MACK | middle aged cool kids | A super terrific podcast featuring your pals Dave & Shecky

MACK: Sunshine & Daydreams Playlist

April 1, 2020April 2, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids

Hi folks, I hope this post finds you well, hunkered down and safe from coronavirus.

I put together a little playlist, just about an hour long, of songs that are fun, or uplifting.

If you and your family need a break from bad news and just want to think about something else for a while, then this playlist is for you.

Clean the house, hit the treadmill, have a dance party. Whatever it takes. Whatever is best.

We are thinking of you all and will be coming out with a new episode on time or close to schedule.

Be well, friends.

XOXOXO

Shecky

Audio Podcast Conspiracy?

MACK #73: Conspiracies, Unsolved Mysteries & Deep Dark Secrets #5

March 30, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Adrenochrome, Conspiracies, DB Cooper, Deep Dark Secrets, Eddie Mannix, Robert Rackstraw, Unsolved Mysteries, Walter Reca

Woooo! It’s time for another episode of Conspiracies, Unsolved Mysteries & Deep Dark Secrets. I love these episodes! I get to dive into some weird and crazy shit and Dave gets to make fun of all of it. Good times!

If you aren’t hip to these episodes, basically I have one story for each category and Dave gets to pick the order in which we discuss them.

Audio Podcast Dave on . . . Music Episode

MACK #72: Heavy Metal

March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Dio, Humble Pie, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, kiss, Led Zeppelin, Megadeth, Mercyful Fate, Metallica, Motorhead, Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera, Sir Lord Baltimore, Slayer, The Who, Van Halen, Venom

Heavy Metal! \m/

Growing up in Jersey during the eighties, yours truly was very much into heavy metal. You just couldn’t not be into it where I was. KISS was my first introduction into the genre when I was very little, I think the makeup is what attracted a 10 year old me. I certainly wasn’t old enough to figure out what Love Gun was truly about.

Anywhooooo, I still love the genre because it brings back fond memories of being younger, seeing bands at L’Amour (the rock capitol of Brooklyn!) and not really caring about politics or most other adulty things.

Dave was also a teenager in New Jersey during the 80s yet he is not a huge fan of the genre, but still agreed to speak about the music because that he is a huge fan of.

He has a lot of interesting opinions on what constitutes Heavy Metal and what elements of other music actually combine to create it. He also is quite sure one of his childhood heroes is one of the godfathers of Heavy Metal. Frequent listeners to this show may have a guess as to who that may be.

Music Episode

The Second Arrangement [UpbeatGroove Mix]

March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Steely Dan, The Lost Gaucho, The Second Arrangement

If you listened to our Steely Dan episode you’ll note that we spoke a bit about “The Lost Gaucho” which was the Gaucho album before the one that was eventually released in 1980. On that album was a song entitled “The Second Arrangement” that had been nearly complete when it was accidentally erased by an assistant in the recording studio.

On The Lost Gaucho there is a version of the song (an alternative take) without drums. I asked my favorite drummer in the world to add a drum track for me and he obliged (with some guitar licks thrown in for good measure).

Audio Podcast Dave on . . . Music Episode

Dave’s Reaction: Lettuce – Checker Wrecker

March 17, 2020March 18, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Checker Wrecker, Lettuce, Reaction Video

We all know that our Dave has his opinions on various things, but his passion really is music. I decided I’d present him with a song I’d hoped he’d never heard before and get his reaction on video as he listened to it for the first time.

Audio Podcast Music Episode

MACK #71: 1966

March 15, 2020March 15, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Acid Test, Batman, Bob Dylan, Ford Fairlane, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Mamas And The Papas, Reagan Youth, Richard Speck, Sound of Music, SSgt Sadler, Star Trek, The Doors, The Monkees, Vietnam

Hiyooo good people! Today’s episode is all about the year 1966.

We thought it would be fun to dedicate some episodes to specific years. So, in this show we go over 1966’s music, movies, news and more.

And, of course we go off topic because that’s just the way of it.

Now, as far as music goes, Dave and I agree that 1966 was the Dawn of the Age of Classic Rock as we know it today. The Doors recorded their debut album, the first Acid Test at the Fillmore took place, and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde was released — all in 1966.

The times and the music were both a-changin’!

Audio Podcast Music Episode

MACK #70: Our Top 10 Favorite TV Theme Songs

March 8, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Barney Miller, Carol Burnett Show, Firefly, Friends, Get Smart, Good Times, Hill Street Blues, I Dream of Jeannie, I Love Lucy, MST3K, Sanford And Son, Star Trek, Taxi, The Jeffersons, The Monkees, The Muppet Show, The Odd Couple, Veronica Mars, Welcome Back Kotter

It’s time for another exciting episode! Now, Dave and I have both watched a lot of television in our day. So, we thought it was about time we ranked our favorite TV theme songs for you!

We each were supposed to pick 10 TV theme songs and make a list. Our plan was to then present said lists to you. Dave’s list was fluid. It is really hard for him to stick to a list always. Shame on me for not learning my lesson.

Be that all as it may, Dave’s “list” is of course better. His picks are great, and his reasons for the picks are also great. He has insight on both the genres and the composers for his picks and some of mine.

For the most part Dave does not like my list. But, in general, he also doesn’t like my choice of television shows.

Audio Podcast Weird And Wonderful

MACK #69: Weird And Wonderful News

March 1, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids good news, uplifting news, weird news, wonderful news

Welcome to our Weird And Wonderful News episode!

Because there seems to be a whole bunch of news out there that’s not so great, we figured we’d change it up this week. So that’s why we’re going all in on Weird and Wonderful!

Dave is not so much an uplifting news guy. He can find the bad in just about any situation, but that’s what makes it so much fun for me.

Audio Podcast Music Episode

MACK #68: Our Top 5 Favorite Black Music Artists

February 24, 2020March 15, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Jackson Five, Jimi Hendrix, Kool and the Gang, Lionel Richie, Parliament Funkadelic, Peter Tosh, Prince Hakim, Sly and The Family Stone, Sly Stone, The Gap Band, The Ohio Players

In this episode — and in honor of Black History Month — Dave and I dive into each of our Top Five Favorite Black Music Artists lists.

Dave has a real tough time with limiting his selection to just five. He came to the table with a very long list. The truth of the matter is if we did our Top Ten lists, this show would most likely be four hours long. While I do love each and every one of you, I just can’t see myself putting together a four hour podcast.

While we are going over our Top Five Favorite Black Music Artists list it’s clear that Dave had nothing but funk on his mind. We really do love the funk here! We do wind up having one band that made it to both of our Top Fives. As usual, Dave shares what he knows about each band and I fill us in on what wikipedia has to say. And of course there is music, a lot of music.

Audio Podcast Conspiracy?

MACK #67: Coronavirus

February 16, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids China Flu, Coronavirus, COVID-19

It’s the long awaited Coronavirus episode of our podcast!

Hi there everyone! In this show Dave and I go through some of the Coronavirus facts and figures that are out there and deemed “official” along with some that are not.

We talk about the the origin stories we’ve heard and I offer my own take. As per usual, Dave does his best to steer our conversation way off course as often as possible.

Audio Podcast Dave on . . . Music Episode

MACK #66: Steely Dan

February 10, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Aja, Can't Buy A Thrill, Countdown To Ecstasy, Donald Fagen, Gaucho, Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan, The Lost Gaucho, The Royal Scam, The Second Arrangement, Walter Becker

Hello again friends!

This week is all about Steely Dan!

In my should-be-humbler opinion there are 3 types of people. A) Casual Steely Dan Fans; B) More-Than-Casual Steely Dan Fans and C) Our Dave.

I’m a “B” on the above scale. I love Steely Dan. As a matter of fact, if you happened to catch the episode of the show on our Top 10 Favorite Albums of All Time, you may remember that “Aja” was my number one. And! you also may remember that our Dave placed Steely Dan’s “The Royal Scam” as well as Donald Fagen’s solo effort “The Night Fly” on his list.

Maybe you think you are an “A” or maybe even an “I don’t know any Steely Dan songs” type of person. Let me assure you that you do know more songs than you think you do. There are a lot of hits and also quite a few retroactive hits — songs that may not have been played on the radio a ton when they were released, but somehow they’ve found their way onto the airwaves nowadays. Perhaps that’s due to a good number of these songs being placed into a decent chunk of tv and movie soundtracks.

Audio Podcast Conspiracy?

MACK #65: David Bowie & The Occult, Danny Masterson News & Presidential Tweets

February 4, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Cocaine, Danny Masterson, David Bowie, Presidential Tweets, Rituals, Scientology, Social Media, The Occult, Twitter

Hi there friends!

We had a bit of a setback when we originally started to record this show. We sat down on Saturday and shit just wouldn’t go right. So I gave up (rather dramatically!) and we tried again today. But since our experience on Saturday was so MEH we decided to change up the theme of today’s show.

What I wound up doing was writing 8 different subjects on a page and I numbered them 1 through 8. Then I had our Dave pick a number between 1 and 8 and that would decide which subject we spoke about.

Audio Podcast Conspiracy?

MACK #64: Conspiracies, Unsolved Mysteries & Deep Dark Secrets #4

January 27, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Big Foot, Bigfoot, Blind Item, Climate Change Hoax, Conspiracy, Deep Dark Secret, Global Warming Hoax, James Dean. George Carlin, Old Hollywood Blind Items, Sasquatch, Unsolved Mystery

It has been over a year since our last installment of this particular series. We are long overdue with this one, so let’s jump right in!

As you may or may not remember, I present Dave with one story from each category (he gets to pick the order) and then we discuss what we think about that particular subject.

Audio Podcast Conspiracy?

MACK #63: The Houston Astros Sign Stealing Scandal

January 19, 2020March 9, 2020 MACK | Middle Aged Cool Kids Altuve, Astros, Astros cheating scandal, Beltran, Cora, Jomboy

AKA The shit that ruined baseball, again.

[make sure you head to middleagedcoolkids.com for the embedded photos and links in this post!]

Hiyooo good people! I hope this recent upload finds you well.

This week’s episode is all about The Houston Astros Sign Stealing Scandal Extravaganza. Well, maybe not all about it. Dave, as usual, has a bit of an issue staying on topic. But that’s always fun so who cares.