Conversation with Jesse Jackson of "Set Lusting Bruce: A Bruce Springsteen Podcast"

Bee Gees (And Me)

My guest this week is Jesse Jackson, host of “Set Lusting Bruce: A Bruce Springsteen Podcast.” He and I are kindred spirits. Much like I am a huge fan of the Bee Gees, Jesse is a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. So it is so super easy to talk with Jesse because we have that same passion about a musical performer, the same dysfunctional brain that makes us obsessed to the point where we have huge collections and create podcasts because we love talking about it.

I was a guest on his podcast, Set Lusting Bruce, a few months ago. Even though I wasn't necessarily a Springsteen fan, Jesse likes talking to guests who are super fans of other groups too. We ended up talking for over two hours about the Bee Gees and Bruce and all sorts of things. It was great. There’s links to these episodes on BeeGeesAndMe.com if you’re interested, we share some great stories.

ANYWAY, when I was a guest on his show, it was before the HBO Documentary came out, and it was before Barry’s Greenfields country album came out. So we decided that we would exchange songs with each other, I gave him deeper cut Bee Gees songs, he gave me deeper cut Bruce songs, and then he would come be a guest on MY show and we could catch up and talk more music. That conversation is coming up in a little bit, I think you’ll really enjoy it.

But first, this exchanging music with Jesse reminded me of a time in my life when I used to exchange music with my friends on a regular basis. This was about 10-15 years ago, damn where does the time go? Anyway, I was at a point in my life where I felt like I needed to expand my musical horizons. I wasn’t listening to much music besides the Gibbs, so I thought my friends could help me discover new music (and at the same time I thought it would be a good way to get them to listen to the Bee Gees.) So each month we’d pick a theme and make CD mixes for each other. Someone would host at their apartment, and we’d all bring food and booze over for a big dinner. And we’d eat and drink while listening to music and telling stories about the songs we chose. At the end of the night we’d all get several discs full of new music, and it was also some awesome quality time with friends too. We called ourselves the Disc Poets Society. We met for about a year before life gets in the way as it does, but I’ll always remember those as one of the coolest things I was a part of.

Fast forward to today, and here I am finding myself trading music again. Before meeting Jesse, I hadn’t really listened to Bruce Springsteen all that much. But through him I discovered some amazing songs that have become part of my regular music rotation. And I’m happy to report that I introduced to him a few Bee Gees songs that he would have never heard before too. We didn’t burn CDs or have dinners, even if a pandemic wasn’t keeping us from being able to assemble, we live hundreds of miles away from each other. But technology has allowed us to create playlists and stream music so we could share with each other. Next week, exclusively on Spotify, I will be sharing a Listening Party episode of Bee Gees And Me where Jesse and I talk about and listen to these Bruce and Gibb songs. And it carries on the spirit of me and my friends with the Disc Poets Society. I hope you watch for it and listen to it, it was incredible to create. As was the first part of our conversation which is this episode.

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