The heart of the holiday matter in Dundalk with John Allen of Stone Horses

The Dundalk boys reunite at the bar at Costas Inn for a little rocking around the Christmas tree catch up as John Allen of Stone Horses joins lifer pal Nestor to spread some holiday cheer and music memories from the soul of the neighborhood. The miracle of music, the new heart of our friend Ed Lauer and the beat of The Go-Go’s seeing Gina Schock perform with Cyndi Lauper at the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame induction in Los Angeles. Rock and roll never forgets…

Nestor Aparicio and John Allen discussed their holiday plans and musical memories at Costas Inn. John shared his daughter’s performance in “The Nutcracker” and reminisced about his music teacher, Mr. Hinson. They talked about their mutual connections, including Ed Lauer’s recent heart transplant and Gina Schock’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. John mentioned his upcoming single release and potential tours. Nestor highlighted the importance of AI in music and expressed his admiration for John’s band performances, particularly their recent show at Hammerjacks. They also touched on personal anecdotes and their shared love for music and Dundalk.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Try to arrange a Child’s Play or Stone Horses performance at the Baltimore Civic Center before the venue is gone (initiate booking discussions)
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend and appear live at Gertrude’s on Friday as planned (public appearance for the show/promotion)
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend and appear live at Planet Fitness in Timonium on Monday as planned (public appearance for the show/promotion)
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Invite John to the planned international music-related trip/sojourn in March (confirm invitation and details)
• [ ] Post a photo of your daughter doing a leap from her Nutcracker performance on social media
• [ ] Finalize the single’s mix and submit the finished song into the Virgin Music distribution pipeline for release (target end of February)
• [ ] Pursue booking a Child’s Play / Stone Horses show for late spring (contact venues, finalize date and location)

Dundalk Memories and Family Updates

• Nestor Aparicio reminisces about his time in Dundalk, mentioning his family portrait at Costas Inn and his recent lottery ticket winnings.
• John Allen shares his experiences with his daughter performing in The Nutcracker and his memories of music teachers from his childhood.
• Nestor and John discuss their shared experiences with music teachers, including Mr. Hinson and Mr. Minutelli, and their childhood field trips to the Lyric.
• Nestor talks about his recent visit to the Maryland lottery headquarters and his surprise at seeing The Nutcracker playing at the Lyric.

Musical Connections and Band Formations

• Nestor and John discuss their mutual connections in the music scene, including their involvement with Gina Schock and Ed Lauer.
• Nestor recounts how he recommended Ed Lauer for Gina’s band, leading to Ed’s involvement and the formation of a new band.
• John shares his history with Ed Lauer, including their first meeting in the 90s and their mutual friends.
• Nestor talks about his long-standing friendship with John and their shared experiences attending concerts and events.

Ed Lauer’s Heart Transplant and Band Updates

• Nestor and John discuss Ed Lauer’s recent heart transplant and his ongoing recovery.
• John shares his experiences of playing with Ed Lauer and their mutual connections in the music scene.
• Nestor talks about his recent interactions with Gina Schock and their discussions about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• John mentions his upcoming single release and his plans for touring with his band, Stone Horses.

Musical Challenges and Technological Advancements

• Nestor and John discuss the challenges of playing music, including the technical aspects of playing to a click track.
• John shares his experiences with playing in different bands and the importance of having a good drummer.
• Nestor talks about his interest in AI and its potential applications in music, including songwriting and production.
• John expresses his skepticism about AI but acknowledges its potential benefits.

Personal Reflections and Future Plans

• Nestor and John reflect on their personal experiences and the importance of music in their lives.
• John shares his plans for his band’s future, including potential shows and new music releases.
• Nestor talks about his upcoming appearances and his excitement for the future of music and technology.
• The conversation concludes with mutual appreciation and well-wishes for each other’s future endeavors.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

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Dundalk, Maryland lottery, Nutcracker, music memories, Stone Horses, Child’s Play, Ed Lauer, heart transplant, Gina Schock, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, AI in music, concert experiences, band reunions, music education, holiday cheer.

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Speaker 1, John Allen

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task of Baltimore. We are in the epicenter of all things Dundalk with one of my favorite Dundalk people. We’re Costas. They welcome me back in, but they’re a little upset that I’ve spent so much time at Timonium lately, but I’m back here at the bar. Mr. Costas has been staring at me here. I got a family portrait right there on the right. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery candy cane cash. I know I’m in Dundalk when the cause he family, I turn right back here at the machine and they were buying lottery tickets. They did not win, but I did have a $3 winner on the way out the door. So I’m appreciative of that. John Allen is here, not only one of my Kim asabi’s An old buddies, but got a rock star on during the holidays, not on tour. This time last year, would you run around with like brother Kane? This time last year, we were out with Steel Panther. Steel Panther, that’s what it was. Okay. So year before was Brother Kane. No tours. No tours. This December, no family. Family. Yep, got to see my youngest dancing the Nutcracker. Got to see her be the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy and stuff that was pretty great. She’s a beautiful dancer. Did you have Mr. Henson in elementary school? Was your music teacher? I did not, because I had him at Colgate. He was weird story, but he was murdered in the late, late 1980s Mr. Stadium knew him earlier, but I thought Mr. Minutelli was at your school. Right instrument. A lot of our teachers shared Colgate and Eastwood, right? So Mr. Hinson, when I was a boy, was my elementary school music teacher. We had the little flute, recorder things and the bells and the xylophones and all things we did. He took us every single year that I mean, three or four times in my childhood, I went to the lyric to see the Nutcracker. Oh, okay, so today, to get

John Allen  01:46

these wood we didn’t have that kind of culture in Eastwood,

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Nestor Aparicio  01:51

field trips. We didn’t do field trips. We had field trips.

John Allen  01:57

But I don’t remember the Lyric, though.

Nestor Aparicio  01:58

So these candy cane cash chicks come from the Maryland lottery, and I live in Towson, okay? And I and I had to pick them up. They smell like peppermint. They smell like Santa Claus, so I had to pick them up. So today I’m driving into the city on 83 and I was gonna get off on North Avenue to go to the lottery headquarters at Montgomery Park. And I was gonna get off, and like Martin Luther King, I didn’t, and I went down Maryland Avenue, and I made the left at UB, where I went to school, and there were busses along the back of the lyric going to the Lyric, and I’m looking like, December 18, what in a world could be playing at the leery? Oh no. I wonder if Zeppelin’s here tonight, you know? So I looked on my seat, geek, and it said The Nutcracker. And I’m like, Man, The Nutcracker at the Lyric. I used to go to that with Mr. Henson. It’s the first time I ever went to the Lyric, because you would see Tchaikovsky, Bach, Wagner, you know, Mozart, they had all that stuff there. I mean, I’m seven, eight year old boy. My teacher takes me down on a field trip. I don’t know anything about the Nutcracker. I still, you know, was like classical nonsense. I wanted to hear the village people, or whatever is 1976 but I do think that there’s a sort of a musical part of, like, I remember the Nutcracker as a kid. Now your daughter’s in it, right? So, and you brag three times to me about you must really be proud of,

John Allen  03:15

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oh, she was, yeah, she was great. I’m gonna post a picture of her doing a leap. You know that are, it’s a performance family. Very cool, yes, yeah, but you got me stumped now, so we didn’t share those music teachers, but we had, I remember my band teacher at Eastwood, the first guy we had, what were the brothers names that owned the the restaurant and the Broadway market, the something, brothers, Broadway market, the restaurant, right? Okay, this is good. Bakery. Family, no Greek family. It was Greek, all right, they were Greek. Um, that’s okay, but that was his last name. That was, that was my band teacher in in Eastwood element, your first drum teacher? Yeah, I was so lucky man. My last name was Alan, so they would go alphabetical. I was Aparicio enemy. To ask you, yeah, to ask you, like, what instrument you wanted to take, poor Bubba’s ink. Man, he had to, like, take whatever the French horn or whatever he actually played trombone. Yeah, he was good. He was good. But, uh, where are you? Bubba’s ink? I miss you.

Nestor Aparicio  04:16

Man, oh, but I can find pus in Delaware. I know Pub Pub, my dude, man, so elementary school and CCD and Our Lady of Fatima, well, it is Christmas time. John’s here. We’re trying to celebrate a little bit. I don’t know, of a bigger miracle this year that’s happened than Ed Lauer, yes, and this all comes full circle me. John and I’ve been friends for a million years, and we used to drive around, go to concert together, John I were together like my mother died and and we would talk about Gina, because we didn’t know her, right? And we got to know we met Gina together for the very first time at drug city couple years ago. Oh yeah, I’m like, stupid in a band with Gina. But when Gina called me and said, Here’s that cute boy that did the show. Looks a little bit like Johnny Resnick. He looks a little bit like Keith Urban. And does he play guitar? And I’m like, man, John sings, and he played. John will play no guitar. And then I find that you actually play guitar, which I very badly, but Well, that’s why I didn’t recommend you. So she said, I didn’t know that. She said, I need a guitar player. I did not think of you, and I’ve known you a long time, right? I would have said, Nick, maybe, yeah, we didn’t Nick, so I recommended Ed. Lauer. Said what he’s gonna do, some tunes. So she got to know Ed. Ed went over to her house and Dundalk and got to know her. Ed text me. Said she might be the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life, but I can’t be in her band, because I have this and that, but my brother in law, Jay is going to get in her band. And then they said, Do you know a bass player? I’m like, I don’t know any bass player. Daddy Lee. I don’t know chips enough. I don’t I’m like, Oh yeah, I know Steve ports, Elaine’s husband, yeah. So I put this little band together with you guys a couple years ago, but Ed was a part of it. And Ed was on stage with you guys that night at at the Rock Yeah, right. Ed Lauer, my background with Ed is 33 years ago, 34 years ago. I’m on a radio he was a listener of mine. Howard share knew him, and Howard said to me, you see that dude there with your hat? Man, that dudes, unbelievable musician. He’s great. He sings like an angel. Can sing anything, play anything. He doesn’t want to you ever peppers and see him. So 1993 or four, somewhere, beginning my I went and watched Ed Lauer play in front of a brick wall at peppers, his love and loneliness. He had a song called Goodbye. That was his original. I have a CD. Okay? I can almost sing it because I heard him play it so much back in that time. I’ve known Ed 33 years. I’ve known John a little longer than that. I didn’t know that you would even have known each other, but, but Jason Heiser, who’s your drummer and stone horses, right? Who I’ve sang songs with, Jason. You don’t even know this, but Eddie and I and Jason have sang songs at at the horse and at Admiral’s cup because Eddie’s blood 800 rent a drummer That’s That’s Jason Chesapeake suns baby moniker. Jason also carried my mother’s casket along with you. He was working at Connolly’s funeral home when my mother died, right? So I have this connection to Jason that he probably doesn’t know. He also looks like the Jesus guy at the Orioles games, but that’s another story altogether. He does. I thought it was him for a minute, but it wasn’t. So Jason’s your guy, and I don’t know how you know Ed. I’ve never, I’ve never asked you this. I put ed in a band with you, but you’re like, I know Ed, Jason and Charles point. He’s a guitar. We all were all musicians. How do you know Ed? Man, I don’t even know how you know Ed.

John Allen  07:47

I think the first time I met Ed was in the 90s. Oh, you’ve noted that long. Friends of ours, yeah, friends of ours, took us down, like, on a Saturday night, and he was, I think he had just played, like, Oh, what was the little place, lead betters. LED betters. I think he had just played lead betters. Man, God, that place was so small, and it was, it was nuts. I got a lead better story, and involves that louder, but, yeah, but yeah, but Eddie was Eddie was there. And it was kind of funny, because at the time, I’d cut all my hair off, I think my hair was white. And these friends that I was with, they were the girls that knew him. They introduced me to him, and he was looking at me, and he was like, You’re John Allen. I’m like, yeah. He’s like, from Child’s Play. I’m like, Yeah, John Allen, that John, he didn’t believe it. He’s like, he

Nestor Aparicio  08:38

was, this is the first time I like, my hair is longer than yours. Yeah, he was, he was highly skeptical.

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John Allen  08:44

That’s pretty funny, but, yeah, so, so I’ve, kind of, we’ve, you know, we’ve known each other kind of for a long time on the periphery, right? I mean, Baltimore is a small town, and the music scene is small and but through Jason, through Jason playing with him all the time. We got to be better friends and and then with the Gina thing, he was basically our music director. He kind of made sure everybody kind of got together, and he kind of took that responsibility on, even though he knew he was kind of handing it off, you know, like that. He couldn’t commit to the amount of time. Yeah, yeah. So, so, yeah. It was great. It was great. It was great to get to know him and and, you know, be friends with him. And, yeah, and what you’re alluding leading up to, I guess, is that he just had a heart transplant. And dude, I was

Nestor Aparicio  09:32

with you. You and I were together in Hagerstown before your gig. We had a night just thought, well, think we put a picture. We went to see a meatloaf tribute band that I like, and like John. I was John are close in the real world. Probably, closer than anybody ever spanned. It was meatloaf span with Caleb Johnson and this beautiful girl from Jersey, Kaylee Baxter, doing the meatloaf thing. And we went to dinner that night. We’re sitting at the bar eating food, and you’re like, you’re like, to me, you’re like, you know about Atlanta? Where I’m like, what? And you’re like, Ed had a heart attack. And I’m like, why wasn’t on the internet? And I, like, lost my shit. I mean, at dinner that night. I’m like, I you know, and you’re like, they don’t know if he’s gonna make it. And I’m like, what? And this was like, no, but like, he needed a heart transplant. Yeah? Like, you know what I mean, like, it’s, he’s got a really rough thing here. I mean, everybody would acknowledge that. And, I mean, you told me, within a day or two of it happening, it became a little more public in the next couple of days after that, and then it was a GoFundMe, and there were evils like, God, we’re trying to keep Ed alive. Ed is home right now. Jay text me a little while ago. Ed had a heart transplant.

John Allen  10:46

He’s doing all the right thing. Have you talked to Ed? I haven’t. I meant to call him on the way up here, but then traffic was so like intense Well, Gina

Nestor Aparicio  10:53

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shock was supposed to be here with us. She’s had a family issue. She’s fine. She just couldn’t be here today. She felt awful about it. We’re trying to reschedule. She’s home for the holidays. But Gina, I stopped by her house last week by stupid I was at DiPasquale’s. I offered her sandwiches. She didn’t answer. And I was coming to see Calvin down here in Edgemere, and I she said, come on. Yeah, come by the house. I haven’t hugged you in here. So I stopped by to see Gina at her house, and I went in, and we got, like, two minutes into it, she like, how’s that? How’s that? I’m like, let’s call Ed. We called ed. So we talked to Ed last a week ago today, and Ed was like, I mean, we were on a speaker phone in Gina’s kitchen, and it’s like, we both got like, you know, a little messy and like, So Ed’s doing great. Ed couldn’t be here. Jay couldn’t be here because Ed had to be at the hospital. Gina couldn’t be here. So John is Gina. Ed, J I mean, let’s be Jason. If you want to be you’re good drummer. Here’s the thing that I said to your wife behind your back, John Allen’s here, by the way, stone horses. Sometimes child’s play. Sometimes was it was child’s play. You played record? Yeah, September. All right, so I go to the show that night. Do I crowd? A lot of people knew me. I knew them. Your wife’s there. Your children are there. Nick’s family’s there. Half his family’s on stage with the band that two songs in, you know, you do you open, you do your thing. And I walked over your wife, and I said, I don’t know how he put Jason in the band, but that he could find anybody that could drum acceptably for him would be like me finding radio hosts that could be acceptable to me. Yeah. What do you look for in a drummer? Being a drummer?

John Allen  12:36

Well, when he first came down, the big part, I think, was, was feel and groove and and when he initially came down to kind of practice with us, it was there. And I was like, this is cool, you know. And he looks like Steve Perry.

Nestor Aparicio  12:51

So was he familiar with your drumming, like, as a child’s play fan, or as a

John Allen  12:57

think so, okay, we used to do when we we were doing reunion shows when Brian was still alive. I remember Jay being right up front, man with a with a Miller Light in

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Nestor Aparicio  13:07

his hand. So he was a fan right down front. Well, I mean, I think that’s like, I’ve talked to Todd Zuckerman about sticks and him being a Chicago kid who wound up in sticks and but he wasn’t like, the world’s biggest sticks fan, you know what? I mean? Like he was a scientific, technical drummer, or whatever. And I find, like, Rush hiring Annika Nils to be the drummer. It’s like, kicks had you drum for a minute, right? Like there is a point where you see a quarterback, you know, Philip Rivers, you know, come back and be able to play. I often think on the drum thing, I’m just not I could never have been a drummer. I don’t hear music that way. I think I could learn to play the guitar. I’m missing a finger. I think I could sing. I could learn to play the guitar. I think maybe I could learn the bass. But I don’t hear bass great, but I’m always enthralled by drummers, because I remember you as a kid on a pad. I remember there was another kid in my neighborhood that was a drummer who had a kit and bang and bang and bang and like to this day, if you put me behind a kit, I just wouldn’t even know where to it’s it’s such a right left brain thing. And I think there’s so many styles I don’t know. That’s my I guess my point to your wife that night in playing was he was playing your music, your parts, your drums. And I said to her, I know John’s pretty particular. He must really think, you know, how the hell did he ever hire a drummer that must have been hard for him, but you decided you couldn’t sing and and drum in your own Yeah,

John Allen  14:36

I do give him a heart. Well, I used to give him quite a hard time to go, I have to admit, and he puts up with me, you know, so, but he’s great. And, yeah, speaking of the kicks thing, I was just filling in when, when Jimmy chauffeant had the heart attack and, and it was, it was eye opening. I mean, because Jimmy chauffon Such a great drummer, and he does everything like. You know, he’s back there. And they have, like, you know, this, they have tracks that run, like the special effects kind of things like, you know, they have all these, like, little things that come in during songs, but, you know, you got to start the track, and you got to come in the right place and everything. And I spent like, weeks and weeks with headphones. And you love kicks, you lose the song. I love, I love kicks, and you like learn, but learning the songs was a completely like, different thing and, and I just, I have no short term memory any longer. Like, I can remember stuff you can talk about.

Nestor Aparicio  15:32

You can play rat race right now, AC,

John Allen  15:35

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DC, so, yeah, that’s repetition right over the years, right? But, like, I’ve got, I’ve got memories from Holabird and all you know, younger, like when I was really little, but, but still play green me and Lishi, but I can’t, but I can’t make new memories and trying to memorize that stuff. And it was just, and then I had, like, one rehearsal with the with the Ableton as the system that they use. It was just, it was like, Oh my gosh. It was, it was not a complete catastrophe, but it was like, it was a we played a wedding. I filled in for a wedding that they were getting paid really handsomely for, and the groom didn’t matter what I did back there. The groom was gonna hat. He was spending so much money on the band. He was, they had a blast. They were, they were loving it. They having kicks for reception. It was amazing. It was down. There’s a small club near the anthem in DC, okay, on wharf Street, union hall or something.

Nestor Aparicio  16:32

And that’s what I would do if I got rich, I’d hire Van Halen to play my wedding.

John Allen  16:37

They had a blast. So, but, but it was fun. But, yeah, I just did that Rick and Steve. Podcast a couple of weeks ago. Podcast, yeah, and Steve called me out on it, like, you know, I didn’t prepare. Like, like, I should. The sad part was, I really tried to prepare, but it just didn’t. It was like

Nestor Aparicio  16:53

me with algebra. I tried really hard. I

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John Allen  16:55

just did not get in there, you know? I tried Steve, I swear.

Nestor Aparicio  17:00

Well, on the drum side, if Gina were here. Now, by the way, Gina shot, by the way,

John Allen  17:04

speaking of so I started on guitar in fourth grade, and it was, like, slow going, and I just picking the drums up. Was just way more natural to me. You know, watching guys on TV and how they played, and I just, you know, it just, it seemed to kind of come a lot more naturally, at least playing, you know, straight stuff.

Nestor Aparicio  17:26

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In elementary school, you were playing the big the big band thing like that. I always felt bad for the drummers in middle school, because, like, it wasn’t rock, it was, like it was marching band kind of stuff, right, literally, right.

John Allen  17:37

Yeah, one guy and a bass drum, one two xylophone guys on snare precaution, yeah. And I always like, there were a couple favorites that the teacher and in junior high, the band instructor really liked. And there were 12 of us at holliberg. Yeah, there were 12. Every kid wanted to be. John Allen, well, what happened was we had all those schools come in from all over eastern Baltimore County for the gifted, talented program. So we had this, like we were in, like Doherty was a drummer, yeah, Mike Doherty was, I was just with him in Seattle. He plays drums now, yeah, but he was not in the school band. He was not a percussionist. But, you know, and I just always felt like, I’m like, Look, man, I play drum kit. I can play probably better than these other guys. But as far as like reading music and putting up with the band instructor and all that, I was relegated to playing the triangle or or, you know, I’ve really dug playing the timpanis,

Nestor Aparicio  18:34

but I had MB Gordy on this week. I don’t know who that is. Google him. He’s a Marylander from Salisbury. Okay, his sister’s the show. Okay. He’s won two Grammys. Just got nominated again. I had him on for 45 minutes. He is a like a percussionist, percussionist of world beat music. And he talks about all of these instruments I’ve never heard of. He’s out in LA he does a lot of movie soundtrack stuff. He just a wonder. You’re gonna hear it on the air this week. MB, Gordy, I

John Allen  19:03

think we talked about another cost us, yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  19:07

so he came on yesterday. He’s up for Grammy February 1. He’s a Marylander. He went Towson so and he’s wonderful guy, and we he’s a rock and roll guy. He would talk like Peter Gabriel and all that the Trump thing, if Gina were here and I spent 20 minutes with Gina last week at her house. We spent 10 on the phone with Ed Lauer, and the other 10 we spent talking about, you the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Cindy Lauper and I wish she were here, and she’ll come on, but we’re just visiting at her house, and we did a lot of like, I don’t know she and I’ve gotten kind of close over the years. We’re just talking about all sorts of things, and family and this, and house and West Coast and East Coast. And she’s like, Oh, I saw John. John was at the Hall of Fame, and Wendell saw him, and we all saw him. And I’m like, yeah, he showed you. Showed up in the video for Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Or was it time after time? I don’t know what it was. Girls want to have fun. So, yeah, Gina told. Told me the story that she wants to tell the audience that she got recruited into Cyndi lauper’s band because Cindy was trying to do an all girl band. Yeah, and, and she said, When Cindy thought of girl drummer, she thought of me. They called me, and I’m like, Sure, I’ll do it. So now all of a sudden, I gotta rehearse. I gotta learn stuff. She’s like, I didn’t rehearse with the band. I got there, I’m there. It’s a big deal. I’m always nervous because it’s Gina, you know? She’s like, I want to be great. I want it to be great. And she’s like, rehearsed, and then the next day, they’re like, Oh, you got a click track. She’s like, What? Like, I don’t know what that means to a drummer, but like, You’re laughing, yeah. And she’s like, it went, okay. It went great. I’m proud of it. It was great. But, man, it was really hard to learn a song or a thing at this advanced age and go on stage and play it when you have it, it’s like, to your appointment kicks, yeah, no matter what, it’s really hard

John Allen  20:53

well, and playing to a click Live, like, it’s a, you know, you got to learn how to do that over time, I think. And then, like, I mean, if she know what, if you need to do it tonight, right? I mean, that’s amazing that she did that, and I was there, and she was great, yeah, to give you a quick story, like, when the first time in the recording studio, I’d never played to a click ever, and we go up to Sheffield recording studios and 100 bucks an hour, this is a rat race. This is before that first demos we ever recorded, and we had saved for like, a year, you know, it’s like, gonna be 100

Nestor Aparicio  21:24

bucks, and all you news the basement and, like, rehearsing, right? Well, no, we played we played live. We played live. But you didn’t know studio, is what I’m saying, right?

John Allen  21:33

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Yeah, we’d never. And when you record, you know, you got your headphones on, and the mix sounds terrible. It doesn’t give you a vibe, and, and then the engineer goes, you want to play to a click? And I was like, Sure, what the hell? So we play good old rock and roll, good old boys. You know, our opener forever. You know, we start the song off all good, boom, bye, straight beat, right? I’m like, Yeah, I can play to a click, do the verse that into the pre chorus, all sudden, the click is like, Gon, Gon, gon go it’s completely against what I’m doing. I’m like, I had to stop how to play drums. And I’m like, wait a second. I’m like, That click is wrong, man. Because what happens when you learn the song? And like, I was, I guess I was speeding up on that part. I learned it wrong. And the muscle memory was so strong and, like, like, always playing live, it’s the same way, you know. So, like, you know. So then after that, I started playing to a click. As soon as we would start working on a song, I’d play to find the tempo, and I played it I click. So I learned it right from the get, instead of having to go back, like a golf game, really the right way to do it, right, right? So, you know those that was something, you know,

Nestor Aparicio  22:43

I thought he was a long haired hippie in a band, you know, rocking out, chasing girls, doing all that there was, and knowing you even then, and certainly knowing more about money studios, having read all the rock stars books about being broke and record companies and drugs and relationships and girlfriends and Donald Trump’s trying to screw your singer’s girlfriend like true I wrote about it like I I forget how scientific it is and how nerdy y’all are. I mean, Gina and I, Gina shock and I, last year, snuck off this week, a year ago this week, we went to the black crows down at MGM national. Now I’m with Gina, and I don’t know Gina like that. Like, I know Gina, we’re friends, and I didn’t chase the go, Go’s around. Haven’t you seen the documentary? People? Oh, it’s great. No, everybody tell like, everybody loves the documentary. I still

John Allen  23:34

haven’t seen the greatest part is the documentary is going on for like, 10 minutes. And you know, you don’t see Gina yet, because they had a different drummer when they first started, right? And then all sudden, you hear this voice, and you go, that’s Gina. You can hear the, hear the Baltimore accent and everything. Anyway, no,

Nestor Aparicio  23:52

I lost my train of thought. Oh, she’s I lost my documentary. Yeah, I took her down to black crows. We got there early, and it’s at the casino, and I got front row tickets. I mean, it wasn’t anything special. It was just I grabbed front row tickets that were available. And we got down there early, and we were up in the front row, and I’m like, there for, like, black crows, get a beer. She drove so I didn’t, I can have a couple drinks, whatever. And she’s a nerd. She’s up in the front let me see what the kid is. What are they playing? What it was, all technical, everything she wanted to see, yeah, was

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John Allen  24:27

the equipment. You’re saying that’s nerdy.

Nestor Aparicio  24:30

It’s right. Exactly. No regular guy that goes to a concert does that, but a drummer who’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who’s been in a band for 50 years, who’s been all over the world, the first thing musicians see is so much different. It’s like watching football with a football coach, right? They just don’t see it the way you see it, right? And I think that that hearing you talking about click tracks, hearing her talk about click tracks, I have an appreciation. I’ve never drummed. I can’t. Drone black. How different it is when they tell you to play left handed. I get you know what I mean in a different way.

John Allen  25:05

Saw bunny Carlos play left handed. When? When sr 71 when we opened for them in Anaheim, when we were just finished with the second SR record, I was like, What? What he’s playing left handed? I guess he just got bored playing right handed. So he started playing left handed live. How could you you couldn’t do that, right? I could, if I had, you know, if I felt like it had had time to do it, yeah, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  25:31

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Well, you can keep beat because it’s in your you got a clock in your soul, right?

John Allen  25:35

Yeah, I wouldn’t be easy to learn. I think, I think I would need a few months, but, you know, but what

Nestor Aparicio  25:42

comes easy and what comes hard? Because I would say, by the way, John Allen is here, where the cost, I would say, when things come hard, this is one of the reasons I’ve gotten to this AI thing I’m trying to get you and everybody I know who’s really a, I mean, you’re a solopreneur, you run a band. I mean, you know, it’s a small business. You know, no matter what it is, there’s so many things, especially with music and things, that you can create as a creator,

John Allen  26:02

and producers are using it as a tool already, to quite an extent.

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Nestor Aparicio  26:07

It’s a fantastic tool that can be but it’s also like things that are hard, math for me, not math, but like algebra, I had a quantum physics personally.

John Allen  26:19

So that’s what to me. What songwriting is. It’s like trying to find that. It’s like beautiful mind, or, you know, Albert Einstein, trying to find that the right formula, trying to find that, like, you know, I’ll, I’ll work on a chorus forever, you know, I’ve come up with a song idea, and I’m like, Yes, this is right. I’ve got the verse, I’ve got the pre chorus, and then I write a course, and it’s like, I listen to it, and I go, it’s not right yet. It’s not quite right. And I got to get it to my Tom shows that for years back in the 80s. Yeah. So it’s kind of, it’s like a math problem, and you’re trying to figure that out. So, yeah. So a tool that could help get you over that hump, I think, I think would be great just for an experiment, my guitar player, stone horses. He went on one of the songwriting things, and he plugged in, like, what he what he wanted, and the song was actually kind of cool. Lyrically, it was not great, you know, I have a really hard to fix it, but, but, but musically, it was really, it was kind of like, right, yeah, this is kind of, well, the

Nestor Aparicio  27:20

reason I’m talking so much about it is I’ve become immersed in the last five or six weeks. It’s never going to go away. No, it’s sort of like texting or the internet or, you know, anything that came into your life that’s just not going to go backwards. And it’s not going to matter if it’s gonna be matter when. And I would just say to anybody out there that’s really smart, whenever you discover this, you’re gonna feel like a fool for not picking it up right six months ago, a year earlier, because it’s given me time back. It’s given me energy back. Dude, I would tell you, as you’re really creative, dude, it will inspire you in some kind of way to open your mind, to know how you want to use it, or how you don’t want to use it, or how you feel like, ethically, like I’ve told, I told Max Weiss last week, Editor in Chief pub mag, and said, Listen, Oh, I love her, Luke and I you love Max.

John Allen  28:09

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Yeah, she, she, she did a piece years ago on us, when we were, I guess, at war with Susie mud, with Maryland music. Yeah, I think, yeah. I think it was Mac. So I told Max last right? She wrote for City Paper right back in the day.

Nestor Aparicio  28:24

The money max. So I told her that Luke and I can do post game radio Monday morning off of the New England game, right? Okay, so Sunday, watch a game Monday morning. We’ll get up to three pieces, 3040, minutes. You all know we do a bumper positive right now on YouTube, whatever. If I take those transcripts and I throw it into AI and say, write a column for me based on what I think, right? And I wrote to Luke last week. I haven’t published any of this. I’ve just been it’s in my chat, but I could copy and paste it and launch it up, and you would read it, and maybe I’d make a tweak or three fix the lead, right? Yeah, it takes himself out. That sounds like not like me, but it’s mostly like me. I admitted to Luke last Monday, it wrote a column off the game last week the Pittsburgh loss that was better than anything that I could write. It was funnier than me. I was pissed. I said to Luke, I’m like, this thing writes better than me. It’s effing pissing me off. You know? I’m like, it’s not, and it does

John Allen  29:21

it well. We both had Mr. Pizzeric for seventh grade English, and he spent the first half of the year of just playing guitar and singing parody songs. There was, there’s a little hole. And I think both yours and my, my, our English are writing probably,

Nestor Aparicio  29:41

I would just say, kick the tires on it, because there’s no wrong answers on the AI thing. And I think from your creative side, whenever you jump into it, because your daughters get you knew it your wife, maybe you take a plunge because of me, whenever you do it, March, April, next year, you’re just gonna come. Moment where you’re gonna be texting me at three in the morning with this aha, because it’s you are your hair is gonna be a fire. You’d be like, Oh my god, I can’t believe I know why you were so crazy.

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John Allen  30:10

Some AI company that I’m just telling

Nestor Aparicio  30:13

but when I talk to people about it early on, it really they do look at me like, my son’s here when I told him about, AI looks at me like, you know, that’s theft. That’s That’s fake, that’s not real.

John Allen  30:27

I’ll let him tell, but it’s not going anywhere. So it’s not going anywhere. That’s the problem. She’s got to, you know, you got to use it, yeah. So I was watching your, your your, you know, your cast, this morning, and talking. I just want to speak to one thing that you you didn’t say that, that that is he’s mad at the big overriding thing. No, no, I’m not mad at you. But what you’re saying about what not you know, you don’t know what the real story is with with weather. Oh, horrible, yeah. Oh, you’re so football. So here’s the problem. You’re really mad. No, no. So here. So here’s the problem with that. Like, if you know, if you doubt, you know what the truth? If he told the truth or lied a

Nestor Aparicio  31:06

8

lot, I’m from Dundalk, you know, I had family a lot. Like, I just don’t trust people. You don’t

John Allen  31:11

know what, even if it is the truth, you don’t know if it’s the truth anymore. Like the jobs report, like the inflation report, supposedly, Epstein files. Like, like, we don’t know now, cuz, like, hey, you know it can’t be known. You bit, you’ve been lied to so often that you know. How do you know? I don’t know. I don’t know either. I’m curious.

Nestor Aparicio  31:34

How can you have to you ever had a flu on Wednesday? Yeah, no, you don’t play on Thursday.

John Allen  31:39

But But what is the definition of flu? Is that vomiting? And, you know, maybe the is it stomach? Is it is, or is it just like me

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Nestor Aparicio  31:47

flu to me, if to have the flu or to tell someone, and I would tell people, I don’t know that I’ve ever had the flu, like, when I think about, like, I mean people die from, I mean, in bed, five days, pooping, peeing, throwing up, can’t move head, fever, can’t even watch television, you know, I mean, like, that’s the flu to me. Yeah, I’ve been that sick a handful of times, maybe not in the last 15 years. It’s one of the reasons I don’t shake people’s hands and a freak that pisses them off. But I’m like, I’ve been sick in 12 years. I sort of like that gig, but the flu, to me, is, yeah, bad, yeah. You know, it’s not a cold. It’s not, yeah, I had to trots last night, stay home, see how we feel. It’s right. I can’t get out of bed. That’s the flu. Is I cannot function. That’s the flu, right, right, right. I mean, that’s the way I would

John Allen  32:37

maybe they misspoke,

Nestor Aparicio  32:41

intention, intention. Intentionally. John Allen’s here. He’s a football fan, he’s a drummer, he’s a singer and rock pub. So plug your new thing. Because I was fortunate on said trip to Hagerstown, where I found that the ED Lauer needed heart transplant. And we love you, Ed, and glad you’re doing well. We were all worried, like crazy about you, still worried about you, but, but nonetheless, that night, on the way home, you have your little Tonka toy car that the Nazi guy owns a company. But I won’t get into that. Oh yeah.

John Allen  33:12

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So before we bought it, before we know the back now I don’t, I don’t have

Nestor Aparicio  33:18

it, I bought the car the guy threw my friend off Twitter because for being a journalist, nonetheless, the guy with the chainsaw and the Nazi, yeah, like the whole thing. So you put a song on for me, and like you, you tested my ears. And that’s true love to me from our friendship, that you wanted me to hear your music before, like, maybe even your wife heard it, so she’s probably worn out on you. Yeah, she’s Yeah. She don’t want to hear she does. She has no she has as much opinion on your music as my wife has on my columns, my Lamar Jackson opinion.

John Allen  33:49

Well, what I was, what I was telling you, actually, is it’s a weird thing with with me, like when I play my, you know, ideas or new song, you apologize six times good as you wanted to know for no for other people, especially people like, I mean, you were a music critic, right? So it actually, the weird thing is, it actually allows me to hear it from another perspective, because I get so inside, you know, you’re so inside the song, or at least I am, when I’m writing it that you know, and you you you think you know, like, how good it can be. And you’re trying to realize that you lose all perspective. At least I do. And then when I play it for people, I’ll sit there, and sometimes I’ll go, oh, wow, yeah, this is not as good as I I thought it was, we

Nestor Aparicio  34:41

were in the dark, in the car 70. I was afraid you were, like, looking at me to see how I know, yeah, like, like, it’s more about my reaction, like a test movie to see if I’m laughing, smiling, emoting it, dancing, tapping my toe,

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John Allen  34:54

like I’m saying. It’s more about, like, how I feel about it when I play it for other people and and I’m happy. To say that I’ve still felt like it was

Nestor Aparicio  35:01

pretty good. You’re close to releasing this single that, yeah, no one else has heard.

John Allen  35:06

Yeah, it’s the mixer. Once he finishes it, it’ll go into the Virgin Music pipeline, which will get it up to Spotify Apple Music all the all the platforms. And that should be like, end of February takes, like, six to eight weeks for them to do all the things that they do and submit it to playlisters and all

Nestor Aparicio  35:24

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that stuff. The song is done as you song is done, yeah? Oh, I’d love to hear that song is done. And what are we gonna debut it on W NST and am radio, baby, yeah? But yeah,

John Allen  35:33

so I got I could play sounds better once. But yeah, so, so, yeah, that once this song comes out in late February, hopefully we’ll have a tour. I can tell you about them.

Nestor Aparicio  35:47

See, Betty vodka makes my show better. I’m just, that’s a shout out to Dave hawk. Run nice. Are they local? My friends? Okay, David’s right now. I’m just saying, cool. I’m something to lose. All right. With you nice. I’m just being funny to the end of the show. It’s Christmas. What’s the name of the song? And Mike scheck Dundalk, we love you. Say hello to your mom. His mom was my substitute teacher. Yours too, Michelle. She was a Calvin stadium, some piano thing, by the way, Calvin Stadium was here for an hour earlier. He’s 85 years old, and I said something to him, and it’s our link. I mean, we like the ravens, and we grew up in the neighborhood together, but our, you know, our thing was always we didn’t roller skate together. We were music guys together, right? So, like the music thing, and I said to him that in seventh grade, he gave me a gift, singing out loud with other people in a choir and encouraging me that I was a good singer, that he wanted me on the front line. You know what I mean?

John Allen  36:41

Wasn’t because you’re short. They put the short people up front. No, I

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Nestor Aparicio  36:43

was just the boys. Voice hadn’t changed yet. So I could go, you know, hyper

John Allen  36:47

Texas, prana, prana, yeah, so yeah, like Vienna choir.

Nestor Aparicio  36:52

I just remember sentimental journey. I want to go home. So I said to him that music is the most pure thing in my life. To this day, to this minute, to you being here. To me wanting to go see triumph next year, to me missing Gina Schock here to singing songs with Ed Lauer, who plays with your drummer and Jason. And just music like I’ve privately invited John on a weird international sojourn in March that’s music related. And when I look to travel now, it’s not I want to go to the Ravens game in Green Bay next week. It’s I want to go see the bodines in Madison.

John Allen  37:27

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Is it rock and Rio? Is that? No, no, no.

Nestor Aparicio  37:31

ACDC is torn South America, yeah. And Brian Adams is towards South America at the same time, and they’re kind of conflicting in a couple of cities, yeah, that I’ve never been to. So and

John Allen  37:40

you want to go down to South America, even though we’re probably going to be bombing them, we’re not bombing anything.

Nestor Aparicio  37:46

Ass wipes. Going to be under a prison. I can’t like can’t live without believing that. I can’t believe that that’s

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John Allen  37:54

all. It ain’t happening. But okay,

Nestor Aparicio  37:57

I want to live long enough to see it. Okay? You think the Trump family is just gonna run the country for the next 50 years. Is that really your daughter? I hope your daughters don’t believe

John Allen  38:05

that. I don’t know, man,

Nestor Aparicio  38:07

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I don’t know anymore. I really don’t know. I don’t know. I fell asleep early on Wednesday night. I feel blessed for that.

John Allen  38:14

Oh yeah, yeah. I don’t know what I was doing. What’s the football I had no idea.

Nestor Aparicio  38:18

All right, so any band. I mean, you guys played out in Hagerstown on Black Friday.

John Allen  38:23

Yeah, we may have a child’s play show. A couple of, like, weird things you open for STP, right? They did.

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Nestor Aparicio  38:29

Yeah, that

John Allen  38:32

was great. Guys were awesome. If you haven’t seen STP in a while, go see him. They’re great. New singer. New singer sounds just like Scott. He moves around just like Scott. He remembers the word so, but that’s the only difference.

Nestor Aparicio  38:46

So since the last time you and I got together, I got to ask Eddie Vedder question. Oh, yeah. Internet, no, really, I went out to Cameron Crowe to the to the Cameron crow Eddie Vedder thing. It’s I invited you that, and I saw Robert Plant. Was unbelievable. I could have made that trip and I saw Pat penitarian.

John Allen  39:02

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Have you read the Cameron Crowe book? I have not. It’s right, because you don’t read

Nestor Aparicio  39:08

I don’t read new books. I just write them. No, I haven’t read it. I’m still reading Getty Lee’s book, nice, and now they’re going out on tour. I don’t know to me, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2026 for me, with my business for your band and your new single, and Ed Lauer’s heart, and the fact that rush is touring and triumphs touring next year, and the World Cups coming to America, even though they’re corrupt sobs, and I don’t know I’m I’m bullish on Pete. Alonso, yeah, maybe you and I go to an Oreo game next year.

John Allen  39:38

What do you think sounds good? I mean, Ed’s a huge Orioles fan. He’s always there.

Nestor Aparicio  39:42

Jay told me that he has a target night in June. Yeah, that is the night he wants to go to a game, as doctors have told him, six months there’s a night in June on the Oriole calendar that Ed is targeted is that is the North Star. For him to stay alive, stay safe. Ed Lauer, our dear friend that that Oreo game. So I would think I’m in that night, whatever night that is, I’m in. You’re in, yeah, hell yeah, I’m in. All right. Ed, we love you. We hope you’re getting better. And Jay, sorry you couldn’t be here. Gina shock was going to be here. Couldn’t be here. I brought she’s got great stories, because her band played shows this year. They played Coachella twice,

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John Allen  40:23

so we haven’t talked about Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So she, you know, she’s up there.

Nestor Aparicio  40:29

Now, what were you doing there? Give your story, because it involves Child’s Play and Phil, right,

John Allen  40:33

like, right? So the the original bass player, Phil Weiser, from Child’s Play, he was still

Nestor Aparicio  40:38

8

in your band. He goes back and plays with you, right?

John Allen  40:40

He, he, he actually sits on the board for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I, Aaron, and I got the invite a couple years back. We went. Actually, the year the go, Go’s were inducted. So it was great to see, see Gina then, and whatever, but I didn’t get to meet her or talk to her or anything. That was that came from your radio interview, actually, but yeah, this time it was me, the wife, Nick and Phil so East Baltimore, East Baltimore, we were there in force to cheer our girl on. Man, we were screaming. I was Gene I was screaming, Don dog’s in the house we love you just

Nestor Aparicio  41:27

want to have fun. The boys want to have fun too. That was killer. I went to one Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. It was at Barclays. It was the year that Def Leppard the cure, Stevie Nicks did stop dragging my heart around with the British heart drop guy. And she did leather and lace with Don Henley to start the show. Okay, but it started at seven o’clock and it ended at 130 in the morning with a really, really, such an awful version of all the young dudes that I don’t I think it’s been scrubbed from the internet. I mean, it was horrible. It was Def Leppard and Ian Hunter and I didn’t know what the hell it was. One of the worst things I’ve ever seen. To your position at the end to your point, bands that don’t rehearse parts, guitars that weren’t even plugged I don’t know what was going on, but it was horrible, but the cure was so good that night. Yeah, it was, they were they, I’m a cure fan because of Doug Bennett and, you know, and we had a talking about friendship with Doug. Doug loved the cure. I introduced him to the cure backstage at the Patriot center 40 years ago when I had an interview with the drummer of the band at the time

John Allen  42:46

to give you guys background, Doug Bennett was in my homeroom. He gave me a cassette of Metallica’s first record and and the band Raven first record when when we were younger. And so he was a music head like he, he,

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Nestor Aparicio  43:01

he was my roommate when I was a music critic in the 80s on Kane street. So the all the record companies would send boxes. Then there were still albums, some CDs. If there was a rich band, the band had money behind. They had a CD, Charles, but I got the album. Chrysalis, no, but, but you were in that tender period where not everybody was getting a CD at that period of time. Doug would intercept my he was original porch pirate. He was my roommate. He would go, I’d be away during the day or sleep, and he would just meet the mailman and rip open all the boxes, and I come downstairs, and he’d be sitting down there drinking a beer, listening to amusing with his feet up. Hey, I got the new def. Leppard al man, this thing’s unbelievable. He told me he listened to pour some sugar, thinking adrenaline hysteria. He got hysteria, and it did come on an album. Believe it or not, when hysteria came was

John Allen  43:56

an album that’s if you have money behind it. They did both.

Nestor Aparicio  43:59

Doug loved vinyl. Doug was a vinyl head. He would we lost Doug about 15 years ago. If Doug were here, he would love that. I walked into the target yesterday. They had vinyl. It’s crazy. Who the hell has a turn? You have a turntable? I do all right, bring my albums to your house because I don’t have one. I’m a radio station. Don’t have a turntable, but Doug put that album on, and I’ll never forget this. He never stopped playing. He played it for four straight days. He said every song on this album is going to be a hit. Every song is going to be a hit, pretty much, right? Three years later, yeah, he was right.

John Allen  44:38

8

How many singles deep they went on that dude’s got one arm, and

Nestor Aparicio  44:42

he’s been he’s playing the drums. I mean, it was on earth, but Doug Bennett was a cure guy, and that night at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was with my friend Julio Bermejo, who dragged me. And he was like, I want to go. I’m like, I’ll go with you. I’m fine. We’ll do it. The cure was so good that I’ll never not see them again. I saw their concert last. Week, the night that Calvin did his thing, I went over to Rundle mills and sat in the theater. By the way, theater concerts got to get better. Would you agree with that? Yeah, the sound the we’re talking, AI, we’re talking like, to me, the immersive experience of going to a theater and seeing, let’s say you choose rattling, hum. I’m just naming a movie Elvis is 68 cup. Pick anything you want the band, right? Whatever the movie is, Woodstock immersing in that with some sort of AI HD sound in an immersive thing. To me, that’s going to be the next thing. It’s not going to be you shaking your ass in a Jon Bon Jovi cover band, because you look a little bit like him, and could sing him and do a cover band thing, right? Him and do a cover band thing, right? Like cover bands are big now, right? Tribute bands are tribute bands are making a lot of money in a big way. But I do think once we figure out the technology going to the theater, I got invited last week to go see the stones at the max. They put the movie back out. The Cure did a movie last week. The Pesh mode did their movie last month. They’re not movies or concerts. They’re concerts in a theater. Well, I think I just, when I go, I think to myself, this could be better. It could be louder, it could be so.

John Allen  46:11

It depends on the theater and it depends on their sound system. I think that, like, like, when Led Zeppelin released song, remains the same. I know that in New York, when it, when it debuted, Jimmy Page went in to the theater, and he made sure, in the 70s, right? Okay, they made this in that, I think that book that I always tout, that he made sure there were extra, like speakers in there, and they this, and he made sure the system was tuned right. So, you know, there, there’s theaters out there that they’re having these, these concert films, and they just aren’t equipped, you know? So to a large

Nestor Aparicio  46:48

it just comes up short. And I wish it didn’t, because I want that bad leg Well, I want every concert I’ve ever seen that’s ever been bootlegged to be fixed up a little bit. Now, I could do it in my basement, and I’m going to my son, Hey, Barry, you buy me a Christmas gift. I got an idea for a Christmas gift because he’s technical, right? I just want to, like, have a screen on the wall and watch Tom Petty, you know what I mean, and like, feel it for half an hour, hour on a snowy night, whatever, whatever I want. I think that’s the next thing for me, it’s not movie. It’s not sports and HD or stop and start or whatever, I think for the rest of my life, the movie, the movie music thing, gotta have some has to be made better. It can be made to be awesome, if, like, with the glasses and the VR thing and all of that. I think, I just think it could be made great and better than the original to some degree that if they were to bring out, I think maybe more modern videos, like that stones thinks 25 years old. It was shot in IMAX.

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John Allen  47:51

Is this the max Garcia?

Nestor Aparicio  47:54

No, that was the one that was shot in the club. This is the one that they played down at the the IMAX at the from the 90s. I mean, it’s like, it’s, it’s 30 years old, but they brought it back out because the stones, but the stones have shot a million HD everything since then. I would think that some master mixtures could go in, bring that thing out, yeah, bring some speakers into a thing and and make it more like going to see the stones. And you saw they canceled their European tour, right? Yeah. I mean, he’s 82 years old, maybe, like, I don’t know what more we’re gonna do. This is my plea to you to say even kicks, yeah. I mean, even bands like crack the sky could bring back the best video of their best era and make it something that would be better than going to see a 75 year old version of Steve Whiteman, by his own admission, right? That he wouldn’t want to do that,

John Allen  48:44

you know? Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, but with child’s play, like we’re probably going to do a show in at the end of the spring, probably maybe out in Columbia somewhere. So, okay, we’re talking to some places to see is that twice a year you’re thinking about doing, yeah, we’d like to, I think, and you’re not doing them three or you don’t know, not doing them, not doing one day this year, and they, they didn’t want to repeat bands. This is the word that the last two years, right? Yeah, three. I think we played the last three years, plus we did the kicks farewell show there. So it’s like, give somebody else a shot at it. And you

Nestor Aparicio  49:20

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know, I was there for you, man, I know it meant a lot to you. Meant a lot to the guys in the band,

John Allen  49:27

three finally be recognized, yeah, for to, you know, to go out there and play, I mean, and the kick show, of course, there were a lot of, you know, a lot of bands on the on those bills that you know, had wrecked. I mean, we had a record deal, you know, in the same era, and probably in this marketplace, we were bigger than than a lot of those bands that were on the undercard right? So to, you know, finally be able to apply those boards again. You know, I played there with sr 71 years ago, but, but to play those, those venues, I’ve played pretty much every. Big venue in the area, except for the grand old lady Baltimore Civic Center you’ve never played. Yeah, I want to. I want to play that place before, before it goes away or I go away, you know.

Nestor Aparicio  50:11

So I’m gonna try to bake that up. Frank, get on that book Child’s Play down there one night, well, or stone horses. But, um, I would just say I’m really and I’ll leave it this, by the way, John Alex here, we’re Casas. We’re wrapping things up for the Maryland lottery, Candy Cane cash. I’ll have these on Friday. We’re gonna be at gertrude’s. Monday, we’re gonna be at the Planet Fitness and Timonium. I just want to say this to you as

John Allen  50:32

you’re thrilling me. I cannot remember that that teacher’s name, and it was the same last name. It was, it wasn’t Pecora. It was, it was,

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Nestor Aparicio  50:41

you’ll come up with it. It’s okay. He’s been 45 minutes. He’ll text us. To me at three in the morning. I’m about to compliment you because I went to see child’s play. And I always screw this up because I give five different band names. I haven’t said sr 71 I haven’t said sharp city

John Allen  50:56

devils yet. No, you haven’t said fury yet.

Nestor Aparicio  50:59

Either. You weren’t even inferior, right, right? You got it catching on. I was so impressed by your record theater, and I’ve seen you in your barefoot for Brian and your whites and your m3 and your kicks and up. And you know, I try to leave you alone as your buddy on those nights and let the fans have at you and all that. But I thought your record show a couple months ago, yeah, with Nick’s boy in the band and Phil back, and I love you. It’s, I hope you’re doing okay. I just thought it was great. And I thought it was, you asked me, because I videoed it, and you were a little like, how do we sound? Well, you know, because you never know, up there, you’re up there. You’re in the moment. And I shot the video, good old boys, and I put it up, and everybody went wild for it. And the thing I would say to you is, like, I’m so proud of that band, and you carrying on in Brian’s absence. But more than that, you’re singing, you’re in front of the band. But like, if anybody was there, your daughters, anybody else’s sons or daughters that weren’t at hammer Jack’s or it wherever, gators, wherever, network, we played Seagull, Seagull and wherever, whatever, whatever it was, coast to coast, that they would look at this. And I thought to myself that night, I’m watching you and like, you’re not my friend anymore. You’re just like a band, and I’m familiar with the music. I’m singing some of the songs my pile, you know, all that stuff. And I’m like my wife asked, ask how you guys work, because I went home, she wasn’t feeling great that night, and I said, they feel like a band. They feel like they’re gonna go do that in Richmond tomorrow and Winston Salem on Friday, like that’s the highest compliment I can pay you, is you get together. You shake your ass in this band that’s 40 years old. Your singer’s dead. You put it together. You got another band. Everybody in the gigs, got a different gig. You come back together. Nick’s got a life, you got a life. Phil’s got a great life, and you put it together on the stage that night, and it’s not seamless, because Brian’s missing. So I don’t feel that, but I feel like this is your real gig. This is your band, not that it’s a reunion gig. And you put it together one night, you’re going through the motions, or you’re just on adrenaline. It feels like it felt professional to me. So I don’t know whatever that means at this point your life, that you pull this off and it’s not muscle memory when it’s not muscle memory anymore, because I don’t think it’s muscle memory for I think it’s work to put the band back together and to try to get it sounding good, have Nick’s son in the band and make it as good as it ever was, because it’s so important to you. When you’re there, all your friends are there. Everybody’s there. You got one it’s like a Kentucky Derby. Get one chance a year or two chances a year to do it. I know how important it is to you, and I told you the day after, I’m like, Dude, you look like a touring band. I don’t know how I could pay a higher compliment than that, that it looks like an outfit, not a gig.

John Allen  53:40

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Does that make sense? Yeah? I mean, you know, one of the biggest factors I gotta say, I gotta give him props, is Nick’s son, Mick. He’s, he’s a lead singer in his own right, and a good guitar player, great guitar player, but like, Nick

Nestor Aparicio  53:58

can play, man, yeah, I forget how good nick is, every time I see you guys play no offense to you doing the Brian part. Nick blows me away, because I know he doesn’t do this. You know what? I mean, like, get you like, picking up the guitar again for him, and learning the parts and doing all that. He’s a freaking rock star. I mean, like, he’s really, really good. And I I forget how good he is until I see you guys. So that’s for Nick, but that’s just the way I really feel.

John Allen  54:21

I mean, everybody just did such a great job up there. I mean, but, yeah, we put rehearsals in, you know, and it’s obvious, it’s a little tough, you know, sometimes, like, you know, I got sick at one point and I couldn’t be there for some of them, so we didn’t have as many, or I didn’t have as many as we would have liked. But three songs, dude, you’re doing like a no. And that’s the other thing, is that, like, those Brian songs are hard, man, like, had a great voice, he had a great range, and

Nestor Aparicio  54:50

you’re laying out when you’re, you know, you’re being Brian, you’re laying out.

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John Allen  54:53

It’s not, it’s not easy stuff, just, you know, to sing and, yeah, and you know, we’re not. We’re not getting any younger, you know? So, yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna continue to do early nights. We even, you know, we’re gonna, my wife says, Man, she’s like, How late are you playing till tonight? Like, well, drive yourself home. Oh, my God. Like, you know, when will you have a gig where it’s like, Oh, you got to go on 1111, o’clock. What Eastern Time, back in the days like man, like what we’re not going on before midnight. What are you talking about? You know, those days are long gone.

Nestor Aparicio  55:33

Nestor, all right, there’s few people I love more than John Allen. He is the lead singer of stone horses, as well as the occasional put her together, backer of Charm City devils, and sometimes even sits in with Gina shock and a house of shock. We hope to get Gina back on to talk about her band getting together last year and the amazing turn she did at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with John in attendance, with his band, which was pretty awesome, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, if you check it out.

John Allen  55:57

Previous Mr. Priebus, that was my, that was my my band teacher,

Nestor Aparicio  56:08

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Mr. Daughter law gets we are here at Costas. Mr. Costas is smiling at us right here, looking at us as part of our set. We’re in Dundalk. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery candy cane cash for you. That’s a scented ticket. All right. I smell like Santa Claus, you know, when I open the Oh, yeah. Well, you smell here. The whole thing. When you scratch it, it smells more apparently, I thought, and this is no offense, and I’m gonna take us up with John Martin next week at Christmas. I thought it smelled a little bit like peppermint floss when I pulled it out of the bag, but I think it, it’s taking a little bit more of a Santa scent to me candy cane cash. I’m at Costas. I will be at Gertrude on Friday, Monday, we will be a planet fitness in Timonium. I was gonna invite my son on the show. You don’t he’s shaking me off. That’s all right. Only hair that’s better than mine in the family. Yeah? Is his, yeah, yeah. All right, is it pink or purple?

John Allen  57:06

Is fuchsia pink? Yeah, fuchsia.

Nestor Aparicio  57:10

It looks like magenta. Can I go with magenta? All right, I’m just trying to get one of the crayons from the Crayola. Thing is what I’m trying to do. My son’s here, and I love him so much. I’m gonna go eat some crab cakes with the weird Costas for signing off on behalf of John on behalf of Calvin, state of George, Shulman. Did you have Shulman for science?

John Allen  57:26

I did not. I didn’t either. I had Mr. Fantasie twice, who was his best friend, by the way, so we that’s why I wanted to get here early to talk to Sean.

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Nestor Aparicio  57:35

Told the best stories about Fantasia on the air today. Oh yeah, crazy Fantasia. Yeah, absolutely.

John Allen  57:39

He kicked me one time so hard. Mr.

Speaker 1  57:43

Fantasy, he must have pissed at you. Yeah, he,

John Allen  57:47

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he wasn’t the, he wasn’t the first teacher to kick me, actually. So I must have been a real little asshole,

Speaker 1  57:53

but you grew up, all right.

John Allen  57:55

John Allen, rock star, everybody needs their ass kicked. Everyone Absolutely.

Nestor Aparicio  57:59

I had my ass kicked by GBMC. Last month, I had my colonoscopy. They found a pre cancerous polyp. This is my holiday. Do you have your colonoscopy? Two of them. Okay, I’m one in I’m good for a little while here, but I had a precancerous polyp removed. May save my life. That’s why. PSA to everybody out there for GBMC. I i actually have a doctor’s appointment, a real one, like a checkup in March.

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John Allen  58:21

Yeah, yeah, first one this century. You don’t generally do that.

Nestor Aparicio  58:26

My wife’s been to enough doctors. I’m such a lousy patient. The day I had my colonoscopy, my wife came in at the end of the day, after all the anesthesia wore off, and she handed me a picture of my rectum, literally. She literally handed it to me, and she said, You weren’t easy today. Dude. She said way worse than that, but she’s like, you weren’t easy today. You know,

John Allen  58:45

What day are you easy?

Nestor Aparicio  58:51

Can I have you answer all of her All right, I gotta go eat some ham and some turkey and some french fries. We’re at Costas. I love John. He endures me. We’re back for more. It’s Baltimore, positive. Stay with us.