Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy Athens R.E.M. Tribute, Plus Kinney and Buck, and California Dreamin' E122

Hey everybody, this is Jim Vose and you're listening to Music of My Shoes podcasting Worldwide

That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 122. I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something old.

So Jimmy recently I spent three nights in Athens, Georgia.

And I kind of commuted the first two and the last one I stayed overnight. It's not a good idea to commute and have obligations all day long and then commute there.

It's a long way. It's a long way. It does a lot. But I went out there, there were a few shows and I was really excited to go out and witness and be part of these shows that were taking place all within three days of each other.

So on February 25th, 2026, Jason Arduce opened for Kevin Kinney and Peter Buck at the Realtor Room at Hotel Indigo in Athens.

And Jason was really enjoyable. I was surprised at how much I liked him because he had a format where he would tell a story and then he would play a song and then he would tell a story and then he would play a song.

And a lot of the stories come from a book that he has out called Mostly the Van and it talks about traveling around and being in a rock and roll band and early days and so forth.

But it was really cool because I never heard the stories before. I didn't know any of his solo stuff. So everything was just new. You don't know what you're expecting because you don't know what to expect.

What's his solo stuff like? I don't even know it. What was cool is he played some stuff. He started a band when he was like 11. He played like a song from then. That was a punk song.

What was really cool is one of the members of the band. Her cousin was, well, not was her cousin is Dave Grohl who went on to be in multiple bands.

And he kind of gives them a shout out because he got the idea of a punk band. He was seeing them. He was traveling to, I think it was the Chicago area.

And I just think that's super cool. You never know who's connected or how they're connected or when they got connected. I think Dave might have been around 13 or something like that.

And it's just a really cool thing. And you know, I had a lot of fun. You know, it was just like a lot of times someone opens up and it's like, Oh, the story's really made it because you got to hear some really cool stories like the one I just told you.

So Scott McCoy of Young Fresh Fellows minus five, the baseball project. I could go on with a bunch of bands. He sat in with Peter Buck and Kevin Kenny.

So it was the three of them. And it was really good. It was actually probably one of my favorite times of seeing Kevin and Peter. I've seen them a ton.

And they did trail of seasons, which is a driving and crying song, which I absolutely love. I probably never mentioned that's one of my favorite driving and crying songs.

They played it. It was just excellent. They did McDougal Blues.

Lost and found Honey Suckle Blue. They did Mirror Mirror, which is a new song. They just released a new song, new album. It's fantastic.

You know, been listening to them over the last two years. Play it a lot to get it going. And it is out now. So it is great to hear.

I got to listen to that. Yeah, really cool. So they did a cover of Todd Snyder's All Right Guy.

And Scott McCoy did lead vocals and Elizabeth Cook. You might know her country singer. She also has a program on serious XM. She DJs, a country outlaw.

And she was on guitar and did backup vocals. And it sounded really good. So Kevin, one of his closest friends was Todd Snyder, who's no longer with us.

They played a couple of songs. Kevin wore a hat that, you know, had Todd's initials on it. It was a pretty cool thing, you know.

It sounds like it. It definitely was. They did play a train song. Another Todd Snyder song, which was really good.

Oh, I thought you were saying they played a train song like from that band. Oh, I was like, that's weird.

They were dropping Jupiter. No, no, no, that's not the case. But it was, it was cool. It was very touching. It really was.

So they finished up with the song with the people right into I believe. And Jason R. Ducey came out to play with him.

And he joined Kevin, Peter, Scott, and Elizabeth. And it was really cool seeing these five people on, you know, chairs. And it's a really small little stage.

And it was fun. I really enjoyed it. It was a good time. It was a lot of things that I didn't know what to expect that turned out to be really fun.

And Kevin sang lead on, I believe. Yes. Cool. I don't believe that he did. I know for a fact that he did. I believe.

There you go. So the next night, I went to see Michael Shannon and Jason R. Ducey and friends celebrating the 40th anniversary of REM's life's rich pageant.

And it was night one at 40 want February 26th, the next night again of 2026. It was a cool time. The crowd was as super pumped as I have seen any crowd in a really long time.

And it was a good mixture. There were a lot of people that were, you know, my age. There were a lot of young people. I know it's a college town, but there were a lot of young people at the show.

And not just there, but they knew more words off that album than I did. Really? Yes. And it just seemed like as everybody was singing along, everybody wanted to, like, put their arms in the air.

It was kind of tough to take pictures because everybody, our hands and arms in the air. But it was a lot of fun. I mean, it really was.

I guess, you know, I've always said life's rich pageant isn't my favorite album. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not my favorite REM album.

But I think I realized I like more songs than, you know, what I remembered. You know, does that make sense?

Yeah, I love the album. So, you know, begin to begin a great song. You know, I'm not going to go through, but they play the album in order. And it's great.

Hyena, I forgot how much I really liked that song. I really just, it slipped my mind after all this time.

And what was super cool is during underneath the bunker, Bill Berry came out and played the drums. And it was awesome. It was a lot of fun. The crowd loved it.

The band loved it. Bill loved it. Just super cool. I love that.

So, I guess I should say Michael Shannon and Jason Arducee, for those who don't know, they are on tour doing a tribute to the REM album, Life's Rich Pageant, which I just said.

Last year, we saw them together, Jimmy. Right. Yeah, I wanted to be there this year, as you know, but I had travel plans.

That is correct. And I got to go because you couldn't go. That's how it worked out, which was, you know, it's okay. But last year's album was...

Fables of the Reconstruction. That is correct. And it was a great time. Again, they did the same sort of thing where they started with, you know, Side A first song. And when they're done with the first side, they'll tell you that's the end of the first side.

And then when they go to play the second side, they tell you, so you really feel like you're listening to a record.

And I believe that they had started the year before with Reckoning. I did not go back then, but they've already announced that they're going to do document next year.

So, that's pretty cool. No, that'll be great. Yeah, I really think so.

So, like I said, it was great to see Bill out there. And, you know, just so many songs. You know, I believe...

What if we give it away, you know, ends up with Superman? What I did not know about Superman. I don't think I knew it. It's a cover.

Yeah, I know. It's from like the late 60s. Yeah, I don't know much about it.

It's cool. The original version of it, I just heard it for the first time, maybe last year. And it's a cool song.

And the way that that original band does it, REM kind of reinvented it. You know, they paid homage to it and were faithful to it, but they definitely made it sound different.

Well, it definitely sounds good. I mean, I like... That was my favorite song of the album when the album came out. It was played on WLIR. We listened to it. It was a normal radio song, you know, for us.

And I absolutely thought it was fantastic. And I can't believe that I didn't know it was a cover.

And you know who sings a lead vocal on it? Mike Mills. It's not... That's not a Michael Steip song. Mike Mills sings lead on it.

Again, I feel embarrassed because I did not even realize that. Wow.

I mean, they're singing together a lot, so Michael's in there. But yeah, that's Mike Mills.

Learn something new. Or remember something old. You're remembering something old. I'm learning something new. I like it. Wow. I did not realize that.

So when they played the second set, it was kind of funny because they're like, oh, we're going to take a break. They took like a five-minute break and they were right back out on the stage.

And, you know, they played mostly the same songs of the second set. You know, they swayed here and there on a few.

I thought the song selection on Night 2 was better, but I thought Night 1 was the energy. Like people were just like ready to just go crazy and just cheering and on their feet all night long.

Wow. And that's on a Thursday night, too. It was on a Thursday night. It was really super exciting. It was a lot of fun.

So like I said, I went the next night, that Friday night, that was on the 27th of February.

And I thought that the song selection was a little bit better, like I said. And, you know, they did some stuff like Lotus, Carnival, sorts, box cars.

It was cool because that's such an old song. That's off of Chronic Town. Yeah.

And everybody knew the words. Like everybody's singing in and it was just like I almost wanted them to stop singing just so you could hear all of us singing the song, you know.

Did Michael Steip show up? No. Okay. He did not. And Mike Mills did not either. But Peter Buck did. So Peter Buck played on a few songs.

He did South Central Rain on the second night, which was great because a lot of times when they play South Central Rain, they just do a kind of like as an acoustic song.

But this was full band with Peter playing. And they did sitting still with Peter Buck. And the best song of the whole night radio free Europe.

And they had Scott McCoy playing on it. It was fantastic. They actually had the, you know, beginning that sound that we've talked to Mitch Easter about how they do that.

Just like play it off a record or something. I guess they did. Yeah, because everybody was just standing there until the drummer, you know, went boom, boom, boom, you know.

And ended up with star 69 again. They had Scott McCoy and Scott McCoy actually was with REM. I believe he started on the 95 tour. I'm not 100% positive.

But he was the extra guitarist form. So it was cool to see him up there playing. I love the monster album that star 69 is on. So it was cool just hearing that sonic sound that they have going.

A lot of fun. It was really a lot of fun. After talked to a bunch of people, people were just so excited. Now, when we went last year, I took some photos and I took some videos and I posted them.

And they got just crazy amounts of views. And I just thought I thought I was super cool. I'm like, hey, I'm going to do it again.

I think both nights with the most photographed and video shows ever because everybody was doing it. And I actually read something last night.

And someone was talking about no matter what, everybody will remember those shows because they were the most documented shows of all time. This person felt exactly the way I did.

I always think it's funny when you look around and everybody's videoing it. You could put your camera away and just find that person's video online.

That is true. So you mentioned about Michael Steib and I brought up Mike Mills. They were not there a year ago while we were there. They both showed up along with Bill Berry and Peter Buck and did pretty persuasion as a reunion which they had not played a whole lot since Bill left the band in 1997.

And then since the band broke up, I believe 2011 it was. So it was super cool seeing that. I think a lot of people were hoping there are a lot of people from out of town.

There were people from Los Angeles. There were people from Jacksonville, Florida. There were people from Mississippi. There were people from Louisiana.

There were people from everywhere. It was cool to see and hear and talk to people that had come from all over because they wanted the opportunity, hoping for the opportunity to see REM together.

Well, at least they got to see Peter, right? And Bill.

Bill on one song also guest Bobcat gold weight opened up both the shows. Oh really?

And I haven't heard of him in 40 years and he was funny as anything. Oh good. He just cracked me up. And I think because he cracked himself up by making fun of himself.

At one point, you know, he was like, yeah, I know you think I'm Michael Stipe. I'm just a little bit taller and it just was some funny stuff. It was really good to see him out there.

Does he still talk the same way? He does. I know he, believe it or not, it didn't seem like he was as gravely as he used to be. Maybe before he had to do it to make that happen. But now it's just a natural gravel or something. That makes sense.

But it was pretty cool. Michael Shannon's sister. She played on night swimming. So they had the keyboard player Michael Shannon and his sister from New Orleans, I believe.

And I think she played three shows, that show, the New Orleans show and the two nights and Athens. So it was pretty cool. You know, she's a mom of three and she's up there playing. Yeah, it was great. It really was Linda Hopper of Magdapop fame.

Atlanta band back in the day. She actually performed the song and she dedicated it to Lynn Blakey, who we've talked about a few times, who recently passed away, was with let's active touring and then left of the dial. The song was written about her.

And then Vanessa Briscoe, hey, of Pylon and Pylon reenactment society was there and played a couple of songs and then actually did a Pylon song. It was fantastic.

It was really cool. I think that second night there, I think it ended with like 32 songs. It was really fun. It was a lot of fun. It really was.

So speaking of Athens on March 1st, 1976, Walk Street Records opened up in Athens 50 years ago. So it's originally on Foundry Street and then it moved over to College Avenue and Clayton Street where it is now.

And it is the longest continuously running record store in the state of Georgia. Oh, that's cool. I did not know that. I think that's super cool.

And speaking of RM, that is where Michael Steip and Peter Buck met for the first time and the rest of this history and Kate Pearson of the B 52s worked there at one time.

Oh, cool. Very cool.

You know, my daughter just saw Kate Pearson perform last night or the night before in New York City.

Excellent.

It was Philip Glass's birthday party.

Oh, really?

And they had all these celebrities that were joining him and Elvis Costello came out and played a song and Kate Pearson, she said Kate Pearson was fantastic.

Excellent. So once you talk a little bit about Philip Glass.

So Philip Glass is a famous composer, you know, still alive. I think he's in his late 80s now.

And he might even be 90 now. I'm not sure. But very avant garde kind of music that he does.

And so I don't know that I could say in the name of one of his famous songs or anything like that. But definitely he's one of the people that has pushed orchestral music into, you know, more experimental directions.

Yeah. And he's worked with a bunch of different people in the music world that you wouldn't think would be interested in that.

And sure enough, I know that Elvis Costello is friends with them, just kind of like you mentioned.

So it's kind of cool when different music worlds kind of collide and become one.

Yeah. And you think about the B 52s. They were pretty experimental for what they were doing in a different way than Philip Glass.

But I could see mutual admiration there.

I agree with you there, Jimmy. Hey, a guaranteed time for all when you have experimental music like that or you spend three nights in Athens, G.E.A.

Yeah.

So Jimmy, I don't know if you heard about this story. A Long Island man had license plates that said

P B 4 W E G O doesn't mean much until you say, yeah, I can kind of get what he's saying P before we go.

He had these license plates. I think it's genius. Yeah.

Because really everyone should.

And that's what you tell your kids. Come on. No, we're not stopping the car 15 minutes in.

Well, he received a letter from the DMV Department of Motor Vehicles that through its rigorous screening process,

it was determined that P before we go was no longer in compliance.

And he had to give the plates up.

But he had heard that a person in I believe it was New Hampshire had gone through something similar.

And they contacted the governor and the governor made an exception.

So this person got the governor involved as well.

And the governor said, I agree you should be before we go.

Oh, good.

And they gave him his plates back. Nice.

Isn't that pretty cool? Yeah, that is.

Man, I'll tell you.

Hey, listen, Jimmy, we got to do the next segment, but I got to pee.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you, Jimmy. I appreciate that.

You're welcome. I feel better now.

That was fast.

I should have listened to the license plates.

You should have.

Yeah, I didn't. Hey, listen, let's revisit some more music in my shoes.

Let's. Let's do it.

The mom is in the pop is California dream and peaked at number four on Billboard Hot 100 March 12th, 1966, 60 years ago.

It was the second single off their debut album, first single did nothing, nothing at all.

This one came out.

It was from if you can believe your eyes and ears, which had come out February of 1966, the album.

What makes this crazy? It's a great song.

I love the mom is in the pop is I love California dream in Monday, Monday, when I was young, when I was a kid.

I would just sing those songs like, hey, if I can learn how to do this, I can be, you know, a rock and roll star.

You know, when I wasn't thinking I was the Beatles or Jan and Dean, you know, the mom is in the pop.

Or practicing air guitar.

Yes.

But what makes this crazy is that 1965 Barry McGuire of Eva of Destruction fame, you remember that song?

We're on the Eva of Destruction.

He actually recorded this before the mom is in the pop is.

Oh.

And it actually has Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips doing their, you know, background vocals.

It turns out it's the same song.

The music tracks that the wrecking crew did.

It's the same. It starts off the same.

The only two differences is the first difference is instead of a flute solo.

It's a harmonica solo.

And the other is Denny Dirty of the mom is in the pop is he re-recorded so that the version that we all know.

Barry McGuire's version.

It is somewhere, you know how sometimes I do the spoken word thing on the show, Jimmy?

Yes.

Imagine if I partied all night and I didn't go to sleep at all and I came in and I decided I was going to do the spoken word of California dreaming.

Wow. Okay.

And that's as close as to what I think.

All the leaves of brown.

And the sky is gray.

Sounds like Lou Reed.

It is just like...

I'd been for a walk.

Yeah. Yeah.

It really is.

It is just unbelievable on a winner's day.

And it's not really sung.

It really is more spoken word.

And they use the same music.

Everything was the same.

If you listen to the song, you can actually hear Barry McGuire, like the first word or so.

And then they cut him out.

Like they didn't delete or erase or whatever on the tapes.

They could hear it on the song.

You can hear it on the song.

Just the first word about...

You can hear his voice for a second.

It's just crazy.

This song went on to be number one.

Just think about that.

Before, with Barry McGuire, no one would have ever heard the song.

No one would know one thing about it.

The Mama's and Papa's do it.

And it's a number one song.

It's like there was this movie called Gordy that was about a talking pig.

And there were some people, some actors in Atlanta that were in this movie.

And they were like, oh, it might be a big thing.

Maybe the talking pig and the movie flopped it.

Like you look it up on Rotten Tomatoes.

It has some of the worst reviews any movies ever got.

I've never heard of it.

And they were like, I don't know.

Maybe it wasn't the right timing for a talking pig movie.

And like six months later, Babe comes out.

The just beloved talking pig movie.

Yes.

I know Babe.

You did it wrong.

Yeah.

So it turns out maybe it wasn't just not time for a talking pig movie.

Maybe there just wasn't that good.

And that's what made me think of with this guy.

Doing his spoken word version of the Mama's and Papa's.

Hey, I believe it.

California Dreaming on such a winner's day.

I want to hear it now.

Woo.

My voice actually hurts Jimmy.

But you know what will make my voice sound better?

What?

Oh, and then I'm going to answer that.

But also that I've been trying to hack the magic hat.

Slow ride, reaches number 20 on Billboard Hot 100 March 13th, 1976.

The banging drum, the guitar riff.

Slow ride.

Take it easy.

It's an eight minute song that I don't think is long enough.

I can listen to this song forever.

It's made to be blasted out of a ca張o and a parking lot.

and made it less than eight minutes.

Which is funny because when it was released,

it would go on a release at FodCats like,

hey, we don't want to trim it.

The record company wants to make it like a three-minute song

and they're like, no, no, no.

And they release it as the eight-minute version

and then the radio stations ended up trimming it anyway.

But it is a great song.

And any movie about the mid-1970s

should have this on the soundtrack.

I don't care what the movie is about,

slow ride needs to be part of it.

I agree.

December 1963, O-1 a night,

reached number one on Billboard March 13th, 1976.

All right. There you go.

Frankie Valley.

A song by the four seasons,

but it was not sung by the regular lead singer, Frankie Valley.

Oh.

The record company wanted it to sound different

from his solo albums.

OK.

So they had the drummer on lead

and the bassist doing the falsetto parts

that, you know, all these things

that you think of Frankie Valley

and he just kind of did like the bridge.

I think his part was like, oh, I, something.

Yeah, I got a funny feeling

when you walked in the room.

Right. I think that was his only part.

But again, they wanted to separate it from solo

and four seasons because it was Frankie Valley

in the four seasons.

Now it was just the four seasons.

Wow, he got demoted to just a season.

And once a number one, all right.

There you go.

Imagine that.

I mean, you know, just imagine they did a Barry McGuire style.

Oh, one a night late December back in 63.

I mean, it sounds like you're talking about some,

you know, ship that wrecked or something like that, you know?

Whoo.

You know what you mean?

I need a little break here.

I think I need something to help me there with my voice.

So tick, tick, tick.

It's minute with Jimmy.

It's time for a minute with Jimmy.

With Jimmy, minute with Jimmy.

It's time for a minute with Jimmy.

Minute with Jimmy, minute with Jimmy.

All right, we're going to go back 35 years

to February, 1991, when Dinosaur Juniors album Green Mind

came out.

Now, this was kind of their first big major label album

and it was also the first album after Lou Barlow left the band.

Jay Mascus played almost every instrument on the record

with the drummer Murf playing drums on three songs.

Otherwise, Jay played guitar, bass, and drums on everything.

It has their biggest hit to date at that time, the wagon.

It has good songs like Puking Cry and Water.

But one of the cool things about this record,

if you remember the cover, it is a little girl on a beach

smoking a cigarette.

And it's a famous photo from 1969 by Joseph Zabo.

And it was taken on Jones Beach.

Really?

Right near Levittown, New York.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's something new.

I did not know that.

It's called up Priscilla Jones Beach, 1969.

I'm going to have to definitely check that out.

Check out the original photo.

Yes, so Levittown's not that far from Jones Beach.

Just go down Wanto Parkway and you are there.

I love to go sometime.

Maybe we can do it, Jimmy.

We can broadcast from Jones Beach.

That'd be great.

That would be great.

Hey, that was a really good minute with Jimmy.

I like it.

Jimmy.

Jimmy, I want to talk about garbage, not the trash can,

but I want to talk about the band garbage.

Only happy when it rains, entered Billboard Hot 100

March 1996.

And it peaked at number 55 on May 4th of 96.

I absolutely love that song.

And when that comes on, I just got to play that super loud.

And I would have to say, you know when you just start singing

the song and you don't even know why you're singing the song.

It just comes out.

Yeah.

I would say only happy when it rains is in my top 20 of songs

that I do that with, that I just boom.

I have a lot of songs like that.

And like you said, there's no rhyme or reason why these songs

get stuck in my head so much.

They're not songs I ever listened to.

Name one.

The Jimmy Buffett volcano song.

I don't know, I don't know.

That song's always in my head.

I'm like, I don't want that song in my head.

And for those of you that cannot see Jimmy, his eyes lit up

and they got big as he was saying it.

He was so excited to talk about it.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know why that gets stuck in your mind there, Jimmy.

There's a song that we have strict rules in my house

that you cannot hum.

You cannot say the words from because it is so contagious.

And I dislike the song so much.

And it is Shania Twain, man, I feel like a woman.

I can't even say anymore after that.

We just forget I even said that.

OK.

It's too catchy.

It's just funny how certain songs can do different things

for people or families.

And it's great when a family has something

that it just triggers and everybody reacts a certain way.

We've talked about it before on the show for my family.

Police on my back was a song that I started playing

for the kids when they were young.

To teach them the days of the week.

To teach them the days of the week and the green minivan.

And that comes on or even Charlie don't surf by the clash.

That's another one that, you know, my daughter Jessica.

And I, if it comes on, we always take a screenshot

of our phone and send it to each other.

So it's cool.

Whether or not you'd like the song or not,

it's cool that your family has a little thing with it, you know?

Yeah, it's kind of like when I'm filling up my car with gas,

what do I, home?

For fueling.

Yes.

Yeah.

And honestly, a lot of people like that, Jimmy.

A lot of people reach out, you know, to the show

and thought that that was a really funny moment.

Maybe it will be contagious to them

and they'll keep it going.

Maybe, maybe.

You know, Jimmy, I'm only happy when it rains.

I'm only happy when it's complicated.

And though I know, you can appreciate it.

I'm only happy when it rains.

Words like that, how can you not like it?

But I'll tell you what I don't like.

Unfortunately, that's it for this episode of Music in My Shoes.

I'd like to thank for fueling Jimmy Guthrie,

show producer and owner of Arcade 160 Studios,

located right here in Atlanta, Georgia,

and Vick Thrill for our podcast music.

You can reach us at Music in My Shoes at gmail.com.

Please like and follow the Music in My Shoes

Facebook and Instagram pages.

Many people have recently, and I thank every one of you

for doing that, that's pretty cool.

This is Jim Boge, and I hope you learned something new

or remember something old.

We'll meet again on our next episode

until then, live life and keep the music playing.

I love you, I love you, I love you.