R.J. Stowell's Blog: rjsomeone, page 26

amontheradio.com

After nearly six years as 10-am.blogspot.com, AM is now a dot com! You can still reach the AM network at the old address, but amontheradio.com is a whole lot easier to remember (AM on the radio dot com). Big things are coming! We're now on IHeart Radio every Friday at 8:35 EST with exciting new content coming soon.

IHeart Radio: (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/966-daybreak-usa-30334029/) 

The Ghost Guitar - Let It Be

I didn't post about the 50th anniversary of Let It Be. Its release on May 8, 1970, meant nothing to me. When my mother took me to Licorice Pizza, they were sold out. I was eleven. It was devastating. The shipment came in the next day, and so, 50 years ago today, I got Let It Be.
We tend to use the release date of an LP to guide us chronologically, yet with Abbey Road and Let It Be, that's not the case. Abbey Road, in particular, the Side 2 medley, was the last piece of music the Beatles ever worked on collectively. Let It Be would be released after the band broke up (and contributed to the breakup), but its problematic recording sessions came prior to Abbey Road.
In our deep state state of mind, rather than post about everything everyone else posted about the LP, here's something completely different:
There are two different versions of the title track. If you have the opportunity, listen to them both. The single version has a far more subtle guitar solo at the midpoint of the song (1:59), a loose string version that lends itself to the 45, and sounding as if an acoustic guitar had been electrified. The LP version, on the other hand, contains a more electrified solo. Listen to them back to back. And yet, that there are two diverse versions of the song isn't the unusual part. What's odd is the ghost solo hidden beneath the layers of music that appears in both the single and the album versions. It's hard to hear unless you tune your ear to it, so it may be helpful to isolate the left side on the stereo version or to listen to the track by clicking your receiver to mono.
The Beatles entered the studio on January 31, 1969, to record the track. "Let It Be," and by they, I mean all four of the Beatles, with Paul on piano, John Lennon oddly playing the bass, Harrison playing lead guitar and Ringo on drums. Add to that, Billy Preston on the Hammond organ.
Ultimately, the single version of "Let It Be" was released on March 6 and produced by George Martin. It would go to Number 1 on the Billboard Top 100. The album version was released in May 1970.
The album version of "Let It Be" had a headier, heavier guitar solo lushly, some would say overly-produced by Phil Spector; the George Martin version more typically Beatle-esque. Interestingly, both Spector and Martin left in the "ghost solo," an earlier take somehow left audible in the background of the masters which were subsequently released as the single and the album.
So, let's put the pieces together. On January 31, 1969, with the other Beatles, George recorded an original guitar solo, the ghost track that can be heard faintly but distinctly in the background. George was back in the studio alone on April 30, 1969, and recorded the solo that's on the 45. On January 4, 1970, George again took the master tape, recorded a year prior, and overdubbed what Phil Spector would use for the LP version. Here's something else; 30 years later, Paul McCartney produced an alternate version of the album called Let It Be Naked which eliminates the orchestral and heavy-handed production by Phil Spector on the original LP. For that version of "Let It Be," McCartney chose yet another solo from the January 1969 sessions. The ghost guitar? Still there.

Calif. - The Beatles

Calif. – 50 Years AgoOn my IHeart Radio show, on FB and here on AM, my focus is often the rock music of 50 years ago. My new novel, Calif., reflects that as well and when you are reading it, many of the happenings are indeed 50 years ago to the day. Here’s an excerpt from the novel. Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Let It Be, which the cover states is a "New Phase" Beatles record, as if the band hadn't really split (they hadn't, really, at least contractually). Click here for your copy of Calif.It’s funny, I don’t remember birthdays and one Christmas blends into the next, but I do indeed remember April 10th.
I made it a habit of getting up early, despite getting home so late. It seemed as if the more famous the act, the earlier we got to go home. It was the up and coming artists (and those who’d never make it) that stuck around afterwardand sat on the couch in the back or at the bar, and we’d sweep up around them.
At times, Mr. Chadwick brought me home. I’d acquiesce on foggy nights, there were a lot of those, but when it was clear and the moon was out,when you could see the stars reflecting off the sea, I’d walk slowly back home along the highway.
I’d get up, do my chores and walk into town or down to the Little Sur Diner. I’d have my breakfast and schmooze, then meander back home. I’d watch the new people come and the old people go. It was nice to be a part of a community, transient as it was.
It was on the morning of April 10th, and I honestly wouldn’t have known or cared what date it was, when I walked down the highway to the Little Sur. I got the paper and stuck it under my arm. The Little was a tan masonry building from the 50s with a big flourish of a marquee. There was a counter in back and booths along the window. They made a stellar breakfast and a good cup of coffee.
I ordered a Belgian waffle, coffee, and OJ, then I looked at the paper. Under the fold was the real news: Paul McCartney had called it quits; the Beatles had split. It wouldn’t have been worse news if Paul were really dead, though no one in the diner seemed concerned. The waitress, whose name was Dot, came to the table. “You see this?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “I missed that. More coffee, sweetheart?” I put a hand over my cup.That night at the Cat, a folky girl sang “For No One.” She sang it slow and sad like she wanted to cry. When she finished she said, “Stupid Paul” and sang a song of heartbreak.

Camel's Mirage

I was listening to Sirius Radio's Deep Tracks station and I was jamming, simply because they were playing Camel's "The Sleeper." That was indeed deep. I'd never heard Camel on Sirius before. I went home and listened to the rest of the LP on Spotify (I don't have the vinyl) and then I got out Mirage. Listening to it now.

When I was in my early 20s, I dated an intern for Elektra Records. One of her projects was the Sunday house band at Doug Weston's Troubadour on Santa Monica Blvd., one of L.A.'s premier venues and the jumping-off point for James Taylor, Carol King, and even Elton John (in danger, btw, of not reopening after the pandemic). Mara's prodigy was a band called Sumner. Sumner, headed by an enigmatic 20-year-old named Sumner Mering (I could be wrong about the spelling, preoccupied with the club scene at the Troubadour, on the fringe of the Rickie Lee Jones/Chuck E. Weiss crowd; Chuck E., I recall, always borrowing change for the cigarette machine). But Mara had unadulterated faith in the band's future and Sumner indeed was a crowd-pleaser. Though greatness has its way of surfacing, once the band's self-titled LP was released, it was all over. What had worked at the Troub, particularly the band's encore, "More Beer," didn't translate to vinyl. The LP was dull and a production nightmare, though essentially recorded live at the Elektra Annex. Sometimes it happens; Sumner was talented and enigmatic, and no one cared.


From that personal experience, I'm trying to piece together why stellar British progressive band Camel goes so unnoticed today. Though my personal fave from the band is The Snow Goose, a forty minute, new age, instrumental, Camel's Mirage (1974) is considered one of the premier prog LPs, maybe even venturing into the top ten. There are those who suggest that it's the band name itself that shied away corporate support. While, as a progressive rock band, one is probably thinking the band is named after the boom boom pachyderm, it was actually based on the cigarettes that each member of the band smoked; the Mirage album cover even a take on the famous cigarette packaging of a camel in the desert standing before palm trees and a pyramid. The artwork takes the package and distorts it as if the viewer were seeing it through patterned-glass. Interestingly, there is still no denying the subliminal advertising hidden within the artwork: the naked man in the camel's front leg and the seemingly amorous lion in the rear (you can do this research on your own). From a marketing standpoint, cigarette endorsements, even in the 70s, were a disaster. With that in mind, U.S. issues of the LP scrapped the Camel image in favor of a cover so horrible I don't want to sully AM with its inclusion (you're looking things up anyway). So far that's a caustic band name, a terrible album cover – is that all failure entails? While Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, even the Italian prog band PFM, surged up the charts, Camel's Mirage barely squeaked into the Billboard Top 200 (No. 188).
None of that matters though. Mirage is the champion of underrated progressive rock LPs. Side one opens with "Freefall" featuring Andy Latimer's stunning guitar and some super-swift drumming from Andy Ward. The lyrics and the vocals are a bit tame but it's backed up with an ensemble of rock/jazz guitar and organ work creating a genuinely bright and interesting start to the album. Up next is one of the highlights of prog rock, "Supertwister," which kicks off with Latimer on flute and an exciting percussion backdrop with groundbreaking use of bottles and aerosols providing the rhythm. From there the track gets even better. Next up are church bells ringing and crowds cheering leading into the Tolkien inspired "White Rider," featuring echoing guitar solos a la Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler coupled with Peter Bardens mini Moog, organ, mellotron (think "Strawberry Fields") and celeste. 
Flipping it over, the side begins with "Earthrise" and howling wind sound effects to set the scene, the mini Moog providing vocals for an instrumental that doesn't require lyrics to tell a story. "Lady Fantasy" is pure prog and at 13 minutes, nearly as epic as "Firth of Fifth." Camel's Mirage is a sadly overlooked LP from the classic era of prog. It's time you listened.

Steal This Book, Instead

In the 60's, Abbie Hoffman's radical tome was called Steal This Book. How about FREE, instead!

Kindle Unlimited is FREE for 30 days! Let's all support each other's writing by downloading our books for FREE!


In Miles From Nowhere, our hero takes a 3000-mile trek across 60's America to see his idol, Jimi Hendrix, at Woodstock. His poor health and America do nothing but get in the way. In Calif., Miles is back, alive and kicking, but it wasn't easy. Here is the rest of Miles' story.
From Amazon:
Calif. is the standalone sequel to Miles From Nowhere. In 1970, Miles is back in California making a go of it, working at a rock club on the coast. While his health is touch and go, the ramifications of a kidney transplant, like all of us, Miles struggles with life, death, love, giants, rock stars, tigers, a wife, a daughter and the double yellow line.
Calif. is what happens when the coming of age tale has ended, when the California realities set in and the fantasy that was Woodstock is only a memory.
Calif. is available on Amazon and for your Kindle. Read it free on Kindle Unlimited.Don't forget my IHeart Radio Program, every Friday morning, 8:35 EST.
Download FREE on Kindle Unlimited or purchase your copy HERE. Download Miles From Nowhere, Calif. and Jay and the Americans now.

Steal This Book

In the 60's, Abbie Hoffman's radical tome was called Steal This Book. How about FREE, instead!

Kindle Unlimited is FREE for 30 days! Let's all support each other's writing by downloading our books for FREE!


In Miles From Nowhere, our hero takes a 3000-mile trek across 60's America to see his idol, Jimi Hendrix, at Woodstock. His poor health and America do nothing but get in the way. In Calif., Miles is back, alive and kicking, but it wasn't easy. Here is the rest of Miles' story.
From Amazon:
Calif. is the standalone sequel to Miles From Nowhere. In 1970, Miles is back in California making a go of it, working at a rock club on the coast. While his health is touch and go, the ramifications of a kidney transplant, like all of us, Miles struggles with life, death, love, giants, rock stars, tigers, a wife, a daughter and the double yellow line.
Calif. is what happens when the coming of age tale has ended, when the California realities set in and the fantasy that was Woodstock is only a memory.
Calif. is available on Amazon and for your Kindle. Read it free on Kindle Unlimited.Don't forget my IHeart Radio Program, every Friday morning, 8:35 EST.
Download FREE on Kindle Unlimited or purchase your copy HERE. Download Miles From Nowhere, Calif. and Jay and the Americans now.

Valley Boys

The Flying Burrito Bros. were, in essence, a Valley band, though Gram Parker was from Florida and Chris Hillman was from San Diego. Nonetheless, their success stemmed from out of the Valley. But what about the real Valley bands? And there are plenty if we'd add on the three-car garage bands of the new millennium; for me, I'll just mention two from the 60s, The Leaves and The Electric Prunes. The Leaves had one big hit with "Hey Joe" in 1966. Formed in 1964 by Jim Pons and Robert Lee Reiner while attending Cal State Northridge, and fueled by Cupid's chili dogs, here was a duo who decided to become a band long before they knew how to play their instruments. Originally called the Rockwells, the pair recruited other Valley boys and soon they were playing surf covers at local dances. And how about this, their first gig was alongside Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band! Their big hit, "Hey Joe," the same song Jimi Hendrix would cover years later, led to their becoming the house band at the former Ciro's nightclub (today the Comedy Store), then called It's Boss. It's Boss was a teen club that featured the Byrds until they hit the charts. The Leaves song, though monumental in establishing psychedelia and even punk music, didn't generate sales enough to support the band and in 1967, Pons left for  The Turtles and ultimately joined up with Frank Zappa.
The Electric Prunes were Taft High School students in Woodland Hills. Taft may be responsible for more rock stars than any single high school, with notables like Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos, Steve Bartek from the Strawberry Alarm Clock, Phil Buckman from Filter, Everlast and Ice Cube. If you want to include the Bradys, add Maureen McCormick and Susan Olsen – never mind. The Electric Prunes included James Lowe and Mark Tulin who recruited local friends and through a real estate agent (only in California), the boys met sound engineer Dave Hassinger who worked with The Rolling Stones on Aftermath. While their initial work together was unsuccessful, Reprise Records picked up the band and in less than a year, they recorded "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night." Of course, the song's bombastic reverb was a studio trick that just kind of happened. James Lowe remembers: "Dave cued up a tape and didn't hit 'record,' and the playback in the studio was way up: ear-shattering vibrating jet guitar. Ken had been shaking his Bigsby Wiggle-stock with some fuzztone and tremolo at the end of the tape. Forward it was cool. Backward it was amazing. I ran into the control room and said, 'What was that?'" That crazy tremolo buzz sound was utilized for the track, which also included a heavily-textured psychedelic guitar. The song peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 49 on the U.K. Singles Chart.
There's a whole other edition to the Electric Prunes saga, but nothing can compare to that one great psychedelic anthem. 

More Burritos -

Growing up in L.A, everyone was from somewhere else, mostly "Back East." There's a line from Frank Lloyd Wright: "Tip the world on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." Like Joni Mitchell sang about California as if it were home, The Flying Burrito Bros. were a Valley Band, though Gram Parsons was from Florida and Chris Hillman was from - wait! Los Angeles, weird. The point is, L.A. was rock's melting pot.
I grew up in the Valley and in my last post I wrote of sitting outside Burrito Manor, the so-called hacienda of Parsons and Hillman. Since then, I spoke with my brother, my personal chauffeur at the time (I was ten), and he was a bit foggy on the locale of Burrito Manor. He said it was somewhere off DeSoto in Reseda. I asked about La Castana Drive. He acted like he'd never heard of it. A friend from the time, who we still chat with, said it was near Beverly Glen, which is funny because I lived on Beverly Glen in the early 1980s. Had I known I would have certainly sought it out. My memory is top-notch. You'd think that would be a good thing (and it is), yet it gets so frustrating when you can't envision all the details.
Rock history is an odd bird in that respect. Even when researching a band as well documented as The Beatles, the stories differ based on the cast of characters. No one will deny the influence of Robert Johnson on the blues or Miles Davis on fusion, but far too few really point back to Gram Parsons' role in establishing country-rock. Parsons transformed The Byrds and then, with The Flying Burrito Brothers and his solo projects took it to the next level. Think about the influence of Parsons on The Rolling Stones – there would be no "Wild Horses" without Parsons' impact on Keith Richards.


My mother was a backup singer for the likes of Burt Bacharach and Ray Conniff. I don’t remember her Columbia days, but I do remember heading over to A&M on La Brea. Having a single parent, there was many a time that I'd hang in the lobby when she had a session. I’d sit with the receptionist and draw. Always the same, a rock band on a stage (I'd do the same drawing on every placemat in every restaurant as well).
My remembrance of those days is crystal clear, but there are times when I'm not sure whether I remember or if I was told the story and somehow incorporated it into my mind. My mother knew Chris Hillman quite well. Her "friend" at the time was a studio musician who had played with The Byrds. I remember once at a short-lived though important rock club called The Trip on Sunset Blvd., sitting in the backroom (I wasn’t allowed in the club) playing Ouija with David Crosby. He was annoyed that the Ouija board kept pointing to the "NO." In my novel, Jay and the Americans, I wrote a passage about that night and stated that I liked David Crosby because he looked like a walrus. Doing my research, later on, I realized that that is a piece that I made up in my mind; Crosby didn’t have the distinctive mustache at the time.
I digress. I remember clearly (at least I can see it in my mind), Hillman coming into the lobby at A&M with Graham Parsons. As Hillman and my mother spoke, Parsons was flirting with the receptionist. He said something imperceptible and then looked over and asked me, "What do you think, Cowboy?" At 17 or so, I used to try and impress the girls by driving them all over L.A., to the places with which I was familiar. I'd relate stories like that. I had a crush on a girl named Daisy and it was with her that we sat outside A&M and then found our way to Burrito Manor. Parsons was often spotted, they say, at Irv's burgers and so we sat there in the aura of her rock God. And then we drove out into the desert on a rock 'n' roll pilgrimage.

Las Vegas is 289 miles from L.A. and my parents would stuff my brother and me in the back of the Rambler and off we'd go through the desert. I loved it. There wasn't that much to do in Vegas for a little boy, but we'd sit in the motel room and watch the lights down the Strip. On the way, though, we'd stop at all the date stands in the high desert.
Like Gram Parsons, the desert with its date palms and Joshua trees fascinated me. Would it impress Daisy, you bet.
Parsons and road manager John Kaufman would venture into the deserts on weekends. One of those jaunts included Keith Richards. Parsons would hang out at local bars and stay at the Joshua Tree Inn. That was our destination  At night he'd starwatch and search for UFOs.
During a friend's funeral in 1973, a few months before Parsons' own death, Parsons and Kaufman said that if either of them were to die prematurely, they wanted their body taken to the desert at Joshua Tree. Just a few months after the pact, Gram checked into room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn on September 17th, 1973.  During this visit, Gram overdosed on both morphine and alcohol.  By the time Kaufman got to the Inn, Gram's body was in the morgue of the Yucca Valley hospital.  
After a day of heavy drinking, Kaufman decided to go into action. The body would be sent back to L.A. by plane. Kaufman's plan was to intercept the body at the airport. Borrowing a hearse with broken windows and no license plates from a friend, Kaufman and his cronies loaded up the Caddie with beer and Jack and headed for the airport. A drunken Kaufman somehow persuaded an airline employee that the Parsons family had changed its plans and wanted to ship the body privately on a chartered flight. The two drunk body snatchers left the airport with the body of their friend, stopped at a gas station in Cabazon near the Interstate 10 dinosaurs.  
The pair stopped at Cap Rock in The Joshua Tree National Monument, a landmark geological formation, and unloaded their friend's coffin.  Kaufman doused Gram's casket with gasoline and threw on a match. 
I assume that Daisy already knew the story, but I told it again as we drove from the Joshua Tree Inn to Cap Rock – THAT was how one impressed a girl in 1978!

Burrito Manor

We lived in Van Nuys and then in North Hollywood and when I was 10, my brother, who had his license, would take the Falcon and we'd cruise the streets of L.A. while our mother was out. We'd seek out Burrito Manor in the hills above Reseda (2786 La Castana Drive, one of several Burrito Manors), the house where the Flying Burrito Bros. convened 50 years ago. We'd sit out on the street with the windows down, playing The Gilded Palace of Sin on an 8-track, and we’d watch the cars come and go, an endless parade of girls and rock stars.
The overall goal was to grab a handful of LPs at Wallichs Music City and stake our claim to one of the listening booths. There was no more "happening" place for a ten-year-old than Music City at midnight. On the way, it wasn't unusual for us to stalk the Laurel Canyon set – and now, you can too! Zappa and Joni and Jim are long gone, but you can still meander around the canyon and ponder what was.
South on the Boulevard passed the Studio Theater – Planet of the Apes. Right on Laurel and up past Mulholland. Another mile on the right a big blue sign, Lookout Mountain. Up around a bend, 8217 Lookout Mountain Road, the home of Joni Mitchell and, at time, James Taylor or Graham Nash. It was here that Joni wrote the material for Clouds and Ladies of the Canyon, and, after a day of shopping and pal-ing around, Nash wrote "Our House," essentially just pondering the cats and the cheap vase they'd bought in a junk shop. I romanticize it, of course, but can you imagine the weekend get together with David Crosby or Sweet Baby James and Judy Collins?
At 2401, back on Laurel Canyon, you'll find Frank Zappa’s house not far away, formerly the home of silent film star Tom Mix and often referred to as The Cabin. Zappa lived here during the days of the Mothers, and Captain Beefheart crashed here with nowhere else to go when he began work on Trout Mask Replica. Frank gave him full reign to create this masterpiece of the avant-garde. Frank, as absurd and off the wall as he was, was not a druggie or even a casual pothead, and so he moved his family to a more secluded location the following year, 7885 Woodrow Wilson Drive.
Heading down toward the Laurel Canyon Mart, past the Houdini estate, we'd stop and get a Bubble-Up and some Granny Goose BBQ potato chips. It was there on the path that I saw Peter Tork. At ten, you cannot imagine the thrill. It was there that, long before anyone knew who she was, Cass Eliot lived in the basement.
Just up from the Mart was the house on Love Street, the nickname given by Jim Morrison to the horribly named Rothdell Trail (8201). It was here that he lived with Pamela Courson. Prior to this, Jim, John Densmore and Robbie Krieger lived just down the street from Joni at 8826 Lookout Mtn.
On the way back from Wallichs we'd seek out John Mayall's house, but where? We never found it. I didn't know who he was and I'd say, "Come on. Mama Cass's," and to appease me, my brother put a new 8-track in the player, The Mamas and the Papas' If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. When we turned up Laurel, my brother said, that's where The Garden of Allah was." It was gone; razed in 1959, but he remembered. A posh golden era star-studded hotel with a Moroccan theme, it would inspire Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and the line "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
It wasn't 27 Rue de Fleurus. That was the home of Gertrude Stein in Paris. Graham Nash called her the Gertrude Stein of Laurel Canyon." Cass lived up above the Mart and you could see her house from there. But the old Falcon was running low on gas and it was 1:00am. "Mom's gonna be mad." The mart was closed but he pulled up front. There were lights on in the house on the hill. It was Natalie Wood's house once; now it was everyone's home away from home. Cass said, "My house is a very free house. It's not a crash pad and people don't come without calling. But on an afternoon, especially on weekends, I always get a lot of delicatessen food in because I know David [Crosby] is going to come over for a swim and things are going to happen."

Black Sabbath

In 1970, I shared a room with my brother. There would always be a record album leaning against the record cabinet. That was our "Now Playing" LP. It was the usual fare for the time, from Blood, Sweat and Tears to The Beatles, but there were those LPs that I just didn’t really get. Ten-year-olds get pop music; not necessarily The Mothers of Invention or King Crimson. Still, the Mothers were funny, and despite how frightening the cover for In the Court of the Crimson King may have been, the music was pretty and lilting.
Then came Black Sabbath. It just appeared one day, leaning there, the LP on the turntable, the green Warner Bros. label twirling round and round. No one was home. The needle was spinning on the inner groove, begging me to…
The album cover was scary enough, but then I heard the church bells ring. It was like watching The Day the Earth Stood Still; I was scared to death. Maybe my brother had run screaming from the room, but I listened all the way through. That was 50 years ago. I’m still afraid. I didn't go running from the room then. I don't go running from the room now, but the Sabbath debut maintains its sinister Hammer Horror appeal. It's like watching a truly scary film late at night.
Here we find the progenitor of Metal and Progressive rock and, amazingly, Black Sabbath was recorded over one 16-hour session, at a time when Brian Wilson had spent six months in the studio just to record "Good Vibrations." Guitarist, founder Tommi Iommi said, "We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland." Ozzy doesn’t thing it took that long: "Once we'd finished, we spent a couple of hours double-tracking some of the guitar and vocals, and that was that. Done. We were in the pub in time for last orders. It can't have taken any longer than twelve hours in total. That's how albums should be made, in my opinion."
The opening track, still my favorite on an LP that to me is really only about side one, was inspired by Holst's The Planetsand the track known as "Mars." There is genius hidden in these tracks, but despite the eerie callings of the devil within, there is an obvious innocence in the band; a bunch of guys who love rock and roll, who love music, and who loved the music they were making. Oh, and the devel, it seems.
The Beach Boys were squeaky clean. The Beatles were the band you could play loudly in your room and your mother wouldn't scream, "Turn that down!" The Rolling Stones were the supposed "Bad Boys of Rock," but Sabbath is a very different kind of bad. I mean, we never heard from my brother again.