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Something About the Beatles
SATB SPECIAL: Badfinger/Iveys Reissue Series with Mark Strothmann
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A
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B
Hi, it's Sam Rinehart from the Florida Panthers. Watch as we take on the New York Rangers in the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic in Miami. The NHL Winter Classic is coming to the Sunshine State. Ring in the New Year with me in Miami.
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C
Catch all the action on January 2nd.
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B
At 8:00pm Eastern on TNT and HBO Max. That's January 2nd at 8:00pm on TNT and HBO Max. For tickets and more info, visit NHL.com Winter Classic now meet Tom Evans of.
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C
Badfinger, the group in the top 10 with the soundtrack song Come and Get It. Tom, tell us how your group came to be chosen to do the music for the film the Magic.
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D
Christian yes, we had a record out a year before Come and Get it called maybe Tomorrow.
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C
But that was before you were known as Badfinger, wasn't it?
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D
Yeah, we were called the Ivies then, and everybody said it would be a hit, you know, and it was a commercial sounding thing, but it didn't go, you know, it's all in the States, but not very, you know, to make it a major hit there. But during this time, Paul knew about our sort of, you know, he knew that he could aid us by this film because he was asked to write the music for the film and he got to writing the title song. And I thought maybe if we could do the title song, knowing that we were writers, there was a chance he could get us in the film as songwriters.
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C
Yeah, did it work? Hello and welcome to this sappy special edition. Sort of an ancillary conversation given that in 2025 the podcast had been bookended by two Badfinger Ivies centric conversations. The first one, earlier in the year was with Bob Jackson, who was the last member of Badfinger, joining in 1974 to record a Badfinger album, intended as the third Warner Brothers album Called Head first with Pete Ham, Tommy Evans and Mike Gibbons. After the departure of Joey MULLEN in late 1974, they got together, recorded an album. It was shelved at the time and then a few months later, Pete Ham committed suicide. But Bob was part of that band that did the last UK tour and then recorded that album at Apple Studios as it happened now there was a version of it that came out on Snapper around 2000, but it was really a dub of a rough mix, so it was not optimum quality and not really showcasing the collection of music in its best light. But Bob Jackson was nothing if not persistent. He tracked down the tapes Long Believe missing the actual studio multi tracks went into the studio. He mixed it, remastered it and released it in late 2024, 50 years after its creation. So now it's out there, it's on Spotify, it's on Vinyl Head first, the last Bad Finger album of the original run of the band. So he was responsible for that and we had a. A really good conversation earlier this year. Later in 2025, I had Ron Griffiths on the show. He was the bassist with the Ivies, who was the forerunner of Bad Finger. He was the guy that was replaced by Joey Mullen just as a segued from the Ivies to Badfinger upon the recording of the Paul McCartney composition come and get it for the Magic Christian film in the summer of 69, released at the end of 1969. The Ivies were sort of a different animal from Badfinger. They were much more pop where Badfinger was a lot more rocking once Joey joined. So the Ivys were this band that were incredibly prolific songwriters living in Golders Green, North London, brought to Apple by Mel Evans, who was friends with Bill Collins, who was sort of their de facto manager at the time. Incredibly prolific songwriters, if you don't know the story of the Ivy's coming to Apple. They were originally signed to a publishing contract because they had with Pete Ham, Tommy Evans and Ron Griffiths, and to a lesser extent Mike Gibbons, although he became more prolific as the years went on. But all of them wrote and in their residence at 7 Park Avenue. They demoed material and kept sending these tapes to Apple for Apple to judge what would be suitable for their first single. So that was how they got rolling and it became a song of Tom's called maybe Tomorrow, issued in late 1968. They appeared on the Lulu show with Jimi Hendrix, as you might recall from the conversation. But the album that then came out was not released in Britain or in the US due to Alan Klein deciding it really wasn't worth it. And eventually, some Ivy's material, plus the three new songs recorded for the Magic Christian film, Come and Get It, Rock of All Ages and Carry On Until Tomorrow, became part of the Badfinger debut, Magic Christian Music, released in early 1970, by which time Ron was no longer in the band and Joey was. In any event, I had those two conversations this past year with guys from Badfinger and Ivy's. So Mark Straussman, who I'm talking with today, is part of the team that's been working on this stream of reissues of material that's just really taken off in recent years. Now, you may be familiar with the collections. There's been a series of Pete Ham demos that have been coming out since 1997. Park Avenue was the first one, Gold Is Green, Gwent Gardens was another, all named after places associated with Pete Ham. And he was, as mentioned, a prolific songwriter who demoed relentlessly. And so a series of demos of his material that was unreleased has been coming out. We just recently saw the release in late 2025 of another one called Acoustic. Now, spearheading the original release of these posthumous collections had been Dan Matovina. He was the guy who wrote the Badfinger biography Without you, which came out in the 90s, I believe. He passed away a couple years ago now, and since his death, it's become much more of a team effort to get this material released. To that end, there's been a series of anthology releases that have come out under the Ivy's ban, Volumes one through five. The first two were live sets. The first one from 1966, the second one from 1968, and then following that has been a series of demos, Golden Delicious demos, 1966-1969, How Much is the Sky, Volume 4, and the newest one, which was just released, Miniskirts and Rainbows. Now, we didn't talk about that one because it was unreleased at the time of my conversation with Mark, but it's just come out alongside the Pete Ham acoustic. So there's all this material on the first live one anthology, volume one, the 1966 one. It's Pete Mike, Ron Griffiths on bass, and a guy named Di Jenkins, who never recorded for Apple. He had left the band to be replaced by Tom Evans in 1967. So that's another name you'll hear in this conversation. Die. He's still around. And Ron Griffiths, you know him from my conversation with him. Other names. Rich Uloa, who's part of the reissue team, and then Mark. Tom Brennan is Another guy you should know, you'll hear his name come up. He's been a Badfinger historian for decades now. And if you at all are interested in Badfinger history and Ivy's history, go to badfinger library.com. that is the site that is virtually bottomless, with information about every gig, every recording session, every release, every. Everything you can think of. Badfinger, it's there. It's an unbelievable collation of history. Lots and lots of visuals as well. So do check that out. But one of the other things we talk about in my conversation with Mark now is the YouTube channels. There is a Badfinger channel, but also an Ivy's channel, one for each individual member. Bob Jackson's got a channel, Pete Ham channel, Tom Evans channel, Mike Gibbons channel, and a Joey Mullen channel. So I. All this stuff, promo films, trinitakes, release stuff, live stuff. It's an incredible amount of material now coming out more or less officially. And one of the things we talk about early on in this conversation is how up until recent years there'd been sort of this infighting going on between the various estates and between Badfinger fans that was so much so that going back to the early 2000 thousands, when I did my first Beatles book, you'll hear us talk about this. But Joey Mullen, the late great, was of the opinion that there was too much negative coverage of him out there in the world, that he didn't want to add a forward to my first Beatles book, thinking it would not serve any good purpose with so many people not really being fans of his at that time. But you will hear, as Mark describes, that the families, the heirs of the Badfinger guys, have now all sort of come together. They're behind the reissue of all this great material and it's finally come full circle to where it needs to be. So you've got these people now, in the wake of Dan's passing, that have sort of picked up the mantle to get all this material out there, all this demo material, live material, studio recordings and the videos, all this great stuff. So it really is a golden time to be a Badfinger or Ivy's fan. And so this is kind of a general overview of the work that's been going on. I wanted to talk to Mark. We connected Fest this year and just really sort of describe the ongoing efforts to get all this stuff out there. We'll probably have more conversations down the road. Getting into the minutia. Another name you should know, Jacob Marcus, he's the guy running the Badfinger video cast podcast called Vinyl Verdict. It's all up on YouTube. I had a conversation with him earlier this year and he's just been doing this great work of bringing the history forward. Interviewing absolutely everybody to do with Badfinger that's still around. Everybody from the roadies to Joey's longtime collaborator in the Raz band, Michael Resigno. I hope I'm saying his name right, known as Raz. So he's keeping the history alive that way with a series of great conversations with Bad Finger witnesses that are out there yet. So, as I said, a great time to be a Badfinger fan. So here's my conversation with Mark, an overview of the current state of things in Bad Finger. Once again, Bad Finger, My first Beetle book, I think I did in 2007. And at the time I called up Kathy and I said, hey, do you think Joey would like to do the forward? It'd be really cool to get him involved in this. And she was like, all excited. She said, oh, this is great. It's wonderful. I get an email a few days later from Joey is like, you know, I've been online and I'm of the opinion that a lot of people think I'm an asshole, so I don't think it would help your book. And I remember Kathy was like really kind of angry with him. It's like, are you kidding? You know, this is such a great opportunity and probably a good guy and it just didn't happen, you know, whatever. We connected not that long after. And it was not anything personal to me. He thought he was being helpful, but I just couldn't believe, because I'd known him since the 80s. And I was thinking, I understand there are people out there that are in camps and people like to pick teams and all that stuff, but this is so stupid. This is who we've got left and he's out there keeping this alive. How long you want to carry this around? This is ridiculous.
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B
I know. Well, in the last two and a half years, so much has happened. One of the things that's happened since his passing was kind of a change from everybody. And the one most powerful statement I heard was when I was with the Hamm estate in April, they said if it wasn't for Joey's work In the last 40 plus years, Badfinger's legacy wouldn't be what it is today. And I don't think you're going to hear that before 2025.
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C
What an amazing thing to say. That's great.
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B
That's outstanding. Yeah, but I mean, it's. It is what it is I try to do the forgiveness quest and everything. And it's not always so easy for everybody. I mean, if you just took it from your experience of the people who you felt you didn't get along with or something was there or whatever, you know, it's. It's kind of going to be like that.
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C
So it's a process for sure. Some days are easier than other days, at least if there's forward momentum and you're trying to reach that place. Recognizing some days there will be setbacks and backsliding, but you'll get there as long as you're persistent and keep striving for that better version of yourself.
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B
Yeah, yeah. I just can't believe the things that have gone on as far as just the camaraderie and understanding. It's just kind of unbelievable to be in this situation. I'm not like the leader or anything. And that this isn't like some kind of monarchy. You know, if you really pan back, it's just very passionate fans who want to help do everything that they can. And everybody who is kind of in the position, I think has gotten here from their passion. You know, it's just kind of. I don't want to say that like Dan's passing was a vacuum or anything because they don't really feel that way. But I think that he tried to do everything himself and that is not possible. It can be. You can do a lot of stuff, but getting into every single little comment somebody made to big decisions, that's a lot that's gonna grind away at you. And I think that one of the things that's very different is we have this team now and it's just so much easier.
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C
Yeah. And you've got the progress to show for it.
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B
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
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C
So let's talk about this for listeners who don't know. We just connected recently and it just seems like in the sad wake of Joey's death, that Badfinger. I think things were sort of moving that way anyway. But certainly that event shed a lot of light on things that had been happening before he died. There was Bob Jackson rediscovering and then addressing the head first tapes and getting that put out. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its creation at the end of 2024, which was an amazing thing. It just sounds fantastic. And it was one of these things that even though we'd got previous iterations of it, it was not really in the form we wanted it to be from the original tapes and mixed properly. And all that. So it was an amazing thing that he was persistent enough to track it down and get it done. And we've had that conversation. I had him on the show earlier this year, so we've kind of covered Headfirst. But at the same time, I'd not been fully immersed in Badfinger world in a while, but I was starting to see. I was naturally aware of the Pete Ham demo releases coming out. And I think were there three or four volumes of it now? And then there was these live Ivy's recordings that were coming out, and it was like, wow, there's so much in the well that we didn't even have any awareness of before. And it's really presenting all this history of this band that we thought we knew from the without you book and whatever Apple reissues there were. But suddenly there's so much more to it that we had no idea. It never been heard before publicly. So we are going through this bit of a Bad Finger renaissance. Badfinger Ivey's renaissance. And it's just a great time. And I see nothing but further momentum going forward as more people get involved and more awareness gets raised and podcasts like the Vinyl Verdict exist, Covering it so superbly. And it's a fair game topic for Sappy as Beatles adjacent. You know, this was something. The Beatles were part of the launch, as it were.
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B
Yeah, well, it's really exciting. You mentioned the Beatles at the end here. The Anthology approach. I think everyone that works together for this, like the Beatles is their favorite band. You know, it's just kind of perfect, what we're doing, Anthology style. Now the Anthology's coming out, we could talk about that. And I think when people see no matter what, maybe tomorrow on Disney, some new Badfinger fan is gonna come about and they're gonna come this way and they're gonna see like, really an overwhelming amount. I mean, if you just took the albums that they had. But now Pete Ham has so many solo albums, I'd have to cut, start counting before I could even really think on my head. You know, the variety pack and all the other kind of versions and stuff. And what are the future is planning?
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C
You know, it was Prolific, a songwriter who was sort of compulsively demoing material, that Bad Finger albums are what they are. But that's like the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more material he had in his pocket. And going back years and years, it's just astonishing that we only got a small glimpse of what we got. But there was so much more to it that if he had not written another song after 1975, he could have ran on that for years going forward. This amount of material that he had amassed, not to mention they were all writers, Mike and Tommy and Joey, of course. So having material was not a problem for these guys.
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B
Big time writers, all of them. I mean, Mike has written more songs that I like by a drummer in a band than any other band I can even think of. Not even close.
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C
Sorry. Don Henley, like.
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B
Yeah. I'm not much of an Eagles fan. I've seen him three times and just doesn't three more times than I have. But yeah, Pete, I mean, there's really no bad music. There's nothing. I think every single song he did, there's something there. I don't know if his approach was, I'm not gonna just write something to write. And his approach was, I really think this is something and I wanna do it. Whatever the case, he's got over 200 songs in total, different songs from the next. And that's a lot of music to do in that amount of time. Tommy's got a whole lot there too. And Joey's. You can see it in the way that the band kind of goes on from each album and stuff and how much he had for ass and stuff. Yeah, it's just incredible. I would have never thought there was this much stuff that was gonna be available to us. I had no idea. I think part of the thinking was, is if Dan were to go on for another 20 years and do things, it would have been whatever songs were on acoustic or Gwent Gardens, they probably would have come out with overdubs and stuff. So when we put together Gwent Gardens and released it, we were not thinking about overdubs for that album. And then we got into contact with Rich Uloa and he wanted to help us put it out there and release it in physical form. Which was great because we had all these people complaining and we were just kind of doing what we did with Misunderstood. Well, okay, this is gonna come out this way. We're not gonna do that. So Tom and Kevin and I were this group that Dan had talked to. We couldn't communicate with each other. We weren't really allowed to. Sounds crazy, but it's just how it was. So we started working together. I think because of that, there was a lot of going through the motions. We'd do something. Kevin would say, what are you doing? I would ramble on these endless ideas and Tom Brennan would tell me to stop talking. But anyways, getting to Y&T we released it, and we're like, okay, well, you can release this. The point I'm trying to make here is that Rich was very excited that these were unadultered songs and this was the way to go. And so then the response coming in was how great this music was, not overdubbed. I can't really tell you of any situations where there's any of the songs from Keyhole street or Seven park or Golders Green that people complained about. I think the way that Dan did stuff I was always impressed with because he would want everything should be from that time. You shouldn't put some kind of new synthesizer that came out in the 80s on a song. And there is, like, jams and stuff of Pete working on stuff. You can't put out, like, five versions of a song, so you put out the best. But he was one to work on all the latest and greatest stuff. There's some machines and pedals and stuff. He got in and you just hear, like, two hours of just really getting in there.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. So I think he would have been a fan of stuff. But I think it's just a good time to move on in the way that it's come. Gwent happened like it did now. Acoustics of theme and it's just all acoustic. You're not gonna have drums overdubbed on that. Right. And so that's how it was. And then the last one is really neat. It's kind of gotten these things that it wouldn't have had. But there will be no overdubs or anything like that. So I think part of it is Dan would have had these issues. These albums wouldn't have been issued until, you know, 2049.
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C
Replay with overdubs.
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B
Yeah. So I think that's part of why it's like, wow, there's all this music still. And I think the thinking is, let's just get it out in a way that isn't overdoing it and in a way that everyone can appreciate it and enjoy it and not just, you know, just here's everything all at once. And also of quality. The best way we can find everything that's gonna make a project good for what it is.
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C
Now, given you'd mentioned 200 songs by Pete Ham and there's been this series of releases that have come out. Obviously he's got a big backlog of solo recordings. Were they in the same format originally? Were these on cassette? Were these on reel to reel? Were any done in an actual studio? What was the original state of these or is it all over the place?
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B
It's all over the place, but like they would make mixtapes and stuff for themselves to listen to on cassette. So there's a bunch of stuff there. Tom and I went through all the reels and then we went through all the cassettes. And the cassettes already had new stuff there, but it wasn't to the amount that the reels had. So I think this is coming from the reels. And you could go to the Rock and Roll hall of Fame right now and see the Reebox T machine that they had. Joey had one of his own at his place. There's a version of Timeless, the last version of Timeless we put up on Pete's channel that was done in the studio. In Joey's book, he talks about how the song was just Timeless that couldn't have had a better name because it was like endless. They just kept working on. And that's the thing is there's so many versions of this and Tom Brennan knows so much about this stuff. Just off the top of his head, when we found this, I was asking him, why is this like this and that? Is it what they were working towards? And they just had so many different drummers that would come in for this and that. There's like so many different versions. So just state about the fact about the drummer. Shows you how long they were just working on it. It's just like a song, you know, like Du du dur and then it back up and pretty simple in structure. And they just went on and on and on with it.
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C
When you say different drummers, you're talking about the period when Mike was not in the group, around 1972, that Rob Stiwinski was in the group from Sky.
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B
Yeah, but there was a bunch of session drummers that came in.
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C
That's interesting because I don't think that's general public knowledge. Is there a lot of extant Badfinger recordings without Mike that were done in the studio?
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B
Not much. But I mean the ASS album had a lot of that going.
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C
Uh huh. Yeah. I was wondering about what recordings we've talked about the individual songwriter demos. But is there much in the way of group recordings that have not seen the light of day, that might have been made in recording studios that just were outtakes? I mean there's certain things we've known. There were some that were pre Apple reissue in the early 90s. I'll be the one sing for the song no good at all those studio outtakes. Is there much more of that stuff that we haven't heard or completely alternate takes of familiar material.
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B
The big ones would be Dreaming and Rock and Roll from ass. Those never came out. And in Dan's words, Apple blew that whole opportunity. They could have done more with that. That was his statement about it.
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C
Well, it didn't make any sense at the time. I remember there was an original iteration, I don't know if it was the UK version or not, of ass. That had like five bonus tracks, something like that. And then it was either recalled or for the rest of the world, including the U.S. it only came out with like one bonus track or something else. They withd additional material they first put on the table to give us less. And I'm like, well, that's completely backwards. What was the story there?
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B
I don't know.
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C
It's like so many things you see in Beetle World where the Italian import people, as it were, are doing a far better job than the official curators of this stuff.
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B
Yeah. You know, for me, I've only been doing this for 12 and a half years. I tried to get into Band Finger a lot over the years, but my age, I'm 48, there was nothing available where you get an album for hundreds of dollars, Right. I'd want it on tape or cd. It wasn't there. I'd check in from time to time, but then I never heard the song Baby Blue. And then I heard it for Breaking Bad and then. But I never liked like 80s music. I was like a Beatles freak since I was like three. And I just listened to the oldies stations growing up. And so until my friends made me listen to heavy metal. You can't listen to Roy Orbison's you Got was out. And I was like, that's finally a great song, you know, great new song. Yeah, you have to, like. You're a nerd. There's some things that I just. I didn't see and I feel like I don't have the experience or whatever. Like the. I didn't put in the time that so many other people have had. Jacob, he's been into that finger longer than me. You know it. Which is crazy. He's 31.
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C
I say, is he a guy?
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B
Yeah.
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C
Floors me when I watch some of the Vinyl Verdict videos of the minutia he gets into in either replicating songs or the conversations he has with or without his dad getting into this history. That's not. There's a lot of bands out there that you don't have to read a book to know some of the lore associated with these bands because it just circulates. Badfinger, I think, is a little bit more arcane. You have to go after it to find it. It's so funny to me to see a young guy that knows this stuff backwards and forwards, like almost Tom Brennan level.
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B
Yeah, I know. That's the thing is passion is the fuel that drives this. Passion is the fuel in this engine. It's just a labor of love. I can't get away from it. Ever since I did to make. Maybe make up for my lack of years. My kids, their childhood was just like, bad finger blanketed, you know? So I just spend so much time on all this stuff. It just never goes away. So when you're that passionate about something, you just get. Get into all these, like, little things, and that's what makes it work. I don't think we could really have, like, a. A person you go to and say, what do I do? If they didn't have all these understandings and thoughts, you know? I remember when I was moving stuff out of Dan's apartment and Tom called me and he's like, mark, I just discovered that in 1971. And I'm like, dude, I'll call you back. Dad's awesome, though, you know? But, yeah, it's just. It's just so exciting. We all communicate all the time with text, phone calls or emails or whatever. It's just amazing to do something like this. You have to really, really be in it and understand and want to help. Do everything you can for, like, you would for anything that you had done yourself. If you put your heart into something and you want to see the best for it, you know?
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C
So at this point, we've got the Pete Ham Acoustic, newly issued. We've got the preceding Golders Green and Park Avenue. I can't remember the names of all of them, but there's at least three or four collections of this material. Now, the acoustic one. Have there been any solid plans made for similar releases from the Tom Evans estate, or is it too soon to start talking about any material Joey's got laying around that could be collated and presented?
- [30:27]
B
It's absolutely too soon. But there is. It has been announced that there is some work being done for Mike and some project, but I think that we don't discuss any of this stuff until, like, everything's on the table, so to speak, right? So you have to have everything there. There was a song released on How Much Is the Sky? Called Get High, and it's gotten, like. There's no bass on it, and so.
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C
Is it a demo or is it something that was done in the studio?
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B
It's by the Ivys and it's the song Get High. It's a great song. It's just a quick little rock and roller. It's just awesome.
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C
If only you had an Ivy's bass player around.
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B
There was no. I know, I know, Ron. So later I was going through stuff and I found Get High with bass and this really crazy high pitched intro that Tommy was doing, which is super cool.
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C
Wow.
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B
And it's like, this could have been on the album. Great. And so we do not want to make mistakes like that.
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C
Will that one make it out someday?
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B
I think that could be something that could make Anthology YouTube video for it or something like that.
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C
Yeah. Because you'd mentioned Anthology before and I was thinking some kind of comprehensive. You could do a Volume One and Volume Two if you want to do an Ivy's one and a Bad Finger one for sure. But a collection of. If you model it after the Beatles, rightly or wrongly. But at least there is the opportunity to collate studio outtakes, demos and live recordings. Consider it a sampler of stuff out there. If you're trying to appeal to a broad Bad Finger audience. Maybe a live version of no Matter What. So, oh, there's a familiar song on there or demo of that. God knows. There's various iterations in the stages of that song's creation that exist on tape. And you can do a live Baby Blue or whatever. That would be a cool way to present a sampling of what's in the vaults to Badfinger fans.
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B
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think one of the things we've kind of done is it's like we had the leaves come out on I Am Myself and then on YouTube, we put all seven versions back to back. And then there was one other example out of the tip of my brain. You know, Get High is a good example, but like you said, also that could come out on like a potential Tom Evans album or something.
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C
A compilation.
- [32:53]
B
Yeah, you know, we're definitely trying. Like the Slug Song. There's a lot of commentary before and after. We did a podcast on Vinyl Verdict or an interview on Vinyl Verdict with all of us. And there's a lot of conversation about what was going on when the song was being recorded because there were other people in the room and there was guessing that Tom was guessing that it was Bev, which it probably is, but there is another guy in the room and you can hear it. But Tom was like, well, I don't remember that, and blah, blah, blah, When I animated the Slug video, it's not the best, and it's just the same as the Goldfish video, but it's a creature, so there's gonna be a cartoon for Goldfish and Tom Brennan's like, you have to do one for Slug. So I did, and I included some of the talking at the end so you could hear that there was some stuff. So, you know, the intention to have everything put out there for everybody's research or entertainment. As long as it's cool with all the estates and everything that we're doing. Song like Slugs, great. It's gonna be on this album. We can do this stuff as well. On YouTube. Putting out version two of slug, I don't think is something we're gonna see. There's another one that we talked about, like with Pete's idea. There's a psychedelic Pete's idea, but it's very different and stuff you could probably. You really got to be careful because you don't want to. I really don't like the term scraping the bottom of the barrel because it just makes things seem like it's painted in a light, especially. I don't like saying that with Pete's music because you could pour every last drop out, you know, pretty. Pretty much. I mean, that's how it worked. I don't want to ever cast it in a light like, you know.
- [34:40]
D
No.
- [34:40]
B
We try and come up with the best possible versions of something that is fitting for everything.
- [34:45]
C
Now, one of the things I wonder about, we know now that there's been all these Ivy's live recordings that presumably. I don't know that much about the details in terms of how they were recorded, beyond if somebody plugged a recorder into the board at gigs or if it was a mic in the room, what the exact circumstances were. But wonderful things are being done with AI these days in terms of cleaning up things that were thought to be unreleasable before. And I was wondering if any thought has been given to that and taking that thought a further step. I don't think the biggest Badfinger fan in the world would be satisfied with the day after Day Live Raiko disc as released. What could be done? Somebody revisit those tapes and come up with something a lot more satisfying as a document of that 1974 show.
- [35:39]
B
Absolutely. I mean, that would be wonderful. These are all things that I write down in a notebook every so often. But I got the TV on in the background. You know, I'm trying to fall asleep. It's great. You should dream big. Absolutely. And try to become an expert on all these things. But we'd have to present the projects and see and you know, if that could be something that would be great. There's one thing I'd love to tell you about right now that we have. Have these ideas and stuff for, but it would just have to be more.
- [36:13]
C
Than a pipe dream, something more tangible.
- [36:15]
B
Yeah. Then you have to present it and say, is, is this okay? And can we do this? I believe to the right way would be. Even if somebody's like, hey, you know, I trust you, everything's great. Just go on and do what you're going to do. If that was said to me, I would not accept that. And I would just say, well, you know, here, just review it anyways. Or here's this chance to. Because I really think everybody's involvement's very important. This thing can never be done by like one person ever again. It's not really fair to all seven members of the band at one point or another, from Di to Bob Jackson. So I just think, yeah, it's very important to just try and try the best to get everybody, hey, what do you think? Is this good? But it's different. It's different all over the place. But yes, there's not. There's not a single thing you could probably think of, a project or something that we probably don't have. Some kind of.
- [37:17]
C
One other thing I was wondering is this seems to be another new thing in terms of all this Badfinger catalog stuff coming out. Not just the audio, not just the releases we talked about, but the YouTube channels and all this video. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I don't know. In the last few years, I'd been pretty familiar with the existence of the maybe Tomorrow video that was shot in the Apple studio basement of Savile Row. But then this black and white Piccadilly one shows up. It's like, where did that come from? I had no idea this existed. And we now got the upgraded Japanese documentary that before we just had bad bootleg copies of it. Now suddenly we've got a nice upscaled version of that.
- [38:03]
B
Yeah.
- [38:03]
C
Is there any kind of comprehensive thought being put toward some kind of Bad Finger video collection? I would recognize it would be a logistical nightmare pursuing all the licensing if it's all owned by different entities. But on the other hand, it's sitting there, it's money on the table, not doing any good for anybody at all. And it'd be a nice thing before the first gen fans die off to make that stuff available.
- [38:29]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think that's the purpose of the channels. It wasn't even a week later before the Japanese documentary was being sold on DVD out of Japan with Tom Brunon's time notes of, like, what happens where. You know, I think what we have to do is focus in on every project that we can do of the highest quality. If there's a version that exists and we know and it's better, you have to make that effort to go and find it. I think that the kind of time. And I don't want to pick on Dan at all, because I love the guy and I miss him, and I think he was doing everything he thought he could do that was right. Even though if you had had him look in a mirror, he might have admitted to a couple things that were probably not right. But he was focusing on some serious small potatoes, trying to take down people's Facebook posts and stuff like that. At the end of the day, the data shows that somebody copies a video or whatever and re puts it out there on YouTube. It's just better for everybody. I mean, if you had a band and you wrote 10 songs, the next thing you know, in five years, there's a hundred versions of them floating out there somewhere. It's not really bad for your music that you wrote. And then the copyrights all go through the eye of the needle. Everything gets picked up and paid out, so it's all good. I just think that if you want to focus in on whack a mole management, it's gonna slow things down. Yeah. I get upset when I see this company out of Norway, you know, repackaging this 1987 album and stuff. It's just dropping a needle on the record and, you know, hitting a button and then boom. You know, that's not fair. That's not right. But in other countries, they can get away with some of this stuff through loopholes and their legal structures. I just think the big things coming down the road are these projects, which is new, and try to make it exciting for everybody and keep everybody very engaged in a good way. Not have, like, long gaps, wondering what's going on, you know, have a vibrant seen on Facebook where people are having conversations or the forums on various sites and stuff like that.
- [40:52]
C
Yeah.
- [40:53]
B
And I also try and stay out of the way of things. I don't want to get in there and find myself fighting with somebody over something stupid, you know?
- [41:03]
C
Right. Yeah. No, you don't need the time, sucker. The energy drain. Is it fair to say that with the estates all coming together as they happen, that all things Badfinger are fairly under one umbrella these days. Or at least a lied.
- [41:17]
B
Yeah, I think it's definitely, you could say, say that it's allied. It's just things are still going on and it's been two plus years since Dan's passed when I've been kind of going to. I was at Piccadilly, you know, I was in London. I walked right through there. Just because they did that video there. I mean, it's more important. That video is more important to me than the entire history of Piccadilly Circus, you know.
- [41:44]
C
Right.
- [41:45]
B
So, you know, it was a Saturday night. It was crazy too. Lamborghinis driving down the road.
- [41:51]
C
Just as an aside, are you aware of beyond the maybe Tomorrow promos that we have, is there much extant Ivy's footage?
- [42:00]
B
There is. It's on the Ivy's channel, the extended footage. And then what I did was I cut the real video, how it was finalized, and put it on Tom's channel. Because with the anthology coming out, there should be one good place to find it. But all this, there's really no repeats in the YouTube channels. There's a YouTube channel for Mike, Tom, Pete, Bob Jackson runs one and the Ivys. And there's really not much carryover, not a lot of duplicating. So, yeah, you could go through those and find pretty much everything. If it's not there now, it's most likely being worked on for the future or it's being scheduled for something. But then again, there's other things that, you know, can we even do this or can we even do that? You know, so we'll see. It would be great. As a fan, I would've loved to have access to all this stuff right off the bat. But I was waiting for the new season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And, you know, they already got the eight episodes out. I don't wanna watch them again, you know, so you gotta be careful how things come out. And it should be done the right way. It should be done of the highest quality. You should be listening to everyone around you. We got great group of people and we try and reach out as much as we can so absolutely everyone can have their input on it and we can do all that stuff. Then there will be steady content coming out for a good amount of time.
- [43:32]
C
That would be a wonderful thing in an organized and regularly timed fashion. One of the other things I was thinking to ask you about was I'd long heard of the demos that got Joey And Tommy, the Electra deal. And I don't think I've ever heard that stuff. I don't know if there's a full album's worth or not, but that would be another amazing thing to put out there in some fashion.
- [43:54]
B
Yeah, Yeah, I totally agree. I would definitely like to see more about that. Yeah, no, it's the future is why I can't fall asleep at night. There's a lot of exciting things to look at, you know? I don't know. Tell me if I'm wrong, but when we talked, it was very brief at Beetle Fest. I know I just kind of bombarded you. You were in the middle of a conversation. I was like, hey. And then you and I talked. Did you say there's a video of Joey was showing you of him falling down a staircase?
- [44:24]
C
No, not staircase. It was black and white video. And I've thought about it long since the time I saw it. It was for It's Too Late to Cry from the after the Pearl album. And it looked very much like a homemade job. I think was single camera footage, but it was edited. But it was him. You're familiar with the video that's existing, that's out there. It was taken of him outdoors and he's like walking and mouthing the words, and then all of a sudden he trips and falls. That was what I saw. So I saw it in his house back in 1991 or so, so it must still exist.
- [44:58]
B
And did he have a laugh about it when it was like it was part of the video?
- [45:02]
C
Yeah, it's one of like a gag reel, like something you trot out when you've got guests over. And check this out.
- [45:06]
B
So it wouldn't be the final cut?
- [45:08]
C
I don't think so. I mean, that was the thing. At the time. I wondered what I was watching because it wasn't like he was annotating it as he went. He did show it to me, and then I saw another cut that didn't have the stumble in it. So I was thinking, okay, what he showed me was the outtake.
- [45:20]
B
Okay. Yeah, I've never seen that. I would love to do a channel for YouTube for all those things. And we're prepared for it. I just think, you know, just there's no rush. Just everybody's gotta be just really cool with everything and think like, this is right on. I don't want somebody to think like, oh, you know, you know, this rushed in. I. I wish I would have changed my mind. It's just gotta be totally fair and respect, right?
- [45:48]
C
You know, to be shown 100%, take the time to do it right. And we're used to. In this realm, not just with Badfinger, but certainly with Beatles, certainly with the solo. Beatles used disappointment either with what they choose to put out, or in the case of, say, George Harrison first takes volume one. Well, it was 20 years ago. Where's volume two? You know, it's the kind of thing where we know stuff exists. What are you doing? Don't tease us like this. So what. I guess what I'm circling around to is for anybody watching this video or listening to this, is there some sort of centralized clearinghouse for people to be kept up to date on? This is what to Expect is coming in Badfinger World. These are the official releases. You guys are the curators now. Where do people get the information just to know and be present with this stuff?
- [46:39]
B
Listen to this show. Okay. Watch the Vinyl Verdict. Come to Beetle Fest. I felt like I was being. I think. I don't know if you were there for the last showing of the documentary.
- [46:51]
C
I saw it on Sunday.
- [46:52]
B
Sunday, yeah. Yeah. There was, like, some guy who was like, we really need to reissue this and that. You know, how come I can't get this? And the host was like, all right, we've heard enough. You know, And I had made this, I was thinking, because Tom Brennan had talked about the mic stuff, I think, with Jacob or with 10 Michaels. And so I. I just started talking about it. So, I mean, go to these events. Beatles Fest is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, talking to people. I was just sitting outside waiting to come in because I had to be there 15 minutes before the door opened, and I couldn't get in because I didn't have a pass. So I ended up talking to this guy with a straight up shirt, and he ended up being super cool journalist from Houston who wrote an article about all of Beetle Fest.
- [47:37]
D
Oh, wow.
- [47:37]
B
Yeah. You have these great conversations and maybe something might be discussed, but for the most part, I don't think we want to drop any. From Gwent Gardens to Headfirst's Five Or Acoustic now as five albums and Misunderstood and come out the same year as Clark Gardens. It's a lot of stuff. Be patient and speak up and write in. See what you think. You know, people should discuss what they really like. One of the things we talked about when we talked about acoustic was all these people were talking about Rusty Sunday and speculating and stuff. So that information and love that people have for this song helps Gwent Gardens sequencing takes into consideration what people have said, you know, you can't, like, go out and build some kind of a team and say, let's make the most insanely fair thing for everybody or do a poll for everything. But we can do that for some things. And we've toyed around with ideas of having a poll like, I'd love to do. This is just an idea. I love to see on the Vinyl Verdict is conduct a poll, ask everybody what their favorite top 10 cover version of a Bad Finger song is. You know, Mariah Carey's without you or whatever. And then do the top 10 on the vinyl Verdict, stuff like that. That's helpful because it pulled this way. It was discussed this way. People can chime in in the comments and say, why the heck was that song chosen for number three? You know, and all of that stuff is input. It's not missed. Even people who Dan didn't like. I don't think somebody should be shunned if they have a good opinion, you know, everybody should speak up. And also, if you really are passionate about bad figure, you know, spread the word and get other people into it. Play them the songs you think that they would like and stuff. Or maybe buy the. The variety pack is sold internationally on ebay, so we can get it around the world. And you could buy two copies and then give one to your friend in Russia or wherever ebay is shipping to her. I just shipped to Japan today through the ebay hub. And it just takes care of all that we got out of that because I had sent something to the Netherlands and it cost me $20. And then when I got there at the post office, the lady was smiling at me. She's like, whoever picks this up is going to have to pay $20. And I'm like, okay, I'm with us anymore. I'm not going to have vindictive postal workers not helping me whatsoever. So the international shipping was. Is just another great thing. But, yeah, we're trying to see all these things. And people should speak up in the Steve Hoffman forum or wherever it is that they're talking or in Facebook and voice their opinion, good or bad, it's okay here in Facebook.
- [50:29]
C
Should they go for this? Well, the best channel to you guys.
- [50:33]
B
The group that's called Bad Fingers, it's got that picture with them all up on the roof. That's been the picture of that for about 10 years. There's a bunch of channels. There's the no matter what to the legacy of Pete Ham and the Ivys. Big shout out to Gary Riley. Man is amazing. I don't know how he sleeps. Pete Ham and Badfinger music page. Badfinger, early 70s music sensation is the Pete Ham Appreciation Society. There's Bad Finger slash, Good fingers. There's Badfinger music. Celebration music. There's another one.
- [51:07]
C
Anything people want to get to you in the way of input will be received. You're saying.
- [51:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't want anybody to feel like. I think Dan would comment. That's how I met Dan. Somebody was talking about rock of all ages. And I said, that's this Little Richard song, you know, yada, yada, yada. And. And Dan was like, that was not the song. It was this song. And that's. That's great. That's cool. But go into these places and talk and see what you think. Complain about the COVID of How Much is a Sky. Whatever, you know, do whatever you think. But it should be heard and it should be considered because it's. It's not right to just say, well, that person, you know, they don't want. And they know, you know, everybody's got a point of view.
- [51:54]
C
Yeah, fair enough. Stuff. It's all about community. It's all about communicating with your audience, for sure. And it leads to better whatever you're doing. Yeah, you take that. That input in, you'd be passionate people. They're interested enough to show up and have opinions, then they're your audience.
- [52:09]
B
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, there's a good chunk of very dedicated, devoted Bad Finger fans. And I know not everybody gets along, but I don't want to say that I'm changing things. I just want to say that things are. Are changing. And so I just also want to say, you know, just if you had a disagreement with somebody before, let's just kind of forgive and forget and get back into it and celebrate all the wonderful stuff. There's great fanzines out there that I was able to acquire every fanzine ever, you know, So I had this massive fanzine collection that I was able to just write people and get. There's some online stuff. Keith James got over a hundred. I used to help Keith with stuff, and I was. It was a thrill, you know, reach out, buy something he's done. He'll ask you to review some songs and stuff. You have that kind of community. Maybe he could do one, maybe not, but maybe he could do one. Saying the mistakes that we made or whatever, that should be heard. You know, mistakes are life's goal. I'll be kicking myself forever about the missed opportunity for Get High but we just didn't know. So you just gotta try and do the best you can.
- [53:25]
C
Yeah, absolutely. That's all you can ask for. And it's done with the best of intentions and life is a learning process.
- [53:30]
B
Yeah.
- [53:31]
D
All right.
- [53:31]
C
Well, thank you, Mark. I'm so thrilled to know what the efforts you guys are doing on behalf of Badfinger and for the fans around the world are seeing fruition. It's so great to see in our lifetime that rather than die out, the stuff is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It's just exciting and thrilling and who saw it coming? It's just amazing.
- [53:51]
B
All stuff I love to hear. That's great to know that this is that exciting. So is the future. I almost just want to just hit fast forward. But it's like I said about the latest season of one of my favorite shows, just enjoy it while you're in the moment because there's some really cool stuff going on right now. Head first. I just topped off one of my. My list of things I've always wanted to do which was buy Head first on Apple itunes store. Nice. It's done. So I'm happy, you know, I'll have.
- [54:23]
C
You know, after we met at the fest, I'm out in the hallway, I run into Mark Lapidos. I cornered him about having Bob Jackson as a guest and he was like, who's that?
- [54:34]
D
You know.
- [54:34]
C
And I had explained in 30 seconds who he was and what he was and why he is an exciting guest to have with new product. Gu. Guess what? There's something out there. It's exciting in Badfinger world. And by the way, did I mention he's a musician? I had hoped that would plant the seed. Feel free to pile on if you guys want to shoot.
- [54:53]
B
I already did. I did. From the other angle though. I advocated that he gets Ron Griffithson.
- [54:58]
C
Well, there you go. Put both of those guys at opposite ends of Badfinger Ivy's together one weekend only. It'd be fabulous. Why not?
- [55:05]
B
That really would.
- [55:06]
D
So we have like about 100 zones on tape. So that was a moment. So did you like take that, like send the tape in or something like that or, you know. Yeah, we knew the Rolly Mal, you know, Bill and Fall and his dad, you know, that's how managing. So there's a few different angles. We got sort of like associated with it. Yeah. Were you playing clubs back then? This is getting into your influences, you know, being that you were like writing your own material like way back then, you know, like you said, what were your influences up to that coin, I guess. Bile Beatles, really. I think, you know, you can, to be honest. Yeah. At that time, because it was. Everyone was into Heatland. Yeah.
- [55:50]
B
I mean, they were like the only.
- [55:51]
D
Group really that were doing nothing. That were doing that thing at the time. There were all that many groups writing the whole stuff has become sort of a main thing to do it now since then. And now as of now, you know. Have you gathered any other influences, though? Oh, yeah, lots of us. Yeah. When Joey joined us, you know, we're changing up a lot in the directions, you know, we got down into. He sort of like a glimpse in the way of him coming into a b amcher ferry and. Okay. Getting to Joey. How did you come to join the. Had a little bass player left. Ceased to be bass. No, he's the guy who wrote Dear Engineering the Marriage. Well, And that's it. I came down everything. So just all stayed on.
- [56:55]
C
Something about the Beatles created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, executive producer Rick Way, title song performed by the Corgis. Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.
- [57:19]
A
Hey, bad fingered.
- [57:24]
D
It's true.
- [57:25]
B
Bad finger.
- [57:28]
A
No dice.
- [57:29]
B
Bad finger. No matter what you are. Doesn't matter what you do With Bad.
- [57:49]
A
Finger A rock resurrection. The return of Bad Finger.
- [58:02]
C
Come on, baby, won't you tell me now?
- [58:10]
B
Dice and apples.
- [58:15]
C
And it's available at all King Carol stores and the Record Hunter in Manhattan.