Jeff Bryan: 0:01

The point that I'm concerned about is not so much the tools in which we use, because that is going to change as time goes on. It's not the tools that we use, it's just that when we had less of them, we had to force ourselves to be honest more. That's what I'm concerned about. Where are we going to find those values when we aren't being forced to?

Porter: 0:27

All righty folks, welcome back to Transacting Value, where we're encouraging dialogue from different perspectives to unite over shared values. Our theme for season four is intrinsic values, so what your character is doing when you look yourself in the mirror. Now, if you're new to the podcast, welcome. If you're a continuing listener, well, welcome back. Today we're talking our October core values of creativity, simplicity and giving. This is such a cool opportunity, but with the keyboardist, and he sings background vocals and some lead vocals for a 1970s themed band called the K-Tel All Stars. His name is Jeffrey Bryan and there's a lot of stuff from music to arts, to humanities, to influences in the world and what he's doing in the band and, obviously, his career. So I really don't want to belabor the point. Guys, I hope you're as excited as I am about this, but without further ado, I'm Porter, I'm your host and this is Transacting Value. Jeff, what's up man? How you doing? Hey Porter, good, thank you, appreciate you having me? Yeah, of course, and for the record, I understand you've got a busy schedule, like free time isn't really built in there for you, I'm assuming right.

Jeff Bryan: 1:36

Certainly not in the summers. Yeah, summers get nuts Like. I'm constantly traveling pretty much every weekend forever until the end of the summer. Yeah, I bet it flows down a little bit during the holidays, and you guys are based out of where Vegas. I'm out of Vegas. The band's scattered between here and Orange County.

Porter: 1:58

Oh, okay, but all West Coast yeah.

Jeff Bryan: 1:59

Yeah, okay, all right. Pacific Ocean.

Porter: 2:01

Yeah, and I think I saw and for everybody listening, we're actually recording this now and where we had early August, even though this is going to play in October. So if dates seem a little wonky, that's why. But I think I saw on your guys' website that basically your entire rest of the summer schedule is California.

Jeff Bryan: 2:19

Yeah, most of it, Not all of it. But yeah, West Coast, but for me I'm in Vegas, so it's still traveling.

Porter: 2:25

Well, yeah, sure, sure, nothing's easy to get to. No, I imagine not too much, unless you guys stay local to you, of course. But you know what? Let's do this. Let's just start at the beginning. Everybody listening. We're recording the audio, but Jeff and I are on a video call, and so, since they can't see you and may not be oh, you mean, I didn't have to get dressed for this, not necessarily. I put a hat on, I'm glad you did.

Jeff Bryan: 2:46

Don't get me wrong, just kidding.

Porter: 2:49

No, I think it's important, though, to establish some sort of a relationship, right? Who is everybody listening to? So, jeff, if you could take a couple minutes, man, just who are you? Where are you from? What sort of things have shaped your perspective on life?

Jeff Bryan: 3:03

Well, that would be a very long conversation.

Porter: 3:06

Well, if you had to sum it up to a few things, you could get pretty deep.

Jeff Bryan: 3:09

Well, what do you want to know? I'm from Los Angeles, originally, grew up there. I've been in the entertainment business since I was probably 12, started out acting a little bit in a few movies and stuff. I've always been sort of in the arts. I've always been performing in some way. Music has always been my language of choice to communicate. I look at music as an opportunity to connect and reach out and communicate with people. Obviously, songwriting is another form of that Performing. That playing keyboard, singing, whatever it is, it's all the same thing, it's all about communication, and so that's how I view it. I view it through that lens.

Porter: 3:52

So why music?

Jeff Bryan: 3:54

I don't know. Yeah, as opposed to acting or something. That's what seems to excite me. I don't question it too much. It's like the air that you breathe. Fortunately it's available to breathe, otherwise you wouldn't know you weren't breathing. It's the same thing Music has been. Like I said, I think ultimately, artistic endeavors such as acting and singing and various different things that you can do are all really forms, different forms of the same thing, which is communication, and I think communicating is probably the crux of it all. That's where it is, and for me, music is just a great way to communicate. To be honest with you, as you can hear, I'm stuttering a little bit. My words are getting in the way of thoughts because they're coming too quickly. Music doesn't have that problem. It transcends you having to put too much thought into translating the words into meaning, and music is really a much more direct form of communication and a little bit more creative form of communication. Allows the listener to receive a message but also create the message at the same time, which I think is really cool.

Porter: 5:02

Yeah, I agree, and it resonates with people, regardless of language.

Jeff Bryan: 5:06

That's my point, yeah it's huge.

Porter: 5:08

As you're thinking, I'm assuming you primarily grew up your prime, so to speak, in the 70s right.

Jeff Bryan: 5:14

No, I was actually too young to really experience the 70s, like some of my parents or older siblings perhaps. I actually grew up in the 80s. I was in high school in the late mid-80s, so the 70s was sort of. Here's the thing when we're talking about the 70s, we're talking really more selfishly about how music for me was a very magical period, or at least I'd like to romanticize that it was, and so it was a time period, and I don't know if you want to get into this, but briefly and it'll explain where I'm coming from I've become enamored with the 70s, more so than the 80s. Where I grew up was because the 70s, for a musician, was probably the last era that a musician could truly be a musician. And when I say and I'm not saying that we don't have great musicians nowadays or people that are creating great music what I'm saying is that was a time when not everything had been written yet, and if you wanted to write it and record it, you had to know how to play it and you had to develop some skills. Nowadays we have a lot of aids, We've got computers, we've got now with artificial intelligence helping with melodies, we've got a lot of things that are not necessarily bad, but it's a different approach. It's no longer man against nature, it's now man, with the help of technology, against nature, and it's just a different vibe. And I think people learned how to make records in that period, the 60s and the 50s. They learned how to write songs, but it was in the 70s where albums were starting to come into, they started to mature the art of recording, and that's lost, that's gone away, especially with the home recording studios and things like that. So we're not going to see material like that anymore. It's not produced that way anymore. It doesn't even come from the same place anymore. So for me it's a valuable lesson to go back and look at that time period because it reminds us at least it reminds me of what making music was intended to be, and it's something else now. And I'm not suggesting that what we have now is bad. It's not a bad or good thing, it's different, and a lot of people that are perhaps, maybe born in the this century, they grew up with computers. They don't know what it was like to be analog and why that was an important process in the event of creation.

Porter: 7:45

Dude. Some may not even know what analog means at this point, let alone how it applied to the music industry.

Jeff Bryan: 7:52

Well, I was using the word analog more freely. Yes, you can be specific and talk about magnetic tape, which is analog, but I wasn't trying to be that specific. I was referring to the fact that the environment in which we live is a living, vibrant place. It's the law of physics. You've got air moving, you've got heat and cold and different environmental factors that are important in what ends up being created In a digital environment. All those factors have been homogenized and pasteurized out. There's no longer. If you want an environment to be cold, you program it in. You know what I'm saying? There's no accidents. Yeah, and those accidents is how we got to where we are, how we made music so amazing, and now it's programmed. It's a different. It's a different. I told you this could be a long conversation. No, you're fine. You're fine. It's a very different approach and I make music today, so I know what the approach is. Today. I'm in both worlds but having an interest in that analog world, they can't see my air quotes in the analog world. You do get an appreciation for how much we are losing by programming a lot of these accidents in, because we gave that up in the 80s when we moved to CDs from vinyl. Cds could only hold so much information on a single disc, and in order to put enough information that was of value to the customer, they had to do something to create more stuff on a small disc, so what they did is they reduced the bandwidth. The bandwidth is the amount of data that can be stored per song, and in which case, it was 44.1K, which is a sample rate a random sample rate that made it work to fit 500 meg onto a CD. The problem was, though, is that if you were to sample all of the information that was coming off a live performance or a vinyl, you wouldn't have enough room. There would be so much bandwidth of information that it wouldn't fit on what you're trying to sell. It wouldn't fit anymore. It would fit on a whole volume of CDs. So they had to make some compromises, and people, unfortunately, didn't realize they were paying more for less, because it was hard to imagine that we were getting less. We could still hear the music. There's bass, there's drums, you could hear it. The difference, though, is that a lot of what we experience in the world we can get back to that in what you were saying from the very beginning. How you introduce this subject is that a lot of what we experience is not always able to be put into words. Sometimes it's a subliminal kind of subconscious amount of energy or information that doesn't get processed in real time and so we forget that it's there. But most of what we do in our world, in our life, is subconscious. There's so much happening, you and me sitting here talking here right now. There's an enormous. If we were to try to digitize all the information, not a small bandwidth of it, but all the information that you're hearing, that you're seeing, that you're breathing, that, all that information, you wouldn't have enough space in all the hard drives and all of the world in just the 10 minutes that were. That's how much information is being processed between our brains right now and being alive. And all I'm trying to do is compare that to the fact that we kept reducing the amount of information as time went on, each decade, so that we could give the end user, the buyer, the person buying the music, a sample of what was really there. And that's where we are now especially with streaming.

Porter: 11:42

Yeah well, yeah, I do firsthand. That's what podcasts are based on, essentially. So there's something you brought up, though, as far as a classic age, I guess, excluding 30s and 40s and golden era stuff but like the classic age of rock and roll, for example, 60s, 70s, early 80s, but like compared to then, for example, the Eagles, zeppelin, flea Wood, mac right, any of these now classic albums. What compares to that standard, or that emotional resonance, or the lyrics, or the just to a certain degree, an entertainment value? Now, present day, nothing. It's not the same at all, even in scale of sales.

Jeff Bryan: 12:22

We have to be careful, because I'm not one of those get off my lawn guys. Sure, if you know what that is, you know, get old guy, get off my lawn. First of all, I'm not an old guy. I don't think old at least. The thing is that you're not going to get there by the means that we record and create now. It's different, just different. You got to think differently. It's a different form of creation than it was then. It can't be what it was then because the way people grew up into music, from the roots up, is different. You understand the people you mentioned Flea Wood, mac or the Eagles. Those people learned how to play instruments in a way that we don't learn that now. We don't do it that way, it just comes from a different perspective. If you're a call yourself a producer and you're recording and making music at home, you may not need to be able to have to play piano perfectly to get a great piano part, because you can have computer aids to help you finish your idea or at least somewhat make it work. At the end of the day, what's left Communication? Ultimately, it's the message that's important. Unfortunately, the delivery system is so far removed from the original, the idea and the reason why someone would write a song in the 70s as opposed to why now. It comes from such a different type of perspective that we're really really left with the message, which is really the only important part that a consumer is interested in. Really, you should be. However, they just don't know and they shouldn't know that they're getting jipped a little bit.

Porter: 14:12

Well, it's based on I mean, the communication is based on the resonance the audience is feeling. Otherwise it's ineffective anyways, Like how can they feel, yeah, so let's do this Then, Jeff. So this is a segment of the show called Developing Character. Developing Character. For anybody new to the show, two questions only, jeff. Entirely your perspective is vulnerable, as you want to be, it's up to you, but the goal here is, while we're talking about how to make connections with people, especially on this podcast, involving a value system in that process Because, like you said, things are different now, and so how do you in your 30s, 40s and 50s, as you grow through life and continue to play shows and grow up, communicate with the teens now, or the 20 year olds now, and in some cases, even in the 30s? So the point of this segment is about your value systems. So my first question as you were growing up, what were some of your values or what values were you exposed to?

Jeff Bryan: 15:10

Well, I'm not really sure I understand the term values. Okay, can you be more specific?

Porter: 15:15

Yeah, so, for example, what qualities, what character traits were you more reliant on as you were growing up, or did you see it be more of an impact?

Jeff Bryan: 15:24

Okay. Well, there is nothing greater value than honesty. It's probably the most important thing that anyone can have, in my opinion, because honesty cuts through the bullshit and we spend a lot of our lives trying to figure out what the other person meant, or try to figure out what the other the message that you're receiving is it real? Can I rely on this data? Yeah, and can I act on this based on what I believe to be true? When you lose trust, honesty they go hand in hand. Sure, you're basically screwed. Yeah, okay, you may not even know you're screwed. That's even the worst part of it. If the message that you're receiving is perceived to be honest and you act on that information based on that perception, erroneously, you end up walking away with the bad information, making mistakes and then perpetuating it to the next level. It's really that simple. It's a very slippery slope, dangerous. The thing that made the 70s, and maybe part of the 80s and certainly earlier, is we didn't have as many ways to be deceptive, and I'm not saying that we weren't deceptive. I'm saying that it was easier to spot it, and so, therefore, you could maybe determine that something was bullshit just with your own bullshit meter in your head. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, now, wow, yeah.

Porter: 16:57

There's a lot of it's difficult.

Jeff Bryan: 16:58

Yeah, you really have to really question what you're reading, especially on the internet. You have to question why you're reading it. Who's it coming from? Yeah, is it even legitimate? Is it even been recorded from the person that it was originated from? Yeah, I'll be honest with you, man, I don't see this. It's not going to get easier. It's going to get more and more confusing. So, to answer your question honesty and trust. Without honesty, you can't have trust, and without trust, you have communication breakdown. You basically just have a chaos. Yeah, you asked me specifically about those values and to me, those are the most important, because I can't make my way to the next step in my path if I have erroneous information or if I'm being lied to and don't know it. I mean, it's very dangerous and it's very hard. I think a lot of people in this age are not honest with themselves because they don't have to be as much as we did perhaps 20, 30 years ago. You can go online and create whatever you want. Yeah, you can be whoever you want to be and nobody's going to stop you. There's no rules. You want to be famous, sure, and seven feet tall? Well, you can create that avatar and go online and be that person. You know what I mean. That's the world we're living in and it must be really difficult for people that are learning, that are young, that don't have that sense of connection to something honest and true before they got online.

Porter: 18:39

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Jeff Bryan: 19:43

And it must be really difficult for people that are learning, that are young, that don't have that sense of connection to something honest and true before they got online. That's exactly the point you get me.

Porter: 19:59

Yep, that's exactly the point I was going to bring up my son. Right now he's nine and his perspective is rooted in YouTube and TikTok, since he's been exposed to tech anyways over the last couple of years. That's just what he and his friends are watching and that's the thing, but it's not as people talking to people in person or those types of interactions and exchanges that he's relying on necessarily. For example, we did so, yeah.

Jeff Bryan: 20:25

I agree 100%. There is one area that we have to be careful about and that is in every era, every 10 years, every 20 years. Whatever it is, the human experience expands, it changes. Even without technology it would change and expand. I mean, technology is just another extension of our ability to modify our environment, hopefully for the benefit. So we have to be careful that we're not condemning anything new as being bad. That's not the point. But I used to say this off the subject. But it illustrates the point. We use the word freedom a lot, throw the word freedom around, but freedom really is a synonym for responsibility to me. When you're given a lot of freedom, you're really been given a lot of responsibility to ensure that you can maintain a certain level of freedom without having the need for hurdles and things, and it's constraints. That's what I'm looking for. So my point is that with technology, with advancements, with all that stuff that we think are fun and great and potentially life expanding, it comes a responsibility. If you're a three year old and you're given the keys to a car, you might be able to operate the car enough to crash it into a tree. You may not be ready to read the signs on the road to follow. You may not be ready for that at three years, maybe six years old or whatever. You know what I'm saying. So there's a reason why people don't drive until they're 14 or 15. You need certain cognitive skills. Are we giving those people the skills to navigate in this new era of digital freedom?

Porter: 22:14

I don't think so. I guess it is sort of debatable, right but that?

Jeff Bryan: 22:18

is very debatable. I'm sure some would say I'm wrong.

Porter: 22:20

but Well, it's a great point nonetheless, because I don't have that background. And to the point you brought up earlier about a sense of connection and communicating that level of responsibility or resonance, whatever, intergenerationally, that's tough. But with music you have that capability because it's not just in the lyrics, it's in the sounds, it's in the atmospheres, it's in whatever we're able to translate. I grew up on classic rock because my dad grew up in the 70s, even though I wasn't born related.

Jeff Bryan: 22:48

Yeah, but when you grew up, it wasn't classic rock. Well, sure, it was rock, yeah. But as it is now, yeah.

Porter: 22:54

And so I didn't have a CD player until I was almost in my teens I had an A-track player in my room.

Jeff Bryan: 22:59

Going through elementary school, that wasn't unusual, yeah, but that was typical of the times.

Porter: 23:03

Well, and it was, but it was still cross-generational at that point, because it wasn't like that's when we sold it.

Jeff Bryan: 23:10

Radio Shack, you know what I mean, okay, so do you believe that somehow reduced your ability to enjoy the music somehow? Or do you feel that you got gypped in any way? No, no, no.

Porter: 23:21

Totally opposite that point. Actually. I feel like it gave me a better appreciation for the quality of the music, and not just the sound but the emotion behind the lyrics, the stories behind the lyrics and the ability not till I got older, frankly, but as I got older to get something out of that.

Jeff Bryan: 23:36

Okay, so now imagine you being born 30 years later Sure Than you were, yep. So there's actually no connection to vinyl or live or understanding what you grew up with. Yeah, yeah, what do you call that? Where are you putting your roots at that point? What are your roots? Your roots are streaming.

Porter: 23:56

Yeah, from a nurturing type aspect, though I'm not, we can still put it out.

Jeff Bryan: 24:02

And just so we're clear, I'm not suggesting that the music that we're getting, new music is bad. I'm saying that it doesn't have the same impact. It can't because it's not coming from the same places that it used to come from. Right, music used to be a political statement. Sometimes it was used as a mouthpiece for a generation in the 60s and in parts of the 70s, certainly with the Vietnam War. You can go on and on. Music was a very important form of communication that allowed people to emote, to have some place for their emotions to go. Music is now something that we listen to when we're doing something else. The background music, yeah. Who's writing music for Ukraine? Sure, yeah. Or for Afghanistan or anywhere else that there's problems in the world. It's not that people don't care about those problems, it's just that people don't think about music as a form of emotional release politically anymore. It's just not that there may be somebody writing a song or two that has a political slant to it. Not that I'm saying I'm a fan of that. I'm trying to explain that Music was not merely just fun. It was a true way of communicating to a certain sect of the population, and now music is literally just background music.

Porter: 25:27

All right, folks, stay tight. We'll be right back on Transacting Value. Did you believe that music involves honesty, vulnerability, confidence and courage before entertainment value? Did you know that most lyricists first learn more about themselves when writing, then their intended audience? Second, it's been said that the 1970s were the last great decade of musicianship in the rock genre. What if we could recapture that 1970s essence back into rock shows today? Good news is we can. The Totally 70s show starring the KTEL All Stars takes you on a journey back in time to the best era of music, with their immersive multimedia production and dynamic stage show. Listen, reinvigorate and sing along to number one hits, one hit wonders and other unforgettable gems. Book your next corporate, private club or outdoor event with the Totally 70s show at TheKTELAllStarscom today.

Jeff Bryan: 26:28

Now, music is literally just background music all of it?

Porter: 26:33

Do you think it ebbs and flows? We're just at a different point and maybe that'll return in a few decades. I don't know.

Jeff Bryan: 26:39

It's a good question. Ask me in 20 years. The truth is that we are at a stage technologically that the changes are taking place faster than we can understand them For real Now, with AI and machine learning and a lot of these new languages that are taking. Basically, there's just no way to put that in an equation and have an answer. We don't know how that's going to impact us. It's just we're in a new place. I assume that the human race, or the creative people, as time goes on will find other means to put their emotions and their expressions into. That will be just as meaningful as they were 100 years ago. So just be something that you and I don't relate to.

Porter: 27:28

And then, frankly, it may even just be a matter of time before silent movies come back and the whole process resets. I just don't see that man. Well, no, no, I don't eat that Silent movies, but well, I just mean, it's cyclical.

Jeff Bryan: 27:39

Well, what's cyclical are styles those are surely cyclical clothing styles, musical styles but the way that we create is not cyclical. It's based on what we now know. Nobody is going to go backwards and start to record on a two inch machine and go hire a recording student for $100,000 to record a record. Nobody's going to do this. It's never going to happen. Unless you're an idiot and don't care about money. It's not going to happen. We're trying to make a point, or whatever it is that you're trying to do. It's not going to happen. My point is that you're going to use the tools of today, and the tools of today require a different I wouldn't say they require, they force you to create music in a different way. That's just a fact.

Porter: 28:28

Right, and that's more the angle I was getting at the ability to elicit emotion or convey some sort of connection with people. Where, at that time, silent movies were able to do that, scripts weren't detracting from emotional value. That's more what.

Jeff Bryan: 28:41

I mean, I know that as well as you do that history told us that when silent movies were out and then the talkies came, they called them talkies. I think they thought that was going to ruin movies because it was going to take the essence away from the experience of whatever. Obviously, that was not true. Adding music to movies added another dimension that people were like wait, they went from plays to movies and so that expanded. So it didn't hurt it. I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that you have to go back to the value of honesty and trust. That is where I'm concerned. We are going to lose ourselves because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if I created my music on a $10 drum or whatever, or the most expensive computer system ever created. It doesn't really matter how I get to my message, but as long as you got it. So there's an argument to be said. There really doesn't matter. But we're missing the point. And the point that I'm concerned about is not so much the tools in which we use because that is going to change as time goes on it's not the tools that we use. It's just that when we had less of them. We had to force ourselves to be honest more. That's what I'm concerned about. Where are we going to find those values when we aren't being forced to? Yeah, I don't know. But I don't know either, and it's a scary thing to think about, because if I don't learn who I am as a musician, a person, and speak from the heart about something and record something that means something to you, you're not going to get anything from it, you're going to blow right over it, it's just going to man. That's not very good. You may not be able to vocalize, verbalize what's wrong with it, but you certainly will know that something's wrong or it doesn't. I don't like, it Doesn't hit me. So my point is is that where, when you're forced to sit down and I'm not saying I don't use force like an aggressive force when the answer to get from A to B back 30 years ago was to sit down at a piano and learn how to play it, enough so I can bang out the chords, I need to get my thoughts across. There was no way to do it and cut out the honesty. You see what I'm saying. The only way to do it was to fricking do it, and that created a connection, and that connection can then be conveyed to the listener. Now I don't need to learn how to play anything. I got AI. I got computers that can write lyrics for me. What the hell am I really after? Am I after just money? Because there really isn't a lot of money in this, so it's probably not money. Fame that doesn't do anything for the society, for people, for the art. That's what I'm worried about. Where are we going? Well, who are we?

Porter: 31:38

Yeah, no, it's a great point. Even when it comes to communication, I'm not an instrumentalist. Yeah, we're all afraid.

Jeff Bryan: 31:44

I'll shut up after this, but we're all afraid. We're all so if you read every article, we're all afraid AI is going to take over the world. Ai is going to. Nobody's going to have a job. Everybody's going to be a fucking zombie, excuse me. Anyway, point is we are already zombies and we're creating these computers in our image.

Porter: 32:04

All right, if folks sit tight, we'll be right back on Transacting Value. Alrighty, folks, here at Transacting Value, we write and produce all the material for our podcast in-house game perspective alongside you, our listeners, and exchange vulnerability and dialogue with our contributors every Monday morning. But for distribution, buzzsprout's a platform to use. You want to know how popular you are in Europe or how Apple is a preferred platform to stream your interviews? Buzzsprout can do that. You want to stream on multiple players through an RSS or custom feed, or even have references and resources to take your podcast's professionalism, authenticity and presence to a wider audience. Buzzsprout can do that too. Here's how. Start with some gear that you already have in a quiet space. If you want to upgrade, buzzsprout has tons of guides to help you find the right equipment at the right price. Buzzsprout gets your show listed in every major podcast platform. You'll get a great looking podcast website, audio players that you can drop into other websites, detailed analytics to see how people are listening, tools to promote your episodes and more. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. The team at Buzzsprout is passionate about helping you succeed. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world Plus following the link in the show notes lets Buzzsprout know we sent you gets you a $20 credit if you sign up for a paid plan and helps support our show. You want more value for your values. How can do that too.

Jeff Bryan: 33:36

We are already zombies and we're creating these computers in our image If we're not doing the work and the work is painful. To learn who you are, to go inside and be honest with yourself is painful, but it's a necessary part of nature in order to create something beautiful or something meaningful. Let's put it that way If we can skip that because who wants pain? Right, nobody wants pain, so that sounds like something you should avoid. And if our technology allows us to avoid pain, what are we creating?

Porter: 34:15

What is?

Jeff Bryan: 34:15

this, we're creating a really scary world.

Porter: 34:20

Well, that's sort of the point of trying to.

Jeff Bryan: 34:23

Boy, this took a deep turn, didn't it A little bit.

Porter: 34:25

No, you're fine, you're fine. That's the point of trying to find ways to deepen interpersonal relationships and I'll tell you this firsthand, exactly to your point. It's taken me Well now, I guess, if you exclude the first couple of years of me not knowing anything because I was just a baby 33, 32-some-odd years of what sort of role am I feeling in the world? And maybe only in the last two where I was like, wait a minute, what does that even mean? Who am I? What am I bringing to the table? How do I want to communicate? What do I actually know? What are my strengths? You know, talking to people on a podcast like this or any other podcast, or in-person interviews or whatever, I think gives us those opportunities because, like you said, it's not forced in terms of aggression, but it's a forcing function to evaluate what we bring to the table.

Jeff Bryan: 35:12

Yeah, it's a natural checks and balance. Yeah, it's like nature's way of verifying itself. It's a healthy feedback. If I'm not feeling pain, then I don't know what to correct. Do you see what I'm saying? If you numb yourself and then you hit your hand with a hammer, you don't feel it, so that's good. But you've destroyed your hand and now the hand's not useful for anything and you don't know why. You don't even know that it's destroyed. You end up for another bad matter. You end up knee-capping yourself as a society to grow, and that's what I'm worried about. If the technology outgrows us in such a way that we don't want to experience the ugly side of the world anymore when I say ugly, I just mean things that are more painful Well then, what's going to replace that as a sense of feedback to create the next generation? I don't know. It's scary as hell, if you ask me.

Porter: 36:09

Yeah, I agree. Well, and that's the other point right, it's not just to ourselves, it's also being able to do that with other people, except that sometimes, you know what, maybe I'm the asshole today, and that's fine. And just be honest with each other as well. That's important.

Jeff Bryan: 36:24

I was thinking more on a deeper level. I was really thinking in more societal, in the sense that you brought up the word values, and that's why I want you to define it, because that's another tricky word and it's a word that has different values to different people and, to be honest, when you ask someone about their values, you're asking them for some common denominator, some common ground, some common sense of common sense. Right, right, common sense, that's a value. What are your values? But we're losing that sense of commonality because we're not being forced to deal with who we are, because we have computers to help us with so much of the things that are painful. And I'm just looking forward, I'm just saying right now we're kind of got a foot in each world, but 20, 30 years from now, if we don't change this trajectory or learn from our mistakes, people aren't going to be as empathetic.

Porter: 37:24

Well, that's why I'm a fan of this opportunity in the podcast.

Jeff Bryan: 37:28

Yeah. So I'm not trying to paint a completely apocalyptic world. I'm just saying that ultimately we have to be. It goes back to my point, the other value of responsibility. You have to take responsibility for your pain, bottom line, and that's what music is about. That's what music was about. It was about finding ways to be creative and express emotion, express fear, pain, happiness, whatever it was, in a way that would also connect people because they can relate to it. I have a hard time relating to some of the music that's being recorded now because I don't think they're coming from any of the places that I have a common ground in and I don't think a lot of people do. The ones that say they do are maybe they're younger and don't have any other experience outside the computer, and that's not real. It's real, I guess it's real, it's technologically real, but I'm not sure that it's healthy to the human condition, at least not the way that it's been thrust upon us so quickly. I don't think that we're ready for a lot of the things that we have. It's going to be a rough hundred years man, yeah.

Porter: 38:44

Yeah, we'll definitely see where it goes. And while we're talking about connecting and specific more to you and KTel All Stars and these live opportunities and shows you guys are doing, though, if people want to experience that or check out your shows or follow along on YouTube, or whatever their preference is, where do people go? How do they get in touch? How do they find these things? Sure, what do they look like?

Jeff Bryan: 39:06

Well, I ended up talking about a whole bunch of crazy stuff, but the reason why the KTel All Stars is fun for me and fun for other people too and we find people of all ages are really excited about this band because we try to recreate the music the way it was created, when it was invented, when they wrote these songs.

Porter: 39:24

Yeah, All right, folks, stay tight. We'll be right back on Transacting Value. Did you know that children who do chores to earn their allowance have more respect for finance and more of a drive for financial independence? Did you know that families who complete tasks together have stronger bonds? Did you know that cognition, sense of self and anxiety all improve if people have regular interactions with nature? Imagine what instilling self-esteem, resilience, family teamwork and an authorized sense of self could do for the growth of each generation. No matter the temptation At Hoofen-Kluck or Farm, that's just another Tuesday. Want to learn how to homestead or just more effectively develop your character for an unknown future? Follow our direct message on Instagram at hoofen-kluck or farm. Watch it happen in real time. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. A foolish man learns from his own.

Jeff Bryan: 40:20

We try to recreate the music the way it was created, when it was invented. You know when they wrote these songs. Yeah, yeah, we're not forcing any tools that they didn't have available to them at that era. That is cool, which forces us to play music like real musicians, or at least what musicians used to aspire to be. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are taken back by that. They're like what? There's no tracks. You guys are all playing every instrument, you guys are all singing. There's no crazy extra computer stuff, trickery going on, and that's becoming sadly less commonplace and understandably. Look at all the computer stuff I got at my disposal. Why don't I just use it? It depends what you're after. So, to answer your question, where are we playing? We're playing all kinds of places. I'm playing at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank this Saturday, which is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater. We just did a show in Vegas.

Porter: 41:15

And you guys put all your stuff out on YouTube for people that can't make it or want to look it up too.

Jeff Bryan: 41:20

If anyone wants to look us up, it's the KTEL K-T-E-L All Stars, no Spaces or Dashes or anything. The KTEL All Stars with an Scom and all of our gigs are posted there. We're so easy to find. Just type in the KTEL All Stars in any search engine.

Porter: 41:39

Yeah.

Jeff Bryan: 41:40

You'll find this.

Porter: 41:41

Well, that's how I found you guys too. Yeah, it was pretty easy to come to. So, for everybody listening to this conversation, depending on which platform you're streaming it on, I suppose click C-More, click Show More underneath the player. Or, if you're on our website, just scroll down underneath the player and the link to the website for KTEL All Stars as well. So that'll help. And then any of the social that we come across as well the big ones like YouTube, for example, will link that there as well.

Jeff Bryan: 42:03

Okay, great, thank you Appreciate that.

Porter: 42:05

Yeah, and, all things considered, we're out of time anyway. So, jeff, are there any last minute sort of recommendations you've got? If people are interested in getting into playing and creating and involved in the music industry, what do you guys are?

Jeff Bryan: 42:18

now, the most important thing, most important endeavor anyone can do, is to listen to what really moves them. Don't follow trends just because they're trendy. Try to listen to what you really are trying to, what resonates with yourself. In order to do that, it takes some time. It takes a little bit of being quiet, a little bit of introspection and taking the time to learn who you are. A little bit Taking a sense of this is what I'm about, kind of thing. And then what do you want to create to express that? If it's music, then do that and do it the best you can Do, whatever turns on. However you want to do it, there's no rules. The question, though, is that if you start from the right place, meaning the honesty, the truth, then people will be more willing to listen, because they won't necessarily intellectualize what they're hearing, but they'll be moved in some way. Yeah, it'll hit. Yeah, it'll hit, it'll connect. If you can remember that, if you're an artist and you paint or you make clothing or whatever the hell it is, it's all the same thing. It's just a question of what am I trying to say, what's unique about me, or what's at least what do I believe that's unique about me and how can I express that? As long as you remember that and then go about whatever it is that you do, you'll be on the right track.

Porter: 43:46

Solid. I love it, man. I watched some of YouTube clips before we hit record on this. Your style, the flare you guys have, even just your ability to convey it to the audience on YouTube. I haven't been to your shows and if you guys end up on the East Coast I'll checking it out. Where are you?

Jeff Bryan: 44:01

You're in the East Coast.

Porter: 44:02

Yeah, I'm in Virginia. Okay, yeah, so if you guys end up at the amphitheater or anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard, I don't know Orlando fairgrounds, whatever floats you by.

Jeff Bryan: 44:11

We go a lot to the Midwest Indiana, ohio, missouri, some New York and Florida but mostly Western shows right now.

Porter: 44:21

Well, it's easier to get to you. Also, I'll keep an eye on your schedule. But I appreciate it, man, for your time, your perspective, your insight. It was great. I enjoyed this conversation.

Jeff Bryan: 44:30

I hope I answered your question to the best of my ability. I didn't mean to get too heady, I was just trying to explain that stuff is different now.

Porter: 44:39

Well, I mean that's important too for a lot of people coming up now to hear that, for example, in your case, people that are relying on whatever information, data, music, whatever inspiration from decades before still have respect for what's happening now and vice versa. Mutual respect's an important thing. Yeah, I appreciate your perspective on it, for sure.

Jeff Bryan: 44:58

So thank you for your time, man. All right, cool. Well, thank you, man, I appreciate it, it was fun.

Porter: 45:04

I'm going to turn it into our conversation and do our core values for October creativity, simplicity, giving. Thank you guys for tuning in Obviously to the rest of your band Mike, I think, is your lead singer and everybody else for your inspiration and what you guys are putting out for everybody. Thank you to the rest of your band, dude. You guys are doing awesome.

Jeff Bryan: 45:22

Thank you so much. I really really do appreciate that.

Porter: 45:25

Yeah To our show partners Keystone Farmers Market, hoofenklocher Farms, buzzsprout. Thanks for your distribution. So, folks, if you're interested in joining our conversation checking out any merchandise, or if you've got skills time, feedback, anything like that, that you want to contribute to our show, feel free to check out our website or any of our other interviews at transactingvaluepodcastcom. Follow along on social media. We'll continue to stream new interviews every Monday at 9 am that's Eastern Standard Time on all your favorite podcasting platforms and we'll meet you there. So until next time, that was Transacting Value.