- 4/23/2025
Low Cut Connie performs "Back In School" and "Private Lives"
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00We get a little musical activity on the show this morning, which is wonderful.
00:05We love having live music here on The President, Steve.
00:07It's the best.
00:08And this next gentleman is with a group who has been destroying stages in the greater region for a good decade plus now.
00:17And I will freely admit, I'm not plugged in to the local music scene.
00:20Nor was I until recently.
00:22But so many vibes have been coming from this band, and I wish I would have known earlier about them, but it's never too late.
00:29No!
00:30Never too late.
00:31Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Low Cut Connie to the show.
00:34All right, all right.
00:37Good to see you, fellas.
00:38How are you doing, Adam?
00:40I'm doing all right.
00:41I'm down here in South Philly, ready to play some music for you guys.
00:44Nice.
00:44Well, listen, let's talk just a little bit about the band, because like I said, you know, I just have not been that familiar.
00:51I'm not in on the local music scene, but you guys have branched out beyond that, which is, you know, a testament to how talented you are.
00:57But not that long ago, I caught video of one of your live performances, and I'm like, yeah, I get this.
01:04We got to have these guys on, because your live shows are a level up.
01:10I mean, so you play piano.
01:12You're a multi-instrumentalist.
01:14But I see, when you're behind the keyboards, I see a little bit of Jerry Lee Lewis, a little bit of The Killer coming out and stuff like that.
01:22You're really dynamic and kinetic on stage.
01:25You've always been that way, or did it come out once you got Low Cut Connie together?
01:29Yeah, no, I'm a ham.
01:32You know what I mean?
01:33Like, for whatever reason, since I was a kid, I play the piano, and I stand on it, and I play it with my feet, and I'd climb it.
01:40You know, I'm always climbing all over the furniture.
01:42I don't know why.
01:44Maybe it's a Napoleonic complex or something like that.
01:47But, you know, I don't know what happens, fellas.
01:50I get on stage, and everything, all my stress fades away, and it's just like this other person comes out, and, you know, we just try to give the crowd the most cathartic, crazy, high-energy experience they've ever had.
02:06By the way, so, Adam, is Low Cut Connie, I've heard, is kind of your alter ego.
02:12Like, that's another person.
02:14That's right.
02:14I mean, it's this person.
02:18It's really my true self.
02:21You know, when I walk around on the street, you know, like, you know, that's my daytime situation.
02:28But at night, under the stage lights or the camera or when the record, you know, the recording light goes on, this other thing happens to me, and, you know, that's Low Cut Connie.
02:40So, in the daytime, the mask goes on, but at night, you reveal your naked self.
02:46That's it.
02:47And you do get naked on stage or fairly naked on stage.
02:50I get as close to naked as the law will allow.
02:54Right.
02:54Let's remember what happened to Jim Morrison.
02:57He got into trouble.
02:58So, you take it to the limit, the legal limit, and then we're good.
03:02I love the concept, though, and it's a great one of, you know, just returning to putting on a show.
03:08Like, a lot of times I've gone and seen artists that I really enjoy, and the stage presence leaves a little to be desired.
03:15And when you sense, and obviously by looking at your videos and stuff, you're committed to, I'm going to give them a show.
03:23And there's a place for that.
03:24And I love that you're doing it.
03:26Well, listen, I grew up watching, you know, on MTV, you had Tina Turner, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Freddie Mercury, you know, Mick Jagger, the greatest live entertainers ever.
03:40And, you know, Tina Turner, she was like 10,000 firecrackers going off at one time.
03:47Do you know what I mean?
03:47Yeah.
03:47Like, just, you could not be bored watching Tina.
03:51And, you know, I love making records.
03:54I love doing TV and all these different things that I've gotten a chance to do.
03:58But my favorite thing is to just be on stage and just get people's hair messed up.
04:04You know what I'm saying?
04:04I get a little bit of a Peter Wolfe vibe from you as well.
04:07Oh, yeah.
04:07Jay Giles band.
04:08Peter Wolfe is one of my absolute favorite, you know, front person.
04:14He is just amazing and a big influence on me.
04:18Awesome.
04:18Yeah, for sure.
04:19You know, it's interesting, though, when you do something like this, and obviously you are doing it right and you guys are doing it right, you can walk up to that line and you don't want to be like a self-parody.
04:29You know, you want to be authentic.
04:30And so how long before you found yourself right in the pocket of where you wanted to be on stage?
04:35I mean, you said it, you know, like it takes a lot of practice.
04:43And listen, Preston, Steve, I bossed like for 10 years before I hit.
04:48You know what I mean?
04:49Yeah.
04:49And I played every sleazy little dumpy little dive bar, you know, both in the U.S. and internationally.
04:57And by the time I hit with Low Cut Connie, I was ready to sing my song, if you know what I mean.
05:03Yeah.
05:03I knew who I was.
05:04I knew what my style was.
05:06I knew what my voice was.
05:07And I was confident.
05:08But I'm not going to lie to you, I bombed, you know, probably a hundred times before I hit.
05:14Yeah.
05:14Yeah.
05:15Very few people.
05:16There are those rare exceptions where they can just walk right out and boom.
05:19Yeah.
05:20You got to find your way.
05:21It's like a comedian.
05:21You know, they got to work their way up.
05:23You got to feel the crowd.
05:23You got to know what the material is.
05:25You have to learn.
05:26I mean, the Beatles spent all that time in Hamburg cranking out their, you know, they were earning their keep.
05:32They had to do what they had to do.
05:34And it was playing, you know, eight-hour gigs and so on.
05:37So, yeah, you find your way.
05:39And it sounds like you guys definitely have.
05:41And then you got on the radar.
05:43I believe it was Barack Obama, correct?
05:45Wasn't that kind of taken to another level?
05:47How did that happen?
05:49I don't know.
05:50I don't know.
05:51I'll never know.
05:53You know, 2015, he put out this list of his 20 favorite songs.
05:59It was the first year that he had done that.
06:01And it was the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Sly and the Family Stone, low-cut Connie.
06:10And it was a crazy thing.
06:13And I got invited to the White House.
06:17And, you know, he was very encouraging about the band.
06:21And at that time, guys, I still had a day job.
06:24I was a teacher.
06:25Wow.
06:25And it just put some wind in my sails.
06:28And I realized at that point I kind of had to take that leap and just go, you know, 24-7 with my musical career.
06:37It's just hard.
06:38You know, it's hard to take that leap when you're not really making a living.
06:42And I'm just glad I did because the band has just grown and grown.
06:46Before the pandemic, I was doing 120 shows a year, traveling internationally.
06:51So this show at the Fillmore is, you know, and then tomorrow night at D.C.
06:56These are our comeback shows.
06:57These are like we got through it.
07:00And let's all have a wild rock and roll night together because we've all been through so much.
07:05Nice.
07:05Well, this must explain that that dive bar you were in where one of the patrons had a Secret Service detail.
07:11That must have been Obama.
07:13I wanted to ask you if you're teaching and you're doing all this and trying to get your career going.
07:18How how did that work out if you were teaching, still holding down a day job with as aggressive a schedule as you were maintaining?
07:25I was, you know, a nights and weekends and summers kind of person.
07:31Yeah.
07:31And, you know, I didn't find any success with my music until I was 30 years old.
07:37And so at that point, fellas, I thought it was over for me.
07:41Sure.
07:41I thought, you know, I'm just going to be like a nights and weekends kind of performer.
07:46And, you know, sometimes when you stop trying and you stop trying to force it, you know, maybe that's when you do your best work sometimes.
07:57So that music and those shows that I started doing with the band when I wasn't concerned with just trying to make it as a career, those were the magic moments that actually propelled my career forward.
08:12Yeah.
08:12That makes sense.
08:13Did you see the movie Soul by any chance?
08:15Because it's kind of the guy's a teacher.
08:17I like the music, though.
08:18I like that music.
08:19But you're saying things that is sort of an epiphany that you get when you're working at something, you know, and you really love it.
08:26And you finally say, OK, I've got to go all in now because all the signs are there and go for it.
08:34And it doesn't always work out.
08:35It's clearly worked out for you.
08:37Well, a couple of years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Elton John.
08:41You know, Elton John played one of my songs on his radio show, which was stunning because he's like one of my greatest heroes.
08:51And then he invited me to his show here in Philly at Wells Fargo.
08:55And I went backstage and he said, listen, kid, you got to get out there and make some noise.
09:02You got to get out there and make some noise.
09:04He was like, you got the you got the talent, right?
09:07You got the songs, but you got to make some noise.
09:10He was encouraging me to kind of own it.
09:13Yeah.
09:13And, you know, don't don't look in the rearview mirror what it took to get there.
09:18Don't look over your shoulder what other people are doing.
09:20Get out there and really seize the day.
09:23And it was it was really inspiring to me because Elton is one of those people, you know, who reinvented himself and kind of took over the world with his music, you know, by being himself.
09:35What do you say we make some noise right now?
09:37We're going to get to Adam to perform for us.
09:40There it is.
09:42Playing at the film bar.
09:42Can you hear that?
09:44I can hear it.
09:46I want to do this little thing right now.
09:47I want to do this just for my good pals, President Steve.
09:50Right here in Philadelphia, the greatest radio station, WMMR.
09:55It's a little something called Back in School.
09:57Here we go, fellas.
09:57I got no time for the hanky-packy.
10:06I'm back in school.
10:08Back in school like a little child.
10:12Woo!
10:13Hurts my pride when you call me spanky.
10:16But if you're so cool.
10:19Just be so wild.
10:22I ain't no stranger.
10:26Stranger, but I ain't your boyfriend.
10:30Ain't no stranger.
10:32Stranger to the ways of men.
10:36Woo!
10:36My hand's just like shaking on a concertina.
10:43I can't play it.
10:46My little piece's so good.
10:50My nose is twitching in a sapelina.
10:54It don't smell.
10:56Not the way that it should.
10:58Come on, fill it.
11:00I ain't no stranger.
11:02Stranger, but I ain't your boyfriend.
11:05Ain't no stranger.
11:09Stranger to the ways of men.
11:12Woo!
11:15I'm talking to you, pal.
11:18WMMR.
11:23I look at the parts of Tina.
11:27Don't smell.
11:28Don't smell.
11:29I don't know where it should.
11:31Now, now.
11:33Ain't no stranger.
11:35Stranger, but I ain't your boyfriend.
11:40Ain't no stranger.
11:42Stranger to the ways of men.
11:47Oh!
11:48Hey!
11:51It's Low Cut Connie on MMR, performing at the Fillmore Thursday night at 8 o'clock.
11:56Making that boogie woogie thing, man.
11:58That makes you get up and move.
12:00And that's why you guys are like a dancer's band, right?
12:03I mean, people don't want to get up and move, right?
12:06Yeah, like, I believe that if you go see a show, you spend your good money, right?
12:12You get through that whole work week and all the hoops that you got to go through just to get to Friday night or, in this case, Thursday night.
12:20You know, you should get, you should have the time of your life.
12:24Yeah.
12:24You should be able to dance.
12:25You should be able to sweat.
12:27You should be able to make out and flirt.
12:29And, you know, just all your stresses and cares evaporate in the air.
12:35So that's what we're going to try and do at Fillmore on Thursday night.
12:38It's going to be great.
12:38I love it, man.
12:39And how, when you're done with a show, how tired are you?
12:44Because you guys are a real physical band.
12:46Yeah, I'm spent.
12:48And I've, you know, I've said everything that I have to say.
12:52And I just kind of like, kind of like Prince used to do.
12:55I kind of like to just disappear, you know?
12:57I'm not the party after party type because I give 125% during those couple hours on stage.
13:07Because it's not about how I feel.
13:10It's about how you feel.
13:11You know, I am there to facilitate your time and give you a magic night.
13:16And when I'm done doing that, I just want to disappear, you know?
13:19Now, while all this, well, while we couldn't go out and do that type of thing, and now we're
13:23returning to that, you and the rest of the band members of Low Cut Connie put together
13:28this series called Tough Cookies.
13:29Tell us a little bit about that.
13:31Yeah, I mean, listen, like everybody, we were off the road for a year and a half.
13:36And I was stuck here in my house in South Philly.
13:39And a lot of the fans, they started sending us messages back in March of 2020.
13:46Can you go live on your social media?
13:50Just play us a few songs.
13:51Do something, you know?
13:53So last March, we went live right here.
13:56I was in this room I'm in right now.
13:58I was in a bathrobe, okay?
14:00No frills.
14:03And I played songs with my pal, Will, my guitar player, for an hour.
14:07And by the end of the hour, we had thousands of people watching.
14:11And we had people in over 40 countries watching.
14:14Nice.
14:15I mean, it was crazy.
14:16Croatia and South Africa and Australia.
14:19And so we did it again.
14:21We did a second episode and we had 40,000 people watching.
14:25It's amazing.
14:26And so I said, you know what?
14:29We're going to do this the entire time that people are quarantining.
14:32We're going to do this every week.
14:34So we did 103 episodes.
14:38And let me tell you, fellas, we had nurses that would play the shows in the ICUs.
14:45We had, you know, frontline workers that would put their cell phone in a bag, a little baggie, and staple it to the wall so they could see it at work.
14:56You know, we had people from all over the world send messages to us and say, you kept us going that whole year.
15:03It gave us something to look forward to, you know?
15:06And it gave me something to look forward to, you know, to be of service during such a difficult time when we were all sidelined and feeling helpless.
15:17So I'm proud of my whole team for making the tough cookies thing happen.
15:21I'm proud of my fans who were tough cookies and got through difficult situations.
15:26And now we get to do both things.
15:28We get to go on stage and play in front of people.
15:31And we continue to do tough cookies once a month.
15:34And Steve Van Zandt came in and was a part of one?
15:37Yeah, Little Stevie was on my show last week.
15:39Nice.
15:40I've had, I think, 12 Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.
15:44I had Dion and, you know, Darlene Love.
15:47I had Sly and the Family Stone.
15:49I had all these people.
15:49Wow.
15:50But Little Steven last week was a trip, man, because, you know, I grew up with not just Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, but The Sopranos is my favorite TV show of all time.
16:00So we got to talk about all of his work.
16:04It was pretty cool.
16:05Nice, man.
16:05Well, listen, Adam, if you don't mind, let's get one more tune from you to get prepped for the show on Thursday if you got time for it.
16:12You got it, fellas.
16:13I'm so thankful to be here.
16:14I want to thank you for having me on.
16:16I want to thank all the radio listeners out there for staying strong, for being tough cookies.
16:21I want to do this for you.
16:21This is called Private Lives.
16:23All right.
16:23I love you.
16:31I love you.
16:32I love you.
16:33Life is strange and you do what you gotta do just to survive.
16:47Ain't that right?
16:48You got your hustle and you gotta know that, baby, I got mine.
16:57On Friday night, we get together and we talk about this crazy life.
17:06Are you scared to lie?
17:08Are you scared to lie?
17:10Cause you know that once in a while we get undignified in our private lives.
17:18That's the way we live, don't dwell on it.
17:30That's the end of the day, we got the love to give.
17:35That's the way we live, don't dwell on this.
17:45Yeah, Philly.
17:47Woo!
17:48It sounds cheesy, but there's people, they're the reason I'm alive.
18:00The town freaks and the sleazies bring a tear to my eye.
18:08I'm like a child.
18:12Skinny dipping with squares on the other side.
18:16We're all scared to live, we're all scared to lie.
18:18We're all scared to lie.
18:18We're all scared to lie.
18:18We're all scared to lie.
18:18In the city, we've been working for a different prize.
18:25In the city, we're all scared to lie.
18:28We're all scared to lie.
18:31Life, yeah, that's the way we live, don't dwell on it, at the end of the day, we got the love to give, that's the way we live, don't dwell on this, one more time, fulfill the asset, that's the way we live, don't dwell on it, at the end of the day,
19:00we got the love to give, that's the way we live, don't dwell on this, yeah, yeah, I want to thank my good pals Preston and Steve, and all the good people at WMMR and all over the Philadelphia Tri-State area, I hope you have a beautiful week, I'll see you on Thursday night at the Fillmore, I love all you tough cookies,
19:30One, two, one, two, three, four
19:36Aw man, yeah, dude, that's awesome, Adam, I love that freaking song, what great lyrics, what great melody, wonderful man, thanks for playing this morning, we appreciate it, have a great time, Thursday night, we'll send to masses, 8pm, tickets available to fillmorephilly.com, good luck to you and the rest of the gang, and low cut Connie, Adam, thanks for coming on.
19:58Thank you so much, take care fellas, all right, let's hear it for everybody, low cut Connie, I'm telling you, go do, if you're not familiar, go do a quick search, like on YouTube, and you'll see what the energy, the vibe is, of these guys on stage, because it's one of those where you're like, wow, okay, I want to be a part of that.
20:17We'll see you next time.
20:18Bye.
20:19Bye.
20:20Bye.
20:21Bye.
20:22Bye.
20:23Bye.
20:24Bye.
20:25Bye.
20:26Bye.
Recommended
2:04
|
Up next
2:45
14:19
11:04
16:10