S.W. Lauden on 1000 Greatest Misses

Last week, my podcast partner Chris and I recorded a terrific episode of our podcast, 1000 Greatest Misses, as we featured special guest author S.W. Lauden, also known as Steve Coulter, a great drummer formerly of the band Tsar, who we happened to feature on our podcast a while back. Steve has authored numerous book - both fiction and non-fiction - and is also the author of the Substack Remember the Lightning. Steve was nice enough to speak with Chris and me on our podcast episode 111, and then he interviewed us for an entry on his Substack. I encourage you to check out his writings in general, but below is the interview he had with Chris and me, as we discuss our podcast after over two years under our belts.

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I don’t usually rely on podcasts to (re)discover great guitar pop artists and songs from the past, but 1,000 Greatest Misses is definitely an exception.

This is largely due to the unique format that co-hosts Christopher Grey and Paul Heinz set up in 2023. Most episodes start with banter between the two music obsessives who then play samples from five different tracks that “hit all the marks but failed to chart” while discussing their personal perspectives and opinions.

“I will take credit for the idea, 8 years before I found the right person to partner with to bring it to fruition. My partner Paul Heinz and associate producer Bob Blum get credit for everything else,” Grey told me for the interview below.

“I do love turning people on to songs that have had an impact on me. I’m always texting Spotify or Youtube links to friends, saying, ‘Have you heard this yet?’ The podcast just allows me to reach thousands (okay, not exactly thousands) of people all at once, every week.”

“Chris has so much knowledge about the minutia of obscure bands, producers, record labels, and the like,” Heinz agreed.

“I’m definitely the novice on this journey, but I was able to tackle some of the legwork necessary to take his idea to the finish line. Then Bob came in and helped with some of the more grueling aspects of preparing for a weekly podcast. When you’re just starting out, you kind of underestimate the number of hours it takes to record a good half an hour episode.”

I caught up with Grey and Heinz by email to thank them for having me on as a guest (please don’t hold that against them), talk about how the show has evolved from their original vision, and what their plans are once they hit 1,000 songs.

I'm a big fan of your podcast, so it was an honor to be a guest. I think the format is really interesting. How did you land on that formula?

Christopher Grey: I was a guest on a couple of episodes of the Rock and/or Roll podcast with BJ Kramp. We had a ball, and he indulged my desire to talk about all these killer obscure tracks pulled from early ‘80s radio station compilation records. My initial premise was to keep the podcast short—5 songs per episode and put an expiration date on it. Hence the 1000 greatest misses, 200 episodes and out.

The better question is what kind of blackmail evidence did I have on Paul and Bob to get them to agree to work with me?

Paul Heinz: It certainly wasn’t the cash!

What have you learned over the course of 100+ episodes?

Christopher Grey: That it’s really hard to grow an audience when your subject matter is as specific as ours. For the amount of time I’ve spent adding links to Facebook posts, setting up guests and generally spreading the 1KGM gospel, we should have tens of thousands of listeners. Spoiler alert: We don't. But I will say that the folks that listen understand us and have proven to be as big or bigger fans than we are! They are so knowledgeable and hearing from them makes my day every time.

Paul Heinz: And we’ve also heard from quite a few of the artists we’ve featured, which isn’t something we expected. As for as listenership goes, when you consider the number of options for people to spend their time on these days, the fact that we have a crew of loyal listeners is really gratifying.

You occasionally have guests on (I loved the Peter Jesperson and Ted Ansani episodes). Any temptation to turn this into an interview podcast?

Christopher Grey: In my head, it’s certainly a lot more work to coordinate a show with guests. Of course, I understand that fans want to hear from artists and music industry figures, but there are so many podcasts that are better funded, researched, and that do such a great job in that space. The highest compliment I’ve gotten is that listeners feel like they are having a conversation with us. I think that was the original vibe we were going for.

Paul Heinz: I’ve had listeners tell me that they’re more interested in the banter between Chris and me than the songs themselves. Go figure.

Who is somebody that both of you agree would be the ultimate 1000 Greatest Misses guest (and why is it Paul Westerberg)?

Christopher Grey: I think Paul Westerberg represents a common ground for Paul and me. As our listeners know, Paul doesn’t always care for the songs that I bring to the table. In fact, his quote, "I wish it was better," is bandied around like a line from Caddyshack in our small community.

Paul Heinz: We even thought about putting that quote on the back of our t-shirts!

Christopher Grey: I would love to talk to Roger Manning or Jason Falkner as a fan, but I could see us featuring some hardcore record collectors that specialize in our favorite genres as well. Listeners of the show have proven to be extremely entertaining. Maybe we could get a power pop version of the Wack Pack of our most devoted listeners: Sharon, Jared, Andy, Pete, and Kevin!

Paul Heinz: I’ve never even heard of 80% of the bands we feature, so when we have guests on, I really have to do my homework. I know a bit about The Replacements, but having Paul Westerberg as a guest would be terrifying.

What are a few favorite artists or tracks that you specifically discovered through the podcast?

Christopher Grey: The list is long and varied. The High Back Chairs, Softjaw, Company of Thieves, The Argyles, Comsat Angels, SVT, Death Cab for Cutie (yep, I have blind spots), Graduate, The Shake Shakes.

Paul Heinz: Mine includes The Keys, The Planets, Falcon Eddy, Billy Bremner, The Cretones, The Toms, Enuff Z’nuff, Bash and Pop, Glen Burtnick and Paul Warren.

What's next for you two and 1,000 Greatest Misses?

Christopher Grey: We just recorded episode 111, (special thanks to Steve Coulter…aka S.W. Lauden!) and that leaves us with 89 more to go to satisfy the original intent of 200 episodes. We took a hiatus a few months back and retooled the show a little, and since then I’m enjoying it more than ever. Maybe there will be 1000 More Greatest Misses, maybe we will come up with a new concept, or maybe Paul will realize that I am dead weight and kick me to the curb and replace me with someone younger and better looking. Oh wait, that might be my wife's plan.

Paul Heinz: Nope. That’s my plan, too.

Beato Gets Offended: Yacht Rock and Genre Labels

Few have done more to promote music education and music appreciation than Rick Beato. I’m a fan of his YouTube channels and I’m in awe of his talent. That said, he flew a bit off the handle in a recent video about the retroactively applied label of yacht rock to identify a specific type of music that was produced more or less in the late 70s through the early 80s and has been popular as of late. Every major city in America seems to have at least a few bands sporting captain’s hats and playing the smooth sounds of Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. A few months ago, the film Yacht Rock: a DOCKumentary dropped on MAX, and after close to a dozen of my musician friends recommended the film to me, I finally watched it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, especially the ease with which the aforementioned musicians went along with the silliness of it all, recognizing that they’re lucky to still be relevant over forty years after their primes.

Beato watched the film as well, and while ultimately saying that he had no problem with the documentary, he claimed that the term yacht rock is “not only offensive and derogatory, but it’s a complete oversimplification of the diverse music that’s talked about in the movie.”

I’m going to overlook his conclusion that yacht rock is “offensive” because, well, that’s ridiculous. I’m offended by many things on Planet Earth, but the term “yacht rock” is not one of them, and I think if Beato were pushed, he’d probably back off on that. But the latter point of the genre being an oversimplification needs to be addressed.

What are genre labels for?

Genre labels are used to communicate with each other.  When I tell people about the fabulous band Black Pumas and they ask me what kind of music they play, I can’t just say “good music.” I have to communicate some kind of musical style so that my friends have a clue about whether this is a band they’d like to pursue. When asked about Black Pumas, I’ve always answered, “swampy Austin soul.” What does that mean, exactly? Well, hell, I don’t know, but somehow it seems to accurately convey the style of music they play. It may very well be that the band would disagree with this categorization, but that’s okay. It’s just a way to communicate. It’s why radio stations and record stores also identify genres. Just as you don’t want to tune into a station expecting to hear country only to hear a rap song instead, you don’t want to walk into a record store and have Metallica, Bing Crosby, Beyonce and Loretta Lynn all lumped in together. There is a point to all of this.

All genre labels are reductive. They’re all oversimplifications. Hell, the most reductive label of all is the term classical to describe over five centuries of extremely diverse music. Does a Bach prelude really have anything in common with a Stravinsky symphony? Not really. It probably has as much in common as Buddy Holly and Megadeath do. But it’s helpful to describe Buddy Holly’s music as 50s rock and roll and Megadeath’s music as metal. To call both of them “rock and roll” does us no good whatsoever. Genre labels help, as reductive as they might be.

I played in a yacht rock band for three years, and when people asked me what yacht rock was, I said, “smooth soft rock from the 70s and 80s.” THAT’S also an oversimplification! But what was I to say? We can’t perfectly describe music without being overly verbose and boring our audience. At some point we have to generalize. And to a lot of people, the term yacht rock is perfectly identifiable, allowing them to know exactly what type of music they can expect on a Saturday night at the local nightclub.

Prog rock is also an oversimplification. So are AOR, punk, easy listening, power pop, rap, hip hop, R&B, jazz, fusion, bebop and a dozen of other genres. On my podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, my partner and I often struggle to identify a band’s style: “It’s sort of punkish rockabilly with a little extra grit.” But at least the genre labels give us a place to start.

So I say to Rick Beato and others who’ve gotten their undies in a twist about something so inconsequential, just relax and go with it. The guys who coined the phrase yacht rock should be thanked and then thanked again by every artist who’s still making bank for songs they wrote in the 1970s.

Music vs Lyrics

In episode 10 of our podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, Christopher Grey and I discuss music and lyrics, and whether one is more important when falling in love with a composition.  I concluded that with some exceptions, music is most important to me, and that as long as a lyric isn’t overtly lame (“Hey baby let’s go out tonight, Hey baby, I’m feeling alright”) a good melody will carry the tune to the finish line for me.  But a lyric that’s embarrassingly bad will often ruin an otherwise good song.

A few weeks ago, John McWhorter of the New York Times reviewed an upcoming book called Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, and concluded that the book “is a reminder that one can be massively fulfilled by language one doesn’t fully comprehend.”  I love this summation because it perfectly captures my sentiment for a band like Yes, whose lyrics are complete nonsense to me, but that still manage to be profoundly evocative.

Consider a song most everyone knows: “Roundabout.”  The lyric of the chorus is:

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky
And they stand there

Nothing crazy there. Kind of poetic, maybe.  But nothing overtly comprehensible.  Now imagine if singer Jon Anderson had instead leaned on rock and roll’s worst lyrical instincts and composed the following over the same melody:

I’ve got to see you, babe
You know you’re all I crave
In the evening

Not exactly what I’m looking for in a song! And surely “Roundabout” wouldn’t be a classic if its lyrics were such garbage. It’s the same reason why a band like The Babys are hard for me to listen to. An otherwise competent song like “Every Time I Think of You” isn’t helped when John Waite sings:

People say a love like ours will surely pass
But I know a love like ours will last and last

Ugh, who farted, right? And the Babys actually outsourced this tune, written by Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy. You’d think someone could have come up with a better lyric. Terrible.

But then you’ll get words that are kind of lame but are backed up by such a terrific groove, that it hardly matters what’s being said. I think of a song like “New Sensation” by INXS.  I dig this song despite its lyrics:

Live, baby, live
Now that the day is over
I got a new sensation
Mm, perfect moments
That's so impossible to refuse

Somehow, this works for me. I can’t explain it, and I certainly can’t defend it. But I really like the song.

Of course, the best result is the perfect marriage of music and lyrics, an alchemy that’s rarely achieved, but when it happens it can move me to my core, and it’s why I admire artists like Jackson Brown, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon, etc. When Jones sings “And I can hear him
In every footstep's passing sigh/He goes crazy these nights/Watching heartbeats go by” or when Springsteen sings “There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away/They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets”…well, damn. I’m all in. Tears, every time.

For my own compositions, just as I try to avoid musical clichés, I try to avoid pedestrian lyrics. Occasionally, I hit the mark, combining melody, harmony, groove and words that convey an emotion together that could never be achieved by their separate parts.

The beauty of song.

When Musicians Don't Want You To Like Their Songs

Last week on the podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, my co-host and I praised a song by Mike Viola called “She’s the One” from his very first EP back in 1985. Viola has had an impressive career as a songwriter and producer, but he doesn’t think much of that early release. He caught wind of our episode and wrote a response about his “crappy EP” and how he threw away about fifty copies of it years ago.

And look, I can totally get how he might not be proud of that first effort anymore. 1985 is a long time ago, and he may not even recognize the person he was at the time and probably thinks the songs pale in comparison to what he’s written since. Fair enough. Hell, I’ve done thirteen albums over the past 31 years, and I don’t believe my 1992 album is all that good. I get it.

But I have been approached after a show I’ve performed in and been told how good my keyboard playing was, and even when I don’t agree with that person’s comment – even if I think I kind of flubbed up my performance – my response is always the same: “Thanks for much. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” It would be foolish and rude of me to say, “This concert was for shit and I played like crap.”

Viola could have just responded, “Wow, that was a long time ago and I hardly remember the song, but I’m glad you dig it,” but he instead basically told us that we were idiots for liking his song. To which I say, “Hey, you’re the one who wrote it. Don’t blame us.”

A similar thing happened to an entire audience back in 2002. Anyone who was in attendance to see Elvis Costello at the Chicago Theatre that year will remember that he was in a surly mood that evening. After a couple of songs, he snarled at the audience and announced, “Anyone who wants to hear ‘Veronica’ can fuck off right now.”

Few artists resort to such buffoonery, but many accidentally achieve the same results in a more subtle way by dismissing a song or an album. Paul McCartney has dismissed the Wings album Back to the Egg (which is silly, because the album rules), Phil Collins has dismissed the Genesis album …And Then There Were Three (also good), and Rush has dismissed the song ”Tai Shan” explicitly, and the album Presto a little less explicitly. And I get it: those may be songs or works that the artists no longer identify with. But they have fans who identify with those works, and when a musicians says – in effect – that a song is crap, it’s a dig at any fan who happens to like it.

I think artists everywhere should be careful about how they approach their past efforts and recognize the love that fans send their way. Look back on missteps not with regret but with mild amusement, and for goodness sakes, when someone praises you for a composition you wrote, just say “thank you” and move on.

A New Rock and Roll Podcast

A little late to the podcast game, but what the hell! My music-obsessed friend and I are starting a podcast called 1000 Greatest Misses, shining a light on 1000 undiscovered, obscure, and underappreciated songs that hit all the marks but failed to chart. On each episode and Christopher Grey and I will feature five power pop, AOR, heavy metal and new wave songs from the seventies and eighties, most of it curated from radio compilation vinyl records that aren’t available on any streaming service.

I met Chris as I began buying records in the 00s after a twenty year hiatus. He and his business partner Pete owned a record store called Platterpuss and they would host warehouse sales from time to time. I dipped my toes back into vinyl, making purchases every six months or so. My, how times have changed! Just yesterday I perused by record purchases in 2022, and…well…my habit has grown exponentially. Don’t tell my wife.

But hey, if anyone has a serious problem with vinyl, it’s my podcast partner Christopher Grey. I’m not going to get into numbers here, but let's just say his basement is currently unavailable for a makeover.

Chris and Pete’s record store is now called Cheap Kiss Records, a regular stop on my record shopping rotation in nearby Villa Park, Illinois (as well as online). After accumulating many radio station compilation records over the years - most of which have that one “gem” of a tune that never got properly recognized - Chris decided that it was high time to share his fruits of his labor with the rock and roll world. I hopped on the bandwagon and here we are, ready to rock the planet with forgotten music.

Our introductory episode is complete (and should be available shortly on your favorite podcast app), and in short order we’ll record our first proper episode. More soon…