Meeting Rosi Golan and William Fitzsimmons

For those of you who don't know, I pre-produce the Appetizer each week. Although it airs at 11P on Saturdays, I'm not at the station at that time. That's how most of radio is run. Your favorite programs are produced and finished long before you hear them. TV is the same, Hollywood is the same. It's just standard practice.

I say that to give context into how I was able to be in Ft Worth last Saturday evening and got to talk with Rosi Golan and William Fitzsimmons and you still heard the Appetizer at 11P with no problems. That's just how things work.

It's been about a year since I first spoke to indie sensation William Fitzsimmons on the phone in an interview we did last year. Part of that interview is podcasted on our webpage (Songwriters Cookbook link on www.appetizerradio.com). William was a really cool guy to talk with and I told him that if he ever ventured west towards Texas and came to DFW, I would head "down the road" and check him out. Checking his tour schedule a few months ago, I saw that he would no doubt be in Ft Worth to perform with a new indie up-and-comer, Rosi Golan. I got a hold of their respective managers and arranged an interview with both of them prior to the start of their gig.

I expected the venue to be on a main avenue and didn't know exactly how an in-person interview would work out with the traffic and people and so forth. I'm used to doing things over the phone where background noise isn't an issue and things can be edited and produced to make it sound excellent. Although my equipment was good, I didn't know if the sound would be great with the conditions of where we were.

The conditions included it being a very windy day, being outside of a bar with cheesy classic rock playing on an outside speaker, and a few guys talking a little too much due to a little too much drink. So when Rosi and William arrived, I didn't know where to go to alleviate some of the background noise issues.

Fortunately, I have friends with great ideas. I was accompanied by my wife Leilani and our friend Misty, who lives close by. She had driven us all over town and offered to let us use her car as a pseudo-studio for the interview. Rosi and William both agreed and one by one I interviewed them in the back seat of Misty's car, with Leilani and Misty in the front seats.

I won't go into detail on what we talked about in the interview. You can hear both interviews in their entirety on a new podcast called The Appetizer Drive Thru at this link http://appetizerdrivethru.mypodcast.com/

I will say that Rosi is a wonderful person to speak with and very accommodating. It was a pleasure talking to her. If you haven't heard her music, she's a real talent. Check out her stuff on myspace.com/rosigolan.

As for William, it was great to finally meet him. It's always cool to meet someone in person after you've spoken to them on the phone, but the face-to-face meet is the best. It was like a reunion with an old friend, although we don't know each other that well. Check out William's music at www.myspace.com/williamfitzsimmons. I'm still working on getting him to tour out in Abilene. Hopefully that will be a possibility and not a dream. I've got pics of us together coming. Stay tuned.