The episode where Pete Larson flies in from Kenya to announce his rebirth as a Mississippi bluesman, we trade a Suzanne Somers “three way” poncho for eight bottles of cheap wine, and one of my guests tells me that she’s posed nude for Playboy… The Saturday Six Pack #13

I’ve complained recently that we haven’t been getting a lot of calls during the show. Well, apparently all of that complaining has paid off. The phone didn’t stop ringing this episode. The first call came in before Jim Cherewick had even finished singing the opening theme. It was Matt Jones, calling from his basement, where he’s spent the past several months obsessively trying to document the existence of every single musician creating original work in Michigan today. It would seem that he’d arranged to record a track by my old bandmate Pete Larson just before he was scheduled to stop by the AM 1700 studio and have his interview with me. And Matt must have called just as Pete was leaving. I asked him why he didn’t call later in the show, when Pete was actually going to be in the studio, and he said that he didn’t want to be “gushing like a stalker” in front of him. I wouldn’t have thought that, after documenting over 70 musicians, he could still get that excited, but Matt was absolutely giddy… which, I think, speaks to the power of Dr. Pete Larson.

It was cool way to begin the show. Not only was I happy that my old friend had managed to impress Matt, but it made me feel like something significant was actually happening here in Ypsi. I mean, how cool is it that someone could fly in from Kenya, roll into Ypsi, and, within a few hours, record with Matt Jones for his historic compilation, stop by Chris Stranad’s studio to sit for a photo as part of the Saturday Six Pack Portrait Project, and then do a radio interview with me? Granted, it’s probably an illusion, but I like that Pete got the sense, as he said to me after the show, that interesting things were actually happening here in Ypsilanti. I love the fact that we’re creating a kind of interrelated ecosystem of interesting, overlapping and supportive creative projects that are both feeding off of, and supporting one another… Speaking of the portrait of Pete that was taken by Chris, here it is. One hopes that soon you might be able to see the photo in person during a First Friday’s event somewhere. [Stay tuned for details.]

[If you would like to listen to the episode in its entirety, you can find it on both iTunes and Soundcloud. Or, if you want, you can just scroll down to end of this post, where you’ll find it embedded.]

We started the show by opening a few Miller High Life tallboys with Yen Azzaro, co-owner of Ypsilanti’s Chin-Azzaro studio. Our conversation, which touched on everything from the willingness of local folks to pay for art, to the threat of gentrification that looms over Ypsilanti, took an odd and unexpected turn a few minutes in, when Yen, responding to a question about how she met her husband, mentioned that, as a University of Michigan undergrad, she’d posed for a Playboy “Girls of the Big 10” edition. As you might expect, it was difficult to steer things back once that cat was out of the bag, but we somehow managed to right the ship and keep moving forward.

During our discussion, accomplished fashion photographer Stan Malinowski called in. Stan, a friend of Yen’s, called in from Chicago to say that he was enjoying the show, and relate a few of his own experiences at Playboy, where he’d shot for a good portion of his career. [Stan currently has a show up at the Chin-Azzaro gallery space.] While he denied any knowledge of the intricate tunnel network used to smuggle “playmates” and celebrities to and from the Playboy mansion, he did tell us what a challenge it was to get good photos of people on Hefner’s large, round, rotating bed. As his call caught me a bit off-guard, I wasn’t prepared to go into any level of depth with him, but he did offer to stop in if he’s ever in Michigan, so maybe we’ll have an opportunity sometime soon to talk with him about the devolution of erotic photography, which, over the past several decades, has become significantly less artistic and more clinical in nature… Oh, and we can also ask him about shooting the cover for the Ohio Players record Fire. [right: A 1963 Playboy cover of Nancy Perry shot by Stan Malinowski]

At this point, Jim Cherewick sang a lovely song called Better Days, and then he and our mutual friend Chris Sandon shared stories from their recent tour down south, where, according to them, they played music for very few people. In Columbus, they told us, they played a show for one woman at a yoga studio that doubled as an art space. [They offered her a free CD after the show, and she refused it.] We also talked about Jim’s snoring problem, and how, at one point during the tour, it got so bad that they had to tape him to a Red Roof Inn luggage rack to keep him from rolling over in bed, in hopes that it might help. They also shared a minute of audio from the set of a comedian who preceded them at one of their poorly attended gigs. I was thinking that it would be terrible, but it wasn’t. [It was kind of a PSA for condom use set in the Star Wars universe.]

The man who we refer to as The Who Guy, because he calls in every week and hijacks the show by playing tapes of the Who over the phone, called in and tried something new. This time, he and a friend sang a Who song acapella. And the response in the studio was surprisingly positive… We apparently like trolls who don’t rest of their laurels, but keep pushing forward, breaking new ground.

Then, we attempted our first ever Ypsilanti on-air swap meet. Kurt Anschuetz came by the studio with two items… a Suzanne Somers “three way” poncho, and a twenty-some year old edition of the local Monopoly rip-off Ypsiopoly. And, surprisingly, both were successfully traded away to callers. The mint-condition Ypsi-centric board game went to a woman from Ann Arbor who offered “eight bottles of cheap wine” in trade. And the poncho went to a local Ypsi man after a few tense minutes outside the studio… The caller had offered a free pass to Deja Vu and a box of cookies in exchange for the poncho. When he arrived, though, instead of cookies, he had a single beer. Station manager Brian Robb began frantically yelling “no deal” and “bait and switch” through the AM 1700 window, but Kurt went ahead and took the deal, not wanting to break the young man’s heart. [below: The three-way poncho]

Thankfully, the woman in Ann Arbor who wanted Ypsiopoly, drove out and made the exchange in person, so we didn’t have to figure out how to make the exchange at a later date. By the time she got to the studio, though, the eight bottles of wine that she’d promised had somehow become seven. Kurt took the deal anyway, though, and then proceeded to open a bottle or two for us, as the beer was pretty much gone by that point. [below: Folks hanging around, making trades, and drinking wine in the studio]

I can’t remember the exact order of things, but I seem to recall that our friend Cre Fuller called in from a bachelor party in New Orleans to piss us off by telling us about all of the great food he was eating. [Cre said he’d come in sometime soon to share his vacation photos over the air.] And our friend Brigid Mooney walked down from the Wurst Bar to tell us about the paradise on earth that is Kellys Island, and introduce us to her friend Malcolm, who she asked us not to give any more beer to. He and I talked restaurant jobs and motorcycle helmets. And, at some point, Patrick Elkins came in and proceeded to call us from inside the studio to discuss Totally Awesome Fest, which begins this coming Friday in Ypsilanti.

And then it was time to introduce the legendary co-founder of Bulb Records Pete Larson, who talked at length not only about the early ’90s music scene in Ann Arbor, but his current life as a PhD in Kenya, studying the transmission of viruses between domesticated animals by day, and singing at an African blues club by night. We also talked about his formative years in Mississippi, how he’d stolen his uncle’s bass to start his first band at 14, and why it was, at 19, he decided to convince his friends to move with him to Ann Arbor. [He got them to come with him by promising that $5-an-hour dishwashing jobs could be found here.]

We played a two old songs from our band Prehensile Monkeytailed Skink, and Pete performed a few new songs live… songs which regular listeners of The Saturday Six Pack will recognize as ones he’s sent in from Kenya to have us play on previous Saturday nights. [Pete wakes up every Saturday morning that he’s in Africa, and writes and records a song, which he then sends in to have us play on that day’s show. If I’m not mistaken, he’s now submitted 11 such songs.]

[above: Pete Larson playing a song while Jim Cherewick texts his friends, “OMG… Pete Larson”]

As we probably talked for about an hour, a lot of stuff was covered. So, if you’re interested, you should just listen. Among other things, we debated the merits Beatles, and Pete confessed to pressing the first Bulb records using temporary emergency grants awarded by the University of Michigan to students in need. [Typically, students would use these $300 loans to pay heating bills and the like, but Pete built an empire on them, pressing 500 singles every time he could secure one.]

For what it’s worth, my favorite part of the interview began at the 1:45 mark, where we began talking about Pete’s newfound appreciation of Mississippi hill country blues, and how it is that, now in his mid-40s, he feels as though he’s finally finding his authentic voice as a recording artist. Having known Pete for more than half my life, it made me happy to hear.

NOW, LISTEN FOR YOURSELF

Thanks, as always, to AM 1700 for hosting the show, and to Brian Robb for running the board.

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