← The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers
The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers
166 - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Imperial Bedroom - Greg Proops
02:30:55
Greg Proops makes his first appearance on The 500 to discuss one of Elvis Costello’s larger-sounding and less intimate albums.
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- [00:01]
Josh Adam Myers
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- [01:16]
Greg Proops
The 500 the 500J been walking us down through that 2012 edition so it ain't nothing to you Hundreds want to go and in need of a friend the king of peaceful angelo Talking the 500 until the end Talking the 500 until the end with my man JL.
- [01:52]
Josh Adam Myers
On the 500 Talking the 500 until the end Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt that it's you that I'm dreaming about who might have to draw you All I ever want is just to.
- [02:10]
Greg Proops
Fall into your human hands.
- [02:17]
Josh Adam Myers
That is Human Hands is by Elvis Costello and the attractions from their 1982 record Imperial Bedroom. It's also number one four it to six out of 500 on the 500 with Josh Adam Myers. What's up, Fleece Army? It is your boy. It's your boy, Lunesta. I've been watching a lot of YouTube documentaries. That guy's pretty cool. I'm Josh Adam Myers. I'm a comic and I'm going through Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums. From 500 working my way down to one. I'm a comic first and then music guru probably fifth. If it wasn't for DJ Morty Coyle and Wayne Fetty Wap Fetterman, I would be lost. Want to come see me on the road? On the road? Well, I got some gigs this weekend. I am at hyenas in Fort Worth, Texas. Next weekend, the 11th and 12th, I'll be in Las Vegas at Jimmy Kimmel's. Then I'll be at the Moon Tower Comedy Festival doing the Jam, doing Josh Ademire, Skadoodles Austin. And then I'm ending the month. Well, really, it's the Beginning of May, I'll be at Sunnyvale in NorCal. It's California, doing a headlining gig at Rooster T. Feathers. And then I got more gigs coming up in May and June, July, so on and so forth down the road. Go to joshadamyers.com for tickets. I want to see the Fleece army out there. So come out. I got some merch I'm working on. Like I said, Josh AdamYers.com and you can follow me on all social media at Josh Adam Myers. And you should be listening to our Patreon. Me and DJ Morty Coyle and Wayne Fetty Wap Fetterman have Master Fleece Theater. I'm really having a good time doing this. I. I love it. I really look forward to it. I want to release it as a solo because I think it's. It stands. It stands on its own, but it's for the Patreon people, so you need to subscribe. If you support the show, that's the best way to do it. $5 a month gets you. The podcast gets you. You can ask questions to the guests, and you get the video a day early. And for 25amonth, you get merch. And we have great merch Fleece Army Rep present. Why am I talking like beep beep bop, boop, beep. Come on, y'all. Patreon.com backslash the 500 podcast. Join the fleece army. You can also go to 500podcast.com and that will teach you everything. Show you where all the new music is, because we always launch new music at the end of the episode, and it will give you all the skadoodles. So 500podcast.com patreon.com backslash the 500 podcast, join the fleece army and listen to Master Fleece Theater. Okay, well, I think this is our third Elvis Costello record. And we're starting to dig into his. His meat and potatoes. And so we called the bullpen and said, get us the guest of all guests. And we have a comic legend, the one and only Mr. Greg Proops. You know him because he's the smartest man in the world. And that's what his podcast is called. He. If you've been living under a rock and you don't know comedy, then you don't know that he is one of the four or five guys. I forget how many on whose line is in. Anyway, he is a legend. And this is a longy. This is actually. It's so long that Morty told me it was gonna be. He goes the dude talks. So try to get through the record. Morty's always like, get through the record. Just get through the record. This was tough because we got, we got to two hours and we. I don't think we were even halfway through it. So luckily this is a two parter. The only other one that we, we recorded and then a couple days later recorded the rest was with Mr. I think Sergio Elliott from Def Leppard. When we did Mata Hoople, we got Greg back. This is a double dip. It's a long one, but it is good. If you are a Elvis Costello fan, then you are in for a treat. If you're a Greg Proops fan, you are in for treat. Or if you're just fleece army and along for the ride, this is a treat. I'm still talking like this. RAID review and most importantly, subscribe to the 500 listen free on all platforms or anywhere you get your pods. And please leave us a rating. Oh snap, dude. Nick. I'll talk about the end next week's episode. Dude, we got a redemption story. I ain't gonna say it, but yeah. Email the podcast@500podcastgmail.com. Follow me at Josh Adam Myers on all social media. Follow the podcast at the 500 podcast. Follow the Facebook group run by Crazy Evan. And for all things 500, go to the website the500podcast.com. All right y'all, nothing left to say but here we go with number 166 out of 500 with Imperial bedroom by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Elvis Franklin, Jimmy John Costello. Who? Who Greg? This is a true story which I'm about to tell. I usually lie, but this is the true one. So I. So this is our Jaren, correct me if I'm wrong, this is our third or fourth Elvis record on three out of four. Three out of four. Yeah. The other one, Morty said we're gonna be name dropping this guy DJ Morty Coyle who helps me prepare. Prepare for this. Also I work. We do another separate podcast and our most returning guest is a guy named Wayne Federman. You know Wayne, right? Very well. Yeah, he rolls very smart. I love Wayne.
- [08:04]
Greg Proops
We love very good musician.
- [08:06]
Josh Adam Myers
He's one of my favorite things he has. He's a. He's a, a 7 year old in a 65 year old man's body.
- [08:15]
Greg Proops
Right?
- [08:15]
Josh Adam Myers
He's a man child. If you, if you cuss around him, he gets, he blushes. But we, I guess it was like two or three weeks ago we were doing the last Elvis record that we had done which was My Aim is True. And we did it with.
- [08:32]
Greg Proops
Right.
- [08:33]
Josh Adam Myers
We did it with Lisa Loeb, who, if you remember, she. She. Brilliant singer, songwriter, had a real moment in the mid-90s with the song Stay.
- [08:42]
Greg Proops
Yeah.
- [08:42]
Josh Adam Myers
You know, obviously. Yeah, right on. So. Excuse me. So we also grew glasses. Great glasses. Glasses. Blind Dime, as I like to call her. The hotties with the who Need Lasik. She. We had such a great conversation. And, you know, because of the podcast, I was not a novice Costello fan before. I mean, there were songs that I liked, obviously. But that's what I love about this show is that, you know, you sit down with someone like you who's a fan of the record or just somebody that, you know, they. Their. Their excitement for the album where, you know, kind of basically, I'm an empath. I'm musical empath. And I like. Oh, I feel it. And then I'm like, I'm a fan now. And we did the first one with Oliver's Army. I forget what that record's called.
- [09:27]
Greg Proops
Armed Forces.
- [09:29]
Josh Adam Myers
We did Armed Forces a long time ago when we used to do them live before the Pandy. We did it with Dana Gold, another guy that, you know.
- [09:36]
Greg Proops
Dana's a huge Elvis fan.
- [09:38]
Josh Adam Myers
Huge, huge. And I was so rad to sit down with him, too, and talk about it. But then we did Lisa Loeb and we. While I'm doing the podcast, Jeremiah or no, Avery, another buddy of mine hits me up and goes, dude, Paul McCartney is playing the Beacon Theater tonight. You gotta get in line if you want tickets. He's only selling 300. Yeah. So I'm like. I'm like, fudge, I'm here. There's no way I can do it. But I'm like, I'm gonna hit up all my people. And I reach out to everybody. Long story short, I get in touch with a guy that gets me in touch with Paul's manager, or gets in touch with Paul's manager, and they go, he's not getting in a night. It's damn near impossible where the lot. The list is full, everything's full. But tomorrow night, he's doing another show and there's a chance I could get him on the list for that. So the next day, I go about my life and. And right around 4 or 5 o'clock, I reach out to that guy and he goes. He goes, let me check back in with him. And he calls me, he goes, dude, I got you. You got two tickets waiting for you under your name. And so I hit up. I'm gonna name drop I've already name dropped a bunch, so who cares? I hit up. I hit a Bill Burr, my good old buddy, and I say, bill, do you want to come? He lost him. He's gone. No, he's going into the void. He's going. No, he's into the void.
- [10:55]
Greg Proops
You hit that number.
- [10:56]
Josh Adam Myers
It's like. It was like seven name drops, and then he drops. I know. Maybe I should take a bite of my protein up. He's back. He. He. What I love so much about it, Greg, is that you went into the void and as you came back, your. Your hair was the only thing that was visible for a second. But the rest of you. But for him, he's disappearing into himself also. I know. So the cool thing is, so I get Bill tickets, and then me and Bill go, and we're down on the floor, and if you look up above, it's the who's who of who of every famous person in the world. You know, Yoko Ono and Anne Hathaway and Jerry Seinfeld and this person and that person. And I look up and up on the rafters to my right, Elvis Costello.
- [11:47]
Greg Proops
Oh, yeah.
- [11:47]
Josh Adam Myers
And so. Yeah, and cool.
- [11:51]
Greg Proops
I.
- [11:51]
Josh Adam Myers
And I'm like, okay, I want to, you know, hopefully he sees me or just whatever, we can meet. And then, because I just had colored my hair pink that day, he looks down, he looks at me, and I give him the. I give him like the I love you. And then he gives me rock fist. He goes like. And I'm like, dude, he's the man. And that's my Elvis Costello story. I. I've seen him live once. Well, he. He came out with Billy Joel at one of the Madison Square Garden gigs, and they did. They did Pump it up and they did Allentown. And then I've never. I. I keep missing him. He's played with the Attractions at the Beacon, and I've. I've just fudged around and I never got to go see him. Have you seen. I'm assuming you have. You must have seen elvis, right?
- [12:36]
Greg Proops
Probably eight times.
- [12:38]
Josh Adam Myers
Wow. Nice. What was the first time?
- [12:41]
Greg Proops
1970. Are we. Are we recording?
- [12:43]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, we were. We're on. Yeah, dude.
- [12:45]
Greg Proops
Oh, good. We're having a show. The Cow palace in San Francisco. It was Nick Low McDaville and Elvis Costello. 1978. It was after the first album and right when the second album came out. So it was this year's model. And I thought they were super boss, Mind you, I was about 18. We. He ran on and they plugged in, and then when they Left. They didn't bow, they ran off. Which I thought was so super boss when I was a teenager. Like, they didn't stop and bow or any of that jazz. They went boom. They ran on, they plugged in, they played their set, and then they ran off. And I was like, that is so, you know, rage oriented. Yeah. And Mink deville was great. And strangely, years later, of course, when Willie deville passed away, I had always thought he was a Puerto Rican dude from New York. And then doing some research over the years, he's a white guy from Connecticut named Billy Borsi. And he took the name Willie deville. And the look of his band was Elvis was in a suit. And the attractions were in suits, that very New wave look. You know, glasses, ties. And Willie deville's band had, like, matching purple outfits with waistcoats and giant pompadours. You know, they look like an early 60s garage Puerto Rican band. And Willie Deville jumped in the air and got on his knees. And their music was very retro. Yeah, in those days, of course, he went on to be a genius songwriter. He passed away about 10 years ago, but I was glad I got to see him because my wife's a huge Willie deville fan and I'm the only one who ever saw Willie deville. Mind you, he was much bigger in Europe than he was in the United States. But they all. If you recall, at that time period in the late 70s, everyone got kind of lumped together, punk and new. New Wave, as they insisted on calling it in those days.
- [14:46]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [14:46]
Greg Proops
And Elvis Costello was at the head of the New Wave thing. And you were supposed to be brisk and angry and go a thousand miles an hour. I mean, he stopped a few times. The song Lipstick Vogue, I remember, got a real going over. And then as the years went by, I saw him a bunch of different places and various weights. He was stick thin in 1978. And then by trust, he was. He put on a few Costellos. Not a whole new Costello, but some Costellos. And he was much heavier than. And then, of course, he'd opened up his repertoire a lot more and everything. And, you know, I mean, I'll be. To be honest, I think Dana Gould is a much bigger, consistent fan of Elvis across the years. I've seen him a million times, but. But my. I kind of left the boat around, you know, the classical music, the Brodsky Quartet and all that jazz. And I'm much more. I don't know if I'm a purist or a recidivist. Or whatever the word is. But the first five albums are where it's at for me. And then I still appreciate that he's a wonderful songwriter and promotes all kinds of music. It's just that I have not. Nothing will ever capture for me the anger and the frustration and the elation of having someone that looked like me, that wore glasses and a suit.
- [16:17]
Josh Adam Myers
I'm glad you said it.
- [16:19]
Greg Proops
Was furious about relationships and stupidity and ignorance and all the things that I detested that no one was giving voice to. You have to remember in the late 70s, this is like Van Halen's first album. And Led Zeppelin was still going, ah, he's wearing it.
- [16:36]
Josh Adam Myers
I'm wearing. I'm wearing Van. I'm wearing Van Hagar.
- [16:39]
Greg Proops
You're wearing the Van Hagar one?
- [16:41]
Josh Adam Myers
Well, no, I'm a David Lee Roth fan. This is just the shirt that I put on that matched the pants last night. And I haven't showered yet, so we're still wearing.
- [16:51]
Greg Proops
But yeah, so he was really a new. He was a new kind of item in the late 70s. I remember him saying, David Lee Roth saying the reason why critics like Elvis Costello is they look like him. And I remember Elvis Costello saying that he hated guys with hairy chests and big woolies on stage, a la Robert Plant. David Lee Roth. I mean, I watched them all because I'm from the 70s, you know, so I. I went and saw those bands too, but. And I loved Aerosmith and all that I had. I think I played Aerosmith rocks to death. But I was more into glam and the Tubes and. Cause I'm from San Francisco. I loved Ian Hunter, who was in Mothahoopo.
- [17:30]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [17:31]
Greg Proops
And you couldn't get away from metal because I went to San Carlos High School, which is. San Carlos is a little white suburb south of San Francisco, the whitest place on earth. Home of the Plain Yogurt Festival. Take the fruit out. The powerful taste is burning our tongues. And at our school it was Led Zeppelin and Bad Company and Leonard Scare and all that shy. But I was a little more fruit oriented. And I. I enjoyed the Tubes because the Tubes did white punks on dope and they were seditious and they had a really sexy act stage and, you know, naked girls and costumes and very theatrical, and that was what I really loved. And then when new wave came out, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, all that jazz. I really copped into that at the beginning because I just broken up with my girlfriend. All of his first couple albums are all about breaking up, especially this year's Model And I think this year's model starts with. What is it? I don't want to kiss you. I don't want to touch. I don't want to see you because I don't miss you that much. Right. And so for me, it was. And to see someone wear a suit and tie like Buddy Holly. Like, I wear a suit and tie on stage. And I do it because I love jazz. And when I think of all the great jazz musicians, Coltrane and Miles, and I went and just went and saw Ron Carter last week in Los Angeles. They dress to the nines, you know, like it's that. Absolutely. Wearing the suit of the oppressor and then wearing. Doing what you want within the framework work of that. And. And that's. I get. I love that, you know?
- [19:06]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. That's so cool. So we have this little mishpigash to kind of catch everybody up since we've done two other previous ones. So I'm going to read this thing that. That DJ Morty Coyle wrote for me. Feel free to interject if you want to add anything, Greg, or. Or whatever, but this is. This is just so. So everybody knows what the. What the. What the fudge is going on. I've said fudge three times. For some reason. I don't want to cuss around you. I feel like I'm gonna piss him off. Like, not Wayne Betterman. This is. I feel like I'm gonna piss him off. I gotta piss off Peter Asher. And like, by the way, we gotta get Peter Asher back on.
- [19:42]
Greg Proops
Peter Asher, he knows everything.
- [19:44]
Josh Adam Myers
He knows everything. He hates me. He hates me. We're not hate, but disdain, for sure. All right, so we just talked about Elvis debut record, My Aim is True with Lisa Loeb. So if you want some early biography, listen to that episode. So let's pick up what happened after the debut. After first album in 77, he put together his longtime band, the Attractions, which featured Steve Naive on keyboards. I love that name. Bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas, who are not related. That band recorded and released this year's model in 78, which took all the talent Elvis displayed on his debut and matched it with the energy of a tight, powerhouse band. They continued with 79's Armed Forces, which we did with Dana Gould a few years ago. That record solidified the promise of the previous record and brought him more acclaim and popularity. He followed with more singles and get happy in 1980 and trust in 81. While each record was exploring new directions of musicality. Excuse me. So Excuse me. So he wouldn't become predictable and were generally critically acclaimed and appreciated by his fan base. He wasn't getting the same previous radio attention, and his sales, excuse me, were slipping after each. So Elvis stepped away from his longtime production engineering team of Nick Lowe and Roger Bisharian. Did I say that right? Yes. Yes. Okay.
- [21:12]
Greg Proops
Perfect.
- [21:13]
Josh Adam Myers
To go record an album of faithfully country covers. Faithful country covers in Nashville with the attractions. 81's almost blue is still often ranked low amongst Elvis discography, but it did all right. However, the stage was now set for what Elvis would do next. What did you think of his. Greg, I'm asking you, what did you think of his country covers? Were you already out by that point or.
- [21:36]
Greg Proops
I liked it. I didn't buy Almost Blue. I. I liked the couple that were on the compilation album, which I can't think of the name of, that has a. A Radio Sweetheart and Different Finger is On Trust. And so I kind of liked it. I liked his country bag. I thought it fitted him. I thought that he picked a good person. He was really worshipful of George Jones at the time. George Jones is a superb country singer songwriter who really covers the waterfront as far as heartbreak goes. And drinking. And I noticed that Elvis mentions drinking a lot on the first bunch of albums, especially on Imperial Bedroom. Drinking gets a few notices. So I liked it, but it wasn't my favorite thing he ever did. I liked Get Happy more because I thought Get Happy had a way more Motown soul feel to it. And he did a couple of numbers that were. He did a Sam and Dave number and he did a Van McCoy number on get Happy. He did. What was it getting mighty Crowded on Get happy, which Van McCoy, who wrote the Hustle, was also Peaches and Herbs producer, and then the cats who wrote for Sam and Dave on that was. Was it getting mighty. Getting mighty crowded? I think it was. I just thought I had a bouncier feel. I know why he did the country, because country has all the elements that, excuse me, seem so important to him, which is tragedy, loss, you know, and that thing that he really worked at the beginning of his career, which was, I'm angry at you and I'm frustrated and I'm sad and I'm alone. And certainly country is white people's blues.
- [23:21]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure. Storytelling, too.
- [23:24]
Greg Proops
And storytelling. So. But yeah, now we're up to Imperial Bedroom, which is what, 82. Let me tell you something. I had all those other albums. I didn't have Get Happy. My girlfriend at the time had Get Happy and on cassette. Hello. But I had all the Other ones on vinyl and probably still do somewhere. I even had the stand up of this year's model, which was him holding the camera. And I had it in my room as a teenager. I think I went to the record store and talked them out of it or whatever. So that lived in my room for a long time.
- [23:55]
Josh Adam Myers
I love it, I love it.
- [23:58]
Greg Proops
And then when I first started doing stand up as a teenager, I would wear a tie and a skinny tie and, you know, and the jeans and all that. Yeah, there you are.
- [24:08]
Josh Adam Myers
That's such an iconic picture. I love that picture. I've always thought that was really rad. Bad, right? Yeah.
- [24:14]
Greg Proops
You see a picture in a thousand places.
- [24:17]
Josh Adam Myers
It's so good. I got. I got a little bit more. Hold on. So what he did was change his approach yet again. He intended to explore the studio space and expand his and the attractions musicality again. He continued his trend of using different producers, which would extend for his next few albums before returning to Nicklo in 86. Similarly to when the Beatles started using the studio space without worrying about how they would translate it to live shows because they had stopped touring, Elvis intended to be as ambitious and respectful of each song without reverting back to the speed, volume and aggression of previous recordings. And who did he choose to helm the producer's chair, but Jeff Emmerich, the engineer at Abbey Road who helped the Beatles achieve their most inventive and productive output. And rather than bring his songs in and have the band bash at them, Elvis allowed each song to breathe and tried many different approaches to capture them best. He trusted the material to stand on its own. The album's themes were still concerned with the fraught human interactions in and out of love as well as character studies. Despite his forays in the 60s inspired psychedelia, baroque pop, art rock, Tin Panelli standards and then current new wave, it's one of his more ballad and mid tempo heavy collections. He achieved the purpose of allowing his songs to exist without being loudly or speedily aggressive. As Elvis said in 2002, the songs exhibit a malaise of the spirit and sinking feelings about happy endings. The soaring and spoiling of England was just underway. Passing from town to town on the tours of the early 80s, I came to know some people who seemed just as disenchanted and discouraged. Their stories found their way into these songs. Although this record continued the continued the underperformance of previous records, it's still one of his most beloved records, as evidenced by his sellout tour for its 35th anniversary edition or celebration in 2017. And that people catches us up to Elvis, Jimmy, Jamie, Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, Costello, which is to mention Jeff Emmerich being the producer. They were in the studio for 12 weeks, Greg. Is that a long time? Do you feel like it's a long time? 12 weeks compared to some of the albums that we've talked about that are a week recording or less like a couple days, like.
- [26:50]
Greg Proops
Right. Well, I mean, the first album is what, two days? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, but that.
- [26:55]
Josh Adam Myers
Was just, that was like them, just the songs, I think they were already written. And I mean, I, I, I've been, I've only listened to Imperial Bedroom, My Aim is True, and then I keep forgetting it. The one with Oliver's Army, Please correct me.
- [27:12]
Greg Proops
Armed Forces.
- [27:13]
Josh Adam Myers
Armed Forces. There's the only three records I've listened and then I've heard like, you know, this is Elvis Costello on Dark Lord, Spotify. So this, this is my, this is, you know, out of all three of them, I mean, I, I think I liked, I liked Armed Forces the most. Me too. I like it the best. Yeah, but I, but I think, but I like this record though. And I mean, song wise, I mean, we're gonna dig into some of these songs. Do you know how did you feel about what I said? Or do you have anything you want to add or. Before we start getting into the songs, Greg.
- [27:45]
Greg Proops
Sure. My name is true. They, I feel like they stuck him with another band. It was, what, Clover from Marin or whatever. I think Hu Lewis is on. Yeah, yeah. Once you got the band together and coalesced around Steve Naive's keyboards, I think the sound comes together more. I felt like this was a jump off point and it was the more pretentious songwriter album for me. I didn't buy this album. My very good friend Brian bought it and we listened to it over and over. And I realized when I listened to it in preparation for today's podcast, I listened to it several times. I knew all the words still. And I hadn't listened to a lot of these records in a long time. And my friend Brian Lohman was a buddy of mine from San Francisco. We were in a comedy group together. He turned me on to so many hip things. Film Noir out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. He just, he, he was Nichols in May. He played me Nichols in May. I don't think I'd ever heard all their albums before him. He had such great taste. And we all. Where I was coming from as an Elvis fan at the time was I was like, oh, he's getting more serious. Right? Like he wants to be taken more seriously. Trust was still, you know, pretty much in the theme of all the other albums. And I listened to that one over and over in college. Like I said, the country one was not one I bought, so I didn't listen to it a million times. However, this album I did listen to a million times, and I think it doesn't have the pop punch and bite that some of the earlier albums have, like Armed Forces has Oliver's army and Senior Service and a couple numbers that just jump. Right. Armed Forces might be his masterpiece.
- [29:33]
Josh Adam Myers
So good.
- [29:34]
Greg Proops
I think he would probably say, and I think a lot of Elvis fans would say this is his sergeant Pepper, because he brought in the Beatles producer. All of a sudden there's cellos and harmoniums and every manner of giga and different kind of instrument. He screams on it, he croons on it. He stops doing the delivery that he did on the first four albums. And he takes his voice down a little bit so that he's more singery, more. More singer songwritery and a little less. With that over the top kind of. He's. It's not as new, wavy, you know, not as hooky. And I think he's willing to let the songs breathe a little more. Also, you could argue it's a little more fragmentary. It's also a little more pastiche, if you will. In so much as some of the songs sound like they're much like Paul McCartney, who was also recording an album at the time with Jeff Emmerich. Yeah, well, George Martin. Yeah. And Jeff Emerick was making album with him, too. They were making two. He was making two albums at the time. That one thing Paul McCartney does. And then I think Elvis Costello worships Paul McCartney and quite rightly is. You'll notice in all of Paul's biggest songs, the song starts one way, then it changes into another song for the middle, then it comes back. And then sometimes it either goes back or doesn't go back to the other part. So sometimes there's four and five songs within one song. Like, for instance, Band on the Run. Just. For example, Band on the Run starts with a very slow intro, then it goes into a melody, I think, at a. You know, and then Ben on the Run. And then it goes into that giant crescendo part in the middle, and it's kind of a symphony when it. When it breaks out into the big part and then it. Then it ends on an entirely different note. And I feel like Elvis Costello gave himself that leeway on this album. There's a bunch of songs that start one way Boy with a Problem or whatever, or even pigeon English like you were talking about before. All of a sudden there's horns in the middle of it. There's a French horn. What. Where did that come from? And that's where I think the Beatles, the Beatlesy part comes in.
- [31:48]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [31:49]
Greg Proops
And he also allowed himself that the tempo to come down a little bit. Armed Forces is pretty, you know, other than a couple of slow tunes, which are on all of his albums, one or two slow numbers. They tend to be pretty bouncy and punchy. And this is the least punchy of all of his albums. And the opening. Are we going to go through the.
- [32:11]
Josh Adam Myers
We're going to do something. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about some songs. We're going to find out a little bit about you because.
- [32:18]
Greg Proops
Okay.
- [32:18]
Josh Adam Myers
I like to use the album as a treasure map to get to know my guest. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes not so much.
- [32:29]
Greg Proops
But I have a feeling about this. So I'm ready.
- [32:32]
Josh Adam Myers
I'm so excited. I know, Greg, this is a. This is a treat, man. And I mean, I was trying to say this at the beginning is when I got. I remember the day the cable guy showed up to install cable into my parents house in Germantown, Maryland. And the first thing I was on was Whose Line is in Anyway? So I have been a fan of yours and you've helped mold my comedic flow since the intro. And so this, this is why I do the podcast, man. I love the music, but I love to sit down with a guy that I respect and get to know you. And hopefully we're buddies and I know we'll cross paths because I'll definitely see you at Sketch Fest or some festival along the way. We all. And you know, Fetty Wap and if anybody knows Wayne Fetterman, we're homies. So let's. Let's talk about. Let's talk about the first song, Beyond Belief, coming in at 2 minutes and 34 seconds, many Elvis Costello fans will point to this song as the best example of his unparalleled lyrical prowess. While the attractions simmer with dynamics before bursting at the end, Elvis delivers rapid fire lyrics that recall Bob Dylan and John Lennon, as well as James Joyce and T.S. elliott at their best and most cryptic. There's dense and often absurdly literate wordplay match by clever rhymes, all delivered with a melody that utilizes Elvis's full vocal range. It's been described as a sort of articulated, hazy, drunken thought poem. It's dense, intense, and ushers in the nature of this album in just two and a half minutes. Thoughts anything you want to add about the opening track?
- [34:05]
Greg Proops
Well, yeah, I think the. The what you said about a Daisy drunken album. He establishes it in the second or third line about the battle with the bottle. This battle with the bottle is nothing so novel. So clearly that's something he's dealing with right off the bat. And one of the things I appreciate about Elvis that I always appreciated is his intellectualism. And for instance, there's a line so called Gentlemen and ladies dog fight like rose and thistle. Well, you'd have to know a little bit about English history to know what rose and thistle is. And on all of his albums, on Armed Forces, for instance, I think there's a line that goes somewhere in the Quisling Clinic, there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes. Well, you have to know what a quisling is or who Mr. Quisling is. And I appreciate that. He never spoke down to his audience. And even as a teenager I had to learn some of the things he was talking about, which I did, that I never speak down to my audience. And I used lots of literary allusions, historical references, poetry, movies. And he always did too. And that was something I really appreciated him. I know there's not a hope in Hades, he says now. Who's writing for a teenage audience that says a hope in Hades in 1982? Yeah, that's the kind of intellectualism that pissed some critics off. One guy called it, what a bunch of pseudo intellectual hooey or whatever, that. There's a couple reviews that I read of this album that were just fantastic. They really lamb based at him. Someone else said he was an English. An English student waiting for us to grade his paper, you know, because. Because he's so pretentious, right? Yeah, but I really like that part. Just like the canals of Mars or the Great Barrier Reef, I come to you beyond belief. Now you're left as an audience member to sort out what that means. He's not saying, I loved her, she left me. I hate her. Go away. It's not the blues and it's not simplified rock and roll. It's been a long time since I rock and roll any of that shit. It's more oblique. It's more open ended. And it forces you, the listener, to get involved intellectually and emotionally immediately. The thing I will say about the thing you Read is that number Beyond Belief is all about the drums and the bass. There's very little, if you notice, hardly any other instruments till Steve Naive's weird whirling organ comes in in the middle there. That record is absolutely propelled by the bass. And then when the drums come snapping in and it doesn't have a beginning and middle and end, there's no verse course. Verse course at all. It's one long poem set to music. And I really think it's the outstanding song on the entire album because it elucidates so much anger, frustration with himself, with his listeners, with what's going on. Of course there's always an object of desire in it or whatever. What is it? Through a two way looking glass you see your Alice, you know she has no sense for in a sense she still sells. What is it charged with? Insult and battery? Her body moves with malice. Do you have to be so cruel to be callous? Which is a line directed at Nick Lowe, because Nick Lowe wrote an album called Cruel to be kind, which was a phrase that got bandied around a lot in those days. So he's not only is he, like the Beatles, referencing other people's work within his work, he's referencing his own work within his work. And I just think it's a sensational work, a sensational record for. And it's also the clippiest one. It's two minutes. A lot of the songs on this album are four and five minutes. And they kind of go on and on and have many movements. And this record has one movement, one forward propelling movement. And if I said if you were. If I was going to recommend a song off this album to someone who never heard the album, this would be the song I'd say to play. Even though I don't think it's characteristic of the whole rest of the album, it sets the album up intellectually and emotionally that it doesn't sound like anything else on the album.
- [38:28]
Josh Adam Myers
Well, it's more in line with the other albums previously to this. But he's matured a little bit. He also credits the drummer, Pete Thomas, for giving the song the needed energy that he was looking for for the album.
- [38:40]
Greg Proops
That's what I mean. Like this. That record is completely propelled. It doesn't have any of the stops and quirky starts that other his records. It doesn't have the. The puppy organ thing. It's a swirling, whirling mass. And in so much as it's almost a tone poem because he's just throwing all these phrases at you. One after the other. You know, my hands are clammy and cunning. She's been so suitably stunning and all that jazz. So I really feel like it's a powerful opening cut and certainly what roped me in to the record.
- [39:13]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, he does. What I love about him is that he, he really does give you the feeling, like it gives you like an elite sense of being, you know, it's almost like, like on a similarly, like, intellectual level for someone like me, that's like, you know, I'm not, I went to college. I'm not, I'm not stupid at all. But it's like, you listen to him and you definitely feel like you said he's not talking down to you. And then you and your wife have the podcast the Smartest man in the World. Where, where do you get that self assured chutzpah come from? Like, where does, where does that. Because obviously you are well versed, but it's like to call it that, that's, you know, where's that all come from?
- [39:51]
Greg Proops
Well, that was a joke. When I first started doing it, I talked to a comedian friend of mine named Phil Bowman, and Phil's a writer and wrote a bunch of the Wayne's Brothers early movies and stuff. And he said to me, and I knew him for years from San Francisco, he goes, here's what you want to do with this podcast. We were just having a phone conversation before I really started it. First of all, everybody was interviewing everybody. If you recall, the real beginning podcasters were Jimmy Pardo and them, and they would interview other comics and whatnot or other people. And I thought, well, the one thing I'm not going to do is interview people because everybody does it, so I'll just have myself as the guest. And then at the beginning of the podcast I started, I would take questions from the audience and Phil Bowman said to me, take questions from the audience and brook no dissent. And that made me cry, laughing, right, because it means no one has another opinion but you. Right? You can listen to other people, but you're right all the time. And then he said, you know, we just talked about the idea of being the smart. There was a movie at the time called the Smartest Guys in the Room that was about, you know, corrupt business people, as if there's another kind. And so we decided to call the Smartest man in the World as sort of a defiant joke, like, I'm the smartest man in the world. I don't talk to anyone on the show. I am my resource. I talk about what I want to talk about. It's all about me. And then what ended up happening, of course, was people started bringing me books, poem, poetry, art, tchotchkes, toys, baseball cards. And so before the. As before the show would begin, I would start to go through all the stuff people brought me and talk about it and elucidate on it and read from it. And it created a commonality with the audience and a connection that was impossible. I thought Stand up was the shortest distance between a performer and an audience member. Like Public Enemy said when they first started, we're the news, right? We're the news. We're telling you what's what. And I took that on board. And I loved Elvis Costello, and I love different authors. I hesitate to say Cormac McCarthy because he's a noted fascist and sexual predator, but his wordplay and his unrelenting intellectualism in the face of everybody wanting there to be punctuation and explanations really excited me. And this album is sort of the same thing. It's like Elvis's statement of, I don't have to tell you what I'm fucking doing. I'm just doing it, and you're gonna come to me or you're not gonna come to me. He had made some hit records and he carried on making. I think, after this, he did, what was it? Every day I write the book. And, you know, he tried to write some more sort of pop numbers and have a hit.
- [42:37]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [42:37]
Greg Proops
As. As my music teacher told me in college, Joel Selvin, the rock critic, he said, you guys need to know that even all your little heroes like Elvis Costello are trying to have a fucking hit record. There is. There is no discerning between commerciality and art. They're all one big thing. And the question is, can you do your art within the world of being. Of making a living? Right.
- [43:00]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [43:00]
Greg Proops
So having said all that, and this is all 101, but not for everybody. As you know, a lot of people don't haven't come to this realization that. That their favorite artists are also involved in making money enough to live. And that when people. Oh, my God, that person sold out. Well, maybe they didn't want to live, as Lou Reed said in a basement in New Jersey. When Lou Reed did a Vespa ad in the 80s, everyone got on a stick and were like, I can't believe you've done that.
- [43:27]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [43:28]
Greg Proops
And he was like, I wanted some money.
- [43:30]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, right.
- [43:31]
Greg Proops
You know, like, is that okay with everybody? Everybody else makes money and no one tells them that they're Suddenly out. And having said that, of course, the next 30 years of his career, he carried on the same motif, talking about cancer, talking about transvestites, talking about drug addicts, talking about the lower end of society that no one talks about. And that's the genius of Lou Reed. Like, there isn't another American rock and roll artist that embraced poetry, homosexuality, deviance, and did it with a loving and caustic embrace that elevated it once and made it into poetry and also was a real stern look at it, you know? And I think Elvis Costello is the kind of person who slaps the audience around a little bit. The first track's not very poppy. The first track's not very accessible. It's this grinding, whining, wheezy, whirling thing with all these weird catchphrases thrown into it. And you're supposed to just jump on this ride and. And get with it, you know, as opposed to, like, every day I write the book, which is clearly, you know, Chapter one.
- [44:36]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [44:37]
Greg Proops
And then chapter two. I fell in love with you. Like, there's no I fell in love with you on Imperial.
- [44:43]
Josh Adam Myers
Not at all. I love that. This is why I love doing the show, because now it's like, I can't wait to re. Listen to this record now. Yeah. All right. Dig it. All right. Tears from Before Bedtime. I want to move on to Shabby Doll. Unless you have anything you want to add about Tears Before Bedtime.
- [44:58]
Greg Proops
It's a very good. It's a cute one. It's a little closer to the earlier albums. It could have been on Trust, I think. I don't want to talk about what is right how long can I be how wrong can I be Before I am right? It's a very Elvis Costello sentiment. Shabby Doll is a phrase he heard someone else say. It was either in a movie or I can't remember where he picked it up. He calls himself a shabby doll. He calls her a shabby doll. So it's not necessarily talking about a woman now. He says, I'm a shabby doll at one point. But for me, the first minute of the song is amazing. But the second minute of the song when Steve Naive comes in with the piano part, is when that song becomes way more. Way more moving. I think the piano part in that song is superb. And I always thought Steve Naive is the unsung genius of all of his albums from. I almost said the imposters from the.
- [45:55]
Josh Adam Myers
The Attractions.
- [45:56]
Greg Proops
The attractions, Yeah.
- [45:57]
Josh Adam Myers
I agree with you. I think the piano part is phenomenal. On this, it's most people know that John Lennon had acquired an old Victorian era event poster and essentially used most of the text as the lyrics to being for the benefit of Mr. Kite from 67 Sgt. Pepper, which was engineered by Imperial bedroom producer Jeff Emmerich. Elvis tried to do the same with this by basing it off the title he saw on another old burlesque poster he saw in a hotel D room. Lyrically, it explored themes of betrayal and rejection as a man refers to his aging wife by the title, only to become her shabby doll by the song's end. Almost everyone has at least one relationship that ended before they were ready. What was your most profound one?
- [46:44]
Greg Proops
Well, when I was in high school, I had a girlfriend and then, you know, I fell in love with her and we were in love and then she broke up with me and then she started dating one of my friends. This happens to everybody on earth, you know, I was 17 or 18 and I got really sad. And the first couple Alves Costello albums are, as he I believe said, are about revenge and anger. And so that was why I loved him so much. He was really speaking to me then. By the time we get to Shabbydoll, I had another girlfriend and I could sort of understand. I think he talks a lot on about four or five albums about the confusion of relationships. And he's someone who had a wife, then didn't have a wife, then had another wife, then didn't have that wife. And then now he's on his third wife visit and now he seems reasonably happy with the third wife. But I think when they were touring during those first five or six years, they were drinking a lot and they were picking up girls. And I think he was really confused about what a relationship was and where it was going to go and all that jazz. And he also, I think, was furious over the way the commercialism of sexuality, you know, like a song like Chelsea or the sure scroll or whatever, where he's forever talking about how women are presented and how they're, you know, categorized and whatnot. And I think he was always trying to break that down, like the album, the song Girls Talk and stuff like that. What does he say? I heard you mention my name. Can't you talk any louder? Which is a very funny line, you know, and almost always comes back to his crushed ego. And I think that that was sort of Shabby Doll is a. There's a girl, there's. I'm going to get the lyrics wrong. There's a girl who's impressed in something depressed. But then again, she's half undressed. Yeah. But like I say, I think that the power in that record is really Steve Naive's piano, which when I listen to it again just really got me.
- [48:51]
Josh Adam Myers
Dang it. Totally Long Honeymoon, man out of time. Let's. Let's talk about man out of Time. All right. Unless you have something you want to add about Long Honeymoon. I love.
- [49:04]
Greg Proops
I think it's like, you know, you were talking about Cole Porter and all that jazz. I think Long Honeymoon is sort of his. You know that song Making Whoopee from the 30s? Oh yeah. Another sunny honeymoon. Long Honeymoon is sort of his. There's no money back guarantee of future happiness and all that jazz. And then also it's got that very sort of French cabaret motif. I think that's when it is, you know, trying to be like an old fashioned songwriter. Tin Pan Alley. And then man out of Time. I think even at the time, listening with Brian, my buddy, we would say that this was his Dylan song. The fact that it starts with that big guitar riff and him screaming and then it sort of devolves into the organy Positively four straight thing and then. What is it? So this is what it came to had when it ran from you, right. Like all of a sudden he's, he's revealing this terrible, this terrible secret. I, I really think man out of Time is the other best song on the album.
- [50:23]
Josh Adam Myers
Some people have called it his best song.
- [50:26]
Greg Proops
It's a really good song. I mean the man of My love is a crime. But will you still love. It's about being confused like all of his records are. But I really feel like that one has a, A lot to go for.
- [50:42]
Josh Adam Myers
And I have. You go ahead.
- [50:44]
Greg Proops
Oh well, I, I feel like the, the, the, the motif on that song. What is it? To murder my love is a crime. Right.
- [50:57]
Josh Adam Myers
I want to pull the lyrics up as we, as we get to each. Yeah. I want to make sure you don't have to put them up on the screen. But I'm just going to start following along as we do it.
- [51:05]
Greg Proops
Something about there's a tuppenny ha'penny millionaire and. And then he talks about tabloids again. The sword hair of the public imagination. You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning. Yet another reference on this record too. I think what was going on at the time with him, which was epic drinking and then, and then regret about the epic drinking and. Yeah, I just think it's a, it's a very complex song. Several different movements. I Wanted to mention a couple of things that he. That he says. We were talking about his poetry and how important it is that Stephen Sondheim talks about it a lot in his two books about writing lyrics, that lyrics are a form of poetry, but they are not poetry. In essence, they are a kind of poetry. Right. The lyrics have to be shorter, lyrics have to be more concise. Lyrics have to be more evocative than a poem can go on and on and do lots of different things. You would say, oh, in Xanadu did Kubla Khan. A stately pleasure dome decree Where, Oof, the sacred river ran down to the cavern. You know, through Calvin's measureless demand. That's not a song. That's something to be read or read aloud in this record. He talks about the politics, the pretty things of Knightsbridge. There's a line here that I just looked at. Real life becomes a rumor for his private wife. Private wife. That's a phrase. A private wife and kids. Somehow real life becomes a rumor. Days of Dutch Courage and Dutch courage is a very English expression, which means you're only brave because you. You're drunk. Drinking is Dutch courage.
- [52:54]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [52:55]
Greg Proops
And then just three French letters and a German sense of humor. And a French letter is a condom. So it serves about 10 different meanings there. The French. The three French letters and a German sense of humor means. Absolutely. And I remember hearing it when I first heard the album. What an amazing phrase. A German sense of humor is because it's being devastating. A German sense of humor means you're a Nazi. Right. You have no sense of humor. But he throws in Dutch courage, French letter, and German sense of humor in one, in two lines. And like a New Amsterdam on Get Happy, he says to speak double Dutch to a real double duchess and all that. I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches. But. But he really does have a lot of references about politics without. Until he gets to the Thatcher song, which is what. Stamp the dirt down or whatever, which is on spike, I guess. In any case, I just thought that that turn of phrase was astonishing. And that's his real strength as a songwriter. The thing that makes people not like him and think he's inaccessible is the thing that I find the most intriguing.
- [54:10]
Josh Adam Myers
And that's what you love.
- [54:11]
Greg Proops
Yeah. If you will.
- [54:13]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Dig it. All right. Almost Blue clocking in at 250. Although this is the title of the previous year's country covers album, this is a beautiful torch song of pain and longing for a past relationship while in the midst of A current one. It already sounded like a well worn standard when it came out. It's based on 50s cool. As trumpet and vocal legend Chet Baker.
- [54:37]
Greg Proops
That.
- [54:38]
Josh Adam Myers
That is probably the. That was probably like that. That was probably like. We always talk about like Deftones and Portishead is our music. Yeah, my dad definitely the Chet Baker dude. How can you not? Let's go, dude. My Funny Valentine. I mean it's just. It's heart wrenching. It's so sexy. But his song the Thrill is Gone, which became a big hit for B.B. king in 1970. Years later, Elvis was honored when Chet Baker covered Almost Blue shortly before his death. Chad Baker also played a solo on the ballad Shipbuilding on Elvis next record, 1980s to punch the clock. Thoughts on Almost Blue Lyrics that you love, whatever you take it over.
- [55:21]
Greg Proops
Like you said it. There are songs that you hear like when Start Me up came out, which was I think the year before this. 81 maybe. I thought it was an old stone song when I heard it because it had so much authenticity and the riff was so strong. And then when you hear this song, you think, is this a cover? You know, is this a Jerome Kern? Or is it a. Or is it Hank Williams? But you know what I mean? Like, didn't someone already write this song? It seems so patently obvious that someone would have already written a song called Almost Blue. Almost Doing Things We Used to Do. And the fact that he jumps right in with that, like you say it's a standard before it, before you get through it, you're like, oh my God, this is something everyone's going to sing forever. I think that the line flirting with this disaster. What is it? Flirting with this disaster became me. That is genius. And I love Chet Baker's version of it. And like you say, if the guys out there, if you want to get over with the Chicks, as it were, or anybody who wants to get over with anybody. I would pick up the Check Baker albums where he sings.
- [56:43]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [56:45]
Greg Proops
Not only is he a wonderful trumpet player and a dreamboat, as well as being a horrible snitch and a terrible junkie and an awful human being who was defenestrated by gangsters, he has one of the few people you can say was actually defenestrated. And the meaning of the word, please explain it.
- [57:01]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, wow, that's a word for. You ain't defenestrated. That's like.
- [57:07]
Greg Proops
A window in French is a finetra. And to be thrown out of the window is to be a de finetre. I'm going to use that and so Chet Baker was thrown out of a window by gangsters, and that was what we call being defenestrated. And so on top of all those things, he was a dreamboat. And he had great hair and he had awesome looks, and he went to Italy and he made movies. And his records are absolutely lush, romantic and dreamy.
- [57:36]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [57:37]
Greg Proops
You have to separate the artist from the art. And. And Chet Baker was a. An awesome choice to do the record.
- [57:46]
Josh Adam Myers
Can I ask you a question?
- [57:47]
Greg Proops
And to do the Solon.
- [57:49]
Josh Adam Myers
I want to ask you. We're talking about cool. We're talking about cool here because you've worked with some really cool people. Who is absolutely the coolest person that blew you away to be hanging with the coolest?
- [58:03]
Greg Proops
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I mean, I've met a bunch of people. As far as working with people. I mean, all the. Whose line guys are. Are pretty groovy, but I mean, I thought Robin Williams. Yeah, was cool, but not in a sense of, like, cool like Chet Baker. He was cool because he was a real mensch, you know, like, he actually cared about people and he had human feelings and he was astonishingly warm and lovely, and he had a vitality that drew you to him. And when audiences saw him, they were at once completely elated and absolutely captivated. Like, I've only seen four or five people in person ever. That made everybody look at them and lit the room up. You know, I was in a nightclub with David Bowie doing a morning show.
- [59:05]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [59:05]
Greg Proops
And he was several feet from us, and he was able to turn it on and off. Like, he. A couple times just would sort of, like, smile at the crowd. Sean Connery I've had lunch with. But within a room full of people, of course, I wasn't the only. It wasn't the two of us, otherwise I would have jumped him and told you all about it. He had that kind of magnetism and Robin Williams had it that literally, people wanted to touch, they wanted to be. They wanted to be part of it. And I think if that's what cool is, then yes, as far as detached and removed and awesome, I mean, you know, I've. I've met Debbie Harry and I've met Paul McCartney, and I. You know, I met a lot of rock stars because I've been around a lot and hung around and I mean, okay, Ron Carter, who I just saw last week, is 88 years old. He worked with Miles Davis. He was a teenager in Felonious Monks Band. Ron Carter speaks like this. Oh, and he took my Wife's hands in his hands when we saw him last week and went, be safe.
- [60:17]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, God, yeah.
- [60:19]
Greg Proops
And he is may and wears like these off Italian suits and plays absolutely exquisite jazz. Like, I think he might be the coolest person I've ever seen and talked to. Like, if we're talking the definition of cool like that.
- [60:39]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you said that. Like, when you, like, somebody walks in the room and every eye is on them is. I forget who. I forget who said it, but they were like. Like, they said, Bill Clinton has that and. And Rose, like, you just. They walk in the room and it's just like the air is taken out of it because their energy and just their being, you know, I'm. I'm trying to think who. Who I. Who I. I've met that was like that. I met Kevin Bacon last night.
- [61:07]
Greg Proops
He was pretty cool, a nice person, and very smart and sexy like Bill Clinton. I saw Speak Before Hillary ran the first time. And it was an interview, but before he did the interview, he stood up and spoke, and he spoke without notes off the top of his head for maybe 45 minutes to an hour on a dazzling variety of subjects because he had insane knowledge. And I've seen Hillary Clinton speak. I've seen. Jesse Jackson was the most exciting speaker I've ever seen. Sure, he whipped the crowd into a tizzy. I've seen Kamala Harris speak week. I've seen Governor Walls. Governor Walls has that awesome sort of, you know, golly gosh darn it, we're all gonna do this, you know, like, really, you know, awesome. I've seen Dylan a bunch of times, but Dylan doesn't have magnetism on stage. Yeah, really, you got to come to him.
- [61:58]
Josh Adam Myers
You know, he's soft spoken.
- [62:00]
Greg Proops
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He. He's low key. Like, I think if you talk to him in a conversation, you'd be riveted. But Bill Clinton is a rock star. And my friend Jeff Davis, who I'm in the group with, who called me earlier and interrupted the show, we talk about it a lot. Quentin Crisp, the great English writer, wrote a book called the Naked Civil Servant, about being gay in England before the war and how he was very flamboyant, so he got his ass handed to him and he had to deal with lots of different stuff, but he never backed down. And he talked about going to see Marlene Dietrich in the 50s when she used to do her cabaret act. And Marlene Dietrich wore an entire bodysuit underneath her gown so that her body was the way she wanted it to Be. And she had what we call a, like a makeup facelift, which means you take your hair and you have your hair person pull it back so that your face is tighter, right? And then she'd come out and talk and talk and then sing and like, she wasn't a very good singer. If you ever seen Marlene Dietrich sing, like, it's not about a, like, she can't. Like, melody is not the emphasis here, you know, she'd sing like this, you know, and he said it was all about applause. The audience came to cheer for her. The audience came to root for her. And Marlena Dietrich's genius was she was sexy enough and still looked like enough herself and was still able to do the act that, you know, that whether you wanted the continental. I slept with all these guys. I'm, I'm world weary. I'm sophisticated, I'm smoking. I, I, you know, all this. She allowed people to love her. And we talked about it all the time on stage. We talk about it during. Yeah, you can see her there with her inner gender bending. A lot of times she wore men's clothes.
- [63:53]
Josh Adam Myers
Look at these eyes. Oh, my God.
- [63:55]
Greg Proops
Yeah. And she's not a great actress. She's not a great singer. She's just an amazing movie star personality. You know, she's one of these people that's just got charisma. Or as the kids say, Riz and Robin Williams, Sean Connery, Bill Clinton.
- [64:16]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Strong. I'm glad you said, Robin Williams from the bay, San Francisco. I said, I'm glad you said Robin Williams being from San Francisco. I mean, he's such a legend there. And.
- [64:26]
Greg Proops
Well, that's the thing. Like, I interviewed before he died, I was being interviewed at KQED radio and someone said, who's your biggest influence? And I said, any comic from my generation in San Francisco, Robin is our Elvis Presley man. Sub references, intellectual dick jokes, vaudeville, all at once. All at once. Really esoteric. Doing Shakespeare and then talking about your dick for fucking half an hour. Like, all in the same package, right?
- [64:50]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [64:51]
Greg Proops
He had the ability to let this high goes low. Love him. And that, I think, is an astonishing. Elvis Costello doesn't have it. He's, he's fun on stage. I wouldn't say he's the warmest person that ever lived. Crowds love him and they want to love him and all that. Like, Mick Jagger is much better at, like, you know, dazzling the crowd. And then they stop and they take this huge bow. And that's the moment when the Stones fans get to fucking because that's why they've come now. When I saw Dylan years ago and about 25 years ago, when he was still playing guitar and dancing around and who was in his band and Ron Sack Smith and whatnot, they did a bow that I've never seen anyone do. The whole band lined up like this and stared at the audience like that for like five minutes. That was it. And the more they stood there and didn't bow or acknowledge the audience, the place went batshit. Yeah, and that was the exact opposite of like the Stones do the we got the towels around our neck and we're all fucking holding each other that, you know, they do the good old college it. You know, look how friendly we are and all this shit. And Dylan's band literally glared at the crowd. And I was exhilarated. I was like, what an ending. Because he sang all these great songs and he was in really good form and everyone was losing their mind. And then they just stood there and I was like, wow. So there's a million ways to like. You know, as a comedian, I'm not a big fan of comics who seduce the audience. Like crowd pleasing type comics. That's not my favorite. I'm way more on the. The Dana Gold, George Carlin, you know, no surprise. Yeah, yeah. George intellectual.
- [66:40]
Josh Adam Myers
You're an intellectual.
- [66:42]
Greg Proops
I mean, he came out and he said you to the crowd. When I saw him once at the Comedy Store, that was his opening line. The place was standing and screaming for him. And he went, you. And then he goes, I just want you to feel at home.
- [67:00]
Josh Adam Myers
All right, let's. Let's try to get through a couple more of these. We. I mean, as long as you got time. We got songs, dude. All right. In every home. Thanks and no smart to the orchestral arrangements by Royal Academy trained attractions keyboardist Steve Naive. This is the most produced and Beatles track on the record. Thoughts on this? Because I feel like this is the Beatles influences on the sleeve here.
- [67:25]
Greg Proops
Very much so. And it's got the. That big horn break. And then the part that's the Paul McCartney pretentious part is the oh, heaven preserve us. And that's a very anachronistic line to throw at. We're talking about someone who is writing music for young people in the early 80s. And to throw that line in is really, you know. You know, goes in the face of everything you would ever be taught about what your. What teenagers are supposed to like. Right, right. And then what is it? She's gonna cop a packet if he ever finds her between the sheets that's a British phrase. Right. That no one would know about. Oh, lying on a slag heap of blankets and magazines. She's only 35 going on 17. Oh, and when you get the boot, that means when someone beats you up.
- [68:20]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:21]
Greg Proops
And it can also mean when you're shown the door.
- [68:25]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, I was gonna say it's like getting.
- [68:27]
Greg Proops
Like there's several. He always uses triple total, double meanings, triple meanings, double entendres, all that stuff. Yeah, this was a really pretentious one.
- [68:41]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Right. So speaking of that, he's got the Beatles influences because obviously there's no getting around it and after them. But this album has a special connection. Like we said, less than 10 years later, Elvis would be co writing songs with Paul McCartney. So who was your formative influence or influences that set you on the path? Or did you ever get. And did you ever get the opportunity to let them know that they were the influence?
- [69:08]
Greg Proops
I don't. You know, I mean, I met Paul McCartney. I. I did not tell him how important he was to me. I think he was aware of that, Robin. I never told him, but I think he knew. I've told a couple of the people who helped me in my life that I loved them and that I appreciated it, which embarrassed them totally because no one ever expects it. I never got to meet Richard Pryor, I've met Lily Tomlin, but I wasn't going to tell her how much she meant to me. I think a lot of times you have to just sort of take it on faith. Yeah. As Tom Petty said, you have to take it on faith that. That people understand how much they meant to you. I appreciate it when people tell me so. I guess people do appreciate it when you tell them. As far as comedy influences, I think a lot of the old time comedians I was really influenced by too, because when I was a little kid they were all still on tv. And I mean, not just Dick Van Dyke and stuff like that, but laughing and all that, which was great. But all the old comedians were still on tv, like Jack Benny and shit were still alive. And they were still on TV too. Jackie Vernon and whatnot. We were talking about Willie Tyler and Luster the other day. I brought him, remember? Well, yeah, of course, yeah. He was the black ventriloquist and he had a black doll. And his black doll, his dummy was a jive Lester and he wore little hip glasses and he had a hat like a newsboy hat, because I was hitting the lake. And if you watch that movie Summer of Soul that Questlove produced, where they show that concert in Harlem in 1969, and it's got Sly and the Family Stone and Gladys Knight and Mahalia Jackson and the Staple Singers. It's got, like, the Fifth Dimension. Like, just every great black act from that era is in this concert, Right. Like, Sly and the Family Stone comes out, and they're amazing in the middle of it, Willie Tyler and Lester, man. And there he was, and I was so happy to see him coming into Lester. And then Lester would turn and go, y'all a jive, right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like he turned ventriloquism on its head because there wasn't a black ventriloquist, and his dummy was like a hipster, you know? Yeah. And, you know, with all comics, and you've talked to enough of them, especially Wayne and Dana, for that matter, we all wanted to be musicians and songwriters, but we weren't. And so we. We talked instead. And I think a lot of times musicians really want to be comics. And I would say Elvis Costello is definitely a musician who, if he wasn't a musician, might have been a writer.
- [71:53]
Josh Adam Myers
Yes, for sure. I mean, every time I go see Billy Joel, I mean, he's got an act. He's got his. His jokes in between each song that get laughs. I mean, good laughs. Is it the same every night, Josh? It was. It was always very similar. Yeah. Like, he'd do. He would do just. Was it just. Yeah, just the way you are. And at the end of it, and he goes. And he'd be like, dan, just the way you are. And then he hit the note, and then he's like.
- [72:19]
Greg Proops
And then we.
- [72:20]
Josh Adam Myers
And then we got divorced. And then the laugh comes.
- [72:24]
Greg Proops
Right?
- [72:24]
Josh Adam Myers
So he's.
- [72:25]
Greg Proops
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:27]
Josh Adam Myers
He's just so funny. And I mean, Paul. Paul McCartney at that show was just. He had. He has an act because they're comfortable on stage. You know, they're. They're comfortable. And, you know, if I. I, like, I saw Bob Dylan live once, and I'm not the biggest Bob Dylan fan. I'm becoming one because I. Greg, we've done. I. We're doing. I'm listening to Bob Dylan in order of this podcast. So I started with Time out of Mind, which is not the record I would tell anybody to listen to Bob Dylan to. First you gotta listen to highway, and you got to listen to, you know, Blonde, but you gotta listen to the old. Yeah. To understand the new. But I went a long time ago because of the band opening was my friend's band, and. And he was just. He didn't talk to the audience once stood in the back. And it's like, I. Some. Some performers do that. I. I like a performer that, you know, like, talk to us a little bit. And I know Bob doesn't need to, nor should he, but I love that Billy. I think that's why Billy is. Is so popular, too. His songs are phenomenal. But also you. You feel like you know Billy, and that's what we want. We just want more of him.
- [73:35]
Greg Proops
So he had the funniest line. I watched a documentary about him years ago, and he was in Martha's Vineyard or whatever, and they were talking to him about. He goes, every single person came up to me because he had been married to Christie Brinkley when he'd been there before, and now he'd come back and he wasn't married to her. And he goes. Every single person comes up to me at this party and goes, I don't know why Christy left you. You're so funny.
- [74:05]
Josh Adam Myers
He's a trip, dude. He is a trip. All right, I want to get to. I'm gonna. Not to skip over the loved ones and human hands, but let's get to kid or a kid about it. Unless you want to add something about loved ones in human hands. Because I don't want to. Like, you know, if you want to say something or you love lyrics or whatever, please. Do you have anything?
- [74:23]
Greg Proops
I do. I. The loved ones I want to talk about. Because I remember at the time when the record came out, this was his sort of don't OD record. Like, he wanted to talk to people who were callous and careless, of which he might have thought he was one himself. I don't think he was very druggie, but the whole idea of what would the loved one say is. Don't die young, you know? What does he say? You're a danger to yourself. The little. The ugly little scenes run around your bed. The ugly little dreams. You get the needle and no thread. What does it say? Don't pin a medal on me yet. They might be waiting for you. And then at the end, I love. I love you and all that. I always thought that that was. It was a cautionary song. A kid about it, I think is a. I think it was after he saw Lennon get shot or after that moment that he. There's my favorite whole moment in the. On the record is when he goes, so what if this is a man's world? And then he goes, I want to be a kid about it. And, you know, like, just being vulnerable there. Like, we Were saying Aerosmith. Aerosmith is not going to show you that they're sad and vulnerable there. Give. Give me back my sadness, he says. And that's an interesting thought for someone to write a song about. People don't usually in songs ask to have their sadness back.
- [76:00]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, I just, I love his lyrics. Sometimes he takes himself so seriously, he makes.
- [76:06]
Greg Proops
Oh my God.
- [76:07]
Josh Adam Myers
Mysteriously slow, fast, or furiously. It's a big responsibility. With a face full of mixed ability. It's just. He's great. Like he. The way he rhymes. I mean, we were talking about it, jt, me and Morty. It's like, it's, it's, you know, it's. It's like listening to like the, the. The hip. It's like he's like Eminem. It's just the way that he's like using these, like, totally. You know, it's. It's hip hop. It's, it's, it's. But it's. But it's also, you know, the way that Eminem is very smart and you know, he's telling a story and you know, it's like obviously like he's. He is an intellect because if he could, you can write like that. And studying the word. It's like Elvis is a genius, man. I see why people really dug him. Yeah. What do you have anything about the human. About human hands? Do you want to add or can we jump into Kid. Kid about it?
- [76:56]
Greg Proops
Oh, well, we just did kid about it. I mean, oh, loved ones. Human hands is. Is another one. I think that's really, you know, I. I'm confused about my relationships and I. All I really wanted was for you to love me. And all this jazz, I think is the theme of that song.
- [77:18]
Josh Adam Myers
Hey, everybody. So you guys have probably heard me talk about how I've been in bands my whole life. I love writing songs and performing in front of crowds. Just like with comedy, as you move a musician, it can be kind of hard to cut through the noise and really stand out as an artist. I feel like half the music projects I've been in have ended just because we couldn't figure out the answer to that eternal question of how do we get people to hear us? But then again, that was before there was Distrokid. Distrokid is a digital music distribution service that brings your sound to the masses. It's a one stop shop for getting your songs on itunes. So Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon, Deezer, Tidal, and many more. What's these? I never even heard of Deezer. How many of them are there. I know all that. That's like the holy grail of streaming services though. And, and getting paid. They want to. We want to get you paid for your music. That's huge because a lot of bands go broke before they get big. But Distrokid collects earnings and payments and sends 100% of these earnings to artists minus banking fees and applicable taxes. And that's just one of the tons of benefits of using Distrokid. You can send big files to anyone with their Instant Share feature. You can use the Hyper Follow feature to promote your release and get pre saves on your song. You can even create personal landing pages for yourself, your band, your brand and whatever you like. It has a free Spotify Canvas generator too to generate your own own Spotify canvas for your songs. And the Mixia feature instantly masters your tracks for higher quality audio. So if you're ready to bring your band to the next level, it's time to check out Distrokid. The Distrokid app is now available on iOS and Android. Go to the app or Play Store to download it. Listeners of this show can get 30% off their first year by going to distrokid.com VIP the 500. That's distrokid.com VIP the500 for 30% off your first year. Dig it. Hey folks, it's Alex Collegian, creator of Project Greenlight from hbo and I live and breathe film and I have for a long time and I want to.
- [79:40]
Greg Proops
Share stories with you from people that make the movies that you love and I love.
- [79:45]
Josh Adam Myers
So it's casual popcorn, you know, gossip with behind the scenes, like how it was really made. But what it ends up being about is people and seeing life cinematically. So come join us. Let's watch a movie together. How I Got Greenlit Wherever you get your podcasts, I just love that line. There's a boy somewhere holding hands with himself. That's.
- [80:11]
Greg Proops
Yeah, that's the line. That is so. I'm lonely and I, I, I wanna the Only the blue. When I was getting ready to talk to you today, I kept singing that line over and over again with only the blue light of the TV on because he goes out of his way to say the TV has a blue light it. And I think that's a very studied choice.
- [80:34]
Josh Adam Myers
Get about it. This gospel inspired waltz is about a man who wishes he could return to a simpler time and seriously settle down with the immature lady in his current relationships with them. That nostalgic longing for a before time may have something to do with the fact that Elvis wrote this the morning after John Lennon was murdered in December of 1980. Where were you when you found out Lennon died?
- [80:58]
Greg Proops
I was doing the play Equus at San Francisco State. And it was in between. It was intermission, right before I had to get naked in the second half. Wow. And one of the crew guys came up, there was no phones. Then someone had heard it on the radio, I think, and said, john Lennon got shot. And I remember being a very pretentious 19 year old actor at the time thinking, oh my God, that's terrible. I was a huge fan. Of course, I grew up with the Beatles. And then thinking, I don't have time to mourn right this second because I have to go right back on stage. So this is what performers do because we're so inconceivably shallow. I went, use it, use it emotionally. Let it propel you into the second act where the kid has a breakdown and goes crazy. Like, let the emotion of knowing that John Lennon got shot be. Hold that. Because I didn't have time to cry.
- [81:55]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [81:55]
Greg Proops
I had to go on stage the next day. Of course we all flipped out. But that was so. Yeah, it's a very moment, isn't it?
- [82:05]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Is that really for you to use the emotion? Like, no, I don't. I don't think so.
- [82:09]
Greg Proops
I don't think so. I mean, I was in a play, it was intermission. I had to go right back on stage. The second half of Equus, he, you know, he blinds a bunch of horses and a sexual freakout. And it's a pretty weird little play. But the second half of the play is when the real freak out happens. And so I thought, well, I have to have this emotional freak out on stage. I'm gonna take what I'm feeling and just channel it and, you know, get out there and lose my.
- [82:35]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, I mean, it's. He was so important to so many people.
- [82:40]
Greg Proops
Like, oh my God, he was a genius.
- [82:41]
Josh Adam Myers
He was. Yeah. I mean, flawed for sure. Flawed for sure. But. But I mean. And I always say that to people is like, we'll never, we'll never. People my age, because I. I was born in 79. Like, the Beatles are huge. We'll never understand just how big they were. Unless you lived through Beetle Mania. It's the same thing with, with Bowie. It's like, remember I asked, we were talking about one record and he said. I was like, I was. He was like, it was an event. And I go, so just when this record Came out. This Bowie record came out as event. He goes, anytime Bowie put out a record, it was an event. It was a whole thing. And I, I think that's, you know, back to what we were just talking about. It's. There's so much coming at us that, you know, it's hard to differentiate what's. We know what's big. We know Beyonce's big and we know Kendrick and we know Sabrina Carp, but we'll never. It's like, does it reach. It was. Does it reach some. Some guy in a village in. In, you know, Bosnia? Who knows? Like, that's. But Michael Jackson did and so did the be. That's what's big about him. Any thoughts about Kid Kid about it. You want to add or thought, you.
- [83:49]
Greg Proops
Know, just what I said before, that it's a. It's another song about being sad and wishing a relationship worked out and all that.
- [83:55]
Josh Adam Myers
All right, rock and roll. Little Savage. What are your thoughts on Little Savage, brother?
- [83:59]
Greg Proops
I feel like Little Savage is. It's very catchy. The line that always drives me crazy is, you do something very special to Mr. Average Bridge, which I always thought was. I don't know. I don't know if it's corny or just a line that always struck me, Even in my 20s, that was like, maybe trying. I don't know. I don't want to. I don't want to criticize his songwriting, but I think it was trying a little hard. I think that that song could have been on another album. I feel like that one kind of harkens back a little bit to the trust in the other earlier albums.
- [84:34]
Josh Adam Myers
Was. Do you think when he was saying that line that you just recited, and maybe I'm just stupid, but is he talking about penis? Is that. Am I wrong? Am I wrong or like, am I right? I don't know. I'm not as smart. I'm the. I'm like the 670th smartest guy just in this. In in right on my block, on my blog.
- [84:53]
Greg Proops
He could have been. I, I, I know that that song gets stuck in my head every time because it's the. I could have waited all my life. Not that that part reminds me like, it's more like a get happy song, I think, because of it. So bouncy and everything, but I don't think it's a terrible song. I think it's good. You know, you asked me before which ones I'd leave off, and I couldn't really, you know, I couldn't really think of one That I would just maybe. You little fool. I don't know. The thing is, ever since we talked the other day, and I shouldn't say this because you're probably gonna have to edit it out.
- [85:29]
Josh Adam Myers
We'll pull the card.
- [85:30]
Greg Proops
I've had the whole fucking album caught in my head. Great, great. And I wake up in the middle of the night singing it. You know, that's, dude, that's, that's why I love this.
- [85:39]
Josh Adam Myers
Because it's like you dig into it. The more you find out, the more you think about it, the more it sticks with you. So speaking of little savages as a segue, a lot of people in the fleece army might not know that you are one of the voice talents from Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas, which is a modern holiday classic. It's a great movie. If you haven't seen it, you're living on another planet. But you have also returned many years in a row to special shows with composer and performer genius Danny Elfman, as well as fellow cast members in live productions of the soundtrack. Sadly, we just lost Ken Page, who played Oogie Boogie and a few years ago lost my, one of my biggest influence in the entire world. Who I have. I have his bike tattooed on me and I have shoes. Oh, yeah, I'm obsessed. My dog's name, Lekka, which is short for Mecca Lea High Mecca, because Paul Rubins was just, just, I mean, it was everything to me. So how did you originally become involved and what was it like when Danny reassembled the cast for what has become a sold out holiday show when it's performed?
- [86:40]
Greg Proops
I am so happy you've asked me this question. There's nothing I'd rather talk about than Nightmare. It's, I mean, I do a lot of gigs and I, I, I'm on, I'm in, I'm in this group, you know, we play 100 dates a year with who's Live. We're doing Nightmare again at the Hollywood bowl this year. On October 25th and 26th, we're at the Hollywood bowl live with it. We did the picture in 1992 and I went in and I auditioned for it. And this is how long ago it was, you guys. They gave me a cassette and a lyric sheet that had been mimeographed and I memorized the song and I made up my own monsters to go with every single line. And it was the song this is Halloween, the opening song.
- [87:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Great.
- [87:22]
Greg Proops
And so I went into the audition and it was Danny and Denise Denobi and they auditioned In San Francisco, which was weird because it's an LA movie. The model shop was in San Francisco. Tim Burton did not direct the movie. It was Tim Burton's idea. Henry Selick directed the movie, who directed Monkeybone and James and the Giant Peach. And so that's who I worked with. I worked with Danny and Henry. So I came into the audition, and I'd listened to the song a bunch a million times so I could memorize it. And I said to Danny and Denise Denovi was there, one of the producers. It was just the three of us in this little room, and I asked to go first, and this will give you a good idea of how old we all are, because I was flying to LA to do the MTV Half hour Comedy Hour.
- [88:09]
Josh Adam Myers
Mtv. Oh, my God.
- [88:11]
Greg Proops
MTV half hour Comedy Hour.
- [88:13]
Josh Adam Myers
So long ago. I don't even remember that dude.
- [88:17]
Greg Proops
So I said, can I go first? I asked my agent, can I go, you know, to be the first one in? And they went, yeah, go ahead. So I think I went in at noon or something. So I stood there and I. They go, hi. And I go, I would like to start my audition by being obsequious and sycophantic and say that this song reminded me of the music of Harold Arlen. And Danny went, who's Harold Arlen? And I said, he wrote a little musical called the wizard of Oz. And Denise, when he wrote the wizard of Oz, right, Because Halloween is so catchy. It reminded me of the greatest of all children's songs, Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead. Right? Which is like, it's impossible to write a better children's song than that. Everybody knows it anyway.
- [89:04]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, they do.
- [89:05]
Greg Proops
So. Because this is Halloween. This is Halloween. Pumpkin Scream. And so I sang the song, and then they called me and they said, you want to be in the movie? So I was in the movie. And the movie took 100 years to make. Like two years. And we were in the studio a lot, and all I did was record voices. With Henry, we did the dialogue. And then with Danny, we did the music. And Danny was still writing it on the fly. Like, there were parts that weren't written. So we added stuff to songs. We took stuff out of songs. We, you know, like, it was a real. Him and Tim had thought of it with his girlfriend who wrote the movie, and I blanked on her name, but she's the screenwriter, Carolyn. They wrote it in their apartment. They came up with the idea, let's write a musical that doesn't sound like a musical and make it about something. Gothy and that was their idea. And so it was really an organic. And it would never happen this way again, you guys, because animated film is so fucking corporate now. And. Yeah, and they only use the same five actors, but it was really organic. He picked me and he picked my friend Debbie Durst, who's a comedian from San Francisco, and Glenn Walters, who is a blues singer from San Francisco who's in a band called the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils. And he was the werewolf and Debbie was the dead baby and I was the saxophone player and the devil and a bunch of stuff. And I'm not a singer. Like, I'm a comedian and Debbie's a comedian, but he wanted our voices. And that's how organic it was that Danny had the juice then, because this picture was under the radar. I know it was a touchstone movie, which is a part of Disney, but in those days, like, Disney didn't want anything to do with this fucking movie. And when it came out, it died, if you recall. And then it gained momentum on video and stuff like that. So now it's called Tim Walt Disney Presents Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. And Disney's name's all over the thing, right? But at the time they were like, this is a little hectic because there's monsters in it and everybody's dead and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what they didn't realize was that a whole generation of kids was going to grow up loving it. And Mexigo Mexicoths love this movie like nothing else. Like this.
- [91:09]
Josh Adam Myers
Love Morrissey. They love this. It's crazy how. Because he's so emotional. And Mexicans and Latinos are very. They love, love and they're very romantic. And yeah, it's, it's. It's the craziest thing that I, I find fascinating is I went to go see Johnny Marr here in New York and there was like, I'd say like a good 40 Latinos. I was like, how the.
- [91:33]
Greg Proops
Oh, yeah, some were seat years ago at the Hollywood bowl and the whole crowd. Mexico, when we play at the bowl, the crowd is at least half Mexican and Latin families all dressed up and. And then the other half is all people who work at studios because there's so many costumers and set decorators here. People come in the most outlandish costumes. Beautifully created and beautifully. And I host a costume contest at the beginning. I come out in my little fez and whatever and I. Anyway, I'll tell you two quick nightmare stories we played in, by the way. We did Monterey, Mexico, last Halloween On Halloween night on the Day of the Dead in Monterey, and the town square in the plaza, 20,000 people there. And you can believe, man, everyone was in costume. Like, everyone, because it's in Mexico and the place was fucking going crazy. So we had a Spanish singer for Iggy Boogie and a Spanish singer for Sally, and they sang their songs in Spanish and it was great. It was just so much fucking fun. And nope, no police, no army. Unlike Mexico City, which is very. You know, you go to dinner and there's cops everywhere. Yeah. In Monterey, I didn't see any firearms. It was as mellow as could be. It was really beautiful. You know how Americans are. Americans freak out, oh, my God, you're going to Mexico. It's like, they're not going to kill you. Okay. Like, yeah, you're going to have some good food and people are friendly. Hello. And there's a Starbucks. Hello. So there's my. So Peewee Paul. He didn't really talk to me much for the first year or two, and then he got friendlier. So I brought him these glasses that you could see at Christmas time you wear, and they make the lights go crazy. Like, when you look. They look like Christmas trees or whatever. I'm sure you've seen him. And I gave him a pair of those, and I put some lights in his dressing room, and I gave him a note that said, plug in lights. Put on glasses, look at lights. Next thing I know, he's in my dressroom and he's like, man, that was so cool. I love those glasses. Because what do you give a millionaire That's a genius. A toy. I've given so many rich people that are my friends a toy, and they like it better. You could. If you spend a million dollars on them, they'd be like, oh, whatever. So anyway, we would text each other till he died. Funny memes and shit like that. He was that kind of guy. So we're on rehearsal rights. We're on stage at the Hollywood bowl, all of us there. And he never learned the words to his song. This I love about him, Paul. Never. He would read them off the prompter even when him and Catherine O'Hara and Danny sing this song. And then Danny says to me, anyway, so we're on stage and we've come off, and Lara, whose manager manages Danny and all these composers, right, her business is managing people who score films, right? Because that's what Danny does as well as being a rock star. And she's watching an Oingo Boingo video on the video as we all come off, so there's 30 of us, we all walk off and someone goes, what are you watching? And Laura goes, it's an Oingo Boingo video from 1993. And Paul goes, I wasn't even bored yet. And the whole place falls over laughing. Just fantastic. Just pulled the rug right out. You know, he was the only one who could give Danny, which is really, you know what I mean? Like, because he started Danny's career. He gave. Yeah, he did his big adventure. He brought in Danny and a Tim. And so they were always loved him, you know, of course, holding that like they loved him for being such a cool guy. So literally none of us give Danny much stick. I mean, a little bit we Josh, but like, you know, he's the man, it's his baby and he's a genius, so you can't really fuck with him. But Paul did and like Danny, we had more pizzicato. And then Paul in the back would go, because we have more pizzicato. And. Which made me happy. And then Ken Page was so nice and such a showstopper. He originated the role of old Deuteronomy and Cats on. On Broadway. And then he was innate misbehaving, the Fats Waller musical. And so they auditioned all these people for the movie in. In 92, including David Johansson to play Oogie Boogie. And they all came in and sang and they picked Ken Page, who was the Broadway singer.
- [96:01]
Josh Adam Myers
David.
- [96:02]
Greg Proops
Wow. Right. Yeah. You know, you could hear David doing it, right?
- [96:05]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, for sure. And also the connection, the connection with just, you know, Danny Elfman, even though he's a composer, he's got a rock and roll in his blood. And I mean, New York Dolls, I could see him like loving the New York Dolls. So the idea to work with him would have been like, you know, easy math. Yeah.
- [96:22]
Greg Proops
I mean, one of his other managers, Richard, told me that one that they brought in, David Johansson, I thought that's genius because he's perfect too. The difference is Ken Page's voice is just astonishing, right. He's got so much voice. Like Levi Stubbs from the Four Tops, right?
- [96:39]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [96:40]
Greg Proops
Like Dennis Edwards from the Temptations. Just incredible. You know, Bill Medley.
- [96:46]
Josh Adam Myers
Right.
- [96:46]
Greg Proops
Just this enormous voice. And so he would do the show and he stole the show every night. Like he has a two minute number and he would come on and the crowd would go, absolutely. I mean, everybody loves Danny, but like, the place would go batshit for Ken Page. And we did it in Dublin, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, and can just you know, so I was. It was a very depressing. It was a bad day when Ken passed away.
- [97:13]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [97:13]
Greg Proops
He. He lived in Missouri, which is where I am right now. He lived in St. Louis. Anyway, it's the funnest show, and we did it in Japan. And our conductor's name, John Marcherry. And John Marcherry is a proper conductor, right? His mentor was Leonard Bernstein.
- [97:28]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, wow.
- [97:29]
Greg Proops
When he talks. And so you see pictures of John from the 70s, he's got long hair, right? Like classical style. And he's there with Lenny, right, who's got a big shock of white hair, and he calls Leonard Bernstein Lenny when he talks about him. And John is like this. The wonderful thing about Lenny was he had such a marvelous sense of humor. And so John is very staid, right?
- [97:58]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [97:59]
Greg Proops
So we're in Japan and. But John has a sense of humor. But John is, you know, he has white hair and he's the conductor and he talks like now. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to tonight's performance, live to Film film of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. That's, you know, it's like being on a classical station.
- [98:18]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [98:19]
Greg Proops
We're in Japan and there's a fucking earthquake, right? We're in the middle of our rehearsal, right? And the show's about to go on, like an hour. We're at the finale, and the place just, right. And I look up at the instruments because the lighting instruments. Because the first thing that's going to crush you to death is when the lighting rig falls on you.
- [98:36]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [98:36]
Greg Proops
It's like Phantom of the Opera, right? Like the scene where, you know, the. The chandelier comes down and kills everyone. So I'm like, you know, and we all look at each other, and the interpreter, the Japanese interpreter sitting behind John, she's named Elizabeth, and she looks at all of us, we're all from la, right? And goes, earthquake. We're like, yeah, the place is shaking, you know? And so we get up to do the finale, and it's terrible, right? We go, la, la, la, la, la. We barely get through it, by the way, the Japanese orchestra sawing away. They don't even pause, right?
- [99:12]
Josh Adam Myers
Just sawing away. They're used to it.
- [99:14]
Greg Proops
And we now we rap like, it's over, the show's over. And I walk up to John Marcher and I go, maestro, did you feel the earthquake? And he goes, what earthquake? Like a Jimmy Durani movie. I'm like, you didn't notice that the building was shaking? You know, so he. He's hilarious. We were in London last year at Christmas and he's going to get tennis shoes with this, the assistant conductor, who's named Thiago, who's Brazilian. And he goes, we're going to the Adidas. I was getting coffee for my wife. I come back and I see them and Thiago says to me, greg, what size shoe are you? And I go, nine and a half. And he goes, we couldn't find any shoes for John. And I go, john, what size is your shoe? And he goes, 12. And I go, well, lucky Mrs. Malcherry. And he goes, john Mount Cherry with his white hair goes Big cock.
- [100:11]
Josh Adam Myers
That's it. Blunt. I love it, I love it. That's so great.
- [100:17]
Greg Proops
Oh, and Catherine O'Hare. Sorry, Catherine O'Hare is in the show too, and she's fucking great. I mean, she's just a genius and she's just as funny and awesome as she is on TV as she is. And I knew her from who's On? She did a who's on years ago, but she's really funny. And we've had, last year, had Ms. Mega dude in Mexico. We also had Baby Spice did it. Emma Bunting in London and she was really fun and I never met her, but we were both lived in London in the 90s, right? And spice Girls were huge in London in the 90s. And I was on Whose Line in London in the 90s. So I walked over to her and we're talking and people are like, do you know her? And I go, we're show business friends from London. I go, I said to her, I love the 90s. And she went, fucking me too. But we had Billie Eilish sing it and yeah.
- [101:07]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, cool.
- [101:08]
Greg Proops
Phoebe Bridger. Phoebe Bridgers. And yeah, so it's really, I mean.
- [101:12]
Josh Adam Myers
It'S, it's one of the most iconic musicals of, of, of my generation. And I mean it's, it's, it's because it's just this, the team they assembled, you know, it's, it's got to feel great to be a part and that's going to lead into like the next song and question I want to ask you too, because we had mentioned it and you've kept mentioning it, so let's talk about the song and then I, I, I'm, I, I have to. Is all right, so. Boy with a problem. Elvis and the British band Squeeze shared their manager Jake Riviera, and already had a history of working together. When Elvis co wrote this story of a relationship strained by alcoholism and mutual violence with Squeezes Squeeze lyricist Chris Differd Different's musical partner, Squeeze guitarist and vocalist Glenn Tilbrook had debuted with Elvis on From a Whisper to a scream from his 1981 record Trust. And Elvis co produced the record, their record east side Story that same year. That album had the hit Tempted, had to hit Tempted, which Elvis sang backups on. And he would again lend his talent the same year on another Squeeze it. Black coffee in bed. So before I ask you the question, your thoughts on Boy with the Problem, should it be on the record? Do you like this one? You know, you let me know.
- [102:25]
Greg Proops
Well, it's his. It's his Jealous Guy John Lennon song, isn't it? Where he actually admits to, like, punching a woman in the song. What did you say? I slapped your face and made you cry. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's a good song. I mean, again, like you said, it got caught in my head and I kept singing it to myself, even though it's not my favorite song on the album. Yeah. And when I saw Elvis in London in the 90s, he had squeeze open for them. Or no, I guess it was in San Francisco in the 80s. He had squeeze open for them. Or no, not Squeeze. I saw him once with Squeeze and I saw him once with. When they weren't squeezed, when it was just the two of them. What would they call Different And Tilbrook or whatever. So he was really. He loved them. They were never my favorite band, I'll be honest.
- [103:11]
Josh Adam Myers
But you like that song, though. Everybody likes Tempted by the Fruit of Another. It's.
- [103:17]
Greg Proops
It's.
- [103:18]
Josh Adam Myers
It's. It's nice. It's like dentist music.
- [103:20]
Greg Proops
I was gonna say. Also, it might be the only song that mentions the baggage carousel at an airport. What is it? The baggage C. Yeah, it's.
- [103:32]
Josh Adam Myers
It's like. It's like the weird fitting in. Like that live song. It's the only song I know where it has placenta in it. You're like, how do you get. How do you get placenta? Like.
- [103:43]
Greg Proops
No, I think. I think it's a. You know, it's a ruminative song about being in a. Like I said, we talked before about him, his problems with alcohol, and I think he had one or I think he was drinking a lot. I don't know if he had a problem with alcohol. I don't know him, so I can't say that. But certainly he mentions it enough. And that song really amplifies that. I think that he. They're basically drunkenly fighting all the time. What is it? Pull the Pull the curtains on me and you pull the rug out from under love. I always thought that was a clever line. It's the last thing I want to do. Pull the curtains on me and you want it. Which is a very theatrical thing to say.
- [104:26]
Josh Adam Myers
What I love is since the. The digging in with you, because we talked about lyrics with Lisa and we talked about lyrics with Dana, but you've really brought a lot of them to my attention. To where I'm really. I'm not just hearing the music like I'm listening now just to be like, oh, wow. Oh yeah, he is. Oh, that's great. And it's not just. I'm just letting Elvis play just in the ethos of my apartment. And it's really cool.
- [104:51]
Greg Proops
So he says Bridge of Sighs at one point. And one of the songs, something about the Bridge of Sighs and the Bridge of Sighs is the bridge in Venice that connects the. Where the Doge. I hate to use the word, where the Doge lived in the palace to where the prison was. And that's where they took the prisoners over the Bridge of Sighs. And it's a covered bridge when you see it in Venice. But he makes reference to that too. I mean, it's clear that he wasn't just a pop star because, you know, you know, a lot of musicians, many of them are at the Tommy Lee of Motley Crue level of intellect. And he's not that person. He's clearly read and well read like Danny.
- [105:31]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [105:32]
Greg Proops
There's. There's people who are a little more rounded and I think that's why he loves Paul McCartney so much. Because the Beatles were so self referential one but were able to take on history. Pop song, you know, whatever. Like they, they had that organic thing where they will write a song about anything that comes into our heads.
- [105:55]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [105:55]
Greg Proops
Or that we feel. And I feel like Elvis has that same ethos like, like I don't care. I'm going to write a song about how much I hate Margaret Thatcher and I'm dance.
- [106:04]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Yeah.
- [106:05]
Greg Proops
You know, which is not something you expect from pop stars or you don't.
- [106:11]
Josh Adam Myers
So speaking of team ups. And obviously many people became aware of your talent from the years on both the British and the American versions of the improvisational television show Whose Line Is It Anyway? So before I get into the actual question, like, how did you get like where did the improv start? And then how did you get you on Whose Line is Today? Which is, I would say, and I mean it's the most iconic improv show ever I mean, I told you Comedy Central, they plugged in my cable. The first thing I did was put on Comedy Central in the 90s. And you were all over my television every day. And I loved it. I loved it. It was, it's watching people. Some of the best, the best thing I ever did for my comedy career was take an improv class at ucb because it also helps you just in conversation, just talking and connecting with another person. So how did it start? Were you, were you interested in it? Because, you know, you're a little bit older than me. I mean, it was, I was it. You know, I always feel like improv only started, you know, in the, in the. Even though people were doing it, like in this, in this, in the 80s. I. I mean, you tell me the history. I mean, as much as you can. How did you get started with it and how did you get on the TV show?
- [107:23]
Greg Proops
Well, I went to San Francisco State and I had done stand up. This is the 70s. So I went to state in like 79. And there was an improv group down at the cantina at the dormitory that I lived in. It wasn't a bar, it was a little place where they had cookies and coffee and shit like that. This is this, you know, and on Tuesday nights or whatever, they had an improv group. And I had heard of improv, but I'd never seen it. Right. I didn't know what it was. I'd heard of. I've seen sketches and I'd been a stand up, like I said. So I went down to see it and I'm reminded of the words of Edward Kienholz, the modern artist. His parents took him to see a Rembrandt when he was little and he turned to his parents and said, I can do that. So when I was looking at the. Watching the improv, I was 19, I was like, I could do that. And so then I. They did an audience spot during the show and they went, can we have someone come out of the audience and volunteer? You know, we were in college, so we were like sitting on the floor, you know what I mean?
- [108:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [108:23]
Greg Proops
This wasn't a big theater. It was a little room. So the next week I fucking went. And I sat right in front, right? Yeah, that spot, they go like, who will jump? Who will join us? I didn't wait, man. I got right on the stage. So we did a. We did an improv. And the next day I was playing pinball. This will give you an idea of how long ago it was. And the student union and the guy who ran the group, Reed, who's still my friend, came up to me and said, do you want to be in my group? And so that's how I learned to do improv from the other kids in the group. So then cut to about 10 years later, I'm in Spokane, Washington, with Tom Kinney, who, you know is SpongeBob SquarePants.
- [109:01]
Josh Adam Myers
Former guest of the show. Yeah, dude doing another glass. Dude, another glasses guy doing Buddy Holly.
- [109:08]
Greg Proops
That's right. So we were both Buddy Holly on this tour, except in those days, I had a pompadour and he had the rooster, right? He had a long tail in the back and a rooster up front, and I had the pompadour, and we both wore giant black horn rims. So we were traveling around the northwest, and, you know, we were just a little effeminate for their taste, but in any case, a little too uptown, I think. Him and I were playing this place, and I got a phone call from my friend Mike McShane, who was on the British version, and he goes, hey, this improv show from England's in San Francisco auditioning people. And I was trapped in Spokane in this condo with Tom, and I burst into tears, right? And so they came back the next year, and I got to audition, and so thank God. And then I got on the show, and then we went to England. And then I took my wife to England that Christmas. We did a Christmas show, and I said to her, could you live in England? And we'd only been there, like, a day, and she was like, yes. So we moved to England about a couple, three years later and lived there for, like, five years. And so the English Cruise Line ran for 10 years on television, including the last two years that we shot in America. We shot some of the early ones in the ones you were watching in Comedy Central. We did two seasons in New York at the beginning, too.
- [110:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, rad.
- [110:24]
Greg Proops
And then it was on ABC for four years, and it was on BBC America, I think. And then two years on ABC Family, which turned into Freeform. And then we were on the CW for at least 10 years, maybe 11 years. So I'm talking about 30 something years.
- [110:47]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, man.
- [110:48]
Greg Proops
It's like Wide World of Sports, man, or Today show or something. It's been on forever. And I was on at the very beginning. I was on the second season of the TV show, which was 1988.
- [111:01]
Josh Adam Myers
Wow.
- [111:03]
Greg Proops
And then Ryan and Colin came on in 1990 when we did it in New York. And then Chip Eston, who's on Nashville, Charles Eston he came on and when we were in London, because he was playing Buddy Holly on the West End. And then all the rest of the cats, Drew and everybody, they came on for the American one, and that was in 1999. Wow. So we started going on the road with Drew in 1999, and this group that I'm on the road, the road with now is another form of that group. So we've been on the road for 26 years.
- [111:34]
Josh Adam Myers
Unbelievable, man. I mean, when. How long did it take the, you know, the cast to, like, gel? Like, was it immediate? Like, when you get. I'm talking about the. Probably like your. I don't want to call it the Mount Rushmore, but, like, your. Your. Your Bulls. 19, you know, 1997, the hottest lineup. You know what I mean? You are strong. Who would you say was your. Was the group that you were like, this is the best we could ever be. This is our sport.
- [112:02]
Greg Proops
96 Yankees.
- [112:03]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's your 96?
- [112:04]
Greg Proops
Although I hate to say the word Yankees on. On the Internet, I liked in the. On the English version, I would say that it was me, Mick, Shane, Tony Slattery, and Josie was my favorite lineup. And then on the American version, I think me, Ryan, Colin, and Wayne. And that, because our producer is. Dan is, you know, he's a taskmaster. But on the other hand, he did something that no one else was able to do, you guys, which is, like you said, it's the iconic improv show. There's been a million other improv shows. We did one called Improvanza with Drew. The Groundlings had an improv show. There was another one called. There was the Australian one that they did on NBC for a couple years. I can't remember the name of it. And then we did1on abc called trust us with your life. But my point is this. All the other ones shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot, and then edit it down. And our program is exactly the opposite. Dan figured out after the first few English seasons that you don't shoot and shoot and shoot. You start a game, if the game sucks, you stop the game, and you restart it. And then all the games can be put together with all of the other games. By this, I mean, we have a dedicated camera on the host, right? So there's always. The host can throw this way, that way. That was that, that was that. This is this, this is that. And then the other. We have four cameras on the floor, right? Traditional. And a boom, a jib, right? So the gym covers everything. And then the Four cameras on the floor, so there's one on each performer. So we spend an hour and a half playing the games. 25, 27 games. We get up, we down, get up. And then when we're done playing those games, we spend an hour and a half doing ins and outs. So all we do is stand up and sit the fuck down. And that part of the taping is excruciating for the audience because, you know, we joke and everything, we keep the ball in the air, but there's no more games at that point. And then we'll play a few more at the end, but it's like, so why do we do that? And that's so that we can go, hey, that was great. We'll be right back after this.
- [114:24]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [114:25]
Greg Proops
Any game can go with any other game. Like building Blocks. So that was the genius of Dan. Dan figured out with a piece of paper in a pen in. In the booth that that's the way you make improv. So nothing we've ever did guns, 10 minutes, ever. Maybe not even five minutes. Like, if something sucks or someone swears or it's shitty, boom, we stop. And then, boom, we start again. So you see the outtakes because we swear and we up and like that. But in general, we're all very good. And we've all done it a long time. Like you said, how long it takes a gel? Not long. Long. Not long. Once we got together in a room, we. We became the. The Dave Clark 5. And the. The genius of it is the editing. And then people go, oh, my God, is it edited for tv? Yeah, it's tv.
- [115:15]
Josh Adam Myers
It's a million dollar show.
- [115:16]
Greg Proops
You'll see. You'll see a game. And that game wasn't played near the other game and on the night. But we've put it with the other game because we always have an in and an out for every single game. So the game is. Is like Scrabble or whatever you can. So, like, we finished the series two years ago, and we had another season last year on the CW made up of shows that we'd already put in the can because he had so much extra games. And every game can go with every game. So there's no worrying about, like, you know, when you make a film. When you make a film, you have to have coverage, right? So the problem with making a movie if you're a movie director is, oh, my God, did I have coverage for when they walked out of the room or when the car drove by? Do I have the reverse? You know, What? I mean, like, yeah, with film it's all continuity, but with television it's all, how much can you fill each moment? You know, back to back to back to back. We're not a sitcom. So we could cut the living out of it and put it together chunk by chunk by chunk.
- [116:26]
Josh Adam Myers
So smart. It really is so.
- [116:28]
Greg Proops
But nobody thought of that. Like, I've done all the other improv shows, man, and they don't shoot that way. They shoot forever and ever and ever. And then they go, oh, we'll pick the funny parts. And it's like, you don't want to be picking funny parts out of a two hour reel. You want the funny parts right now.
- [116:43]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [116:44]
Greg Proops
So like, they'll go, ryan, you're. You're a weatherman and you're angry that your wife left. And then I'll go, okay, here's the weather with Ryan. And Ryan, I'll go, I can't believe she's gone. You know, and then, boom, back. We're back to the game. Like we, we. As fast as you see us do it on telly, that's how fast we're doing it. We're really doing it that fast. Because I assure you, Wayne and Colin and Ryan are fucking. It's like playing with Wayne. I was going to say Wayne Gretzky, but he's a trump, so fuck him. It's like playing with Mario Lemieux. You. He puts the biscuit in the basket.
- [117:15]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, so. So. So, like, who would you say is the greatest improviser that you've ever worked with? Would you say it was Robin Williams or, Or, like, who? Yes. It doesn't have to be somebody famous too. Like, who? Is there somebody you're just like. You're blown away. It's Robin.
- [117:30]
Greg Proops
Well, the thing about Robin and Jonathan Winters, I interviewed Jonathan a couple times. I never really worked with him on stage. Robin, I worked with a bunch, was. They didn't need a group. Like, people talk about improv groups. And I've been in an improv group my whole life. But Robin and Jonathan Winters, you didn't. You could just hand them a pen and go, here, improvise. And the next thing you know, Jonathan would go, well, we're out here fishing and I just found. Oh, look at that. You know, they like, they didn't need any prompting, man. And I saw them work together at a benefit once and Jonathan started doing the Old Indian, which was a. Jonathan Winters used to do old guy characters when he was old, which made me cry, laughing all of a sudden he'd be 75 years old and he'd go, and I was gonna do a thing. And you're like, you're playing an old guy, but you're putting on the old guy thing, even though you are old, which is hilarious. He started doing the Navajo, you know, And Robin went like this to him. And Jonathan turned, went, don't ever touch me. And they were so spontaneous and so magic, and I don't think anyone's ever come near them for improv. Now, I knew Joan Rivers, like I said before, and Joan Rivers, you ask about the history of improv. There was a group in Chicago called the Compass, and the Compass had Barbara Harris, who was a wonderful actress from the 60s, Joan Rivers, Shelley Berman. Some of these names might not mean anything to you.
- [119:01]
Josh Adam Myers
It sounds familiar.
- [119:02]
Greg Proops
Comedians. And Alan Arkin, right? Alan Arkin, who won the Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine. And they were all at Paul Sand. They were all in an improv group together. This is before Second City and the Compass started before them. And I remember saying to Joan, we were working the Oscars together the year Alan Arkin was nominated for Little Miss Sunshine. Sunshine. And she interviewed him, you know, Alan Arkin was in a talk like this, you know, yeah, it's kind of a thrill to be here, you know.
- [119:31]
Josh Adam Myers
That's good.
- [119:32]
Greg Proops
And so afterward, I was with Joan, and I go, jesus Christ, why is Alan Arkin so miserable? And Joan goes, oh, my God, he was always so miserable. And he used to make Barbara Harris cry. And they were in a group and the 50s. So that's when the shit started. And then Second City started in the 60s, and then all the other improv groups kind of off the back of that, like. So Second City went to Toronto division, and out of the Toronto division is Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Marty Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Gene Levy, Catherine O'Hare, Harold Ramis, you know, so when you go to the Toronto Second City, that's whose pictures you see on the wall. And so. And Ryan was in the Toronto one. Colin was in the Toronto one. Joel Murray, who's in our group, was in the Chicago one. His brothers Brian and Bill were in the Chicago one. You know, so, like, that's how improv got builded. And then the west coast version was the credibility gap, and that was Harry shearer and Michael McKean. Right? These are all improvisers. Peter Boyle, you remember Peter Boyle. Oh, yeah, was an improviser. And then all the ones from the committee in San Francisco, and Howard Hessman was in the committee in San Francisco, you remember him. He was Johnny Fever on wkrp. And Mimi Farina, fantastically, who was Joan Baez's sister. And strangely, their piano player was named Larry Kanaga, and that's my wife's name, and she was his cousin. And then there was a guy, also an improviser, named Greg Kinnega, who should be my son, but he isn't. So the history of improv kind of spread from Chicago, mostly outwards, and then to New York and then to the West Coast. And so the group that I joined in San Francisco, we were called Fault Line. Hello. See what we did? And then that was the group that I was in. And McShane and me were from Fault Line and we both got on the English. So to be honest, and I don't mean to be a bitch, but there's really nobody from Second City Chicago on American Whose Line and no Groundlings, really. Wayne was in a group in LA called House Full of Honkies. And I used to sit in with. I used to sit in with his group before Whose Line. So the very first show Wayne did on Whose Line, they put us both in a dressing room together and we spent the whole day together riffing and laughing our ass off. I just did his podcast a couple weeks ago, but I've known Wayne since he was a little sprague. So this all goes back a thousand years, what can I say?
- [122:30]
Josh Adam Myers
But you were saying Greg, and you mentioned the television version, but I know that you've probably been in just it randomly happened because they were at the show and they were there. What is the, the, the group of improv ers you've been in a group with that you're like, I can't believe I'm improving with this group. You know what I mean?
- [122:48]
Greg Proops
Oh, I think, yeah. When, when I. The times I worked with Robin, I was beside myself with joy. And one time me and Mike McShane were doing a two hander at the Other Cafe in San Francisco, which is an old fashioned comedy club there. And Robin lived in the neighborhood, he lived around up the street. And he came into a late night show and sat in with us and the three of us did improv for about an hour together. And I think I have an audio tape of it somewhere. This is the 80s.
- [123:13]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [123:14]
Greg Proops
And that might have been the funnest because we ran him around, man. We'd been working together a lot and he got up there with us and we did a Shakespeare and a Greek tragedy and all this shit. And Robin would get you in a Headlock. He was enormously strong, and he would get you in a headlock on stage. And he was really sweaty. So he was a big, hairy sweaty. Like, your face would be up against this tooth hurt, and he'd be sweating on you and his big ass, hairy chest. He was the nicest, nicest person. Working with him was beyond thrilling. And interviewing Jonathan Winters a couple times. And I asked Jonathan Winters about who he liked to improvise with the same question. And he said to me, and this will blow your mind, because Jonathan Winters worked with everybody and he was in movies and stuff. And he said, dean Martin.
- [124:07]
Josh Adam Myers
Wow.
- [124:07]
Greg Proops
He said, because Dean Martin worked with Jerry Lewis, and Martin and Lewis improvised a lot. Like, their stage act was mayhem when they were a comedy team. Not the movies. The movies were written and shit. If they did a television show for years, which you can watch on video, it's great. And the television show has a lot of improv in it. And it's more like their stage act where they would go into the audience and cut people's ties off and throw food on shit and fuck around with each other and squirt each other and shit. And so Dean was used to Jerry being a maniac, right? And, you know, I'm completely unpredictable. Like, Dean would be on stage singing, and you'd hear a bunch of plates fall in the back of the room, and Jerry'd be pretending to be a waiter and come out through the house, you know, like. And so Dean literally was ready for anything. And winner said that you could throw anything at Dean Martin. And Dean Martin never reacted. He had that smooth fucking. Just funny and beautiful, like, smooth all the time. And he said the other person he liked was Johnny Carson. He said, johnny Carson set you up for fucking anything. He'd go anywhere with you. And so it's a. It's a thing, you know, like, there are comics who hate improvising. They have to stay on the book. It's not a knock on them. It's the way comedy works. Some people have, you know, like, they. They have their lines, right? They've written their lines like, you know, Jerry Seinfeld's a great comic. His writing is what makes him great. Yeah, you know, his. He's able to deliver the writing that he does because his writing so superb. Now, Larry David is also. Wasn't as great a standup comic because he is an unlikable guy on stage. But when he did the show where they improvised, then you got to see, like, what he could do with a company of people where we're now we're making up.
- [125:56]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [125:56]
Greg Proops
You know what I mean? Like, so, yeah, it's the difference between. It's apples and oranges. Like, someone like Stephen Wright would never improvise because Steven Wright has calculated, written these meticulous lines that are perfectly drawn, right. Oh, Eric Idle, for instance. Jeff Davis in our group, is friends with Eric Idle, and he did a sketch show with him that Eric wrote of Python. And Eric was in the audience one night. This is a good story, actually, because I was at a restaurant. We were in Seattle, and Boz Skaggs was sitting next to me at the restaurant. Oh, shit. And I go. We start talking, right? And the reason I noticed him was, one, I recognized him. But two, he. He sent back four glasses of wine. He kept tasting glasses of wine and go, not this one. And I've never seen anyone say four times.
- [126:44]
Josh Adam Myers
I don't think anybody did that. Yeah.
- [126:46]
Greg Proops
Because Boss guy going to winery. So he's an expert on wine, right?
- [126:50]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, yeah. I didn't know that.
- [126:51]
Greg Proops
Finally, I start talking to him, and he goes, hey, man, why do I know you? And I go, I'm from San Francisco. I used to go to the Blue Light. And he owned a club called Slims, where I saw, like, Bootsy Collins and Marianne Faithful, all these accent Slims, David Bowie and shit. And so I go, are you working tonight? He's like, no, we have the night off. We were in this restaurant in Seattle called Mike's in the Market. And I go, this is my favorite restaurant in Seattle. He goes, me, too, man. Another thing I found out. Boss Gags is a gourmet. Not only is he an expert on wine, he's an expert on food. So as well as being a great blues musician, a superb guitar player, and also a pop star. So he came to the show that night, and he just showed up, by the way. Like, he came through the house. Next thing I know, he's backstage. You didn't go like, oh, how do I get in? Or whatever. He's Boss Skaggs. So we pour him a big glass of vodka. Then Eric Idle comes in, who Jeff knows. And we had all met, so I got to actually go, hey, Eric, do you know Bob Skaggs? And the thing about Eric Idle is he's a total star. And he was like, oh, my God, Boss Skaggs. So we're doing the show that night, and we get to the end of the thing, and Ryan comes up to me and goes, hey, Eric Idle's out here. I'm doing Ryan now.
- [128:10]
Josh Adam Myers
Hey, Yeah.
- [128:14]
Greg Proops
I don't want. I don't want to ask him to come on stage. I'm too embarrassed. I haven't. And then Jeff comes up to me and goes, hey, Eric's out here. But I don't think I want to. I'm not gonna. I go, you fucking pussies. I go, I'll do it. So we get to the end of the show, and I go, hey, we got a newcomer out in the audience, ladies and gentlemen. Give him a hand. We'd like to bring him up on stage.
- [128:33]
Josh Adam Myers
You give him a chance.
- [128:33]
Greg Proops
You've never seen him before, Eric Idle. So Eric comes on stage, crowd goes batshit, I bet. And he improvised with us. And then afterward, he's like, I never improvise. He goes, monty Python wrote every fucking word. Wow. They're Oxford Cambridge guys, right?
- [128:50]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, Oxford and Cambridge.
- [128:51]
Greg Proops
And they did not riff. No riffing. They wrote and then they memorized. And so that's like, you would think the Pythons, because they're so wild and their routines are so loose and so crazy, they don't have endings. All of a sudden, Napoleon's coming in or the Spanish Inquisition or whatever know. They're so referential and so crazy and singing and whatnot. Everything written, every beat written.
- [129:18]
Josh Adam Myers
Wow.
- [129:18]
Greg Proops
Like, every beat. We're. We're the exact opposite. We don't write anything. We just, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that was a pretty exciting night to play with Eric Idle and imagine he. He did something. I don't know if he'd written it before or something he thought of, but he was really funny, and of course, everyone loved him. Then we also had Detlef Shrimp from the.
- [129:40]
Josh Adam Myers
No way. I wasn't expecting that.
- [129:44]
Greg Proops
Ryan was mates with. Dett left because Ryan used to do this celebrity golf tournament. And he brought Detlef on stage with us once, and he improvised with us, too. The other person we used to improvise with is Joe Walsh, because Drew had Joe Walsh on the Drew Carey Show. And Joe Walsh is a really funny guy. Like, he's a really funny person.
- [130:03]
Josh Adam Myers
He seems like that.
- [130:05]
Greg Proops
He talks like this, man. You know, you're asking me about all these Elvis Costellos.
- [130:11]
Josh Adam Myers
That's really good impersonation of him.
- [130:13]
Greg Proops
Like, why don't you ask me about the Beatles? Because they were, like, better and hit Joe's favorite groups, the Beatles. And he married Barbara Box. Sister and Barbara Box married Duringo. So Joe and Ringo worked together.
- [130:34]
Josh Adam Myers
That's awesome.
- [130:35]
Greg Proops
And so he actually got to kind of be around the. You know. And one thing neat. Joe Walsh Is so funny. We'd improvise with him on stage, and he would improvise, he'd play music, and then he'd play, like, Rocky Mountain Way, and we'd all stop the show and fucking sing it for half an hour and shit. Is he practices every day. Joe Walsh sits down and plays scales. Wow. Every day. That's why he's so good. He, like. Joe Walsh does not goof around, man. He's really a fucking dedicated. You know. And then when you see him get up. One time we were in Vegas and we all went to the show after, and it was a Lon Bronson, it was after hours, so it was all the bands in Vegas sitting in with each other, you know. So they're playing a bunch of songs, and I'm sitting with Joe, and Joe turns to me and goes, that guitar player's not very good. And I go, well, I reckon you're better than him, Joe. And he goes, I'm better. I'm better than that guy. So he goes up to the band, and the band's like, what? And they go, hey, Joe Walsh wants to play with us. So Joe gets up with this, like, pickup band and does a number. And of course, you know, yeah, yeah. And then sits down next to me and I'm like, that was good, Joe. And the poor guitar player in the band had to plug back in and.
- [132:00]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, no.
- [132:01]
Greg Proops
And was just. Yeah. So playing with Joe Walsh, too, was a very exciting. Because everybody thinks about him from the Eagles. But, yeah, he, of course, had a giant career before he was in the Eagles. And I saw him in high school. And he's very funny. Like, we'll say, joe. Oh, he'll go, I gotta go. I gotta go to Eagles practice. That's what he calls it because they're always on tour. And then we go, who's. Who's late for Eagles practice? And he goes, well, everybody. But mostly don't say that. And then once I said to him. Once I said to him, what's it like working with Don? And he goes, well, it's better than just being with any drummer, right?
- [133:11]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh.
- [133:12]
Greg Proops
Someone described to me their tour buses. Four Eagles and five sponsors.
- [133:17]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, my God. Oh, yeah, I bet. I bet together. Dude, this was great, man. I. I really appreciate you coming on additions. One, because you had mentioned Tim Burton's. What. Girlfriend and partner in. In the movie the. The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was Denise De Novi.
- [133:38]
Greg Proops
Denise was the producer. His. It was Danny's girlfriend, and her name was Carolyn. I'm. You have to look Up. Look up. Who wrote Give your computer in front of you.
- [133:47]
Josh Adam Myers
Look up.
- [133:48]
Greg Proops
Who wrote the screenplay to Nightmare? That's who. Because a woman wrote it and a woman produced the movie and nobody ever talks about it.
- [133:56]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh. Screenplay by Caroline Thompson.
- [133:58]
Greg Proops
Caroline Thompson. Now, we never met Caroline from Washington, dc. She's not around. But the other. When we went to Mexico, we had to do a big press conference, which I was invited to do because I was in the original. And Danny told how the whole thing got made, which I hadn't even ever heard the story movie. And he said him and Caroline and Tim were sitting around their apartment and said, let's write a musical. But we don't want it to be one where everybody, you know, like, you know, Showboat or, you know, Gypsy or whatever, an unconventional musical. So Carolyn wrote it, and then they. It was Tim's idea, the monsters and all that. And then, you know, the. The idea of A Christmas Town and Halloween and all that, that was Tim's idea. And then Carolyn wrote it and Danny wrote all the songs, and so that's how they did it.
- [134:48]
Josh Adam Myers
And she also co wrote Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bro.
- [134:52]
Greg Proops
Right. She's a very talented writer. And those are two iconic American goth movies that everybody loves. And like, sadly, I said, I've never met her. We don't see Tim much. I mean, Tim came to the show, like, once. Danny works with him all the time that I've never or really even talk to him. And I've been doing the show for fucking 200 years. We went back on the road in 2014 or 15. They did it in Japan without me. And then they called me. I swear to you, you're like, this part, it's 2015. I was in San Francisco with my wife at the Kabuki Hotel. And they call me and they go, hey, we're doing Nightmare live at the Hollywood bowl, but we want you to be in it. And I go, okay. And they're like, yeah, do you mind auditioning for it again? And I go, well, I think you'll find that if you listen to the cast album, I'm on it. And so I said to my wife, this is going to be the worst hour of your life. And I went in the bathroom of the Kabuki Hotel room with my phone and sang all the songs of the show into the phone for fucking hour. And then I sent them the songs and they're like, oh, you can sing them still. And then they put me back in the show. And then Danny was very, very kind to Me, I never said why, you know, because there's no point. But I was having him autograph something at one point and he said, I wanted the texture. I wanted your texture. Which in composer speak means my voice sounds funny. And it gives that edge to it, unique when we sing. It gives the edge to it that he wanted, that I have. And that's how he thinks. For him, it's like a stew or whatever, you know, I want a Susan of this Tombra and an iota of this Tombra or whatever. Because Glenn Walters, who's the werewolf, Glen, talk like this. And Glenn could sing in two tones at once. I don't know what they call that, diatonic or something where you can sing two notes at once, you know, like. Yeah. And when you hear him in the movie, he's the werewolf, so he talks like this and everything. But that's what he sang like in real life life. Like, he sang like he wasn't a black guy, but he Sang like a 75 year old black man, you know, like a love laugh, like, like Howen Wolf, you know what I mean? Or Little Walter or whatever.
- [137:12]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, Moved on the podcast.
- [137:15]
Greg Proops
Right. So that all comes back. And then all the other people in the cast were professional sight reading Hollywood song. The kind of people who sing at the Oscars under the stage, you know, they just hand him the music and they fucking boom. None of us, we don't read music, like, but everyone else reads music. And yes, I've been caught in one or two situations where they're like, okay, this is a C going into an E. And then we, you know, do a pantonic blues with chorus or whatever. And I'm like, I haven't the slightest notion. I literally memorize it like a child, you know, by rote.
- [137:48]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [137:49]
Greg Proops
So. And I try to be on key. But we have an expression in music, of course, which is volume ensures quality.
- [137:56]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [137:57]
Greg Proops
So I'm. I'm loud. I'm loud.
- [138:01]
Josh Adam Myers
Well, the last thing I had was just the, the number of times that either Elvis Costello had opened up for Squeeze or vice versa. And there's a few different here, but.
- [138:10]
Greg Proops
So was I right? Did he play in San Francisco with him?
- [138:13]
Josh Adam Myers
He did play in San Francisco. What is it? January 7th and 8th of 81.
- [138:18]
Greg Proops
I was at that one. That's rad.
- [138:21]
Josh Adam Myers
And that's really cool. And then vice versa. Yeah. Elvis Costello opening up for squeeze in 1980, in August and even in Wales.
- [138:29]
Greg Proops
I didn't see that one, but I remember different. And Tilbrook at a London gig at a Later, but it was still the attractions. He also did a really bitching thing at one point, which I really loved, called the Song Wheel. I don't know if you remember that where. Because he had so many songs at that point, because he's such a prodigious songwriter. And after five or seven albums, Elvis Costello had, you know, zillions of songs. He'd bring an enormous spinning wheel on, like a wheel of fortune, and he. He would sing a couple numbers and then he'd fucking spin it and it would go and end up like, oh, we're gonna play new lace sleeves. That's cool.
- [139:06]
Josh Adam Myers
That's pretty fun. Yeah, it was just. Anybody could do that. Wow.
- [139:10]
Greg Proops
No, it was gimmicky, but it was great. And the two or three numbers that I remember in concert of his that I loved the most was he did a bone shattering version of Mule sleeves once I saw San Francisco. And then he did Jamming by Stevie Wonder. Nobody ever told you that you would be jamming into the breaker. And then he did Fairy Costumers by Jerry and the Pacemakers, which is a perfect song for Elvis Costello. Right. You know that one? That's from. From the English, British Invasion. Life goes on day. So Fairy cross the mersey. It's in 1964. Beatles y. You know, when everybody was from Liverpool.
- [139:58]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [139:58]
Greg Proops
Elvis did his version and it was perfect for him because Life goes on day. Anything that's overly dramatic, you know. And then the very first time I saw him, Lipstick Vogue, they did a really astonishing version of Lipstick Vogue. So he's. He's really good in concert. You know, he give. He throws down. He throws down.
- [140:21]
Josh Adam Myers
Good. I gotta go see him live. All right, one, please come back because this was so much fun. I hope you had a blast, dude. This was great. Before we go any further, promote away. Anything you want to promote, please. We'll do it at the beginning and end, too.
- [140:37]
Greg Proops
And I'll also just say, since we're skipping over a bunch of the songs, this album is worth listening to. Having listened to it, I was resistant and like, oh, did I love it as much as I remember then listening to it a couple times? I did love it as much as I remembered. On the other hand, I wouldn't say it's my favorite Elvis Costello album. And then my phone, because I was listening on my phone, played Save it for later by the English Beat right after this album was over. And I became all of a sudden completely joyful and happy, which is another record special Beat service that came out this year or Right around this time. And I saw the English Beat a couple times, too, and they were a superb band. So I had a lot of thoughts about, you know, this particular album. It's kind of a challenging record, but it's also worth it if you want to get into it as an Elvis Costello fan. The first three or four records are the heart and soul of that period of him. And then, you know, the later records were into another bat. So my plugs. I have a film club called the Greg Proops Film Club. My wife Jennifer curates it. We show it at the Los Feliz 3 Cinema in Los Angeles for the American Cinema Tech. And you can go on gregproofs.com and see all the pictures we've shown. We just showed Bells of Saint Trinian's which was hilarious. You guys would love this one. It's a girls school in England in the 50s, and the girls are hellions. And they make gin in their science class and they sell it and they gamble on horses. It's just. And the headmistress is a guy in drag. And no one says anything about it at any point. It's played by an actor in drag. He plays himself and his brother in the movie. It's called the Bell Belles. Being like Belles, like B E L L E Bell. The Belles of St Trinian's. And I don't know what we're going to show next month. I think we're thinking about Orpheus by Cocteau or even maybe Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson. So we covered the Waterfront and then in my podcast, the Smartest man in the World that I do with my wife Jennifer is on Great groups dot com. I have a new album out. This is the COVID of it. It's called Purple Shasta Raccoon. I recorded it live. I improvised it in San Francisco. And all my other albums are out as well. The Resistance and In the City and French Drug Deal and those are all on Gregproofs.com as well. And then I'm on the road with who's Live? Anyway, this week, and I don't know when this comes out, but it's Ryan Styles, Joel Murray, me and Jeff Davis and Laura hall from Whose Line. And then this week we've got Tim Meadows with us tonight. Last week we had Dave Foley, Gary Anthony Williams. We have a lot of people play with us, so.
- [143:10]
Josh Adam Myers
Nice.
- [143:11]
Greg Proops
Yeah, we're on the road and we're. We are doing 100 dates this year, so, yes, we're coming to your town.
- [143:16]
Josh Adam Myers
Great. Check him out. You're Seriously, this has been so much fun. What's your favorite song on the record?
- [143:22]
Greg Proops
I would say beyond belief. And then I I Man out of time. Time.
- [143:27]
Josh Adam Myers
Okay. Is there anything you skip over two songs? We'll take. We'll take the first one as the number one because you said that first.
- [143:33]
Greg Proops
I I the, the ones that we didn't get to are not my favorite ones. I was gonna say Pigeon English, but then listening to pigeon English a couple times yesterday, it kind of grew on me. That was the thing. I was like, I was, I was ready to be resistant and then I wasn't. He kind of won me over with his, his long winded arrangements and his fragmentary approach to this record. It is what it is. You know, it's a statement. And I had to go back to how I felt in 1982 when I was 22 years old, which is a long time ago. And it aroused a lot of the same emotions in me and I got some of the same excitement out of it. So I was pretty thrilled to revisit it when you guys. It was kind of assigned to me by Emily because I wanted to do My Aim is True too. And then when she gave me this one, I'm like, oh. And then listening to it, I'm like, okay. Elvis won.
- [144:25]
Josh Adam Myers
There's a lot to take it. It's a, it's a great record. And Lisa, Lisa was adorable, so. And she's so smart and so fun. But, but dude, we, we did a lot more time with you though. You got way more air time, so I'll tell you that much.
- [144:38]
Greg Proops
I've got to get off and get dressed.
- [144:40]
Josh Adam Myers
No, we'll let you. Quick question. Can you to this record?
- [144:44]
Greg Proops
Nah, I don't know about that. I think it's more of a have a drink and sit and kind of do listen to it. Sort of maybe read a book or something. Again though, you kind of have to pay attention to Elvis Costello. You're going to miss a bunch of. All of a sudden, a line will pop out at you and you'll be like, what? Where did that.
- [145:02]
Josh Adam Myers
Totally. I know. And that was what you were saying. It's like, it's what we've heard before. It's like you, you're going to hear the lyrics and it's going to take you out of the moment. Sex is about being present. 100.
- [145:10]
Greg Proops
You know, I would go more for, you know, jazz if I were the Chet Maker. As we discussed vocal. Yeah.
- [145:26]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, for sure.
- [145:28]
Greg Proops
Bill Lovin's Live at the Village Gate. You Know, maybe. Maybe a Birth of the cool or something.
- [145:36]
Josh Adam Myers
There it is. I'm more. I say modal like I say you go for the I love Oscar Peterson Trio if I'm gonna. Or definitely. Yeah, like, I like this. Like maybe some Joe Pass, some jazz guitar. But. But as we've talked about on this podcast, Portishead, Massive Attack, Deftones and Cure Disintegration. The Cure Disintegration, great record. That's the only Cure record you can do.
- [146:02]
Greg Proops
The Massive Attack and are great. And then Stan gets Astro Gilberto. It's the most romantic.
- [146:13]
Josh Adam Myers
See you walking over with a cognacing off the Dior robe, then.
- [146:20]
Greg Proops
Smearing on some oil, some essential oils.
- [146:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, my God. And then I guess you kind of already said it, but I want to. I gotta ask, because it's. The final question, is what would be your elevator pitch to get someone to listen to this record?
- [146:31]
Greg Proops
Oh, kittens. Well, if you. If you like him, then. And you haven't listened to it, you will like him. And if you haven't heard him anymore. Anymore. This is a way to prove how esoteric and hip you are.
- [146:43]
Josh Adam Myers
Dig it. And by the way, by the way, the slang you use throughout all of this has been one of my. I thought Billy Gibbons used cool slang. I think you're up there with Billy Gibbons. You came out strong with Boss. When you said bought, we did the podcast and Billy Gibbons, I was like, dude, this was so great. And he goes, oh, man, that was a gas. And I'm like, again, you're the coolest. You're the coolest ever. I try to use it, but you're is. Is like. It just feels natural. Greg, thank you so much for coming on, buddy.
- [147:11]
Greg Proops
I really appreciate it.
- [147:12]
Josh Adam Myers
We had a real blast. Okay, so great.
- [147:14]
Greg Proops
Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Jeremiah.
- [147:16]
Josh Adam Myers
What did I tell you? What did I tell you? The one and only Greg groups. Follow him on Instagram at Proop Dog. That's a great name. P R O O P R O O P D O G. And then his website is gregproops.com watch whose line is It Anyway? Listen to the Smartest man in the World podcast Proof Cast. That's what it's called. That's good. And check out his latest album, Purple Shasta Raccoon. It is out now. Now we just listened to Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello. And the attraction for new music this week, brought to you in part by Distro Kid, is Heart Attack Kid by Ben Queller. And you can find links to the music on our website, the500podcast.com and if you are in a band and were directly influenced by one of these albums artists, you want your music music featured on the 500 website and show. Send us your song to 500podcastgmail.com Put the album and artists and influenced you in the subject line. Next week it's Marvin Gaye Week. As we go deep into let's get it on. It's some fudging music. I was gonna cuss but Wayne's rubbing off on me. The redemption story is the week after that. It's gonna be a good one for Linda Ronstadt, but you're listening listening to Marvin Gaye. Let's get it on from 73. Dig it, do your homework. Thank you for listening. Stay easy it doesn't matter what you.
- [148:35]
Greg Proops
Did.
- [148:37]
Josh Adam Myers
Stand up and come to your senses I got your back heart attack kid I can't stay away way Feels like winter break on this happy sunny grassy hill Throw down a flashlight stand grab wrong or right when it's time to fight in a brother I will I got your back heart attack K It doesn't matter what you did Stand up and come to your scissors I got your back heart attack Kick kick kick I got your back heart attack it doesn't matter what you did Stand up and come to your senses I got your back it doesn't matter what you teach I got your B I got your B I got your back heart attack kid Keeping it flee for.
- [151:04]
Greg Proops
The fleece Nation on the 500.
- [151:11]
Josh Adam Myers
The.
- [151:12]
Greg Proops
500 hi, I'm Hal Sport. And I'm Flynn McClain.
- [151:25]
Josh Adam Myers
We want to tell you about our podcast none but the Brave, which is dedicated to taking a deep dive into the work of Bruce Springsteen.
- [151:31]
Greg Proops
We're currently in our fifth season. Our latest episodes focus heavily on Bruce's 2024 tour and have featured such guests as Anthony Castrovinsk from MLB network and Barstool's Kirk Minahan. We're also covering the 40th anniversary of.
- [151:45]
Josh Adam Myers
Bruce's biggest record, Born in the USA and as part of that, coming up this week, Uprox cultural critic Stephen Hyden returns to the show for a fascinating hour long conversation about his new book.
- [151:56]
Greg Proops
There was nothing you could do Bruce.
- [151:57]
Josh Adam Myers
Springsteen's Born in the USA and the End of the Heartland.
- [152:00]
Greg Proops
To listen, you can go to our website mbtvpodcast.com or subscribe on your preferred podcasting platform. We hope to see you further on up the road.
- [152:09]
Josh Adam Myers
Thank you so much. We'll be seeing you. This is Krista Makes, guitarist and vocalist for Less Than Jake and host of Krista Makes a Podcast A songwriting podcast where every week I'm joined by an amazing guest to break down the writing, recording and release of one iconic song from their career. In our giant evergreen back catalog of episodes, we've had rock legends such as Dee Snider and Huey Lewis, punk rock favorites like Mark Hoppus, Fat Mike and Brett Gurewitz, and up and coming artists of today such as as Liz Stokes of the Beths and Genesis of wusu. We've had guests from all genres and styles of music, and I guarantee that if you peruse our back catalog, you'll see several episodes that'll make you say, man, I gotta hear that. Whether you're a fan of music or a creator of music yourself, you'll take away a whole new appreciation for the songs you know and love. Krista Makes a Podcast is available for free on all the PlayStation places you could possibly listen to. Podcasts and new episodes come out every Monday. Next Chapter Podcast.