Grand Allusion: Behind the Styx Tribute

Arnold00:00:00

What do you get when you cross an electrical engineer with an entrepreneur? A classical guitar player who also sings and he's performed regularly on the St. Louis music scene.He's actually designed amps for Ampeg and Crate and he's also been an award winner in the industry. But he's here to talk to us about the grand A Tribute to Sticks. This is Carlos Bedoya, who we're going to talk to on Saint Luin Tune.Welcome to St. Louis in tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston who is in the engineer producing seat.

Mark00:00:58

We're in trouble. I'm telling you what. Everything looks okay. So far so good.

Arnold00:01:02

All right, what are we in trouble about?

Mark00:01:04

Mark, you know what today is? National DJ Day. Oh, yeah. I didn't know they have a national DJ Day along with all the other national days that they have. It's our day.

Arnold00:01:15

Government has to do something.

Mark00:01:16

It's our day. You're. I guess you're a dj, aren't you? Disc jockey kind of guy.

Arnold00:01:21

A host kind of guy.

Mark00:01:22

I don't spend any hostess with the mostest. I don't know about that.

Arnold00:01:25

Hostess, no.

Mark00:01:26

Yeah. So you're doing that. So to all our DJ DJs out there, Happy DJ Day.

Arnold00:01:30

That's right. Happy DJ Day. We're glad that you joined us today, folks. We want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, for their support of the show.You can listen to previous shows@stlintune.com please help us continue to grow by leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast or your preferred podcast platform. Mark, there's a lot of things to think about each and every day.

Mark00:01:53

Yes, there are. Especially lately. Go ahead.

Arnold00:01:57

Oh, my gosh. And it's just. I'm going to make this one up because. But it's one that could be done all in every kind of little. What's the thought for the day?Think to ponder this thought is just be kind. Just be kind. And sometimes when you have something that's thrown at you, people are just throwing all kinds of stuff or spraying all kinds of stuff.Anger or bile is. Don't spray back. Don't throw it back. Does it mean I have to take it? No, it means you're just a little bit bigger than that person.

Mark00:02:31

Just be kind.

Arnold00:02:32

Just be kind. That's all we ask. Okay, we've got what I'm going to call him Mr. AKA Mr. Vacuum Tube. Carlos Bedoyas here.I need to ask you about that, but I want to give a little bit more introduction to Carlos. He's performed and worked regularly in the St. Louis music scene since 1992 with various cover bands.He's an electronics technician and a design engineer. And as I stated earlier, he's worked on equipment for rock stars, national television shows, and radio stations.He was hired as a design engineer for Ampeg and crate Musical instrument amplifiers, where several of his designs earned a top industry award equivalent to a Grammy mark. And he. He plays in a lot of COVID bands, but he's here to talk about Styx's tribute band, Grand Illusion. Carlos, welcome to St. Louis in Tune.

Carlos00:03:25

Thanks.

Arnold00:03:26

And. And who else walked in here? My gosh, I was just expecting Carlos, and he's bringing along one of the singers, Scott Marlin.Scott, welcome to St. Louis and tune also.

Scott00:03:36

Thank you very much.

Arnold00:03:37

I. I have prepared folks. I prepare these things, but I didn't know Scott was coming.

Mark00:03:42

That's right.

Arnold00:03:42

We'll get into Scott's back. Yeah. Throw a curveball on us.

Scott00:03:45

I snuck in the car this morning.

Arnold00:03:47

He was in the truck.

Carlos00:03:48

Get him out.

Arnold00:03:49

Yeah, couldn't leave. I went out to.

Carlos00:03:52

To get car to show me St. Louis this morning too.

Other00:03:54

Yeah.

Arnold00:03:55

He was beating on the trunk of the car. Let me out here. So how do you get the name Dave?

Carlos00:03:59

That's my middle name.

Arnold00:04:00

Okay.

Carlos00:04:01

So my dad's name's Carlos.

Arnold00:04:03

Okay.

Carlos00:04:03

And my grandfather's name was Carlos.

Arnold00:04:05

Okay.

Carlos00:04:05

And so everybody called me Dave, but my mom wanted me. She loved the name David and that was what she called me. And so instead of little Carlos.

Arnold00:04:13

Okay, David. So do people call you Dave or Carlos?

Carlos00:04:16

Yes. Okay. And that's one of those things where I know you from in case I don't recognize your face anymore by who you call me.Oh, so if you call me Dave, I'm. Oh, I've known this person a long time.

Mark00:04:30

Who is this?

Carlos00:04:31

But no Carlos. Actually, when I started working at McMurray Music, right. In 1992. Electronic tech. Yep.

Arnold00:04:37

Yeah. With the great giant guitar out front.

Carlos00:04:40

That was my first gig in the music industry right out of. Fresh out of school. And so I worked there.And of course, that store was one of the largest ones in Right in town at that time, before the big box guys came in. And of course there was like five other Daves that worked there then. You Carlos. Yes, you were Carlos.And so that's why in the music industry, I know if I know someone from the industry, because they call me Carlos. And if it's somebody I know from my friends and family in that, they call me Dave.

Arnold00:05:11

If it's somebody from Hazelwood Central, they might call him Dave.

Carlos00:05:13

That's exactly right.

Arnold00:05:14

Okay.

Carlos00:05:14

I call me Dave if somebody from Hazelwood Central. And yet the funny part is, the guys I played with early on in bands, sometimes they'll call me Carlos, and sometimes they'll call me Dave.They go back and forth, like in the same settings. Okay, funny.

Mark00:05:27

All right.

Scott00:05:28

This is all news to me.

Carlos00:05:29

I didn't know.

Arnold00:05:29

That's the beauty of St. Louis in tune is we all learn something new. So what do they call you? Scott.

Scott00:05:34

Scott.

Arnold00:05:37

Is your middle name Dave, too, or.

Scott00:05:39

No, it's not. I'm gonna change it now after that.

Arnold00:05:43

Now, you've played in a lot of COVID bands, too. All right, so give us a little background, because I haven't done my research, because I didn't know you were coming.

Scott00:05:49

Yeah, I've been playing a band since I've been about 16. So that would be. Back in 86, I actually started playing in cover bands. And I've been in a lot of bands over the years.Right now I'm currently in nine bands. I'm in nine different bands.

Arnold00:06:00

And how many are you projects?

Carlos00:06:01

Let's see that play actively? I would say three projects. Okay.

Arnold00:06:06

Yeah, but you've got this list as long as my leg here.

Carlos00:06:08

Yeah, it's a lot of stuff that's happened for a little bit and then went away and then sometimes comes back. But Benoit Bob was the band I started in 92, and that's technically still around, but it morphed into a band called the Dude Abides.And most of the guys, not all, sometimes are guys that play with me in Grand Illusion as well.

Arnold00:06:28

Okay, so where did you guys meet? Did you play in the same band before?

Scott00:06:32

No, I actually. We met prior to me being auditioning for the band Grand Illusion. They needed a singer, and they were auditioning some different singers.But he and I had actually met before that. He came and saw a couple of my solo performances and things like that and thought that I might be a good fit for the band.So I said, hey, I love sticks.

Arnold00:06:49

He was checking you out. Yeah. See if this was going to be a good fit.

Carlos00:06:52

Right. Yeah, no, it actually really was that.And I moved to Collinsville, which is where Scott's from, and when I started working at SIUE at the university and. Yeah. Checking out the music scene and that. Because back in the day, Benoit Bob Played over on that side of the river all the time.

Arnold00:07:07

Okay.

Carlos00:07:08

And so, yeah, I was going to a new brewery that was there that was cool. And checking that place out and saw Scott there, and he sounded great.And when we were looking for a singer in Grand Illusion, he popped into my brain and talked to him about it, and he came over and auditioned, and his audition was basically running through all think, except for maybe two songs that we played. So we were like. Yeah, that's. We were like. We didn't expect that at all. Okay. I guess that was our first rehearsal. Yeah.

Arnold00:07:36

So. So it wasn't that he had just picked up sticks, right?

Carlos00:07:39

No.

Arnold00:07:40

Yeah.

Other00:07:45

Yeah.

Carlos00:07:45

I mean, we did not expect that at all.

Arnold00:07:50

So why sticks? You say you have a love for them. You had a love for them. What's. What's about the music?

Scott00:07:56

They have an endless catego of songs that I absolutely adore. I've been a fan of them since I heard them for the first time. And I just. I love their harmonies.I love the complexity of their songs, and I love the band that I'm in with Grand Illusion, because they all duplicate these songs pretty much like the album. And the minute I got in a room with these guys and we all got together and sang, the hair on my arm stood up. It was so great.And I'm just like, man, this is for me for sure. This is awesome.

Arnold00:08:22

Did the hair on your arm stand up when he started singing?

Carlos00:08:24

Yeah. Because it's hard to find somebody who can cop Dennis DeYoung properly.

Arnold00:08:30

Properly, yeah.

Carlos00:08:30

And we had guys come over that were pretty good singers. Sounding like Dennis DeYoung is not easy, and. And that's something that he's able to do.

Mark00:08:38

Yeah.

Arnold00:08:39

Let's get a little glimpse of what Grand Illusion sounds like here, folks.

Other00:08:45

Everybody join us in this celebration. Lady, when you're with me, I'm smiling. Give me.

Arnold00:09:18

Now to get that sound. Okay. How often do you guys practice? How long had you guys been going before Scott came on the scene? And how do you mold all the harmonies together?Do you listen? No, that's not quite right. Explain that to listeners.

Carlos00:09:35

Okay. Going back. So back in the day, when I first joined the band, which was February 2015, we rehearsed a lot, probably once a week for quite some time.And so we put in a lot of work early on, getting things, figuring out how we were going to do endings and so forth and so on, working on the harmonies with the lineup that we had at that time. And so we. By the time Scott came around, we had Been together, what, probably eight years, nine years.And so we had the foundation on the hits there and down. And so we were, I guess what you would call, well, rehearsed just from doing so much practice back in the day.

Arnold00:10:20

Right.

Carlos00:10:21

Because, Scott, I think we rehearsed maybe what, three times before we did the first gig with you. Yeah. And we don't really rehearse at all any more. We might, like, work on vocals when we're at a show and before the show and that.And we do get together and rehearse occasionally when we like. We'll be doing the 50th anniversary of Crystal Ball, celebrating that at the Wilde Theater in Edwardsville in November.And last year, we did the Equinox album.

Arnold00:10:49

Okay.

Carlos00:10:50

In entirety. So for that, we had to get together and rehearse because they're not easy songs to do and they were new to us.So other than that, we really have gotten ourselves to the point where it's, everybody does their homework, everybody knows what to do. As long as we brush up at home and get ready, we can come in and we will all work on some vocal parts here and there.Just because sometimes you haven't sang that in a while and you're like, oh, gosh, what was my part? I can't remember.

Arnold00:11:13

Yeah.

Mark00:11:13

How many members are in the band?

Arnold00:11:15

Six.

Mark00:11:15

Six. Six total. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Arnold00:11:18

And I want to give the plug that they're going to be at the Del Mar hall, and that's going to be on February 7th. February 7th at Del Mar Hall. That's a Saturday. You can get tickets on Eventbrite and we'll post that on the podcast page.But the show starts at 8pm Doors open at 7. Front open, front bar opens at 6. So Del Mar hall is a great venue, and you've played in a lot of venues.You've played at Chesterfield Amphitheater, you've played Family Arena, Wildy.

Carlos00:11:44

Yeah, the Wildy Theater. Quite a few times.

Arnold00:11:46

You've done Del Mar hall before, too, right?

Carlos00:11:48

No, this is our time. Yeah.

Scott00:11:49

First time there.

Carlos00:11:50

Yeah, we're excited about it. Exactly.

Scott00:11:52

We also play the auras in St. Genevieve.

Carlos00:11:54

Yeah. It's another place theater. Yeah.

Arnold00:11:57

Do you go a little farther than that or.

Carlos00:12:00

We have in the past, but it's been a while. The biggest thing is that Scott plays music full time. That's all he does. But the rest of us have our day jobs and that.And so trying to orchestrate that makes it a little bit tough. And honestly, the toughest part about playing other places is that venue, they pay X amount of dollars. Doesn't matter what city you're in.

Arnold00:12:21

Yeah.

Carlos00:12:21

So unless you're a traveling band that can book enough gigs in a row to pay for the travel and all that stuff, it's tough to like just jump in and jump out because you can stay in town and make the same money and not have to drive and have the expenses on travel.

Arnold00:12:36

Do you double as a sound engineer or you have somebody that kind of.

Carlos00:12:39

We have. No, we have. Yeah, no, we have a couple guys that come raining old. He's the production manager at the pageant.

Arnold00:12:46

Okay.

Carlos00:12:47

He mixes for us when he can. And we have a couple other guys that will bring in when they don't have production provided for us.But usually most places will have the production there and we can bring in our own engineer. And sometimes when we play places they don't want us to bring anybody, they won't let us. And so we have to deal with.

Arnold00:13:03

Interesting, Interesting. I'll come back to that in a minute.

Carlos00:13:05

Yeah.

Arnold00:13:07

Full time playing gig. That's tough.

Scott00:13:09

It is tough. It is tough, but I love it.

Carlos00:13:11

It's.

Scott00:13:11

They say if you do what you love, it's not like really you're working, which isn't the case all the time. But yeah, I love it. I do a lot of solo acoustic stuff. I do stuff with all those projects.I was just mentioning before, I'm in a band called the Blue Marlin Band, which I've had since about 22 years. We started 22 years ago and we play around the area quite a bit, mainly in Illinois. We're mainly an Illinois band. But yeah, I have a trio.I have a couple duos. I play with my son. Both my sons play music and they're both. They both play with. In fact, my son.Both of my sons are in an original band called A Rather Bright Light and they're playing a little selfless promo here. They're playing Friday night at Pops at the Road to Point Fest. So they're trying to get.They're trying to win the Point Fest so they can play on the big stage at Riverport. We call it Riverport, not Hollywood Casino.

Arnold00:13:56

Yeah, yeah, Riverport.

Carlos00:13:57

That's what I call it.

Scott00:13:59

Yeah. But while we're very excited, always going to be.But they've worked so hard and they're on their third album right now and they've really done a great job and I'm just so proud of both of them.

Carlos00:14:08

They're great.

Arnold00:14:09

Yeah. Now Mark and I are both envious of the hair.

Mark00:14:11

You're more than me.

Arnold00:14:15

You've got to. You can't sing sticks if you don't have the hair. That's right.

Scott00:14:19

It's prerequisite, that's for sure.

Arnold00:14:22

So how does a classical guitarist. I guess if you play classical guitar, rock's probably a whole lot easier.

Carlos00:14:29

Yeah, I started out playing classical guitar and I honestly haven't done that in many years. I stuck with the electric and I'm not even really much of an acoustic player.I never really had a good acoustic until I worked for Ampeg and Creighton, which also had Alvarez guitars. And so, yeah, Alvarez rep there hooked me up with a cool acoustic. But I've just always.I've always been an electric player and that's just been really my main thing. And, yeah, the classical guitar thing, I just kind of went by the wayside especially too.Just I could actually make money playing electric guitar and kind of creeped in, and that's where I stayed.And when I studied music, I actually went back to electrical engineering because studying music was actually a lot tougher than electrical engineering. Just because of the schedule. You're supposed to play your own instrument, practice at least four to six hours a day.

Mark00:15:13

Wow.

Carlos00:15:14

Then you have to learn how to play piano because that's. And so you got an hour a day of piano. Then you need to do your ear training and your soulfedge singing and that.And then you got to go to class and then you need to do your homework right from class. So even sleeping. When does that happen?And if you're going to do musical instrument performance, if you're not the best of the best, then you know you're not going to be able to make a living. It's just. It was like, man, I think I'm going back to engineering. It was a lot easier and I'll probably get a paycheck.

Arnold00:15:43

There you go. There you go. It's Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune. We're talking to Scott Marlin and Carlos Bedoya, aka Mr. Vacuum Tube.I'm going to talk about that in a second. They are both in the tribute band that is performing at the Gosh at the Del Mar Hall. It's a tribute to Sticks grand delusions. Saturday, February 7th.Now, I called you, aka Mr. Vacuum Tube because you have to explain that to me. Now, I know you're an amp designer and you're very. Mark.He's really intelligent because the story I read was that he would go to places to get stuff fixed and he knew More than the people who were fixing them.

Mark00:16:24

That's a problem.

Arnold00:16:24

And he was like, look, why do I know more about this than you do?

Mark00:16:28

That's a problem and I'm going to pay you.

Scott00:16:30

Yeah.

Arnold00:16:30

And so he went on his own. That's when he went to the electrical engineering, which was what.I think I'm following the story and why I asked you about whether you were the engineer on the show, but explain. I know it's tubes because Mark and I both were old enough to know that we had tube TVs.And when your TV went out, you would take the tube up to Walgreens, you would stick it in that thing and it would say, oh, yeah, this is no good.You would pull the one out the bottom that was okay, and you would put it back because it lit up in the back of the TV and you knew you were okay then. So what's. Is that a vacuum tube or.

Carlos00:17:01

Yeah, those are vacuum tubes.

Arnold00:17:02

Yeah. Okay.

Carlos00:17:02

Yep.

Arnold00:17:03

So you're talking about a vacuum tube amp then.

Carlos00:17:05

Yes. Yeah. Vacuum tube amplifiers and the audio industry. Home audio especially. High end, especially vacuum tubes are where it's at.Same thing with musical instrument amplifiers. Guitar amps especially, and bass amps.

Arnold00:17:17

What does it do for the amp and for the different sounds?

Carlos00:17:20

It's. There's a little bit. These days things have gotten so much better. Even a lot of the modeling that they have now is that's modeling tube amps.You know, actually digitally replicating a vacuum tube. They've gotten a lot better than what they used to be. A lot of it's just tubes have a natural compression to them.And the other thing about them too is when they distort, when a signal distorts, it puts off all kinds of different harmonics, which is a different. Different frequencies of the fundamental frequency that's coming.And with vacuum tubes, they have this very cool ability that when they distort, they actually emphasize the even ordered harmonics, which is something your ear likes.

Other00:18:00

Yeah.

Carlos00:18:00

So you get that sweet feedback and things that just make you feel good. Whereas solid state, it's a odd order, odd ordered harmonic emphasis, which is your ear doesn't like as much.And so it sounds harsh and brash rather than warm and full. And that's the probably the easiest way to describe it. So even with audio, it's the same kind of thing.And there's also just a certain kind of coloration. Also with the.The transformers that are associated with vacuum tubes, you have to have a transformer to match the impedance to the speaker and so forth. That also gives another kind of aesthetic and coloration to the sound and saturation too. It can help with the distortion.So there's power amp distortion that comes into play and preamp distortion and all this stuff and yeah, just. It's one of those things where for guitar it's just magical.

Arnold00:18:46

Oh yeah.

Carlos00:18:46

And also too it's. They're very responsive to your playing and you're picking. The more you dig in on with your pick, the more it'll compress or distort.And so it's very flavorful and you can really emphasize different things with your playing with a vacuum tube.

Arnold00:19:01

You're the go to guy here in the St. Louis area.

Mark00:19:03

I don't.

Carlos00:19:03

I. There's a few of us guys out there that work for St. Louis Music electronics for Ampeg that still do things. So I. To me, I am like the.I am a grasshopper. The guys that I worked with there, obed Khan, George McHale, those guys are the gurus, man.

Arnold00:19:21

He's got crazy guitar player.

Carlos00:19:23

Oh yeah, that. Yeah. Working with him was awesome. And so he's. He was like a mentor to me there. And that was the five coolest years of my life.Two and a half Them were awesome because we got bought by Loud Technologies about halfway in and they proceeded to basically dismantle Ampeg and moved everything to Woodenville, Washington. Laid us all off and got rid of everything that was cool here in St. Louis. I almost sold my repair shop that I had. I was this close to it.And then when they bought us, I was like, maybe I better not do this.

Arnold00:19:52

So keep that in my back pocket.

Carlos00:19:54

Keep that in the back pocket. But yeah, no, there's a lot of guys here in town. I do work on stuff for people. I still have my shop, I operate it part time.LS Electronics and Services is the name of the SH shop and I do that part time for people mainly for musicians in town that gig and still need it. But yeah, that's. Unfortunately the last shop closed down in town about a. Might be two years ago now. Year and a half at least.And so yeah, there's no dedicated repair shop left in town for musicians or even audio files as far as I know that actually have people who are competent in what they're doing.

Arnold00:20:30

And that's a tough thing because. Oh yeah, when you take your instrument or you take your amp which is part of your instrument, especially on the electronic kind of side.Oh yeah, you want somebody that knows what they're doing because you're entrusting them this is your livelihood.

Carlos00:20:43

It's your guitar or your amplifier to musicians, kind of like your kids. Or it's an extension of your body. It's almost like an appendage. And yeah, you just don't want to let anybody touch that.And so it's gotten really tough if. Same thing. There are guitar shops left in town, which is cool, but there's a lot less of them.But if you need fret work done or something like that, it's tough to find the guys that really can do that kind of work and do it well. They're all dying away or retiring or. It's just. It's not something that's.Unfortunately, it's not something that you can do and actually make a living like you could 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, especially. So it's not something that people are doing. Make a lot more money in it, doing something else.

Arnold00:21:25

But I'll tell you, some people, they balk at the price of a repair, especially if it's from someone who really knows what they're doing.But you're paying for their experience, you're paying for their knowledge, you're paying for the quality of what it's going to be when they get done dealing with it.

Carlos00:21:39

Yeah.

Arnold00:21:39

So I know people balk at that. Oh, it's going to cost that much. Take it down the street where the guy doesn't know what he's doing and you can get it for cheap and.

Carlos00:21:46

You want to fix three times and get it back or you want. Or once. And that happens a lot of times. I actually turn away more people than I take in even. I still answer emails and do that.But quite honestly, most of the stuff that's out there anymore is not worth fixing.

Arnold00:22:01

Yeah, that's true.

Carlos00:22:01

So if it's not a vintage piece of gear or it's not an esoteric piece of gear. Yeah. I tell people if you can. I tell people if you can buy a used one for 350 bucks or less, do it and keep yours for parts.

Arnold00:22:11

Yeah.

Carlos00:22:11

Because it's good. You're going to get a $350 bill probably anyway on a typical repair.

Arnold00:22:16

Right.

Carlos00:22:17

A lot of times it just makes more sense to replace it.

Arnold00:22:19

Plus it has sentimental value.

Carlos00:22:20

Yeah. And then sometimes people bring me things that aren't worth fixing. But yeah, it has sentimental value and they want to.Of course, I'll do stuff like that too, but with an upfront deposit, of course.

Arnold00:22:29

Yeah. Did either of your family, your mom or dad or grandparents play instruments?

Scott00:22:37

Yes, my mom Was a singer. She was a singer back in the 60s.

Carlos00:22:40

Yeah.

Scott00:22:41

Very good sing. She used to sing in the coffee houses in the 60s, and she used to have. She used to an accompanist that used to play the accordion.So they come in and he played the accordion and she would sing. Or he played piano, too. He's a great piano player. But, yeah, she's a fantastic singer, so I can definitely thank her for some of my singing genes.

Arnold00:22:57

So if you weren't.

Mark00:22:58

I don't see anybody playing accordions anymore.

Scott00:23:01

No. You know.

Mark00:23:02

You know what I mean?

Scott00:23:02

It's a lost art.

Mark00:23:04

Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. They did back in the 60s and stuff.

Carlos00:23:07

Oh, yeah. It was a big. It was a big thing, man.

Mark00:23:08

It was. And then it just. It's gone. It is.

Carlos00:23:12

They even had midi accordions. I worked on a few for guys here in town. And that was super cool because you got all these different MIDI channels, so they could.And with the accordion, you have all the different keys and pedals and buttons, and all that stuff was hooked up to different sounds. And so some of these accordion guys, they could play and sound like a full band.

Arnold00:23:31

Wow. Yeah.

Carlos00:23:32

Playing with whatever sounds they chose to come out is amazing. So accordion is actually a really cool instrument.

Arnold00:23:38

I agree. It's cool.

Mark00:23:39

And your mom's singing along with it.

Other00:23:40

It.

Arnold00:23:41

Yeah, I.

Scott00:23:41

It's. Every once in a while, she'll come to a gig and I'll get her up to sing and we'll.

Mark00:23:45

There you go.

Scott00:23:47

Yeah, it's always a blast. Everybody loves it. But, yeah, very blessed to have such a supportive and great family.

Arnold00:23:53

If you weren't singing and playing, what would you be doing?

Scott00:23:56

I was an accountant for 20, about 25 years.

Carlos00:23:58

There we go.

Arnold00:24:00

CPA account.

Scott00:24:00

No, I actually worked at, like, accounts receivables and stuff like that for a bunch of different companies. But I just finally got to the point. I was actually a mailman for a year. I was a mail carrier.

Carlos00:24:09

Okay.

Scott00:24:09

Got out of it, but I got laid off for the last time. I became a mail carrier for about a year and then realized that's not a great career to start at 45 years old.So I went ahead and just said, I'm gonna try this music thing and see how it works out. And I've been able to make it work, and that's great. A lot of support. So it's been great.

Arnold00:24:24

That's great.

Carlos00:24:25

Yeah.

Arnold00:24:26

Me and Live Mark.

Mark00:24:27

I know. That's great.

Carlos00:24:29

I have a fun stuff.

Arnold00:24:30

Tremendous admiration for you guys because of. You've stuck with things that you've loved and it's a really tough business to make money in and to. Or to just pay all the bills, frankly.And to make money. That's a whole nother story.

Carlos00:24:44

Yeah, you're exactly right to do that.

Arnold00:24:47

So I want to give the website. We're going to talk some more here, but I want to give the website before we go to a break.It's beststickstribute.com best s-t y x tribute.com and this is the grand a tribute to Styx. And they're going to be playing at the Del Mar Hall Saturday, February 7th.And the show starts at 8pm you can get tickets at Eventbrite and we're going to take a brief break. This is Arnold Circuit with Mark Langston. We'll be right back. As strange as it may sound, at Better Rate Mortgage.We love talking to people about mortgages. Everyone in St. Louis promises a better mortgage rate. But what you really need to turn that perfect house into your dream home is a better mortgage.At Better Rate Mortgage, we open the door to so much more. So where are you in the home buying process? Researching, maybe wondering how much you can afford? House hunting.Get a pre approval from Better Rate Mortgage Ready to buy. Our team is ready to make your mortgage process fast and easy.Whether you're purchasing your first home or taking cash out to make your dream home even dreamier. Our door is open. Come on in and get started. Today we'll show you how.Call Sean directly at 314-375-3293 or online@betterratemortgage.com Remember, at Better Rate Mortgage, a better rate is just the beginning. Betterratemortgage.com and MLS Hydro 401335 in equal housing lender.

Other00:26:09

Everybody join us in this celebration. Lady, when you're with me I'm smiling Give me wow, wow. Your love.I thought that they were angels Much to my surprise they climbed aboard the starship headed from the sky. Come sail away, Come sail away Come sail away with.

Mark00:27:05

Wow. This is National DJ Day. And back in the 70s, I was at a station KADI, the Rock of St. Louis. And we, we played this song. We played all of them.Sticks I think was just coming out then. It was really something. They were a big deal. Oh yeah, they still are.

Arnold00:27:23

You bore the grooves in the vinyl.

Mark00:27:24

Oh, it was wonderful. There are very few songs we ever didn't play from a Sticks album.

Scott00:27:30

They have such a huge catalog. I mean it's amazing. KDI that's so cool. That was a huge flashback. That's great.

Mark00:27:36

Yep. I was there for quite a while. The Rock of St. Louis.

Arnold00:27:39

Yeah, he's. He's like. He should be in the DJ hall of Fame. He's a big WRL guy.

Mark00:27:47

Okay. Wrl. Yep. Yep. There for a long time, too. Yeah.

Arnold00:27:53

Wow.

Mark00:27:53

That was an acquired taste, country music, for me. Yeah. Really, it was. I was always a rock guy, and I came from a rock. I came from Katy and went right to country music.

Arnold00:28:03

Oh, that is a shock.

Mark00:28:04

So it was quite a shock. I didn't know Patsy Cline was dead. I'm like, hey, what is going on here? But it was quite. Quite an. And country music, to me is more American music.It really is like the grassroots of America. And boy, when I used to go to Nashville all the time. I don't want to take away from all this, but the musicians in Nashville are unbelievable.

Scott00:28:27

Yeah, they still are.

Mark00:28:28

Yeah, they still are. That's true.

Carlos00:28:30

Yeah.

Mark00:28:30

We'd go down there for a week for the country radio seminar, and it. We would meet all these musicians and all the artists and the studio musicians would be there. Garth Brooks would sit at lunch and just play a guitar.It was always like that. It was amazing.

Carlos00:28:45

It was.

Mark00:28:46

And that was more fun than the country or than the rock part. It was hard to get rock musicians to do that. But, boy, I love both. But, yeah, that's great. It was a nice acquired taste. Now I'm a country fan, too.

Carlos00:28:57

That's great.

Mark00:28:57

I took a bit. Okay, now back to the show.

Carlos00:28:59

Music is good.

Mark00:29:01

Let's go back from the show. Sorry, guys.

Arnold00:29:04

Who did you listen to growing up, other than Sticks? Oh, wow. Who were some of your groups that you grooved on?

Scott00:29:09

I was a humongous Rush fan. I loved Rush.

Other00:29:11

I.

Scott00:29:12

Rush was a huge fan. I liked Pink Floyd. I like Zeppelin, Steely Dan. Huge Steely Dan fan.

Arnold00:29:18

There's just.

Scott00:29:19

There's so many Toto. There's just. And all these bands are just. They have such a great catalog of music, and I like it all. That's great.

Mark00:29:27

Toto was all studio musicians, wasn't it? Weren't they? Yes. They weren't really a touring kind of group group. They were just hanging out in the studio. So let's put something together.

Arnold00:29:36

As you were saying, though, in the country group and also in the. The R B, like, up at Detroit, they had their little crew that would always perform behind the big names, studio groups. They weren't.They didn't have these bands they brought in. That was the crew.

Scott00:29:52

Yep. Yeah.

Arnold00:29:53

Yes.

Scott00:29:54

An interesting thing. Like Steve Lukather of Toto. His resume is absolutely incredible. He has played on so many songs that you've heard on the radio and you go, wow.That guitar solo, Running with the Night. I don't. Richie. That's him playing that awesome guitar song at the end. Just incredible musician. It's very impressive.

Arnold00:30:10

Who did you listen to?

Carlos00:30:12

Oh, wow. I loved Black Sabbath. I was a Sabbath nut and an Aussie nut. Randy Rhodes was. Oh, yeah, the guy when I was younger. And yacht rock.I listened to KSLQ when I was a kid, man.

Arnold00:30:29

Yeah.

Carlos00:30:30

And Paul Simon and all kinds of.

Scott00:30:34

Little River Band.

Carlos00:30:37

And. Yeah. So I listened to a lot of more mellow stuff, but. And then real heavy stuff, too, is kind of.

Mark00:30:43

It was like that back then. It was you like. I mean. Yeah, Little Riverman was great. Saw them at the. At the. The Mississippi River Festival one year.Speaking, you guys being from siu.

Carlos00:30:53

Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah.

Mark00:30:54

Yeah. So that's neat.

Carlos00:30:56

Yeah, that was. Man, I wish I would have been able to hit some of those. That was just a little bit before my time.But I got to meet Bob Hodge a while and talked to him, which was super cool. One of my highlights is an audio guy.

Mark00:31:07

Yeah.

Arnold00:31:07

Oh, yeah.

Carlos00:31:08

He was like the godfather of the modern PA system.

Scott00:31:11

He's in the hall of fame.

Arnold00:31:12

Yes.

Carlos00:31:13

Oh, yeah. The modern PA system is really him. And his story about the Grateful Dead and how that happened was super cool.And the other thing I thought was awesome about him is I didn't know he was an organ player. And he was actually a prodigy under Stan Can. Really, who was at the Fox Theater, Right. Oh, yeah.I remember him from Johnny Carson with his vacuum cleaner collection and stuff that he have on there. But, yeah, Bob was. Was his underling. And I. When I. He mentioned that and said that, I was just like, holy cow, that's so cool.

Arnold00:31:42

You know, people don't realize that's a St. Louis founding.

Carlos00:31:45

Yes.

Other00:31:46

Yeah.

Arnold00:31:46

Yeah.

Carlos00:31:47

Fenia. He got hired to do the quadrophonic sound for that thing and then invented the talk box. Yeah.

Scott00:31:53

Peter Frampton.

Carlos00:31:54

And he also modified his Leslie cabinet so that he could use a pedal to speed it up and down when he was playing. And it just. And yeah, that guy is. Boy, to have his life, I would be on cloud nine.To be able to be back then and inventing things and making things to do stuff that wasn't around.

Arnold00:32:13

Is that just thinking about. I wonder if I put a pedal on the B3 speaker. What that would do. Or is it like just experimenting around or where does this stuff come from?

Carlos00:32:22

It's probably more like, man, I wish I had in between speeds on my Leslie. It's either fast or slow when I step on it. And it'd be nice if I could, like, find the tempo that we're playing and maybe make it go with that.So it's probably just okay. That would be great. How could I do that? There's wawas that go like this, and I wonder if I could modify one of those to make that happen.So it's really just fixing a possible need or thinking of how can we do this better and making it happen.

Arnold00:32:49

That's true. I always ask people who are musicians or writers or anybody in the arts could be an artist too.What they suggest to people who are considering getting in the industry or wanting to break into the industry, whether it's in electronics or it's in music or what is it? What would you suggest that they do?

Scott00:33:11

Two things. One, practice a lot. You know that you're not going to get anywhere unless you do the practicing and put in the work.And you're just going to become better and better the more you do that. And also have an open mind. You got to have an open mind for this thing.Because if you're not open to suggestions and you're not open to listening to other people, that's not going to help you either. So you got to be open and you got to be able to be.

Carlos00:33:31

Willing to listen and stay grounded too.

Scott00:33:34

Yeah, for sure.

Carlos00:33:35

Yeah. That's one thing about the whole Grand Illusion Band. It's everybody's just a super nice person.

Arnold00:33:44

And they're not on their ego trip.

Carlos00:33:46

No, there's no ego trips in this band at all.

Scott00:33:48

It goes back to your beginning thing. Be kind same thing. It's exactly.

Carlos00:33:52

That's the way you should live your life. We're all about making the music and making it sound as much like the album as we possibly can.Nobody gets mad if it's like, hey, so and so sounded really good on that part. You should sing that.

Scott00:34:05

Okay.

Carlos00:34:06

It doesn't matter we at all. Especially with the guitar stuff. Eugene Holden Reed, he sings the JY stuff and plays a majority of JY solos.But he also does all the acoustic instruments and the mandolin in that too, which would normally be Tommy Shaw. And then I cover most of the Tommy Shaw solos on the electric stuff.But then I'll do some of the JY stuff because he's playing the acoustic instruments. And so we Go back and forth and. And we just split stuff up. There's no. It's. Hey, I already know this. Okay, cool. Do it.

Other00:34:37

Yeah.

Arnold00:34:37

Versatility.

Carlos00:34:38

Whatever makes whoever does it the best and whatever makes it happen the way it needs to happen is how things go.

Arnold00:34:43

Any regrets along the way in your career? That's a good question.

Mark00:34:48

That's a tough question.

Scott00:34:49

Very tough question. I think if I had to rewind, I would probably take it a little more seriously in the beginning than I did.I think I would have probably worked a little harder at doing this music.

Arnold00:34:59

Thing because at what time of your life?

Scott00:35:01

Probably when I was doing. I was talking about doing the accounts receivable stuff. I wish I would have probably taken a different path at that point.I just really couldn't financially at the point either. But I realize now how much I really enjoy doing this and how much I enjoy playing with other musicians, being a part of everything.So I probably would have maybe taken a different path earlier in life. It's hard to look back and I sure. Besides move forward. Move forward and have fun. Enjoy why you can.

Arnold00:35:25

Exactly.

Scott00:35:26

Yeah.

Carlos00:35:26

And there's also nothing wrong with having a backup plan too.

Arnold00:35:29

Yeah, exactly.

Carlos00:35:30

You do things in parallel as much as you can.

Arnold00:35:32

Yeah.

Carlos00:35:33

Because when you're trying to work things up, sometimes you need to have a part time job or something to help out.

Arnold00:35:38

And sometimes the things that you do that you really love when you have. When they become work, then they're not fun anymore and it's. I don't want to do this anymore.And I just want to do it for a hobby because that's when I really enjoyed it. Yeah.

Scott00:35:51

One of the best things about playing music is getting the crowd response and getting response from people because I just. I love being around people and especially people that make you feel good about what you're doing.And I love to get the responses and the feedback from all the people that come and see us and people that come to all of all the shows that we do around the area. And they're just. They're kind and they're just good people to be around. And that's. That makes you feel good too, because.

Arnold00:36:13

You'Re not going to hear sticks anymore, Mark. They're not doing their final. No wheeling around tour or. Yeah, the walker, the walking tour.

Scott00:36:24

Tennis balls.

Mark00:36:27

And they should be playing it. They should be playing sticks. I should be hearing that on the radio and I don't hear sticks.

Carlos00:36:32

Yeah, no, they sticks.

Mark00:36:33

Elo. There's this. It's just bands. I don't Hear. Yeah, that's what happened.

Other00:36:37

I know.

Mark00:36:38

This is classic good stuff and there's.

Scott00:36:40

Nothing to replace it.

Mark00:36:41

No, no, that's so true. Nothing has replaced it. And it's not me sounding like an old guy either.

Scott00:36:48

Right.

Mark00:36:48

But nothing has really replaced a lot of the music that we heard in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Carlos00:36:52

Oh, it was such a fantastic time.

Mark00:36:54

It's timeless music. Would you. Yes.

Carlos00:36:57

In every genre. There's not a genre where there's nothing. Got really great stuff.

Mark00:37:01

Yeah. To me, it's amazing that some of that. It's.

Carlos00:37:03

Wow.

Mark00:37:04

I could still play this today. And some of the young kids are playing it.

Carlos00:37:07

Yeah.

Arnold00:37:08

And they're surprised at how much they like it.

Carlos00:37:10

I know, right?

Scott00:37:11

It's timeless. It really is. Wow.

Carlos00:37:13

It's got a hook and a melody. Yeah.

Other00:37:18

What?

Scott00:37:19

And that droning bass and those layered harmonies. I love those layered harmonies.

Arnold00:37:24

You don't hear that. Oh, my gosh.

Scott00:37:25

I mean, it's just so cool how they put all that together. And my gosh. Journey and REO and Sticks. April Wine. All those great bands.

Mark00:37:32

Oh, April Wine.

Scott00:37:35

So many great bands.

Mark00:37:36

See?

Arnold00:37:36

Yeah.

Mark00:37:37

I don't hear this stuff.

Carlos00:37:38

No.

Mark00:37:38

Some of these. Oh, we're a classic rock station. I go, no, I don't hear any of that stuff. What are you playing?

Carlos00:37:44

There was so much music that you could just. And it was. I know. It was engineered and made to be this way. You put the headphones on and you go into a different world. Oh, yeah, there's.And if you really listen and you're in a quiet, quiet room, you can. As a song starting, you can hear all kinds of different things building and stuff in the background. And there's just. There's some albums and songs.It's just with headphones. Yeah.

Arnold00:38:06

That's the way to listen to it.

Mark00:38:07

And the albums were different. Can I say we used to say it away. I know one thing we used to do.We would get the virgin copies of albums and we'd have a party and we'd all sit around. We had those sound systems in our houses that were. Were like, crazy. And we'd put it on, okay. No cracks, no pops, no nothing.You put that needle on there, and we'd just turn it up till the neighbors came over and said.

Carlos00:38:31

Or till the turntable started feeding.

Mark00:38:33

Nothing.

Arnold00:38:35

The stylus broke.

Mark00:38:36

I know. Those were diamonds. Nothing like listening to a Pink Floyd album that had never been played before.

Arnold00:38:41

Oh, yeah.

Mark00:38:43

I still remember it.

Carlos00:38:44

No pops, no scratches. And you've never heard it.

Mark00:38:47

Right. I know all of the above. That's right.

Scott00:38:50

And it was great pulling the liner notes out, out looking and reading and everything.

Mark00:38:54

Now they're getting back.

Arnold00:38:55

You can make sure you knew the lyrics.

Carlos00:38:57

There's magic.

Mark00:38:58

There's magic in it.

Arnold00:39:00

Yes. Yeah. We've done a couple shows on Monda Greens that are lyrics that you think there's something else.

Scott00:39:06

Oh, yes.

Arnold00:39:06

So we've played the real lyric and I've said the real and then we played what you think it sounds like. And those were some fun shows to do. There's a lot of monograms.

Carlos00:39:14

You should do that with Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers by ZZ Top. There's so many lines in there. Really.

Mark00:39:19

What the heck did he say?

Scott00:39:20

Did you do Long Tall Sally?

Arnold00:39:21

I'm right. Yes.

Scott00:39:22

That's a good one. That's a good.

Arnold00:39:24

There's some we have to stay away from.

Carlos00:39:25

Yeah.

Other00:39:26

Yeah.

Mark00:39:26

I don't know why we can get away with anything.

Arnold00:39:32

Grand Illusion A Tribute to Sticks will be at Del Mar Hall, Saturday, February 7th. Shows at 8pm Doors open, 7pm, front bar open, 6pm Go to Eventbrite for tickets. Guys, it's been great having you on the show here. Stick around.

Mark00:39:45

How long are your shows? How can I ask that? How long is it?

Carlos00:39:48

It depends on the venue. Some only want us to play an hour and a half, but we got. Got probably at least two and a half hours worth of sticks music.Probably closing in on three hours. Especially after we learn the rest of the Crystal Ball album.

Arnold00:40:00

Do you do a. An intermission or. No.

Carlos00:40:02

Depends again on the venue. We like.When we played at Chesterfield last time, we decided to play straight through and did about 2 hours and 20 minutes because it was so hot that day that we said if we stop we're not going to want to start again. So just get that power through. So we. Yeah, we've done that quite a few times where we just played through.But some places will play about an hour, 10 minutes and then take a break and then come back and you.

Arnold00:40:25

Leave some of the famous quote unquote famous ones for near the end or. Yeah. Or something like that.

Scott00:40:31

Here's a great thing about Sticks and this is one of the few bands that can do this. You can pretty much play any song for an encore.

Arnold00:40:37

Yeah.

Scott00:40:37

Because they're all great.

Mark00:40:38

Wow, that's true.

Scott00:40:39

There's so many great songs. Of course, Come Sail Away is the biggest, but there is so many great six songs. You can pretty much insert any song and play them at the end.They're great.

Arnold00:40:48

Yeah.

Mark00:40:48

You know, have you ever played with a. Another cover band ever? Is there ELO1 out there somewhere?

Arnold00:40:54

Yeah.

Carlos00:40:55

Oh, you mean do double bill with another tune?

Mark00:40:57

Thank you. That was the question.

Carlos00:40:58

Okay.

Arnold00:41:00

He's interpreting your question.

Mark00:41:02

Like my wife.

Scott00:41:02

I think I sound like my wife. Does that all the time. So does mine.

Mark00:41:11

All right.

Carlos00:41:11

Yeah, we have, in fact, the very first gig that I played with Grand Illusion was at the Wildy Theater and we had a Pat Benatar tribute band over open for us.

Mark00:41:20

Oh, cool.

Carlos00:41:21

And I. If I recall correctly, that was the last time we had a band that we played with at. With a Grand Illusion.And the reason for that was this was back also before they had the consoles where you could actually save the scenes and save stuff. And the theater at that time had older equipment. And long story short, they didn't. They had a 48 channel console split 24 and 24.So they could have done separate monitor mixes for us, but they didn't have a SN that accommodated all that. So we had to share. And so we did our sound check. Everything was great. They came, the other band came on, did their stuff, did their sound check.And what they did was they. Before those guys took on, they are stepped up. They wrote down all the settings. You're never going to put the stuff back in the same spot.And some of these Mason consoles, especially the Allen Heath consoles, if you blow on the knob, it'll move a little bit and it makes a big difference.So when we got out there to start and do our set, things were just totally awry and not pleasant and not fun and it was not a good experience for any of us. So after that we said, if we can get away with it, let's just not have an opening act. And.Or if we do, it's going to be a solo or a duo act or something simple. Not a whole full band unless we're doing it somewhere where they have the right style stuff.

Arnold00:42:44

Yeah.

Carlos00:42:45

To really make it happen. And so when we did play at Family arena, we had the close quarters. I forgot about that.But it's seldomly do we have another act that we do things with just mainly because of logistics and.

Mark00:42:56

Yeah, that makes sense.

Carlos00:42:57

Production's a lot more expensive when you have the right stuff.

Arnold00:42:59

But that's critical because that's what you want. That's why you're there to get that sound.

Carlos00:43:03

Yeah.

Arnold00:43:04

And you don't want to hear man way out of whack.

Carlos00:43:06

Oh, yeah. It's nothing worse than not being able to hear yourself.

Arnold00:43:09

Yeah.

Carlos00:43:09

You know, and you hear too much of somebody else.

Scott00:43:10

Exactly.

Carlos00:43:11

And so.

Arnold00:43:11

So I wish that guy would turn his amp down or something.

Mark00:43:15

Sorry I asked.

Carlos00:43:18

But you're right.

Arnold00:43:18

He interpreted for you.

Mark00:43:19

Yeah, he did. He's very good at it. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Carlos00:43:22

But, yeah, it's a right situation. We don't mind doing that. But a lot of times it's just not really conducive to do something like that.

Arnold00:43:29

Scott Marlin and Carlos Bedoya, thanks for coming in today to the studio. Thanks for having us, guys. Stick around. We had a great time talking to you. Mark's going to give us another day besides National DJ Day.

Mark00:43:39

Oh, it's time. Okay.

Arnold00:43:40

Yeah.

Mark00:43:40

Let's see. National Cheese Lovers Day. This is your Congress working, picking these things out. National DJ Day. National Penguin Day. Don't get that one at all.Camcorder Day. You all have a camcorder? Still have one of those.

Carlos00:43:55

Wow. I got a broken one sitting around.

Mark00:43:59

Inauguration Day. International Day of Acceptance. Yeah.

Arnold00:44:04

All right, be kind.

Mark00:44:07

National Coffee Break Day. Taking a coffee break?

Arnold00:44:09

Oh, yeah, all the time.

Carlos00:44:10

That's every day.

Arnold00:44:10

Yeah, exactly.

Mark00:44:11

Penguin Awareness Day. I don't know what the thing is with the pigments.

Arnold00:44:15

Is that something to do with Batman or something?

Mark00:44:17

Take a walk Outside Day. There you go.

Arnold00:44:20

Not today.

Mark00:44:20

No. Wait till it's seven degrees.

Carlos00:44:22

Yeah.

Mark00:44:22

You want to do that.

Scott00:44:24

Why is that in January?

Carlos00:44:28

Because you're not normally going to do that.

Arnold00:44:31

Good point.

Mark00:44:33

Wow. That's just a few of the many things our Congress has been working on.

Arnold00:44:38

Okay. All right. I usually close with some humor because we all need to laugh. We all need to not be so serious in life.So the therapist says, and what do we say when we're sad? I say, add to cart.

Carlos00:44:53

Oh.

Mark00:44:56

It'S gotta get worse, guys.

Arnold00:44:59

Now, Mark will appreciate this. If I die and come back as a hillbilly, is that reintarnation? Yeah.

Mark00:45:06

There you go. Nice.

Arnold00:45:08

That's good. The urge to sing the lion sleeps Tonight Is just a weem away A weem away.

Carlos00:45:17

The cornier the better, man.

Arnold00:45:18

That's correct.

Mark00:45:19

And come to the right place.

Scott00:45:21

Great.

Mark00:45:22

Dad Jones.

Arnold00:45:22

Yeah.

Carlos00:45:23

Oh, yeah.

Arnold00:45:25

Keep my day job.

Mark00:45:29

He's coming in here.

Arnold00:45:30

So butt load is a real unit of measurement. It's equal to 126 gallons.

Carlos00:45:38

That's serious.

Mark00:45:39

Wow. Okay. I'm not even gonna touch that. I'll tell you that right now.

Arnold00:45:43

Yeah. Okay, last one. In a span of 11 years, 115 people died in a weightlifting accident at the gym.In the same 11 years, only one person died eating a donut. Make good choices.

Mark00:45:56

Take a bow there for you.

Arnold00:45:57

Please.

Carlos00:45:58

Nice.

Arnold00:46:00

Alrighty, folks, we're glad that you joined us today. That's all for this hour. Thanks for listening.If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@stlintune.com consider leaving a review on our website, Apple Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback is helpful to us.Thanks to Bob Berthicel for our theme music, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, our guests Carlos Bedoya and Scott Marlin, and co host Mark Langston. And we thank you for being a part of our community of Curious Minds.St. Louis Internet Tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network. Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy, and let your light shine. For St. Louis in Tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.