Live from Turtle Lake. Nice. Okay This is Adele's mom Valerie and we're here in Turtle Lake. We're going to do a little improv Podcast on the lake life on the lake her dad is here, too Dave Atkinson live from Turtle Lake Welcome everyone, this is a special edition of raw impressions Live from Turtle Lake, Wisconsin this week Now grandpa you saw Led Zeppelin Tell us about Led Zeppelin.
I mean, you know, I love it so That will probably be a major disappointment to your listening fans. I thought the concert was terrible I love this. This is this is gold. This is what people want to hear.
What was it like? Well, what made it terrible and where did you see them? Well, let me start the story with when I was living in the Twin Cities in 1969 Their first album came out and we liked it But we actually thought it was my friends and I thought it was rather retro because By then what we thought was that folk rock was much more in style and we liked Crosby stills a Nash and we liked the birds and we liked Jackson Brown and people like that and When Led Zeppelin came out, we thought oh man here we go back to this hard rock again. So yeah They seemed like it was retro to what like to what were you thinking like it We're going back to more like deep purple and bands like that that were very hard rock and that I wasn't I was fine to see them go So anyway to me it was a kind of a step backwards, but my girlfriend at that time said let's go see them because they're coming to the Guthrie Which was the big insight?
Everybody wanted to perform at the Guthrie and everybody wanted to go there to see the latest bands But I said to her I don't want to go I don't want to see this they're too loud there too Anyway, I as soon as I and then I was going to Europe to go to school and my school was an Amsterdam and When I got there, I was thinking myself. Oh, why the hell didn't I go see Led Zeppelin? I should have you know, then I started listening to them more and it's like ah, okay, they're pretty good So anyway then when all of a sudden we saw a poster and they were coming to Amsterdam It was the first European tour and they were performing at the Concert Cabal and Amsterdam and it was kind of hip in those days to have the classical musical be the venue for these rock bands So I said to one of my friends Let's let's go see the Led Zeppelin. I didn't get to see him in the Twin Cities now.
I regret it. So she said okay I'll go so we went and it was so unbelievably loud and everybody was smoking pot in there And I'm not opposed to booking smoking pot But the air was just toxic and you could not tell one song from the other it was just like a continual Layer of noise and about halfway through the show we looked at each other and I knew what she was thinking and she knew what I was thinking Was it let's get out of here and we left in the middle of the show well, that's wild although we have This makes us really sound square, but we have left in the middle of quite a few shows so we thought we're too loud Dinosaur Junior We have a sound engineer that works for us who's a bit older than us younger than you But he saw a lot of bands in the 60s and he says that dinosaur Junior is not the loudest band he's ever seen He said vanilla fudge was the loudest band he's ever seen so he's he I think you're right I think it was probably incredibly loud You know, maybe they hadn't actually figured out like the sound system quite then it might not have been as sophisticated And you know now they have like all these electronics and things like that They can measure the DB right like maybe it maybe it just was like they were just wailing away then they didn't quite you know Well, I'll tell you though fans definitely did not care. I mean everybody else was totally They seemed to have spoken and grew into it. So it was successful to them But but also your plugs weren't really a thing then either right so that's also it I mean I think that to be honest your plugs have changed concert going so much I mean because I there's concerts that I would not consider like loud But I'd still would maybe want to have earplugs because it's just uncomfortable, you know the speakers the sound of concerts has changed I remember this must be in the early 60s going downtown Minneapolis to a club called mr.
Lucky's I think it was and listening to Bo Diddly And you know he had his whole family there by the way just like you guys on tour honest to god and Bo Diddly Every you know back in those days. It was kind of like being in the room with them not big crowds It was a club and the music was not loud, you know, you were dancing you were singing along You were totally in the groove with Bo Diddly And you know getting back to Woodstock it was that way too. It was loud there I mean we my brother and I were in a tent on the hill and We could hear the music playing from the tent, but it wasn't it wasn't hard to listen to it wasn't assaulting you Because they're like the way you're describing that led Zeppelin show. It's sort of like an assault like an For your ears, you know, it's hurting you right so you can't enjoy it right?
And pretty much all of my senses Actually, David's right about that. We've we've left some pretty big concerts because I don't like the feeling of the bass when it hits my chest and I can actually feel it hitting my heart and my lungs And it's like hey, you know, that's not healthy It's not just about your ears. It's other things So I do think that there's been a change in how music is presented You know, it's just making me giggle a little bit because you guys are in-laws of someone who plays and what's considered a very loud We're the grateful dead loud You know every time I've heard I mean I've heard a lot of famous people Like moody blues grateful dead the guy who burned his guitar on the stage Jimmy Hendrix, Jimmy Hendrix All that but still it really never so uncomfortable that I would get up and want to leave So the guy who burned his guitar on stage, did you see him more than once or did you see the wood star before? I don't want to see him more than once but I think he was at woodstock I seemed to have this very vivid memory of the guitar being smashed on the stage.
Did he smash it at woodstock? I don't know but I might have seen him in another venue. Are we talking about Jimmy Hendrix? Everyone I think I poured lighter fluid on.
I think Fillmore East. Fillmore East. That was it. Yep.
Yeah, been there. Wow. He's still Jimmy Hendrix at the Fillmore East. I think that's where it might have been Okay, so the Paradiso and Amsterdam.
Yes. What did you see there? I sold him one there It was Kind of expensive. I don't want to use a starving artist thing but it was kind of like that and Quite frankly the big names were playing at the Concertco ball.
Yeah, and it was smaller groups There but one thing that happened fairly often is that groups would after concluding their concert at the Concertco ball would go over to Paradiso as sort of a A treat to the other fans and I did see Frank Zappa on the Mothers of Invention there But that's the only one I remember real clearly. How was that show? I don't remember it really He was probably stoned actually. I think it was okay But I also saw them in Minneapolis at the Guthrie and that was an excellent show.
Oh cool. Yeah, nice I'm surprised how many of these things were at the Guthrie boy. That was the hip venue in the Twin Cities and even the big names all wanted to play there and to my great advantage because the Guthrie Theater was connected to the Walker Arts Center where I worked and they allowed people Employees of the Walker to get free passes to go to events at the Guthrie. So yeah, that's nice See a lot of top names for money That's how you're dead and I met at the Walker Arts.
Oh, I know mom. I know we should save that for another podcast We'll talk about that but we didn't really talk much about that Lake life Oh, oh, oh lose lose because Lou loves all this, you know, it is interesting. It is interesting. We like it all Did you ever see a band called the litter the litter from?
Yeah He's thinking no, no, I don't think I've seen the litter. Are you talking about when you went to the fair? Yeah, well, okay. I saw your story.
Okay. I saw this. Uh, what was the name of the the dinner club that? Oh, man, yes, it was the man, see these stage Man, see these on west 7th.
Yeah, so they have the thing at the state fair where they have a stage and I walked in with Hendrix My son it was right after they'd seen weird Al was it after that? Yes, it was and there was a there was a band playing surf songs And I was like, oh, this is interesting. They were older people. They were like your age and it turned out Saying That's very young guy playing drums but the band was assembled with these older gentlemen with long gray hair and Then I was like, what is this?
So I looked it up and they were members of the litter and the trash men. Oh, oh my god Okay, so now you're back in my era. Yeah. Yeah, okay, the trash men.
Um, okay I'm just gonna drop this in quickly. Um, there used to be a dance hall out in Excelsior And that used to be an amusement park and when I was in high school in minitanka We used to go dancing at dance land big redgies dance land and there were great people coming to play there like um, the everly book brothers Oh my god, they were amazing. They were healthy. They were heavily heavenly But the trash men and the avantes and do you remember any others do There was a whole group of twin cities musicians from that time.
Yeah, and they were basically cover bands But they all worked very hard to get original material into and some of them did very well When they'd get a hit yeah, we actually just got a book from david's brother because he's sort of the family historian that Goes over the history of dance land and I don't know how many are podcasts people ever hear about this stuff But honest to god, you really ought to go back and look at the history of dance land because it's one of the places where um, they're rolling stones played Yeah, and I think the Beatles do I do no not Beatles. Okay, they're too big Metropolitan stadium. Oh, there you go Yeah, but the rolling stones route it Dance dance. That's like a really good.
It was a big club, right? It was like a dance ball with a stage, right? Wouldn't wouldn't floor, right? So it was an enclosed but it wasn't yes, it was like a stadium It was like it was a it was a big old-time dance hall that looked out on the lake.
It had been made for big bands. Oh, I love that Yeah, polka. Yeah polka dancing. But the rock groups took it over right the sort of garage band dance bands Yeah, they're kind of the play covers of songs and throw a few originals in but yeah, that's the kind I love that era Oh, it was so much fantastic And they have one of the lights that's spent around with the mirrors and then one whole wall mom was all Mirable was all mirrors that you could see yourself dancing.
Yeah, that's fantastic. It was great. I love that. I wish I was there They should do a movie about it.
Oh, God. How old were you when you were dancing there? Oh, let's see. I was probably a sophomore and senior in high school.
Oh, yeah, that's great That's amazing. What a fun thing to experience in high school. Oh, God I had first Avenue which I'm really grateful for going to the all ages shows there and you had dance land I had dance land and we had we had mr. Lucky's that was downtown Minneapolis?
That's another place so so this is but this is also a time of like Big change, right? I mean, this is like you you all this is the early 60s So there was all kind of this was sort of a was it radical? What did you say? What was happening with team dance?
It was radical as a matter of fact when the Rolling Stones came to play at um dance land. I mean, yeah, dance land A lot of people boycotted that show because they weren't having the trash man You know and so people were really peeve that they were bringing in somebody from Europe to play And you know taking over from the local bands that were really hot in the Twin Cities at the time So nobody had heard of them yet. Wow. Holy stones.
Where they yeah from what I understand They came they came very early to the states and did and played the clubs and they they did that early like, you know Whereas the Beatles just were so enormous by the time they got here that yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, it was really kind of fun But I have to say my favorite thing there was the Everleap brothers honest to God I can't tell you what that was like. Did they play with a band or was it just? Yeah, they had a band.
Okay, it was not a big band. Okay, but it was just them and their beautiful mob suits I love that. They were very stylish and puffy shirts. Oh, puffy shirts Beautiful hair, you know, the DA.
Oh, yeah, it was something else. That's a DA. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ducks ass It's like it gets brushed back. So And styled in the back.
So it flipped up. Oh my god. It's hilarious And actually Back in those days the two confrontational gangs were the baldies and there was another the greasers the greasers in the baldies This is pre hippie pre all that business. It's because Minnesota was right in the middle the greasers were East Coast the kind of Italian look, you know, like, well, greasy hair, but slick looking.
Is that like the white t-shirt kind of like from literally greased? No, they wore wore suits. They wore shark skin suits. And the baldies from the book after the West Coast where the beach boys came from.
So that was the surfer look. So it was kind of like the blonde hair look versus the greased hair look. And the blonde hair look was, you know, no product in your hair at all, just the wind on the surf. That was the era of Madras.
That was the era of Madras. Madras, plaid Madras. J. Crew loves making those shorts to this day.
That's when it came in. The baldies wore the Madras shirts. Did you see the beach boys? Yes, I did see the beach boys.
That was pretty typical for Dan's land. Right. It was cool. And I have to date myself a little more because I did watch in black and white TV when I grew up in Philadelphia, Banston.
You know, I saw the beginning of that. Well, it's amazing because your dad, he was an early adopter to technology, right? And he, uh, Grandpa Tom, my mom's dad, Tom, he, didn't he try to like build a TV? He built the first TV in the world.
Yeah, he built it before television existed. There was nothing to watch. But he had a TV. But he was ready.
Yeah. We could get test patterns. He knew it was going to be big. Yeah.
They were just, they were just trying it out at that point. And there were things broadcasting, but they were just broadcast like maybe a spinning statue or something. It was usually a test pattern with a big number. But your father was right on that and actually made his own TV.
Yeah, that was the thing. So I got to see the early black and white TV. It's amazing. You know, the switch from the radio to the TV, right?
Sitting besides the radio to sitting in front of the TV as a family. What do you see? Oh, like life. It's happening.
Oh, and the squirrels are a little menarche or twa. Yeah, there's like a three-some happening. There's literally a three-some happening with squirrels. Are they on top of each other?
Basically, yes. We want the scribe that's a little low. You can go see for yourself. Well, we're going to wrap it up.
It's getting wild here, guys. It's the 4th of July. People are blowing shit up on the lake. People are driving their jet skis.
We had a thunderstorm. We had a kind of a, or tent pollute down, a little bit of a half-ass boat parade. I'm just going to say it. And our tent flew down.
Izzy's eating a big bag of Cheetos or cheese puffs. Absolutely enormous bag of cheese puffs that Izzy is reaching into. There she goes. She's drawing on one at a time.
Have to go all the way back to the message. That's for all American here. Yeah, because it gets back to a raw impression. Yeah, let's get raw, you guys.
All right. So last night here at the lake and then we head out for our third leg of our Barlow Family General Tour featuring Lou Barlow Solo. That's me. I'm playing my songs.
With a mic in my face, which I know. Well, thank you. Remember Grandma. Oh, give me your raw impression.
Your lake, your life, your jet skis. Your seven-year-old. Your, the seven, the awesome of your seven-year-old. And be cool.
And have great time. This year, seven-year-old, if you have one. Everybody who has a seven-year-old, my name is Izzy. If you haven't heard of me, I am Lou Barlow's kid.
If you don't know he had a kid. I'm also a doll's kid. She me. She and Grandpa's granddaughter.
Granddaughter. Izzy. Thanks Izzy. Say thank you to Grandma Grandpa for joining us.
Thank you Grandpa for joining us. We love it when you come to see us. Love you. Okay.
See you soon. Okay. I accidentally said Grandpa and Grandpa. Bye.
Bye. Bye, honey.