"Without the Cold": Alan Jay Prescott

[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Aaron. [00:00:03] Speaker B: I'm Michael. [00:00:04] Speaker A: And this is the Nathan's and Ron cast. How you doing, Michael? [00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm okay. You know, it's been a long few hours already. Long day, but it's been relaxing all at once. We had a great CD release concert last night. [00:00:30] Speaker A: We did. [00:00:31] Speaker B: And to all of you who came out, it's probably months ago at this. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Point, by the time you're hearing this. [00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah. If we could record and release the same day, it'd be amazing. [00:00:40] Speaker A: But we're not that. [00:00:42] Speaker C: No. [00:00:44] Speaker B: So today we're doing a song called without the Cold. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Without the cold, which is sort of. [00:00:50] Speaker B: A winter, you know, we did a Kickstarter, I think, two albums ago, and you'll hear more about it in the interview with Alan J. Prescott. But we put it out there that people could send information, a story, and we'll write a song with them. And Alan did. I love asking people who don't write songs very often. I'm like, just give me. Write a whole thing, right? And we could take pieces and ideas and put it into a song. And he sent me this thing about how melancholy is viewed as something negative, but to him, it's something beautiful. It's like winter without the cold. And when I read that, I went, oh, that's it right there. And so my songwriting brain just went to work. And these stances, just like, if there was a visual, a cartoon visual, it was like they were melting out of my eyes or my ears or just out of my forehead. If there was some way, they were just falling onto the page. And all of a sudden, I typed out, like six to eight, maybe nine stanzas, four line stanzas, and put it together. And this is the only time I've sent something to you, Aaron, where you said, great. I just want to add a the. [00:02:07] Speaker A: At this spot, my contribution to the song was quite minor, because I could see that you had a vision and you were running with at night. The best thing I could do was just get out of the way. [00:02:20] Speaker B: But at the same, like, we workshopped the song together, and there were certain elements that were very Michael Ronstadt ish that you will hear in the instrumental section, where there's a time signature change. [00:02:32] Speaker A: That's right. [00:02:33] Speaker C: And we'll play a little bit of that's. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Now that you've heard it. One of the things about that is that I put that in all the choruses, which probably would have made it less accessible. And between you and Serenity, Fisher is also a co writer on this, I believe. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, she did make some contributions to this song. [00:03:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:18] Speaker A: And that's her voice that you hear there in the background? [00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah. She sang Harmony on the original demo. We actually took our demo that we recorded for Alan. [00:03:31] Speaker A: 2017, I think. [00:03:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:33] Speaker B: So this song has gone a long way. And then Greg, Hugh Brady, our esteemed and genius recording engineer, mastermind behind making us sound good, he mixed it to match everything else. So even, in fact, what I want to do is I'm going to play a little sample of the demo, the. [00:03:59] Speaker D: Sounds of the hills reflecting then it stops nothing makes it here in my very favorite spot sitting quietly not thinking. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Of the clock and then we'll play a sample of the final mix, the. [00:04:20] Speaker D: Sounds of the hills reflecting then it stops nothing makes it here in my very favorite spot sitting quietly not thinking. [00:04:36] Speaker B: Of the clock and you could hear the difference between what we sent to Alan, which I think worked fine, but what Greg did, which just bumped it, you know, it's stunning what an amazing producer, co producer, recording engineer can do, because it's a lot of work to get what you hear in the room, to translate through microphones, to sound just like what you did in the room. [00:05:01] Speaker A: You wouldn't think that, but it mean, if you. If you listen to our album hang on for the ride, which we in, we did some of that with Ernie Toquet at his studio, but we did a fair amount of know on our own. But I think Greg, who we used for these last two albums, really has an engineering voice and a producing voice. It really comes out on this song. [00:05:31] Speaker B: And sometimes with Greg, he's like, no, trust me, I'll make it work. I'm like, what do you think? Blah, blah, blah. And he'll, no, no, I can get it to work. Don't worry. That's an artist can really see that. [00:05:44] Speaker A: I've got to give You a lot of credit for having a vision for this song. This isn't just a soundscape. This is a song with a message. And that message is that when you're feeling low, that there's some comfort. Paul Simon said that I felt so lonely, I took some comfort there, or something to that effect, but that's real. That was just one line from Paul Simon. This is a whole song about know when you're low and you've been knocked down, that maybe there's a silver lining. [00:06:21] Speaker B: We recorded a lot of this album during the pandemic. We wrote and recorded. And with that time, whether you use it to create stuff or just to breathe and take a break, we'll get through this. And I think without the cold, has that feeling of like, well, it's not freezing cold out. It's a little stark. I'm feeling melancholy. I'm not feeling all bubbly and bright, but let me just live here for a little bit. And you might recharge your batteries. It might be an introvert thing, but for me, those moments can recharge my batteries. And I think for Alan J. Prescott, that was his idea. And this interview was fun because he is a man who has done many, many things. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Renaissance man. [00:07:08] Speaker B: He is. And we, in fact, interviewed another Renaissance person for the song evening. [00:07:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker B: I mean, what's with these people? They do so many things. They're the type of people who get a job just so they can learn a new craft. [00:07:21] Speaker A: That's right. Kind of like Steve Martin. There's a new book out called so many Steves. It's an audiobook. These people are multilayered. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Love it. You don't just go like, oh, I got to get this job to get my insurance. You're like, no, I'm going to get a job to get a skill. I always said if I couldn't play music anymore, I'd go get a job. Well, I used to say developing photos, but that's not going to happen anymore. But it could be as an assistant at, I don't know, building parking meters. I might want to know how they build parking meters. I have no idea. Just what do I want to learn? It's amazing. Some people want to learn how to build a sailboat, even though they've been a full time musician or just a video editor. I don't know, whatever it is, do your passion. That's kind of what it is. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Life is short. Jump in. [00:08:10] Speaker C: Try it. [00:08:11] Speaker B: And much like this interview, this intro has been wandering around and wandering and wandering along. [00:08:19] Speaker A: The Weebly meandering, I think, is the word. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Meandering. Yeah, we've been meandering through many things. So we're going to get to it. Enjoy this interview with Alan J. Prescott. [00:08:30] Speaker A: He is fascinating. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Fascinating. And I think you're going to enjoy everything he has to say. [00:08:36] Speaker A: He's a lovely fellow. [00:08:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:37] Speaker B: So thank you, Alan, for being a part of this. And here we go. [00:08:45] Speaker C: Well, today, our special guest is Alan Prescott. And he is a person of many, many talents in the art of creativity, from being an expert at wine to writing music, storytelling, from this song and all of the in betweens. So welcome, Alan, to our Nathan's and Roncast. [00:09:09] Speaker E: Thanks for having me. Happy New Year. Good morning, all. [00:09:11] Speaker C: The rest you supported a Kickstarter, and one of the really generous donations you made was with the prize of having us co write a song for you and with you. So you had sent an email with some basic information of what you were looking for, and boy, did it spark a cool song. And it's been a lot of years in the making. Like, we had the demo, and the demo was recorded well enough that we were able to add a few more little things and use the original vocals. And our engineer, Greg Hugh Brady, really just knocked it out of the park, getting the song to just feel like, oh, yeah, this song is wonderful. And it's kind of a folky song, which I kind of write weird, but I kept the weird at know. There's a few five four measures, but it balances out with a three four measure. And in addition to Aaron, we brought in Serenity Fisher. [00:10:03] Speaker B: So it's almost like a pop song. [00:10:05] Speaker C: With a bunch of writers just at the table. And everyone made this song a reality. So I'll let you take it from here and tell me how you perceived the whole process. The original idea. What made you think of melancholy? Winter without the colD? It's not a negative thing. And I loved that idea, which is why I loved writing the lyrics and taking your words and putting them in there and working with you. [00:10:29] Speaker E: I appreciate that. And the song was quite lovely, even in its demo stage. It was very nice and a little bit long for a pop song, which is interesting. Well, no, that's a positive thing. Oh, good. So you definitely went against expectations, which I think music should always do. By the way, if the idea is to create something that hasn't been created before, then you have your work cut out for you. It's very difficult. It's easier for me to write instrumental music, for example, than it is to write a song. Even though I'm also a poet, I've written a lot of poetry. That being said, I think melancholy is not greatly covered in the field of music. It is covered a great deal in visual art, of course. It's covered in cinema, covered in literature a great deal, particularly the 20th century. But music, not so much. I can think of two prominent examples. Two of my favorite songs happen to be songs sort of about winter and about melancholy. Never very popular. These were great songs by two popular bands that never made it into FM or anything like that. Melancholy is not covered very much, particularly my idea about melancholy, which is that it's not a negative feeling. It's not sadness or depression. It's wanting to be with oneself for thoughts that make you introspective, that you don't necessarily share with somebody else. What better time than the winter, for example, when there's nobody around, there's no one outside. It could be very quiet and still after a snowstorm. A perfect kind of opportunity to be with oneself. It doesn't even matter how cold it is. You're with yourself and you have the warmth of your own feelings. So melancholy is just one of those feelings that's not covered an awful lot. We hear a lot about sadness and grief and those kinds of things. So the two songs I'm thinking about, by the way, if you're interested, blood, sweat and tears did A song called Sometimes in Winter. I want to say 19 68 69. Beautiful song from them. Absolutely gorgeous. It conjures up strong visuals and emotions. Also a song by the Rolling Stones from Goatshead Soup called Winter. Very sweet song. It's all on the lines of Moonlight Mile. Those kinds of rare stones ballads that are very good. So, anyway, I thought you guys hit the nail on the head with that piece. Very nice. And I heard the recent version just a couple of days ago, and it turned out quite well. I really enjoyed it very much. [00:13:13] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:13:14] Speaker C: I love the idea of melancholy being okay. And as an introvert myself, I feel like I'm really happy there sometimes. [00:13:25] Speaker B: It's not even like this extreme happiness. [00:13:27] Speaker C: It's just kind of like this, hey, this is really content and feels good. It's like sitting on nice, comfy cloud, as you would imagine it might feel. And you're just kind of just chilling, enjoying it. [00:13:41] Speaker E: I'll speak to that for a couple of seconds. I think that extroverts experience melancholy as sadness and depression. Those of us, like myself, who have some minor depression and some mania, experience melancholy as simply what it is. It's a comfort zone. Like, you know that there's an end point to it. As my brother once said, emotions have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And if you accept that, then you simply are waiting out for that right moment when the melancholy stops and something else begins. Because it always does. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:19] Speaker E: It's hard to keep that in mind when you're in that state. But introverts are particularly like. Introverts have done very well during COVID for example, because we've already been with ourselves many, many times. And so we already accept all the feelings we'll have as people who are not lonesome or lonely, but alone. There's a difference. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah. The idea of just sort of accepting it reminds me of summer camp, when every day is meticulously planned out, and then it rains, and there's just this feeling that everything has been canceled that day, and you've lowered your expectations, and you've lowered the amount of work that's required of you. And just to be able to sort of enjoy. [00:15:12] Speaker C: Nothing, to just sort of. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Enjoy not having to achieve today, not having to. Not so much to be lazy, but to kind of revel in the simple things. And even if the simple things is just sitting on your couch with a cup of coffee, looking out the window, knowing, as you said, that there's an endpoint to this, that it can't go on forever. [00:15:39] Speaker E: I think melancholy is also linked to, or can be linked to, disappointment and rejection. Melancholy might follow something like that in a person like me, being rejected or disappointed, but it's not quite as sharp as it would be for somebody who relied a great deal on a particular achievement, having been recognized and will fall into real deep depression about rejection or disappointment, something not happening. I'm very accepting. As you started talking about acceptance. When there's a change, you can change yourself, or you can run away, or you can accept there aren't a lot of choices about it. We can't really change people as we know we can change ourselves, and it's still a lot of effort. And so you just have to be with yourself at those times and realize, I'm still a human being. If anything, I'm maybe more of a human being, because I feel those things, and I don't reject. [00:16:41] Speaker C: You know, I remember being on tour a lot of years with Ronstadt Generations, and at some point, my friend Mary Rosas decided to. She's like, I'm doing this coaching thing. She was a former therapist, had a lot of amazing clients, and then bought a piece of land in Arizona and became just a full time artist. And then she was doing some of the phone coaching on the phone, which required a small certification, but it had a lot of stuff she knew. And she's like, would you like to be a guinea pig? I'm like, okay. And I'm like, it's not therapy, is it? And she's like, no. And then later I find out, she's like, yeah, I did some therapy on you. [00:17:28] Speaker B: But she's like, I knew you could handle it. [00:17:31] Speaker C: But it was one of the best things, because we start out with the usual coaching thing. Let's make a pie chart of what you hope you want. And I didn't have a lot of resources. I was living in Greater Philly 2012 iSh, 2011 ish. Not a lot of money. I didn't know if I was going to have a roof over my head. [00:17:52] Speaker E: Welcome to my world. [00:17:54] Speaker C: Yeah, it was kind of crazy. I had a lot of comfort in living in my car as a backup plan. It was amazing that the car was there. I was like, I could live here if I needed to. It's a roof. We can get places. And so I was so thankful to have that comfort. But being on tour was also tough because we were touring for, like, two months out of the road. And as I always say, I was doing 350 shows a year and barely scraping by. That was the reality. And so when I started working on myself, it was interesting watching how other people reacted to me not reacting. It was very cool to see because it seemed like people were changing around me. But what was happening is I was getting more in touch with how I felt in those moments and going, oh, well, that's an interesting feeling. [00:18:56] Speaker B: It was really neat because it helped. [00:18:58] Speaker C: Almost invite the energy I wanted around me. And also, it kind of trained people around me what to expect. [00:19:07] Speaker E: And they're training us as well. I think it's important to remember that we're all in motion. [00:19:15] Speaker C: Okay? [00:19:16] Speaker E: There's six or seven or 8 billion of us now, and we're constantly in motion, constantly changing. There's nothing static. There's no such thing as a photograph or a snapshot of the world at any present time, right? So we perceive ourselves changing sometimes when it's really other people who are changing and the other way around. It's like traffic. Like, you can be sitting at a stoplight, but everyone else is still moving everywhere else. And you're flowing into traffic and hoping not to die today, because everybody else is in motion, and they're not thinking about us in particular, or even our vehicle. We just hope everybody obeys the rules. And in society, we don't always obey the rules either. Somebody can be unpredictable one day to the next, because it's all about change. That's the fountain for literature and music and everything else. It's how we deal with those changes. Just the way music has changed in the last ten years. Never mind from when I was listening to the Supremes in 1966. We've gone through so many changes. So society is changing. Culture is changing, countries change, people change. The way we live is constantly in flux. There's never one moment you can say, well, this is the present. Because that was an hour ago. I was having breakfast. So people change. You are changing as you go through therapy or not. And people therapize us. We therapize them without our knowing it. It's really quite fascinating. We rely on other people for our sense of society and culture. At the same time, inside ourselves, I think we have our own special culture that is recognizable from the time we were younger. There's always a core of us that remains essentially the same. [00:21:05] Speaker C: Well, and that's kind of where the lyrics and the songs also hit with me. Because it is maybe that culture, that personality you have inside that world you live in, in your mind. And I know that not everyone has a dialogue in their mind. I've heard that. I do. I can. I can turn it on and off, which I hear is rare. And also when I take ten hour drives. I was reminded that recently that it's kind of strange to drive in silence, but I will drive for 5 hours in silence, because I just love watching the trees and how the road curves and all this stuff. But it's my own little world. That's how I've created the world in my mind. And I'm always curious, Aaron, because I haven't really heard from you. I have some friends who, one of my good friends from youth orchestra and stuff. I always say I want to jump inside his brain for, like, 30 seconds, and then I'm going to get out of there, because I'd like to just take some insight. But I know his brain is, like, swirling, swirling, swirling. So I always wonder if that whole idea of everyone's own little world is very significant to each of us. And obviously, not everyone else is really caring too much or paying attention. I mean, they could care if they're close to us, but they're doing their own thing. What are all your minds like? Does this ring true for you, Aaron, in your mind? [00:22:42] Speaker A: Sometimes I'll be driving, and I'll turn off the music, and maybe it's nighttime, and I'm just kind of zoning out. And then I'll open my eyes. I mean, they've been open the whole time, but I'll suddenly. [00:22:59] Speaker E: Pretty good. [00:23:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:02] Speaker E: Dang, that's a mad skill, dude, to be driving basically blind. [00:23:06] Speaker C: Well, Zen direction, in a couple of. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Years, we'll all be driving self driving cars, or we'll all be riding in self driving cars. [00:23:17] Speaker E: It'll all be robots living vicariously for us. I saw something from BuzFeed last night on Robots. Anyway, going to the idea of thought patterns and inside personality that no one really knows anything about, I do think people like myself with a hive mind that is absolutely, constantly there isn't a moment's peace, if you will, but it's me. And so there's no auditor inside me looking at that part of me saying, well, that's crazy, because I am that crazy. You know what I'm saying? I think Michael knows what I'm talking about. It's like there's nobody inside myself to check that part of me. Maybe there is, but that guy's out to lunch. So my mind is constantly thinking about many overlapping things. I guess because of my exposure through travel, living in many different places, having made music, having made art, having a book collection, you name it, being a photographer, working in a bar, there's so much overlap among all of these things that there are connections I would feel that nobody else could possibly feel, because that's me. Somebody who lives indoors for most of their lives, or people who are out of contact through whatever reason, accident or plan, have less complex lives in the sense that they know fewer people, haven't been as many places, don't have as many interests, and therefore their life is actually quite probably quite enjoyable. It's not ignorance is bliss, but there's just less to keep track of. I don't have a linear mind. It's like a bowl of spaghetti. I don't have time to pull it all apart right now. I just want to eat it. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Well, let's begin to pull it apart a little bit. At the time that we met you, you were running. What was the name of the wine bar? [00:25:18] Speaker E: It was black walnut wineries, tasting bar and tasting room. And wine bar. There's a mouthful in Phoenixville. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. We actually played there one night and it was very enjoyable, even as I'm not a wine person, but that's just a personal preference. [00:25:38] Speaker E: That's okay, I make up for it. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Yes, but where did your journey begin? [00:25:45] Speaker E: Oh, dear, I thought you might ask me that. So while I was taking a shower, I thought, let me do what they call the elevator story, which is you're in an elevator, somebody asks you, what's your deal? You have 84 floors. Okay. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Big building. [00:26:05] Speaker E: Yeah, I know. The sketch overall is this. I was born in western Massachusetts in the mid 50s, where town called Greenfield, which is the county seat of Franklin County. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I know where that is. I think Tracy Grammar had some. [00:26:24] Speaker E: Yep. Actually, several. Several celebrities have lived in that area. Very quietly. In any case, it's quite rural. I was born there, lived there for a short time. Lived for a short time in Vermont. My dad was a traveling salesman at that time. Not particularly successful. So we moved to different territories when that was a thing. Eventually I ended up in Connecticut. I grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. [00:26:55] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:26:56] Speaker E: Yes, that's another story. [00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:58] Speaker E: I had a wonderful childhood. My father bought his first house in Sandy Hook for 17, five, if you can believe it. A little rancher, three bedrooms and all that. I had a wonderful childhood there from ten to about 17 years old. So say from 65 to the time I graduated high school. My parents divorced. My mom came out as a lesbian. I did some time at a Jewish Leninist Marxist resort in upstate New York, where I met all the people who were to influence my decision to move to New York City, which I had never visited. Started off in New York City in 1975 on the Lower east side. [00:27:43] Speaker A: And how old were you when you first arrived in New York? [00:27:46] Speaker E: 1920. Started off, I was with my girlfriend at that time, who I had just met. We ended up living together for about 21 years. Started off in the Low east side. I was a typesetter, messenger, florist. I started my own typesetting business and became madly successful. Traveled the world. Ended up buying my own place in Greenwich Village, where we lived the entire time. Pretty much sold it for a bajillion dollars. Moved to California, became a beach bum, ran out of money. My dad died. I moved to New Hampshire from California, by the way, which was quite a thing. [00:28:34] Speaker C: Live, freeze, or die. [00:28:37] Speaker E: Yeah, I did all of those things. Almost. Okay, almost living, almost dying, but plenty of freezing. Took over my dad's condo after he died, eventually sold that, moved down to Pennsylvania after that. I had never really visited Pennsylvania, but I'd been all around the world. I loved Philly, but I couldn't afford to live there now. I moved to Pennsylvania during the recession, which, let's say it was 2008. Yeah, just after Obama's election the first time. And so here I am today. I could not find work in graphic design anywhere. For what I felt I was worth, I could not get work. I eventually took a job delivering meals in Pottstown, which is now where I live. I did that. I did landscaping. I can't even imagine what else. And eventually I landed the job at Black Walnut Winery. They were looking for a wine guru or somebody who could be good with people. At least I was a guru. I'm not sure I'm good with people. I didn't kill anybody or anything. And so that's my recent life. The last ten years were there, and then I left. But I worked for two wonderful people, two great Phoenix villains who had the winery itself in Sadsburyville, you might remember Michael, and they let me run the place pretty much on my own. I didn't even have any help the last five or six years and ran everything, did promotion, wine tastings, booked the music, stayed until eleven 01:00 in the morning to clean up back on Sunday, and did that for about ten years. [00:30:22] Speaker C: I remember you talking about how you were just kind of on your own because I was like, how are you affiliated? Do you work with them a lot? I was amazed how independently run that room was. And you would never know. It's kind of like when I went to a restaurant once in Fairfield, Ohio, that had like twelve people and we didn't know there was one person in the kitchen and they were also serving us, but they did so well that they just knocked it out of the park. And we could have guessed there was a whole staff back there. And that's how it felt working with you. It's like you made it happen. [00:31:03] Speaker E: Well, speaking to that, and also this ties in actually with music a little bit. So I'll get there. I'm not a team player and I'm very unapologetic about it. But what's interesting about that is that it used to be a lot easier, before our intensely social culture to be a standalone unit. I'm a complete autodidact. Almost literally everything in my life that I know about I taught myself, okay? And I'm not a team player. Like, I can't be in a band. Quite apart from whether I'm talented or anything like that, I don't have the talents of working with people. That is a special talent that should not be underestimated. I like making music alone. I like running the tasting room alone. I wasn't a manager type. I can't tell somebody what to do. People are autonomous units. I was never going to be a good manager. When I ran my business in New York, it was just me and a trusted freelancer. That's it. And so I would rather not have anybody work for me. I will do it. I will fail or I'll succeed on my own way. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm just saying that's just my style to this day. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Well, Michael, you know, this album, we're taking a little break here to tell you that before we made this album, we made an album called Shadow of the Cyclone. We put a lot of love and TLC into it. [00:32:47] Speaker B: I like that album. [00:32:48] Speaker A: I like that album too. We were just about finished with it when the Lysol came out in March of 2020. [00:32:58] Speaker B: Boy, did that Lysol have a lot of legs. Like a house. Millipede or Centipede. Lots of Lysol everywhere. [00:33:07] Speaker A: But we never got to do album release shows all over the country for Shadow of the Cyclone. And I've got hundreds of those albums sitting in my basement, and I would love to send them to our listeners. [00:33:24] Speaker B: Please do. I believe you can order that album off of the Michaelronstadt.com website. But beyond that, please send us a note on our Facebooks and Instagrams and the messaging. If you send us a request, we will mail it to wherever you want. And you could pay through PayPal or Zelle or Venmo, whatever you want to do. We want you to hear our music. Honestly, if you bake a cake and mail it to us and it's still good, it's vegan. Yeah, and it's vegan. We'll send you a CD. I mean, whatever you want. Don't do that. [00:34:03] Speaker A: Pay me with a cake. [00:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah, don't make a cake. [00:34:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:07] Speaker B: If you make a very artistic looking cake inside of a snow bubble. Shaky thing. That was really descriptive there. [00:34:15] Speaker A: I like it. But the point being, we don't want this album to get lost in the shuffle. It was a good album. We put a lot of love into. It was a dark album. It was about the period just before the 2020 elections, kind of capturing our mindset then. But I think the songs still hold up. [00:34:35] Speaker B: They hold up and they fit. I think they'll make you think. Check out songs like Strong Man, Strongman. That was a co write that we really worked for, and I think it worked well. And just like we have Serenity Fisher on without the cold on harmonies and co writer, she played piano. And that hook at the beginning is the creme de la creme of what makes that song. [00:35:00] Speaker C: It's so good. [00:35:01] Speaker A: And she was the ghost hunter on Haunted House. [00:35:04] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. So anyway, even just to hear Serenity Fisher's contribution, contributions, please listen to the album and follow us on Spotify, if you haven't already. [00:35:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:19] Speaker B: If you're listening on Spotify, follow us. And if you want a physical copy, please get it right away. We'll send it to you. That's right. We're going to come back to our. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Part two, part two of our conversation. [00:35:34] Speaker B: With Alan J. Prescott. You've seen all walks of life, it. [00:35:44] Speaker C: Sounds like for you, going through all these variations of what life's bringing you and enjoying the fruits of that, being able to see the world and it. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Sounds like you went from being able. [00:35:57] Speaker C: To afford a lot to not being able to afford much, kind of by choice, but probably life circumstances brought you to those situations. Is there a thread that's always carried you through among these various things you've learned through experience and teaching yourself and being that one person boss, like we all are, we're very independent, we're our own bosses, right. You know, is there a Thread that carries you through that you can kind of put a finger on? [00:36:31] Speaker E: I think So. I think it goes back to the busy mind thing. Busy minds are always looking for something to grasp onto, as if you're kind of flailing around for a thread to grab. And so when you have a lot of threads, a lot of passions, a lot of obsessions, a lot of things that one wants to do, there's never a lack of something for me to do, I never get bored. And so the downside of that is that it allows you, you're not as Present as many People, quite absent minded. I'm not in the moment a lot of the time. I'm in a Future moment, which is not here, is already a figment of my imagination, but I grasp towards it anyway. So what keeps me going, I think, is that the meaning of my life is just that, the constant moving forward and finding a new passion or something different or interesting. I don't need to go to any more places, but that's because I've been to 30 countries, I don't need to add another One. I'm done. I've already jumped out of an airplane. That's good. [00:37:39] Speaker C: That's plenty. [00:37:45] Speaker E: I've already made 6 hours of instrumental music, 85 compositions. I'm not going to write another One. I've already had a recording studio and a camera, but I'm ready for whatever else I haven't done. And that means everything else that's out there. So it's the constant moving forward. Until, of course, eventually I'm not on the planet anymore. My life will not have meaning if I spend a little bit too much time in introspection. Because unless it leads to something I'm going to be doing, it's a waste of my time. So I can be melancholy, but only rarely, because I want to snap out of it and get doing something, I feel productive. [00:38:27] Speaker A: So what is the meaning? If you're trying to derive meaning from it all, what's the destination? Where are you hoping to get to if it all works out? [00:38:43] Speaker E: Well, let me give you a little thought experiment to put that in perspective. If I might. I've never done videos or film or anything like that. Not really. Although I have a fantastic video of Michael playing cello during comfortably numb at a diving cat whole. It's brilliant. Like, if I only made one video in my life, that is it. But I once had this idea for a video where. Picture this. It's a 90 minutes movie, all right? All you see is basically a black screen to start with. It's the history of the world. 4 billion years on our planet, and each human life comes into. Each human life on the planet is like a little light, little led that goes on, okay? And imagine there's nothing at first. It starts to burst out of Africa at some point with points of light. It turns out for every frame of the movie, you're catching 13 seconds of a life, okay? Each life is 13 seconds. And so this thing spreads out over the whole planet. This is how brief life is. And so the real treasuring of life is not the recognition of its length, but its brevity. The meaning is life itself. Because there's all this time we spent not being in existence. We come into existence for this admittedly brief time, and then we are gone. If you're going to find meaning in life, it is really during this 50, 70, 80, 90 years or whatever. My mother's 87. She's still with me, but she's the only one left from. And she enjoys life very much. But as long as you have your health and your mind, you have your friends, you have something you love to do. I don't see why life needs to have any more meaning than that. I'm not a religious person, but those who are have a different set of meanings, and that's fine for them. But people who don't find any meaning, I don't know what to do about that. It's not something you can give somebody. [00:40:59] Speaker A: Where do you find the meaning in your day to day? [00:41:02] Speaker E: The meaning is simply life itself. Simply being, first of all, do no harm. Even if you can't help, do no harm consciously, that lets everybody else do what they want to do. I'm very much a person who's in favor of autonomy. You find meaning where you're going to find it. If you spend too much of your life looking for meaning, I believe you also won't find it. It's under a rock very close to you. It's not as far as you have to go. But meaning, I think, is achieved for many people through music, through culture, if we don't have music. My girlfriend Sandy was once a neighbor with a guy who said, I don't like music. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Wow. I know people out there that don't like any music. When Leonard Cohen said that in Hallelujah, you don't really care for music, do you? I thought, who doesn't care for any music? [00:42:00] Speaker E: Right? [00:42:01] Speaker A: But there are people. [00:42:03] Speaker C: I just say, I ran into someone who didn't like nature he grew up. [00:42:09] Speaker B: In, and he's like, he's like, I like cities, I like people. [00:42:15] Speaker C: And I'm like, okay. And that's. [00:42:20] Speaker E: The word. [00:42:21] Speaker A: Foodie. I mean, who doesn't like some kind of food? [00:42:26] Speaker E: Yeah. No, I happen to have known somebody who actually said to me that she didn't like food. [00:42:34] Speaker A: Wow. [00:42:35] Speaker E: Yeah. So there is always one example, because you know something about the standard distribution spectrum, right? There's the hub in the middle, then tails off on both sides. There's always somebody at one extreme out there. I don't like food. I don't like nature. I don't like music. I think all of us have some appreciation for nearly everything we come in contact with. Hopefully, we all expose ourselves to different things. You don't have to like everything, but showing an appreciation for the fact that somebody else likes that thing is kind of cool. I like a wide range of music. I mean, my goodness. But I've also lived a long time. You guys are younger, but you have access to that music. But what you don't have access to is the cultural context in which that music took place. It's not a criticism. It's just an observation that I was not there when my dad was listening to music in the 40s. So I can't really know. It doesn't speak to me. But what I do know is that music, as we conceive it now, contemporary music, everything from Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Frankie Valley, to Jason Moraz, we can all kind of equally enjoy that music. It comes out of a shared cultural context, whereas our context is nothing like the 40s, but very much like the. So we have that common ground. [00:44:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Music tends to build on itself over time, and you never get to see the foundation. [00:44:13] Speaker E: Yeah. The foundation is well known to me because I lived through that. People in my generation, we started off with 19th, nervous breakdown from the Stones. That was a really different. I mean, the Stones are highly negative, very cynical, very misogynistic, too, as well. Then you had the Beatles. Brilliant. Still to this day, a day in the life is probably my favorite song of all time. [00:44:40] Speaker C: Why? [00:44:41] Speaker E: Because it marked the. When I first heard that song as a kid, I was astounded there had been nothing written like a day in the life. One of the most depressing and Frank songs about confusion, the meaning of life, how quickly a life can end. And that whole album, after I got the album and listened to that whole thing, the idea of the Beatles using the studio as an instrument itself was the beginning. Brian Wilson only scratched the surface with pet sounds. See, he wasn't a team player. That's why he didn't get anywhere. The Beatles were team players, and so that's the advantage. Those guys were always working together, especially at that time. So that kind of music seems kind of banal now because we've been through a lot of cynicism, Led Zeppelin and death metal, and you name it, there's just a lot of stuff out there that's heavily contextualized with the changes since Vietnam. But at the time, the Beatles were writing that, they were into the Maharishi, they had just been to India. It was peace and love and all that. Very interesting how those tropes began back then, but we take them for granted. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Now, and they were building on Chuck Berry and Little Richard. [00:46:08] Speaker E: Ultimately, they were, what a different sound. They got. The Rolling Stones built on that, saying that, know three bar blues and all that, and to this day still play pretty much blues, country, rhythm and blues. But the Beatles moved on. [00:46:24] Speaker A: How do you think that the pandemic is affecting how we perceive music, how we enjoy music? [00:46:31] Speaker E: I don't know how. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Where music is going. [00:46:33] Speaker E: I don't know where music is going. I have to confess, I don't follow a lot of contemporary music. I do hear some. There's some good radio stations in the area. MGK. What's the other one? The one that plays some LeD sound system, stuff like that, like current people. I don't hear a lot that I like. I guess because I have heard so much, I'm saturated with music. I put it on in the morning while I make breakfast. It's on all day long. I'm just saturated with Brian Eno and the Stones and Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin and Porcupine Tree, Pink Floyd. Like, I have enough. I don't need to listen to another singer songwriter from college complaining about why his girlfriend is not in the same. No, no, look at me, please. I've had enough for every Matt Keane or whatever. I just feel like the last music I really enjoyed a lot. Geez, I don't know. Porcupine Tree, I love them a great deal. Progressive. [00:47:50] Speaker C: You want to cut off just why? I'll have to look them up, because I don't know. Porcupine tree. [00:47:57] Speaker E: Michael, you will love Porcupine Tree. Aaron, I'm not so sure, but no comment. Just saying, if your mind works the way I think it does, you will love Porcupine Tree. It doesn't even matter what you pick up, okay? It doesn't matter because Every single track is unbelievable. You can sample a lot of it on YouTube. You can check out Blackest Eyes as a great track to sort of go, yeah, I think I want more of that sort of thing. But I also like, some of my favorite bands are like the Twins, what they call dream pop or whatever. But I love the hard stuff, too. But I don't know what's happening, like, currently. So during the pandemic, I play mostly my 35,000 songs on my iTunes, and I have it on home sharing, so I can pump that to my phone and bluetooth upstairs. And I have endless amount of music to listen to. But I always start off with the Rolling Stones just because it's not even my favorite band, but they have the right energy for that. Roxy Music is my favorite band. Roxy Music. Okay, no one even listens to Roxy Music anymore, but I saw them on the 50th anniversary tour at the man in Philly in September. Fantastic show. Unbelievable. Roxy Music is to me what the Rolling Stones is pretty much to everybody else anyhow. But during the pandemic, a lot of musicians had to go indoors. They had to be with their loved ones. If they were extroverts, they were going to be disappointed. Those of us who were already introverted had tons of music to surround ourselves with anyway and share it with somebody. If we lived with someone. I feel bad for people who were alone during the pandemic, didn't have anybody. They couldn't get together with anyone, and they were stuck with whatever they could do to keep themselves occupied and having meaning in life. Crank the music up. I can't think of anything else better than watching television all day, right? Dance around. If you can't socialize, dance. [00:50:16] Speaker C: That's true. [00:50:17] Speaker E: Be with yourself. Be melancholy, whatever. Wait it out. It'll end pretty soon as it is now. [00:50:23] Speaker A: That's true. We're recording this on December 31, 2022. Look outside. It's gloomy. There's no snow on the ground. But wait a couple of days and maybe there will be. And you could sit there, stare out your window and be melancholy. But as you said, you wait long enough, by the time that people are hearing this, it's going to be bright outside, and the world will have come alive. [00:50:53] Speaker E: That's right. As they used to say where I grew up, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute. [00:51:01] Speaker C: Yeah, well, a lot of places are like that, too. When I visit North Wales, UK, they're like, yeah, it might be raining now, but it'll be sunshine for part of the day. And that's how it was in Tucson when you got a rainy day. It was on and off. And I love that variability that life brings because you're not stuck in a situation. You look out the window and see there can be a change on the horizon and kind of neat. [00:51:39] Speaker E: There can be. If you don't have changes on the horizon, you can bring them indoors through activities that I think a lot of people did during the pandemic, they didn't necessarily think of. Pick up a book. I must have read. I don't think I'm exaggerating 40 or 50 books since the pandemic, but also music and also going online and looking for interesting things. I write for Wikipedia. That's another thing. I do spend eight or 10 hours a day editing Wikipedia. There's always something to do to shift the energy, if I could put it that way. [00:52:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Just to kind of carry us to almost a final thought situation. Not quite a Jerry Springer final thought, but thank you. But what I'm thinking of, actually, I've met Jerry Springer. He's a very kind gentleman. And he does a podcast in. [00:52:37] Speaker E: He. [00:52:38] Speaker C: I played on his podcast once years ago. [00:52:42] Speaker A: Maybe he'll play on cool. [00:52:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He, in fact, gave my Aunt Linda a key, not the actual key to Cincinnati, but he was trying to bring music into Cincinnati. And my Aunt Linda was given a key to Cincinnati at some point along with a bunch of other musicians like you, really. He was a young mayor and he had his faults, but he was trying to bring music and arts to Cincinnati. And one could say they're still trying, but they have a lot of good arts in Cincinnati. But just thinking of kind of how, I think there's a lot of positivity with what you're saying. I think a lot of silver lining that one can find. And I think just the idea of, like, read a bunch of books for me, I dream albums. I create albums. I have a bunch of music that I put out during the pandemic. I've been doing a weekly YouTube video for two years now. Whether people watched or not, I do it and I enjoy it. And I think that all came out of that melancholy we were stuck in for so long. And you kind of make it what you want. And that's easier said than done. Obviously. [00:53:59] Speaker E: It'S a matter of being resourceful. It's like we are surrounded more than any time in history, I think we're surrounded by the tools that allow us to have a different kind of life for that moment to shift the most resourceful. Don't get desperate. We look for something to. Okay, well, I can't do that now. Let me shift into something else. That's a talent in itself. A lot of people are easily bored because they can't think of something else to do. It's not a criticism. It's just an observation. You can find something else to do. We can make music. We can dance. We can get out a piece of paper and write something. We can do it on the computer. And we do still have a computer. Something that wasn't available to people in the 50s or 60s or 70s. Yeah, we had music. [00:54:54] Speaker C: I think that's a really good thought to just kind of sit on and say that. I hope that our conversation has helped someone who may have hasn't felt very creative about what to do. You know, whatever their life is bringing them. Maybe it'll inspire someone to search for that thing. As creative artists, it's easy for us to just put our finger on it. I think for a lot of people, sometimes it's not as easy. And I think being comfortable with trying something new without any expectations and doing it in your own little world and just enjoying the process, that's kind of what I'm hearing and seeing. And I'm just thankful that we could talk about and be inspired by the ideas that this song were created from and that the ideas this song pushed forward in this conversation. [00:55:52] Speaker E: Yeah, I appreciate that. [00:55:54] Speaker C: And I wonder if, Aaron, do you have any final thoughts on. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Yeah, this has been fascinating. And just to explore the idea of melancholy. And, Alan, you really helped me to re envision what it means to be quiet, what it means to know melancholy, and yet know if it's go to go low purposefully, rather know as a victim to just sort of enjoy being down on the ground, looking up. [00:56:29] Speaker E: Right. Nothing wrong with that. It's not trauma. It's an opportunity. [00:56:35] Speaker C: It is. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Well, Alan, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. We're honored that you made some time to talk with us and to tell us about your life. And it's fascinating to see the world through your eyes. [00:56:51] Speaker E: The pleasure is all mine. Thank you, guys. [00:56:54] Speaker C: Yeah. And we'll catch up in person, hopefully, at some point. [00:56:57] Speaker E: We definitely will. I'll call you on that. Okay. [00:57:00] Speaker C: Please do. Please do. Yeah. All right. [00:57:03] Speaker A: Alan Prescott. [00:57:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you. [00:57:05] Speaker E: Happy New Year, guys. [00:57:06] Speaker A: Happy New Year. [00:57:06] Speaker C: Happy New Year's. [00:57:14] Speaker A: Well, that was fun. [00:57:16] Speaker B: I enjoyed that a lot. And I think I didn't know where it was going to go. I didn't know how it was going to end. Sometimes I thought it never would end. And I was okay with that because. [00:57:27] Speaker A: It was that interesting. And it was great that he was so trusting of us and willing to open up in such an interesting and meaningful way. [00:57:36] Speaker B: As musicians and songwriters, we get to meet people on a very personal level in a way that other jobs and stuff, they don't always allow. [00:57:49] Speaker E: No. [00:57:50] Speaker A: Even when I'm a journalist, when I was a journalist, I walk up to people, I ask them personal questions, and you're kind of automatically on your guard. Whereas if a musician asks you a question, I think people are a little more trusting. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it feels like people are off book, which is good. And one of the things about this interview and Alan is we've known him as a wine connoisseur. We've known him as a music writer through his soundcloud. So if you find his music there, it's really fascinating what he does. He's a good writer. He writes instrumentals that really take you on a journey. And he just enjoys being in the moment. So that's what this interview was. And we want to share the song with you since you've been waiting so patiently. So without any delay, here's the song without the cold in its entirety. [00:59:10] Speaker D: Out the cold I walk along gray earth soft shadows song the sounds of the hills reflecting Then it stops nothing makes it here in my very favorite spot Sitting quietly not thinking of the clock no ticking do I hear so simple in this spot no ticking Do I hear so simple in this spot tales of past lives in this sanctuary locked fables that flew high quickly was forgotten melodies Melt hearts of those in deep, deep thought I tend to like it here in this melancholy spot I tend to like it here in this melancholy spot winter without the cold I walk along Great earth Some shadow song close you told to brighten up Let sunshine walk on in it tries to draw me out Yet I do prefer it dim trickling through the pines soft breezes sing a hymn words of revelry and my melancholy, grim words of revelry and my melancholy Grim Close my eyes for me inside a gentle cloud Let the walls keep out the disappointing sounds that live beyond this wall outside Melancholy ground Blinding all our eyes from the knots that we are wound blinding all our eyes from the knots that we are wound winter without the cold I walk along Great earth soft shadow song. [01:04:17] Speaker C: Whoo. [01:04:18] Speaker A: There it is. Okay, I feel warmer already. [01:04:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So you've been listening to the Nathan's and Ron cast? [01:04:26] Speaker B: We said cast at the same time we did. Well, that's good. By the last episode of this series, we will have our intros and outros down, but until then, I hope you have a great week. [01:04:40] Speaker A: Do you have any words of wisdom? A word of wisdom? [01:04:43] Speaker B: Word. You know what I think? Mutable. [01:04:53] Speaker A: Mutable. Okay, well, you can mute me when I say meandering, which I think we used earlier in this episode. That was today's wordle, by the way, was meandering. [01:05:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:13] Speaker B: Like these podcasts. [01:05:17] Speaker A: You don't do wordle, do you? [01:05:18] Speaker B: I don't do wordle. [01:05:20] Speaker A: You would have known that was a joke because it's only five let. Anyway, if I have to explain the joke. [01:05:24] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [01:05:25] Speaker A: It doesn't matter. [01:05:25] Speaker B: See, I avoid wordle like it's the plague. It taunts me. But some people like wordle. I love working with Duolingo and trying to figure out Welsh words and how to spell them. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Like smoothio. [01:05:38] Speaker B: Like smoothio. If you remembered the word smoothio for ironing and Welsh by this point, we'll send you a prize. But, yeah, so malleable and mutable. That's our wisdom. Have a good week. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Meandering. Peace. [01:05:57] Speaker D: Okay. [01:06:09] Speaker B: Self to rest. [01:06:11] Speaker D: A soft wind bends.