Ep. 121 Best 4th of July Ever; Miles Connor in Nashville TheModernMoron podcast

Ep. 121 Best 4th of July Ever; Miles Connor in Nashville
Welcome to this mid-summer episode of the Modern Moron.  I’m so excited to share the conversation I had with a young musician named Miles Connor.  He’s currently a student at Belmont University in Nashville Tennessee and was born and raised in the Dallas Texas area.  H’s e’s a bit of an old soul in that he was brought up with a lot of classic rock artists from the 60’s and 70’s.  I believe his first instrument was the guitar but his father was and is an accomplished musician and toured professionally back in the day as a drummer.  
I’ve been wanting to talk to Miles for YEARS, literally as I’ve heard over and over what an accomplished musician he was becoming and how affable and friendly his was.  Well, one of my fancy friends from my days in L.A. flew to Nashville for the 4th of July.  In fact, Julie Welch has been on this program before in one of our first episodes when we did a tribute to her parents, Ken and Mitzie Welch, who were Emmy Award winning music arrangers for the Carol Burnett show and I believe the Jack Parr show way back in the day.  Julie is also friends with a guy named Brad Paisley, who really is a household name if you ever play even a little country music in your household.  Brad performed in Nashville on the 4th of July and it was broadcast on CNN without political commentary.   Julie arranged for my guest Miles to meet her sister Gillian Welch, who has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards over the years and winning a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2021.
THEN… she took Miles to the Paisley’s home/music ranch(?) is that a thing? Where he got to not only meet Brad Paisley, but jam with him and talk music.  Brad went to the same college that Miles is currently attending.  He got to hang there the evening before the 4th with some more fancy people including SNL alum Kevin Nealon, who’s a decent banjo player himself.  A couple of other names get dropped including Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley.  Now those two names may not seem like household names but if you saw either of them you’d say, “oh, I know that guy!”  Michael is probably most recognized for his role in Christopher Guest’s “Best in Show” where he was paired with Parker Posy as a couple showing Weimaraners and they both wore braces.  See… you remember.  He also wrote and produced many episodes of the hit show Glee which ran from 2009 to 2015 and you can see him all over the place. 
Tim Bagley is also a great character actor who’s currently playing Brad Schraeder in the HBO hit “Somebody Somewhere”.  You’d also remember him on the show   “Monk” with Tony Shalub, Tim played Monk’s neighbor Harold and of course “Larry” from Will & Grace…
There I go down another rabbit hole… anyway, Both of these guys are hugely funny, Miles mentions them in his story, they are working ALL the time and are very dear to this old Moron as I knew them way back when I was in L.A. and they were… very, very young…. In case they ever hear this.  Very, very young when I first met them.
Back to Miles and an additional reason I think you’re going to love him is his knowledge of the history of rock and country.  Glen Campbell… was known for his guitar playing as well and Miles recalls what a great session player Glen Campbell was back in the day playing for music producer Phil Spector as well as playing and singing with the Beach Boys.  Brad Paisley is right up there in his guitar playing alongside Glen Campbell.  In fact, I’m including the link to a YouTube Video of some legendary guitar players having a session at the Fender Custom Shop playing the theme to Game of Thrones back when that show was insanely popular.  In that video are players like Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, Scott Ian from Anthrax, Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme and… Brad Paisley.  Now those first guys may not be number one on your Spo