Episode 1657 - Chad Kassem

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Lock the gate.

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

It's Mark Maron.

This is my podcast, WTF.

Welcome to it.

How's it going out there?

What's happening?

Today on the show, interesting guest.

I talked to this guy, Chad Cassum.

You know, he came to our attention by way of a profile in the New York Times entitled, The Wizard of Vinyl is in Kansas.

So Chad is

a guy who is obsessed with making the best sounding records possible.

And now he's a leader in the vinyl records industry with his company, Acoustic Sounds.

He says he's on a mission and he's saving the world from bad sounds.

He does a lot of remastering of classic records.

But he seemed like an interesting guy and a guy that I might have had some questions for, but I'm not full geek.

I'm not full nerd.

I don't go full nerd into much of anything.

Because to be full nerd, you've got to really put your whole life into it and you have a pursuit, a grail, a sense of perfection attainable, which Chad does.

I'm just a guy that got into records.

How long has it been, you guys?

When did I start doing that?

Was it, what, 12 years ago?

I don't remember.

It was part of this show where I started getting into vinyl like every other guy my age or older usually.

Again, I'm the last year of boomer, so I don't suffer the full boomeritis.

But I, you know, I started getting into

records and I started chasing the sound, doing the tube thing.

Remember, there was some trouble.

I had a tube amp, wasn't working out, trying to get the right sound, spending some money, didn't spend a lot of money at that time, but I decided to spend some money.

It all started with that trip to Jack White's office.

Well, those Macintosh 275s in the wall.

But I worked around that.

I didn't get a 275 for a while, but I got some tube amps and some speakers.

I try and get the right sound, spending that money, and it was always frustrating at the beginning because it didn't sound as good as it should have for the price that I paid.

Does anything.

But then I kind of leveled off over the years and I kept amassing records.

I was getting sent records.

I was trading records in.

I was buying new records.

Now I've got like a few thousand fucking records in there.

I don't even know what I have anymore.

But I know I have a lot of good shit.

But then it gets to a point where

I don't want to diminish it.

I'm happy about my records.

Like yesterday I was talking about Del Shannon

to Kit.

Kit said I should cover Del Shannon's Runaway, which is a great song.

And then I started realizing that he did a later record that was kind of a kind of a special record, kind of a psych rock record that I knew I had, but I couldn't remember one song on it.

So I thought maybe I'd listen to that.

And then that got away from me, but I did have the option.

And I know some of you are thinking, like, just get on Spotify, just get on the, you know, iTunes or whatever.

But this, there is a difference in listening to records.

And I still believe that.

There is a difference.

Chad and I talk about that.

I know some analog nerds or some antivinal guys are like, you guys are out of your minds.

There's a reason we don't buy records anymore.

And that reason is eventually you're going to need a new fucking house just for your dumb records again not that much of a nerd some guys have tens of thousands of records like i said i probably got two three thousand

uh and i i don't know what i have but i know they're all in there and i know i haven't listened to a lot of them more than once some not at all so what is that about where am i at with it now

well the one thing i start to realize about getting older is that if you have this type of obsessive personality that doesn't lock in for a lifetime you're just looking for something to occupy your passion, your life, and seek meaning, seek some sort of not necessarily perfection, but close, right?

Is that attainable?

How long does it last?

Like I said, I don't know if I'm a lifelong obsessive because now I'm starting to think like, where are all these records going to go when I'm gone?

And I willed them to somebody.

I willed them to the guy that got me most of the records.

My records collection has been curated by me, by Dan Cook over at Gimme Gimme Records and Lance over at Permanent a bit.

And then other record stores I go to, I take suggestions.

There's so many records I knew nothing about, and I have them now, and I still know very little about them.

But the real question is, is that...

What is that about?

Because now I'm on the other side of it.

Now I've got a lot of records.

They still sound good.

My system sounds good, but I just don't have the wherewithal to keep going with it because you get into this cycle where you're like, you go to the record store, you trade in a few records, you leave with five, maybe you listen to one, and then they're on the floor, and then you're like, I got to fold those into the collection, but shouldn't I listen to them first?

And now you're just sitting in a room surrounded by hundreds of records, and then you go upstairs and they're in the hallway, hundreds of records.

And then you go into your office, and they're in the office, hundreds of records, and they're all there, and they make me feel happy.

I'm glad I possess them.

It's like many of my books.

But what is it really doing for me?

What does it make me feel?

Who does it make me be?

How is it helping the core project of being happy?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I just know that knowing me, because I don't have the courage or commitment to be an all-in nerd, you know, I end up with a lot of things that I was very passionate about, you know, from

sanding wood boxes.

That was a brief one.

From

finding the perfect pick for my guitar, that wasn't that long, but it was pretty intense.

And I think I landed somewhere.

Certain plants around my house that I have a codependent relationship with.

Like, why the fuck doesn't the lavender just grow straight up?

Why are these trees not growing at all?

I think, sadly, as I move into my later years, that a lot of things that I do and put my whole heart into, I'm doing just to be disappointed eventually.

Is that a thing?

Is that possible?

Where you just hit this wall?

It's like, what am I doing?

I got a lot of records I like, a lot of records I don't know if I like.

I got a lot of records that are just cool records that I don't listen to.

But like, I'm never going to have them all.

I'm never going to know what I have.

I'm never going to understand all this stuff.

I'm glad I possess it.

It's almost like you're curating a library that is just built on your tastes.

And as that changes, or you become less interested in the curated collection, you're just sort of like, fuck, what is this library even for?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I do enjoy it.

I know people are like, well, you know, you should do what you enjoy.

I enjoyed it for a while, but now there's no end to it.

And the records are coming in.

I don't know how many I listen to.

Sometimes I don't listen to records for weeks.

But anyway,

I am not too disappointed.

I am a little overwhelmed, but that's another thing that I think I crave.

I crave not just disappointment.

I crave things that, you know, I want to feel shitty about.

I crave things that make me hate myself because I think that, sadly, is that's the basket my being lives in.

And I got to change that.

Now,

in changing that, does that mean that I just let it all go and start smoking weed?

Does changing that means I clear the slate and just see who I am alone in my living room with a lot of empty record shelves and just a place where my stereo system used to be?

Do I feng shui my fucking being on an existential level?

What do I do?

Well, that's all speculative and

that's the way my brain works.

But I imagine I'll probably just go in and listen to that Del Shannon record.

And I'm going to talk to Chad here about the nature of analog, the nature of remastering, what makes sounds great, what records are great, what his operation is.

Because he's a guy like me.

He's obsessed, but he's all in.

We're both recovering guys.

And some of it is kind of,

you know, druggy bullshit, just chasing something, chasing that perfect sound, chasing that perfect note, chasing that perfect woman, chasing that perfect,

you know, high from getting on stage stage or gambling or whatever.

When you got that bug, it's best you apply it to something that isn't dangerous.

And I think the only way record collecting gets dangerous is if you get so many and one day there's an earthquake that your seven or eight foot record shelf with 10,000 records that spans the entire length of your wall falls on you in a chair with your headphones on, crushing you.

That is the only way out of the deep nerd obsession is to be crushed under the weight of thousands of records in the middle of listening to something that sounds perfect on your amazing system.

Huh?

Hey, I'm back at Largo for a comedy and music show on Wednesday, July 23rd.

Tickets are at largo-la.com, playing with a new set of characters, working on some songs, doing a Taylor Swift song, if that is compelling.

So now,

let's go ahead and do this.

So, as I said, I read about Chad Cassam in the New York Times, and he sounded interesting.

He built a little empire out there in Kansas where he remasters records, he records live acts, he makes his own art for his covers.

Well, he has an operation there, a printing operation.

He's got his own remastering studio.

He only remasters from the analog tape originals, and he seemed like a pretty possessed dude.

And I thought, well, maybe he can speak to my obsession.

And again, I am jealous

of any

true

addictive nerds' focus, passion, and compulsion to chase this thing down, whatever that thing is.

And he's one of those guys.

You can follow him on Instagram.

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel Acoustic SoundsKS to get the latest on their releases.

And this is me hashing it out with

Chad Cassam.

What did your people say about the things we have in common?

What'd they say?

Well, they said, you know, we both

know Bill W.

Yes, we definitely know Bill W.

And that you were really into the blues.

Yeah, yeah.

I uh I came up uh kind of a blues-minded dude, but I kind of

expanded as time went on.

Once I got into, it's interesting

because

obviously the vinyl thing is

what connects us.

But I had some records when I was in high school, a few hundred records, and I dug some shit.

And then like, I don't know, I guess it's probably been 15 years, 20 years, I started getting back into the vinyl thing and then chasing that sound and

getting pretty crazy about tubes and speakers and original pressings and which reissues sucked and which didn't, which companies were doing bad shit, pulling stuff off digital.

You know, I kind of went down the rabbit hole with it.

But then what happens is you end up with a few thousand records and you don't even know what you fucking have anymore.

Dude, I mean, everything you say, and I'm just laughing to myself inside because everything you said, I mean, of course,

That's my life and so many of our customers.

There's so many of us out there.

When you said that I I had, you know, like a couple hundred records when you were 15.

Yeah.

You know, I checked your Moran's 2270.

You have a 2275.

I had the 2270 when I grew up.

So, I mean, I see that.

I remember those days.

Yeah.

Those were days before the computer.

I mean, all of us kind of had the same hobbies back then.

You know, even if you were the jock at school or the nerd or the pothead or whatever, we all had 100 records,

two speakers.

Yeah.

And we would go and and you'd listen to

a side of an album.

And you had the cassette deck in the car.

Yeah, yeah.

Alpine or the Pioneer.

That's right.

Jensen

Triaxyl.

Dude, and they were awesome, man.

I'll bet you you pull that out right now.

It'll blow you away.

I'm sure, you know, like I remember it was a big deal.

My buddy's dad owned a high-end stereo place.

I grew up in Albuquerque.

I was going to ask.

Yeah, and he, you know, then it started getting really,

the car audio started getting really high-end, you know.

And then there was, you know, like power amps that you kind of drill it into the floor.

And it was just fucking crazy, dude.

Dude, I remember that, man.

How old are you?

I was going to say, we've got to be the same age.

63.

61.

Okay, well.

So it's the same shit.

Yeah, yeah, the same shit.

And the fucking thing was, like back then, you know, everybody was sort of on the same page with, you know,

rock music.

Yeah, yeah.

We're all getting the same stuff.

You know, it's like we just missed it like Led Zeppelin, like we were in high school.

I got to see him twice.

Really?

What?

Do you have an older brother or something?

No, well, I had an older cousin.

If you want, I can get into some of that.

Yeah, what?

Well,

when I was 10 years old, he brought me to see Humble Pie was my first concert.

With Steve Marriott?

Yeah.

And turned me on to Green Mescaline when I was 10.

Wow.

So that was...

So that's a...

You just opened that young mind.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I was a little bit...

We were around the same age.

I was just old enough to see him twice.

Wow.

Where?

Where you grew up where?

Yeah, I'm in from Lafayette, Louisiana.

That's where the Cajun area is.

Yeah.

And I saw him in Baton Rouge twice, man.

It was awesome.

So that was like, what tour would that have been?

Like 75 and 77, something like that.

So like physical graffiti around that time?

Yeah,

I wonder.

Yeah, well, I think.

In Through the Outdoor, I think, came out when I was in high school.

This is a little bit before that.

Oh, presence.

Maybe it might have been like physical and presence.

Right, right.

something like that holy shit that must have been awesome yeah it was and actually it was uh c and zeppelin was one of the only few concerts where both of them actually were sober you know i mean just maybe a little couple of joints or something yeah yeah but you know it i remember getting there i remember oh man getting there was unbelievable we're we're um i look back i was 13 years old we we had bootleg tickets that were made and they were back when x rocks machines were just coming out yeah so somebody went, it was sold out.

Somebody went and they made Xerox copies of the tickets, right?

Yeah.

And they were bad.

You need to take a Sharpie to fill it in to make it look, you know.

Yeah, right, right, right.

So Baton Rouge from Lafayette is about an hour.

Yeah.

You know, and so we're like, okay, it was 6.30.

The concert started at 8.

Okay, it's an hour, right?

Yeah.

So we're like, We got bootleg tickets.

We're 13 years old.

Are we going to

hitchhike?

Yeah.

And so

we rolled up two Marlboro packs of cigarettes full of joints.

And when we finished that last pack, we go, are we going?

Come on.

One, two, three.

Yeah, let's go.

So we had to walk all the way to the main street, hitchhike.

We got a ride

to Baton Rouge.

The guy that picked us up was in a Volkswagen Lil Beetle.

And he's like,

hey, I just saw Randy Newman and Lafayette, and I'm going back to Baton Rouge.

I said, good.

I said, well, where are we going?

We're going to see Zeppelin at the LSU Assembly Center.

He goes, well, I'm in college.

I'll drop you off right in front.

So he lit up a joint of some ragweed.

We're like, put that shit out, man.

And we blew him away.

By the time he's like, man, stop.

You know, he dropped us off.

And then on the way back,

we had to, it's dark.

You know, how are we going to get home?

You know, so.

Luckily, you know how the cars are going slow because all the traffic.

We run into a guy I know at, you remember those big, you remember the biggest Lincoln town cars?

Sure.

Yeah, with the big, like, boxy front end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

My friend, somebody I knew had one of those, and the whole back seat was empty.

So we got like a limo ride back.

Oh, yeah, that's great.

But we were shitting bricks, you know, like, how are we going to get back?

But the concert was great.

Yeah, yeah, it was good.

You know, but I remember like the gong, and then I remember that they lit up Led Zeppelin and Fire, sure.

And then they had the disco balls.

Back then, that was the big light show.

Oh, yeah.

You know, that was it.

They had the disco balls and then the fire, Led Zeppelin, and the gong.

And, you know,

you know, I remember it as best I can.

Yeah, I remember we went up to Denver from Albuquerque.

We drove whatever that is, like almost 10 hours for this Sunday Jam 2 at Mile High Stadium.

And it was like heart, Ted Nugent, the cars, the rockets, and UFO.

Oh, UFO, man.

I love me some UFOs.

Especially that old shit, man, from the 70s.

I didn't even know about that shit until recently because they're reissuing that stuff.

Yeah.

Like the UFO from like 1971, 72.

Phenomenal.

It's fucking great.

It's great, man.

It's so much better than like 70s,

UFO, later 70s, where they kind of do the metal pop.

But the old stuff, that's fucking great.

Yeah, yeah.

When I went to see UFO, there was a band that they were opening for, and it was ACDC.

Dude, I saw ACDC open for Journey.

Really, huh?

Crazy.

But

I was going to see UFO, and I'm like, who are these guys?

Me too.

I was going to see fucking Journey, And

I talked to him right now.

Like, I listen to ACDC every week.

I still listen to fucking ACDC.

All the Bond stuff.

Yeah, it was Bond.

It was 78 when I seen him.

I think I saw him in 77 because they were still opening.

I think that was like their first U.S.

tour.

Okay.

And I talked to the bass player of Journey.

He said that, no, we opened for them.

And I'm like, that's not fucking possible because Journey was fucking huge in 77, dude.

Well, I don't know.

But I guess I just didn't know who AC.

Me neither.

It was like the best.

Yeah, yeah.

It was crazy.

I remember, yeah.

You know, a lot of these concerts, I remember going and getting there and in line more than, or leaving.

And we were in Tennessee when we saw them, and they were searching people.

And the guy just had bags of reefers.

And like, you know, that he was taken.

And he pulled out.

out of my cousin.

My cousin had

a coat on.

Yeah.

and he pulled out a half a quailude, you know, and he goes, what's that?

And my cousin said, oh, that's an aspirin.

He goes, yeah, sure, pal.

And he threw it in a puddle of water.

I remember we snuck in, we went to see Jethro'Tall at the Civic Center, and my buddy Chris put a half pint of Southern in his sock, and we jumped over a wall and it broke.

And we had to take, yeah, go to the fucking medic.

Fucking mess.

Oh, man.

But that was the shit we, hey, but it was fun, though, right?

I think it was fun.

You know, it was so long ago now.

It's so weird when you get to be this age.

So what was the journey for you, you know, from like having a couple of hundred records in a Morantz 2075 to being this

very specific and very revered maker of reissue vinyl?

Well,

that's an interesting.

The name of the company is Acoustic Sounds.

Yeah, Acoustic Sounds.

But we have about 10 companies under Acoustic Sounds, and I'll go through it.

But yeah, so, I mean, basically, I'm from Louisiana.

How'd you get out of there?

Wait, when did you, when did the shit hit the wall?

I ended up getting in a lot of trouble and it was all over drugs and alcohol.

You know, because if you know anything about southern Louisiana, I mean the bars didn't close when I grew up.

There were 24 hours.

The culture is just party, party, party, dance, have a good time, pass a good time.

And I didn't know when to go home.

Like if the bars didn't close, I'm not, you know.

And you can drink when you're 12.

Right, yeah, exactly.

No, seriously, we could go to the store, you know, these little mom and pop stores.

You could just say, oh, that's for my daddy or whatever.

And they didn't care.

In fact, I was just down there with my daughter, and they still have drive-through daiquiri.

Sure.

Just walk around with the daiquiris, yeah.

So I got in trouble, and the judge said either four years in jail or four years in

supervised probation if you go to drug treatment.

So they found this place in Salina, Kansas.

This was my second halfway house.

This was about my fourth treatment.

How old were you?

I was about 21.

Oh, yeah.

About 22.

So I did it all between 10 and 21.

So I drank a lifetime worth, partied a lifetime worth in those years.

So

they sent me there.

I get there, and

I look around,

and

three-fourths of the people in the halfway house were from Louisiana.

I'd went to a halfway house in Iowa before that three-fourths were from Louisiana.

And so the one in Kansas, I even saw people I knew.

And Louisiana is manufacturing the young drunks of the time.

Yeah, yeah, the good export business.

So I got there and I realized that I had

I had to

I knew that if I didn't I knew I had to stay sober it Basically, if I didn't stay sober, they were going to put me in jail for four years.

So like you stay sober, you attend the meetings, and you do everything, and

you won't have to go to jail.

But if you don't, we'll put you in jail for four years.

So

I realized I really needed to stay sober,

and at least till I got out of the halfway house.

But then after I got out of the halfway house, I still had four years supervised probation.

So then I realized, this is, you know, if I get high, I'm going to end up being in trouble.

You know, I just can't control myself.

I wasn't good at, you know, like, you know, doing a little bit here and there.

Clearly.

Right.

It's hard to do.

Yeah.

You know, as you know.

So

anyway, I went to my parole officer and he said, listen, we have something in Kansas that's a little bit different than other states.

If you do your two years well,

we'll write a letter to the state of Louisiana, which doesn't have this law.

You'll have to do the four in Louisiana no matter what.

But we'll ask ask for forgiveness for the last two years.

I said, well, shoot, that's nine months away.

I might as well stay in Kansas.

I need to stay sober.

I can, so I stayed and I did well.

And so we wrote the law, the parole officer wrote somebody in Louisiana that letter.

And then he got a letter back from Louisiana one day.

He calls me, says, Chad, come in the office.

He goes,

I read the response and he goes, I know how to read and I know what it says, but I can't believe this.

I've been doing this for 40 years.

I've never had a response like this.

Need to get down here right away.

We'll call your lawyer.

So I'm like, okay, okay.

So I go over there.

I read it.

I said, well, it looks like, you know, it's a full part.

And, you know, he goes, yeah, yeah, I know, but I've never, let's call your lawyer.

So we call my lawyer, you know, and he's.

To see if the good news is real.

Right, right.

I guess.

He didn't believe it.

You know, yeah.

So the lawyer, he's like, he just goes to laughing.

You know what I mean?

Like, you like that boy?

I'm like, yeah.

So I never asked any questions.

You know, my father didn't have like mafia connections or anything, but I know a lot of people like my father.

Yeah.

That might have helped.

Yeah.

So, see, he got off.

Yeah.

And so, but then I, at that point, I'd been sober.

The longer you stay sober, you know, the clearer your mind gets.

Yeah.

And you realize that if you start getting high again, you're just going to end up in the same situation.

That is like, it's when people don't get it.

I mean, because that is it.

You know, that's really just first step shit.

You know, and like, you know, I had the woman who got me sober, you know, who got me in.

She said that the first step is the only one you have to work perfectly.

And that's, and it's something you can't, you can only get to that point where you're like, I can't do any of it because there's, you know, I don't think, I don't ever think about having one drink.

I don't ever think about just getting a buzz for the day.

You know, when you're thinking about it, it's like, well, that's going to be my life.

Right, right.

This is what any person that wants to know if they're an alcoholic or a drug addict needs to know.

If it's your priority, if it's like the main thing you think about the first thing and the main thing, then dude, that that tells you right there.

Yeah, but just that knowledge, if I do any of it, one thing that it's just like it's all bets are off.

You know, it's just like you can't do it safely.

Exactly.

And that's the revelation.

Thank fucking God you get that.

Like you know that because that's going to keep you sober in the worst of times.

Right.

I mean, you know,

listen, man, thank God to me, music is like a natural drug.

Oh, totally, yeah.

And you can get it at will.

You can play it.

Somebody said, well, that record's $100.

I says, yeah, it's an original, dude, or it's a great reissue.

You can play it over and over again, get a natural high over and over again at will when you want, and still sell it if you ever have to.

Yeah, yeah.

And get more.

Get more, yeah, yeah.

Would a gram of cocaine would last you, what, a night?

Yeah, yeah, and not even a good night.

You You know, come three or four in the morning, you're going to need another gram.

Right.

Or even if you wanted to try to sleep,

it's the worst, too.

Of all the drugs, cocaine, I don't know.

It's miserable.

It really, did you really...

Yeah.

Other than the beginning, right?

I know the beginning is it, dude.

But that's a good point about music, because what I usually say about music outside of the other arts, you know, like I'm a comic and I play some music, but music's magic, man, because, you know, and you know this, because, you know, you guys just reissued Steely Dan Asia and is that is that you grow with the music the the magic never goes away you know sometimes you get tired of it or you know it too well or it just drops into a groove in your brain that that you know either you like it or you don't but but if it's great music it'll grow with you and you can always go back to it Oh, for sure, for sure.

So when did you shift your obsession from drugs to music?

Well, that's pretty much exactly what happened.

And the person,

the cousin that brought me to the concert, and definitely shouldn't have been giving me mescaline at 10.

And I could be upset with him, but he's also the person that turned me on the music.

So basically, I just switched addictions, you know.

And I got there.

I was cooking as a hobby.

Excuse me, not cooking as I was cooking to survive, barely making

in Salina.

They call it Salina.

I'm sorry, I have everything in Salinas, California.

No, I mean, everybody says Salina.

Yeah.

And so, and everybody asked me why Saline.

No, no, why Selena?

Yeah.

But anyway, so I got there.

I was cooking.

I was taking the extra money I was saving and I was just trying to rebuild my collection.

How many you only had?

Oh, so you lost it?

No, no.

What happened is my dad said, Chad, I'm bringing your car from Louisiana.

What do you want me to bring?

Is there anything you want me to bring to Kansas?

I said, well, dad, bring my stereo, which was a Moranz 22-7.

Bring my turntable, bring my albums.

Well, when he got there, you know, I had like the

hundred records that everybody had, right?

But, you know, of course, there were, you know, I went through my party days, so I wanted to replace them.

So I just started by replacing them.

They're all fucked up.

Yeah, they're all scratched.

You know, always flipping that record over with food on your hands.

Or using the thing as a tray.

Yeah, to clean the pot.

Right.

So I just started by re

you know, trying to rebuild my collection and add to it.

And then I went home to Louisiana and I went to see one of my old friends.

And he said, hey, look at my stereo, you know, and I'm like, wow, that's cool.

That looks like nice.

He said, yeah, sit down and listen.

And then he pulled out these, you know, audiophile pressings.

The Mobile Fidelity?

Right, the original, the original Mobile Fidelity.

So the early one.

So I'm like Beatles and stuff.

So I'm like, wow, those are cool.

He said, I said, I bought some of those and I couldn't ever hear the difference.

Yeah.

He says, all right, Chad, sit down.

Right here.

And I go, okay.

And I moved a little bit.

He goes, no, I need you to sit in the middle.

Right in the center.

Right in the center.

I said, okay.

And then I kept talking because, you know, I talk.

And he goes, Chad, if you don't be quiet, you're never going to hear it.

He says, all I'm asking you is to give me one song.

Keep your mouth shut.

Listen to one song and we'll talk after you.

And he kind of guided me.

He said, Chad, the difference is going to be subtle.

Subtle in our business is huge.

Right.

Right.

Don't, I was expecting the band to jump out of the speakers and start playing for you.

That's why.

That can happen.

Well, you know, yeah.

But, you know,

that's why I wasn't really hearing the difference.

I was expecting my expectations were too high.

What song?

You know what, man, I get asked that and I can't really remember, but it was an early MoFi.

It probably was Beatles.

Maybe Little Feet?

Oh, man, I love me some Little Feet.

They put out that first Little Feet record.

Yeah.

That MoFi did in the last year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, they did the live one, the

Wait, wait, which is the greatest.

The greatest, yeah.

So a greatest live, too.

But he played something.

Yeah.

It blew me away.

Did he play the original, too?

Did he play both of them?

No, no, he didn't A, B.

Yeah.

But he just explained to me what to listen for, and I got it.

Okay.

I got it.

Like the light bulb just went off.

It was like shining bright, you know.

So when I got back to Kansas, I went to the store, and he also explained that most of them were very valuable, very hard to find.

And so I get back to Kansas.

They had a a shitload.

Of Mobile Fidelity?

Yeah.

You know how much a shitload is?

Like 50, 60?

A small amount more than a buttload.

Yeah.

No, about a shitload of those would be about 100.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So

I call him and he's like, oh my God, you know, that one's going for 100.

That one's going for 200.

They had all the UHQRs, the original UHQRs.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

When did they go bad?

When did they go bad?

Yeah, when did Mobile Fidelity get bad?

Oh, oh.

So

So later on, they went out of business and another company bought them.

And that's when they started using digital source?

Yeah.

Or digital processing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I, you know, the way people ask me this a lot, and what I say is we just do things differently.

You know, I just was wondering because I got a bunch of those old ones.

They're probably about 15, 20 of the old ones.

And then, you know, when I started talking about them a bit, I was getting some of the new ones.

And that was before the controversy in the small world of people that give a shit.

But I was just curious, you know, when that happened.

But we don't need to get into that.

So you get 100 of these things.

Yeah, I get 100 of them.

And

while I'm buying them, of course, I'm still really like making barely over minimum.

And you're still dealing with the 2270.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

it's not limited, but it's not high-end.

Right, right.

It's fun stuff to have.

It's fun stuff to have.

And it's like a bedroom, like a second home system or another bedroom.

But

so

I do the best I can.

I buy as much as I can, you know, and so I just started buy, selling, and trading, you know, buy, sell, trade.

Like all I want.

All records.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Basically,

I mean, it's not that much different than when you buy a pound of reefer, you know what I mean?

No, I do it all the time, dude, because people send me shit, you know, and sometimes I'm like, well, you know, this isn't for me, but it's good shit.

And I'll go down to my guy at the record store and I'll trade him for some OG shit.

And then you kind of build it out.

It's all barter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So basically, I just buy, sell, trade, buy, sell, trade.

And the next thing you know, I have a little apartment and the whole thing is full of records.

I mean, when I say

even the bathroom.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, even the bathroom.

I know, man.

So,

in fact, one of my first employees,

you're making me think about it.

I told her I was coming on your show and she's like, oh, my God.

She said, he's my favorite.

I listened to him.

And this girl is so cool.

She goes to all concerts everywhere.

And she did well in life as well.

But she,

anyway, she was my first employee.

We were typing on a typewriter, okay?

So like this, we're talking 1986.

Okay, so you go from

buying and selling and listening to records.

You never opened a record store.

No.

And did you ever get into seven inches or no?

No.

No, just vinyl LPs.

And you got it.

You got a house full of records and you're into it.

And so what is the decision to

take it to another level?

Why did you decide to do that?

Well,

everything was the next natural step.

To me, it was the next natural step.

Do what's in front of you.

Right.

Right.

And the next natural step was to reissue an album.

You know, like these albums.

Through a,

you, you were going to reissue on a label that you created, which I guess was Acoustic Sounds.

Acoustic Sounds, the label, our label is analog production.

Okay, analog production.

But that first record, you got to go to another record press.

You got to go to, we went to Vanguard Records.

Now, how that happens, I went to...

What a record.

It was Virgil Thompson Plow that broke the planes.

It's a classical record.

Okay.

And of course,

I'm from the swamps of Louisiana.

I didn't grow up on that.

Well, why that record?

Because it was highly recommended on the Absolute Sounds recommended list.

Yeah.

And it sounded incredible.

Yeah.

But

the reason how that happened is I went to buy a big record collection in New York, and it didn't work out.

But I had a pile of cash on me.

So I go to the guy, and

the record collection doesn't work out, but I have a couple of days in New York.

So I went to Vanguard Records, the famous Vanguard label, and

I went to see Seymour Solomon, and I said, hey, I'd like to license this record.

And I had that cash on.

I put the cash on the table.

And he backed away like I'd put a gun on the table.

It was so funny, you know.

And he's like, okay.

And then he brought me in the other room and he introduced me to David Baker, who ended up being a friend and a great jazz engineer.

And that was my first record.

And what do you do?

You do, you know, your second record, your third record.

So, okay, so you go from, so you were a collector.

You were deep in.

So you're buying collections of records.

Yeah, collections, yeah.

And then you go through them and

you take the ones that were mint or the ones you knew were valuable, and then you move the rest and trade them out.

Well, you first keep the ones you want.

That's right.

So you're full record nerd, you know, doing the collector thing.

And so when you go to Vanguard and you license that record, at that point, you don't have equipment to press, right?

No, no, no.

So what do you do?

So when you license it, you get the master tapes?

And so that part of that license at that time was you get access to them.

Right.

We make it clear when I, every time I license, I tell the company, I says, listen, man,

unless you're going to give me the master tape,

we don't have a deal.

So

if you're not going to give me the master tape, don't worry about the paperwork because we don't want to waste your time.

But how does that work?

Because I don't understand that.

So are they on a loan, the master tape?

Well, they'll send it to you.

Tell them where you want it sent.

So they make a copy?

No, well, they make, make, no, I want the master.

If they want a copy to make for them to keep for safekeeping, and then do you keep the master or you send it back?

Oh, shit.

No, you got to send the master back.

Okay, so it's a loan from the licensee.

Oh, I did.

Okay.

You just say, hey, man, I want to do this Doors album.

And then they say, okay.

And I say, okay, I want the master.

This is where I want it sent.

Yeah.

And, you know, you might ask them to send it to a place that they don't normally send it to.

They go, no, maybe not there.

We send to these mastering engineers.

Yeah.

But

if they won't give me the master tape, I won't do the deal.

Right.

So.

So that first thing,

so the first thing,

like, because I'm not totally clear on how it all works because I'm kind of fascinated with it.

And I know enough.

So you do this album.

And then you release that.

And you see that there's a demand for it with record collectors.

Yes.

And how is it different than the original pressing?

Well, first of all, we went and got the original three track,

which is like

the master, but nobody cuts directly from three-track because it's a little bit difficult.

But my mastering engineer said, hey, I can do this directly from three-track.

So you bypassed one step.

Yeah.

Because actually, a two-track is still a master, but he cut it from the original three-track.

We pressed it on the best virgin vinyl, clearest, quietest, flattest, and the best plating.

Who pressed it for you?

RTI out here in Camarillo, California.

Don McKinnis at RTI.

And this was in 1990, 1991.

Yeah.

First album.

So we started in 86 basically.

I mean I started collecting in 1984.

That's the year CDs came out.

So it's kind of significant because I've been going against the grain since day one.

But

between

that time and 90, we reissued our first album.

And what was the reaction?

I mean, we sold it.

We sold enough to make me want to do another one.

And then we did another one.

And, you know.

What was the second one?

The next one was a classical

Godshalk Latin American Symphonet, which is classical.

And then another one called Songs of the Auvergne.

Do you like classical?

I mean, I do.

Yeah, I do.

But it's not my main thing.

It's just, it's what I got started with.

Why that?

Because, you know.

Good question.

I was reading the magazine The Absolute Sound.

Yeah.

And The Absolute Sound, you you know, was if you were a real audiophile, like it was your Bible.

Stereophile and The Absolute Sound was your Bible.

And there was a guy there that would make his recommended record list.

And he would pick his best-sounding pop, best-sounding classical, best-sounding jazz.

And if he picked a record, you could be assured it was going to really be natural sounding.

And all of the people that read the magazine wanted these records.

So that's how I got into classical.

Of course, I mean, like I said, man, I'm a Cajun, man.

I didn't grow up.

There's not a Claude Boudreaux and the Oppaloosa Symphony, you know what I'm saying?

In Louisiana, you know what I'm saying?

We listening to Cajun, Zydeco, Blue.

Clifton, yeah.

Oh, man, now you're talking.

Yeah.

Now you talking.

That's the best.

You ever reissue any Clifton?

No, but I recorded a couple of his guitar players.

I mean, recorded.

And I would love to do Clifton, but, you know, my customers, they're really wanting jazz and classic.

There was a Clifton box that was pretty good.

I think it only came out on CD, but it was great, man.

Yeah.

Some of that stuff is...

And then there was Buckwheat, Zydeco, later.

Oh, yeah.

And that was pretty good.

And then you got the meters.

Oh, the meters.

Yeah, dude.

I grew up in all that.

We thought a lot of this.

Alan Toussaint.

Oh, now you're talking, man.

Now, a lot of these bands.

were our bar bands.

We just thought they were cover bands.

Yeah, yeah.

We would go drinking and Clifton would be playing or Buckwheat would be playing.

Professor Longhair.

Yeah, that was more like Alan Tosan and Professor, that would be in New Orleans more.

Oh, yeah.

But we had our swamp pop and our blues and our Cajun and our Zydeco.

And we just grew up, we thought that was everywhere.

We didn't know that we grew up in

one of the most unique places in the world.

And we took it for granted.

I had to leave Louisiana to really learn about the culture and the music and how significant and how unique it is.

And now I know more about all of it, Swamp Pop.

I mean, you know, Slim Harpo and Slim's the best.

Yeah, yeah, and

Lightning Slim.

Lester was one of my personal friends.

We recorded Lester many times.

So now I know a good amount about it all.

And I love it.

And I would love to do Clifton.

I don't know if you know this, but it was his 100th birthday this year.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and they just, on the jazz fest, did a

Sonny Landreth,

David Hidalgo.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, Marsha Ball and CJ, his son, played.

And they're coming out with an album, and the Stones did a song.

One of the songs the Stones did.

A Clifton song?

Yeah.

No shit.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's very exciting for me.

Well, that's interesting.

So, you know, you have done some recording.

Like, what was that?

Now, I'm spacing the name.

Who's that dude in

Something Mark Records?

Marquise Knox?

No, no, the dude in Chicago that had the record store that recorded Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and he did those who do who do.

Oh, Hoodoo Man Blues?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

We reissued that for Delmark.

Delmark.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that guy was, you know, he, you know, he was a dude that wasn't necessarily a recording engineer, but he was recording those guys.

A Bob Kessner?

Yeah.

Yeah,

he's actually originally from Kansas.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it was amazing.

You You reissued Hudo Man Blues?

Yeah, yeah.

Because that thing sounds pretty clean on the fucking

on the original.

I'm going to send you ours and I'm going to send you something else.

I'm going to send you ours

and a diaper.

Yeah, I mean, like, well, let's go back.

So you do the classical ones, and

you're basically following the lead of the magazine, you know, so you know what people are, what's in demand.

But you're still pressing out here with your buddy out here, right?

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So when did you decide to

take it into your own hands and get the equipment?

Well, like I said, remember I was saying everything was the next natural step.

So me and the guy at RTI, Don, we joined, we partnered on a mastering facility.

Yeah.

So now we can cut our own records.

Yeah.

So I'm like, Don, listen, we ought to buy

the lathe and start cutting our own records.

Can we put it in RTI?

You're pressing planning to go store.

So we bought it from the guy that owns Wilson, the speakers.

Yeah.

Dave Wilson.

In Utah, right?

Yeah.

We went to Utah and bought the lathe from him, moved it to Camarillo.

Why did he have a lathe?

He reissued some albums and he recorded a lot of albums.

Before he just went with speakers?

No, he was doing it at the same time.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so

we bought it from Dave Wilson, who makes the greatest speakers.

And we brought it to Camarillo and we cut for 14 years inside of RTI because it's nice to be able to.

You just were in the building with your own equipment.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm still living in Kansas, but I'm half-owner of the mastering facility inside of RTI.

Okay.

So that way, you can master the record and plate it at the same place.

So you can plate it right away, which is really important.

Oh, you didn't have that stuff.

Right.

They did.

And so.

Why is that so important?

Because

when you cut a lacquer.

So let's make sure that

we step by step.

So you get the master tapes.

Yes.

And then you re-engineer it.

Are you remixing it?

No, no.

Remixing would be if you have a multi-channel tape, you know,

a bunch of tracks.

So that's already done.

The mix is done.

Yeah, you got a two-track master.

Okay, so what's the challenge for you?

Okay, now sometimes you get a two-track, just to start from the beginning, and just to kind of help explain what you were asking.

Sometimes you get a master, two-track analog master, and it doesn't need any mastering.

Like, the recording is just so good.

Okay.

Don't touch it.

Right.

You know what I mean?

How do you know that?

Well, your ears tells you.

You know, you play it, and it sounds really nice, really natural.

And also, it does take a good mastering engineer to know when not to.

to touch it.

What do you do when you master?

Okay, so let's say you get a recording most of the time.

It's a little bright, but it's a little dull.

Okay.

Yeah, so they might add a little treble, boost the high end.

Okay.

Or if it's got too much high end, they may roll off a little bit of the top.

And you can do that.

Right, and you can do that.

And the mastering engineer is the last chance that anybody has to make it sound presentable to the finished listener.

Yeah.

Right?

Because the recording engineer just recorded it and he hands it off.

Now, the mastering engineer, he's a professional and he is

an artist.

And

he's the last chance that you can make it sound as good as you can or as pleasing to the crowd.

And now, the only thing with me is I'm one more step.

I'm like the mastering engineer because when, in a way, I hire the best, but once they do it, I have them send it to me, and then I press it and I compare it to the original.

And then I call them, hey, man, you did a great job.

Or, hey.

Okay, so you've got the original LP, and then you take the plate or you do a test press.

Okay, so I skipped over.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so so what the guy, the mastering engine does, he puts the tape on the on the reel-to-reel player,

and then

he cuts,

there's a cutter head that cuts into a lacquer.

Yeah, you know, it's like the instead of a cartridge removing the sound from,

it's cutting the sound into it, right?

And that's a piece of metal?

It's a piece of metal with lacquer that's been slathered on.

That becomes your mold

for the vinyl.

So then you take that and then you plate it like with silver and different and nickel.

So the lacquer is grooves.

You can play the lacquer.

And then they spray like a silver,

like they spray it like that.

And then they pull those parts apart.

Yeah.

And then now it's sticking out.

Well, they'll call that a master or a father.

Yeah.

Because it's sticking out, you know, mother, father,

as opposed to in yeah okay and so then you you uh do a uh you plate it again

in uh electro for electroplating and then you pull that apart again and now you can play it that's called a mother okay so that's a it's a it's on metal yeah so it you know but it looks like a record it looks like a record right but on metal it's metal so then now you pull a stamper from that and you pull that apart now it's sticking out again so that that's what you can press with.

Yeah, then that presses into the vibe.

And you can play the mother.

You can play the mother.

If the master's good.

Yeah.

So that's when you do a comparison.

No, no, no.

I want to listen to the finish.

So you got to press a record.

Right.

No, not hardly anybody does that.

It's a test pressing.

Yeah.

Hardly anybody does.

I mean, they got to get the test pressing to make sure there's no flaws in it.

Yeah, yeah.

But I use the test pressing as well to make sure that the mastering beats the shit out of the original.

Yeah.

You know, I want to cream the original.

Now, you know, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's very hard, and sometimes it's in the middle, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Like it's easy to beat a bad job.

Yeah.

It's not hard to beat a pretty good job.

Sometimes it's hard to beat a really good job because sometimes we're competing with the same guy.

It's Bernie Grundman competing with himself.

Like for instance, the Asia record we did.

Bernie did the original.

Oh, yeah.

And then I had him do the reissue.

And what did he say when he he heard the master?

Like with his ears now?

And without having

Fagin and Becker in his head.

Yeah, yeah.

He's such a good guy, man.

He listened to the original and he said, hey, man, I think I can do some things better.

Our equipment's a little different, a little bit better now.

And he did.

And, you know, we got it better.

I mean, we didn't,

the original is still good.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the original.

Yeah, MoFi did that too, I think.

They did a version, didn't they?

Yeah, the original MoFi.

But that one they didn't do a particular good job on.

I'll be honest with you, with the MoFi records, the ones I have, the original ones, they sound a little compressed to me.

The older ones are the...

Well, you know,

they do something.

The original MoFi, I'm not talking about the current MoFi, and I don't really want to talk.

I mean, listen,

Mobile Fidelity is a company that I looked up to that really got me started and all this.

So I owe a great deal of gratitude

to the original label.

But now that I know more and I listen more and I compare more, they're not as good as I thought they were.

I don't think so.

I mean, I'm talking about the old ones.

No, I know.

Just so I don't.

Yeah, yeah.

And so what they do is there's what's called a smiley face EQ.

And it's a way to kind of trick people

into thinking it sounds better.

They boost the highs and

the lows, and they kind of suck out the mid-range, and it makes like a curve, like a smiley face curve.

And

it's a way of making something seem better to people, but it's missing the mids.

Yeah, I guess that's it.

Yeah, and didn't they do a half-speed recording?

What does that mean?

Yeah, half-speed means like the

it's cutting at half-speed.

Like they can't even listen to the music because it's playing at half speed.

Why do they do that?

What's the benefit of it?

Well, because I think they think the longer the stylus maybe is cutting the lacquer,

it's transferring more information.

I think that's what they,

but it's really not just the half-speed that's that's good or bad.

It's more of the smiley facing.

Right, or what the mastering engineer chooses to do.

Interesting, because like I've done side-by-sides and

you know, with the original mofis and with the record, yeah.

And I find that at worst,

the record, not the original pressing,

sometimes a little high-endy, but it still fills out better.

You like the originals?

Well, I mean, you know, I can see how they take off the high-end.

I mean, that seems to be a bigger problem is that, you know, you get, you know, it's a little, it's

a little shrill sometimes on the good equipment.

Well, what you got to always remember is every case is different.

Sure.

And your original record might be worn out even if it looks like it's not.

Right.

So every case is different.

Like, but, you know, but sometimes you'll start to develop a pattern or something.

You think

if you play 10 originals in a row and every time you compare it, you like the original, well, you're going to like the originals.

You know, yeah, that's it.

I always say that.

It's like, no matter how much equipment you get, it's all relative to your old ears.

That, you know, like you can keep chasing whatever you want, but your ears are just your ears, dude.

And they're not getting any better.

Well, they're not.

That's certainly for sure.

But, you know,

I do a lot of A-B and that's my job.

Basically, like, if you said, well, what do you do the most of now?

And it's like, I make sure our records sound better than the original.

Now, sometimes I really think

just because I think they sound better than the original, sometimes people like the original, but sometimes, too, they have an emotional attachment or they paid a lot for it.

You know what I mean?

So

there's a lot of things.

It changes the way you hear it.

Yeah, exactly.

Your mind plays with you.

You know what I mean?

And sometimes that original, like, you know, I talked to Fogarty once about how he mixes, you know, how he was producing.

And a lot of times these older records were really made for people to listen to in their cars.

They weren't really thinking about,

you know, how to do the master or whatever.

They're like, I asked John, you know, how does he produce?

He says, well, when the singer's singing, you put that up front.

And when the guitar player's playing, you put that up front.

It's all about that AM speaker in the middle of a dashboard.

But those records, those fantasy records, hold up, dude.

Oh, my God.

I love the credence.

I mean, but they're so clean, man.

Oh, they're awesome, man.

They're awesome.

How's that?

Like, I didn't know if it was the vinyl or what, but you could play some of those old credence.

That shit's like a jazz record and how he separated shit.

Oh, dude.

Like the first album when he plays Susie Q.

Yeah.

It's like the guitar amp.

Your speaker is the guitar amp.

That's crazy, man.

Oh, yeah.

No, I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

We just reissued

like 24 24 of their songs cut at 45 RPM box set.

Yeah.

We just did that.

Yeah.

Was that for the DVD reissue?

No, really?

No, you just did it.

Well, we released this in, I think, 2002.

Yeah.

And we had it available for years, but we ran out of it.

But we asked the label, hey,

let us press it one more time.

And they were like, sure.

Well, yeah, now John gets most of the money, I think.

Good for him.

Yeah, yeah.

So when you, you know, in your experience, because you've done a lot of records.

So if people want to look at the records, they go to Acoustic Sounds.

Yeah, acoustic sounds.com.

And that's but that's an umbrella company umbrella because we have our own pressing company called Quality Record Pressings.

Yeah.

So our reissue labels, analog productions.

Okay.

So

the main company is Acoustic Sounds, the reissue labels, analog productions, our pressing plants, quality record pressings.

We have our own printing facility.

We can do everything from the microphone to the mouse.

You have a studio as well?

Yeah, yeah.

I bought a church in 1997.

It's Old Vintage Church.

Who have you recorded in there?

I've recorded Gate Mouth Brown, Tony Joe White.

We've recorded, we had 21 blues concerts.

We had it 21 years in a row where we have blues concerts where we'd have C.J.

Shanier,

we'd have

Gate Mouth.

All in the church, and you record them.

Tab and Wa, all the.

Mostly live recordings.

Oh, yeah.

And we're just going to start re-listing them now.

The first one we're going to do is Tony Joe White, who's absolutely one of my favorites.

That's great.

And so when you started doing this stuff, like

it's all,

you've got control of all of it now.

You can do whatever you want.

But do you do any,

are you sought after for the sound?

Like, do you do any new guys?

I will record.

I mean, I'm into the blues, so I'll record like the latest guy we record.

His name is Marquise Knox.

Yeah.

And he's a young kid from St.

Louis.

He makes up the song on the spot.

When we start recording, he'll just come up with a whole song that makes sense.

You know what I'm saying?

And he's great.

I introduced him to Billy Gibbons.

Billy.

And he took him on tour with him.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Have you seen Jack White's operation?

Yeah, I have.

I have.

You know, we reissued the Elephant album.

They called us.

Jack White's people call me.

They go, man.

Did you remaster it?

Yeah.

What do you think of it?

I thought it came out good, you know, and I think they did too.

What we did is we got the original master tape.

We had Ryan Smith at Sterling master it.

We plated it.

We pressed it.

We put it in, you know, we pressed it as a UHQR, and it's done well.

What's a UHQR?

Well, it stands for Ultra High Quality Record.

It's what we consider the highest quality record, no expense spared.

There's no

spare expense in making it.

I could ever think of of making the absolute best record ever made goes into this thing.

And we're also doing, we got the rights, we're doing the Marley catalog, and we're doing UHQRs on the Marley.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's his 80th birthday.

The release date for the first two was like yesterday.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and so we're doing those on UHQs.

Have you seen Kate Simon's book, The Photographer?

I'll show it to you in the house.

She just put out a whole book of Marley photographs and of that time and all those musicians.

Beautiful.

Oh, yeah, yeah, man.

Yeah, maybe you can

hook that up on the site.

But with Jack, he's got a full pressing operation, too, doesn't he?

Yeah, when he first opened his pressing plant, I think it was in 2017,

he invited all the other pressing plants to go and have a party, which was cool.

So all the pressing plants, it was almost like a convention for us pressing people.

So we went up there and he has a nice pressing plant.

And yeah, we know them.

And he does.

He loves blues.

And

we work with Ben.

You know, his guy?

Yeah, his guy.

Yeah, I know that guy.

Yeah, he's cool.

And what was that old, like, I took a tour of a record pressing plant, I think, in Nashville.

What's that old one that's called?

UDI?

Yeah, United Pressing.

URP.

URP.

United.

United Record Pressing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was kind of cool.

Yeah, yeah,

they one of the oldest.

Yeah,

I got this.

That's a chunk of vinyl before it got pressed.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

A super chunk.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

What title is this?

It's I think it's a super chunk record.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

I always like that thing.

Yeah, yeah.

The glob.

Yeah, we call it a puck.

Yeah, the puck before it goes.

I watched them do that stuff.

Now, the colored vinyl, where do you stand on that?

I really feel that the color is

color's got a bad rap.

Basically, in the old days, it was bad.

Black was always, but you know, black is a color.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, but I mean, it comes clear, a milky,

natural state of the vinyl.

And that's why we use that in our UHQR.

Our UHQR is...

Clear?

Yeah, it's a clear, milky white because that's the natural state.

Black is actually carbon that's put in it.

So why put an additive in it?

You know, that's what we feel.

Yeah.

But colors is, they're better.

I don't.

I don't talk shit on it anymore because it deserves, it's better.

They've gotten better and everybody's using it.

And we get our vinyl from Thailand and we have a guy, he's out here,

does a great job and really cares about the quality.

Yeah.

There's a guy, I can't remember his name.

I'll show you when we go back in the house that does very specific pressings.

And I feel like he's down south where, you know, he's pulling from a booze artist down there, but I can't remember the label.

But he creates boxes, but it's like once a year kind of thing.

I don't remember his name.

I'll have to show it to you.

But in your experience, have there been records that you, you know, outside of knowing what records are in demand, that you wanted to save?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like, I got to redo that record, man.

Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of times I'll do records that I know I'm not going to make money on, but you know, they're

important to me.

Like, I'm going to be doing, I'm trying to get the rights to do a Bobby Charles.

And you know about, you know,

Bobby Charles wrote See You Later, Alligator.

Oh, yeah, sure.

And he wrote Walking to New Orleans

and a song called But I Do.

He's kind of like our Tony Joe White or our J.J.

Kale down in the swamp.

He performed on The Last Waltz, actually.

Didn't even record him?

Yeah,

he was great.

So it's a great album that it's the band that backs him on this album.

It's the band.

Back in the day?

Yeah, back in the day.

Like when they were backing backing John Hammond and stuff?

Well, when they were in Woodstock.

When they were in Woodstock.

So, you know, I love this album.

I'm going to do it, man.

If I lose, I'll lose.

Bobby Charles?

Yeah, Bobby Charles.

I think you'd love it.

I mean, you listen to,

you know,

Davis.

Jesse Ed Davis.

Jesse Ed Davis.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean,

it's the real stuff, man.

It's like laid back, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I'll do records that I think that deserve to be done and deserve to get the best treatment.

What about some major popular records where you're like, I could do that better?

Oh, I think we can do most any record better.

What was the story with the Doors record?

What did you do, the first Doors record?

We did a box that we did them all.

We did them all.

And you were able to get the masters?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that was kind of a funny story.

We love Jeff Jampaul.

He's the manager of the Doors, and he loves us.

A lot of these guys are our customers.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Like a lot of these guys, what helps us get the rights to this is they know our work.

And in fact, the White Stripes called us.

They go, we would like, because, you know, our UHQRs are the top records.

We only want the most, the top 25 classic rock or whatever.

And so they wanted their records sitting next to mine,

sitting next to the other ones.

So, yeah, so we, here's a funny story.

So I called Jeff and I said, hey, Jeff, we want to do the doors.

He goes, yeah, okay.

He says, you know, we love what you do.

And I said, well, just Jeff, you know, remember we only use the original masters, you know, and he's like, yeah, okay.

We'll make it happen.

So we make a deal and it gets to the end.

And they're like, well,

they don't want to send the master.

And I'm like, well,

you know, you remember our conversation?

He goes, yeah, I sure do.

He says, you know, I'm on you, you know, he goes, I sure do.

I said, well, he said, but it's going to be trouble.

And I said, well, then just forget it.

And he's like, really?

You're going to walk away?

I says, yeah.

And he goes,

hmm.

And

then I said, Jeff, you know, remember, and he's the reminded me.

I forgot I said this, but I like the line.

He goes,

Jeff, remember the name of my label is Analog Productions.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So we need the analog.

So we got the deal done, and now we've

great friends and we license other.

But they couldn't find the masters?

what was the problem?

Well, you know, people would rather not send the masters for obvious reasons.

They don't want to get lost.

They don't want to get lost.

They don't want to get destroyed.

I understand.

I mean,

but, you know, we work real closely with these people and we have a lot of respect for them.

They're doing a good job for their artists.

But I'm thinking that if I release some great sounding doors, it's going to be good for everybody.

Yeah, yeah.

And so

that's a funny story on how, and it happens often, you know.

People are cagey or they're reluctant to send the master.

Right, they're reluctant to send the master.

And when you get a master, I mean, how many of them are deteriorating?

I mean, it seems like some of the, doesn't that deteriorate those tapes?

Some of them do.

Some of them have been played to death.

Some of them, like the 70s tapes.

like the late 70s have what they call sticky shit.

Yeah.

And they stick together.

And you have to bake them.

The tapes from the early 50s are unbelievably good.

You know,

and the tapes, they changed the formula.

I think I've heard this story.

It might not be,

I mean, if it's wrong, I'm just passing on information I heard.

But like they banned whale oil.

And that was they use whale oil in the 50s.

Yeah.

Well, no, probably the 70s because the tape.

of the 50s and 60s is perfect.

Now, again,

you could probably pull one up that somebody didn't treat right or didn't store right or played it to death.

But for the most part, so a lot of the tapes in the 70s, late 70s

has that sticky shit.

So you have to bake it, and it's not in good shape.

Oh, and what do you do with that then?

Well, it's like sticky.

You can't play it.

It'll ruin.

It'll even make it worse if you play it.

But how do you use it?

So you bake it.

Okay.

And when you bake it, it goes back to the way it was.

And then you have like a couple of weeks to use it.

Yeah.

And then maybe a month later, if you wanted to use it again, you have to bake it.

No shit.

But the sound is usually okay?

Yeah, yeah, it's usually okay.

I mean, it's, it's, I mean, but you know, like I said, everything

usually is the right, correct word.

Yeah, it's not always.

Sure.

And like in terms of like what, because I've, you know, I, in my limited record collecting, have grown to understand that some companies, you know, do reissues that really aren't that good

and and the reason generally that i've been told is that either they they don't take from the masters they'll either take from a digital source maybe even a cd or another record and and then you lose you know you're you're kind of you lose two or three steps there

of course so you you start right there you're you've already um

You've already lost a step right there.

To me, you want to do everything.

Like there might be 20 steps you can take.

Like I call it my recipe.

I'll give anybody my recipe, but nobody ever follows it.

It's only like not even 20, maybe five, ten things.

But they'll always forget one or two or change.

They won't do a test press.

Yeah, or they won't compare it.

Like

they'll do a test pressing normally, but even that's so.

What happens is,

this is what I say.

Every step step might be a small improvement, right?

Every step is a small.

But you add 20 small improvements, that makes a good one good improvement, right?

So they might be small each step.

So they started with a copy.

Yeah.

And they started with digital.

Yeah.

Because it's cheaper, it's easier, it's faster.

Okay.

They don't really understand what you and I understand.

They don't really care.

They don't understand.

You could play them the two albums and they might not hear the difference themselves.

Yeah, but also they just might be in it for the cash grab.

Well, hell.

You know, I mean, all of a sudden people are buying records and it's hard to find like Iggy Pop, the Idiot, you know, the original, or not the idiot, or Lust for Life or whatever, because I remember that was a record that I owned.

I didn't have the original and I bought a reissue.

And then when I got the original, I did an AB.

I was like, holy fuck.

You know, they just wanted the record out there.

Because a lot of people who are buying records now are not discerning people.

They're just people who want to get records.

Right, right.

A lot of people,

they buy it, they play it.

they might not even open it.

Some of them are buying it to put on the wall.

But someone like you, it sounds like you would be one of our typical customers.

I can tell from

everything you've told me.

And

some people care and the difference...

The difference is important to a lot of us.

But a lot of people, it's not.

And then you're right.

Some of the people that are making it, they don't really either get it.

They're trying to save money.

They're wanting to get it out fast.

Yeah, and then there's people, you know, you could look at any anything like a fast food restaurant versus a high-end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And do you

know, like, you know, a lot of people,

they'll get some science going about the lack of difference

between, you know, digital and vinyl.

And I believe when I listen to it, like, I have a lot of records, and a lot of them are pretty shitty, you know, in terms of sound, but that's that's what they were dealing with.

You know, it's just the nature of the game.

But if I listen to digital versus vinyl, I still believe that there is a bigger sort of, you know, separation and shaping of sounds.

And I do think it has a different tone to me.

For sure.

Okay.

Just

how do you feel?

Yeah.

You know, forget like the, I don't, don't show me specs and stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

How do you feel?

Yeah.

You know, if what happens is I say you put on a C D and even dogs leave the room.

You know what I mean?

Because subconsciously, it's an irritating, it's a bright, clinical, sterile,

computer-y, you know,

it's not, it's pushing you out of the room.

It's not drawing you in the room.

The record will draw you in.

I've never cried listening to a CD.

You know, if you put on a good record, my hair and my arms will stand up.

I'll maybe shed a tear or two.

Because there's more emotion.

But, you know, that brings up another subject, man, and

is all the new recordings, they're all compressed, man.

I know.

I mean, I don't know who can do anything about it, but it's on a

it,

it's baked in.

They're recording it and mastering this way.

Yeah.

And it just,

you know, you turn it up to one and it's too loud already.

Yeah, it hurts.

It's the loudness wars.

Yeah, and also like you can't,

you know, I mean,

but there's also different intentions, you know, with pop music now.

You know, I don't, I think it's it's done for effect.

You know,

they're making, you know, crack as opposed to coke.

I get what you're saying.

I hope the audience does, but they probably do.

You know what I mean?

If you, if you cook it down to it's just its most kind of almost violent effect, you know, for to have a sensory experience so the sensory experience is different it's not necessarily nuanced you know it might be heavy on the base they they're they're really wanting to uh to to give you that crack eye yeah as opposed to you know uh you know kind of easing in with something more pure but uh uh

also

what the ritual that you have whether it's five or twenty steps and and also i think another element to vinyl is that it is a ritualized behavior you know even when we did drugs, you know, you got your little box,

you got your stuff.

Oh, I love it.

And it's the same with records.

And, you know, some people say that.

You're right.

You're right.

Some people say it's an old guy thing or what, but I think that if you're into

the sort of pastime of vinyl, that there's a ritual to it.

For sure there is.

And then you want to play with your needles and tubes and whatever, that, you know, you're going to shape your sound how you're going to shape it.

It's all relative to your ears again.

Like I got those two systems in there.

Yeah, yeah, they both good.

It's just like, you know, one's Mexican food and one's Japanese.

You know, like, you know, some, and I like having it all.

I like the vintage.

I like quad electrostatics.

I like, you know,

dynamic speakers.

I mean, I like, I like tubes.

I like.

You know, you're right about the ritual.

To me, an album is about 20 minutes, usually 20, 22 minutes a side.

To me, that's the perfect amount of time.

Like, let's say, you know, me and you, hey, you want to listen to a side of a record?

Yeah.

Well, you know, we'll get our drink or whatever and we'll sit down and we'll listen.

And our attention span, it's fine for 22 minutes.

Now, have you ever listened to it?

Have you ever sat and listened to a whole CD?

It's like an hour and a half.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm sorry, I've never done it.

And then you don't feel like the last 10 songs really need to be there.

Right.

Yeah.

Dude, you said it.

To me, you know why a lot of the albums that came out when vinyl was king are more classic, the albums that came, because those only could put six or seven songs.

Yeah.

They only put the best.

Then once they started CDs, they would put extra songs because they could, but that weakened your experience on thinking this is a classic album.

Right.

And so, but what I'm saying is decide one side of a record is the perfect amount of time to just give yourself.

It's almost like accepting religion or something.

Self-meditation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you can give yourself to that record for 22 minutes.

And then afterwards, we go, wow, man, that was good.

You want to hear the other side or you want to hear something else?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the CD,

it's the ritual, man.

It is.

And

the timing of it just happened to work out.

And right now we're doing the Marlowe.

Marley stuff.

We're really good friends and work on Miles Davis.

We just did Kind of Blue.

Now we're doing The Birth of the Blue, which was the four other songs that were recorded at the same time.

And the session was a bad thing.

Okay, the same band.

When Kind of Blue, which was the best-selling jazz album of all time, was recorded like in 1959.

And they recorded five songs for Kind of Blue.

There were four other songs that were recorded by the same band in the same studio about eight months before.

So those songs have always been released as like an add-on to a compilation.

Or they do three songs in mono they were never released with the

the i don't know the word integrity that it should be yeah you know together so we're like we want to master off the original master tape

Of course, they didn't really want that.

Sony doesn't let their masters out anymore.

But they had a three-track.

So I convinced them, if you use the three-track and make me a two-track master, which is a master, you still have your master.

And they go, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

We'll do it.

So we made the the jacket look like if it had came out in 1959.

We had

Ashley Kahn, the guy that wrote the book on Kind of Blue, write the liner.

Oh, good.

And we mastered it.

I bought Doug Sachs' mastering facility that was here in L.A.

Yeah.

He did like...

The wall and all

the biggest records.

Doug did it, all custom tube electronics.

We cut it on our system, off the original master, played in pressed at QRP and Salina.

And we've sold over 13,000 of them already, man.

So yeah, we do The Doors, Credence,

Marley, Steely Dan.

We did pretty much a complete Beach Boys.

How was that?

Listen to those masters.

Oh, they were great.

The one that will blow you away is the album Surfer Girl.

Oh, yeah.

The song In My Room.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That will knock your dick in the dirt.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I mean, that is unbelievable.

Oh, oh, man.

I got to get some.

You got to give me those records.

Oh, no problem.

Man, for sure, man.

We got to hook you up, man.

Well, thanks, buddy.

It's good talking to you, man.

Oh, for sure, man.

I tell you what, you know, I was a little nervous.

I said, I don't know how this is going to go, but we have so much in common that

worked out.

Yeah, one day at a time, buddy.

Yeah, you know, that's right, man.

There you go.

He's sending me some records.

I'm going to listen to him.

Got to take that time too.

Got to take that time to sit and listen.

He came in.

He listened to my system.

I don't know if he was being nice about it, but he said it sounded pretty damn good.

I'll take his word on that.

I don't know what he would have said.

I feel like he's an honest guy.

I think it is pretty good.

But

yeah, so I'm back in.

I'm fully back in.

You can follow the Acoustic Sounds Chaos YouTube channel and read that profile in the New York Times titled The Wizard of Vinyl is in Kansas.

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