Well, I I I made note of the ones I saw here. But I think the furthest one back, I remember seeing Bonnie Raitt here a long time ago, a while back. That was pretty cool. Mhmm. I remember she had Ray Charles' old organ player. She made a statement from the the stage, I was like, oh. And he gave a little razzmatazz. It was most impressive. Yeah. Yeah. But whenever you saw Hard Night or Hard Day's Night here, was there was there a screen permanently set up or was it a descending screen? Do you remember? I guess you would No. I was just a little kid, but I think it was just a screen. It was just a fixed screen and it was a movie theater and because I was a little surprised that they even had a full stage. Yeah. I was too. And and I do agree with that. I think I think it would have been a fixed screen that they and they really didn't do, I don't think, much except show films in here. Because back in those days, it seems like if you did have a live band here that you could have utilized that screen for some sort of psychedelic hoo or some sort of light show or some sort such. And the other way around, they show a film and they would have live musicians playing Right. The film. Yeah. I guess that's why the stage was even here. It didn't have the apron then. It didn't have the curve. Right. It was flat with the proscenium. And I believe, it seems to me that the screen was in the opening right here in the proscenium, not not set back. How long have you been here now? Thirteen years. It'll be I was here it was thirteen years in April. What got you in here? Well, I just it's too good to pass up. But I, you know, I'd gotten off the road myself. Mhmm. And I'd spent some time on the business side of things. And I had a chance to get involved in another another historic theater music venue in town over on Greenville Avenue. Got involved with the Granada. Mhmm. Opening that one with Mike and stayed there for a few years. Heard about this opening and decided that maybe this was the place for me. It was a little complicated by the fact that it was owned by the city. So I'm a I'm a city of Dallas employee, which has a lot of baggage, but it seemed like the place to be. It seemed and they when I came to interview, they brought me in the stage door and walked me out here, and I had this view, and I instant I just said, whatever. Yeah. I'll do whatever you want me to do. Yeah. Whatever it takes to get me in here. I just wanna be a part of this. I come here every day. Yeah. Mhmm. And I I remember thinking when I walked down the hallway, what's it gonna be like if I'm still walking down this hall in ten years? Here we are. Here we are. Walking down the same halls. Ten hall ten years and then some. And then some. Sure. I'm gonna try to stay a couple more years. They'll probably take the keys away from me before that. I I doubt that. We'll see. Maybe I can do fifteen. If they've stayed with you this long, then they like they must like you. There's a good point. They probably they could have got rid of me this, like, the second week. And they got, oh, this guy. So it's supposed to be a performing arts place Yeah. Performing arts center. And we do a lot of PAC stuff, but really my background, like yours, was in music. So that was what our focus has been Mhmm. During my time here. Yeah. We both played drums with bands in Oak Cliff back in the day. And we have a certain amount of crossover We do. With all of that. But what I wanna talk to you about and what really got me going on this is an aspect of the business that has always been rather murky to me. There's probably a good reason for that. I'm not asking for any trade secrets or anything like that here. But how do you guys go about the process of booking the bands you book in here? Well, it's not really very complicated for us here. Know, Granada was much more complicated. So at the Granada, we were the talent buyers. We we bought the bands. We had to keep up with who was touring, what was going on, and we went out and actively re bought that stuff and brought it in. Mhmm. It's a little bit different here. We're a rental house. So I work with all the promoters around Live Nation and AEG and Outback and all the all the guys around. And they will hit me up with ideas for things. And I have my own my own a a certain amount of control with that, you know, taking and or passing on the things that we that are appropriate for the room. But it's not like I have to go find everything. A lot of it kinda comes to me, and then we sift through and pick the things that fit the the mission statement for a PAC like this. So these guys have bands out on the Road. They're looking to, they've got one that's in the area. They say, how about a gig in Dallas? And, they call you up and say, what do you think about this band at the Majestic? Is that pretty much how it works? Yeah. And it may not be just me. You know? Some so if you're getting if if Bruce Springsteen is getting ready to go do a theater tour, he's his agent is gonna reach out and say, I'd like to we wanna play your market. What rooms in that town do you think could be right for that? And the promoter might say, well, you could do, you know, Majestic and or the Fair Park Music Hall and Texas Trust, maybe. And they'll say, well, send us an offer on all of those. And they'll send that in. And they if they pick if they pick Majestic, then the show comes to us. And a lot of times, we have a little more sway in it than just, you know, answering the phone. We'll we'll actively go out and try to make a point of getting the things we really want to be here, and there's a lot of stuff like that. I see something's I see Jason Isabel's not going on tour. I'm gonna go try to get that show, you know Yeah. Or Elvis Costello or any of the people that I'm really I'm really hot on. How do you find out who's out when? Well, the bible for that is a publication called Polestar. That's how the the old the whole industry finds out what's going on, who's touring, and what they're doing at the box office. That's sort of the Polestar variety. There's a couple of performance. There's a couple of other magazines that that dabble in this, but Polestar is really the place that people find out where the tours are, where they're going, when they'll be, and everybody refers to that. So someone like Springsteen doing a solo run, just him and guitar, let's say, a venue like this would be nice. Yeah. So since the acoustics are so built in, it's it's intimate no matter where you're sitting. What is the capacity for this main room here? So it's 1,704 seats. There are a few seats that we kill, for production. You so we it's 1,680 sellable seats. And it's perfect for for that kind of thing. You were here It happens. It happens. You were here for Elvis Costello Right. Which is a perfect example of that. It's a guy with just a guitar, and he's gonna tell stories and sing songs. And it's a nuanced performance. The thing that this room is best for is nuanced perform I mean, we can rock and roll with anybody, but if you've got somebody really trying to be quiet and and and nuanced, this is a great room for because you can hear everything that they're doing. I love that. I was talking to Mike earlier about The Donovan Show when he came through here, and he sat on a Sat on the Donovan little cloud. Yeah. And I was just never seen that. It was just him with the guitar. Wasn't that great? And he sat in the lotus position playing the guitar the whole time and it was just a magical thing because his stories, every word he said was really coming through and you really get the charm of his whole personality and everything and just the the subtlety of the picking and everything. Maybe in a way you couldn't get it at another type of Donovan Right. Performance that was just so intimate. It's just him. Yeah. That was really special. It was really good. I've got photos of that. I was the house photographer of that night. So I'm Did you see I was telling Mike earlier when Bucks Burnett so Bucks and I were sitting on the front row. And just as Donovan was getting up to walk off the stage, Bucks came up to the front of the stage and slid an eight track across the stage. So Bucks. And it got Donovan right on the foot, and he reaches down and picks it up and was just like, okay, and wandered off. But for Bucks, it was the biggest victory. That is so Bucks, Bernardo. Yeah. It was really pretty cool. That's awesome. Did he keep the eight He took it off stage with him. I don't know what he did with it. But I bet he's listening to it right now. Yeah. I'd like to think that. I would too. He's got an eight track player, which none of us have. It's pretty magic. Yeah. So this is a very competitive industry between the Majestic and similar venues? Yeah. And it goes through phases of that. You know, sometimes more and less. But, right now, we're in a very competitive moment. Right now, there's a lot of there's a few new venues in town, some really great venues in town, places that I you know, my personal attitude is there's plenty of room for everybody. I don't feel very competitive Yeah. About that sort of thing. I think there's plenty of room for lots of good shows, but we were lucky for a long time in because of our size. You know, the what the shows that come to you come to you because of your capacity. Mhmm. They don't I've got a nice chandelier. Nobody cares when they're booking. They don't care about the chandelier. They wanna know how many seats I like the chandelier just for the record. Yeah. Well, yeah, me too. That is lovely. Yeah. But you don't but, you know, when they're looking at their gross potential, they just wanna know how many seats and how much we're gonna charge for it and what what the GP what the walkout's gonna be. That's all they care about. So for a long time, the only place with the same number of seats as us was House of Blues, and they're just not a competitor. They're edgier, make more they're a lot more metal, a lot more urban stuff, a lot of the stuff that really doesn't come here just naturally. Mhmm. So it wasn't very competitive, and we sat in a a sweet spot sort of by ourselves. There's a couple of sheds. Well, there's Texas Trust. There's what was Starplex. What's it called now? Vodka Plex, Yellow Pages, something Something like that. Something like that. Some other kind of flex. Pavilion is what it is. I'm gonna be nice because those guys work with us. But there, you know, there's some places like that that get shows. Really, right now, my my favorite room in town outside of this room is, what Edwin's done with the Longhorn Ballroom and his new amphitheater. You know, that's That's a major competitor for us right now. It's a welcome competitor because I think to have the Longhorn back and what he's doing outside is really cool. I think that's really special. That's remarkable that you would say that about another place, but the Longhorn kind of transcends being just another place. It does. Even kind of fights in it against its own weaknesses. Yeah. Way it's got that low ceiling and and not great sidelines in some places and stuff, but it's still just magic. Mhmm. I love every show I go to there. Yeah. It's still the Longhorn. It's the Longhorn. And it's still got all that history to it. And nowhere in that weird, sketchy little spot that we have to go to and you know, but it's awesome. And he the job that he and Jeff and that whole crew have done over there is just incredible. Incredible. It's funny because I would say the same thing about this place compared to you mentioned the House Of Blues. You walk in there and there's, like, 20 security points. You're kinda going through this whole maze to get anywhere in there, and it does have a kind of a bit more of a corporate kind of feel to it. You come in here and you feel like you're it's it's something very special, very warm and inviting. It's got that that vibe, and I think part of that is, you know, having come here from the Granada where we you know, it was a lot of, you know, rock shows, pretty pretty wild stuff. Came over here, one of the first things I was I noticed was that people behave themselves here. Mhmm. It's just something about being downtown in a more formal environment like this that I just don't I don't get a lot of trouble. And we it it you can have that sort of relaxed performing arts center vibe here because of the nature of this building and its history and the respect it gets. Yeah. It's it's like it's a theater. It's a theater. And you behave a certain way when you go to the theater. You certainly do. You know, I've got photos of opening night when, when they opened this place in 1921. And people are people are dressed formally. They're wearing tuxedos and evening gowns. Oh, I'm sure that was just a huge deal. It was. And even even in my lifetime, even in our span, there was a time when, you know, if you came down here to go to the movies, you dressed up. Yes. You did. You got dressed up and you went to the went to the movies is you know, what happened to that really was the neighborhood Cineplex, the neighborhood theaters kinda slipped Theater Row out of business. Yeah. It was so much easier to drop your kids off four four blocks from home at the neighborhood theater and pick them up later than to get them downtown safely and back home. It made the movie experience a cheap thrill. It did. And it made it it made it a thing where you it was also kind of an all day babysitter thing. You could drop your kids and just leave them for the day and then have to worry about it. But back in the day, you come down here to go to do a movie. Number one, you got some girl you're trying to get over on with you. Mhmm. You Speaking of that, I gotta make a movie. You dress up for it. I mean, you're gonna do this, you better come correct. Mhmm. And it was it was not an experience to be trifled with and one that that things were going to go right for you, then you had to make them go right beforehand. You know, and I've been grateful for that that respect and that approach that people take to coming down here before. It does make operating the place a lot simpler when I don't have, you know, people throwing up in the trash cans at nine in the morning. Yeah. Probably don't have a lot of fights in here, do you? No. No. No. That's a real unusual thing to see a scuffle break out here. We've had a couple of little little things. Well, it is such a listening room too, like like you say. So we were talking earlier about the Jeff Tweedy show. Is there is there a protocol that typically falls into place whenever someone's being a little rowdy? Do you just kinda politely ask them to It's really kinda the artist protocol that we try to enforce help them enforce. Yeah. You know, they've got their you know, there's a lot of artists that they don't care how how much trouble breaks out. Don't be throwing anybody out of my show. Right. You know, that's just their approach. So it just depends. We we have we have a lot of nice mostly nice old people that act as our ushers. Hello. And they are pretty calm and discreet about trying to you know, especially, like, there's a no phone policy. That's impossible. Impossible. Right. Stopping somebody from getting their phone out and take Sure. Whatever. But they're very polite and calm about approaching those people and trying to get them to play by the rules. It it usually works out. Yeah. The Jeff Tweedy thing was the squeaky seat thing was a different thing. There's no protocol for that. You can't tell people not to Squeak. Not to squeak, you know. So for those who may not know, what happened there? Well, well, I was so happy to get Jeff here. We go way back, and I'm a big fan of Wilco and everything Jeff ever does. And I was so happy to get him, and I was a little nervous because of it. And he was out here as just him and a guitar, and he's singing these very subtle Jeff Tweedy songs. And in the middle of a song, he stopped and goes, who is squeaking their chair? And some guy back over in the center section back on the side goes, just did one little squeak. And Jeff goes, it's you, you know, and stopped And it had a little moment, and it was it was charming because kinda because it had to be. But Yeah. But, the guy didn't squeak the seat anymore. But ever since then, I've been on a mission to replace the squeaky seats with sweets that don't rock and don't squeak and a little You go through here and check them all out? We yeah. David, my my my facilities guy, he goes through he's walking around all the time with w d 40 and a screwdriver, working on things and tightening things up a little bit. We have gone through, these seats have been in the theater a long time. And our basement for a long time, we had probably 40 seats down there that had been taken out over the years, and we just kept them to Frankenstein parts off of as needed. I think I've used all my parts now, though. So if seats breaks now, we have to just tape it off and sell one less ticket, I guess. Do you have any idea of what the makeover of this place over the years has been like? Because it I mean, was it like this when it was a movie house? Or did it have this big stage area back here then? Or or There were some changes made over the years, but essentially, it's the same edifice it's always been. There were some things done. There was a the balcony was shortened a little, was brought in a little bit in the back when they needed to put in projection rooms when it became a film house. So when it opened, it was a vaudeville house. It was the sign out front was an iron sign that said vaudeville. You know, it was a vaudeville house. And during the '20, that was in 1921. So very quickly, there was a majestic the original majestic was over on Commerce at Ackerd, I believe, and it burned. And the day it burned, probably, I think the story is while it was burning, Carl and his brother, Carl Hoblotso, and his brother walked over here and decided on this location. It was an open lot then. And they they built this theater then. So they built this place to be a vaudeville theater and then when it made the switch during the twenties as talkies came in and film really took off and became the the entertainment media, it it it vaudeville went away. Vaudeville was pretty intolerant anyway. It was time had passed. So it became a movie house, and they they did some renovations here, put in the the projection rooms and some things like that. It wasn't until 1980 when it was gifted to the city by the Haublotel Foundation, and the city took control of the building and did a renovation, did a bond, a bond passed, raised some money, and they renovated the building very, very well for this for this city. You know, the city doesn't do renovation well, but they did a really nice job on this. They built this apron that we're sitting right next to, and they made some changes, made this stage more modern. Is it surprising that the city, I don't know, maybe you had to have been there at the time and understood the dynamic of the day, but you talk about the city getting involved in this and taking it over after it was gifted to them. A lot of cities would just turn around and flip it because they wouldn't wanna get into the theater business. They're not their gig, yeah. Does it kinda surprise you a little bit that that this city this city, which is known for playing it straight and true, did what it did and Very much. And turned it into what it is today? Very much. You know, we you referenced Theater Row. There were nine theaters on this street. Eventually, they were all gone. This was the last one. That probably has more to do with it than anything else. It was gonna be it was gonna be there would be one left or there would be none left and Yeah. Anybody could recognize the value in that, I suppose. But the fact that they raised the money and they did such a good job on it, they did it with such good intent is a little surprising. So when the city takes over a place a place like this, that means that they're also signing on for the maintenance moving forward? Or is that That's true. Mhmm. And it's a 100 year old building. So We have 26 different HVAC systems in this Right. And anytime all 26 are working, we have a little party. Okay. They're all working at the same time. We celebrate that. Okay. What's the status of things today? They're all working right now. They're all working It right feels great. Party. Yeah. If y'all wanna party after this, we can meet somewhere. So is there anybody over at the city that when the phone rings and they see it's you, they just go, oh, God. No. I don't know about that, but there are I find it fascinating that there are people at the city that want to be on the guest list a lot. I don't find that fascinating at all. In fact, I I would expect that. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a I've got a set guest list that is required for whoever is renting and and presenting. Oh, wow. And and that really, that guest list is there for city use now. We've all enjoyed the that a time or two. But for the most part, that's there, and and I I have people right now on the guest list for this weekend from the city. They'll be over here this weekend as fate would have it. Yeah. So let's get back into the idea of how you book bands and acts to come in here. First of all, you see who's on tour, who's out there, who the possibilities might be. What is the next calculation you make when you start to consider these? Well, it kinda depends on who it's so complicated. Every kind every case is a little different. Yeah. You know, a lot of the promoters have been doing you know, our friend Danny Eaton Yeah. He's done every show the Eagles have done in Dallas for, I don't know, forty years. So when the Eagles come to Dallas, they're gonna go to Danny. And Danny's gonna go to the places he wants to go that he sees the show being right there. They're too big for this place, of course. But that's the example. So it it's a little bands go to promoters, and then promoter comes to you. Is that the way it works? That's kinda the way it works mostly for us. Now a lot of artists do come directly to us, but eventually, it flows through a promoter. Now a lot we also do a lot of arts groups and a lot of performing arts center kind of things, and those folks all come directly to me. Right. But if if, the Bruce Springsteen tour was gonna come through, they would go to AEG probably and reach out to them and say, hey. We wanna hit Dallas. We what can you do? What can we do there? Where do you think we should play? And if it comes to us, I'm very grateful and Chad's on the guest list. Yes. That's magic. What about me? How am I? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chad had my car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got a hot date over here. Yeah. So that's interesting. So the promoter would then reach out to you, and you would work out all the fine details with that. Yeah. Yeah. It's that's kinda typically typically the way it happens. And when I first got here, I'd been at a I'd been the promoter for a long time, and I kept trying to talk the city into I was, you know, we can make a lot more money, be in more control if you just let me but it didn't take me very long to realize that the city, this isn't what this a city does. Right. The city can't risk taxpayer money on ticket sales. They can't put something on sale and hope that it sells through. Right. Yeah. They're not gonna do it. There's also I almost hate to admit this, but after about six months, I'd had a an epiphany where I realized this is 10 times easier than being the promoter. The promoter is the guy that does all the heavy lifting. Right. You know? I I've got I I settle with them, and they take care of everything else. So so it was it was actually kind of a a blessing after I figured out how to do it and how to still stay in, You know, what I did not wanna do by being in a rental facility is lose contact with getting those shows that we were the shows I want to come here. I wanted a way to still encourage those shows to get here, and I still try to do that as much as I can. Well, you were saying earlier that you had a wish list upon arrival here and that you were pretty much able to fulfill those thus far. Do do you remember who those were? Yeah. For this for this room, it was, Elvis Costello, which is a personal favorite, and, and Eddie Isard. Mhmm. Because there was a lot of comedy coming in and we, you know, we we're mostly music oriented, but there's a lot ton of comedy and podcast tour touring going on, and we're we're in on that. And I want those are the two guys I'd set my sights on. Just my own personal taste and judgment. You know, I just thought this would be cool to have those guys. And having them was so awesome. I'll tell you this. I never come backstage. I I'm not I don't wanna be that guy. Don't wanna be backstage bothering the talent. You know? Just there's places you can go where you have to take a picture with the manager. I just don't get that. So I never come back. But the times I do make a point of come the times I've made a point of coming of coming back were for Elvis and Eddie, and of all things, Anthony Bourdain. Oh, wow. I was a big fan of his TV work. Mhmm. And and I thought, I've I'd I'd I'd sure like to chat with Anthony for a second. Yeah. And I didn't wanna be a pain or anything, but I wandered down to the dressing room, and there were a couple of people in there talking, then I kinda bided my time. And finally, there was some contact and, hey. How you doing? And we chatted for a minute. He was charming. It was awesome. I said, well, look. I was married at the time. I said, look. I you're my my wife's TV boyfriend, and I promised her I would leave so she would have a shot. So I gotta go. And we both got a good chuckle out of that, and I I left. But, you know, it it's there you know, the list of people I wanna play here isn't always what's best for the place. And there's a lot of stuff that's here that I don't I really don't know much about when I first hear about it, and I have to do some research to figure it out. But for the most part, we get stuff that's suitable. The people that present here know what this room's good for, and that's what they bring us. I'm happy about that. Have there ever been bands that you do look at that you didn't know much about and and just go, gosh. I don't know about this. I don't know if this would work here or not. Pretty regularly. Oh, really? Pretty regularly. I've I've said I've got a little secret spot that I sit in up there. I call my jump seat up by the outer house mixed position. And I sit up there, and maybe it's just because of the familiarity with the room and the sound and the and going back to a little bit about what we talked about the way the patrons behave themselves here. The artists kinda do too. Mhmm. Know, You in the shows, they really put good foot forward. And I'm I'm regularly blown away by something that's sort of new to me. We're gonna have a thing coming up next month. We've got ill harmonic orchestra. You're not familiar No. It's an orchestra setup, but they're doing very contemporary stuff, a lot of kinda urban stuff, and it is killer. I knew nothing about Illharmonic Orchestra until sitting up in the jump seat watching them play, and they just blew me away. Wow. And I've got so I've got Illharmonic and then Todd Rundgren and then Joe Jackson. And we closed down for a few weeks for some renovations. So I'm just so stoked about those last three shows. So with big names like that, do you space them out? Or I don't get too much control over that. You know, they're on the road when they're on the road, and they're in the market when they're in the market. You know? Two I've done I was I was an agent for a long time and did national routing, it's really, really hard. And so you have to sort of give them the nod on that. They're gonna be there when they want to. And if they're going to be on the tales of another similar show, it's just that's just the way it is. Mhmm. So an act will go on the road. An agent will call you and say, hey, listen, I've got so and so. They're gonna be headed down this way if you're interested. Mhmm. Is that the way it works? It that's the way it works a lot of times. And a lot of times that it that they will say, so, you know, I've got this particular show. Do you have anything similar to that right around it? Because we don't wanna we don't wanna comp you know, cannibalize Yeah. You know, own ticket sales by doing putting the same type of comedian in back to back or something like that. Right. So we get a lot of that. And there's a lot but talking about the other competition around town, this town has a lot of venues. There's a lot of places to play here. So if my room doesn't work out on that tour, Toyota will or Doseki's will. Something will work out. Yeah. And it just seems like a really strong, really competitive business. It's a it is pretty competitive. And, I I I have to I I have to consider myself lucky to be in the sweet spot to be in this room. The the Elvis Costello show we've talked about a couple of times. He he picked this room himself. He saw a video of this stage and had his agent call and say, wanna play that room in that in in Dallas. Next time, I'm play Dallas because he liked the look. We get a lot of that. We get a lot of people. There's not many historic theaters in this town. I mean, Granada is one, but it's smaller. Yeah. But nobody there's not many places like this around. And if you're gonna particularly if you're going to film, if you're gonna shoot a Netflix special or if you're going to whatever, this has got the look. We've got that ambiance that people are looking for. It's not a black box kind of a thing. Right. And I we so we get a lot of shows that want to be in this historic theater vibe. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. Lucky. Just my my good luck that it's still so beautiful. Who's the act that you would really, really like to book? Yeah. What's what's on your Well, the the ultimate wish list. Man, I I don't know. It's John Lennon still? No. No. You know, I I I lost the, current Jason Isbell tour to, to the Longhorn. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's playing for everyone. And that's full band, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That's one. I don't know. There's so many. There's it's, you know, my mind will go blank when I'm put on the spot like this, but I'd like to have the the the Wilco show. I'd like to have Jason Isbell. I'm kind of an Americana guy, although my tastes aren't exactly that always. But that's the step that's this size room is really good for. And I want room I want stuff to come in here that's right for the room. Yeah. It seems like this that that would be something that this room is especially good for. Especially good for. You know, our our our we're both fans of Todd Rundgren, and we've got a show coming up in a couple of weeks with Todd here. That's the kind of thing I get really excited about when especially when we've had somebody once or twice and they want to come back, then I know we're doing the right thing. But I've said to my staff and my bosses and everybody who listen over and over, I think there's plenty of people worrying about the experience for the folks that come and go through the front door. I'm very concerned about the experience for the folks that come through the back door. Yeah. Mhmm. I want them to be down the line in the next city or four cities down the line and saying, hey. Have you guys done Majestic Right. That's the thing to me that keeps a place like this going. Were you over were you still over Granada when Dylan played over there? That was be right before me. Okay. Right before me. Pat Snuffer. Snuffers. Yeah. Next door. Owned it. And he did Dylan and Dolly Parton. Oh, wow. Pretty close to good in the same year. Yeah. And, woah, man. I wish I'd been at Pope I mean, I really wish I'd been at that Dylan show. I heard it was I heard it was great. I heard it was Dylan at his best. Yeah. Enunciating. Right. Right? I feel like his current band would sound pretty sweet in this room. Yeah. I'd like to have Charlie up here. Yeah. Charlie's I think we've had Charlie here for couple of things over the years, maybe with Amy Mann and Mhmm. Couple of things, but I'd like to have him back with Dylan and with Elvis. That'd be ideal. I can imagine seeing Dylan in here. Listening room. Boy, you'd be able to hear everything he's speaking. Yeah. As long as he enunciates. Yeah. That's the big thing with when it comes to Dylan. I wonder if he decides, like, that morning or I wonder when he decides whether he's gonna mumble or not. I don't know. I I I'd love to get inside the mind of Bob Dylan and and just walk through the mumbling process with him. I would do. Mumble or not to mumble. Yeah. Well, let's see. I never did like those lyrics. I think I'll just slur them on. Change them up. Yeah. Do you okay. So this is kinda weird, but, like, years ago, I had a buddy of mine whose dad used to run people back and forth to this theater up in Oklahoma. Okay? And it was like a nice, good sized room. Ray Charles would play there whenever he was coming through. And he distinctly he told me this great memory of Art Garfunkel coming to play there. And that in order for Garfunkel to take the stage, he would he had to have, like, partitions, like these dividers forming a little hallway from the dressing room all the way to the very foot of the stage to where no one could see him. As he left the room all the way until he put his foot on the stage, he would be unseen by anyone backstage or otherwise. Wow. And it was like a really kind of fussy thing that had to be put together. Do you remember any because he played here a while back. Anything strange? You know, I wasn't here for the art guard for the show. So I don't know about that. We do get some that sort of don't make eye contact with the town Yeah. Kind of thing occasionally, but not too much. I would I was I don't know. I was telling you guys about, having the guys from the birds here, you know. Right. And some guy you know, and, you know, touring is hard. You get off a bus, you know, it seems glamorous. It's not. It's just a big man with the same stinky guys that were in the you know, I mean, it's Yeah. It's not that great. Sometimes you're in a great mood, sometimes you're not. We had Sweetheart of the Rodeo here, and it been kind of a long, hard tour and a long, hard day for Chris Hillman, he just didn't wanna chat. Everybody else in that band was just chatterboxing the whole time. It was just a big we just all hung around and talked about everything. Yeah. So it just depends on who you are. But there are plenty of people that have no no contact. I mean, backstage is a lockdown. We don't none of us come back here. Nobody as a matter of fact, I've even had people that didn't want our technical director coming back so much. Right. You know, and he's got reason to be here. Mhmm. Who finds that out? The technical director. He usually finds out pretty quickly from the tour manager because they're they're the two that from Yeah. From the chalk line back. Yeah. That's his world. And the tour manager or production manager, whatever the scope is of the of the they'll say, here's the way it's gonna be. And then he'll they'll tell us and we'll, you know, we'll try to circulate. Yeah. Word gets around pretty quickly. Yeah. They do not want to be bothered. You know, usually in modern world, usually, if somebody really doesn't wanna be bothered or have any contact, I just stay on the bus or stay at the hotel and show up at the last second. We get a lot of that. The the star just walks in at the last second, doesn't even do sound check or anything. Oh, I was we were talking earlier about the zombies show you had here with the full lineup of the band before oh, well, I mean, minus the guitar player who had passed. Yeah. But, well, that was a pretty magical night. Yeah. That was crazy. Yeah. Crazy. You know, you forget what a great band that was. So many. How great all those songs were. But it really reminds me more of that insane episode that you pro are probably familiar with when they sent the fake zombies out Right. In the day. And our friend Gary Myrick was one of them. They just hired some guys. Yeah. Said, we're gonna call you the zombies. Learn the zombie song. I heard about that. And I've also heard that, you know, way back in the day, that kind of thing used to go on all the time. I think that's was pretty typical. Well, and do you remember the band Frigid Pink that had a version of the House of the Rising Sun? Yes. I knew some guys who went on the road as Frigid Pink. Well, I could be wrong, but I when there's a thing like when the zombies first broke up, there was like I think some of the ZZ Top guys were touring around as a sort of zombies One of the ZZ guys was Yeah. In the band with Gary Myrick. They were Okay. That's what it is. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Was it Frank Beard? I don't know. Seems like this is the drummer. Maybe it's the first I'm hearing of this. It wasn't Billy Gibbons. So it's Frank or or Dusty one. It played with been Dusty Hill. Maybe it was Dusty. That's what it was with I don't know. One of them and Gary Monarch and then two guys, I don't know, were a four piece band called The Zombies, and they played The US and Canada. Right. Did a bunch of shows and made a bunch of money. Yeah. And nobody even knew that they weren't the zombie. Crazy. No. Nobody knew that those guys were frigid pink either. Well, you know, my personal experience, I back when I was just I think this was actually before I was born. But I had a, I got asked to play a a thing with the coasters of all things. Oh, shit. I mean, I was just I was still in high school. And the coasters were already kind of a dinosaur thing then. But, we we took the gig, and it was really that the coasters I think there were maybe four different versions. Oh, sure. On tour at the same time, they split up the country geographically. Yeah. I've heard of that happening too. Yeah. Yeah. And so whichever coasters you got, wherever you live, that's the one you got. You know? It was crazy. Really. Yeah. But after we played a week with them and I after a week of yakity yak and Charlie Brown, and I just was done. Great tunes, though. You did great songs, but You play Poison Ivy? Oh my gosh. Maybe twice a seven. I'm not sure. Well, I love that one. I love that one still. We may have opened and closed with that one. I'm not sure. So what got you into music back in the day? I mean, you're out there in Oak Cliff. You're a kid growing up here. You know, there's a few years between us, and I was doing the same thing a little ahead of you. Yeah. What got you into it? You know, my dad was a big music lover, and I remember as a as a little kid, we we had a Saturday morning routine of listening to records while we did the household chores. That's just what we did. Every Saturday morning, we would put on usually the same eight or 10 records we'd play and we'd do the chores. And he had, some Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich records. And there were some of each of them and then a couple of drum battle records, and those were my favorites. And I I just recently was writing about this. I was walking to school, my first day at Stockard. Back then, was Stockard Junior High School before middle school. And I was walking to school Panthers. Stockard Panthers. My first time to play drums in public was as a Stockard Panther band marching band member. But I was walking to school, and I thought, you know, maybe I should sign up for the band. And because I I'd done some athletics in elementary school, and I was terrible. And I thought, maybe I'll sign up for the band. And I went in and signed up, when she asked what I wanted to play, I was I just I was I don't know. Was 13. I didn't know what to say. I'd said trumpet. And on my way home from school, was going, what am I doing? It's drums. Of course, it's drums. I'm I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna be a drummer. So the next day, she let me switch, and that's where I I started. And the the band director there taught me how to how to How to the sticks? Rudiments and how to hold the sticks and how to stand at a snare drum and Did you match grip? Yep. Yep. Went from there. Then I got to, when I got to Kimball, I kind of fibbed about my address so I could go to Kimball where you went and where I became aware of you was at Kimball because they had Daryl Chambers and a badass music department. I mean, just I didn't know anything about it, but I knew it was badass. You know? And that I wanted to be there and went over there, and that's where things just something lit a fuse there. And mister Chambers introduced me to, Jack Rumbly. Yeah. Jack Rumbly was the band director at Carter, the other Oak Cliff High School at the time or another Oak Cliff High School. But he was monster drummer, and he became my advanced study teacher. And I studied with him for a couple years, And he went on to be my biggest you know, in his seventies, he was still driving to Casa Mignano and setting up his kit to be the house drummer. Just blew my mind. I had such great work ethic. Yeah. I think I remember him at a junior high, maybe at Griner or somewhere like that. But I do remember hearing about him being, like, a real working drummer, you know, a real guy that got out there and gigged. He was a gigging guy, man. Yeah. He play he was the tympanist for the Fort Worth Symphony for forty years. Oh. And he played at don't know why his all of his stuff seems to be kind of Fort Worth, and he lived over here. I don't know why. But he was the Casa Menata house guy forever. I gotta go where the gigs are, man. Dude. So in those formative days when you're learning the drums, who were your favorite drummers? Who were you? So with the stuff that stayed yeah. I was kinda determined to be Buddy Rich. I guess everybody that was exposed to it kinda wanted to. So I started out with that. Weirdly enough, all that fancy stuff kinda came pretty easy. Just sorta maybe it was just from listening listening to it so much, but that wasn't as hard as becoming a a pocket drummer. You know, becoming a a groove guy was way harder for me. Way harder. But those guys and then I will never forget the day I was at my new, stepsister's house, and she said, have you heard Led Zeppelin? And I went, what are you what are you saying, Led? What are you what are you saying? Yeah. And she put the needle down on good times, bad times, and everything changed. I mean, I was already into Mitch Mitchell. I thought Mitch Mitchell was my guy because he was kinda really kind of a jazz guy. Yeah. Mhmm. But with rock a rock epic. But when I heard John Bonham, I realized that all that that talk about simplifying and playing the pocket and really backbeat, hitting hard made sense all of a sudden. Where were Ringo and Charlie Watson all this for you? My first time I really knew what was happening, and then I was blown away by drums. We're sitting on this little screened in back porch of my house over on Brandon in Oak Cliff with my little my little record player with lift up lid and playing paperback rider. Mhmm. And I probably played it three or four times. And then I thought, I wonder what the song is on the other side. And I listened to rain for the first time and went, shit. That is that's drumming like I've never heard. Can I say that? Yeah. That's drumming like a This is a podcast. We are not subject to the laws of the Federal Communications Commission. You can say whatever you want. Alright. So that really that that was as as life changing as the bottom moment because because that Charlie took a little longer. Not that I didn't I love the Stones and I love Charlie, and I might really put Charlie as number one on my list right now as best drummer ever. I just love that guy so much. Yeah. It's really odd because he he sneaks up on people. Man, he does. And he you might think it's kinda silly what some of the stuff you know, the thing would not hitting the hat and the snare at the same time. Yeah. First few times I saw that, I was going, that's just so choppy. Why are you doing that? Then I started trying to do it, and I realized what kind of what kind of following the backbeat thing that gives you. It's like, okay. This all makes sense. And what drummer was it that said about Charlie? He's one of the great guys, Jim Keltner maybe or somebody like that said, Charlie rushes everything, and it's beautiful. And he's right. You know, they'll start sympathy for the devil, and it's 10 beats a minute faster by the end. Yeah. But it's perfect. Well, and the whole deal of him not really following or locking in with the bass, he's he's following Keith. He's playing with Keith. Yeah. It's just pretty unique. Yeah. I've I've read something with him and Bill talking about that. And so Keith especially before Keith kinda cleaned up his act, Keith had get on the backbeat constantly. Yeah. Maybe several times per song. And they just decided it was easier to go with him than to try to get him back. Right. Where you're supposed so they he just learned to follow Keith. It's pretty so much respect. You know, I went to see them at, I guess it was the Cotton Bowl show right after Charlie passed. Just such a thing. And Steve Jordan is playing drums. Steve Jordan is a monster. We were talking about him earlier. One of the the king of going back and forth from shuffle to stray. He's just great in all kinds of ways. But even with Steve Jordan, you could tell just a little bit of difference. Steve was playing very metronomically. Right. And Charlie played more More feel. Feel. Yeah. More groove oriented, more pocket. Yeah. Yeah. The thing about Charlie for me always was that he would and I got so eaten up with this that I posted something on a one night, but I was listening to Jumpin' Jack Flash. And the way he does on the snare with the You know, that that little note right before the back note. Yeah. That grace note. Yeah. Right before the back beat. I I kept listening to it, and I wasn't sure what I was hearing. And I posted one night, I'd love to hear of an isolated track of Charlie on Jumpin' Jack Flash. And before I knew it, there it was. There it was. And I could hear exactly what he was doing. And Is he just doing a little pickup? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That day, I mean, he was doing exactly what what it sounded like he was. Is that the first time anybody had done it that way? Because I don't know if I can't think of another I can't think of another another one either. I think that's one of the reasons why I got so eaten up with it. Because this was something in early sixties rock and roll drumming that I had never heard before. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it was just it was just so cool. Man, I love that guy. Man, that another great example of his. You know, I was still kinda walking that line between being the jazz guy, the chops guy, and being the pocket guy. I really didn't know how to be a pocket guy at all. And it drove our bass player, you know, Steve Williams. It drove Steve absolutely insane that I would sometimes you know, I would and I would justify. We'd be playing one way out, and I'd be going, well, there's two drummers. You know, I gotta go crazy all the time. Know? There's two guys. It would drove him nuts. But we were we were learning, give me shelter. And I was listening to it, and I just could not comprehend the simplicity of what was going on. It was just pop pop pop pop. It was just it was just so simple. It was almost nothing. I couldn't I couldn't grasp it. And during the course of that rehearsal, I just thought, okay. I'm just going to play exactly what I heard, and I did. And then it it all made sense. He's really the guy that I learned that from as much as Bonham or anybody else. Right. Just simplify and don't do anything that doesn't really have to be there. Have you had many jazz artists in here? You know, Dallas is a tough town for jazz. Yeah. We we do some stuff occasionally. You know? We've got or something that comes in, and it it does okay. And it's it's awesome to listen to here, but we don't get a lot of it. There's not a lot of for one thing, it we're kinda big. Yeah. For most, you know, if we it was John McLaughlin or something, we'd they'd fill it up. Right. Most jazz artists are more of a three or 400. Or Salis or somebody coming through, probably. Yeah. But, yeah, not but I love it when we do get it. Yeah. Who's one you'd like to get in here? Who's one you're after? Oh, no. I'll go blank. Let me come back to that. Who would I like to get? I'll you who I'd like. I'd like to get Diana Crawl. Ah. Be a good room for her. That'd be a good room for that. Intimate. She's pretty jazzy. Yeah. And maybe Elvis would show up. Yeah. Maybe he would. Maybe they'd do something together. Do they ever do anything together? I think randomly. Randomly. Just a little I don't know. But let me I'll get back to you on that jazz question because that's a good one. I'd love to hear some jazz in this room. Yeah. That'd be really fun. We just lost Sonny Rollins. I know. Like, two days ago. Maybe. Yeah. Day before. That's too bad. He's the guy from around here. Is Roland Kirk? He's gone. He's gone. Is he from around here too? I think he was a Fort Worth guy, wouldn't he? Was that where would that be? Ornette Coleman. Oh, I bet I'm thinking Ornette Coleman. Lost him not too long ago. My sax guys mixed up. McCoy Tyner. We, Kamazi Washington would be a good one in here. There you go. That could be really cool. Yeah. You know, one of the shows that blew me away here, this isn't a jazz show, but it was very subtle and very nuanced, was having Brian Ferry. Oh, yeah. I wasn't even sure that I was that big a fan of everything. You know, that Sephisto rock thing is kinda a little slick for me sometimes. But, man, that band, he was great. And those songs, boy, Tom had a perfect fit for the room. Yeah. All that stuff was just Avalon. And he's still he's still got the chops. Yeah. For that. Yeah. It took me a while to come around on him, but I'm really on board with him now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's kind of a thing. Once it once it gets into your bloodstream, it's Yeah. You have but you have to hear it a couple times. You know? You have to hear it a couple times and go through the, okay, what is this? Yeah. You know? Kind of osmosis. Yeah. Yeah. And it sinks in before you know it. And the next thing you know, you're a big fan. Yeah. And if he came through here, yes, I'm in. So we have we have the a very uniquely sized pair of, poster cases on the front of the building. They're this funny 22 by 60 inch, pretty odd. And they make per they're they're perfect for framing then after we take them down for framing. And the one right behind my desk is the Brian Ferry one. That'd be Oh, cool. 22 by 60. I've I've also got a Morrissey one up there, but I think I might take that down because he's kind of a butthead. Going back to your drumming, did you would you mind regaling us with a little touch of that Bo Diddley story you told us earlier? Oh, yeah. That was such a great What? Well, so those I love them. Those guys you know in Gypsy Rider and US Kids, we were US Kids, and we were, we were playing and, we we were asked to be if you want the story, we were asked to be Bo's band, open for and be the band for Bo Diddley. And, again, it's kind of dinosaur then at the time, but very, I mean, Bo Diddley. This would have been in the eighties. Yeah. He may be a dinosaur, but he's still Bo Diddley. Still Bo Diddley. And, wasn't near as dinosaur as I was expecting. I'd I'd say that. And this would've been in the eighties, and we we said, And so they asked us they told us they wanted to pick him up at the airport, go to the club for a one hour rehearsal. We were kinda daunted by that one hour. Like, we felt like there was gonna be somebody with a stopwatch. So, one hour rehearsal, then go to the hotel, freshen up, whatever, come back. You'll play a set, take a break, and then it'll be showtime with Bo, and you'll be the band. We said, okay. So we get to the airport in Tulsa and pick him up, and he says, oh, you guys know my stuff. Let's just go to the hotel. So we went to the hotel, and he went in and went to sleep. We just we didn't see him again until we it was time to leave for the club. But Eddie Lowe had bought a Bo Diddley's greatest hits record, and we'd listened to some stuff a couple times and kinda kinda cockily thought, okay. Yeah. We got this. We'll be fine. So we do our set. We we get Bo. We get to the club. We do our set. Seems like I remember him hanging out in the dressing room with, with Rick Nielsen. Oh, wow. Cheap trick of all things. Rick used to come there a lot. So he there he's open. Bo's backstage, we finished our set, and we rushed backstage thinking we're gonna get a a minute to talk through what we're what's about to happen. And Beau came over to me, looked me right in the eye, and said, everybody's been stealing and copying my stuff. And so and I and so I don't so don't do the TomTom thing. And I all Bo Diddley songs are Tom Yeah. All Bo Diddley songs are the Tom Tom. They are the that's the thing. And I I said, so you mean, like, ever? And he said, yeah. Don't do it ever. So, you know yeah. Yeah. Like, even on Hey Bo Diddly, that's just dah dah dah dah. So I said, okay. And, honestly, it's not that hard to do that beat to play those accents with just kick snare, hat, or whatever. It's not that hard. In fact, it's kind of a little easier to not have to get off the tom and do the other parts. So Bo would start a song, and he would turn around and holler out what key he was in. And the band would fall in, and we would just play the song. And the thing that blew me away the most was I was expecting kind of a kind of a dinosaur thing. I was kind of expecting guys to play those songs 10,000,000 times. They're gonna be just like this. They're gonna be this fast and for this long, and then we're gonna move on to the next one, maybe even the same sequence every night. It wasn't like that at all. He was he was a rocker. And that guy, he just walked around, just controlled the whole stage, played aggressive, loud, really loud. Like, our guys played through marshals, half stack. And they they we were we were keeping up with Bo. It was really cool. So we played the whole set. The people just went nuts. I mean, it was great. It was like being a beetle for a second. Mhmm. It was awesome. And when we got through, he came over and put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, man, you got a good right foot. And that was the highest compliment I've That is high praise. Yeah. It is. Been given as a drummer. And, know, honestly, it's not that hard. It's just, you know? But still, it's gotta be there. You gotta be there. No tums. Well, Michael, I cannot thank you enough for letting us do this. Oh, that was a fast hour. Yeah. Is it always like this? Does it always It's always like this. When when it's good. You Maybe I I didn't mean to get you into something there. Yeah. You you into the jackpot there. That's all this. I'm sure we got more stuff here. As you please, Mike. Alright. Good In that case, I'm just about out of shit. Well, so I don't know if you know this, Chad, but Mike was the drummer. Mike and I played drums in different bands together going back in the day. Okay. And crossed paths quite a bit. And Mike was the drummer who more than anybody I knew don't know if you're familiar with how hard it is to play like Frank Beard Okay. With Eton. Right. It's damn hard. Sure. Very unique singular thing. Better than anybody I ever saw. You had that kind of vibe, that kind of feel better than anybody I ever ever saw do that kind of thing. Alright. Wow. That's very high praise. I'd never heard that before. Never even thought about it before. But coming from you who would notice that kind of thing And I noticed it right off. Was like, how that been? The heat? That's so nice. Sounds like Frank Beard that, you know, that's very high praise. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like sounds like you've got a good foot too. He does have a good foot. That's that's okay. Back in the day, it's kinda Put both your put both your feet together. We got a pair. These two of us might make a Go for a walk. Go for a walk. Take this thing for a walk. Yeah. Hey. On the road. Alright. You should have heard it back then. Good feet. Do you guys were first aware of each other in the seventies? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was, you know, I was a little behind Mike at school and was really more reputation than personal awareness. I don't know where we actually started being kinda pals along the way, but somewhere along the way we actually met, but I knew him by reputation way before I knew him. Oh. But our paths started crossing and once they started crossing, they have they they kept doing it. Now I'm I've been doing what I've been doing all those years and now this, and you're doing this and here we are again. Here we are again. When we were chatting about the details about this, was thinking and I said, who would have thought all those years ago that this is what we'd be working on together now? I mean, after all this time. Yeah. So cool. Was a big fan of the of the the radio station and all your radio all your radio station, particularly a ticket because it was long. But man, I followed your career all the way through all that stuff. I knew about the zoo and all those all those days. Yeah. Big fan. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate that. Big fan of yours too. He's a tremendous drummer, great guy. And he's wound up in a damn good place, which shows he's got a good head for the biz on his shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. This is a good place. I'm glad, I'm glad you guys were interested in coming down here for this because Oh, what a thrill. This building needs this story needs to be needs to be told and shared and spread. Well, consider it told, and it will be shared. It will be spread. Oh, With the museum downstairs. We forgot about that. I know because there's so much to talk about. Tell us about downstairs here. Well, so I guess it really kinda starts with COVID. The woman who there was a woman named Lavita. Lavita had been, her husband had worked here. As a matter of fact, there's a story about for a little while he lived kinda lived in one of the dressing rooms for a little bit. But he worked here for Interstate Amusements, which was the company that ran the the theater back in the day. And she worked at the Tower Theater, which is where the hotel is on the corner now. Mhmm. And the Saint Helm. And she had collected she and some of the other interstate amusements alums had started having, some reunions and get togethers, and they were she was collecting memorabilia from the majestic. And she called me a few times about this, wanting to share that stuff with with the theater, and nothing worked out. Around the time of COVID, we were also about to have our, our centennial celebration, but we were closed down because of the pandemic. Mhmm. So we made a little movie called 100 of majestic that you can still catch occasionally. And, the guys over at the Texas theater, the wonderful Texas theater in Oak Cliff, put that together for us, and it was awesome. So we put that together, and Laveed and I started working on the idea that we would the city would buy her memorabilia collection, and we would make a display in the, in the theater somewhere. And, eventually, took a lot of machinations, but we eventually got that together and, purchased her collection. It was a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. A lot of it is paper and not necessarily that great for displaying. Though a lot of over half of her collection is really now in the archives over at City Hall down in the basement. But the objects and the things of real interest and some fantastic ledgers and original blueprints and oil paintings of Carl Hobletsell and all sorts of things are, were available. And so we put that in during the during the, during the closure, we put that in downstairs. When we reopened, we had that as a as a little special exhibit for people. And there was nothing down there. It was just an empty room and that but that's where you had to go to the restrooms. So we had kind of a captive audience. Yeah. And now people just people love it. I find I go down there all the time. There's people just lingering down there, missing the show because they're down there looking at stuff. And there's some really cool stuff. If you ever hear for a show, please stop down and have a look because it's it's really it's really awesome. And she had stuff that one of the things we did was there'd never been it was kind of a fractured history here between the vaudeville days and the film days and the closure and then the reopening as a PAC. And it was kinda broken up, there was never a continuity, never a timeline of the whole thing. So we took that on as a task. And, down there on the wall is a from the day it opened to current, there's kind of a timeline with some key points along the way noted. It's a really nice exhibit. Was a really lot of fun to work on, I gotta say. And for people to get down there to see it, it would be when there's a show. Yeah. Yeah. We're not really open just open When? During the day. But if you're here for a show, just walk down the stairs or ride the elevator down, and it's down there. The thing I did not get to do that I wanted to do, for the centennial, if we had been open non pandemic, I wanted to have a a big sort of a gala and, do a thing to it's kind of a pie in the sky idea, but my idea, if I could get the funding. I I've had a lot of those in my life. Yeah. Yeah. Idea was for the hundred years of majestic was to shut down Elm Street for three blocks and bring one of those projection companies, Aurora or one of those guys that do it, and project the images of the nine theaters from Theater Row where they would've where they used to be on the buildings that are there now Mhmm. So that you could walk Theater Row again. Oh, cool. Maybe put some time some cars some old cars out and some people in period costumes or something. Yeah. So it'd be like walking down Elm Street in the forties. Man, that would've been cool. That would've been Yeah. This would've cost about a million dollars. Oh. It would've been fun. It would have been fun. And it would have been badass. Badass. Anything else about the Majestic we need to know? I think we covered it. I think we got it. Come back for Todd Rundgren. Joe I'll be here. All right. Well, you've been very forthcoming with us and we thank you for letting us in. Thank you for hosting Little YDC. It's been my pleasure. It's an honor to be asked and I was so thrilled to find out that Mr. Chad would be co hosting. Oh, yes. Whenever we can work Mr. Chad into things, we're always better for it. Yes, sir. Thank you all being. Oh, the pleasure's mine. You got any Will, we need get out there or anything? I guess that is something we could talk about. So in this day of of robots and and and fake tickets, it's kinda difficult sometimes. But if people go to live at themajestic.com, that's our vanity URL. That'll take you to our website. You can click through to the show you want and get the tickets from the official outlet. So live at themajestic.com. Live at And all the shows we've got that are announced and on sale are all up on there right now. So you can see what we got coming. It's pretty it's a pretty eclectic programming, you know. I expect nothing else. We try to cover the range from from PAC stuff to being a a rock and roll place. So Yeah. I don't know. That's the cool thing about it. That's what I hope. Because you just never know. You never know what's gonna pop up on the coming to the Majestic list. Yeah. Yeah. Illharmonic and then Todd. Yes. It's pretty eclectic. That is pretty eclectic. Oh, sure. I'm sure we're about to install a new system. It's been a long process. Of course, being the city, everything, you know, buying the staplers, like, six months. So it's been have to sign off on those staplers. Yeah. Can I get you to sign off on them from now on? Because Yeah. Sure. Sure. I can get you a stapler. He's known for his staple work. So we finally got all the due diligence and, and all the work done that we needed to get done, and it's it's been approved. And now we're we're getting ready for an install. And not next week, but the following week, we're gonna install a really wonderful state of the art new sound system. The sound system that's in here is awesome, but it's old. And in today's by today's standards, a fifteen year old system is pretty obsolete. Well, I've never come in here and left thinking, man, that sound needed some work tonight. You know And what happened? Sometimes it can be kind of tricky because most when you're at this level, the size artists that play here are carrying house soundmen. I mean, they've got their own I mean, they're carrying their own tour soundmen. We don't our house soundmen never get to mix. If there's anything I hear complaints about is that they don't get to mix enough. So you never know what you're gonna get. It may be some guy that really didn't know this kind of room or whatever, but it never fails that sound is almost always dialed in here. Do acts who tour in play rooms this size carry their own sound system and everything? They do, depending on what they're doing on the tour. If they're playing, you know, festivals now, but it it just depends. Most of them do carry some supplemental stuff because they run into situations where there's not adequate usually, it's subs, cabinets, and lighting. They almost always carry a floor package of lighting so they can set up stuff so they got the same stage look they have everywhere because you never know what you're gonna get with lighting. Yeah. And you want the same look. Even if people can't tell the difference in the way it sounded, they can tell it doesn't look the same as the Mhmm. The pictures and the videos they've seen. So they bring in that kind of stuff. We've been able over the last, particularly over the last couple of years to you know, I've got two of the best technical directors in in the world. And those guys have put a lot of work into getting the we've upgraded our lighting system now to we we do a lot of shows with no supplementing at all. And it wasn't that way when I got here thirteen years ago. We just had some rows of park hands up there, and everybody brought in lights. And now we're we're it's pretty, pretty sophisticated. And with the new sound system, and we may hit a point where there's zero supplementing, you know, that would be awesome. Yeah. We're just they can fly with the house stuff every time. That'd be great. Pretty awesome indeed. Michael, thank you, man. Thank you, sir. Enjoyed it so much. Don't forget, liveathemajestic.com is where you find everything about this place. Stolenwatermedia.com is where you find everything about our place. There you will find all the podcasts, every episode of Your Dark Companion can be found there. Every episode of all the other podcasts that we carry under our umbrella can be found there too. So go to stolenwatermedia.com for all of that. It's all right there for you, man. It is very, very easy. That is it for us for Little YDC today. We thank you very much for watching. No matter when you've been watching it, no matter where you've been watching it, we don't care about that. Just watch it. That's all we ask. Till next time. Bye. Alright. I'm gonna go take pants off. You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.