Offday 8 Open Thread - BORINGBORINGBORINGBORING

If you haven’t already read it—a four part interview with Herbie Herbert, founder and manager of some band I think you might like.

Here’s some choice excerpts:

When I put Steve Perry in the band, Neal Schon was not even on speaking terms with me, cause that guy hated (Perry) so much. He flat out didn’t want him. I flat out knew that he was the guy, and that everything that Perry brought as a vocalist and as a songwriter was exactly what we needed. I just knew I was right…. We had another singer in the band named Robert Fleischman, who the band loved. We were on tour with Emerson, Lake, and Palmer in ‘77, and it was a big stadium date along the way. He was doing well, but he was really a pompous little poodle, and really tough to deal with. He hadn’t even made a record yet. That kind of thing just gets old and tired, and I was really getting tired of this guy….
Perry had been hovering around in my life for years. And, I knew that he was talented but I’d been told (about him) by people that knew him from Fresno – from childhood, from his cousin. His cousin and one of my best friends were big-time dealers in the city. And Perry would come up and ‘shanghai’ him for drugs – you know, ‘you gotta give them to me, if you don’t, then I’m going back home to Fresno, Larry, and tell your mom.’ That’s called ‘shanghaiing’. (Meanwhile,) he’s saying, “Give this tape to Herbie, give this tape to Herbie” to Larry and Jack Villanueva (Jack, along with his brother John, worked with Herbie throughout his years with Santana, and continued working with him on Journey). Jack would never give me the tape. And I said (to Jack), “Why, what about that guy?” He’d say ‘you don’t want him. Even that good, even if you were talking about Elvis Presley right there, he’s just a jive mother-fucker.’
But I went in with my eyes wide open, you know, knew the possibilities myself but was such a young, idealist hippie that I thought that I would smother this guy with so much love and success that all that shit will wash away. Wrong! (Laughs)

Another great story—

Anyway, Jon Cain’s come-uppance came very quick. We go, we write that Escape record. We record the thing (and) it’s magnificent. I sequence it, entitle it, and package it, as I always would. We’re ready to hit a home run. We had this big party at Fantasy records in Berkeley, with all the press, media and radio there to hear this new masterpiece. Something goes wrong, and Perry’s in there with Jon Cain, and somebody suggests ‘Wow, this is so great, Jon Cain sure did bring a lot as a songwriter!’ And he did! You said it yourself. You know, I agree. Whether I like these people as individuals doesn’t have anything to do with my total respect for Perry’s talent, for Jon’s talent, for all of their talents. But, boy – Perry bristled so much at the notion that Jon Cain had contributed much of anything to that, that he just proceeded to dismiss and diminish Jon Cain’s contributions and involvement to the point where Jon Cain had to leave the room and was out in the parking lot, I mean bawling like a fucking baby. Bawling like a baby. So I went out in the parking lot, and I said, ‘Now you see what happens when you run into even a bigger asshole than yourself? This is what it feels like. Now if you think that you can go tit for tat with that prick, and be as much more a bigger prick than he is, I got news for you. You have met your fucking match. You know why? Cause everybody sees you coming, Jon Cain. You advertise what a prick you’re going to be. Perry – he’s got the bulk of the world fooled. And he had you fooled until tonight.’ That was it. That was the beginning of the realization for Jon Cain. I betcha right then and there he said ‘I wonder a little bit less why Gregg Rolie walked away from such and incredible enterprise, at such an incredible point in their history.’ It was just a no-brainer. Stadium act. How do you walk away? I’ll tell you how you walk away. If you were drowning in the ocean, and Steve Perry came along in his luxury liner, he would offer you a life raft in such a manner that you would decline it. I’m not just talking about you; I’m talking about anybody. The terms and conditions would be such that you would pass.

laup deirub I

You used the words “ultra-boring” and “honeymoon” in the same sentence regardless of the connotation. Good luck with that one.

but I don’t have many channels.

BIll Simmons has probably made it sound much more enjooyable as it is, but still