DISGRACELAND - Bonus Episode: Research, "Rock Stars," and Two-Part Episodes

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

This week in the After Party, Jake talks this week’s DISGRACELAND episode on Peter Tosh, the history of DISGRACELAND two-parters, and pulls back the curtain to discuss the research and sources that go into bringing these stories to life.Plus, who are the true badasses of the history of music and culture? Let Jake know at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod, and come join the After Party.To hear an extended version of the After Party with even more insane revelations about Peter Tosh, the Rolling Stones, and more from the DISGRACELAND community, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Hey, Discos, you can listen to an extended version of this after-party episode by becoming a member of Disgraceland All Access. Just go to disgracelandpod.com slash membership for more details and to sign up. Hey, guys, Disgraceland is brought to you by Double Elvis. This week we have part one of our Peter Tosh story in the Disgraceland feed. And don't forget about that exclusive Hunter S. Thompson episode that's available

to our all-access members in our Patreon and Apple subscription feeds. Hey, Discos, need a little more disgrace land in your life, just a touch to get you through? Yeah, me too. This is the podcast that comes after the podcast. Welcome to Disgraceland, the After Party. Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode, a little thing we like to call The After Party. This is the show after the show, the party after the party, the bridge to get you from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other, the backyard. to dig into the dirt. On this episode, we are talking about our new Peter Tosh episode of

Disgraceland that is in your feeds right now, part one of two. We're talking about the sources that went into the creation of our Tosh episode, including the source that got us that juicy tidbit on how Peter Tosh funded an album by smuggling drugs, but that's for later. And of course, your voicemails, texts, DMs, and more. And as always, a whole lot of rosy. All right, just goes, let's get into it. All right, I have this thing. that really annoys me, and it's been someone from the corporate world or any professional world, for that matter, any world other than the music industry, when they refer to someone as a rock star, like some sort of reward, you know, like Danny from accounting got all his work done and stayed late

over the weekend. What a rock star. Or Sheila down the street, she pulled in our garbage bins for us while we were on vacation. What a rock star. Or did you see that Craig there? He scored us tickets for that game. What a rock star. I know now that I'm being kind of a prick about this, but Danny, Sheila, Craig, they are not rock stars. If what was said about them didn't concern accounting, garbage pills, and sporting event tickets, and instead went something like this, Danny got a 17-year-old babysitter pregnant. What a rock star. Sheila overdosed on crack cocaine. She bought from her neighbor Craig. What a rock star. Craig's doing 20 to life out of Concord MCI for selling Sheila that rock. What a rock star. Listen, music history is littered with illicit relationships with illegal and sometimes

deadly drug use. You know, we know this from listening to this podcast. has so many more transgressions, so much more bad behavior. My point is that rock star behavior should not be lauded. It shouldn't be celebrated. It shouldn't be treated like some sort of badge of honor unless, of course, you're some kind of degenerate hooligan with a twisted sense of humor, which I have a feeling most of you like me, either are or were at one point. And if you're not anymore, and you say live the respectable family life, a part of you, still identifies with these rock star heathens and is highly entertained by their behavior, which, of course is why we are all here.

Also, and this is the biggest part of the pet peeve here, equating just going the extra mile in a civilian life, you know, being a good accountant, being a good friend, being a good neighbor, let's not get it twisted. Let's not elevate that to rock star behavior. That is not what that is. Clearly, we know this. And I know, like I said, I know I'm being a prick about this.

But why the hair across my ass? Okay, why about Danny from account. being a rock star. I don't know. I guess to my point I just made, it cheapens what rock stars actually do. Staying late to work on TPS reports over at Intertech, it hardly compares with squatting in Keith Richards' Jamaican vacation home, as Peter Tosh did, and refusing to leave by threat of your machine gun. Peter Tosh was a rock star, and so was Keith Richards. But here's where I'm a hypocrite. Just as I despise the overuse and misuse, I should say, of the term rock star, I overuse and misuse the word badass or the phrase badass because that's what Keith Richards was,

a real badass, balls, the size of big, whatever fruit kind of fruit they grow in Jamaica, I don't know, mangoes, whatever. Keith Richards had them to stare down Peter Tosh and to get the armed to the teeth Jamaican musician out of his place so that Keith Richards can move back in as the story goes. You need mango-sized balls. You need to be a badass, okay? A real badass. But here's the thing. I call people badass all the time, people who aren't really badass. Okay? Not in the truest sense of the term. All right, I've even considered myself to be a badass on occasion, but I assure you I am not Keith Richards level badass. Like, I even have to mention that. That is a special kind of crazy. And you know what I am talking.

talking about. This is why these subjects, whether they're musicians, whether they're cooks, whether they're artists, this is why they're so interesting. So I don't want to dilute that, okay? And I don't think any of us should want to dilute that. But what I do think we should know is start to get a sense of who from the world of music and culture in general. Who are the real badasses? Those who wouldn't back down, who won't back down, those who've demonstrated real bravery, real craziness in the face of fear, in the face of intimidation, Keith Richards, definitely. Steve McQueen, absolutely. Michael Jackson, probably not. Marlon Brando, I don't think so. Marilyn Monroe, I would say so, a thousand percent. Yes, who else? 617-906-66-36-38 to let me know

who the most badass musicians and cultural figures are from history. And give me some examples of their badass behavior. And I'll be back in a moment. All right, as I said earlier, this week's episode on Peter Tosh is part one of two. We've done a bunch of two part episodes in the past here in Disgraceland. Guns and Roses, Willie Nelson, the sex pistols, Kurt and Courtney, the Beach Boys, John Lennon was the first one. John Lennon, and the way this happened was the John Lennon episode, I researched it, and then I wrote it, and I wrote it as one episode, and I finished it, and I was like, fuck, this is long. How am I going to do this? And I just said, oh, I'll just do two, and that was it. And then we sort of got into like, okay, how do we, how do we structure two episodes? How do we make

them fit and feel right and make sense? But, you know, I'm thinking this Peter Tosh episode, this might be our last two-parter for a while. And it's, you know, in part just to be totally honest, we've been using it as a crutch to not do the proper amount of editing and outlining that we should. And it's not, crutch is probably too harsh of a word, because, you know, because it's also a good thing for us when we get two episodes out of one batch of research in a way we're doubling the amount of value that we get from the work we've done. But at the same time, you know, it's just there's so many people we need to talk about here. And I can already hear the criticism from some of you who, despite what we love or think about Peter Tosh,

you're going to sit there and you go, oh, really? Peter Tosh gets two episodes, but, you know, I don't know. the Ramones get one. You know what I mean? Like you can make that argument over and over again about a gazillion different subjects that we've covered. And we have this new vision, this new icon series we're doing. And it just adds to the amount of people that we want to talk about. It's a long list to cover. And, you know, we're taking up too much space with these two partners. And we should be better at our jobs. We should be better at coming up with concise, impactful, hard-hitting single episodes on one subject that really blow your socks off. Not that the Tosh episodes aren't blowing your socks off.

I know they are. There's so much drama here. It made a lot of sense to do this as two parts because it allowed us to focus on his assassination and the conspiracy theories around the assassination, almost entirely in episode two. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Just giving you guys an update

on a little bit of the behind the scenes here, how we made this episode and what we're thinking about future episodes that we're going to make. This week's episode, the part one on the Peter Tosh story. Some fascinating research went into this. The main biography that we use for research for this is called Step and Razor, The Life of Peter Tosh by John Missouri, can only find this book as an e-book.

If it does exist in physical form, we couldn't track it down. This covers Tosh's life in great detail, including some super crucial stuff about why he decided to leave the Whalers, and that a big reason for his leaving the Whalers was that Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, was grooming Tosh's bandmate, Bob Marley for superstardom and not Peter Tosh. Another great resource for this week's episode was a documentary called Stepping Razor Red X. This is a film from 1992, super cool. It uses these audio tapes that Tosh made of himself talking about his life, his views, his music,

talking about everything. Tapes that he made shortly before he was murdered. So basically it's like Peter Tosh is narrating a film about his own life, even though it was put together a few years after he died. This is the source where I got the quote, it is dangerous to have the truth in your possession. You can be found guilty and sentenced to death,

which of course is a very poignant quote, considering what happens to Peter Tosh. Also, it's also where I got the story that opens the episode about Tosh running to the sounds of his parents and nearly getting blinded when he runs into barbed wire, which is just so painful to think about. Maybe though, the craziest anecdote that we discovered came from a book called Bob Marley in the Whalers, 1973 to 1976, co-written by Lee Jaffe, who was one of Peter Tosh's associates back in the day. This book is only available in French. So, of course, I didn't get to read it, but I read a lot about it. And there's this anecdote that comes from this book that people were talking about,

that Peter Tosh raised most of the money to make his album legalize it from you got it, a shipment of marijuana that was illegally flown from Jamaica to the United States, as you're going to hear in the episode. This story is fucking nuts. This is the type of story that is at the heart of disgrace land. This type of research that we do brings these stories out, puts them in this new medium of podcasting for you. It's why you love the show.

So this to me is next to the Keith Richards home invasion thing, the most interesting part of the Peter Tosh story. If I was hanging out, I was 18 years old, chilling with my boys at a party, drinking beers, whatever. This is the story about Peter Tosh that I would talk about. What is the story about Peter Tosh that you would talk about? Is this it? What do you think of this story about using illegal shipment of dope flown from Jamaica to the United States back in the 70s to fund what is, I guess,

Probably his biggest record. I should know this. Probably Peter Tosh's biggest album legalize it. Wild story, right? Let me know what you think the wildest story is 617-90666-66-38. Also, you got thoughts on the Bob Marley Rewind episode that's coming your way this week. You can hit me up 617-90666-36-3638. And I want to know, this is an honest-to-God question.

You can only listen to one. Who's it going to be? Bob Marley or Peter Tosh, 617-906-66-36-38, and I want to be. I don't know why. That's where you leave a voicemail for me. That's where you leave me a text. Speaking of voicemails, let's check this one out from Barry in the 904. Barry from the 904, Jake.

Oh, my gosh. I love all access. All excess. And it's $5. For $5, you should be ashamed if you can't afford $5 a month for what you're offering. For the price of two mics, harder lemonade, Tall Boys. weed for a hand job

in some back alley for only $5. You get so much. And you get to interact with the man himself and the rest of the discos in your own chat channel, which I've already fucked up

by not replying to a message, just typing in who's my generation. It's amazing, Jake. Love it. I'm a member, man. I've been listening to your stuff from almost day one.

so it's cool to get on board to the all-access membership on Leap Day. Thanks, Jake. Barry in the 904, thanks for that message, man. Listen to you guys, I love Barry. I appreciate the message, and I appreciate that you sign up for all access, but nobody should be ashamed if they can't afford the $5 a month. You should be ashamed, however,

if you're getting a hand job in a back alley with that $5 instead of using it for an all-access membership, because I can guarantee that you will get more value out of the discreet. All Access membership than you will from a back alley handjob. Not knowing anything really about back alley hand jobs myself, I can't speak to that experience directly. It just doesn't sound that compelling to me. However, you have all the discos and the Patreon chat in there, the real heads, talking stuff, talking music, talking disgrace land episodes, talking crazy stories about crazy people

from history. Get in here. Get in here with us. Get the full version of this after party. get an extra episode per month and get ad-free listening all for the cost of, as Barry put it, a back-alley hand job.

All right, let's do a text here from the 250. Hey, hey, Jake, I'm looking to be a better supporter and currently subscribe to most platforms, which provides you with the greatest cut. Would rather support directly, but understand that all business needs to generate money. Well, 250, I really appreciate the question.

The answer to your question is, all the platforms treat us equally. Okay, so whether you're subscribed on Apple or Spotify or Amazon or Iheart, it doesn't matter. But if you want to put money directly into our pocket, you can do so by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership and signing up for our actual subscription for $5 a month that Barry was just talking about

and you get a whole bunch with that that I just mentioned. Okay, that's a way to directly sponsor the show. As for which platform you subscribe on, it doesn't really matter. Just keep listening, all right. 8-20 writes in, Bourdain, a classic episode, Chef's Kiss. I'm not crying, you're crying. Fell in love after reading his nonfiction in the aots. Thank you so much for that. Just bought Medium Raw. Thanks for the

recommendation. You got it 828. Yeah, guys, we've got a lot of, I don't mean to keep pimping out this, this Patreon chat, but there's a lot going on over there, including book recommendations, and those are happening over on our Instagram as well at Disgraceland Pot. I'm going to take a quick break back in a flash with more voicemails, more text, and a whole lot of rosy. All right, we are back, are approaching the end of this week's after party. But if you, like me, don't want the after party to end just yet, if you need more of this, more behind the scene stuff, more holy shit moments, more engagement and interaction, more voicemails, more texts, I got you covered.

You can hear more of this week's after party by becoming a member of the Disgraceland All Access Club. How do you do that? It's easy. Like I said, go to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. And for five bucks a month, even less. If you sign up for an annual membership, you're not only going to get an extended version of this after party every week, like this one right here that you're about to hear if

you go sign up, but one exclusive fully scripted episode of Disgraceland every month as well. Hunter S. Thompson that we just released. We've got an exclusive episode coming up for the All Access members on Lane Staley of Allison Chains, another on Chris Cornell, another on Basquiat. And like I said, if you sign up via Patreon, you get access to the always on chat with me and all the other cool kids. All right. Get in here, Disgracelandpod.com slash membership. And again, you're going to be able to hear this extended version of this after party where I will be talking more about that huge shipment of weed that was flown over from Jamaica to the United States that funded Peter Tosh's album.

Not to mention some other deeper revelations about the Peter Tosh story and talking more with all of you, your voicemails, more text, emails, et cetera. Okay? All right. Back in flash. All right. Let's recap, shall we? One, there's more after party to listen to right now.

All you got to do is go to disgracelandpod.com slash membership and sign up and become an all-access member. But if that ain't your bag, then number two, right now in your feed, we get a brand new episode on Peter Tosh. Number three, coming tomorrow, a rewind episode on Peter's former bandmate Bob Marley. Four, over in the Badlands feed, we got episodes from the archive on Evil Caneval and the Dating Game Killer. Five, next week in the disgrace land feed, part two of our two-part episode on Peter Tosh. Six, my number, six-17-906-66-36-38. Call me on the telephone or text me, number seven. Remember, no one cares about the music you love more than you do, and well, that is a disgrace.

And now, my moment of bliss in honor of this week's episode on Peter Tosh, me, reading you, The Billboard Hot 100 from the week of June 19th, 1976, when Peter Tosh released his debut solo album, Legalize It. Number one. Silly Love Songs, Wings. Last week, one. Peak position, one. Weeks on chart, 11. Number two, get up and boogie.

That's right. Silver convention. Last week, two. Peak position, two. Weeks on chart, 15. Number three, Misty Blue. Dorothy Moore. Last week, three.

Peak position, three. Weeks on chart, 14. Number four, love hangover. Diana Ross. Last week, four. Peak position, one. Weeks on chart, 12. Number five, Sarah Smile,

Darrell Hall, John Oates. Last week, Pete, seven, peak position, five. Weeks on Church, 27. Number six, Shannon. Henry Gross. Last week, six. Peak position.

Six. Weeks on church. 17. Quit talking and start mixing. Cut it.