It's nice Eyes with Dan Ray. I'm Doug you Eazy Boston's news Radio.
My whole life has been a quest to understand the origins of rhythm, the force that connects us all through time and space. Rhythm is one of the ordering principles of the universe and one of its greatest mysteries. He who knows the rhythm.
Knows the world.
Man.
I get chills. I get chills when I hear that from the moment I heard it when I watched Toury Champagne's terrific film with Mickey Hart called Rhythm Masters a Mickey Heart Experience, a documentary showcasing Mickey's philosophy how music in sports you unite us all and it is a trip. And I'd like to introduce tour Champagne. He is an Emmy Award winner. He is one of the big ways
at ESPN. He makes stuff happen. But without question, the most notable element on his resume is he was a Gary Tangling intern.
This is true, this is true.
That will be on the gravestone, that will be on the gravestone, that'll be it our Gary.
I mean Gary, I I you know. My start in television was just getting you water and keeping you hydrated. That was that was the goal in the mission. And I hope I did a good job. I hope you, James.
And now I'm at the stage of my life for on peeing every twenty minutes. And when you say getting me when you said getting me hydrated, I thought you were going to say getting me high, because that was you know, the Rhythm Masters and The Grateful Death. Okay, what we want to do here is this is a terrific film that is on ESPN Plus. Is this on ESPN as well? I know what premiered on ESPN? Can we still watch it?
There? Premiered on ESPN, But that was on ESPN Plus, So it's streaming for anybody that has the ESPN Plus. Yeah.
And Mickey Hart is one of the drummers of The Grateful Dead and he had this idea about rhythm and sports, and Tory worked with him on a couple of years. I mean, this project took a while to come together. You worked your ass off on this, and it is a film that involves Joe Montana, Bob Couzy, Mike Piazza, and just Jack Nicholas. I mean it just it's a tremendous film, and it just also kind of I think musicians like Mickey Hart, athletes like Bob Coosey and Jack Nicholas,
they're on a different level than us. So I want you I want to start at the beginning, when they first came to an ESPN about this idea where the drummer of the Grateful Dead wanted to make a documentary with ESPN. What did you think, you.
Know, when I first heard about it, it actually it was it was right Tom, who a lot of people know is a tremendous writer and a New York Times best selling author. He has a new book coming out called The Bar and I highly recommend people go check it out. You know, right Right has a long history of being a Grateful Dead fan. And he was speaking with Burke Magnus, who's the president of content, and Burke worked very closely with Bill Walton and was also a
Grateful Dead fan. And Bill Walton invited Burke to dinner with Mickey Hart. So they have this dinner and over the course of dinner three years ago. Now, over the course of this dinner, they started talking about how rhythm and sports are connected. And you know, Walton has a thousand, you know, metaphors for sports and music and how it's all connected. And over the course of the dinner, Mickey and Bill kind of said we should make a film
about this. So that kind of made its way back to me about two years ago, and they had kind of talked about it, and then they were like, can you make this a real thing that we can do this? And so I met with Mickey, I talked to Bill Walton at the time, and I basically started to develop an idea of what it could be, and it kind of presented it to Mickey into you know, the higher ups at ESPN because you know, my my regular job is more of a producer and you know, kind of
helping shepherd other series. So I hadn't directed in a while, and we were just like, let's see if we can make this work. So flew out to Mickey's house and I spent a week with him, and we were already writing music. He was writing music. We were kind of getting ideas together, looking at footage and kind of really
diving deep together. For you know, twelve hours a day, we'd be locked in his studio and really kind of watching everything from Babe Ruth to you know, the seventies Olympics to kind of get some ideas of like what are the things that are rhythmic in sports, and then he started to call up me music and by the time I left there at the first week, I was like, I think, I think we can make a film here.
Well, I just love the opening of the film because there's a Boston Celtic jacket hanging on his chair in the studio, which, yeah, you know when when you think of Boston sports and you think of the typical Boston sports fan, you know, I'll give Sam Adams a plug in Boston, you know that, dude. Yep, And then you segue to the drummer of the Grateful Dead. It's an it's an odd relationship, you know.
Well, well it's it's it's it seems odd if you're
if you're not in that world. And I think what we tried to do very intentionally with the film was not alienate the non Grateful Dead fan, but at the same time place easter eggs throughout the film that really speak to kind of the lore and cool things that Grateful Dead fans would be like, oh my god, wow, so so Garry the jacket that Celtics jacket was the jacket that I don't know if everybody remembers the famous Touch of Gray music video from like nineteen eighty five,
nineteen eighty six when the Dead kind of researched and they had this famous music video where they were all skeletons, you know, playing instruments. That jacket is the actual jacket that Mick Elton was.
Wearing in that music video.
And he was a Celtics fan because as you know, for those that see the film or people know, you know, Bob Coosey was his hero growing up, so he always loved the Celtics, and then when he became friends with Bill Walton, he obviously you know, had that connection with the Celtics there. So this is this kind of secret connection to the Boston Celtics that has existed for Mickey
his whole life. And for me, you know, that was one of the things that we clicked on right away because I had worked on the eighty six Celtics doc back when I worked in Boston at NBC Sports and you know, and I had a long tenure of working
with the Celtics so on different projects. So it was it was it was cool for me that him and I kind of connected right away, and that was one of the big things about him talking about Bob Coozy was you know, this was this guy that he watched in black and white that was like he saw even back then, he saw him as.
Kind of an artist.
So one of the people we definitely went to and I drove out to Bob's house and asked him to be in the film, and he was great and he ended up, you know, talking to Mickey and being part.
Of the film.
So if he got to meet his hero in the process, which is very cool.
If you pop a couple of gummies and you watch this film, that is really Bob Coosey in a Grateful Dead movie. We just wanted to be ready to know that it really is. It's just it's it's a terrific film and you need to watch it. If you're listening to us right now, you're probably thinking what and we're going to break it down for you, But once you watch it, you get it. And Tory did a great job with it. So we have a lot to break down.
We want to talk about some of the guests. We're going to ask about, Oh, what it's like to live with a member of the Grateful Dead out there in the in the woods, which he did for a long while, and that's coming up next to WBZ.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
This is what I was born to do.
My whole life has been a quest to understand the origins of rhythm. The creation of the universe gave birth to these elements that only rhythm masters know how to harness, playing sports homes.
That rhyver, and that is the man, that is the rhythm master. Mickey Hart and joining us is the director of the film Rhythm Masters and Mickey Hart Experience, a documentary you can watch on ESPN Plus, directed by my guest story Champagne. Boston. Guys doing great things at ESPN. So, how many days did you actually stay out there in on Mickey's plantation or ranch, if you will just tell us about that experience.
Yeah, I mean, so, you know, very early on, from a couple of conversations, you know, he was, you know, very much like a musician, like, hey, we need to jam, we need to jam on This was like his whole thing.
So you know, over the course.
Of I think, you know, in the course of a year of actual like filming, and then I think the thing to just always note is that it's not just a film that features Mickey's philosophies and the connection between rhythm and sports and the athletes talking. The score of the film is all original music that Mickey composed and
wrote for the film. So there was a lot of work being done and there was a lot of you know, I was kind of honored that he kind of trusted me through that process to kind of you know, he's Mickey Hart from The Grateful Dead, He's had a sixty year career, He's in the.
Hall of Fame.
He's in the Rock and Hall Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times, I think, So, you know, it was a process. So you know, I think I spent anywhere from twenty to twenty five days living with him over the course of like a year, and we would kind of go for you know, three four days or five days at a time where and spend a lot of time on the score and interviewing the athletes. So it was this long process of spending a lot of time together. Like we would get started at around nine am.
We'd come in the studio, we'd have coffee, we'd kind of talk about what we're going to do for the day. And the thing that was tricky was he was preparing at the time. People didn't know that The Grateful Dead was going to go play at the Spear, So while he was doing the film with us, he was also preparing to go play the Spear, So that required a lot of his attention. So there'd be times where he'd break away to go work on you know, take some
calls about that, and come back. But it was this really intense process of you know, literally sitting in the control room of his studio and figuring out which pieces of music would flow together, kind of getting a rough idea, uh, putting it to picture, then figuring out which athlete we
wanted to talk to. Uh. So, for instance, like with Joe Montana, that that piece of music came together very quickly and we really felt felt like that speaks to the idea of what we think Joe will talk about, which was timing and how a quarterback can get in rhythm and the steps that it takes, you know, with the three five seven step drop and that rhythm that you have to be in with another receiver, and how that's very similar to two drummers trying to sync up
in rhythm like The Grateful Dead. So we were layering things in the studio. He was really putting his touch to it, and uh, yeah, it was. We spent a lot of time together. We eat meals together at night, we have dinner together every night, and I heard a lot of great stories and we got a lot of work done.
Together, and probably stories that you cannot repeat on the air. But you mentioned Joe Montana and also I don't know if Francis sport copo stuff, but because I think he's like down the road and as you mentioned, and you reminded me that he also this is a guy that scored Apocalypse.
Now, yeah, I mean, there's nothing more humbling as a director. And you know, I had a music career before I got into into you know.
Directing and producing.
There's nothing more humbling than Mickey Hart from The Grateful Dead turning around and looking at you and going Francis wouldn't do it that way, you know.
So you know I was I was constantly competing with with this experience. Yes, yeah, yeah, like the greatest director of all time has you know, the only there's only been like three people that have ever really produced music with Mickey, and that's.
Jerry Garcia, Francis Boyd Coppola. He scored The Twilight Zone for a while when that came around in the eighty and then Mickey Hart scores himself. So for me to be in the room with him and try to kind of impart what I felt directionally we needed to do to service the film, I was silly, reminded and humbled that, you know, Francis wouldn't do it that way, which was which was a way of him, you know, kind of jabbing me and kind of paying me a compliment.
So it was fun.
When you first mentioned this project to me, I was a little lost, and I'm not the musician you are by any stretch of the imagination, and I was thinking, how is he going to do this? How is this going to work? Because it's a little abstract and it's a little out there. But if you watch the film that you get it. It's even it's gotten. It's received
terrific reviews. I think there was even one review. One reviewer said, the reason it's so great is because you do get a little lost, and that's the point of it all. Where athletes get to such a certain level, it's just an instinct. It's about the rhythm that takes over and they just play free, which is the case with musicians. And you mentioned Joe Montana. I want to play Joe Montana talking about the rhythm of the quarterback. Let's run that rock.
The footwork was designed around the timing of the depth of the routes. When you first start doing it, did you count your steps? Three step, drop, five step, seventh step two and a half three seconds and the balls got it be gone?
So you're watching Mickey and a lot of this was done over zooming, is the basis of all of it. Oh sorry, I didn't mean a step on the other Mickey. A lot of this was done over zoom because it was convenient that way for Mickey and Mickey's what eighty years old.
Yeah. It actually we actually toyed with the idea of getting the musician, getting the athletes on camera, and what we ended up deciding and realizing was visually, we don't want to distract. You know, a typical documentary, you know, it's it's the archival, it's maybe some current footage, and then you're seeing a sit down interview. What we wanted it to do is to be more that's what we
called it a Mickey Heart experience. We wanted the film to be more of an experiential thing where you do get lost in it and you're just seeing the visuals, you're hearing from the athlete directly about this topic, which in Joe's case was about timing and how it correlates to rhythmic you know, percussion and creating music and being in the zone and in a flow state and then trained and all these things and all these philosophies that making has. But we wanted people to just get lost,
almost like a music video. So we decided to not break up the visuals so that what you're constantly being bombarded visually by what the athlete's saying. So that was that was like a conscious choice to go down that road and just do it through audio. I've seen other documentaries where they done it that way, and I just kind of Actually, Senna was a great documentary where they just used all archival and it was only the voices
of the people. So there's been there was a little bit of a nod to that with this to try to really just make sure the audience was just dialed into what was being said and what was being presented visually with the athlete, and you just kind of getting lost in the music.
Okay, Tory chat Painters, I guess the director of of the Mickey Hart experience We're the Masters, which is on the ESPN Plus. But you're a musician. You're also a sports fan, so you've played a number of instruments. You played high school football, so you know, one of the reasons I think you were the guy to do this. I don't think there was another person that could have done this film but you. And because of your experience
with athletes in sports and also your music background. I mean, you toured with Incubiss, you're a real musician, and you've also worked with Tom Brady, you know, on Brady's Thing, so you know you've seen both sides of it. So
and don't argue with me, I'm right on this. But what was it like to see you, Mickey Hart of The Grateful Dead, connecting with Joe Montana Because you wouldn't think these two guys would sit down and have lunch together, but yet when they have this conversation, you're witnessing it and they're on the same page. Same thing with Marshaan Lynch. That's another great thing about this. Marshawn Lynch is in this. He's fantastic, and Mickey Hart and Marshan Lynch are totally on the same page.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna steal a line from right Thompson. We went to go interview Marshawn and we asked Marshon to do it. I think he was one of the first, like three or four people we interviewed, and we were really excited that he said yes, and we I think Wright's line was, this is either gonna be a disaster or it's gonna be the greatest social experiment of all time. And really what your point is or where you're going
here is athletes and musicians are the same. They it's tons of preparation, it's hours upon hours of practice alone, and then you have to turn it on and go perform kind of out of body. You're not thinking anymore, you're just reacting. A musician's doing that, a drummer is using every limb at the same time. It's a very
physical thing. So the whole element of performance and preparation and practice and taking care of your body, keeping your mind right, not getting distracted while you're on stage or on the field. Those things are all very similar, and that was kind of the point of the film was these people are performing at such a high level, and the greats are so great that it's really hard to understand because, like you said, you could play high school football, but you have no idea what it's like to play
in an NFL game. You'll never understand that. It's just so different, it's just so extreme. The same thing as a musician. Yes, I've toured, I've been on big stages, I've been around a lot of really famous musicians, but I've never been nicky heart in the sphere, and you have to be a certain caliber of person, and you have to just have that talent and that innate ability, and it's really built upon years and years and years of preparation. So that was kind of the underpinning when
Marshan and Mickey started talking together. It quickly got to that point, but then it took this next stage, which is kind of the spiritual level of how people prepare.
Their minds and their soul.
To go either get hit or go out on to a field and perform in front of eighteen thousand people. It's just there is a lot of parallels there.
Just I don't want to give away too much of the documentary, but tell the quick story about Marshaw and how he prepares before every game.
Yeah.
The thing about marsh On you know, and I think people have a lot of you know, probably preconceived notion Sean Marshaan is is an amazing person and he's really thoughtful, and it came across in his interview. The interview was supposed to be about thirty minutes and ended up going for an hour and a half. Wow, And he did.
He shares in the film.
It was one of the one of the first things where you like, grab onto when we interviewed Marshaw and Mickey called me right after, He's like, we got to put that in the film, and he was.
He was so right.
Because Marshaw describes his pregame rituals and how he harnesses his power and he's careful about his power.
Because his very first NFL game.
When he was with the Bills, he witnessed a teammate on the opening kickoff get you know, hit so hard in a weird way that he was paralyzed from the neck down, and from that moment on, he started to before games. He never walked on the field. He always walks around the field, and he's preparing himself mentally to receive power to be hit, but also to harness his
own so he doesn't hurt anybody. And he talks about that kind of mental preparation and kind of the you know, almost a spiritual experience before he came to kind of get his mind right. So it was again he kind of got glimpses of athletes. I think somebody said it. I don't know who said it along the way, but postgame interviews always kind of seemed generic because an athlete still in the moment and they're just not going to articulate how they really felt during the game because it
all just happened. But in the course of this film, the athletes that we interviewed are you know, they're all champions, they're all elites. They've had time to reflect on it, so when we interviewed them, they started to give really
different and interesting answers. And I think that that if you're a sports fan, if there's anything that's going to draw you to this film, you're definitely gonna hear from Joe Montana or Marshall Lynch for Bob Coosey or Bill Walton, Jack Nicholas in ways that you've never heard them speak before.
Rhythm Masters, a Mickey Hart Experience documentary that you could see directed by Tory Champagne on ESPN. Plus What Bob Coozy Has in Common with The Grateful Dead is next on WBZ.
Night Side.
Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
We just got to get the Tiring Record. It's a whole rhythm and timing. How it's not just being.
Must random work where mamw you.
Can stay and still and still go fast, stay removing the.
Focus.
My toughest competitive was right here.
The Grateful Day was an exchange sport.
The Grateful Dead certainly was an extreme sport. And the director of Rhythm Masters and Mickey Hart Experience combining the rhythm of sports and the rhythm of music, Toy Chapagne with us from ESPN. I still love the quote when he says you can go fast while standing still. You know,
I got to listen. I love you, but that's when I went, Okay, Mickey, if you say so, you know, okay, if you I mean there must have been some times when you're working with this dude and you had to think about what he was saying.
I mean, yeah, I mean I had to get immersed in his world, right, And you know, I think it's easy, uh. I think for the common person that's adjacent to the grateful dead, right, if you're a dead dead, you can get it. If you're adjacent to it, you're like, I understand that they have a following, But being a them and being around him, what I what I came to know is this guy's been around the world a bunch, right, and he's he's literally literally like just traveled the world
looking for sound. You know, he has stuff in the Smithsonian, he knows a million people that respect him. He's gotten to a point I think where he's seen so much, done so much, he actually is kind of just breaking it. He's always breaking things down into simple terms because it's almost got like a Buddha quality to the way he approaches life. He just kind of has this simple way of kind of expressing himself with a deeper meaning all
the time. So yeah, there's some times where I had to check myself at the door and be like, wait, what did you just say?
Because that sounds gibberish.
But we would we'd talk over coffee in the morning and just kind of like he'd get very insightful and he'd talk about something for a really long time, very passionately, and at the end he would be like, yeah, man, so it's like, you know, you go fast in your mind, and he'd be like, I totally get it, you know.
So I'm on board.
I'm on board.
You know. You just had to you really had to just kind of dive in deep with him.
Okay, So you went out to Coosie's house and you explained to Bob, who's what ninety.
What now ninety five of the time, I'm amazing six. Oh he's the best.
Yeah, he's his unbelievable. But you explain to him the premise and we're not going to say that the Coups is a Grateful Dead fan, but he said, absolutely he is. Now here's a guy that was an All star NBA player in nineteen fifty six and fifty seven and when NBA championships in the fifties and sixties, who is on board with the drummer of the Grateful Dead.
Yeah, I mean when I called Bob about it, you know. You know, I've worked with Bob a couple of times over the years, and he was really gracious. It's like, sure, I get what you're going for. He's like, I'm not a grateful dead fan, but I know enough about them, and he's.
Like, you know, I was Walton. You know, he was from Walton.
So when I got there, you know, we hung out for a little while and then we got the call going and it really became about art, like that's the way he perceived basketball, and that's the way he described it was. You know, he was very creative on the floor. You know that he was one of those guys that the behind the back pass and the no look passes, like he was that guy that broke that open in the NBA for people to see in a lot of ways, not the only one, but one of the kind of
forefathers of that style of play. And that's what him and Mickey talked about, was they compared that creative vibe and that's what kind of led to the film, you know, And honestly, that the Bob Cusey of it all, like I said, came full circle for Mickey because that was his boyhood hero watching sports on television, So there was a meaningful moment there for him, Like, you know, he's eighty years old, he's you know, everybody except for his childhood sports hero, and he finally got to do it
on this project. So it was it was really cool.
Yeah.
The thing that I take Tori, after covering and interviewing a million people when I was doing it, and also watching some of your work, you know, for example, Man in the Arena with Tom Brady, is you know, we can look at all the numbers, and we can look at all the stats, and we break it down, and sometimes it becomes very mathematical. Is that a word mathematical? I'll make one. Okay, sure, it becomes very rigid, you know, it becomes we look at we look at slots, so
we want to put people in silos. But for the athlete, it's not like that at all. It's so many times I've seen it in press conferences where even Belichick or Brady or whoever it is, they go, you know, you'll bring up a stat and they go, I have no idea, man, I have no idea what you're talking about. I got to go look at the film. It's not the way I view it it's not the way I break it down.
It's not the way I see it. And I was thinking about this as I was watching it and we were you know, Jack Nicholas, for example, you know you want to talk about a sport where rhythm is important, it's golf. I mean, you've got to have a flow going and it has to be smooth and it can't be interrupted mentally. The athletes who excel at such a high level see the game completely different from sports radio
jackasses like us, they do. They do. Look, we could sit here at my boy Fealgar and maz or whatever. They can break it all down. The greats see it completely different.
Yeah, I think that that's totally true. I mean, I, like you said it, Gary, like I've been super fortunate over the course of my career to come in contact or work directly with some of the best, you know, whether it was Tommy Hinsen and Bob Coosey or Russell or working with Tom Brady on on Man the Arena. And like I said, I think the point of the film at the end of all of it is the thing that's great about sports and the thing that's great about music is people get to enjoy it and they
get to process it. Whether you're a die hard fan or you're a casual fan, but it moves you in some way, shape or form, and it kind of connects people and connects us in communities and relationships and you know, friendships and everything else. And I think that that's kind of what is being said in this film through all of these things. And to your point is, you don't know what it's really like until you've been on the road a long time with a band, and that's a
tough life. And I've never done it for like extended periods of time, but I've done it enough to know that the glamour is not what it is. It's the passion to get on stage and perform. And it's the same thing with pro athletes. You know, you don't see them in the gym and you don't see them you know what they have to deal with away from the
field or the court or whatever. And you know, I just have over the years, I've just had a deeper appreciation for the people that are really good at it and are still kind or still passionate about what they're doing. And working with Mickey definitely, you know, he's.
Eighty years old and I had to keep up with him.
So there's a guy right there that's just like an elite you know player.
How many drums does he have in that studio? I mean when people see that, I mean he must have a million. He has drums and percussion from all over the world.
Yeah, he's been collecting since the you know, the Grateful Dead. He joined the Griffel Dead in sixty seven and they really started touring, you know, internationally in the seventies, and he did he made his mission all the time to kind of break away or go on extended trips to visit, you know, places that had really interesting cultures and rhythmic instruments, and and he's collected them from around the world.
I mean, there's there.
It is. There's probably a thousand pieces of drum equipment in that studio or more.
I mean it is really yeah, I mean it is really insane. It's yeah, Okay, who is some of the other athletes, because what I liked about it is while they had you know, Jack Nicholas or Bob Coozi and you know Marshawn Lynch, and I love Lynch, you know, I love Lynch in this and I even because of seeing Marshaon Lynch had talked, the way he spoke and
how he just opened up. I appreciate him even more for telling us media jackasses to go screw you know, I mean really, because Marshaon Lynch is so damn intelligent. You see it in this movie. I remember being at the Super Bowl and guys like me and you know, what do you think of your first out of numbers? And he's like, I can't deal with these idiots, you know, I can't deal with these morons. They don't even understand
the game. They don't understand what we're going through. They're talking about third down conversions and it has nothing to do with my world. And that's what I really appreciated about, like seeing these athletes. So you had some very unique people also in here too, and just tell us about some of those.
Yeah, I think we you know again, I think we kind of had like a mission statement on you know, don't go with the obvious, go with people that are also masters, right, Like it's right, Mickey's a rhythm master, Like who's a master? So for me, one of one of the most exciting ones was getting Jackie Joiner Cursey, you know she's just a legend, and you know, she's recently back in the you know, kind of a lexicon
with the Olympics this past summer. Interestingly enough, but at the time when we interviewed her, everyone was like, when's the last time you heard from Jackie? Join her cursey and she's you know, multiple sport athletes, and so she had a lot to say in that context. You know, that was always really interesting. The other interesting thing was, you know, there's kind of a section you've played that clip there about The Grateful Dead being an extreme sport.
You know, Mickey said that a long time ago, and then that sparked the idea of, well, let's have a
section where we go with extreme sports athletes. So Alex Hanald, who people know from his documentary The Free Climber, Free Solo, Mikayla Schiffrin, who's a downhill skier, two time Olympian, So we kind of looks for people that fit into what Mickey was talking about, so we could specifically dial into the idea of how those athletes find a rhythm in extreme situations, because that's incredibly difficult, almost more difficult in life threatening actually, which was kind of the point because
The Grateful Dead was an extreme sport. They lost six keyboard players the course of their career to you know, drugs and alcohol and endless touring, and you know a lot of the members are gone now. So there was this parallel there about, you know, taking on the challenge of your sport or your career as a musician.
Toy Share Painter is a our guest producer at ESPN and the director of the film, A Mickey Hart Experienced Rhythm Masters that you could check out on ESPN Plus. I suggest you do it. It'll make you think, it'll make you wonder. It is not your typical sports doc and that's why I think it's tremendous. Coming up, I'm going to talk to Tory and with Liza Edwards sports content and what it was like to say it's either The Grateful Dead or Dead in Company in the Sphere on WBZ. That's next.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Okay, I'm gonna let you guys talk. I'm gonna unleash the phones. Coming up at eleven o'clock. I had a lot of things to say. We have a popery of things to discuss coming up at eleven o'clock right here on WBZ. Uh Toy Champanels our guest. He is the director of Rhythm Masters and Mickey Hart Experience. You can check outut on ESPN Plus. It's terrific. It's a different type of sports documentary, it really is, and it's extremely entertaining.
So now I have to ask you what was it like to see Dead in Company, which is the surviving members of the Grateful Dead with John Mayer in the Sphere in Vegas?
Uh?
It was incredible?
Yeah, I mean, did you have a gummy Tory? Did you have a gummy.
I was, I was technically on the work. So now now where everything's cop you know. We had the premiere for the film out in Vegas the night before, one of the last remaining Sphere shows for the run.
So it was great.
We had a great film premiere out in Vegas. The Walton family came, all of them were there. Luke was there.
Yeah, we got to go check.
Out the Sphere the next night and again I I'm really not trying to dial in Boston connection here, but we were joined that night by Wick Rosback. He he's a fan of the dad, Uh and came out with us to the show, and we actually had the opportunity to go backstage and and Vick and Mickey got to got to and Uh ended up just talking about Bob Coosey because he using the film So with the drummer, Yeah he is, so we Yeah, I talked to Wick for a while about music.
He's playing guitar.
Now in a band. He has a band called French Lecture, you know.
But yeah, woa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The name of the band is French Lick.
Yeah. Yeah, it's great.
Well, when you a great name, when when you're about to sell your team for two point five billion dollars and that's his share, by the way, you know, you can take guitar lessons, you know, Wicked we said he was a better drummer than me. I'm not so sure. I mean, you know me, I'm a kitchen sink drummer.
But yes, yes, but no, but yeah, with Wick with with us for the show, it was amazing. It was incredible. If I think they're coming back. So if if you haven't gone to check it out and you make it to Vegas, it's a it's it's it's definitely one of the greatest shows I've ever seen for sure.
Uh what was it like working with Brady when you did Man in the Arena? And how do you think you'll do in the booth?
I mean, look, I mean I'll just I'm just gonna throw my new England Boston bias on the table. I mean, it's Tom Brady. You know, I grew up here. You know. The opportunity to you know, to able to work on that series is kind of like a dream project. And he was fantastic. I mean, he's everything that you hope
he would be. I think he's he's more down to earth and more comfortable and more real than than people gave him credit for at first, you know what I mean, because he was so Tom Brady the football player, and he kind of by the time we were doing the series, you know, he was you know, he literally was going through everything to go to Tampa while we were working on the series. It changed the course of the series actually, so we got to see a different side of him.
But working with him, he's like, you know, I've had the opportunity to work with Peyton Manning on some scripted things, and Peyton, you know, I'll share that Peyton can like literally look at a script or look at a piece of paper and in five minutes were like, Okay, I got it, and he has it in his head. Mentally he's hilarious. But but Tom has the same thing. But I in a couple of instances when I've worked with Tom,
he's so hell bent on just getting it right. Like whether it was a promo read for something or or or something about the film, he was engaged here. So as far as going into the booth goes like, I just can't see anything that Tom does where he doesn't put himself fully into it.
You know.
I just feel like he will be a guy that will get in the booth and find his way, and I think he's gonna be really interesting and I think he's gonna break down the game what.
You've never heard before.
And I you know, I don't want to compare Romo because I think Romo is a guy that's you know, entertaining in his own way. I think Tom's analytical brain in the booth once he gets comfortable or I think it'd be great. I think he's gonna be great.
I'm a big fan of Buck and Akman, you know which is on ESPN, and I think if he follows the Akman path, he'll be fantastic. What happened with Romo? Yeah, he was great the first year, but they got in his ear and all the TV guys started to say, you know, hey, you're funny. You know, go for the personality. And you and I both know in sports television you have to stick to the sports and if on the side you happen to be humorous, that that's great. But
Romo tried to be a comedian. I think Brady's going to be great, much like Akeman, you know, if he finds if he follows like Appin and Buck, which is a Monday night football on ABC and ESPN, I think he'll be fine. Hey, Toy, we got to go. Man. I really appreciate you coming on. I'm really proud of this piece of work you've done. Rhythm Masters, a Mickey Heart experience on ESPN, plus Jack Nicholas is in it. Uh,
you know, Joe Montana, Bob Coozy, Jackie, Jordan Kersey. I mean you just mentioned the list goes on and oh and Marshaun Lynch The Rhythm of Sports and uh, it's really something to see and it's well done. My friend.
So congrats, thanks so much, thanks for having me me.
It's good to catch.
Up, all right.
Tory Champagne. Yeah, and yes that's his real name. He gets that all the time, Toy Champagne of ESPN And again check that out. Rhythm Masters, a Mickey Heart Experience a documentary, and The Grateful Dead Grateful Dead Drummer and the Rhythm of Sports. All right, tis on's having two, five, four, ten thirty is the number. We're gonna open up the phone lines to you guys. Some of the things we're going to talk about. The globes, making predictions, patriot predictions.
I'll touch on that, the Harris tax break. Eh hey again, when it comes to the election, I don't think it's Everybody says it's about the economy, and because of the personalities involved, I don't think it's about the economy. I don't. And Tim Walls the vice president, his family's not exactly behind him. I mean, is this like a Kennedy thing? And is Alexa pro Harris? Yes, I'm talking about that Alexa. I'm talking about Ai. I'm talking about Amazon that Alexa.
Is she sticking with the VP? That's all coming up on WBC's night Side final hour Gary tangling for Denray