The Mindbuzz
The Mindbuzz is a pragmatic conversation that explores culture and society. An archive of interesting stories from today's creatives with a high range of commentary from artists, entrepreneurs, activists, podcasters, and people just like you!
The Mindbuzz
MB:199 with Octavio F. G. Exploring the Intersections of Music, Comedy, and Culture
https://linktr.ee/OctavioF.G
Get ready for an exhilarating journey deep into the realms of music, comedy, and culture, as we invite Octavio into the Mind Buzz universe. We've got a lot to unpack, starting with our latest endeavors - from the captivating performances at the Artist in the Alley event to the zany shenanigans at the Monday Night Goofball Open Mic at First Amendment Pizza Joint. Excitingly, we're also turning our website into a mecca for open mics - a platform for comedians, musicians, and poets to showcase their talent!
As we wander through Octavio's life, we discuss his cross-country touring experiences, his move to LA, and the stark contrasts between California and other states. Notably, we touch upon the rising rent costs in California and delve into the unique scenario enveloping the fentanyl situation in Vancouver, Canada. We weigh in on Vancouver's approach to the Control Drugs and Substances Act, its significant impact on the city's culture and population, and draw parallels with LA.
We then turn the spotlight on my own personal journey into the music world. From my introduction to the guitar during my college days to my transition into a music career, I share my story. Octavio and I delve into the importance of live performances in personal growth, the courage it takes to get on stage, and the influence of the environment on performance. As we wrap up, we dissect the process of writing and testing comedy sets, sharing our top five comedy rules amidst the West Coast Pop-Lock Podcast Comedy Competition. So, tune in for a whirlwind of insightful discussions, amusing anecdotes, and engaging dialogue!
My Grito Industries
mygrito.net
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See you on the next one!
"King without a Throne" is performed by Bad Hombres
King without a Throne Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNhxTYU8kUs
King without a Throne
https://open.spotify.com/track/7tdoz0W9gr3ubetdW4ThZ8?si=9a95947f58bf416e
I think we're going live now. Boom, what is up? Mind Buzz Universe. Amber just got into the studio. It's her first day to switch the cameras. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mind Buzz podcast, where we talk to all your favorite artists, your favorite podcasters, your favorite musicians and your favorite comedians. My name is Gil, and working behind the scenes with the ones two's, three's, four's and sometimes fives and six's is Amber. What's going on?
Speaker 2:How are?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. I don't think we have a my Grito weekly.
Speaker 2:We don't.
Speaker 1:No, so I know right, I guess we don't have. So we don't know what's going on in my Grito this week.
Speaker 2:We're kidding. We're kidding. Everyone deserves a break sometime.
Speaker 1:I guess, I guess, but if you're like me and Amber, there's no rest for the wicked right, amber. Yeah, so we had a couple of things going on over the past couple of days. Was it Friday? So last Friday we had one of our friends from the show Harry Katz and the Pistachios.
Speaker 2:It was on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Was it Saturday? Yes, saturday or Friday?
Speaker 2:Saturday.
Speaker 1:Okay, it was Saturday. They did Artist in the Alley right here in downtown Pomona and it was freaking cool. It was our first time out there.
Speaker 2:It was awesome that was really cool, it was fun.
Speaker 1:It was literally in an alley. The backdrop was super cool. I was able to hold one of those oh yes signs, so I was pretty fulfilled.
Speaker 2:You fulfilled your I don't know my Harry.
Speaker 1:Katz Fantasy, Fantasy, if we want to say it.
Speaker 2:But that's the band's name, not his love for Harry Katz.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but other than that, last night we hung out at First Amendment Pizza Joint for the Monday Night Goofball, which I did a spot there. Thank you, Gilberto Gibi Lopez for that and it was pretty cool. He does this open mic once a week, every Monday. It's completely free. Sign up, start at 6.30 PM every Monday night, hosted by Gibi Lopez, the First Amendment a pizza joint, and I wanted to give a quick shout out to all the comics that came out and did a spot. It was Kyle Patterson seven. He wrote I don't know if that's the name of the person.
Speaker 2:I think it was seven seven.
Speaker 1:Okay, seven, seven. Darby Cash, Owen Parker, nick Lanny, andrew Moncaio, sean Dolan, leo Vinne Vega and Johnny Gold met all you guys out there. Great set, good stuff Last night, and we were just talking about how there's no hub for open mics for comedians, for musicians, for poets. There's no, there's nothing like that. So me and Amber are going to get our brains together and hopefully we can come up with something to use on the mindbuzzorg website. You know, what do you think?
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cool. Well, from that anything else after that Great pizza.
Speaker 2:What are you doing tonight? Huh, I said, what are you doing tonight?
Speaker 1:What am I doing tonight? Oh yeah, Good segue. Tonight is the finals for the soy funny competition. I had no clue that we're doing a competition.
Speaker 2:You're just going there.
Speaker 1:I was just going out there to hang out with some cool peeps and hopefully get a spot for the the upcoming Sir Joe says Hola, amber and Gil.
Speaker 1:We're not going to pay attention to the chat today. We just not. But anyways, we got. The West Coast Pop Lock podcast presents the soy funny live stream comedy event with who's a and Sergio El Checo. That's going down tonight, so I put the link in our link tree. Eight starts at 8pm. Hopefully these guys will have everything ready by 8pm. It should be good. Those guys at the West Coast Pop Lock podcast, you guys are members of the migratio family, so it's really cool. So I put the link down in the show description. You're going to see live comedy from about like six comics, including myself, so should be a good time. Sergio says you wanted comedy. You got comedy. Check out the West Coast Pop Lock podcast starts tonight, 8pm. The link is in the show description. All right, so without further ado, let's get into our guest for this evening and today Octavio FG. What is up, my dude?
Speaker 3:Thanks for coming out. I did, man, I did, I made it. I'm self related here. You know the tens on fire.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, I saw that.
Speaker 3:So that's all messed up. So what's going on with that? Apparently, I guess I don't know what I've been reading is that's arson. I think they said it's arson. That's what they said, what? But apparently it's a palette factory, so a bunch of wood just stacked up caught on fire and I mean the base. It like started melting the concrete and steel and that bridge. So they shut it.
Speaker 1:Usually it's something like really dumb, but when was it Universal Studios that caught on fire their archives? It was like something dumb, like somebody.
Speaker 3:Oh, you mean how it started? How it started, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm pretty sure something I mean probably one employee out there was. No, he was getting canned and he knew it was coming in.
Speaker 2:You wanted a couple of days off.
Speaker 1:You wanted a couple of days off from the palette factory, like a cigarette on a mattress.
Speaker 3:I don't know something like that, Straight up like 1950s style housewife.
Speaker 2:He just walked away and threw it. That's how I imagine it.
Speaker 1:No, but that's wild, so it's still going on.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no, it's done now, but it's just all the cleanup and aftermath of all that. It peeled, it burned the concrete off of the post, Geez. So they can't let cars on it. They don't know if it's you know what I mean? It could fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So they got to rebuild, they got to build. That are what they're going to do.
Speaker 2:They said like six weeks yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, they just going through it, just like everywhere else.
Speaker 2:I just learned about the 10 freeway and how, before they built, so they built the 10 freeway like in the 50s and they demolished like hundreds of homes of, like black neighborhoods. Yep, well to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's. I was reading about that and they said that it was. It's actually a bit of a big thing where it basically segregated the city. Before there wasn't really a divide of so much of North LA, Central LA, South LA, which is kind of just Los Angeles, and with the 10, it at least split kind of like rainbow tracks, you know. So South of the 10 was predominantly black neighborhoods and North of it was not, and before that it was a very affluent area and with the freeway going through there it cut off cross traffic because then it becomes just exits, right, so it slows down people going back and forth, back and forth. They made it more of a divide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy. That's why I said it's karma.
Speaker 1:It's karma for them building.
Speaker 2:For the 10 freeway. It wasn't supposed to be, there.
Speaker 3:So now the 10 as a person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, the 10 freeway. That's terrible.
Speaker 3:The 10 freeway is an asshole. The I5 is not. The 710 is great the 710.
Speaker 2:The 210 is nice too.
Speaker 1:I like the 210. Oh yeah, who was first, the 210 or the 10?
Speaker 3:The 2. Wait. Wait Is the 210 go through Pasadena Highland Park.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's Route 66.
Speaker 1:Yeah, route 66. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:That freeway is scary, so I don't know when they made it. That freeway is only you're only supposed to go 50 miles an hour max.
Speaker 1:It's someone that's going Now we're going 80 miles an hour it's like a NASCAR truck Dude, I've noticed that even in residential areas, people are driving fucking crazy right now. I have no clue what it is. It's in the water, it's probably in the oxygen or something. People are just crazy.
Speaker 2:You're just old now.
Speaker 3:You're old now, is it that? Yeah, my wife doesn't like driving between like two and five, you know two and six, because it just gets crazy. People come from work and driving, Everyone's all impatient, everyone's pissed off and it just it turns into a whole different style of driving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what's it? The bit from George Carlin Anybody that's driving faster than you is crazy, but anybody driving slower than you is.
Speaker 3:It's true it is.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I fucked it up. But anybody driving slower than you is an idiot. But anybody driving faster than you is a maniac.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's basically what we say. That's basically how it feels. Yeah, anyone who gets in your way idiot. Yeah, what do you do?
Speaker 2:It's so true, that's why I felt.
Speaker 3:Coming here and then you start slowing down, slowing down, it just feels as if everyone's purposely in your way, but there's nothing like.
Speaker 2:I can't pinpoint what it's called, but on your way to Arizona there's that freeway, the freeway that we kept getting honked at, and the guy that's the 10, too it's, is it the 10? But it's a 10. Going to Arizona.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and people are like the 10 goes all the way to like the other side of the country. It goes through Texas and everything.
Speaker 2:People are going like 100 miles an hour. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:If you're not, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a little higher than speed limit, a little higher than speed limit and we thought we were going good and no, Arizona and Texas drives.
Speaker 3:They're crazy. They were like flipping us off honking at us.
Speaker 2:And I'm like is something hanging out of our back?
Speaker 1:Like, but you know what it was. We had a target on our car anyways, because we have our California license plate.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:True, and I'm pretty sure that they thought our car was like an electric car or something, because of how slow we're going and how small it is. These guys were saying look at these freaking Californians.
Speaker 3:That car is ran on marijuana, I know it. It's around marijuana and good feelings.
Speaker 1:Marijuana, good vibes and a recycled plastic.
Speaker 3:Exactly, arizona is very.
Speaker 1:As we're eating our granola bars as we're eating, our vegan granola bars and our Starbucks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 3:Starbucks. That happened to us too, like when we my older band we used to tour around and when every time we'd go through Texas we'd always get pulled over. Every time California plates, yeah, van driving, especially when I was driving, because I don't know why. But one time we got pulled over and the cop says first question is do you have any guns in the car? I was like, no, not at all. He's okay, we'll get in the car. And he says I said well, I just asked him why are you pulling me over? And he said this is the first time I heard this. He says well, you were, your right tire was touching the white line, you know, on the side of the road. So basically it's like little things like that would happen all the time. Just to kind of try to get something that happened.
Speaker 3:You know, what I mean, like oh, we caught this, we caught that, we caught this, but luckily no, no, but that always happened, almost 100% in time, in Texas and Arizona as well, just not like here.
Speaker 1:Is Texas the furthest you've played?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, we've been. I've been around the country.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like the East Coast, West Coast, the South, the North, not too much, I mean North- so tell us, what you do.
Speaker 2:Tell our listeners what you do, Octavia.
Speaker 3:On my part time or just no? What do you do? What would you say you do? Musician, songwriter, singer been in bands for not bands band in college and then from there I went to school at UC Davis up North and then moved to the Bay Area where I got in a band, started a band called the Soft White 60s in San Francisco, in Oakland, and then that went for a while and that's the band that we toured all over the place in the country and then, after that, moved down to Los Angeles and I think, 2016. Yeah, 2016,. That was 15 around there and then been down here ever since and just been doing my kind of solo music since then. So that's what brought me here and everything. And then my wife's son here had a baby down here. Well, no, my baby was born in Vancouver, but yeah, so that's what brought me down here.
Speaker 1:So you were originally from up North.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, near Sacramento, oh, okay, A town called Woodland, tiny little town Actually. It's like you know, little town off the freeway, all agriculture fields, Okay something like Chino.
Speaker 1:then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was just gonna say that exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:Exactly the same, so it's funny. So you drive east of Los Angeles, it starts feeling more like that yeah, Exactly kind of everything more spread out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, california has everything and the spot that we're at we go 30 minutes west, we hit downtown LA, but you go east and we hit mountains and wildlife. Well, you guys are especially.
Speaker 3:Chino, you know, but I'm from where I am in South LA, I mean same thing, it's at the ocean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:You know, 15 minutes that way west and then 45 minutes, 50 minutes in your mountains and that's California, all the way up and down the coast.
Speaker 2:You can go to the desert. Yeah, you know, we have everything.
Speaker 3:I've talked to people. You know it's like oh, california, california man, trust me, go drive around, go to other states, go check it out. And I'm not saying I need to say other states have great things or anything, but there's nothing close at all. No, as far as food goes, as far as climate goes, as far as what you can do on the weekends, what's available, I mean it's not even close at all.
Speaker 1:There's nothing close to it.
Speaker 2:We're paying for luxury.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's like why is rent so expensive here? It's like, well, have you been around? It's like anywhere you know?
Speaker 2:It's even like like people complain about homelessness and I'm thinking like, well, if I was homeless? Like of course I don't want to be in California, it's fucking warm, I can go and be, by the beach, Like I'm not gonna be homeless in the Midwest when it's, like you know, snowing.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's why that California has such an influx of unhoused because of the environment.
Speaker 3:I think so, I think so. I also think that I don't know. Well, the weird thing is, when I was living in Vancouver, canada, I realized that they have they're one of the first cities, or one of the provinces their province is that legalized fentanyl.
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:So, Well, when was this so?
Speaker 3:a while back, A while back. I'm not exactly, but I know that it was in a way to wean people off heroin. But then people are more. Then you can become dependent on fentanyl, right? So there's an area in Vancouver, vancouver's immaculate I mean it's almost too clean Like it's kind of it's immaculate.
Speaker 1:Strangely clean. It's a beautiful city.
Speaker 3:And then, but there's one part of town called Gastown and you go down there and it's just, they contain it Kind of like the Tenderloin in San Francisco, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:You know like Skid Row when we stayed. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Where you guys stayed in Tenderloin, yeah.
Speaker 2:I booked the hotel on accident.
Speaker 1:Amber is the mind buzz travel agent.
Speaker 3:How about the Tenderloin? I didn't know. That sounds nice, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:It's not like a good piece of meat.
Speaker 3:So I was like you know, Holiday in Tenderloin no it was a really nice hotel.
Speaker 2:Like it was not cheap to stay there, it was not.
Speaker 3:That city's not cheap in general to stay there at all, yeah, so I was like oh, this is nice. Your car get broken into.
Speaker 1:No, no, we, we, yeah, we forked up the cash to have it stored in a parking structure.
Speaker 2:But we didn't go anywhere. We went from there to our car and then we went to the rest of the city. But we, I mean we stopped by a liquor store that was on the corner, but that was a day like, and then I started like, like, looking up the Tenderloin and I was like, oh my God, gilbert.
Speaker 3:I was like it's got a history.
Speaker 3:But see, I grew up in Paramount next to Compton, so I was like, all right, yes, a little different though, because it is a little different you know, cause even in Vancouver is a when people on fentanyl, I think you know you kind of get the zombie feeling. You know there's this kind of like someone's like crack they're moving around to pace him, but they're like working, you know, like they got to get things done. They're moving, they're moving. They're moving. They're like they don't want nothing to do with you. They're like trying to find something. They're working, they're moving around, but heroin they're just like frozen and it's kind of zombie apocalyptic. So it's a different feeling.
Speaker 1:Any type of opiate right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would do that to a person.
Speaker 3:They're just sitting there. I told my wife that was driving and it's like you see someone kind of curled up, kind of like you know how it looks, like they're being held up by like a string. You know like, how's that person standing? And I think to myself I'm like how good does that feel Like? How like what are they feeling right now? And I bet you it's completely opposite of what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cause they're completely comfortable in that moment. That's true, you know what I mean. They're just sitting in there just like, ooh, what do you know? I was like it looks horrible, but they definitely look more comfortable than someone like a cracker just pacing around.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and jittery, looking around and searching and looking frantic, it's like they're just happy standing in that one spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I wonder how that feels.
Speaker 1:What's going through their mind. In their mind, they're like in a field of daisies.
Speaker 3:I mean it's gotta feel great the sky is great.
Speaker 2:And then right there they're just like hunched over.
Speaker 3:It's got, I mean it's worth a lot to people you know, so it's like it's gotta be, gotta be, it's not.
Speaker 1:How can one person like how good can it be Right, like how great can it feel when you yeah, when you're able to give up your entire life, your identity, build your being, everything For this, for that, for that substance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I'm saying it's, it's a wow, that's I mean the power of it's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like just, it's like you just spend your life on quests, yeah, you know, just to achieve the next one and you get it. It's like your meter goes up, you're full and then you have to spend the next few days like on side quests trying to find more things and more things. You can accumulate it again and go again, and go again.
Speaker 1:I wonder what like if, if fentanyl is the same thing like any other drug, because you know how, what they say about when you first try a drug like the first time. You're always trying to reach that first time. You've ever felt it Like what fentanyl is it like? Every time is like that, or is it the same concept? You're trying to get that first.
Speaker 3:I know from what I feel like I mean from what I've read, is that that's how a lot of people overdose if they haven't done it for a while, when they relapse because they go to their old dose and their body can't handle it anymore. Yeah, so it is. It is you do. You do build a tolerance to it. You know so. You need more, more, more. Let me.
Speaker 2:Just look at anything you drink, it's the same thing, right?
Speaker 3:You know it's like before, you know it goes up, and then it goes up, and it goes up, and then I think that's why a lot of people go try to do the same thing that you used to do, and just it's way too much. Yeah, way too much. And I guess fentanyl is even stronger. You know it's so, you know synthetic, I guess.
Speaker 1:So right now Vancouver has all drugs decriminalized, right? I don't know. Can you look it up, Amber?
Speaker 3:When we were there. I know you could.
Speaker 1:How long ago was this?
Speaker 3:by the way, this was a year, year and a half, my daughter's one it's a year and a half ago, oh so this is recent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So through the pandemic, prior to all that, yeah, we're up there. My wife was filming a show and so we all moved up there and we were there for two. She was there for four years and we were there all together like two years because the borders started closing.
Speaker 3:So it was like, look, if you don't come up here, you might not be able to get to get up. And a good thing I did, because they did close the borders and it got really strict.
Speaker 1:What does it say Health? Health Canada granted an exception under the control drugs and substances act to provide To the province.
Speaker 3:Oh, to the province of BC. Yeah, CESA is just a fine. It doesn't go on your record or anything. It's like a citation.
Speaker 1:So from January 31st 2023 until January 31st 2026, adults in BC are not subject to criminal charges for personal possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I know they, just so it's decriminalized yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I know they for sure. Kind of the same way marijuana exists in California, right Right. Is it legal on a federal level, no, but state level, yeah, you know they have. I know they legalized psilocybin.
Speaker 1:Certain cities in California.
Speaker 3:Yeah, In Vancouver you can walk right in.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, buy a mushroom like you can buy a cookie. They have mushroom. Yeah, spots in Vancouver.
Speaker 1:That is crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's incredible. It's probably the Like chocolates you know.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I think the kind of also the thinking behind it is like Italy, right, where they were saying like Italy has a really low like percentage of people that are alcoholics, even though you think like, oh, italians drink wine, you know, but they're saying that there's a low percentage of in youth. Okay, I'm going to let me reiterate it yeah In youth. Because the youth get to drink. I think the drinking age is like 15.
Speaker 2:And they make it so like non-taboo within families, within the culture. You know you can serve your 15 year old a glass of wine with you know their dinner. So they start normalizing it in a sense of not binging. It's more of a I'm going to enjoy it, it's going to be with family, it's going to be things like that.
Speaker 3:It's not hidden. Yeah, it's not something you got to wait to do this.
Speaker 2:You can't handle it. So then they don't binge and they don't become these raging alcoholics, because it's never been like taboo or stopped or looked down on. So maybe that what Canada is doing is trying to decriminalize it, so that it doesn't become this like let me get it. Let me get it because it's wrong.
Speaker 3:Well, I think they're trying to also, you know, realize that, okay, if you're doing this, there's some other stuff going on. So let's try to figure that out. Like, putting you in jail is not going to fix anything. No, if anything, you're going to come out with more of a habit, right, you know? So, it's, it's. But again people are sort of getting, is it?
Speaker 3:Vancouver Population is tiny compared to like something like Los Angeles. So when people say, well, vancouver, this works, it's like there's no, there's not that many people there. It's completely different. Hmm, you know what I mean. You try to keep to what's in Los Angeles. How many million people, nine million, 10 million people. I mean Vancouver is tiny compared to that. So you look at their programs and you're like, oh, we should try that here. It's I mean the amount of money and not that, just like the amount of people that Los Angeles has to work with. It's incredible. And that's another thing, like if you drive around the country, very few people in this country know how big Los Angeles really is. It's huge, it's huge, it's so big, it's it goes forever. It goes forever. I mean you can see it when you fly in. It's just all gridded out and just tons Like I just picture my little house down there yeah.
Speaker 2:Like man nothing down there.
Speaker 1:What is the population of Los Angeles? Can you, can you look them up? I say nine.
Speaker 3:You said your bid was nine million. Yeah, I thought it was.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm way off Population. Oh, that's Canada's, canada's 38.
Speaker 2:No see, I was way off. 3.8 million, Okay so 3.9 million.
Speaker 3:It's about four.
Speaker 1:Four million.
Speaker 3:Okay, so four million, right, but this is 2021.
Speaker 2:Okay so maybe Okay hold on, we have some people come in 2023. Yeah, okay, a little bit.
Speaker 3:Almost four million, right, okay, so four million.
Speaker 1:Four million in like two years, that's crazy Look, Vancouver and Vancouver. So we got four million.
Speaker 3:A hundred and ninety-two. No, that's. That's well Washington.
Speaker 1:There's another one up there. Do you have Vancouver, bc? Let me see British Columbia, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right here.
Speaker 3:Good food up there. Yeah, oh yeah, See look, 600,000.
Speaker 2:No, that's 2017. Why is it giving me dates that are not?
Speaker 3:Your prize searches.
Speaker 2:There you go. Two million, the current.
Speaker 3:Two million. Oh, man see, it blew up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's had an increase since 2022. Yeah, that's a big jump, huge jump, it's a big increase.
Speaker 1:How do they?
Speaker 3:do that. It doesn't even feel like there's that many people there At six, like six o'clock at night. It's so quiet there Really. Yeah, it's probably the culture too.
Speaker 1:I was going crazy. The people living there, oh man, what was the nightlife like? Not my vibe. No, no man, no.
Speaker 3:It's a town of beautiful, but if you unite, life's your thing. I mean you probably have one night Saturday, Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And even that. I mean it's just, there's one little street where they have some clubs that goes late. It's like four am. They serve alcohol to about 2 am. But you can be, you know they stay open till four. But that's a very small little portion, you know, cuz the there's a university there, ubc. But I mean, look at it, it looks like a few. When you're there you feel like your minority report.
Speaker 2:Why is that?
Speaker 3:because it's just like you when you're in these little condos and up there you just feel it's all glass and it just it's like a big fish tank. You just feel like something's gonna fly by your window. It's so futuristic feeling I'm selling it. Huh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm buying my tickets tonight dude.
Speaker 3:It just wasn't for me in the sense I mean, the food's incredible. The chicken is like you go, that's the funny thing. You go up there and you realize the difference in Certification for foods here. You know, I mean, it looks different there. The carrots aren't huge. You know, the chickens aren't like huge chicken breasts. It's like you realize like what's yeah, modified and what's not, cuz they have Strictor codes.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you go to story oh, wow, oh.
Speaker 1:These are the real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I could see this alive. Yeah you know, some of them will foster farm chicken. Big old two-pound breasts, big two-pound breast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that chickens not walkin anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, carrots, regular-sized carrots, yeah everything so, but it's, I mean it's beautiful. But it just the hard part for me, being a music up there, was that I would try to find shows and you really have about one day a week where that's happening. So you know. So I mean, you know in LA same thing, you know there's Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday. You know each night has its own thing, you know, and it's up there. It was hard because Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, sunday, it's just it's so quiet. So I'd get kind of just crazy at night, like it'd be for like 6 pm, 7 pm, and then it's just quiet.
Speaker 1:How was the saturation of like artists up in Vancouver?
Speaker 3:There's.
Speaker 1:There's a good amount there it was a good amount when I could tell, but it was just.
Speaker 3:You know, the hard part was it was hard to meet people there. It could, because as a culture itself and I've heard this from other Canadians that as a culture it's more Standoffice than than the East Coast. Hmm, so if you're like, oh, if you go to Toronto, if you go to Montreal, it's like it's a whole different vibe because the influx of the kind of immigrants that they have there, compared to the West Coast, it's different culturally, you know. So it's a big, big difference in there. Like, oh no, like nightlife music there's that, like on the East Coast is a lot different, but it just I guess you could find some artists that there. I had a hard time finding it. I don't, I couldn't, I Couldn't figure it out, couldn't? You know? Like you wonder something in LA any night, you can find it, yeah, easily.
Speaker 2:We're spoiled yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean most. I mean there's not many cities like that.
Speaker 1:No, not even the next county, like right now we're in, we're in SB County right. And even around here people are going crazy out here people are going to downtown LA.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah you have to yeah, you have to yeah, but you're, I mean Pretty fortunate, you know. I mean that's. I mean it depends what you want to do. I mean that's why for me, where I got in the music up north, the closest city to me was 90 miles away and that was San Francisco, in Oakland. So it was either that or Sacramento, and at that time Sacramento had a good music. I mean they went through waves and, like the early 90s is, sacramento had a big music scene. But then when I was getting into music or starting into music and I moved to the Bay Area because I was kind of like the closest Area were, you know, shows were happening Monday, all seven days a week.
Speaker 1:What, was San Francisco, like in the 90s, dude.
Speaker 3:Oh, I wasn't. I wasn't there in the 90s. No, everybody I know. I moved to San Francisco in 2009, 2010.
Speaker 1:Gotta be different than now.
Speaker 3:No, everyone I talked to though that was from San Francisco. They loved it in the 90s that's when it hard part had more music venues in anything, tons of DJs, tons of music. I mean I think it. I think when I was there, we kind of we kind of our band, kind of jump ship Right before, like detecting, fell out and like how it is right now. I mean right now it's, it's sad to see. I mean it's weird, it's yeah all the places that have shut down all the venues that have shut down.
Speaker 3:A lot of people have left, you know, because after the work from home thing for all the tech world, a lot of people didn't come back. Really, yeah, they just stayed. You know, if it's, if you can work from home, you might as well move to another little city that you can.
Speaker 1:Your money goes further, yeah our move like to Mexico, or move like to Mexico or something exactly. You could do it right over the border.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So it's like it's and it's, it's. I Mean, I feel like you're. You guys went to. The only part of the city that wasn't affected was the tenderloin.
Speaker 1:Right that state the same impervious to change the tenderloin. You guys ever need a booking agent. I got a good one.
Speaker 3:It is the table we made it. Yeah, we made it everything spins around the tenderloin, it just stays.
Speaker 1:It was nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those guys we can put up with anything.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so your music man. Like we were watching one of your videos before you got in and it's so cool. It's really good. You're a very good musician. I appreciate Thank you. Very good artists they do so. Do you like being called a musician, an artist like what? Tell me about that? What Do you think you are? I?
Speaker 3:Think. I think artists is a better word when someone else uses it, mm-hmm. But to call yourself an honest, I think it's always has some kind of pretentiousness to yeah, yeah, I'm an artist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, you know, cuz I think I mean to me there's a lot of people, the artist, I mean, I think I think people that cook and the chefs are artists. Yeah, you know some things that you're working with that's constantly Evolving and changing and you can shape it and you kind of have to decide when it's done. You know, it's like when, when, when is it done? When do you stop adding things? When you stop doing it because it's your perception of what you think is good. It's like oh no, this is how I like it.
Speaker 1:Well, your perception of good for your music is fucking fantastic. Thank you, you know that's I.
Speaker 3:I guess that's it developing over Time. You know of what I think is good.
Speaker 1:What was your first instrument that you picked up?
Speaker 3:My mom enrolled my brother nine piano, which I did not like at all. It's horrible. I did not like it at all. My brother's very good at it. Is your brother show music? No, no, he's a he's. No, he went completely different. He's an athlete engineer. Now he's like a CEO. Okay, yeah so he it's that he really took the piano and he did it well and I didn't. I liked music, but the thing is I didn't like about the lessons was how rigid it was. You know, I mean it wasn't, it just wasn't fun.
Speaker 3:It was so, it just was so strict.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was work and I think honestly, I think it was the type of teaching. You know, teaching changes over time. You know I introduced an instrument to a child. Depends on whether you know they might take to it. You know I suppose it. No, you do this or no, just bang the hell out of it. Yeah, and they're like, yeah, okay, you know, this is it.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I took and then I started Playing guitar. That was it first and and I started playing guitar so I could sing. I was just like singing. So I was like, well, my dad had a guitar and so I would play. He would play. I remember he'd play, like Richie Valin, songs on it, some doo-wop songs. He knew four chords, so every song you played is with. One time I was a puppy I was like, why is every song you play with those chords? He goes me. Huh, I didn't write the songs, so that's just, that's just how the army. He's like you can't ask me about this, he's, so I'm just playing him. I was like, all right, cuz I wanted to learn other chords and I was like they're all the same, Like don't get mad at me. So that's all that started and then then just that kind of took it.
Speaker 3:Just when I went to college I Started to ban almost immediately. A friend of mine lived now one of my good friends lived down the hall from me and I walked by his room and he had a Guitar in his room and I asked him I was like, well, you want to like play guitar together? And he's like, yeah, and so I just started writing songs and we started to open mics. And then that happened, that started ban and then from there I went to the Bay Area to kind of get where year was this Shit? I was in college 2000. I was in college for six years. Took a little bit from me.
Speaker 1:I'm still in college, I'm still going through it.
Speaker 2:You're a couple feet in front of us, so you're good yeah no, I was there so 2002, no 2003,.
Speaker 3:And then I was six, seven, 2008, graduated 2009. Two of us walked because I remember I got booted out of college for a quarter because I got a deprivation twice and they had sent me an email saying if you don't respond to this email, we're going to disenroll you, which I didn't get. So I was in class and this is how much I wasn't taking seriously at the time. I was in a class that I found out was the second time I had taken it. I was doing the work and I was like, man, this is, I just know this stuff. So I go online and look, I go wait, I've taken this class before. And so I go online and check my grade and there's no classes listed on the site. Like what? Nothing listed, nothing listed, nothing listed. Now, mind you, I'd been going this quarter for like three weeks, right, four weeks. And so I go to my counselor. They're like no, like you didn't respond to the email, so we disenrolled you.
Speaker 3:Geez, I was like so, oh, but it was good it happened, because then after that I was like okay, you got to decide whether you're going to finish or not, and then after that I finished.
Speaker 1:So when you first started your first band in college, what were some of your inspirations? What was going on musically at that time, like for you?
Speaker 3:In your grade In college. I got into In college I was into, I got really classic kind of college and got into like big singer-songwriters. You know I was listening to Nick Drake, I was listening to Ryan Adams, I was listening to M Ward, a lot of just kind of acoustic, intimate kind of folk, I guess indie folk kind of stuff. And then I was also at the same time I got really into Oasis. You know, rock and roll band.
Speaker 1:And I was just listening to their Morning Glory album.
Speaker 3:The album Morning Glory. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 1:It's fucking amazing.
Speaker 3:The first two albums, three albums they have, are incredible. They're great. And so I went down a huge hole of Oasis, a big hole of James Brown. There's a few artists where I really went or listened to them and then I went backwards. You know what I mean. So it's like some artists what do?
Speaker 1:you mean? What do you mean, Ted? Walk me through that.
Speaker 3:So I would hear. So take Oasis. So I hear Wonderwall, I hear you know the songs. Everybody hears Wonderwall. Don't Look Back in Anger. I hear these songs and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Then I see them with pictures and I'm like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 3:And I liked how honest they were at Brass. They weren't afraid to say they didn't like anything, which I thought was, oh, that's great. Because what's funny is you get behind closed doors and bands talk like that, but when you get out in the open, bands are just like, oh, no, they're cool, they're cool. And you get behind doors and some bands are like, fuck, I'm getting socks. You know what I'm saying. It's like you do have opinions. Yeah, you know, everybody does. It's not like you're guilty of anything, but what I'm saying. When I got into them, then I found like, oh, so the guitarist, noel Gallagher, was a big fan of the Smiths because he liked Johnny Maher. So then I got into the Smiths and then Johnny Maher, and then I found out okay, now that also takes you to the Stone Roses, and then Stone Roses. So you find out their band and then the band that they were influenced by and you start listening to that band and you find out that band and find out what they're influenced by, and it goes backwards.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's what you mean by going backwards, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's like I got into James Brown and then James Brown not going backwards, but I mean he leads to all these other people like Bootsy Collins, caviers, these bass players, he, jimi Hendrix, then Little Richard. You know, I'm just saying all these artists are like kind of trees, yeah, and there's some artists that were big trees in my life where they kind of went. They're the parts and I found little things off of them. So, like Oasis, james Brown, not Sam Cooke, is it Sam Cooke? Yeah, Sam Cooke again. For well, smokey Robinson is another one that I love. You know, they kind of lead you into other things. Yeah, because I start reading about him and I find out, oh, they're really into this.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, this person was influenced by this person.
Speaker 3:This person was influenced by this person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, wait. This song is a cover, so let me go back and see who the original person is in this song Exactly, and what's cool part about that is that.
Speaker 3:What's interesting is, I find that if you go backwards with an artist, it makes them a little bit more human, because you can see where they pulled from, you know you can see where they got that inflection from, or you can see where they've gotten. You realize like, oh, like everybody does that along the way.
Speaker 2:You just collect things, you know but I'm saying to you you get an influence. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:So I really like when I find artists, I really like I enjoy finding their influences, because it's I'm like, oh well, that's cool, they picked that out of there, or they picked that out of there. Oh, once you find the influence, you listen to it and it's like, oh my God, that song completely takes that. So that's, that's something about like going backwards. So the few, few, good concept. Yeah, a few people like that that I would get into and I'd imagine, with comedy, same thing, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah definitely who would be your comedians you kind of like right Right now I'm I'm very into Rodney Danger filled right now oh really, and he's a branch he's he's one of the major brands. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's his style, his setup punch, setup punch, one liner comics are. That's what I'm.
Speaker 3:So would you say, mitch Hedbergs off that branch, off that tree too? Probably right. Yeah, mitch Hedbergs on there, no cause, I think that like I'm going backwards too.
Speaker 1:Same thing with with Sam Kinnison and and all those guys like back in the early days.
Speaker 3:Hollywood comedy stores, yeah, and I just watch I don't know if you see it it's. I watch a lot of documentaries, okay, and a lot of musicians or artists, you know, painters or, and there's a lot of. I watch a lot of them on comedians and it's interesting how a lot of a lot of those comedians that I found like it all kind of goes back to like Los Angeles comedy store, yeah, which I'd know was. It's crazy, it weird to think that they all kind of went through there somehow through all the country, everybody did, and then, like Roseanne, went there.
Speaker 1:What was the other one that we were just watching?
Speaker 3:See that's so weird. That's nothing, that's not with music. No, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Not like a venue where it's like oh man, oh, like a venue, like one place that people went to.
Speaker 3:I wish, I wish you could go, cause it'd be cool to be, you know, in place where you know that there's so many bands that are there, even if they're not playing, they're just hanging around. Oh, okay, you know what I mean, and that's that's maybe at times. I guess that's how you develop, that's how you describe a scene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a place that everybody goes hang, because that's like at least what I'm very fairly new right To to the comedy scene right now. Fairly new, how long would you say you've been doing comedy? What would you say, amber? Well, like if you were to judge and somebody asked you how long has Gil been doing comedy, what would you tell?
Speaker 2:them Um like real comedy.
Speaker 1:Real comedy no years Zero.
Speaker 2:Are we talking? Are we talking?
Speaker 3:Real comedy or fake comedy? Which one is it? Which one? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I gave her the set up, so it's fine. I'm glad you took it. Hold on hold on.
Speaker 3:Let me phrase this way when was the first time that you knew you're going to comedy? You picked a date, you're gonna do it, you prepped and you were ready to go for that.
Speaker 1:I was kind of thrown. I was kind of thrown like two months ago, when did uh?
Speaker 2:I would say maybe in total, like that. It was like brewing and everything. No, I would say, like longer than maybe six months, because you've been talking about it. I mean, I know that you've always had the idea and you've I've been writing for two years. Even when he was a kid he was like funny and doing stuff like that.
Speaker 3:You're writing prior to doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've wrote for about a year and a half to close to two years of material. I have like something like 30 pages of just material that I've wrote over.
Speaker 3:So our most stuff you write is it all very in like the Rodney Dangerfield vein, where you like not saying doing the same thing, but I'm saying the same kind of quick one line or delivery hook, you know, punch in the next one.
Speaker 1:So I'm figuring that out when I go on stage, like what am I a storyteller? Do I tell good stories? Is just a set up punches, right, like all that is happening on stage right now. I'm completely new at it, so even the delivery it's changing, it's evolving and I feel that if I'm, if I keep working at it, keep working at my material, then I'm going to find what works best for me.
Speaker 3:Right. So you're, you're, you're kind of, you're finding your voice, finding it Now.
Speaker 1:I'm finding my style.
Speaker 3:But what if? Let me ask you this what if because I this is a thing that I've experienced in music is that? What if something goes over well but doesn't feel good to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like has has anything? Has anything ever landed where it landed, better than you thought? And you're like I didn't think that was going to work like that, so does that convince you to do it again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, if it works it works If it gets a laugh it gets a laugh in the way that you did it, I think I I'm still fairly new to where, if I get a laugh, fuck yeah, that's a win, so I'm going to try it the next time. I swear, I swear.
Speaker 3:I swear it's so much people, even when people say, oh, it's a funny person, it's. It's that. It's so much different to be funny when people are expecting it yeah and paid to hear you be funny. It's different to be in a room and be spontaneous and say something funny. That's completely different than going in a room standing on a microphone and that's where I I really do believe that to me, that is the most courageous form of like entertainment that I think.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 3:There's nothing like you can go to open mic and you at least you know physically, you have a guitar on your lap. It's like you have this wall between you. You know what I mean, even if I'm not playing, if I forgot a lyric when I first started playing, I forgot a lyric. You just play longer. You're going to use this for court.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Yeah, I'm going into Richie Valensky.
Speaker 3:And it's like you know, no one knows. You can kind of jam, you can, you can keep it going a little bit, so you kind of like, okay, there I am, there's with comedy, is it, if you stop?
Speaker 1:I mean it's yeah, yeah, we were just talking about this last night. And then also Jose, he's the one doing the soy funny competition. He, this one tonight, yeah, the one, the one tonight. It's energy Like from what I heard from him, is just, it's the energy of the room that you need to act, you need to hold or you need to move it around. Yeah, and then finding that now, after doing going on stage for the past couple of months, is that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to get people's attention and keep their attention. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:For sure I would do the same thing with music.
Speaker 1:You can have their attention for two minutes, but once you stop and you stop that energy, it just fucking falls and it's hard to you can't get it back. Yeah, it's hard. I mean you can. You can do it, but your shit has to be really good yeah.
Speaker 3:It's also the same thing with. The same thing with music is that I tell you, you know, if, whether you believe in I'm not talking about crystals and flower remedies or you know superstition things and everything but I'm saying, if someone doesn't believe in energy, have them go in front of a room and perform. Oh, I'm telling you, it is undeniable what you feel.
Speaker 3:You can feel when it's with you and you feel that you're. You know it's like oh dude, I can't. I can't Like it's just if it makes you, it fires you up, but you get even more energy and more freedom. And then you get it. When it's not there, you can just feel it leave and it's like yeah, it goes quick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like, oh, as quick as it gets to you, it leaves. It can just leave, just like that.
Speaker 3:I've thought about the economy. I really I'm really impressed by it. I'm really intrigued by it because I think I also really like comedy comedians a lot too, because I think that they're people that observe a lot.
Speaker 1:That's fun, yeah, you know, but you have to observe people I observe, and the way that my brain is starting to work now is to always look for the funny and even though, how dark a thing might be or situation or it do you have to think like there's something funny out of everything. There is too. There is there, is there really is.
Speaker 3:I mean, you just got to find it. It's interesting how, even with something traumatic or something happens, you know, in a few years or years later you can joke about and you can laugh about it because you find things in it that are funny. Yeah, and I feel that I guess comedians can have the ability to get to that point quick. Yeah, you know, kind of find it they can't very fast. Have you seen that video? There's a video of Ralphie May doing a. He gives kind of a lecture. I would call it a lecture because he's not doing stand-up, he's lecturing on stand-up at the comedy store. It's on YouTube. I think I watched it.
Speaker 1:It's like Ralphie May's master in stand-up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like he just randomly it was cool for me to hear him talk because I just thought, not even doing, not being a comedian, but I just like to understand people's process. Yeah, you know, and it is interesting, it's all I mean. It's very similar to music too. You know, it's like you, you do have to learn how to get a room, keep a room, work room, you know, and develop an arc. Yeah, A live show is a live show. Is that? You know what I mean? It's not fragmented, Like you may be telling. There may be 10, 11 songs on the set, but as a whole, it's one piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's very choreographed. It's very core, and this is what I'm starting to learn now. It's very choreographed. Your material is choreographed, but you have to make it look like it's not.
Speaker 3:Like you're just-. I think about that. I think about it when I watch it, when I watch some people's sets. It's like wait, because I've seen any reason with comedians and I guess it's similar with I'm trying to transfer it to like music as well, with lyrics is that you can fuss over what the last word you're gonna say is right? What makes it funnier?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, and to remember that like, oh no, well, I said this the other night, I'd imagine the comedy is like okay, try that again. Yeah, it's weird to watch comedian nights Sometimes I think about it's like wait, is that pause planned, right, you know? Is that part of the joke? It's joke work without the pause.
Speaker 1:But it shouldn't. That's what.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's weird to me to think. You know it's a performance, you know the literally that the pauses are there. It's so hard, it's crazy. I'm in awe of it Performing in general.
Speaker 2:Like I can't even think of myself going, you know, and performing anything but performing. In general, I think it's like it's beautiful because there's this art of vulnerability. Whether you do music, whether you're an actual you know painting artist, you're someone sculpting, your you know comedian, whether you're doing like a live cooking show, anything that you know we would deem as art is it's being vulnerable, it's showing who you are in a sense through your art and then to still want people to reciprocate to that it's hard, like I can't imagine doing it.
Speaker 3:It's also hard too, cause really what you're doing is Basie's saying you're giving it to people to judge it. Yeah Right, I mean that's what comes is you're giving, you're immediately being judged. You know, laugh or no laugh. Like that's pretty direct feedback. You know what I mean? Like if that works or not, it's immediate feedback. At least with music, I can make an album or a song, put it out, and I'm not necessarily in the room as everybody's listening to it. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I get what you're saying. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:It'd be different. You know it's every person that would hear my music would be. The equivalent would be me being in the room, like playing it for them and just watching their reaction.
Speaker 1:You know, with comedy you're there and the thing is, you have to be there, you have to do it. So when you go on stage, right, you have to do on stage like there's no standup comedy without going in front of a crowd yes, you can't do standup comedy on a podcast. I mean you can. I mean basically that's what we're gonna do tonight, but consistently like you can't be a standup comedy while on a podcast if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I think that that's you know what I mean. But I think that that's where the comedy world, in a way, is kind of like finding its floor. Yeah, because now you have people coming from podcasts that now build a following to well, that I feel like then go live right, true, as opposed to people starting.
Speaker 1:That's what that's actually happening a lot right, amber. That's happening a lot with influencers, like with Instagram influencers, youtubers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they kind of build something first right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they've been building it for over a decade and they go into standup comedy. Oh whoa yeah.
Speaker 3:Why? Because they just post funny videos and it works, and it works, and it works, and they're like oh, I'll do this, more of this, yeah, but it's so different, like it's.
Speaker 1:So you can't like sketch comedy versus a sketch comedy versus standup comedy, right, Because improv is totally different. Like improv comedy is different from standup. Like you don't, there's no crutch when you're on the stage by yourself. This is when you have a full improv team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or a sketch team, and I've talked to this about some of my friends. I've talked about this because with music and I think it's interesting, especially with TikTok is that it's different to put something out there when you've curated it and made it exactly how you want it to be and then send it out, as opposed to what you're doing. Standup comedy is that it's in the moment, it's happening live. You can't be like hold on. Let me do that over again.
Speaker 1:Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Hold on, let me put a different filter on. Let me figure this out real quick. Yeah, you know, it's in. What's interesting is that I do think I wonder sometimes is that which people would continue pursuing a type of art if they had to go into a room and do it that way, as opposed to curating an online persona and curating what you're doing and curating what people are seeing, right, so it's easier to paint a picture, you know, like okay, here's this thing, here's this.
Speaker 3:As opposed to would you go to open mics and do that and come up doing that, being in a room of people that don't give a shit, like would you still go home and do want to do it, you know? Or would you go in a room, like I remember going to open mics and no one listening, you know, but that it's like, okay, well, I got to figure this out, you know. Okay, people listen to this. Okay, figured out. But if I were just posting a video online, I'd be like I would. Just all I would see is the likes and not people turning their back to me.
Speaker 2:Mm, that makes sense. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I get what you're saying.
Speaker 3:You know it's like, and I really do think that that seeing people turn their back, seeing people get not engaged, makes you perform better and actually makes you figure it out.
Speaker 1:Do you figure it out faster?
Speaker 3:I think you have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think so. What also, too, is? I mean, that was the rush, that is the rush. It is Like I remember what was weird is that one of my friends I post. I have some videos on TikTok and I was like, okay, you know, it works, like that's pure, like that's it works, that's a works. And I'm like, oh, okay, so I start posting a few videos on TikTok and it just felt so different and empty to me compared to because I came from when I would share something and be live, so I have that frame of reference, that. So I was trying to get that feeling from recording and it wasn't even close. You know, I'm in my room by myself like setting the light, singing songs, oh, then I go back and do it again, then do it again again, and then you look through it, choose this, she's okay, I'll put that up, and then you wait. Yeah, you know, it just wasn't, it just wasn't. I didn't find myself, whereas I suppose I remember when I first started to open mics, I couldn't wait to do the next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even if you that's how it feels now. Yes, I'm, we're changing our whole schedule, at least with the podcast, to have time for open mics, because you need it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I figured out, you need that environment to thrive, to learn.
Speaker 3:I loved it. I tell people too. It's like now, you know, because I started with open mics, I mean years, years ago. It's like when I first got into college, because I would have songs, and it's like, well, I want to play them, so what can I do, you know? So I would start doing those. And what's interesting to me is like that was the first time where I felt that rush and I thought to myself, oh man, this is so good, this is so good, even if it went bad. I remember my hands shaking. I remember being so nervous. I remember my hands getting sweaty. I remember forgetting lyrics that I wrote. I remember, oh shit, I don't know where does this chord go, and it's stuff. But the thing when you got done, it felt so good.
Speaker 1:You're like wow, man, it's like yeah, yeah really. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because it just if there's something different about getting pushed over and being like, okay, here we go, you got to figure it out. You got five minutes, you know what I mean. Like you got two songs, figure it out, do it, yeah Well, I mean that's what kept me going. Then it went and gets in a band. It's the same thing but it's different. It's really. I really do think that it was to me doing open mics by myself. Acoustic was much harder than playing a room sold out with people that like your music. You know what I mean. Nerve-wise, it's a different kind of nervousness.
Speaker 1:Well, that too, and it's your confidence Like you can't fake that. You can't. I think you just, in your comfortability, you have to go up there and make it seem like you're not uncomfortable. You have to memorize your material.
Speaker 3:Which I think comes from doing it over and over. Yeah, I mean, for me too, same as stuff. It's like being comfortable on stage is just you just get comfortable by shit not working.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:By microphones going out the guitar. Doing that, I've fallen on stage, tripped on stage Like you know what I mean Because and it embarrasses you, because you have this facade of oh look at this, I'm doing this so good, and then I tripped. It's like oh there went everything. You know what I mean, Like all the credibility build up.
Speaker 1:Even last night it was different because usually for the past month, month and a half, I've been on a stage with a big spotlight, Totally different than just standing in front, standing at a restaurant with no stage. There's close to no space on the ground to walk around.
Speaker 3:Oh, you see when you're performing.
Speaker 1:When I'm performing Right, it was totally different, a total different vibe, because you memorize your beats and you memorize your material and the different words and you're walking around you have this rhythm that you're in. Last night wasn't like that, like it was Because environment changed, because it was environment changed.
Speaker 3:So you were on a stage.
Speaker 1:I'm used to doing it on a stage, but last night was different because there was no stage. I was trying to work out the set list that I'm gonna do tonight to see how it's gonna hit, and it was different, like those little nuances.
Speaker 3:You have to remember which makes it really good, whatever place you're at they make you get better. Yeah, they really do.
Speaker 1:They really do, I think that's Each environmental change like even if you're in a huge hall, Right, If you're in a big hall and there's echoing like you have to get used to that.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right right, yeah, yeah, for sure, things sound bigger, yeah, I think. Well, that's If you're outside, totally different. Outside's hard. Is it Even for music? I think it is. It's a thing to get used to, With no monitors.
Speaker 1:Imagine you have no monitors. It's just the sound going into the audience. I think, about that in the 60s.
Speaker 3:You know, 60s, 70s, bands would play and there was no monitors, so it was just going out. Wow, you know, and it's, I mean, they still sounded great. It shows you how good they were. But what's interesting now is that, even playing outside Because if you do festivals, you do have monitors, but if you're not using in-years which I don't like to use Cause I'd like to just it feels weird, muffled, is that it? Things don't feel as powerful. You know, cause when you're in a, in a, in a hall, you feel that you hear the sound go out and come back, you know. So, you think.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's bouncing around yeah.
Speaker 3:And then when you get outside, all of a sudden the guitar is not, it's just going and it's gone. So you're like, wait, is that? Didn't he turn up? It's like no, that's how loud it was last night. It's like, well, it sounds like half that now, you know, because it's unless monitors do help or anything. But then even that changes, it doesn't seem. It's more intimate, I guess.
Speaker 1:And it feels more easier to maintain the energy, but these are all things that you learn over over time by doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, by doing it. Yeah, there's no way, there's no way. I mean there's no way, there's no other way to to learn? No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1:Besides doing something.
Speaker 3:Over and over and over and over and over and over.
Speaker 1:You've been doing music for a long time right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thanks. So you've had good gigs, you've had bad gigs, right yeah, but I mean, same thing.
Speaker 3:You know, when you're first starting in a band, you take any show you can. I remember playing in a laundromat oh crap really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Sam's Go's is a laundromat called and the thing's called Brainwash. It was like a laundromat in a cafe. That is awesome. I remember, like you know playing, you know Basie, it's like you know you're when you start, it's like you're doing things where you're not the main attraction. You're kind of in the room as well, right, right, which makes you get better, because it's like, how do you get the eyes on you, you know, as opposed to okay, this is just a venue, you know, but it's I mean, but also too, some of those ones are the most fun because I remember being with the band. You know it's like those just Is it this one, san Francisco?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Brainwash Cafe laundromat. Yeah, that's it that is awesome.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's still open or not. We'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah, exactly, see, yeah, so that's what I'm saying. It's like we were set up like in the corner on the ground with like a PA, right yeah, and you just kind of go, but it makes you so much better as-.
Speaker 2:This is what we need here.
Speaker 3:As an performer. It makes you get better at at what you play.
Speaker 2:Imagine doing your laundry and watching a band play. I don't want to do my laundry.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying. It was a cool concept. I'm glad it's still there, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That was a stage right there too, in everything when Right there, yeah, I think when we did, there wasn't that.
Speaker 2:Oh, a little piece right there, oh my.
Speaker 3:God, they've upgraded.
Speaker 1:Whoa, this is cool, we need this yeah yeah, yeah, it was a cool idea.
Speaker 3:I mean we liked it. I mean I, you know, but it's like what I'm saying is that you just take anything you can, just because you want to do it. Yeah, you see, even when you start, it feels. I find that if you do enjoy it, it feels good regardless, no matter where you're at If how it goes, yeah it does.
Speaker 3:It does for sure to this day. You know, if I don't sing, if I don't sing during the day or play myself when I write or anything like that, it's just like I get in a bad mood, like I get edgy.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I get kind of weird you know, I see that.
Speaker 3:And then the next day, if I don't do it for another day or two days or what is that?
Speaker 1:I think that is Because I get that too.
Speaker 3:I don't know, because there's a few times I have this tiny little nylon guitar and it got to the point where I stopped traveling with it because it's kind of like I would take it all the time. But then my wife's like man, why are you bringing a guitar? Because if I play the guitar, what's funny is that everything else disappears, right.
Speaker 2:It's like okay.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go over here and do my own thing for a little bit. It's like but we're together in this, you know. It's like okay. So now, if it's only a few days, I won't take it. But I messed up One time. I was like five, six days and I didn't take it with me. And then by like the third day, it's just like even it's not long, it's just something to you can become accustomed to doing. So it's like I got kind of just like bored, but then annoyed that I was bored. You know what.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 3:Because I was like I could just be bored right here but I could be playing guitar and like you know it's like it's so easy.
Speaker 3:I could be bored and playing guitar yeah, I could be just like thinking of doing something while I'm doing that. So I stopped, but I don't know exactly what it is, and what's funny to me is I didn't realize it until my wife pointed it out to me. She's like you need to go rehearse, go rehearse, get out of here. She's like because you're just you're doing way too much. Like you're just like coming in too hot all the time. You know it's like go and then it's, and then I come back and I'm just like, ah, really just much more relaxed.
Speaker 1:I wonder what it is dude, because I get that same way. The longest time that we've spent between publishing a podcast and between the next was like 11 days and those. That period of 11 days was just like oh my God, when is the next one? When are we scheduled?
Speaker 2:I mean when I go on stage.
Speaker 1:I get a little bit of that because it's still. I'm still working out something, I'm still talking, I'm still trying to practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I think that's the word working. Yeah, you're working on it. Yeah, you know what I mean. You're not being stagnant. No matter what you're doing, you are. There is a possibility that you might discover something or learn something.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know that you didn't know the other day with like as far as performing or and even throughout the day, like if there's a premise or like an idea.
Speaker 1:Take out my phone and write it down real quick. That was always nice. Do you write it down or do you voice memos? I write it down. I have to write every single. Anytime that I get an idea, I have to write it down because I'm gonna forget. Of course, my brain is just. It runs too fast.
Speaker 3:When you write it down, do you write it down as a joke or do you write it down as a topic? Topic.
Speaker 1:And then I finesse it later. It could be the next day, it could be the same morning or in a week, two weeks. I don't try to beat a dead horse Like. If I know that I have a good idea, I'll just leave it in my morning pages and I'll come back to it, like every couple of days.
Speaker 3:Do you ever because I'm always curious with this do you ever just write a joke and you just love it and then you come back to it and it's just not right. Oh, that's what the stage is for.
Speaker 1:That's it. Yeah, I might think it's funny right? I go on stage, I say it and people are like what the fuck is this?
Speaker 3:guy's problem? I'm always curious is it because when something is funny, it's sad.
Speaker 1:It's sad because I've had this stuff in my pocket for two years, Right and you take it out and I take it out.
Speaker 3:Check this out, check this out. Everyone's all oh.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's why I say kill your darlings, because you might have an idea and you're just stuck on this fucking idea, thinking it's gonna be the best thing in the world, but then you go out on stage and it doesn't hit, and that's it. Kill your darlings. Yeah, yeah, kill them, get them out there.
Speaker 3:Get them out, but it's also. The funny thing is, too, is that it's easier to live in the place without testing them, because then they're great. Oh yeah, no matter what. It's like, man, I have a book full of jokes, so good. But then if you take them out, you're gonna find out like are they? Yeah, you know, it could be demoralizing too.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh my God none of that worked, At least for me. I have the attitude to where I do things and I wanna get better each and every time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Work at it, work, work, work, work, right, right, right. And it happens, it needs to.
Speaker 3:I mean it's so right now, when you do a set, how long is the set? Five minutes. Is it feel fast or does it feel slow? Feels very fast? Okay, that's what I was curious. Yeah, cause I feel the same thing. You know, when I first started playing, or anytime, even when there's like an hour set, it still goes by super fast. Yeah, no matter what, by the time you settle into it it's almost over. Yeah, and I was curious with Colin. He was like so you have five minutes. I'm always wondering, like when they time comedians, where does that five minutes start? Right when you walk on stage they start it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at least from the places that I've done. So if you?
Speaker 3:don't talk right away. Your time's still going.
Speaker 1:I'm messing myself up right now is because I like to make a room joke, which means that only the people in the room will get Like, and I based that on the environment. Like, last night was First Amendment Pizza and I did a First Amendment Pizza type of joke.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right To pull off like the room.
Speaker 1:Yeah to pull off the room, but I'm screwing myself up because I'm using that for a minute that I've never used before. Right, and you're taking out of your set. I'm taking out of my set.
Speaker 3:Does it help? What if you?
Speaker 1:just go straight into it. I gotta we're gonna find out tonight.
Speaker 3:But I get it. I get what you're saying. You know what I mean. You know it's kind of like you walk out there and you want to kind of say, hey, how, you doing Like kind of warm up ease of tension, yeah, you know, but it's just that is true.
Speaker 3:To walk out there because the set you're writing works. You've written it independent of the room yes, theoretically right. And then when you walk into the room you go oh, I want to say this yeah, so wait, does the first? If you write something obviously like last night, does that cater to your first joke of the set? No, or does it work independently? Works independently.
Speaker 1:So you do a joke, then you gotta start up, then I gotta start, I'm killing myself. I'm killing myself, that's good to say, because it could be bad, like last night. Last night I wrote it in like two minutes and I was like, okay, like this is what I did. I went in okay, first amendment, okay, pizza. Okay, like we're at a comedy show, you know, you gotta make it funny. And it did not go well last night. It didn't because I kept on stumbling, I kept on stumbling over and I had to bring out my phone because I what did?
Speaker 1:I say I was like, oh, this is a first amendment Da da, da, da, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I blacked out when I saw you put on your phone and say black you first amendment. I was like oh, and your eyes rolled back. Yeah, I was like Right. I'm gonna go into my happy place.
Speaker 3:It was a survive trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, her body shut down, right, but I mean, that's what happened.
Speaker 3:Wait, what do you mean? You read, why did you pull?
Speaker 1:out your phone. So I pulled it out because I I wonder. Like on stage I was like I wonder what's the what's like, what's the first amendment? I didn't even know, so you walked out there and you have five minutes. I had five minutes and you said what's the first amendment? Yeah, I does anybody know, cause we're at the pizza place was called first amendment and I was like, do we even know what? The first amendment?
Speaker 3:is.
Speaker 1:And I read it and I whatever the first amendment is, and I was like, okay, so you mean to tell me? Somebody read the first amendment and said I think I'm gonna make a pizza place. I see what you're saying you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Like it was just it was dumb. Like it was just like.
Speaker 3:But what was? I'm curious. What was the allure of that? What do you mean? What was the allure of knowing that you want to do a joke about that, as opposed to something that you know you worked on?
Speaker 1:Because I leave. I leave at least a minute for those room jokes. At least that's part of what I do. I challenge myself a one minute, so that way. I'm always on my toes.
Speaker 3:Is that kind of like how? Some kind of means what's that comedian? The Greek starvose online? Oh okay, I've seen some of this stuff he does a lot of crowd work. Yeah Right, it's like so that's you want to build that up too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think when you're at open mics, crowd work is not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't, you don't have time.
Speaker 1:You don't have time. You don't have time for that. So, last night is my first. I'm not doing that, Not anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. Well, I feel like, if you're, I wasted time, yeah, which means that you wasted time to test stuff you've actually written, yeah, right, so it's like trial and error. You're kind of taking like, oh well, it just started.
Speaker 1:It just started like this month is where I started doing that and I was like, oh, I'm going to try this every place I go.
Speaker 3:That would be the same as me writing a song right For three weeks, bringing in you and saying, like, hold on, I just thought about something in the car here, let me play that for you. Yeah, basically.
Speaker 2:You're like, I have a song about this laundry bag. You know what?
Speaker 3:Hey, I just, you know, I just experienced something on the fucking 10. Let me write, let me sing you a song about the 10. Yeah, you know, and you're just like meanwhile I have this song of craft for like three weeks, you know got every lyric, every melody right. I'm like, hold on real quick. I was on the way here, I was inspired by the 10. I'm going to sing that song for you, real quick, exactly.
Speaker 1:You live and learn, bro. You live and learn, you live and learn.
Speaker 3:I think tonight I think you just go do your set, I'm just going go and learn, that's it yeah see where it goes.
Speaker 1:See where it goes. But on that note, octavia, thank you so? Much Thanks for coming out and doing the podcast, bro. I appreciate it. So go ahead and tell us where we can find you and what you got coming up. Yeah, Octaviofg.
Speaker 3:It's on Instagram, it's on Spotify, it's on Deezer All the same tag. Gonna have a new single coming out called Ride With Me. That's gonna be coming out, I believe, in the new year, with a video, I don't think, since we're already coming down to the end of it. Yeah, check it out online Octaviofg Spotify, instagram, facebook, twitter, not Twitter, whatever it is now X. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:You got it man.
Speaker 1:It's X now.
Speaker 2:And then on your YouTube.
Speaker 3:Yeah, YouTube. If you just go into Google and write Octaviofg, it'll bring up everything. Go into Webcrawler and write it down.
Speaker 2:What's Webcrawler Ha?
Speaker 1:ha, ha ha, pull another podcast.
Speaker 3:Webcrawler's all mad Data's all like Excite Webcrawler, yahoo. All these defunct Got it. Search engines no longer live.
Speaker 1:But you don't have to go to Webcrawler. You can go down to the show description on YouTube and Spotify. All the links that Octavio just talked about will be down in the show descriptions. Give him a follow, check out his YouTube channel. Check out his new singles coming out, his music videos frickin' phenomenal. It's gonna be down here in the show description. Check it out. And then tonight, if you're not doing anything at 8 pm, or if you're doing something at 8 pm you're going to like a kid's thing for your kid, just pull out your phone, go to the link in the show description. Well, yeah, I'll put it in the show description, check it out. Tonight, live at Pig Studio in the city of Compton with our boys, west Coast Pop-Lock Podcast and Jose for the Soy Funny competition. And there you go, just have fun. It's gonna be cool. I'm excited to do this. I'm gonna listen. Yeah, type five.
Speaker 2:Top five yeah.
Speaker 1:Just remind me, dude, right, We'd be like don't do a room joke.
Speaker 3:Don't talk about a podcast. Yeah, I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:We all need reminders, but yeah, yeah, for sure. This was awesome, man.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Gil. Appreciate it, but See you in the morning bud. See you in the morning bud.
Speaker 1:See you in the morning bud, Hot damn no-transcript.