WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 947 - ​Dan Schlissel

Episode Date: September 2, 2018

Dan Schlissel died recently. He tells Marc all about it, along with the less harrowing tale of how an isolated Jewish kid from Nebraska got into producing records. Dan turned his production know-how into a vibrant business when he started Stand Up Records and became a Grammy-winning comedy industry mainstay, producing and distributing albums for everyone from Maria Bamford to Doug Stanhope to Hannibal Buress. And yes, even Marc Maron. This episode is sponsored by New Mexico, Podcasts on Spotify, Starbucks Doubleshot, and the Around the NFL podcast. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters

what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf i am recording on Sunday yesterday I was in Bloomington Indiana from Wednesday night through Sunday morning and I go there once a year once every year and a half I go I've been there a lot over the last decade and I got to be honest I always every, every time I'm going, I go to play the comedy attic up there, and I always get a little like, oh man, it's going to get weird, something's going to be weird, it's always weird, it's subtle, it's a disarming town, because it's a college town, and it feels like that, but there's just a little weirdness on the periphery there i'm not sure what it is maybe it didn't get weird this time though it didn't get weird with the audience it didn't get weird with the people that approached me i didn't have any weird encounters but i maybe

that's a testament to my weird magnet uh being uh turned off or down quite a bit i don't know man turned off or down quite a bit i don't know man i'm definitely a little less needy that's is that an announcement oh by the way two days ago on the the first on the first was the ninth anniversary of this show we've been at this for nine years and two days now brendan mcdonald and myself and all our guests are very grateful that you've listened all these years. Many of you have. But it's sort of a big deal. I didn't really know it was happening until someone mentioned it on Twitter. But it is nine years.

That's fucking unbelievable. So much has happened. So much has happened in the nine years. And those of you who've been on board for most of it know exactly what those things are and uh thank you for going through all that with me i appreciate it back to bloomington so i gotta be honest man i i love the place i like going there i was very relaxed and i'm not always relaxed on the road i am always somewhat happy to be away I'm not always relaxed on the road.

I am always somewhat happy to be away because I think I've talked about it before when you're out there in a strange city or unfamiliar terrain, and it's just you in a room that you're not responsible for cleaning and everything about your day-to-day life that you live normally is far away and you're just in this rented box. Sometimes when you got some space, it's nice to take advantage of it. Like I can sit on my porch, I can wander around these streets, but there's always the responsibility of my life hanging over me. And I got to Bloomington and within a few hours, I was just sort of like, oh, good.

And I brought the newest copy of The Baffler, which is a magazine that I get. I don't know if it's, I think it's every two months. And it's very dense, usually. It's got, you know, it's fun. It's got art. It's got poetry. But it's got some almost academic but very cutting cultural criticism in there, usually themed through an issue.

And I usually read one or two things in there and my brain just explodes. It's not that it's incapable of taking it, but this time I was just processing it. I was rolling up the copy of it and walking around with it. I had my notebook going. I'm stopping in the middle of a supermarket parking lot to write down thoughts. I'm adding some wood to the fire of my brain and kind of formulating new ideas new bits just pushing my brain out there as i wandered in the the sort of humidity of indiana which which is great for me because you know i'm sober a long time but if you get the right humidity and you just you're at the right amount of uh needing sleep uh you get a little buzz on you move a little slower it's

kind of like it's a little thick it's like moving through uh through a sort of almost set pudding of atmosphere and uh it was great i had an advanced copy of my my buddy sam lipsight's book which is fucking hilarious it's called hark it's gonna be out in a few months i got to get him in here and it was just uh it was just amazing to sort of open up my brain again and to sort of be relieved of the the cats and house and uh day-to-day shopping i was in the box and i walk out of the box and i wander around and just writing things down getting the brain active and then i'd go to this amazing club the comedy attic And it's amazing because it's off the grid, man, in a lot of ways. You've got to fly into Indianapolis and you've got to drive to Bloomington.

But there's a nice sort of cross-section of grown-up weirdos there that come see me. I sold out all five shows. It's a little place. It only seats like 170. But that is the type of club where you can get into that one mind uh feeling with an audience and you know in four out of the five shows were kind of transcended and one of them was just work a bit it was still good but it was like there wasn't the freedom there but because i'm wandering around all day i'm smoking cigars i'm

hot i'm writing things down i'm pushing my brain out there. I'm, I'm getting into the zone where I don't give a fuck and I can take risks and just follow and process my own stream of consciousness up there. It's one thing, you know, showing up at a theater with a polished act. It's another thing being in the crucible and the sort of, you know, tide pool of your brain, just evolving shit out of it. And it was, uh, it was just, it's always great. It's always a great five shows. Uh, Jared, uh, runs a, a good room up there and I'm, and I'm, I'm grateful for it. I think I'm smoking too many cigars. Uh, that, that I can tell you right now, man, you get me going on shit. Hey, you guys have been through this with me before. If you've been here nine years, you've been through all of it with me also another interesting thing

some guy showed up at the show it was his 11th time seeing me man 11th time people came from all over the place man it was really humbling and and kind of powerful man people came from detroit from st louis from cincinnati they came up from kentucky some people flew in from san diego from from philadelphia i mean to this little club in bloomington indiana they came from all over and it's like when i see them tweet about it or whatever it's a lot of pressure i'm like oh my god they drove five hours. I better deliver the fucking goods. Not that I wouldn't want to do that anyways, but it does add extra pressure.

But I think everybody had a good time. And also in that club, there's no real point. There's only a little fucking green room. So I'm always outside. I'm outside meeting, greeting because it's a small enough room to do that. So you got the first show getting pictures with me while the second show is waiting to go in i did a little pre-show you know outside for the line you know working all angles not intentionally it's just there was nowhere else to go but 11 times seeing me that's wild man it's almost like i'm a it's

almost like i'm like a fish show. I'm surprised the guy's not following me around the country. Well, I don't work that much. I don't do that many dates. I think that's another reason why, and I didn't mean to compare myself to fish. It was just a joke about a jam band. You know, like maybe I'm not the jam band of comedy.

That is not me. I don't tour enough, which is why people came from so far away. I'm not the kind of, you know, a hundred dates a year kind of guy. I'm like, let me put together, take some of my time, put this stuff together, maybe do 20, 30 dates a year and run through it. some dates on the books and that's uh that's what's happening oh every time i'm in bloomington i go to landlocked records picked up some wax some vinyl a few slabs i don't think that's what they're called they don't call them slabs landlocked records has some great stacks man they got the they got the racks but beneath the racks there's just a bunch of records on the floor you know they're alphabetized but they're not the uh top shelf records but

there's a lot of good shit in there what i pick up i got an old bgs record from the late 60s called idea i picked up a tommy james record because i think it's called me my bed and my red guitar um i don't know much about it but it looked like something i might want uh i i actually got the um rosington collins band record that's the what was left of leonard skinner after the crash i've never let skinner go i'll forgive them sweet home alabama even though i like that song and there's no reason it's not a guilty pleasure they're a great fucking band you know what i i love leonard skinner all the way through the whole fucking catalog uh what else i got i got a miles davis album i didn't have and i got a um a coltrane record that just got released of a of

a live performance a double record i don't know the name of it looking forward to uh to listening to that but for some reason i i really want to go listen to that fucking beegees record i'm trying to get into old beegees there's a couple songs i like but anyways i'm rambling landlocked records always a stop for me in bloomington and yeah it was a it was a good time did i mention who's on the show today i did not i did not mention today dan schlissel joins me dan schlissel is the proprietor producer and uh overseer and owner of Stand Up Records. Stand Up Records is a comedy album label. He's done a lot of different people. Schlissel's done everybody from me to Stan Hope to Maria, to everybody.

He recorded two of my records. He reissued my first record. And the funny thing about Dan is what you do, the first album I did with him was, I think Tickets Still Available. And that was in Seattle. And it was funny because, you know, I didn't have a draw. So we did like four shows, you know, for like anywhere from 60 to 150 people maybe.

And he spent about, you know, six months to a year mixing that thing. I think I'm exaggerating, but not by much. But the amazing thing was is that when I was going through my divorce and my life was falling apart and I needed to be on stage to process it, I would always go to this shitty little club in Seattle called Giggles. The guy who ran the place, Terry, he used to sell the tickets, make the drinks, do five minutes to open the show and wait on tables. And he was a very bizarre guy. He'd always figure out a way to short you a hundred bucks, but it was a dirty little club. And I recorded two fucking albums there. Thank you, Terry. I don't mean to shit on your club. It's

gone now, but, but you know, you know who you are. But, uh, but on that second one, I, you know you know who you are but uh but on that second one i you know i booked the day on a few weeks notice because i was losing my mind in a terrible state of grief and anger and i called schlissel up and i said is there any way you can get to seattle with the equipment and let's let's fucking get this stuff down i don't know what's going to happen but you know i'm on fire and he did it and that was my album he came out on pretty short notice and that was uh final engagement which was definitely the um separation slash divorce album it's pretty pretty grim pretty dark pretty focused pretty the tone is not uh necessarily pleasant but uh it's one of my favorite records that i've done and dan did that

and so i i thought you know he was in town i thought it was a unique opportunity to talk to somebody who uh who is on that side of the business a guy who loves comedy who who is very um attentive to the process of recording comedy and everybody knows him we all know and most of us have done a record with him so if you want more information about him you can go to uh about the stand-up records in general you can just go to standup records.com see the catalog but this is me uh talking to uh dan schlitt hi it's terry o'reilly host of under the influence recently we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer

becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series,

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A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. So. So, Schwistle, I have not seen you in a while and you show up, you look like you're in bad shape. Well, you know, life brings us interesting things as we move forward through it. Yeah, you hobbled up like an old Jew. I'm turning into an old Jew.

How old are you? 47. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I can't remember when we met. it yeah you hobbled up like an old jew i i'm turning into an old how old are you 47 oh really yeah yeah i can't remember when we met i can't remember how long ago that was but what now do you want to talk about what's going on with you yeah yeah it's okay i can talk about pretty much anything it's a real harrowing tale though oh yeah uh yeah i you know i was i found myself getting weaker and weaker for a period of a few years yeah no idea why right all of a sudden i started sweating profusely as well like something i can't control right you never had that before no i mean i was i always had overweight guy sweat yeah but i never had

just standing for two minutes and then like i ran a marathon right right oh geez yeah yeah so i went my arms went numb while i was on a recording trip in New Orleans. Both of them? Both of them. From the elbows down to the fingertips. Like they were on fire, but I couldn't feel anything besides that. Yeah. And I came home from New Orleans, scheduled an appointment with a doctor.

Yeah. I had had lower back surgery earlier that year. Yeah. My family doctor sent me to a neurologist. Neurologist sent me for MRIs. I took a copy of the MRIs to show my spinal surgeon. Yeah. And my wife and I went in and he stared at that MRI.

He looked at us, didn't say anything, then stared back at the MRI again. That's the international medical symbol for you, screwed. Right, right. The no saying glance? Yeah. Like looking at you and not knowing what does... Yeah. How do we talk about this?

Yeah. So then he tells me that my body's turning my ligament into bone in my neck and it's pressing against my nervous system and it's going to cause paralysis probably if I don't have surgery. Right. And I said, okay. He goes, I'm the wrong doctor. I need you to speak to a colleague.

I said, okay. He goes, that'll be tomorrow. Go home. Don't do anything. Yeah. Here's a neck brace. Don't drive. Don't go up and downstairs. Don't get in the shower. Really? Huh. Wow. said okay he goes that'll be tomorrow go home don't do anything yeah here's a neck brace don't drive don't go up and downstairs don't get in the shower really sit huh wow urgency urgency urgency

urgency that night the neurologist called same verdict yeah oh wow the next day the neurosurgeon does the same thing with the mri yeah it turns out uh had to have surgery it took a month so i was in a neck brace for a month and my muscles in my neck were atrophying the whole time. They took me in for surgery and they cut open the back of my neck and fused C2 through C6. Yeah. So I have 10 titanium screws and two rods in my neck now. Is that going to stop the progress of the- It should arrest the development of the disease any further.

Yeah. progress of it should arrest the development of the disease any further yeah but in that time my neck atrophied my muscles was all cut open to have the surgery and i was on a massive amount of painkillers right four days after the surgery the hospital left me in an improper position i choked to death on my neck brace you choked to death to death my wife in the hospital the only reason i'm here now is because my wife was there. I opened my eyes and looked at her and tried to say, help me over and over again and couldn't push air. And she ran and got the nurse. And if she hadn't been there, I wouldn't be here.

So you didn't actually die? No. The nurse said one to three minutes dead. Really? Mm-hmm. You were dead one to three minutes? Mm-hmm. Jesus Christ.

So the thing made the... Really? Yeah. Did you sue the hospital? I tried to talk to a lawyer and all that, but there isn't enough proof to make a case. You were in the wrong position? Yeah. All right. Well, you know, sometimes suing is bad karma anyways.

I didn't really want to do it anyhow, but one of my lawyer friends said, you really ought to just see how far you can take this in case. Yeah, because he died for three minutes. And I picked up, you know, a bunch of other stuff because of it. What do you mean? After the surgery, I had an infection in the wound. They had to reopen it up to clean it out. Yeah, that happens a lot here in the hospital.

It was brutal. Like, was it with that bad infection? It was actually E. coli. Right. But it wasn't the. It wasn't MRSA. Oh, MRSA. Yeah, that's that bad infection? It was actually E. coli. Right, but it wasn't the- It wasn't MRSA. Oh, MRSA, yeah, that's the one. That's bad, huh? Yeah, yeah.

Well, they say E. coli in the wound is bad. It doesn't affect your digestive system, but it's just hard to kill. Yeah, but you bounce back? Yeah, I mean, two and a half years later, I feel great. Yeah? As great as I can. I mean, I look like an old Jew now, but- What's with the cane?

as great as i can i mean i look like an old jew now but what's with the cane uh because i have these neck and back problems it's hard to support the weight of my head because my neck is not a normal straight up and down neck i lean forward yeah so every time you have a little bit of forward lean to your head it adds gravity and weight to your head right and it just continues that so the cane is to help support it right but part of the reason i have the cane now is i went to a two-day concert in san francisco yeah weeks ago right and i overdid it see yeah see what happens we're getting old either way yeah and you want to go be uh you know go take in some punk rock yeah but i took it in from the soundboard not in the crowd though oh you got it you got connections well no i just know where to stand so that i'm far away from the people that are running into each other oh oh oh so you do that

on purpose oh yeah now i do yeah right i can't take too many shots to my back or head so i'm trying to remember you know like i was looking at the the roster of stand-up records and uh you know like i i don't know how early on i was with, I think the first one you recorded for me was Tickets Still Available. Yeah, that's release number 21. Okay, so I was the 21st. Yeah, and if you include the reissue of Not Sold Out, that was number 17. Really? You reissued that before we did Tickets Still Available? It was being reissued as we were recording.

Oh, okay. Because if you remember, the poster that we did for the recording of Tickets Still Available was the cover of Not Sold Out. Right, that became the new cover. That's right. Yeah, that guy who did that poster? Jeff Kleinsmith. Yeah, Jeff.

Works over at Sub Pop. Yeah, Jeff Kleinsmith. I have that poster somewhere. It's over there against the wall. I'll get it back up. It was up in the old garage. No, I saw the photo. Yeah, yeah, right.

Oh, the photo I posted on Instagram? Yeah, yeah. That was, I forgot that's that photo. So, right. So then we did that one on Instagram? Yeah. That was, I forgot that's that photo. So, right. So then we did that one at Giggles, and we did, years later, we did Final Engagement, which I thought might be my last comedy record, at Giggles. Right. Again.

We went twice, which surprised the heck out of me. The worst comedy club in the world. Absolutely. But as a room, it was a good room. It was a good room, and you got a good room. You know how to play a room it was a good room it was a good room and you got a good you know how to play a room anyway yeah you always did yeah but like it's like it was a little weird room and like i it's just but let's well the thing you said to me when you said you said i want to do final engagement there and i go really he goes the you said the room makes me so crazy i feel like

anything can happen yeah and we did it on like a week how much not much notice i was just sort of like i'm going through this thing i'm separate things are fucked up in my life and i just i think we need to get it down well i knew it was a short notice like a few weeks right it was under a month if i remember right for you i just booked out giggles and had you drive over it was worth it though honestly and this is not the brown nose you it might be the best record that i've put out on stand up oh thank you very much it's a tremendous record and i'm still very proud of that one in particular well you did a great job with it and it was definitely uh a sort of a tonally intense record yeah but i mean the the the craziness that you bring like that whole

thing when you whenever you leave the house you picture other people having sex with your wife. Like the level of paranoia that you got into, I related to that so readily that it made everything else just beautiful for me. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm proud of that record. I like the whole trilogy, really. But let's go back, because I met you. I'm trying to remember how I first met you. Why did we come in touch with each other?

Why did it happen? Do you remember? I totally remember. I ordered Not Sold Out from your website. Okay. Got it. And was a little, I was a little disappointed that it came in like a cardboard sleeve and that I knew that you had done it yourself because you had used artwork that was not,

you had modified it, but it was still photos from the movie Freaks. Yeah, yeah. And I knew you couldn't release that on a wider scale. I kind of knew that too. Okay, good. I remember ordering all those and getting them in envelopes. I was like, fuck it, I'll just put them in envelopes with pictures on them and I'm going to sell them.

It was just really specifically supposed to be website and road merch. Oh, okay. I mean, I wasn't really thinking of a big release. I didn't think I had the juice for that. And I just went the cheapest way possible at the time because it was all self-produced. Right. And the guy that recorded it, Jason Spiro, was just this weird kind of massive comedy fan. He used to hang around the alt comedy scene in New York and take pictures.

And he designed websites and he had a dat deck. Oh, nice. So that was just the thing. I just had him, again, spontaneously record that thing for an audience of like 30 at Stand Up New York. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I had no idea that was A, that small of an audience. It makes sense, though, because I just recorded at Stand Up New Yorkork for the first time you know produce something there yeah and i was surprised at the small turnouts on the small size of the club yeah always well i mean i you know they used to have bigger ones but it was an off night and that was recorded not long after 9-11 it was still weird there

but it's okay so you ordered that and you're like what this guy needs a bigger release i thought so i mean to me look i i grew grew up in the Midwest involuntarily. And Comedy Central, you know, back when they showed a lot of standup, that was a lifeline to me to what I called civilization, which means not the middle of Nebraska. Oh, yeah, right. So you, whether you like it or not, to me, you were a legend already in my head. Right. Because you related to me. I related to you. You saw me on those clips, like from Caroline's. On all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah. And then I get this CD, and I'm like, this guy deserves more than this. He's so good. Why would he do this? Yeah. Well, why would he do this? Because you're like one of nine people that thought it was good, and I appreciate it. But thank God.

Yeah. I mean, it really gave me a chance to work with you. Yeah. So you reached out to me? As soon as I got the CD, I wrote to you on the website and said, hey, what's going on with this? Could there be a way to do it better? This is what I do, sort of.

Yeah. Well, that's sort of like, right. And I remember, I don't remember, did I respond pretty quickly? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was amazed to get a response at all because half the time you write to a website and he just goes into the ether you know no sometimes but I mean it depends again like I wrote Shecky Green's website and I heard back from someone really yeah claiming not to be him but it was clearly somebody who was either

sitting next to him or very close to him uh all right so how does it how does it start for you because we did do those records and i remember my big thing for both records is like how long it took and i used to bother you because you're very meticulous but but it turns out it's fine even though i busted your balls about it not only do you you are such a yeller oh my god really then what did i do every phone call was like i could hold it away from my head oh really oh yeah yeah you were you came in hot on all those justifiably but you were hot on a lot of those conversations about like how long it was taking yeah but at the same time you weren't watching john and i file jockey everything and go through every step of the processing to make the sound better my experience was you know like that guy just came to the club with a thing and I got a thing.

Right. You know, so like, but like over time I realized, you know, what you guys are doing because you're breaking down four shows. At least. I think four, maybe five. For tickets? Yeah. Hmm. I have to look at the dates again because that part I don't remember so well.

But so you grew up in Nebraska? We moved to Nebraska three days before I started in the seventh grade from the Poconos. Oh, so you grew up, were they Orthodox? No, my folks are conservative. My folks are Israeli immigrants. My mom is Israeli. My dad was born in Poland. Really?

Yeah. So how'd they end up in the Poconos? Well, my dad, he was in a commando unit, basically. In the Israeli army. In the Israeli army. Yeah. And originally from Poland. Born in Poland, yeah.

So he went to Israel as part of the sort of, what do you call it, the diaspora? No. What do you call it? Was he running from anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At two years old, the war broke out in Poland, and his dad knew what was coming, destroyed his business, and they fled to the Russian half of Poland. From Hitler. No shit. And then the Russians said, you ran, you're traitors, Siberia.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. So he was in Siberia? From age two to seven. With his family? With his family. And he lost his father there, because his father decided not, if I remember the story right, my grandfather did not work.

One son, Yom Kippur, and the Russians said, you don't work, you don't eat. Anyone who gives you food also won't eat. And they starved him to death. That's the story. That is the story. Heavy, man. And my dad remembers, my dad felt personally responsible for the death of his grandfather, of his father. Yeah.

Because he wouldn't give him his food. Because he couldn't. Because he couldn't. So that's kind of a mindfuck. It was a weird thing for me to grow up with that filter. Yeah. You know. So, but his, your grandmother survived?

My grandmother and my dad's four sisters survived. One of his sisters had cross eyes because one of the russians hit her in the head with the butt of a rifle for disobeying something no shit yeah so how'd they get out of russia to go to israel after the war slowly but surely they parted out and got smuggled out like the kids got smuggled out first uh-huh and then they got smuggled by train all the way to germany and the allied soldiers didn't know what to do with them so they put them in a displaced persons camp and all the displaced persons camps were former concentration camps wow and uh my dad has vivid memories of meeting eisenhower and mickey marshall really they came to inspect the place and then took the kids which camp was it i don't know the name of the camp i could find out it was in

poland yeah this was in germany oh, in Germany. Okay. After the liberation. After the liberation. And the generals threw out a bunch of German refugees from a fancy hotel and put the kids up. Oh, wow. Yeah. So my dad always loved Americans after that. I wonder if that's going to happen with these kids today. Oh, my God.

It's fucking horrendous. It is so terrible right now. All right, so they make it to israel yeah your dad grows up there does his service time right yep and he loves israel he he loved israel a lot he wanted to go back in his older age but uh it just didn't work out and what about your mom she was for israeli as well my mom was born in palestine uh-huh before israel before israel so they were older people, huh? You know, my mom's almost 80 now.

My dad has been gone for 24 years. Oh, wow. What happened? Cancer. Weird place. Jeez. So did you say on the portion that the thing you got in your neck is genetic too? It's a genetic thing, but it mainly affects a small population of Asian men.

Have you done the 23andMe thing? I have not. I wonder. It's a long shot. My dad's family's from Poland. My mom's family's from the Ukraine and from Baghdad. Oh yeah? Yeah. So I don't, I mean possibly.

But she's a Jew. Yeah, yeah. The Iraqi Jews were there from the time of the destruction of the first temple. Wow. Yeah. Some old Jews. Old Jews. Old school Jews. Old, old school. So what made them were there from the time of the destruction of the first temple wow yeah some old jews old jews old school jews old old school so what made them decide to come here um my dad kept on getting called up into the israeli army reserves which can happen till you're 55 wow yeah and uh because he was in special units yeah they kept calling him back and it bankrupted his his textile mill that he had built with my mom.

Oh, so the requirement, his skill set for the military fucked him. Hard. Yeah. So he got out and he was trying to get out at a lower rank than he was. Yeah. He finally got out, got papers, came to America because he had a sister living in the Bronx. Yeah. Started trying to work to bring over the family.

And then because he was an eligible alien, almost sent to vietnam jeez yeah yeah yeah that would have been he said that they pulled him up to the draft board and it was literally old men deciding young men's fate and how old was he uh in 1967 he was 30 wow so he how did he not go um they finally figured out he had a wife and kid in another country and if he died in battle yeah the government was gonna have to pay for them for the rest of their lives oh so it was a financial thing it was a financial decision on the government that was early on in that war too yeah 67 though he they were trying to send him to the 101st airborne division which got hammered yeah yeah oh no yeah it was a fucking meat grinder yeah

yeah yeah so he got out of that and then and hey well he starts a business no no he started working for other people yeah he his first job application they gave him a resume and he didn't he barely understood english yeah like he learned the alphabet from my mom the day before he got on the plane he only spoke hebrew and polish he spoke heb Polish, Yiddish, a little bit of Arabic, and Russian. Right. So how did he get your mom over here? Well, he put in the resume. They gave him the application.

He gave it back and said, try me for a week, and if you don't like me, don't hire me. For what? Textiles. Yeah. What does that mean? Weaving? At the time, weaving and mechanical work. Okay.

So he did that for about six six months six to eight months i think uh-huh and then my mom and brother came over they like they because he had money saved up enough money for a place and to make sure that they were set that's and that was in the poconos no no that was in massachusetts my we my dad's chatham mills and all those places well massachusetts had a big textile history yeah but then that was the time that it was starting to leave Massachusetts. Right. So from there, we went to New Jersey. From New Jersey, we went to Pennsylvania.

Yeah. And then from Pennsylvania, it was to Midwest. All textile work. All textiles. Never opened his own business again. Nope. So Nebraska was a textile job. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. Omaha? No, no, no. So three and a half hours west of Omaha in a town called Holdridge is where he worked. When my mom saw the town the first time, she burst into tears. Said, I can't live in a place this small. So my dad commuted almost 40 miles a day to live in a town that was 30,000 people. Really?

Mm-hmm. And was it, did you like it there? No, I hated it. Why? I was the only Jewish kid. I got beat up three to five times a week. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just ramp rampant sort of brutal anti-semitism all of this stuff that's coming to light under president trump is no surprise to me yeah because i lived under the people who are supporting him the most that are my age yeah i know what they were like 30 years ago

right because they were kicking my ass then yeah That same bigotry is still in them. Of course. And now they're just feeling themselves. Yeah, right. They're waking up. Yeah, and it's not everyone in the Midwest. There's plenty of enlightened people. Right.

But there are plenty of idiots. Yeah. That are just ignorant and hateful. Yeah. And like, did you ever get badly hurt? I got hit with pipe. I got hit with chains. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. My dad finally said, I didn't serve in the military in Israel and survive the Holocaust for you to be in a gigantic pussy. Yeah. He said, the next time someone raises- He blamed you? No.

He said, the next time someone raises a hand to you, you either beat the shit out of them or don't come home. And then he enrolled me in karate classes. Yeah. And that's 100%. Did you beat the shit out of anybody? Yeah. Really?

Yeah. Over time. I realized, so I realized the shit out of anybody? Yeah. Really? Yeah, over time. I realized, so I realized, like, I learned karate enough. Yeah. But if it got closer than fists and into wrestling, I would lose. So then I went out for wrestling for two years. So then you leveraged your weight on them. Well, then I grew.

I grew from 5'8 to 6'4. Yeah. In between my junior, my sophomore and junior year did they stop fucking with you once i heard a couple people really yeah that's crazy and how how many siblings you have one what a sister brother same age as you oh really a little older yeah seven years seven years older than you where was he uh we lived in pennsylvania he went to college in pennsylvania we moved to nebraska There was no reason for him to move. He was in college.

Oh, and is he still around? He is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get along with him? Uh, we're not close at all. I haven't, we haven't spoken in years.

Really? Yeah. Why? I think that we embarrass him. Oh really? Yeah. I think we're a little too old worldy ethnic-y for him. No kidding.

Yeah. But he's a schlissel. He's a schlissel, but he distances himself. He cut off the whole family, not just my mom and me, uncles, aunts, cousins. For no reason. Not that I know of. I mean, I'm sure he has a reason. Is he married with kids and everything? He's married with a stepdaughter.

Huh. And it doesn't bother you? It bothers the hell out of me, but, you know, I also don't if that's his wish, it's fine. You don't if that if that's his wish it's fine you don't you don't reach out um tried to uh under duress from a relative yeah and uh nothing it's not gonna ever happen again i'm not wow and it's why that that age difference is sort of like wide enough to where you probably didn't know him that well oh no no i wanted to be him i looked up to him i loved him yeah yeah well why what was he

what was he do what was he he was just a he you know i'm an artsy out of shape you know weirdo and he's like more of a mainstream manly man and yeah scuba dives and does work with his hands yeah just like a man's man and a good dude yeah so you're always sort of like the kind of art nerd yeah yeah yeah way way in high school and everything else all the time yeah and what did you do where did you what was your hot in high school did you play in bands ever no i don't have primary talent i'm not the kind of person that could pick up an instrument and play it or pick up a brush and paint yeah i have always just like appreciated and tried to connect people and just wanted to be around folks who were that kind of creative hoping that something or pick up a brush and paint. Yeah. I have always just appreciated and tried to connect people

and just wanted to be around folks who were that kind of creative, hoping that something would rub off. Well, what did you do well, Dan? I was really good at schmoozing. No, but I mean, back in the day, what did you go to college for? I went to college for, I started in electrical engineering and realized I wasn't smart enough and wound up in a physics degree program. Uh-huh.

And got my degree. You got a physics degree? Physics with a minor in math. So you can wrap your head around that stuff? No, no, no. Towards the end, it was beyond me. If I couldn't picture it physically anymore, it kind of lost any connection to anything for me.

So you weren't good at math or physics really? Good enough at math. Yeah. If you put your mind to it, you can get through just about anything, but you also know what your limits are. But you were no wizard. I was not a wizard. Oh, my God.

I went to school with wizards. So where does music come in? Music came in, you know, when you're isolated and you don't have much, you cling on to weird bits of culture. Yeah. Sure. What, you mean in Nebraska? Yeah.

Yeah. So, like, that's sort of been my modus operandi. And when I moved to Lincoln to go to college, I started running into other quote-unquote freaks, you know? I know that town. I performed in that town. It's a great town. It's a little beat up, but yeah, it's a good town. It's hard to go back.

But, I mean, yeah, there were freaks there when I went there. It seems like there was a good contingency, good nice healthy kind of drunken art contingent there yeah and at the time that i was there i knew all of them yeah i still know a great deal of them all right so you're uh so you're in lincoln and you're locking in with the the weirdos yeah and that's where it starts yeah literally i you know i was at the university i picked up a school newspaper and there was an article about a local rap band and to me that blew my mind i didn't realize bands could be from places other than new york or nashville right here or london right i just had no concept of that yeah so i went and bought that tape and i thought wow they're talking about things that are happening here the homeless

on this street or this place or that and it really kind of affected me yeah and then i fell in with other people who actually knew local bands right some of them lived on my dorm floor some of them were people i just ran into once i started going to shows uh-huh and that changed everything for me yeah in what way what did you see instead of becoming just a music fan and just loving the beatles or just loving the clash or whatever. Yeah. I could love Bob and Joe playing in the trio down the street. Right. And they were talking about things that were relevant to me because they were my same age

and my same exact place. Yeah. It just really hit home for me hard. Yeah. Yeah. And it fell on, there was this group called 13 nightmares that were not nationally recognized at all, but they were just so wonderful. Yeah. Heart on their sleeve about race relations and how we did things wrong, and yet also rocking and talking about the bullshit.

Were they black? No. Oh. All white folks. Yeah. And three of them moved on to become a band called Mercy Rule that got a little bit more notoriety, but not on national levels. Right. So when did you start getting involved with production?

Was it, you know, did you do any managing or any, you know? I started going to shows so much that I started becoming part of the scene. Right. And then there was one band that I actually would help them load in and load out. Right. And it wasn't really management. What band was that? It was a band called Such Sweet Thunder oh wow yeah okay they were from carney nebraska but one

of the dudes lived in lincoln punk rock uh no it was like rem runs into the replacements oh okay really jangly like these innocent heartfelt songs they eventually got heavier as time went on yeah but the first stuff is so like naive and innocent and pure and heartfelt that it just sucks you in yeah it did me at least you might go eh whatever but i remember liking a few songs by that album you gave me that chuglin album oh chuglin was a great minneapolis band i still go crazy for them so all right so so you're loading in and out you're following bands around everyone knows you on the scene. And then I started working. There's the tall Jew.

There's the tall Jew. They would say lovingly. Yeah. And to hear it lovingly and without derision was something nice for a change. Good. So I started working at the University Program Council and booking bands to play at the university. Small bands, not the big national tour and stuff. Right, right.

And that got me in with them a little bit more. Then I got hired to manage a record store by a friend from an omaha record store in lincoln in lincoln and i used records classic used uh used indie stuff and a lot of uh live imports oh right the bootlegs yeah so you were the record store guy i was a record store manager yeah yeah yeah did you you were in charge store guy. I was a record store manager. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were in charge of buying? I actually dealt with Sub Pop regularly and I dealt with Dutch East India, which was a big distributor. So this is where you got educated as to what was out there. And at the same time, physics was becoming incomprehensible.

Yeah. So it became very clear to me where I wanted to put my energy. Oh, good. Because of the management job at the record store. The management job at the record store, booking bands at the university, knowing all the bands. Yeah. All of a sudden it strikes me, sub pop is just now taking off with Nirvana. Right.

Taking off. So this is 91. 91. 91, yeah. And I was like, oh my God, I know bands and I know distributors and I buy from them. They'll buy from me if i tell them i have something uh-huh i can do this right yeah so i i quickly i figured out to talk to such sweet thunder they had already had two albums that they wanted to put together as a cd maybe uh-huh um

i borrowed a thousand dollars from my brother and from the guy that owned the main local bar that all the bands played back when you and your brother were talking yeah back when we were still like brothers yeah you know now we're not even acquaintances right um but yeah back then i and i put up a thousand dollars of my own and we did the cd it came out in november 6th of 1992 yeah and uh within six months i had everyone paid off with interest you You sold it. How did you sell it? At shows and at the store I worked at. Yeah? Yeah.

And you made the money back? And the distributor picked it up, too. Yeah. And they did. But did they get any traction, really? They didn't get huge traction. But I mean, back then, you make 1,000 copies. If you sold 1,000 copies, you didn't make more.

You were like, hey, we're done. It's great. Yeah, right. Yeah. So you had a success. Wild success, by my opinion. Right. So then I fooled myself into thinking I could do it.

You're a mogul. From there on out, it was just Daffy Duck explosion after Daffy Duck explosion. Really? Yeah. Right after the first one, it just went south? It took, I mean, like we had probably over the course of six years, we probably had like seven records that did well. So you were a label.

I was a label. It wound up becoming more of a co-op. What was the name of the label? It started as Ism. Yeah. ISM, which stood for In Spite of Myself. Yeah. Which was the reason I woke up.

Right. And then there was a band in New Jersey called Ism and they said, you can't use that name. So I switched it to the more confusing Ismist. which stood for in spite of myself, in spite of them. Yeah. And that's what I stayed at until comedy came up for me. So you did seven records, you said? No, we did 70, but maybe seven of them were successful. Ismist did 70 records?

Yeah, in six years. And seven of them what? Were successful. Which ones? Such Sweet Thunder, the Honey Boy Turner Band. I helped distribute the first Slipknot CD. But you didn't record it? I did not record it.

But I'm one of like five, six people that helped. Got it out there? Pushed them. Were you still at the record store or was this after? This was after. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And then what? Because that's four. Those are four. And then I did a single for killdozer from madison wisconsin that's five they're big yeah they were decent yeah yeah they were then they were good dudes yeah um i have to think there was a compilation called lenomo which was lincoln omaha bands that did really well and i can't remember the other one right off but you did 70 we did 70 records total but a lot of it was like co-op where the band said, could we use your name and you distribute it.

Right. We'll put the money in. So you built these distributing relationships just from the record store initially and then just building out with some of the more successful. Correct. And you dealt with mostly what? Record stores? I dealt with record stores and the distributor. And then eventually there was a

distributor in kansas city that got us into the best buy system oh yeah yeah so those are just working connections yep back when you had hard copies of things exactly before uh mp3s yeah yeah before napster oh that napster fucked it oh god did it when the fuck was that? 92, 90? When did that? When Amster was 98, 99. Was that the beginning of it? When everyone was just ripping everything? Yep. 98, 99.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because it was right about the time I was moving to Minnesota. All right. So, yeah. How does that all work? So, you put out 70 records. When do you move to Minnesota?

I moved to Minnesotanesota in november of 99 98 so this is after the 70 records or you're still doing music at that time uh no no this is uh this is probably at about 67 records i think i did like three once i moved to minnesota so napster hits and you have a you you realize that you're in trouble nap Napster hit. Well, I didn't know I was in trouble yet. Comedy started for me before Napster hit. So what was it? But people are still buying CDs, right? There's no really.

People were buying CDs all the way. I mean, people still buy CDs. I know. The whole thing of them not. I get a check from you every few months. Yeah, yeah. My weird little checks. Yeah.

But that's from CD sales. Oh, no. That's from everything. No, that's also from digital as well um cds were selling pretty well all the way up until about i don't know six years ago yeah and they still sell well if the artist pushes them but they don't sell well via retail right yeah so what why do you start doing comedy what's the white light moment that you have? I was always a fan of comedy. I was brought up with it from real young. Yeah, like what? They're Israeli sketch comedy.

Really? Yeah. From your dad? No, my mom. Do you speak Hebrew? I do. Not very well. I make a lot of mistakes in gender and tense, but I speak pretty well.

Yiddish? No, I don't even really understand Yiddish. Right. That's a Polish Hebrew thing. Polish, German. Russian. Yeah. A little bit of Right. That's a Polish- Polish-German. Russian. Yeah. A little bit of everything.

That was the idea. Yeah. It's a regional thing. Yeah, but it's mainly based on Old German is the main basis. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. So, comedy, Israeli sketch comedy?

Yeah. They were basically the Monty Python of Israel without aping Monty Python. Uh-huh. And they came up with malapropisms and turns of phrase that are still important in Hebrew in Israel right now. Like they really helped change and shape the language as it was developing. So like my mom had those records and there were certain, I can't, I'm not going to start telling you the names of the things.

What's the name of the group? They're called Hagashash, Hachever. Hagashash, Hachever. Yeah. Hachever. Hachever. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah the pale tracker is what that translates to the pale tracker yeah what does that mean i just that's just the name of it okay like monty python how many records they have out oh man uh probably about eight or twelve at this point i

mean a couple members have died now but they're like when you're a kid there were only a few or there no there were like seven, eight of them. No kidding. Yeah. And this made you laugh. You loved it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's certain bits that still make me laugh.

And they're all in Hebrew. Yep. Uh-huh. They played Carnegie Hall once, I heard, but I don't know if it was in English or in Hebrew. And so this was, did you have other comedy records? That's how it started for me. Then it was TV. Uh-huh.

You know, the big hbo push sure then kind of comedy central but also like you know the the big the big push of hbo was also the time of kinnison and dice and rosanne and uh late 80s yeah early 80s really yeah yeah louie louie anderson and oh right yeah yeah the original push yeah yeah the the push so that's kind of what was the big influence canison was sort of late 80s but louie i think and roseanne were early 80s schimmel was in that mix too so you're listening to all that stuff and and what makes you decide that it's a viable uh you know because like the weird thing about stand-up records and about you in particular is that you you know, every like in terms of my peer group, you know, and people younger than me.

I mean, you recorded most of us. Yeah. I mean, a lot of us, you know, and we can go over names later, but like what started to make you think you could do it or how did that, what was the first record? Honestly, I think I knew I could do it. Well, right. Because you'd done records before. Yeah, because the music thing was such proof to me. And when I lived in Lincoln, I remember there was an episode of Tompkins Square.

Yeah. And I can't remember. I want to say it was- Oh, Jeff Ross? Who did it? That wasn't the worst show. I think I remember doing it, but it was out in the park. It was in the park.

But I can't remember who was the host, honestly. But I remember that it was an episode with Judy Gould, Dana Gould, Greg Proops, and Louis Black. Right. And Louis Black became like a Ron Livingston character. I remember the taping of this. I mean, I taped that same night. Oh, really?

I remember, yeah. Wow. I think so. I mean, I know I did it because I remember being down there outdoors. And they would have done multiple episodes in a night because it was an hour long show from what I remember. Really? Maybe they did mix and match even.

I don't know. Like, I feel like I was down there. Right. But to me, I was sitting in this apartment in Lincoln and Lewis came on. He was kind of like a Ron Livingston sort of guy, the guy from Office Space, where it's like you don't know his name, but it's like that guy. Yeah. He was on The Daily Show. He was on The Daily Show, but it's like that guy. Yeah. He was on the daily show.

He was on the daily show, but I didn't, hadn't put that together yet. Yeah. Yeah. I saw the original daily show, the original daily show. I had seen John Stewart. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

He was on from Kilbourne. Yeah. But, uh, I saw that episode of Tompkins square and I was like, that guy is great. Too bad. I'll never meet him living here. Yeah. I'd love to do something with him. Yeah.

And then, then I put it together that he was on the daily show and you know, my wife and great too bad i'll never meet him living here yeah i'd love to do something with him yeah and then then i put it together that he was on the daily show and you know my wife and i would talk about him the way we talked about ron livingston that guy turned up again yeah i moved him around for a while at that point but i didn't know that but he'd been doing other things right right yeah so i moved to minneapolis and then three months after i move i'm working a gig and driving back and forth and i hear an ad on this radio station saying that he's going to be in Minneapolis at a comedy club. Yeah.

Now I've been to theaters to see comedy, but I'd never been to a comedy club. Yeah. He was at Acme? He was at Acme. Yeah. I ran home, called, got the address, figured out how to get there because I was new to town and I lived ways away from it. Went straight to the club with a handful of CDs from my music label and a note that I

wrote out in my car. Yeah. Handed it to the usher and I expected it to be like a rock venue where Elvis has left the building. You don't get to meet the act. No. He's sitting in the room and back. I had no idea.

Yeah. So I hand the stuff to an usher, watch the show, have a great night. Yeah. And I'm like, well, I guess that's it. I hope this message in a bottle gets to him. And you know, Acme, it's like a fish tank there's a big two big glass walls yeah I'm leaving and I see him standing in the middle of the bar yeah I'm like this is my goddamn chance yeah so I walked up and I introduced myself and I asked if he got the stuff I had left and he hadn't so I just I pitched

him right there just as an eager here's my shot this is it and he what did you say i'm gonna make a record with you i want to make a record with you i've made records with bands for a number of years now and there was you know i see you in the tradition of this guy and that guy and that guy and i just really think that there should be some kind of record of it other than what's on tv yeah and uh i must not have come across as a crazed lunatic. Yeah. Because he seemed interested. Yeah.

And he told me how Warner brothers had just said no, and that he was actually open to doing something. And this is before comedy central had a record label. Right. So he basically said, get ahold of my management, go. I run out to a pay phone,

call my wife. Who's still in Nebraskabraska at the time getting ready for the wedding and i tell her what happened and we're like both jumping up and down for joy and nothing's happened yet yeah it took months then we finally recorded yeah and he was super great about it where'd you record madison wisconsin at a club called laugh lines it's no longer there yeah yeah and then like two years later, you finished mixing it. God damn it, Mark. I'm sorry.

I am never going to, there's just no way I'm going to ever live it. It's all right. I'm sorry. I will serve no wine before it's time, Mark. I know. I've grown to appreciate the process. But okay, so you laid down the tracks we laid down the tracks and it was my first album uh i was working with a recording engineer in madison

who i knew was very high quality and uh i worked in minneapolis so it'd be a four-hour drive to get to his house to work on or his studio to get to work on stuff yeah so everything was very meticulously done and planned and we listened to all the shows it was like uh for him i think we had five shows it might have been six uh-huh and we charted out where every joke was and we tried to analyze what the flows of the jokes were from this one to that one to the to try and make an actual workable pattern yeah and then also to try and include as much of the material as we could before we started winnowing stuff out right and that was what was so time consuming yeah because at which show and then the mix down if you're pulling things from different shows well the mix down

you do everything first you do all of it first as if you're going to use all of it you level it all out you level it all out so that when you decide to cut there's no time lost in it. You just cut, cut, cut, cut. So that's how I do it. At least do you change the order ever? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have to, you have to,

because sometimes there's things that tie together, uh, jokes that should have been grouped together that weren't, uh, or things that have callbacks that are too far apart or not near, you know, or too near. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to, you have to be able to do that stuff. So, all right. So what was the first record called?

The White Album. Oh, so that was big. That's number one for me. Stand-up records. You still make your money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's still selling. Yeah.

It's still downloaded, still. Look, it's, how do you talk about this stuff without sounding like you're breaking your arm, patting yourself? It's a legendary record. Yeah, yeah. I got lucky. I got real lucky to put myself in that place to make it happen. And that was your first record? sounding like you're breaking your arm patting yourself it's a legendary record yeah yeah i got lucky i got real lucky to put myself in that place and that was your first record number one comedy

record and and it sold wildly yeah this is as napster's going yeah so we were still selling records then because napster hadn't destroyed record on vinyl at that time or no the vinyl came shortly okay so his record initially came out on my old label, Izzy List. I called him once on his cell phone and pitched to him doing vinyl on it. And he was on a plane that was about to close the door. He goes, why do vinyl? I go, we've sold 10,000 copies of this record so far. We can do a run of 500 LPs and that's literally half a percent of what we've actually sold.

I think we'll be fine to sell 500 copies on vinyl. He goes, if you think you can do it, do it. So I issued the vinyl, still on my old label. Yeah. And it sold fast. He came to Minneapolis once, and my wife baked a cheesecake, and I brought him to the house, and he signed all of the covers. She baked a cheesecake? Yeah.

She Jewish? She converted. Oh. Yeah. Was cheesecake learning how to make a cheesecake part of it? No, that was out of sheer joy, I think. I mean, it's probably not even a Jewish thing, cheesecake. It's a New York thing. Juniors, man.

Sure, I know juniors, yeah. I actually have grown to prefer ricotta cheesecake, Italian style. Yeah, my mom loves ricotta style, and that's what she makes. Love it. So you have a big hit record basically for a comedy for a comedy record yeah this is before billboard had a comedy chart so there was really no way to document it at the time and boy if it really was huge it would make the regular chart yeah but 60 i think we sold over the course of time 60 000 copies it might be That's great. It might be more now. I don't remember exactly. How many records did you do with Lewis?

I did two records and an EP on my label, and then I produced four more for Comedy Central. Oh, so he brought you along. Yeah. That's good of him. It was great of him. Did you get points on those? I got no points. I didn't even get a fee.

What? Yeah. That's not a good deal. No. Look, I know now. What do you mean you know now? We want you to do this. We're not going to pay you. There wasn't a red flag? No, I look, I know now. What do you mean you know now? We want you to do this. We're not going to pay you.

There wasn't a red flag. I got vinyl rights on the first two. Okay. And then the third one got me a Grammy. Yeah. How am I going to come? Oh yeah. You didn't pay me.

Yeah. I got a Grammy award. I'm set for life now. Are you? Not financially, but I can always get work. Oh, right. Right. Who doesn't want to hire a grammy award

winning producer right and is that has that panned out it's it's done okay i'm not wealthy i don't live in a no i know i know but like does it do you have to use that as a calling card uh ever uh it never hurts to have it how many records have you released on stand-up it is at 196 right now. And that's records, videos, LPs, cassettes, all that stuff. But 196 separate releases. And as I was saying before, like, you know, I was number 21, you said, or 20? You were number 21. Yeah. Tickets is number 21.

Tickets still available. Hmm. But like I was saying, you've done you've done like everybody's at least their first two records right a lot of them yeah a lot of them bampford like we talked about lewis you got hannibal burris brendan burns wow lee uh well i'm not going to mention everybody david cross chad daniels jim david di stefano you did um fuck dude like who else here judy gold eddie gosling dana gould i'm i'm obviously doing people i know renee hicks um jackie cation jonathan cats wow canane yeah well i mean some of those are vinyl licenses you know where they had the record come

out somewhere else and i did the lp oh Oh, LaBelle, Danny LaBelle. You probably record. Yep. Yeah, I did. You didn't fly to Spain to do that record. Did you? I was supposed to,

but then I had my neck surgery, so I had to cancel the trip. Oh, I got to go to Scotland for the first album, but I didn't get to go to Spain for the second one. Oh, Mary Mac. She's great.

I haven't talked to her in a while. How about Stan Hope? Stan Hope brought his records to, okay. Stan Hope's manager at the time were the same as lewis's managers so they brought him to me but he wanted the license so i licensed the first four records and uh the fifth one i didn't own bobby kelly yeah that i licensed his first self-released record okay so what does it mean when you license it means that i'm not even mentioning all the names right right the licenses are generally like the artist already had paid to record it and have it done.

Yeah. And then they distributed it until they didn't want to deal with it anymore. And then I licensed it to take it over to get it back in- From them. Yeah. And that means you own it as a partner or you own it? No, they own it and I have the rights to manufacture and distribute and pay royalties. Oh, I get it.

I get it. Okay. So you could do that with anything. It depends. You could. I mean, if the artist is willing, some artists aren't willing. But you do a lot of business like that.

Fair enough. I think any label that's smart would. Yeah. And your label is successful still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm not, like I say, I'm not wealthy,

but like my bills are covered and I could come out here and record when I need to and go wherever covered and i could come out here and record when i need to and go wherever what are you doing out here i'm here to see you that's it and i i'm also saying we're gonna be here i'm i'm also seeing a ton of old friends oh yeah like a you got to remember i went through a life altering thing yeah so i remember i it's not just business business business some of it is reconnecting to maintain my spirits and to keep moving forward Yeah, I remember. It's not just business, business, business. Some of it is reconnecting to maintain my spirits and to keep moving forward.

Yeah, right. I spent a lot of time, that whole staring into the abyss, the abyss stares back. Yeah. And it takes a lot of physical and mental energy to get through a day now. Yeah. And I don't want to be a psychic vampire, but I am here to reconnect with why I do what I do. Yeah. In order to prep for this.

You're going to come down to the comedy store tonight? I didn't know. Are you there? Yeah, I'm there. I might. I mean, it's all right. I had no plans for it. There's probably some people you know. What were you, like, are you seeing comics?

A lot of the friends of yours, comics? A lot of my friends are comics, but I'm seeing them outside a comedy show so that we can actually sit and talk. That's nice. How long are you out here for? Till Monday. Uh-huh. So you got a kid now so that we can actually sit and talk. That's nice. How long are you out here for? Till Monday. Uh-huh. So you got a kid now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How'd that kid turn out? She is becoming her own person now. She's nine. Uh-huh. Sweet person, still figuring out boundaries, of course, because you do that your whole life. Sure. But she is just, it's fun to watch the world be new. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah, sure. she is just, it's fun to watch the world be new. Yeah.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And it makes you appreciate some things you didn't necessarily appreciate. And it opens your heart in ways that you didn't, you didn't expect. Of course.

Yeah. And it's been a great experience. It's, I feel bad for her that she has a crippled father because I can't chase her around. I can't do all when she was a baby, like I would give her suplexes on our bed, you know, like we'd set up cushions and I would just lift her on my shoulder and back and over. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and I can't really do that kind of stuff now. I can't just take her and play soccer with her. Right. The cane. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, well, I mean, you're, you know, you're still moving. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's just not the experience you know you're still moving yeah but it's it's it's just not the experience i was hoping to give her but she's a great kid she's turning out wonderfully oh good yeah good and and uh i'm gonna i just took dates in minneapolis i'm gonna be up there in september in september so well what do you got what what are you working on now like what what albums are are like in the pipeline in the pipeline right now is vinyl for David Cross's newest, his most recent tour that had a Netflix special. Yeah. That's also a license, but we were working together to make sure that all the vinyl colors are right.

And because it's themed about our current president, who I don't want to name by name. Yeah. You know, there's different color schemes that include uh piss yellow and halloween orange and then the russian flag you know so that project is just about done and released do records sell well um there's a lot of hype in vinyl no i know i know but like i like the last two albums i did the last two specials i did like netflix, Netflix released Vinyl, and I didn't even really consult on the cover. I just said, yeah, if you need to put it out for, you know, Grammy consideration, put it out. Like, I didn't put any effort into it at all.

So the most recent one came out on Vinyl? Yeah, Too Real came out on Vinyl. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Now I'm going to have to hunt for it. Yeah, I don't know if you can get it. I don't know how many they made. I only have a few.

Oh, wow. But, like, I didn't do any cover art or nothing. But, like, the other one, you know what didn't come out on vinyl is More Later, which is a good one. Oh. Maybe we can do that. I just, like, as much vinyl as I buy, like, you know, I know for a fact that, you know, I collect old comedy records, but I don't listen to them too often. Yeah, but, I mean, comedy records are a different thing. That's what I mean, comedy records are a different thing. Yeah. That's what I mean.

Yeah. Yeah. To me, you know, vinyl is a multi edged weapon. Yeah. You know, I want my stuff to be on vinyl because I want it to be with the classics. Yeah. You know, and that's the main reason you do it. But vinyl also practically is $4,000 that sits on a palette that will almost likely never be $4,000 again.

Yeah. Right. You know, it can take- There's a lot of stuff like that. Yeah. It takes years and years and years to move the stuff. It does? It can, unless you're out there.

Like, I'll tell you the one successful, really successful vinyl story I have. When I did that Kyle Kinane license, we were sold out within a year how many did you print 500 records records yeah lp records yeah but i've had other artists where still sitting there yeah over 10 years do you have dave cross's shut up you fucking baby uh i ran out of those i ran out of that and i ran out of it's not funny yeah but it took a while uh-huh and you wouldn't think it would because you would think his crowd particularly would like vinyl well i mean vinyl's still pretty specific and like uh like i've got some great old comedy records like i you know and sometimes i do put them on like i have that i have a really old rodney record that was before he sort of was doing

the no i get no respect thing was it the loser I have that. It's a great record. Yeah. But No Respect is like the gold standard of any comedy album, I think. Oh, it's called No Respect? There's two albums he has that have similar titles. There's an earlier one called I Can't Get No Respect. From the 70s? Yeah. Yeah.

And then there's the 80s No Respect where he has the washcloth. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that record is the gold standard of comedy on vinyl, in my opinion yeah but it's not worth a lot of money it's not worth a lot of money but it does i mean i'm not talking value i'm talking i gotta get one then oh my god i don't think i have that one it is front to back solid yeah yeah huh i got some weird old ones in there well you got you probably have a bunch i I have hundreds. Yeah. I got a couple hundred. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Just comedy? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think so. Yeah. You know, I just kind of pick them up. Got a lot of the Red Fox Party records. Nice.

He had so many, though. It's hard to- Yeah, there's so many. But I got a few of those. I have a later Red Fox record. You got to wash your ass. You got to wash your ass. Yeah, it's a classic.

Yeah. It's not a classic to listen to, per your ass yeah it's a classic yeah it's not classic to listen to per se but it's a great cover oddly enough hardly any of his albums are classics to listen to because time has not been kind because now you can say all the words you couldn't say that yeah all right well we can go look at some comedy records i'm glad you're okay thanks man and that you came through the harrowing did you go to the mayo clinic or wherever no no i was in three different hospitals for five stays total with only ambulance rides in between them for the course of a month it doesn't the mayo have a

presence in minneapolis uh they do but it's mainly in rochester an hour and a half away but uh that's more cancer than than like degenerative bone disease right yeah yeah well it looks like they put you together all right i you know what all the king's horses and all the king's men that was a they pulled it together there were so many You know what? All the king's horses and all the king's men. They pulled it together? There were so many people involved in putting me back on my feet. And it's really more of a credit to them than to me because I can be a quitter. Yeah. And they put so much work into me that I have to succeed for them.

How was being dead for three minutes? It was the most terrifying thing I've been through. Really? You remember it? I don't remember what the reality of it was i remember what hat what i saw yeah and it was it was groovy in a way because it was like a little bit of 2001 a little bit star trek but it was like the red alert parts of star trek right like i was in front of a control panel that i couldn't read and everything was shaking and falling apart and i knew i was screwed like i was very aware that i was screwed the whole time i was out really yeah that doesn't seem like a an exciting thing to look forward to it was terrifying that's what i told you it was the most terrifying i know that i'm just saying that

generally like you didn't see any lights that you were the lights that i saw were like the 2001 tunnel oh yeah the rainbow tunnel and that was cool yeah but it was also in the context of literally everything is shaking apart and i knew i was panicking i mean you got to remember i remember seeing my wife and trying to tell her to help me and then you went out and i was looking at her and looking at the door and looking at her and looking at the door and looking at her and looking at the door to try and signal get out out of here. And I was also trying to like, I know telecommunication doesn't work, but if you can read my mind, get up and go get someone. Yeah. Those are my last conscious thoughts. So that's how you entered it. And that's how I entered it. So I already knew I was screwed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew I couldn't breathe. I knew I couldn't push air.

Yeah. The next thing I saw after the, the crazy out of out of body you know that stuff was my nurse's face appeared like garrett morris in the corner literally like a bubble appeared out of the black and it was just big enough for her face and i could and she's like i have your hand i'm here with you stay with me talk to me and i could see when i looked at her that i had an oxygen mask on yeah but if i turned my head it was back into the rainbow tunnel. Everything's falling apart. Red alerts, lights. Huh.

Yeah. And it took a while. After a while, I realized there were more people in the room and I couldn't see them. Yeah. I could only hear them through that bubble that I saw her in. Yeah. And that bubble would occasionally get watery. Someone's pouring water over glass and you're looking through it.

Yeah. So it was fading in and out. Oof. And anytime she turned away, I would scream her name. Yeah. So that she would turn back. And you could push air at that point? Yeah, because at that point, they took me from the chair and had me laying down and

my head was back and the passageway was open. Oh, man. Crazy. Yeah. way was open oh man crazy yeah i mean and i knew i knew they were cleaning me up from having died and lost muscle control yeah i couldn't feel them doing it i could hear them talking about it yeah and i tried to make a joke out of it and the joke didn't translate and i remember my first feeling of that telling a joke and not having it go over was just i could feel my shoulders slump like oh they didn't get it and they're cleaning up my shit well i yeah i only knew that from context not from actual physical oh there you go so like there that now you have a nice comedic

story it was the worst because you tanked yeah yeah it was uh one joke it was like you're one shot yeah i said uh you'll have to excuse me my wife shit my pants uh-huh and the nurse turns and says i don't know what he's talking about and i just went oh yeah i mean you know it's an easy joke to misunderstand yeah yeah especially if we say given the situation non-sequitur yeah a non-sequitur and they've just pulled you out of uh out of the tunnel right exactly i literally was basically holding on long enough for them to open the tunnel wide enough to grab me well i'm glad you made it oh thanks man thanks for coming by thanks for having me it's it's so good to see you again it's good to see you too and also like i'm sorry if i yelled at you too much you know it's years ago now yeah but yeah we both grew up but like i

know it can be difficult and at that time i was yelling a lot and i imagine it was only about how long is this going to fucking take but the thing that i appreciate now is that you told me that you understand the process more now i do no one who's going through the process even to this day no one who's going through the process gets that this isn't just snap your fingers and it's done sure but i'm going to continue making jokes to people that tell me they're going to do a record with you but please you know realize you're also affecting my livelihood. No, I'm not. Usually it's people who are already in it. Oh, okay.

Okay, cool. Yeah, no, I'm not telling people not to do a record with you. Like if they tell me, like I just recorded with Dan Schwissel, I'll say something like, if someone came up to me

and said, I just did a record with Dan Schwissel, we just got done recording. I'm like, oh, it'll be released in 2020. That's going to be great. That kind of thing.

See, look. Yeah, but like you have for a minute, but part of you is like, that's about right, right? Six months to a year to a year depends there's been times where i've turned them in three to four months but those those are exceptions no it's because you're you we wanted to be right and they all came out the two that i did with you specifically were great and uh you know like you know there's a lot of stuff to go through for for uh both of them and you know and i do understand your process well and not only that you were going was a lot of stuff to go through for both of them. And, you know, and I do understand your process.

Well, and not only that, you were going through a lot of stuff and change at that time, too. It was a fucking disaster. It was. But, man, what beautiful art did you turn out of it? Train wreck, man. I'm glad you liked it. I'm glad you were so supportive. Well, I'm always there for that.

Thanks. Good to see you, man. Good to see you, too. Okay. Dan Schlissel, Stand Up Records at StandUpRecords.com Go check out the catalog. Buy some titles.

Get caught up. Comedy records are fun. I collect them. There's not that many I listen to over and over again, but there's a few I listen to a lot at times. Funny, it's weird who I end up like. you know who I listen to a lot, but they're not on standup records, but Tom Sharpling and John Worcester, that box set is great. But I end up listening to Robert Schimmel if he comes on, I get a big kick out of his pace, RIP, Robert Schimmel.

And I listen, there's a few records I listen to. I feel like listening to one now. What comedy record would I listen to right now? I would probably go in and listen to the Rodney Dangerfield album before he really became Rodney Dangerfield, before he got the hook, the No Respect hook, and he was sort of doing long-form type of stuff.

The Loser record. So, all right, so that's, well, I'm back. I'm going to be inapolis this week uh i believe all those shows are sold out i'm gonna be in denver on the 21st is it the comedy works september 21st and 22nd think there's some tickets left a few tickets left for a stand-up live uh october 13th that's in phoenix and the beacon theater of course uh November, November 10th, I believe. You can go to nycomedyfestival.com

to get tickets for that. And that's that. I don't have any prepared guitar, but shit, it hasn't stopped me before. Thank you. Boomer lives. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

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