Blowing Smoke with Twisted Rico

On this episode we have two fantastic guests in Anthony Kaczynski(Figures On A Beach/Fireking/The Magnetic Fields) and famous rock photographer and huge music fan JJ Gonson(Once Somerville). JJ Starts things off with a recap of a great Summer season of shows promoted by Once and then fills us in with some really cool shows coming up at the end of the month. Anthony then talks about his long awesome career which started in Detroit as a founding member of New Wavers Figures On A Beach, who moved to Boston in the mid 80's. He then goes on to talk about his ultra cool rock band Fireking, and his most recent adventures touring and playing with legends The Magnetic Fields(including JJ's connection to the MF's). We top it all off with Anthony's involvement with the band Gymnasium. Great talk with some great music people....

Lenny Lashley has been writing and performing great music since the mid 90's. His band Darkbuster, was one of Boston's best punk bands and then he took it further with Lenny and The Piss Poor Boys and Lenny Lashley's Gang Of One. He also spent several years playing guitar and touring with punk heroes The Street Dogs. From his early Darkbuster days, the story behind the song, "I Hate The Unseen", winning the WBCN Rock N Roll Rumble in 2000, the formation of the Piss Poor Boys, his six years with The Street Dogs, and his third new solo record coming in November 2022, we cover all the bases in our interview. The icing on the cake was the unreleased track that he played live in the studio.

Zack Shell (and a brief appearance by his son Kaz), talks Queen, "The Bear"(FX/Hulu), and how the crew managed to keep Baby Loves Tacos up and running during a trying period which began in March 2020. We support Mom and Pop independent stores and this show is dedicated to all you folks out there that have had to endure a lot the last couple of years....

Mark McKay joins us this week to talk about his musical adventure with Boston hardcore legends Slapshot, the highly recommended documentary "Chip On My Shoulder: The Cautionary Tale of Slapshot”, and his new project "The Long Wait". Fun time with an all around talented cool dude.

The man who has engineered many of our shows at Voice Motel, Mike Nashawaty aka Mike Nash switches chairs and guests on this episode to talk about his outstanding Boston band Bird Language and their new album "625 Days". We also hit on a range of topics including Nash's other projects and his thoughts on the Boston music scene past and present...and how much he loves the smell of cassettes! And yes, he gives us his list of his all-time favorite Boston bands, even if some are in Western Mass and even one from New Hampshire.

Frank Meyer joins us on the show to talk about his long history playing with Hollywood legends The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs and their new double album "All The Covers(and more)" as well as his plethora of other projects, including collaborations with Eddie Spaghetti(The Supersuckers), James Williamson(The Stooges) etc.. We also hit on Frank's documentary "Risen: The Story of Chron 'Hell Razah' Smith and its immediate success. Things got really interesting when Frank shared his love of his "favorite B movie ever" Trancers and played us an unreleased song live on zoom that he wrote about the lead character "Jack Deth". Must listen to show with one of the coolest guys around...and his many projects!

As you may or may not know, we love drummers on this podcast, so it was not a hard choice bringing the versatile and extremely busy Chuck Ferreira on the show. Chuck or "Charles The Drummer" as many refer to him as, can play all styles and has proved that with his work with Greg Hawkes of The Cars, Eddie Japan, Boston all-stars The Shang Hi Los, Lonely Leesa And The Lost Cowboys, Aloud and the list goes on and on. We had a great talk about drums and rock n roll. The host also shares his love for a couple of series that flopped "Vinyl" and Roadies" in the intro.....the beat goes on.

When it comes to the Boston Rock scene,  Richie Parsons has seen and done it all. From his early days with Unnatural Axe, through stints with Future Dads, Band 19, and Tomato Monkey, and more recently a couple of stellar solo releases, Richie has delivered the rock. We cover a lot in this episode including his 30+ years working for the Newbury Comics chain, and his friendship with the late Jim Harold. And of course Richie was at the infamous Runaways show at The Rat back in the late 70's. Great talk with Boston royalty at Voice Motel... 

Music

Daisy Valentine was the singer of the now defunct Pittsburgh based punk band The Homisides. She has also had her own fanzine and spent years working in a record store. Soon she'll be hosting her own podcast "The Truck Stop Podcast" which we are sure will be utterly entertaining....This is Daisy's second time on the show. She was on show #3 way back in January 2019....

On this episode of the show, we are joined by Chris Conway from the very talented band The Gypsy Moths. Chris talks to us about growing up in the city and becoming a fan of the local Boston music scene at a young age. He later attended Emerson and became a radio host at WERS, which led to him landing a gig at Taang! Records. These days, The Gypsy Moths are signed to Rum Bar Records, have a new album out, and have a nice buzz going at radio...