PipemanRadio Interviews Leslie from Mandoki Soulmates

0:04 Hey, you have unto censure. Wow for you young wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man. I'll w you four C. Why do com West Pond Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. Fire Men's blowing, shining stars and falling. We are moving faster. But where we go? In wounded Hearts of Call, in mellows in direction Sean, what the This is the pipe Man here on the Adventure of the Pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm very excited about our next return guests because we're going to talk about some music.

1:04 We're going to talk about some history, but you know, I'm really excited about talking about analog music post to digital. And so let's welcome to the show. Leslie from Mandoki Soulmates, how are you? Thank you so much for having me again. And I really remember how autent ticket was as I spoke to you last time, as we were in New York City and played the Beacon Theater. We coases you made the shiny line of the Rolling Star. So it was a wonderful day. And thank you for supporting that big concept of us in New York City. And thank you for having us now with a new album and memory of our future. Yes, and man, you guys, just one thing I have to say, just true musicianship, no matter what, all the music you put out and this what I was talking about before, only shows the true musicians it because this album was done, mastered, produced, record, it all entirely analog. And I see you know why, I think that's uh, that's true musicianship because most people don't realize that there's a there's parts missing and music in digital from that or an analog that you can't have. You like, digital is this choppiness that cuts out kind of the middle, and analog has a very different sound

2:36 because it's that wavy, smooth sound opposed to the choppiness. Thank you for the description, because I go one hundred percent along with it. You know that it came like this. You know, we were out on the road and at the end of the show we sung the torch. This is the song from Utopia for Reals on the last album and it's about the rebels and the young rebels, and said, gave me pass on the torch and started to say no, no, we're not going to pass on the torch because the world turned to be a labyrinth of crisis and the compass is lost. And then so we just spoke, and Tony carry said, Leslie, I hate you, I really desperately hate you. You've wright with such a young, powerful songs right now like I was twenty two as I brought that way.

3:24 And also you know we all aging differently, and so finally, so we had these old songs which is supposed to be woodstock four points there you know, some kind of fresh you say, and someone I don't know, it's could I've been Ali Mola? Since do you have still the old two inch machine in your basement in in the cellar of your studio? You never sell anything, so you probably have it. But what about, you know, making an analog album? So and for all our listeners, so let's talk about to the ladies. Now only for the lads. Hey, ladies, are there listening? Not? How would you like to have your love letter by two of us? Uh? Ye? Have it as a text message an email? Or would you like to have a handwritten with pen handwritten love letter? And guess what, probably every each feminine listeners would say, of course, very nice to have a love handwritten love letter. You know, take it in so and the and the and the analoge recording has three different aspects. The one you were describing a segment to none, so the description is great. Another aspect is this is this is the sound esthetic.

4:43 You know, our ears are analogue, so so this is you hear it even in a and you know, smartphone, small lousy speaker, and you still hear the analogue warmth because the myths are natural, them highs unnatural, and the basi is not wooming as natural. So everything is because of the tape. Compression is the only really great compassion in life. So audio wise, but the other other aspect, let me explain it to you that which is equally important for me. All of a sudden, the whole focus of creativity, you know, of creation was taking place during the recording and not during the post production, because you can only one track for the guitar solo.

5:33 And this limitation was an incredibly creative boost because the red light plant on its recording and you have only that much material to record on. You know you can't, I mean digital butson know spoiling us. We can stack it and one more and one more and one more and there another staging, and then you go to the post production and you edit it and edit it from day and night, and so at the end of today is a handwritten love letter to our audience. And it's really went down as that you hear and and and this, and you have this incredibly fortunate honor that you have this best musician or earth you can have Greg Leake, late Greg Lake on Amazon.

6:18 Ligan Parmer said, once the bbccene to you about mad sos as he was performing with us as and the BBC guy excising as Simon, what about Madougi Somis You know, you are the hero of Amazon Lincoln Barmer and King Crimson and said, well, it's very simple. Best band of the world. So because you know you have Steve look at aldim and Mike guitar, you know, and to make a long stay show if you are so fortunate like me and honored by these you know, legendary iconic great players. It was so fantastic to record of them and the look because you had this you know, kind of spat and positive, you know, pressure on you that you know the red light is on it, you fire it right now.

7:10 So that's that was wonderful. I think too. Sometimes it does make it better to have that feeling of having to do it right from the beginning, opposed to a we can fix it later. You cannot fix it later. That that's wonderful, you know, right. It's like when you're getting your last bird of your lifetime. You can't fix it anymore, you know. And this is when you just pushed the bottom and you recorded it's just smack on. This is wonderful. So and and and we enjoyed it so much. That pressure because we because I wouldn't say that it became lazy, but but but but we we put it the focus on the last period of time always, you know, be programmed the beginning. You know that you had a medi sort of structure before you replace them track by track by real life and then post an action. And now all of a sudden, I just wrote the music sheets, you know, and the and the lyrics will just stype out, but you know, just but the book, first of all, it was handwritten, and you know, all of a sudden, everything you know, you don't hear eight boss eight boss eight bus trading of the solos, of these blessing solos. But you have your mutual recording has just been playing together. Absolutely. I want to go back to your example too, because man, that spot on. Because writing a love letter. Okay,

8:41 so first of all, they don't even teach kids nowadays how to write in penmanship, And if you were writing in a love letter, it would be incursive, you know, because then they would like it even more, like you put more effort into it if you did incursive. And you know, just it's like music. There's something missing when you do an email or a text message opposed to writing it out, you know, and it's the same what I mean, just the perfect analogy because the woman will get on much more of an emotional connection from that handwritten note than that text message or email. And I think that's the same with music. You get much more deeper soulful connection with the analog than you do the digital because it does go deeper, in my opinion, um, with you hand it pro and as much good goes much more deeper that that's the point. This is the right expression. As touch as you my heart, you know this is you know why because of the honesty y our whole emotional system or you know, human receiver feels it. You know that feels it humanity that touches you, and because it speaks to you a different way and you you just just hear things differently, and you you became, all of a sudden you feel that it's

10:15 not two and a half minutes is the right a length of a piece of music? You know? So this this is very extremely short attention span. But what came from social media and all this and all of a sudden, it's just enlarging it. So because you're enjoying it, because it doesn't really hurt you, that doesn't imply you have to get switched on and watching TV and taking your smartphone and you have your iPod on and and you're you know, so this is just all of a sudden it calls you in to, hey, let's take a walk on the right side, you know, and enjoy music again, even if you listen to in your smartphone device or just done a assfle but you fear the difference. Key word is feel, because you know, people think of music and they don't if they don't understand, they think it's all about hearing. I think the most important about part of music is the feeling you get from it, and the feeling that even a musician gives from it, there's something to it. I remember when I was taking in college a music appreciation class and they were teaching how to write a long lasting hit song. And basically what they say is, you know, there's three types of people, which we know. There's visual, there's auditory, there's kinesthetic, and in order to write a hit song, you have to have all three components. Well, the king aesthetic is the feeling type

11:46 of person. The auditory is the listening type of person. The visual is the seeing type of person. So if the sound of the music was the only component, then it wouldn't be as full an when we have such massive appeal and be as great a music, you have to have all three components. Absolutely. Uh, it's what a wonderful conversation because, uh, you know what, I'm enjoying us so much to talk to you because normally the Q and A on radios and this is not because we just talked like buddies, uh have a b or a coffee, but you know, and reflecting life in the mirror of analogue music, so you know, a mirror of reflecting. And then maybe this, maybe if I may add one more aspect to Italy, we are living in trying years. You know, this is just a kind of emotionally difficult, challenging times what we are going through.

12:50 You mentioned that your father even a grandfather in your young years. And we have a huge responsibilyy for our kids, especially grand kids, you know, because one day whenever, hopefully a long time ago, but one day wey, I'm going to pass over the torch. And and I would like to be someone who can tell to the kids, we will give or outmost best to pass over a better boat to you, you know. And and unfortunately I'm a guy who was who was there eighty nine as the building walk came down, and you know, the Iron Curtain has been destroyed, and and we were just about having a paradise on earth because the Cold War was gone, you know. And and and I had the feeling I have to write music about, you know, this piece and freedom. You know that because I was growing up behind the Iron Curtain, and and I was an extremely American minded person, you know, which talk was like the Communists were saying, I'm poisoning my mind because I was listening secretly to what I was of America Radio station, you know. Uh, and the Russians British disturbed, disturbing that, you know, yeah, shortly radio uh and so and I was, I was, you know, illegally I learned English, you know,

14:22 which we should that because the idea of the Russians occupation was that from North Korea to Cuba we all speak as a second language Russian. You know what. That was very English. So and I hated it, I tell you, I hated it so much, so bad. And and today we had to do this album because and we had to call it like that, a memory of our future. Because as one of the courses, hard times create hard people, hard people creating easy times, easy times real easy people, and easy people create hard times. Again, that's where we are now. So when we were love to give our audience after ALTI music, lover this compass back, you know, to to repaint our blacks man on the record to white again, you know, to be the light at the end of the dark town. So let's give an answer. And one more thing.

15:16 You know, we are living in a divided world. And and and one of our posters when we are touring Europe is saying music is the greatest unifier. And you know, we have to relearn, seriously, really learn the fact that you know that if someone having a different opinion, the oppositional opinion of yours, it's not your enemy. It's just the guy who has another opinion. And and this is the butt. This is all the message of the If you go through the album, you know, first blood in the water than a nigma of reason wonder big with Davis encyclopaedic. This switch is about the awful result of social media. This you know because as you were a young kid, and I was a young kid, our heroes Jimi Hendrix and Eric Kleapp, you know, not the lousy influencer who who et cetera. I can't do anything, but I'm an influencer. But we were influenced by you know, Jack Kevra when it comes down to literature, you know. So we had our heroes, you know, you know they changed all the better place, you know. So this album is also a lot about this. We stay loud, you know, the old hip is are back and and and and we would like to teach take the hand of the

16:47 young rebels and and as we're old rebels and and with this analog handmade music to create something something, but going to of time. I love it. And you know, you touch on so many points that are so important, and I think that's what's going to unify us. And you touch on point that I talk about all the time. Music is the great unifiers, the great therapist. And I think a big reason, it's my opinion, a big reason that people are so angry right now, so divided, so attacking, is because we went two years without any live music, no outlet.

17:30 Music is the outlet of all of our anger, frustration, depression and all that stuff, and we had no outlet. We had to sit by ourselves with all these things with nothing to get it out and create the positive energy. And I think that's what created what we have too. And you know, if we want a solution to all these problems in the world, I think we just need to have one big world music festival where everybody attends and we could all, you know, stand up united together. Because I don't know, all these politicians all over the world, they're pretty smart because they're using the oldest trick in the book and we're falling for it. And I say, they're all on the same team, and it ain't mine. My team is the rest of the world. Thank you so much. I always can't sign it, sign it, sign it you speak my mind. Next, thank you so much for that. Because this is all about and music could heal the world. I mean, let me share with you a little story about it. Yes, after that the war, you know, the Iaron Curtain was coming down and the Europe became free, you know, the Cold War. One day Miha Garbacher was calling me, the formal president of the Civic Union who actually destroyed the Communists and uh, and he was saying

19:02 he was asking me to give him music for charity project. So so actually I invited him and his late wife in my studio and we had a long talk. And shortly before that, Henry Kissinger was here, who was awarded me for being an anti communist fighter. And Miak explained to me that that why prob rock like jet Rotal was forbidden in the Soviet Union, because this was the music of the free mind, of the free world. And then he said, as he was coming up eighty eight with pedistroical and Glasser, so just he wanted to turn to me more democratic. Then his idea was to that the Russian Communist Soviet, a state owned rac cod company is going to print one million copies of the Chattel album of the time, Passion Play, and and they just to prove to the kind of intellectual students leadership in Moscows and Petersburg in Iran that now broad rock is going to be allowed, so be tending to get free. And then I all of a sudden understood what music means to us who were unfortunately were born and raised behind iron curtain

20:37 without the American individual freedom. You know that? And and I'm just sharing with your listeners now because you should be self confident, but the American longing for freedom. How important it was for us behind the iron curtains kept us alive and emotionally that woodstock and everything that came after that. I was a kid in a kindergarten, but you know, so it was so important, so elementary in many ways. Uh, and that that I've never forgotten how ill able it was in my as I was fourteen years old to listen listen to a check With album. I mean, if if you had a seventh uh tape copy of seventh generation mono tape copy, you were just a king.

21:33 Uh you know, you know, you could impress the girls in the school, you know school, I have seven generation one and you know that you put a little smile to all the listeners face. Uh. The last ye s tape recorder was building Prague in check and they called Tesla, uh, you know, like the American cars now because Check science. Uh. And so it was was printed on that losty plastic tape machine. It was written the stereo, but that only one speaker that was Eastern block, you know. So and the only bridge to you guys who lived in freedom was music to learn that melodies, to learn that you know, hormonies, to understand the lyrical context, you know. And so music was to music is today that we just unify against this awful division but destroys everything, But back then it was also the music was the bridge to freedom. Well. And Berlin nowadays is a perfect example that because like I was there a few years ago, and I would never imagined what you lived through while I was sitting there in Berlin because it was so progressive there and so felt so free there.

22:56 And then live music, I mean it just everywhere, you know, and so it is amazing where Berlin has come nowadays from that experience that you experienced that I think maybe they're more of the example for the world in a good way now than in a bad way that it used to be. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean now it's the opposite as it was. Yeah, because there's decades of longing for freedom and you know you got killed with you know, the censorship, the torture. Then you know there's a you could that you've been told, like me as a kid, you're never gonna see Los Angeles or Miami, or London or New York City or Berlin so or West Part. So the music could tresput so much of those emotions. Are you looking for freedom? And that's why we wrote those songs, and that's why we recorded, and that's why we were choosing the most honest and most authentic way to record. That's why it's analoge. I love it. I love it. So tell everybody how they can reach out to you on socials, on the web and you know, get the new album, check out all the new music and everything else you have to offer. Oh yeah, sure, I mean you find us everywhere. Actually, if you type in your device and Madougie Somades me and the okay Ki and some Mandooki Hungarians are

24:30 speaking, you know, like like writing that to speak phonetically Madougie So Mates, and a new album is a memory of our future, and you will find it everywhere and on all streaming services. And of course if you really want to go crazy, then buy a vinylor a double vinyl with a thirty two page book to that or CD also very nice. I mean I've worked a lot, that's and so the painting is and it is the back cover, and you will find Ian Ens and chat with Aldi Mala Mixture, Randy Brackett, Bill that will still Brunder, Tory, Kerry Corey, Henry Niquheny, Simon Phillips, Jess, John Halliwell, super Trump and Mark Out, Steve Bailey, Richard Bonner so so and truly supergroup. And and we think that I mean we have surely one year together, this gang, but we think this is the best big Greed ever as a wonderful piece of music.

25:37 And you will find us on socials also and Dougie So Mates and also of course our ending page. So enjoy and and if you really want to make yourself a great present or your toll loved ones and then then Amazon CD or a Whino because this is really if you get a linyl, a double vinyl, that you will experience a very special acoustic moment of your life, because it's truly, truly, that's what your ears are asking for since ages. And I definitely agree with you because listen, a lot of kids, they don't have the experiences we did where you sat down, you buy an album and it was a full sensory experience. It was looking at all the artwork, looking at the lyrics, totally immersing yourself in the album, you know, and listening to the actual whole album and doing all the other artistic stuff at the same time, and so all for it. People should definitely get the vinyl because there's nothing better than vinyl, you know, because of all of the creativity and art that represents. And when you're listening to music, it's like you take off into a journey and you can forget all about your problem, the world's problems, or anything negative and just immerse yourself in the music and feel good and have hope for the future. Exactly. I couldn't

27:11 say anywhere thank you so much, I mean, because that's all about we should create beown music, a better word, absolutely better tomorrow will I mean, our kids observing this, yes, and you're definitely doing that for us, So thank you for that, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pie Man. Oh, thank you for having me again. And I was wonderful to see you again. And the next time we just got together, then we will have again another sunglass. So just make me a little bit, gotta switch it up, right, Yeah, yeah, that's why I was thinking about fifteen minutes. Do you remember how was your other song?

27:53 Glass? You know, but I I got a whole drawer full of them. You know, at this stage in life, they're almost required, you know. Oh yeah, your granddad. Fine, that's right, that's right. Well, thank you so much for having us. And let's wrong. So here with the so much, let's do with a memory of our future. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Patemn on w for c u I Radio.