The Drop: Madonna, Deep Purple, Sienna Spirot

Hey guys, welcome back to The Drop. Another brand new episode for you, coming to you, as always, from Cactus Music World Headquarters here in beautiful Houston, Texas. I'm Ruben Dominguez. And I'm Quinn Bishop. And guys, this is our 50th television episode, so we're going to have some special themes in store for you. We're going to chat a little bit, tell some stories. It's going to be a lot of fun. And as always, thank you for being here with us every Friday night, 9 o'clock on My20. And if you're looking for that digital content, episodes are available Saturday afternoons at 6 p.m. on the Digital World Landscape, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, so we've got some segments coming up in, as always, we've got our usual things happening for you guys. Did you know, drop karaoke, drop facts, and of course, what's going on. So stay with us until the end of the show, because we get to win some prizes. You got that first artist? Oh, we do. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about Madonna. This is Confessions 2. And this is her 15th album. This is a return to EDM and dance music. You know, in 2005, she had an album, Confessions on a Dance Floor. This is kind of the sequel to this. And she was at work in pre-production for her biopic. I think some network was putting that together. And it just got really problematic. She decided, well, I'm going to make a record in the middle of this. And she just decided to kind of do this whole dance record. It's being hailed as one of her best records ever. And it really kind of covers all of the sub-genres of dance music. And it's her return to Warner Brothers. She hasn't been on Warner Brothers in the better part of 15 years. So she's back on that. A lot of guests here. You got Fayed. You have her daughter, Lola Leon, as well as Sabrina Carpenter, who performs the single with her. And, you know, in case you have forgotten, Madonna is the largest selling female recording artist of all time. Like, we're talking in the $400 million, $500 million range. Like, it's not even close. And I love it when these artists have these touchstone moments. This really kind of calls back to her days in the dance interior in New York City and her love of dance music. And fans are crazy about it. Love it, man. All right. So, perfect timing for some Did You Know? Here's how it works. Quinn's going to ask a question about Madonna. We need you to jump on the QR code or the email because the first right answer that we receive is going to be the winner. All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. Ask it. Did you know the duet with Sabrina Carpenter, Bring Your Love, includes parts of a 1988 dance hit by another artist? Who is the artist and what is the song? Once again, I have no idea. You got that one? You got that one? No, I don't have that one. All right. Here's the deal. You're wondering what you win. Well, the first correct answer gets the Cactus 50th Anniversary t-shirt. And whether you want it or not, we're giving you the Ruben Dominguez commemorative bobblehead. Oh, yeah. 50th show, 50th anniversary t-shirt. I like it. So many good things are happening. All right. We got another artist to talk about. Oh, let's talk about Deep Purple. Now, this is their 24th album. Their second with a new guitar player, Simon McBride. Tough shoes to fill there coming after Ritchie Blackmore and Steve Morris. But this is being hailed as their heaviest record in many, many years produced, again, by Bob Ezrin, who's famous for working on The Wall and with Alice Cooper. He's been working with them since 2013, and he really helped them hit their late career stride with these records. And, of course, you still have that core of drummer Ian Pace's brilliant rhythm section with Roger Glover. And, of course, Ian Gillen, who's still in fine voice for somebody who's, you know, knocking on 80s. The kooky thing about this, you have a guest guitar moment from Keith Urban, who, if you just said, hey, Quinn, who would you least expect to be on a Deep Purple record? I mean, the guy can shred, but in another episode we need to dig deeper and find out how that happens. And so if you haven't heard any of these late period Deep Purple records and you're a fan of the band, they are solid. There's a reason why they are still in the game and doing it. It's really respectable work. Nice. Yeah. Okay, let's talk. We love to introduce you to new artists on the drop here, and this is Sienna Spiro, who's been a huge digital artist for some time. You know, she has multiple gold songs on streaming, including Die on This Hill, and... You Stole the Show. You Stole the Show. Great songs. And, you know, it's kind of a Amy Winehouse meets Austin Powers kind of thing, because she's got this 60s kind of beat girl kind of vibe. The record reminds me a lot, if anybody recalls, there was an artist, a female British artist, named Duffy. This record reminds me a lot of the first Duffy record, which was phenomenal and was a great kind of British soul pop record. This thing is on track to be monstrous. It's already got, you know, over a billion streams, rolling up to two billion streams. She's really an artist to watch, and you have some colored vinyl there, my man. This is what we call red vinyl. Yes, it is. Because it says right on the label red vinyl. How do they come up with that zippy title? Who knows? How do they do that? Funny story, I saw Duffy's first show in Texas. Oh, wow, that's cool. Yeah, that debut album is phenomenal. Love it. Really good stuff. Okay, next up we have Temples. This is their brand new album, Bliss. This is the fifth album from a band who has taken a lot of left turns in their career so far. They're predominantly known as a kind of psychedelic guitar rock band. They traded in their guitars this time around for some heavy synths. And this is like a 90s electronic dance record. And I'm curious to see how it's going to land with fans. I feel like they've kind of done a whole bunch of stuff. In the past, it's been well received, stylistically jumping around. But I think the curious thing here is, you know, with them kind of embracing rave culture and electronic dance music, they're kind of following Tame Impala's lead, you know, because rave music's gotten so huge in Australia. And they kind of went down that path with their new record. And then Temples are doing it. It's kind of interesting where that's going. But this is, if you're a fan of the band, check it out. Cool record, very different for them. We have some unlimited edition indie exclusive wine. I feel solid colors. Solid colors are happening, yeah. I see the theme that's happening here. Cool. All right, you guys, we're gonna jump into some drop karaoke. Take a look at your screen right now. You are looking at the Johnny Ransom Band. And what's cool here is, give him a follow on Instagram. Cool thing here is he is knocking out some incredible Hendrix on an acoustic guitar. Guitar pyrotechnics. It's just, I mean, he's ripping it. But here's the deal with our drop karaoke segment. We want submissions from you. We want you guys to send us, send us 30 seconds, a minute. I don't care. You can be at a karaoke club. You can be in your kitchen. You could be driving in the car singing. Hopefully you're not the one recording it. Or dancing. Or a clip of your favorite artist playing at the pub on the weekends. We want to feature you, immortalize you in drop karaoke. All right. The 50th episode, like we said. Yeah. Wild stuff, right? Of the drop. I forgot the name of the show for a minute. The TV show. Our producer's looking at me like we're crazy. My producer's looking at me like we're crazy. You know? All right. So we started this thing probably, what, four years ago? Just coming out of the pandemic. Yeah. And we started it as a little streaming project that was literally you, me, and a laptop on the stage here. And we would stream it live. So it took- No edits. Technically challenged. All that stuff. Yeah. People walking up to us and asking, can you help me find this record? In the middle of the show. That can still happen. It can still happen. Yeah. And we will help you. All right. We've got a little video. We're going to take you way back, guys. Check this out. So I brought... But I mean, you got some... Don't give up on us, David Soul. Sometimes when we try... You know, if you want this... Call me. Can't promise you that it's at Cactus Music. Look, man, DM me because this sucker original his first pressing. So great. Maybe the greatest vinyl vault ever. The goat of vinyl vaults. I still find that clip every now and then when I'm going through my video on my phone and I have to play it, it makes me laugh. I think I've texted it to you like two or three times. No, it's a need a laugh moment. And we used to call it the vinyl vault and then now it's classics vault. But we pick a record, you know, from way back and we talk about it. But we just... Quinn didn't know. I didn't show it to him. I didn't know. I didn't tell him what I was bringing. Total surprise. And it was a total surprise. So a lot to reflect on for four years of doing this. Yeah. And to catch everybody up on like kind of the history of what we've done. We've been knowing each other many years since our 20s. We won't talk numbers on those years. And we had always run in kind of the same circles. Our bands like we're playing like Axiom Days. In the music scene. Yeah, playing the music scene here in Houston. And as we are still discovering, we were at a lot of the same shows, same and not just like it, same shows, same venues. I mean, in the same moment, at the same time, at the same place. But so I would occasionally get, you know, we've been friendly for many, many years. And you would pull us in when you need a somewhat expert opinion on music related stuff, which we've always had a great relationship with Fox Local and been happy to contribute and be involved when we can. And, you know, moving it forward, it just kind of became a very organic thing. So it was a natural progression. We wanted to get our station, our news channel here locally, wanted to get streaming content on the line. So the challenge, you know, regularly, weekly, daily, whenever possible. So the challenge from, you know, our company was like, hey, go out into the community, do something. You know, somebody had a food show. Somebody had a sports show. Somebody had a, you know, how to do your makeup streaming show. So I'm like, OK, well, I love music. So I know Quinn over at Cactus and he'd probably go for it if I said, hey, can we do a streaming show? So that's how it started. And it was live at the time. And the technology was a little wonky. It was a little wonky. So we'd have like crashes and the screen would freeze. We had some good stuff, yeah. And so that made for some entertaining moments. But while I do see some people on social media and some independent record stores post similar things, but they're in small bites. I don't think anybody's doing a 30 minute show like us with this kind of content. Right. And you know, the charm of it is these conversations would happen. Anyway. Anyway, whether we and have for many, many years. I mean, when we would occasionally shoot together, we would just have so much fun in the mornings or afternoons when we would do them. So this is just really a continuation of that. And it was well-received straight away, which we are so grateful for people that are paying attention out there and are now regular viewers. We're really, really happy to do this. And a personal thanks to Rodney. Our executive producer. For recognizing that we offer something. Yeah, the man that does all the real heavy lifting. I thought, so big shout out to him. He makes the show look incredible. I like the story when you were recently at an event. I think you were in California or somewhere. All the record independent record stores get together. And oh, yeah. Was it the Blue Note guy who came up to you and said, Hey, man, it was a watch your show. It was the I was I was surprised that people that industry people that are so jaded, they don't necessarily pay attention to stuff like this. Like, oh, yeah, I like that a bunch. That's good. You guys are doing a great job. And it's nice to have them in our in our corner. And it's been great to grow at this point. And and you know what? We don't take time off work. We are compelled to inform you what's going on with new music. Yeah, there has been very few reruns. Very few since this started. So if you can imagine 50 weeks, that's, you know, two weeks shy of a year. Three. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Three times. Yeah, that's not bad. No, not at all. We're committed to bringing you the weekly content. Yes, that's that's what this is. This is all about. And the cool thing is, we also provide or you guys provide, we just talk about it, a public service, because what you guys do, making free in-store shows available. Yeah. Listening parties available. You know, I mean, I mean, there's folks that just show up here every Saturday afternoon because they know something's happening. Yeah. Global listening parties. And we've got, you know, great, you know, in-store events coming up, which, you know, watch the calendar. Sometimes the way those fall with our taping doesn't really jive so well. So you really want to follow the socials and find out about in-stores. If you watch this right now, you missed maybe a big one. So, yeah, definitely watch what's going on. Complimentary San Arnold beverages for the global listening parties, parties, complimentary food from our pals at Star Pizza, who have been so great to us, support those businesses. They really. Right. They're very partnered with music. And they're about taking about the taking care of the music fans and making sure. So follow, follow the Instagram and and plan a trip to Cactus Music, especially if you've never been here, man, 50 years. And that's saying a lot for any independent. It is, you know, small owned business. 50 years means you're doing you're doing something. Yeah. Whether that's a bakery, the restaurant, the record store, wet bookstore, whatever it is, you know, it's difficult to make those legacy businesses continue. So we're we're proud to be able to do that. And you never know who you're going to run into at Cactus Music. Name some of your favorite folks that have walked through that door in the in the business. Anna Wintour. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was a that was a showstopper. Oh, OK. Miami Steve Van Zandt. Oh, I mean, we were in here one day and Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks walked in. Chris Chris from the Black Crows will be will be there in town coming up and he'll stop. We have all these music. The Black Keys. Chad Smith came in one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have all these musicians that are just they're just coming to shop with everybody else. So you just don't know who you're going to be rubbing elbows with in the aisles of Cactus Music. And in the process of taping this show, Bun B just showed up randomly. That was great. And hung out with us for for for a minute or two. So that was always cool. You know, there's a great Bruce Bruce Springsteen quote that's in the Tower Records documentary says, you know, everybody that you're hanging out in the record store with is kind of sort of your friend for about 20 minutes. Yeah, I think I think that's true. Yeah. And you will get into conversations with people just like, you know, they're looking at an album and they're, you know, you can always jump in. We were doing it right before the show started. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's people like 30 feet from us shopping right now. So we are we are open for business here. Yeah, come hang with us. But guys, we want you guys to be part of the show. You can always email us, you know, and just get us, you know, if you if you if there's content you want to see, we want you to be on on Drop Karaoke. We want you to answer the trivia questions. We want to give you stuff. So, you know, come get your prizes. All right, man, we've got more music to talk about. All right, let's talk about our very popular reissues part of the program. Yes, sir. And this is a big one for Houston, Texas. This is the 1986 debut album from Book of Love. And just really, you know, New York, New York City synth pop group. You know, they toured with Depeche Mode, helped launch them dramatically. And this is a synth pop classic. There's tons of great hits on there. I touch roses, you make me feel so good. And I think it's if you're if you're watching this in Houston, Texas, you're probably like, oh, yeah, Book of Love. But this record, this is the city that this record broke out of, like New York and Houston. So people really, really the band reunites to do stuff in Houston, Texas, because they were so popular here. And there's a bunch of cool unboxing stuff. And you can see the band who are still together, still friends. And you can see video of them like talking about this anniversary edition. Forty years. I mean, that just that just blows me away. Pressed on clear vinyl. If you were of age at the time when this record dropped, you could not walk into a club in Houston that this was not playing. We'll just say one word for you. Numbers. Energy, too. Oh, energy, too. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, this they played a couple of times a night, probably. I mean, good stuff is good stuff. I saw RuPaul live at Energy. Oh, man. That's another episode. Yeah, hard to and now RuPaul does all the DJ gigs. But he was a performer at the time, singing and dancing. Yep. OK, let's talk about Frank Turner. This is the 30th anniversary of his debut EP. If you don't know him, he's like, you know, modern punk folk guy. It's every bit of like the Clash, the Pogues, Billy Bragg. All the good stuff. It's like, you know, kind of folky, Woody Guthrie stuff, but with an English perspective. This is the EP that launched his career. You get two new tracks that were unavailable at the time. And this is the camp campfire punk rock 20th anniversary. And then there's period live recordings on side two. So you get the EP on one side and period live recordings. Really, people are crazy about Frank Turner. And maybe some of this cactus music in store. Limited edition vinyl. We've got clear yellow. A lot of solids today. A lot of solids. All right. You know, he did not see the cactus music in store. Who did? The Grateful Dead. This is this is an archival. Of course, they had a sound man who recorded all of their archival recordings. This one is we're featuring this because this is especially noteworthy. This is from 1966 and is one of the earliest professional recorded shows by them. From the Fillmore Auditorium. This was this dates back a year before their debut album was even released. So you really get a sense of what the formative sound was of that band. I think the thing that's interesting for me is, you know, most bands kind of evolve. Their songwriting evolves over time. But you look at the track listing. It's like, wow, they came into this with many of their best known songs. They already had had in their in their bag when they started making records. So fans are very excited to hear this. And it's a it's a historic recording. Nice. All right, guys, it is time to swing open the doors of the Classics Vault. It is my pick this year, this year, for the 50th show. I am going with Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman. Important record, a much beloved record. This was I can't remember the year, early 70s, obviously. We were in the car the other day as me and my good friend, colleague, photographer Rodney Pearson. And this song came on and it just kind of like triggered this conversation, you know. And I was like, man, I need to go back and listen to the wild world that had come on. And then he asked me a couple of questions about him. And I was like, yeah, you know, you went through all this, you know, it was a massive star. And, you know, then, you know, converted to Islam, left the music business. Didn't perform famously for like 30 years or something like that. Yeah, it was like he came back for a benefit or he did something. And now he's performing and making secular records again. But anyway, it's a great album. If you've never heard it, it's a it's a for me, it's a like kind of like a cool Sunday afternoon kind of listen. Yeah, you know. So anyway, if you don't know, check it out. It is super cool. All right, guys. Last segment that we have for you here is called What's Going On. And we just kind of catch up with each other on what's what's been going on over the past week. What do you got? What are you up to? What I got going on is Madonna. I think so. We had a global listening party for Madonna fans for this Confessions 2 album. OK. And we're absolutely blown away by the hundreds of people that came out for it. You know, sometimes it's hard to tell with groups that have a little bit of an older clientele or are very mainstream. Yes. You kind of don't know what to expect. And we were absolutely blown away. Again, as we were just talking, St. Arnold beverages were on hand as well as Star Pizza. But really just fan adulation and just people super excited about it. And we had lots of great gifts to purchase and posters and things to give away to fans. So watch for the next global listening party. All right. So what's going on? As you know, I've been assigned to cover the World Cup. We are still in the throes of the biggest sporting event in the world. So Morocco had a big match the other day. So to preview it, we were at Zoha Moroccan restaurant with the owner Youssef Nafa. And Youssef has been to every match. Wow. And is going to the upcoming match. And he had these custom robes made. He had these custom robes made. And he let me wear one of them. And they have like a hood and everything in it. You're going to, you're going to, you're going to laugh. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's. I wanted, I wanted to keep that thing. Yeah. By the way, if you're in Houston, Texas, Zoha Moroccan food is ridiculous. I'm going to love Moroccan food. It is delicious. And whether you're eating, whether you just come in to say hi, they're going to pour you some tea. The Moroccan tea. And they call it the Moroccan whiskey. No alcohol in it. And we have everyone, me, Rodney, you, we have an official invitation to visit Morocco. Oh, okay. I needed that. You will be our guide. Folks, thank you so much for being here for our 50th. And we've got more coming to you next week. We'll have a brand new episode. We're out of here. See you.