Transcript
Tom Kastle, Sea Shanties, and Great Lakes Pirates in the Lair on Max Ink Radio
Max Ink Radio · Sat Sep 14, 2024
Welcome to Wisconsin's Local Music C. This is Max Inc. Radio. We are Local Music.
You're listening to Live in the Lair, brought to you by the Aaron Weber Group, powered
by First Weber, the most trusted name in real estate. Sell or buy your next home at
Move to Madison.com. Here we go. Rob, we're back in Live in the Lair right here. I'm
Max Inc. Radio across the Civic Media Radio Network. Tom Castle. He's been a singer and
a folk musician for decades, traveling the world, collecting and performing maritime
songs and stories and captaining sailing ships on the Great Lakes. These days, Tom lives
in Madison and his passions are even more diverse and include a recording of original
songs based mostly on traditional fiddle tunes, theater, film, television, and even
hosting documentaries. Tom Castle is here to perform songs that can make an Irishman
cry tears of pure telemordew. Tom, welcome to Max Inc. Radio. Hey Rocker, it's great
to be here. Great to be here. Oh boy, you know, we had you in the Lair back March of 2021.
That was, I mean, that was back scary days. And I remember we were kind of in masks and
we weren't in masks and we were like freaking out like we're sure we all be in the same room
at the same time. Can you play in this room without a mask and then you can go in this
room, but you have to have a mask on. Can we disinfect the microphone before we stick
it anywhere? Definitely. Oh boy. What's up? Are you an Irish whiskey fan? Well, that comes
from Brian Bowers, the auto harp god. He used to, he's played with everybody. He played
with the dead. He played with John Denver. He wrote some songs for John Denver. And basically,
if you were looking for an auto harp guy in the 60s and 70s, Brian was a guy. And I opened
a show for him at the brink a few years ago. And he really liked my music. And I said,
hey, if he got something nice to say, you know, I wouldn't mind a quote from Brian Bowers.
And it had to be a few weeks later, he left it on my, on my voicemail.
Here's Tom Castle, this guy's maker and Irishman cried. Here's a pure tumor to the
more do. Oh, take it right it down. That's perfect. Oh, you know, hey, you know, we were
talking to Madison Foodie earlier. And we were talking restaurants. And I know you've
been around and you've been sailing the great lakes and all over the place. What is your
favorite restaurant? Madison is restaurant. I remember when I first moved here, I was looking
for apartments and stuff. It's like 17 years ago now. And in one of the little, you know,
real estate ads, it said, uh, Madison has more restaurants per capita than any other
city in the world or in the country. And I was like, Oh, this is great. So my friends
in Chicago would say, Hey, you moved to Wisconsin. I mean, the cheese, the cheese is what
are you going to do? And I said, uh, I can tell you my third favorite African restaurant
and my sixth favorite Mexican Argentinian mess. I mean, any kind of food you want plus
its supper club heaven, I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. Um, I always love going
to the tornado room because I feel like the rat pack will walk in and back at me. Any moment
and, uh, and, uh, and over by East High School, there's my favorite Mexican place is
a suburb of Puebla. Oh, yeah. And they just opened a new place on the north side. That's
right. But it's a little family thing and they have some of the best mole in the world
and the stews and all that stuff. I just little family place. I love it. Well, now
they're hungry. Before we jump into this world of sailing ships, whiskey and sea shanties,
tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your backstory? I mean, how do you become
involved in music? Uh, let's see, um, garage bands. Yeah, definitely. Seventh grade in
Chicago. And God, if I had those instruments today, oh my God, I could buy a car with them.
We were talking less balls and SGs and, and my Princeton, my Fender Princeton Reverb
amp that I miss more than any piece of gear and all that stuff. It was just incredible.
And we had no idea what we were doing. And it didn't matter. We would call out chord
progressions as we were going, you know, EG A minor C. And as we were doing, you know,
the hits of the early 70s and whatnot. And it was just still to today. That was some
of my favorite time because we had, we had, there's no expectation. There was no pressure.
You were, you just cranked up an amp and we're louder than that.
It was just great. Frank Zappa, he said, right, have a couple beers to make the intonation
less severe. Well, there was garage bands. Can I think of that? I was beginning with my
beer drinking career too. Of course, addiction. How could it not be, right? Yeah.
Down in Chicago. That, that sounds really fun. No, what, uh, what role did your parents
play in your musical upbringing? My parents were the easiest going of anybody in the band.
So consequently, 90% of the time we always rehearsed in our basement, my parents' house.
So the cool thing was, uh, there was always a set of drums in my basement. So I learned,
I taught myself how to play drums and I love playing drums, but I never owned a set
of drums. And then I did an album after my midlife crisis that I wanted to, uh, have drums
on. So I actually went and bought some drums like a decade ago. And, um, it's, it's just
wonderful. In fact, I ended up being a drummer at the Bartel Theater for a couple of productions.
They were looking for a pit drummer and I said, well, do you have to be good?
They said, no, can you do it? And I actually, I read some charts, which I never did before.
And I just, I had a blast. I had brushes and I just had a blast with that.
That is so fun. Um, so let's get to what is our C-shanty? Uh, well, I've been waiting for C-shanties
to become popular for 30 years. And then I finally get viral on, on the internet and we have a
global pandemic the next day, which was like, so nobody was playing anywhere. But, uh, long answer
short, um, a C-shanty is basically a work song of the C. That's, that's all it is. It's a tool for
making sure you all can, uh, you know, pull on a line at the same time. So instead I go in one,
two, three, pull. You would just go, we'll all the way, we'll all the way. Joe and everybody
pulls on the word Joe. It's, it's that simple. And the weird thing is I've done these festivals
like in Europe and the Netherlands. I've, the largest C-going festival, music festival is actually
in Poland. And, uh, I played there in the 90s a couple times and it, it was C-shanties and like
17 different languages. It was absolutely amazing. And, um, but it was, everybody could sing
pretty much all the courses were in England, English, because the English and the Americans had
the biggest merchant fleets. So everybody kind of knew those songs. And all of a sudden you're sitting
there after a few hours is like, I think I'm beginning to understand Polish. Or Dutch were,
you know, Danish, and it was like, no, we're just, oh, they're singing, oh, they're singing the
verses in whatever their language was. And then the chorus in English. Oh, wow. That's,
okay. Now I get it. You're like, hey, this sounds like it is English. Now,
is, is the Popeye theme song? Is that a C-shanty? It's more of a dance tune, I think.
It's more of a jig, I think. Okay. Uh, I was just curious. Well, so how, well, you kind of said
how they just came about, um, are there pirate chanties? Oh, there, yeah. There's a whole genre of
music that is like pirate stuff now. In fact, I'm doing, I'm doing a play right now. I've always wanted
to do, um, I've been sailing. We will be talking about that playing a bit. Okay. Let's not spoil it.
Okay. And, um, so people, you know, there are all these different pirate festivals and stuff. And
actually, I'm doing that preview performance of that play a Tesla con in November here in,
in Madison, the big steam, steampunk convention. And mostly because they have a pirate theme
this year. Oh, I see. Well, that makes sense. So I definitely want to go do that. The whole pirate
thing is, it's always been a romantic kind of thing. I remember, you know, growing up,
watching Treasure Island on channel WGN, you know, and all the old reruns,
and, or Captain Blood or, or the Seahawk, you can't not love the Seahawk.
The Robinson family. Yeah. That's, and it's just, um, it's one of those things where you've just got,
um, you know, a little bit of romance and running away to see.
Well, let's get to some seascienties in the layer with Tom Castle presented by the Aaron
Webber group. The first song you have for us tonight, it's called The Kuku. Yep.
Tell us about this song before you play. Well, it's actually not a sea shanty, but there is
part of a sea ballad in this. And, uh, did you ever write a, spend a lot of time writing a song,
and then you realized you just wrote somebody else's song. Yeah. And so I basically, I had this lick.
It was, uh, it was, uh, oh.
And I was fooling around with it, fooling around with it, and I put some words to it.
And then I was doing, um, a fundraising concert. And, uh, um, some friends, uh,
Dahie Wolfe and Prentice Berg were, we're playing. And they got up on stage and the first thing
it did was, oh, she's a pretty bird. And I realized I had spent about three and a half months
writing a song from like 1880 something. And it was just, oh, what do I do with it? So I thought,
you know, let's be, let's be respectful of the other songs. But then I thought, what would
would he got three do? What would lead belly do? They just steal it. Not just it. So,
so that's what I did. All right. Let's hear it. This is Kuku, Tom Castle, Maxing Radio, you are in the
middle of a layer. Oh, the Kuku, she's a pretty bird at your sings, as she flies, but she never sings
Kuku till the fourth day of July to the fourth of July.
And then I can go sing so hard in the tree. And sometimes singing just for me,
and if I was a black bird, you know, I'd whistle, I'd sing and I'd follow the vessel.
My true love says in my true love says in
And the humminer outside my window has a purist of Tom, but she never will sing.
But she thinks that she's alone. She thinks that she's alone.
Oh, the Kuku, she's a pretty bird at your sings, as she flies, but she never sings Kuku till the
fourth day of July to the fourth July.
Tom, Castle, right here live in the layer, brought you by the Aaron Weber group, the most
powered by first Weber, the most trusted name in real estate. By our cell, your next home at move2manison.com.
Tom, that was awesome.
Hey, nice.
Sea Shanties aren't I'm learning a lot about sea shanties today. They aren't just like hobby,
or like baseball cards or singing Elvis, you live the life as a captain of sailing ships.
Tell us about that part of your life. What is it like to be the captain of a sailing ship?
I mean, not a boat, right? Like a ship.
Yeah, well, they're, you know, okay, everything in my life, I'm just a victim of serendipity.
It's, and I actually have a planning degree, which is weird, but yeah, everything in my life
has just basically been, oh, that looks good. And in the mid-1980s, there was this old
Chesapeake Bay Oyster boat, a schooner, 85-foot schooner called Charla Dan. And she came into Chicago,
and she started doing charters and stuff like that. She wasn't doing oysters in the Great Lakes,
but, and at the time, my, my old partner and I were doing nautical songs because we were coming
out of the Irish pub circuit. Oh, okay. And it was the kind of the end of the golden age of Irish
pubs in Chicago. There were, there were 12. Yeah, there were 12 Irish pubs that had live music,
two to five nights a week. And you could get, you could make $300 on the weekend when your rent
was 250. It was, it was the golden age. It was absolutely incredible. Wow. As that was
collapsing, we started sailing. And because we had a planning background, we just planned our
careers. We were going to be singers and sailors. And we would do the sailing in the summer season.
And we would do, go on the road and do the singing, the other parts. And we did that for many,
many years. And then after a while, did some, you know, more straight singer songwriter type stuff.
And, and still running with the nautical stuff until, you know, fairly recently. And I'm still
doing that. But Madison sucked me into politics and sucked me also into doing all kinds of other
music. For sure. I mean, and it was, I'd tell you truth, it was mostly the protests and the people
I met because I had just moved here. And now all of a sudden, I'm down at the Capitol with
marching bands with, uh, clever fiddlers with, uh, you know, uh, opera singers with, uh,
rock and rollers and all these different people, lots of fokies, of course. And, uh, and we all
started playing together. I was a tender banjo player in a marching band. Well now, how did you get
to be the captain of a sailing ship? Oh, sorry. We're going back. We're going back. So anyway,
we're spending yards here. Yeah, we are. But, uh, so I started out as a volunteer on this,
on this boat, Charlotte Ann. And, um, and it was awesome. It was really, really cool learning how to
sail an old, you know, traditionally rig vessel. And then I started to be a paid decand. And then
I was the unlicensed mate of the boat. I was with the boat for about six seasons. And, uh, and after
a while, it was kind of like, oh, I got enough sea time. I think I'll take the captain's test. Wow.
And I started captaining boats in 1996. And, um, I've done that in Chicago, three different
boats in Chicago, South Haven, Michigan, Traverse City. And then just most recently, um, I was one of
the relief captains on the schooner Dennis Sullivan out of Milwaukee. So if you went down to discover
your world or just went down to the lakefront at all in the last decade, but actually in the last
20 years, uh, you see a big sailing ship out there. And that was Wisconsin's flagship 137 foot
three-masted schooner. How many sailors are on a ship like that? Uh, we would have about a half
dozen. And then if we were going on a trip, Dennis Sullivan would actually go out to St. Lawrence,
all through the great lakes and then out to St. Lawrence and go from like Nova Scotia all the way
down to Florida. Wow. They'd run the whole East Coast. So if you're going overnight, you basically
have to have two licenses, two captains and, um, and two full crews. So you might have 12 or 14
people plus passengers, whoever you're carrying. Wow. What's the, like the biggest task? What's the
biggest thing that a captain actually does make people walk the plank? Yeah. That's only, um, when
the boat's not operating officially, but, uh, there are swim calls for sure. Um, I don't know,
the most of it is putting together a team. Um, when I first first started doing theater here about
nine years ago, I realized theater is basically tall ships. It's, uh, you get together with a whole
bunch of people and you're working like crazy, you know, sometimes 24 hours a day. Um, and you're
doing this intense thing for a few months. And then you break up and then you go to the next
ship where you might go to the next theater or the next play. And then you have the same experience.
But there's some people there who are like, Oh, I sailed with you on that boat. Or I did that show
with you three years ago. It's like a tour. It's absolutely like a tour. And, you know, in, in the
theater, you'd say, you know, you don't take five and you'd say, thank you five on board a ship,
you would say, you know, whatever the order was, you'd repeat it and you'd say, I,
so it's the same. There was very, very little difference. And you, you have that intense work,
and then you would have that intense not working, that intense partying very often. And, uh, so I
love that. And it's a continuing to do that. Unfortunately, in, in Milwaukee, uh, discovery world,
sold the ship. And, uh, which is a long story, which we would, we would have to have a couple
drinks to talk about. Um, I, we're hoping to get her back in a couple of years, but right now,
uh, she's, uh, sailing out in Boston and, uh, around the Atlantic and Caribbean.
Well, let's change direction. A few years back, you recorded a song. Um, and we have a clip here.
Have my guys get ready. Ah, you recorded a song. It's called the onion.
What is the backstory? Well, first, let's play a clip and then we'll hear the backstory.
This is the onion. Angels and night and gales. Um, well, the onion is basically a reworking of
sticking to the union. And we were down at the, you know, we were down at the capital. And I,
I think even to this day, a lot of the polarization in America politically is because nobody trusts
the other person's sources. Now, it's fake news. It's fake news on both sides and, and all of that.
So I figured the onion is the one we are fake news. I mean, it's just dead. And in fact, it says
the best news source right on the front page and they wouldn't lie about it. So what happened was,
I don't know if you remember, but, um, during the Wisconsin uprising, um, yeah, like a decade ago, um,
they were, uh, some of the right wing news guys were really, really anxious to get violent footage.
Um, and there wasn't any. It was the most peaceful thing you could possibly see. So what they did
was on the bill O'Reilly show, they spliced in some, uh, violent footage, uh, from something
that happened in California and they just, you know, put it on the air. Um, it didn't take long
for people to actually notice that there were palm trees in the back. Right. I remember. And, uh,
so actually my sweetheart, Mariah was one of the people that went around to every party store within
50 miles and they bought inflatable palm trees. So every time a Fox News track would set up, I think
a palm trees would appear out of nowhere. And that was kind of like the, uh, the inspiration for
that. So it's a traditional tune, a little red wing. It's an old, old tune. And, uh, and that is
my favorite band I've ever played with. That band is Kevin Clark, jazz player, Emily Mills.
Yeah, everybody loves Emily. Uh, let's see, uh, Dahie Wolf on fiddle, uh, Chelsea Shepherd,
who is now in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera in, in New York. And, uh, a whole bunch of
people like, uh, Prentice and Stephen Lee Rich and, uh, and a lot of folks in the background there.
And it was like my first Celtic, Klezmer punk jazz band. And I just, that's quite a fusion.
Every minute of it, it was just great. Well, let's get back to live music in the
layer with Tom Castle presented by the Aaron Weber group. The next song you have for us tonight,
it's called Cold Winds. Oh, yeah. Um, probably not many sun shiny day songs out there, huh?
Well, Cold Winds. That is one that definitely ties into the early days in Charlottetown.
And, um, I was just beginning to study about, uh, you know, what it was like back in the 1800s to,
sail on these ships. And basically, if you were sailing on the Great Lakes back in the 1800s,
it got to be November or December. And you would probably find yourself 60 feet up in the rig with a
bucket of tar, slushing down the standing rigging. And your mates would be going, you know,
putting the rest of the boat away and some guys would be going south and some guys would be
making, getting jobs in town. And if you were really lucky, you could just take the whole winter off,
which some did. And, uh, so 100 years passes. And I'm on this boat 60 feet up in the rig with
a bucket of tar, thinking things did not change that much. And this is one of those songs that just,
the concertina wrote it all by itself.
Is that, how's that level?
Goes like this.
In me, ice forms on deck and whiskers, light a fire and stay below, shut up tight, the winds are
whispered, pass the bottle, it's time to go. Cold winds go across the river, cold winds,
honey and lunchy, same winds and cold are fathers, cold winds, a call in me rise up,
rise up and dug the hatches, mine your hands, the correct answer, check the lines on your way in
and it's time to get a jubble shore. Cold winds go across the river, cold winds,
honey and lunchy, same winds and cold are fathers, cold winds, a call in me.
Sun and spray and full moon items, wood and water for a sunstone, early snow's being early
winters, tasty season, high as it goes. Cold winds go across the river, cold winds,
honey and lunchy, same winds and cold are fathers, cold winds, a call in me.
Tom Castle live in the layer right here on Maxing Radio, more from Tom right after this on the
Civic Media Radio Network. This is Maxing Radio, we are local music.
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Live in the layer brought to you by the Aaron Weber group powered by first Weber, the most
trusted name in real estate. Sell or buy your next home at move to Madison.com. Rocker. I got to tell you
yeah, I amazing. I'm just blown away already by live in the layer this week. It's pretty cool.
Yeah, we're learning a lot. It's a very learning and it's educational. It's educational.
You know, we're here with Tom Castle. And outside of C-Shanties and music, you performed the
theatrical was a house until tonight, just so everyone. Well, you performed theatrical roles
from Shakespeare to political pundits. Tell us about Tom Castle, the actor, and performing
with the late great Ed Asner in God help us. It was always something I wanted to do when I
moved to Madison. I wanted to, as I said, hit the reset button and it takes some voice lessons,
learn some theory. Do all a bunch of stuff I never did before. And so I had this voice coach,
coach Routes Birson, and he got me into narrating operas. He said, the view done much acting?
I said, no, I'm a storyteller. He said, well, you can be a narrator. So I narrated eight operas,
which led me to do some acting workshops. And then one thing led to another to another. And because
I was politically active, I ended up doing a lot of stuff, you know, eight years of the solidarity,
sing along down at the Capitol. And all of a sudden, it's kind of like, oh, would you like to
do this thing that's political and theater at the same time? And the first one was Joe Hill.
There's a one-man show about Joe Hill I'm doing. We did it down at the Dark Horse Art Bar.
And there was a guy in the audience from the labor temple. And in that audience, there was a guy
from the University of Akron. And now I've done it in five different cities and just came back from
the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa doing that. So Ed Asner had this touring play called God Help us.
His daughter, Liza, was a producer. And Levine was the director and Mitchell Levine. And so they
were touring around the United States. And every town they would come to, they'd hire two actors.
So Norm Stockwell from Progressive Magazine called me up one day. And he said, this thing is coming
into town. Would you like to do it? And I said, yeah, when's the auditions? And he said, well,
you can just do it if you want. Because you're the activist singer, theater guy. And I've seen
you do like a half dozen plays. So I don't need an audition. And Jan Levine thought was,
so I played the liberal pendant. And Jan Levine thought who's a wonderful playwright and actress
and everything. And in Madison, who was, who was raised by, by pretty much almost, you know,
socialist academics in New York, she had to play the conservative. And it was one of the funniest
things I've ever seen is seeing her do those words come out of her mouth. And Ed came to town.
And we did it at the bar tell theater. And there's always part of me. It was like, you know,
if I ever worked with like a world class guy like that, I thought it would be New York or Chicago
or LA or something. But we're sitting in the back of the bar tell doing the table read. And I'm
reading my, my line and Lou Grant's voice comes across the table to me freaks me out. I'm just,
this is otherworldly. It's like, you know, having somebody like that show up in your living room.
It was just amazing. So we did a whole bunch of sold out shows. Got to no edit a little bit. And he,
he was 91 when he did that show. Wow. And he passed away the next year. Wow.
Well, let's get back to live music in the layer with Tom Castle presented by the Aaron Webber
group. The next song you have for us tonight, it's called Fergus Lane. Who's Fergus Lane? Well,
it's a fellow who's a Manhattan real estate developer. Oh, he's a fellow who's a Manhattan real
estate developer. This is Richard Thompson tune. And he wrote this song many, many years ago.
And this guy is still in the news for some reason. I don't know why.
Fergus Lane is a beast of a man. He stitches up and flees. He wants a man to cure the world
and sell it off in pieces. He likes to build his buildings high while oxygen out from the sky.
In the penthouse, the champagne's dry. Slightly gassy.
Fergus Lane, he works so hard. His busy eyes are bees. Fergus Lane has 17 friends. All his dulles, he's
17 friends, 17 wives. All the perfect shape and size. They wag their tails and bat their eyes.
Just like lassies. Fergus Lane, he builds and builds. Yet small is his erection.
Fergus Lane has a fine head of hair. When the winds in the right direction.
Oh, when the winds in the right direction.
Fergus Lane and his 17 friends. They live inside a bubble. They withdraw and shut the door.
And any sign of trouble. Should the peasants away in vent and ask them where the money went.
He'll simply say that it's all been spent. Be in classy.
Fergus Lane, he builds and builds. Yet small is his erection.
Fergus Lane has a fine head of hair. When the winds in the right direction.
Oh, when the winds in the right direction.
Fergus buildings reach the sky until you cannot see him.
Fix the old stuff he pulls down belongs in a museum. His own fair home is on the park.
A dairy jewel, a city arc. Hung with Picasso, hung with Baroque.
But nothing brassed. Fergus Lane, he builds and builds. Yet small is his erection.
Fergus Lane has a fine head of hair. When the winds in the right direction.
Oh, when the winds in the right direction.
Oh, when the winds in the right direction.
Oh, when the winds in the right direction.
Oh.
Tom Castle live in the lair brought you by the Aaron Weber Group.
Tom, you had mentioned Joe Hill.
Alive is you and me. It's a one-man play that you perform and you're taking on tour this year.
Tell us about this. I mean, a one-man play.
Well, how does that work? Well, I've seen a bunch of people do them.
And usually when you mention a one-man play, most people sort of squint a little bit and turn away.
It can be something. David Simmons, who has a theater company called Firmots,
last theater company, that I did some music for,
God, probably seven years ago, he had this idea of doing this play about Joe Hill.
And I had no idea. The only thing I knew about Joe Hill, he was a labor organizer and
John Bias sang, I dreamed, I saw Joe Hill last night at Woodstock.
Oh, yeah. So, you know, so that was it. And then I took the deep dive into, you know,
researching this and trying to come up with a character. I don't play Joe Hill.
I'm basically, I'm basically me. I'm a folk singer and I'm, you know, doing songs and stories
about Joe Hill. But it is a fascinating time when you talk about, you know, the early
labor movement and the wobbly, the IWW. And you're talking about, you know, massacres of workers
and stories of, you know, textile mills and Massachusetts where
half the children in Lawrence, Massachusetts died before the age of six.
And life expectancy was 39. Wow. I mean, those are the times that, you know,
where things get, you know, pretty crazy. It's like history in songs.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it freaked me out as some of the stories that are in there.
And it's just a really interesting play. It's humorous. It's got lots of great songs in it.
The wobblies were a really interesting group. We're talking about, you know, turn of the
20th century. And they were, they pretty much influenced the beat generation,
French surrealists. They were kind of the precursor to a lot of that stuff. Wow.
So picture a union that is really into poetry and art.
I mean, seriously, it is, it's kind of like, because I think we could definitely
gone down that road where it's kind of like, well, you can either be an academic or you can
be a, a working person. And it's like, no, you can be both. You can read a book, you know,
you can enjoy poetry. You can be a songwriter. You can do all of those things. And Joe Hill was a
cartoonist and a songwriter and a singer and a organizer and a fascinating story.
Well, now tell me about another person. Uh-huh. Who is Dan Ceevy?
Okay. So again, back to sailing ships. When you're on a sailing ship for any amount of time
in the Great Lakes, somebody, usually kids or drunks will say, you know, we're the wherever
pirates on the Great Lakes. And right now, if you, if you Google Pirates Great Lakes,
you'll come up with the name Dan Ceevy. Interesting character. I actually know there's a friend of mine
up in the UP whose father stole apples off of his ship when it was in Escanaba, Michigan,
Jovenette. And so we're talking this happened maybe in 1910, about 1915. So he is definitely a character.
And I always would love to do the idea of doing a one man play. But I'm, you know, for 20 years,
I say, well, I'm not an actor. I can't do a one man play. And now all of a sudden, I got off
from doing Joe Hill and is like, oh, I guess I am an actor. Damn. And I guess I can do a one man
play. So let's start doing this. I start working on it. And I got my friend Francisco Torres,
who is a phenomenal director. He's directing it. And he said, yeah, I'll put together a team.
I'm like, oh, we're, this is getting serious. So so basically it's his daughter, Kirsten,
is a stage manager and script supervisor. And Emily Morrison weeks is our graphics person.
And we're putting together a, what we're calling a preview performance at this new music space on
Winnebago called Muso Madison. That Princess Burg and Cindy Murphy just put together. And it is
a really awesome acoustic music space. And it's been Princess's dream to do this for decades. He
wanted to have a space that doesn't depend on selling coffee or or booze or anything else. It's
just a music space and it's phenomenal. Well, I think we're going to hear a little bit of that
in a moment. But let's get back to live music in the layer with Tom Castle presented by the
Aaron Weber group. Excuse me, the next song that you have for us tonight, it's called Luisa.
What's the story behind this song? Oh, no, let's not do that because okay. I didn't realize.
I guess I missed part of that outline. I have to do an open G tuning for that. Now we'll take
way too much time. Oh, maybe we can end with that. Okay, let's, well, we'll shuffle things up
because I don't even know my sorry about that. We're right here. Well, let's see.
The next song you have for us tonight is called Who's Ballad? Ballad about the Wisconsin
uprising. Tell us about this song before you play. Well, it's the very beginning of the Wisconsin
uprising and started out in February of that year.
Eventually, there would be 110,000 people out there. But at this point, there was like eight or
10,000 people. I think it was February, early March. And my sweetheart, Mariah and I were going down
to the square. And she said, she said, oh, it's going to capital. And I'm a Chicago guy. And I'm
like, they're not going to let you in the capital. Come on. They saved me what I got here. They don't
just let you in the capital. No, there's going to be barricades and there's going to be guys
in riot gear. And she looked at me like she frequently doesn't. Oh, honey, nobody can keep us
out of our house. It's just not going to happen. And I was amazed. We walked right in and I ended
up spending a good chunk of, I don't know, the next eight years with the solidarity sing along.
Basically, as a group of people, they got together, totally ad hoc group. And they sang
every day, every weekday at noon for eight years. Yes. And they're still down there once a week.
And it's just absolutely changed my life because I learned more about singing and more about life
than from these guys than anybody. So this was, you know, one of the chants, everybody would say,
you would say, back and forth, who's house? Our house. And then we go back and forth. So that
chant got into my head. And then this is where the song came from.
And storm and fire. She remains to the stage. There is no building higher. And we wanted that way.
We'll never let it tire. Keep us out or away. Whose house? Our house. They've walked in all
the windows just to keep out here in me. Whose house? Our house. They're locked indoors before us,
but forgot we had the key. And still in the rotunda, liberty shines bright. And justice maintains
balance between wisdom and mine. And fight in battle of foulard. So it keeps watching on each night.
Whose house? Our house. Never thought a single building would mean as much to me.
Whose house? Our house. It's a question and a chorus that is sung by you in me.
We gather you together, every woman, child and man, from farms and towns and cities,
and all across the land. Today there's a hundred thousand who are around your door's demand.
Whose house? Our house. They've walked in all the windows just to keep out here in me.
Whose house? Our house. They're locked indoors before us,
but forgot we had the key. Whose house? Our house.
Whose house? Our house.
Whose house? Whose house? Our house. Whose house? Our house.
Tom Castle Live in the Lair, brought to you by the Aaron Weber Group, powered by first
Weber, the most trusted name in real estate buyer, sell your next home at move to Madison.com.
All right, Tom. We got a couple more songs left and some things to go. So we'll go through quickly,
but I just want to make sure we talk about that we mentioned confessions of Great Lakes pirate.
This show is a live show coming to the Muso Madison on September 21st. That's right in the heart of
the East Side in Madison on Amwood, Winnebago, right in the Atwood neighborhood. You're also touring
the Menacua brewing companies in 10 different cities coming up. That sounds pretty crazy.
I'll tell you, it is, I was intrigued by the idea of progressive beer and I was following them,
I was following them on the web for a long time and then they decided they would open up a brew pub
here. And so basically anytime anything political happens, that's where I go.
And Tony Castaneda is doing a lot of the music there. He's booking it and his wife Jenny is running it
and Kirk is, you know, the owner is also a trained opera singer. Oh, really?
And oh, it's crazy. They have an awesome poetry night. They have music of every description.
They just opened up a beer garden outside too. And so I was playing there for what they call beer
church. And it's, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm doing a couple of those and it is just an amazing
thing. So I got off the stage and Kirk grabbed me and said, hey, I want you to do this.
This thing, actually, it's 12 cities. I can only do 10 of them because I was previously booked.
But we're going to go to kind of like civic radio. We're going to places that you didn't go to
before. Places that maybe didn't hear that kind of message. And so we're going to Hudson.
We're going to Green Bay. We're going to O'Clair. We're going to Steven's Point.
And it's ten cities all in all that I'm going on. It's not the calendars at Minakwa Brewing and
also at tomcastle.com. And it's going to be awesome. Basically, I'm doing, I'm going to open every
show. And then they have local politicians and activists and groups that are mostly focusing on
registering people to vote. So it's going to be a big get out the vote thing is the main thrust of
it. And then there, and then there's a musical act from every town we're going to be in and
so they'll be finishing up the show. We'll probably do some songs together.
Well, let's get back to live music in the layer with tomcastle presented by the Aaron Weber group.
The next song you have tonight is called Moonlight Tonight. And this is a song from the new
play Dan C.V. Confessions of a Great Lake Pirate. We're finally going to hear a pirate song.
Yeah. No.
Oh.
Well, it's a great gig to do a little bit of that.
This is an unusual song. I was doing a sea music festival up in Halifax, Nova Scotia about
eight years ago. And there was this guy, the singer Clary Croft, who's his name. And he sang this
song. I just really loved it. And he introduced it as a song that old commercial fisherman used to
sing on their way out of the harbor, at least as late as like World War II. And I just loved
the song. And he sent me his recording of it. And then he also sent me the field recording of
the old fisherman out there like 70 years ago. Oh, wow. And it's really awesome because it's
got kind of a weird arrangement. You'll see the second verse kind of takes off into a different
place. And so when I was thinking about the songs for Dan C.V. I was thinking that he might
note, he might have heard this song because it's an old song. He was turn of the 20th century. And
I was like, that might work. And it's kind of like the backbone of the whole play.
Oh, and also with C. Shandys, I forgot to mention, also at Muzo Madison. I am going to be doing
an intensive workshop on November 23rd. C. Shandys, how they were used, where they came from,
all that kind of stuff. It's like a two hour workshop, three hour workshop, and then we'll do a
concert that night too. We just just put that together a few days ago. That's going to be a lot
of fun. But this one is a... It's almost like a lullaby, but it's a gorgeous tune. And if you're
looking at the moon when you're out tonight, it is really a gorgeous night for it.
Here we go.
I shine so bright, moonlight and I boy starlight tonight, moonlight shines on the water.
Now when you are a dreaming mother, when you are a dreaming mother,
when you are a dreaming mother, don't forget to dream of me.
Moonlight starlight, moonlight shines so bright, moonlight and I boy starlight tonight,
moonlight shines on the water. Moonlight tonight,
boy starlight tonight, take your sweetheart up for a stroll. Mine what you say,
boy, it's mine what you tell her, tell her how you're cold, when the night grows cold.
I shine so bright, moonlight and I boy starlight tonight,
moonlight shines on the water. So when you are a dreaming mother,
when you are a dreaming mother, when you are a dreaming mother,
don't forget to dream of me. Moonlight starlight, moonlight shines so bright,
moonlight and I boy starlight tonight, moonlight shines on the water. Moonlight starlight,
moonlight shines so bright, moonlight and I boy starlight tonight,
moonlight shines on the water. Moonlight tonight,
boys, you've been listening to Live in the Lair on Max and Gradio with Tom Castle,
brought to you by the Aaron Weber Group, the most powered by first Weber, the most trusted name in real estate.
Stay tuned to Max and Gradio on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tom, thank you so much for coming in tonight to perform for us on Max and Gradio. We really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me, it was awesome.
