IoT & Apparel

Transcript

• Narration 0:07

  The Mr. Beacon podcast is sponsored by Wiliot, scaling IoT with battery free Bluetooth.

  
  

  Steve Statler 0:16

  So welcome back to the Mr. Beacon podcast. This interview is about the convergence of fashion with technology. The whole beacon technology thing that we obsess on in this little world of ours is really a synonym for digital to physical convergence. And one of the areas that has fascinated me is the way our clothing is turning into a computer. And obviously, there's a lot of other aspects of technology that have been involved in apparel for for quite some time. So I'm really pleased to have Barry McGeough off joining us for this conversation. Barry is a veteran of the apparel business, and I'll let him talk about his his background in some detail. But PVH too famous for Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and other brands is just one of the things on his amazing resume. So Barry, thanks very much for spending a bit of time with us.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 1:22

  Thanks to you. awesome to be here.

  
  

  Steve Statler 1:25

  Can you I want to, towards the last part of our discussion, just talk a bit about your career. But before and we'll start off by talking about this major theme. But tell us just give us kind of a quick whistlestop tour of of your, your background, because you've worked for quite a few amazing brands, it'd be good to hear about it in your words.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 1:49

  Thanks. So I mean, mostly people don't really like a resume review. So I wouldn't linger too hard on it with you today this morning. But essentially, I did cut my teeth. I always tell everybody I came into fashion through through punk rock. We were the first distributors of Dr. Martens in the US. And that was a lot of fun. And it really got me into making technical footwear. So in my journey, back post punk, I would say I was heading product at the North Face doing a lot of outdoor starting with footwear, backpacks, sleeping bags, things that have high core values that keep outdoor athletes alive. And then from there moving into the technical athlete world for competitive athletes at speedo, really looking at product apparel gear that make you go faster and lighter and train harder. So my my background really started in footwear and even went into sort into athlete led apparel and technical gear. In the speedo world that was as part of PVH they asked me to start the innovation division at PVH, which is a $10 billion company and really bringing innovation and innovative thinking and ideas into all the brands and classifications inside this globally complex organization. So that's Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger bass, Izod ton of amazing brands, and really looking at how to bring technical fiber, technical finish internal innovation, open innovation in the areas of to make their brands become competitive. And what became really clear was, first of all, how do you demystify innovation? Right? How do you turn it into something that's tangible? And you can sell? And then that's the process part? And then what would you innovate? How does a company that has sportswear innovate? And it came clear that there's the obvious areas of making your whites whiter and your brights brighter, right? But the obvious so the non obvious ways are? How would you look at technology? And how does that change? The how's the consumer experience and customer expectation changing as brands can increasingly have to become more consumer centric? And then what how and where would you engage in that becomes this area of digital experience. So what happens on the AR XR, Mr. Side, and all your direct to consumer and also b2b transactions, but also what happens when apparel is connected to the internet of things? So these became really interesting areas for us to work on as we advanced and build these competitive edges.

  
  

  Steve Statler 4:34

  Let's talk about that. i It's funny because we think of apparel companies as being very creative. I met with you as the only time I've walked into a reception area that had a swimming pool built into the reception area. So we think of these brands as being very creative, but what what is the challenge that they're facing? What's what's disruptive. in them.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 5:01

  So typically, you know, in brands that are transacting in a wholesale model, that the experience really has been as a supplier and a brand is that you sell to a customer. So brands have typically been customer centric, we would sell to Macy's, and the Macy's has a buyer, the Macy's buyer is speaks for the consumer. And we're transacting in this transactional experience, we're transacting with a Macy's, buyer, Macy's, buyer and everything. Now I'm not picking on Macy's, buyer x, let's say, but now, and consumers expect us to know them. They don't really care that much about GDPR. And privacy. That's something that's coming up. But again, consumers are increasingly having an expectation of immediate gratification, customization and personalization. And if we don't know them, they're actually frustrated with us as a brand. So why don't you know me? Everyone else knows me. Why don't you? So the need for consumer centricity is B is being consumer driven. And it's something that brands have to react to no longer is it enough for brands to put out something and then hope someone finds it. It has to there has to be an experience attached to it. And it has to be a relationship. And that's, that's the transformational part of brand. Brand thinking now.

  
  

  Steve Statler 6:21

  So how can there be a relationship between a consumer and the clothing brand

  
  

  Barry McGeough 6:30

  certainly, from a marketing perspective, and the data that comes in from all the transactions, and also social media interactions, there's a tremendous opportunity to look at your M ROI and figure out how to best connect with your target consumer and they'll build up back you'll see those those transactions happening on on the social side. from a brand perspective, when we're talking about people knowing you then the then the end, consumers are expecting that you know, me or someone like me, you since you know my style. And because I like you, then you can understand me back. So a great example would be hashtag my Calvin's hashtag. My Calvin's is one of the most successful social media campaigns that just said, Show us you in your Calvin's and people would literally take a picture of themselves, and the bodies that they were proud of doubt, looking good, feeling good, and then feed that back to the brand. millions of consumers would share their own personal selves with an anonymous brand. So that's, that's a great example of a social media interaction where end consumers are having a one to one conversation with the brand. But when it comes to fit, there's a there's a increasing conversation on customization and personalization. So for instance, I saw Tony Baker's who's the Chief Technology Officer at Amazon speak at South by Southwest. And he was very bold to talk about how Amazon is making a strong play for customization and personalization in two areas. One, it's what happens when you're on their site when you're shopping, and how do they know that it's you? And not your your kids shopping for toys or or? or other kinds of garments? How do you know that you want something that's that's appropriate for you? So they want to know who's online so they can have a one to one relationship with you online, no matter who's on the account. But the other thing they're talking about his customization and personalization fit. Where as they're going into the apparel space, and they're looking at basics, dress shirts, underwear, batteries, for instance, they want also want to know, how does this How will this fit your own personal body? And will you be satisfied with the t shirt that Amazon sells you or the dress shirt that Amazon sells you. And that gets into a whole area of personalization of fit. What they did recently to move this forward is they bought a company called body labs. And Labs had a algo algorithm based products that they would use your cell phone, get multiple points of differentiation and be able to have a relatively accurate image of your own body wearing loose fitting clothes. A couple of quick selfies and we know who you are. We don't know your face, but we do know your body type. And so the idea is if you use this body labs application, take a picture of yourself and then order a t shirt that Amazon says will should fit your body type, then you're going to be 100% satisfied with that T shirt that you get from them. Now they know you you know them you have a relationship and you can rely on that. You're not going to buy five and keep one and

  
  

  Steve Statler 9:56

  that totally makes sense for them. So how it Is this huge disruption of online shopping? Is that impacting brands in any way the move from going to Macy's to buy your clothes to going to Amazon? How would that impact the major brands if at all,

  
  

  Barry McGeough 10:17

  from a from a retail transaction point of view, the penetration in the apparel industry for for direct to consumer sales for online is only about 10%. It's growing, and it's forecast to go into the teens really quickly. So the conundrum right now for brands is that they're still transacting at an 85 90% rate in brick and mortar, okay. Or, or, or in some b2b fashion. So we know that it's disruptive, but brands are have to increasingly look at how what what is their digital experience in brick and mortar, and then what is their what is their digital experience Direct to consumer, and they're very different. So in the brick and mortar side, where technology is starting to drive is in the in store experience. So for example, one of the activations that we that we recently did, and you're going to start to see more and more of this is using your phone to have an augmented or mixed reality experience, if you can, and especially because with Amazon store starting to do right now, with web based AR, you don't need a marker, or to go onto a website. Rather, to get to get an app to launch an augmented reality experience, you take your phone, you hit a marker, have some kind of QR code or something. And then a an augmented reality or 3d experience will come up on your phone, that will give you an experience with the brand. It could communicate things like fit, it could communicate technology, because honestly, who has time to read five or six hang tags on a jacket anymore, if you could just take your phone, point your phone at a jacket, and it tells you how waterproof it is or how dry it'll keep you or why it fits your own human snowflake body, you're going to have a great experience with the brand and you're going to be a lot more willing to do that. So you're gonna start to see a lot more augmented and mixed reality experiences in in the in the in the brick and mortar space. And that's how technology will start to drive the experience and that know me feel

  
  

  Steve Statler 12:26

  right. So this is interesting. This is interesting. So obviously, I come at this from the beacon angle. And there's always this competition between the Bluetooth beacon the radio connectivity with maybe it's using UHF RFID tags, and using QR codes. And maybe, and maybe now with machine vision, maybe you don't even need a QR code. Maybe you just have the the phone recognize the item of apparel. Where do you think? I mean, do you have a view on that where the boundaries are between what technology is useful? The pros and cons of using those technologies? I guess really self serving? Is there a future for for beacons in apparel?

  
  

  Barry McGeough 13:21

  So I mean, I'm, I'm biased to the opinion that there definitely is I do feel that there's an arms race, and that arms race is really going to be around efficacy, what's the efficacy of use for the end consumer that is seamless, and easy for them to use. And so when we talk about, I think what we'll probably talk about also today's is these ideas of apparel connected to the IoT, you're always gonna have the issue of power generation and power storage. So and you also have to compound that with the cost per unit, because apparel is quite cost price sensitive, especially when you're talking about commodities, let's say underwear, let's say. So, if we're looking at ubiquitous technologies that are seamless to us, then everyone will use them, that's incumbent on us to be able to connect those dots and create a easy glide path for the end consumer to be able to use these beacon technologies. So beacons as they exist right now, in sort of classic retail are considered a little bit invasive and a little bit impersonal. So the idea of using RFID or Bluetooth is is becomes more personal and more seamless, and that is very, very compelling. Especially because if you can activate it on your phone, then you also get something that's seamless because people are carrying it around every single day. They already have a device. Yeah. So being able to use that it's going to be super important and and there is an arms race right now. And if see QR codes Bluetooth beacons RFID there's a number of technologies that that look promising to be able to have that end consumer experience. So if again, I do feel it's up to us to to make and create an easy glide path. But when they're they will do it, you build it, and they will come.

  
  

  Steve Statler 15:18

  Yeah, it seems like the technologies that have made the most headway RFID and QR codes because QR codes are essentially free. But I know that if I look at the RFID industry, you know, the traditional you have the big $2,000 scanner, or whatever it is that's zapping through and scanning large amounts of inventory. That's it seems like they're selling billions of if not hundreds of billions of RFID tags is that. Would you agree that those are the leaders? What's RFID being used for today? And where do you see QR codes versus RFID.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 16:02

  So I have a kind of a unique perspective on on QR codes, because I was recently in in China. And there's a super amazing YouTube video by the New York Times called how China is changing your internet. And I would definitely recommend people watch it. It's a great primer on the idea of super apps, and how these super apps aggregate data, data and consumer experience because you transact in the app, you never leave the app. So you have separate apps for Uber or Lyft, or Facebook or Yelp. And it's all in one app. So so the the super apps know what you're doing, and they know when you're shopping when you're not shopping. And so much of that experience in China is powered by the QR code. QR codes are ubiquitous, they're on every item. They're on every bus shelter, they're on, you know, every people expect to speak that QR code language. And I think in the West, we're not there yet. But it's so seamless. And we're going to start to pull so much from the success of the Chinese digital experience that I do very strongly believe that we're going to start to see a lot more QR code integration in Western markets. When it comes to RFID, I feel that it's a little bit different with RFID, in as much as the readers are not in your phone. So it's going to be less. It's going to be less driven by one to one consumer experience. But from a from a b2b experience. We're starting to see RFID moving out of the supply chain and having a lot of a lot of use in store. So that means a magic mirror, you walk into a dressing room, it recognizes the garment you have a picture comes up on the mirror and says you have this garment in a size medium, and it doesn't fit you you can push a button and have someone bring you a size large. You can also started to do cross selling Hey, that T shirt goes really great with this jacket. Have you tried this, Hey, it's cold outside, do you want a scarf, so you can cross selling inside a dressing room. You could also have mobile checkout, mobile pay security in store, right. So you can you can also start to look at the unsolved some of the problems of shrink. You can increase your your basket size and transaction you can look at real time inventory, location and accuracy so that associate knows where everything is. And then after point of sale, you can start to use RFID as anti counterfeit devices. So you can you can replace costly anti counterfeit devices which are really important for brand. And you can even look at end of life solution. So let's say in the circular economy, with a parallel being the sixth largest industry in the world and the third largest polluter circularity is becoming really important. What do you do with that garment at end of life? So if that garment is 100% wool, how does someone know? If you had an RFID reader in a waste management treatment facility? They say we know the material of content that and we know the waste stream that it goes into. So how can you recycle so we're seeing a lot of of b2b uses for RFID not direct to consumer so much because it's not on your phone. But from a b2b perspective. I see RFID ubiquity in the very near future because of all the other new use cases that it's empowering.

  
  

  Steve Statler 19:33

  And it seems like I think you've made a reference at the start of that thread to supply chain is that where it really started? Do you

  
  

  Barry McGeough 19:45

  RFID was really all about inventory accuracy and tracking. And also being able to do quick counts in store or in a in a container to be able to say I don't have to open up that box to say that I have 16 Pink pairs of underwear inside some all in there. Yeah, it gets transformational from the supply chain side. But But too expensive to have to be ubiquitous until they got to scale. You're starting to see it get to scale now. And the more use cases you apply to RFID, the more affordable it becomes. Because it's just doing more things. Yeah.

  
  

  Steve Statler 20:17

  Yeah, you look at some of the large players like Inditex with Zara and all their other brands. And you look at decathlon, and I know that I mean, they're it's no secret, they're consuming billion RFID tags a year. And my sense is that a lot of that is about optimizing the supply chain making the fast fashion faster and and making sure you got the right product in the right place. How much of that problem do you think is solved? I mean, we are we have we don't know where it's probably asking a lot of you to give a percentage, but to what degree has the industry optimized its supply chains as of today.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 21:10

  It's a lot of the RFID. Demand is being driven by retailers right now. So if a retailer demands that product is tagged in the apparel industry, then the brands have no choice. Again, there's a cost factor. And as that gets down from dimes to pennies, it's gonna be a lot easier. But we're probably looking at 50 to 60%, maybe a little bit higher adoption rate for the industry. And that's why I think the increase in in in capabilities of RFID use case will bring that much closer to that 90 or 100%.

  Steve Statler 21:47

  Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 21:49

  It will just empower. And when you're, when you're empowering, and consumer experiences RFID, then you're also doing things which have to do with again, increasing transactions and basket size. And that becomes really compelling on the sales side, not just the supply side,

  
  

  Steve Statler 22:06

  right? Yeah, if you can show lift, then you've got the kind of ROI that can drive further investment. But I realized those two examples I gave I was thinking of them as, as clothing brands, but really their retailers, Decathlon have their own stores are I have their own stores. So they're vertically integrated. So I'm just trying to think of, of of a fashion brand that is not vertically integrated, that's broadly deployed. RFID. And are there any that you can think of

  
  

  Barry McGeough 22:38

  in the apparel space? I again, I think it's really driven by the retailers and their supply chain demands. Yeah. So it looks like a Macy's or a Kohl's might be a decent example, where they'll say our supply chain demands this this clarity of vision for inventory control, things like image control, inventory, control, shrink, yeah. So so they will demand it, and then brands will brands do comply.

  
  

  Steve Statler 23:05

  Very interesting. So okay, so we've talked a bit about making the supply chain more optimized, and then you've touched on some things that could be part of the the retail experience kind of magic mirrors and that sort of thing. What do you what do you think is feasible beyond that in the ownership phase, and you've talked about recycling as well, I think you and I have have discussed wardrobing. And, and that sort of thing, what what's the what's the potential there? What is just crazy, and what what where do you think there's real value, because there's been some experiments with Bluetooth beacons in like, the Levi's jacket and in, in, in other things to kind of gamify the experience, what's your sober view of wear having Bluetooth connectivity and in a piece of apparel from a consumers perspective in the because, you know, they have a retail experience, and then 95% of their engagement is hopefully when they're actually wearing it. Is there anything there that we could reasonably target?

  
  

  Barry McGeough 24:23

  Absolutely. So I'm going to basically start to answer that question with activation last year that I thought was really fascinating. And it was, it was an augmented reality experience, and that was with Zara. So for those people that are familiar with this activation, they had, they had storefront windows and all that was in the store. front window was empty mannequins and the Zara logo. And if you use your phone, and it recognizes Zara logo as a marker, what would happen on your phone is that there would be a runway show and you would be able to do two things, you would be able to view the runway show in an empty store window and see the models. And then you can also start to work on a buy now proposition to say, I like that look. So you can shop multiple looks, instead of having the window be static with mannequins and close on it. It's active and engaging. And it becomes shoppable. From the QR code discussion that we had, you can find, and again, this is a great example in Hong Kong, you can go to a bus, shelter, and hit hit a QR code in a bus shelter, and that bus shelter shoppable all of a sudden, what you're starting to see is this ability to have an experience with the brand that's not in a store. experience with the brand can happen anywhere, and can happen everywhere. So if you can imagine that you're using a Bluetooth device to have an experience with a brand, then why does it have to be in front of a screen? Why can it be in your closet? Right? And and if you're if you're connecting with your with your apparel, if it's Bluetooth powered, and your phone has is a Bluetooth reader, then you can start to have a branded experience with your clothes in your closet and your closet becomes shoppable. There's an interactive conversation that says, hey, it's cold outside, or, you know, is it time to get new socks? Or how can you cross sell against that because you can, you'll be able to flash your phone in your closet, and everything will be instantly inventoried. And then you can choose to have an experience. So what the the epiphany really, is, the fact that everything is shoppable. And whether you're going to use any of these technologies that are static right now, that's really important. But I think Bluetooth is a big unlock. You'll be because if everything is shoppable, and everything is an experience, that you're getting back to exactly what the commerce how we started the conversation, which is consumers expect you to know them on a one to one basis and increasingly will expect you to make payroll for them on a one to one basis. That's years down the road. But how are you building that loyalty? And that, that that drive to know me? I know you I know you I like you as a brand. But do you know me? And do you like me? And and and then we're able to have so much more selling opportunity cross selling opportunity or relationship opportunity. It's all unlocked by technology.

  
  

  Steve Statler 27:43

  Yeah, and I can see this is good. Because you know, as someone that's basically in the technology business, there's a clear upside for brands and retailers for for doing this. You're extending the shopping space into into people's home. What and I think, you know, if I'm into fashion, then the opportunity to get very personalized recommendations for new things to buy maybe based on how often I've worn this thing, because if there's Bluetooth in the item of apparel, then the phone knows how often you wear this thing and maybe even what goes with something else. Do you think there are use cases that are not about selling more to stuff? Is it realistic to expect our phone to have a role in suggesting what we wear? I have mixed feelings about how I just can't imagine myself looking at my phone and getting clothing advice. But that's probably because I don't think a lot about what I wear. And do you have evidence that people that do care about what they were willing to confer with a personal digital assistant or a phone on that?

  
  

  Barry McGeough 29:01

  So here's, here's my question I'll ask back to you. Two years ago. Did you know how to swipe left or swipe right? I didn't. And I would say that none of us 10 years ago, you probably didn't have a smartphone. I certainly didn't either. So these learned behaviors happen much more swiftly than we think. What is it that Bill Gates said that I'll mangle the quote. It's it's impossible. It's we overestimate what we think we can do in one to two years, but we dramatically underestimate what we can do in 10 years. That's again, so So my answer to that is these are learned behaviors, and we learn them much worse. We're smart monkeys and we'll learn things very quickly. And so if these things are useful, we'll we'll learn them fast. Yeah, the amount of time have connected devices in homes. I don't know the Alexa and Google Assistant numbers, but they're not small. We've adopted these these robots and these listening and speaking devices into our homes and an alarming rate. And there's an economy of scale that says, you know, Amazon and Google want to get them out at at affordable costs. And we have yet to know what they'll do their novelties right now, but they will become indispensable. I don't want to sound totally black mirror. But, you know, if you watch black mirror, you know, it's not those those that's not too far in the in the in the event horizon feature for us is those kinds of experiences.

  
  

  Steve Statler 30:38

  Yeah, I think you're right. That's, that's, I think that should be required viewing for all technologists, both the scary side and the amazing things that can be done to great. So Well, that's wonderful, I really appreciate the chance to talk about this with you, Barry, I did want to just kind of have one for a down memory lane. And I was kind of interested in your perspective on this intersection between the specifically the Dr. Martin boot that you referenced, and, and pop culture and, and so forth. And I'm sort of interested in what it was like being closer to that, because I was on the receiving end of that. And not that people were kicking me, although actually they did when Dr. Martin boots, but it was just incredible how that piece of clothing was affiliated with some amazing groups like madness, back in the in the UK and that sort of thing. So I'm just sort of interested in your career, whether that's impacted you directly, like this intersection between music and, and and apparel, are there any particular kind of incidents that come to mind when you think about that?

  
  

  Barry McGeough 32:01

  That is such an interesting question. So that was a, you know, that was definitely powerful moment in time, because it was a cultural intersection, as you say, of art and music and fashion. And it did make me realize that they're, they're inexorably connected. These things that we work on, have to have to touch you. And we're all mixed. If we think that well, I'll go, I'll go to an another analogy that's, that's similar. If by 2025, there's going to be 50 billion connected devices and 8 billion people, then everything's going to be connected to the internet of things, right. And no one ever said, everything's going to be connected to the internet of things, but clothing. So in an artful way, we have to figure out how that happens, not in a clunky way. And so we have to be mindful of the creative side. Because it's the creative side that's going to drive the ubiquity of that thing that we do. And the Dr. Martens time, time was a time of a real synergy between art and music and culture. And it all and fashion what we were what we said, what we did, what we listened to what our politics were, if they weren't, they weren't disconnected. It's kind of similar to why I really like South by Southwest, I think it's one of the most important shows that an apparel company can go to, has almost nothing to do with apparel, but it does have everything to do with how citizens are going to react to technology and politics, and health and science, because citizens are consumers. When you understand citizen behavior, you understand consumer behavior. It's all mixed, so we can't take out that artful part of it. One of the things I always amazed by is texting. Do you know what the number one thing that drove the ubiquity of texting into our human behavior was emojis. It was emojis. People were pretty nonplussed about texting because they couldn't see the difference between an email and a text. But emojis made it fun. And so our job is to not forget that we're just doing a a bland, technical thing. We have to look at use case all the time. And what's going to make connected apparel ubiquitous, is when we make it not only easy and seamless, but we make it useful or fun in some way. And I continue to predict that apparel connect to the IoT will have a lot less to do with health. You're not really going to be so focused on whether my T shirt can tell me whether I'm going to have my next heart attack. But you might be super interested, if it helps you with social interaction and some if it eases your day, or is a little bit fun, or is a little bit cool. If your shirt can connect you to Tinder or Grindr? Isn't that fun? And that's going to be there are going to be ways that are that we have. We're just building out now, that will bring that ubiquity and that's kind of what I learned from that time. I'll take it back to your Dr. Martin question. Everything is mixed. They're not separate silos. Because we're people and we're citizens and society, and everything touches everything. art, music, fashion, culture, what we wear politics and who we are. Yeah, I

  
  

  Steve Statler 35:41

  think that's a really profound observation. I, you look at Apple as one of the most successful technology brands ever and part of their hallmark the thing that distinguishes them by a mile from any other laptop, PC, phone vendor is they've done the best job of melding, art and culture and creativity, music, film, it's all infused in their product and their I just want their product more as a result of it.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 36:09

  That was the Steve Jobs ethos.

  
  

  Steve Statler 36:11

  Yes, absolutely. Very good. Well, Barry, thanks so much for spending some time with us. You've got you've got some amazing insights into this fascinating world of technology and fashion. Thank you for sharing them with us.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 36:28

  Thank you, Steve. It's been a pleasure. It's been really nice to talk to you today.

  
  

  Steve Statler 36:36

  So as you know, we asked our guests for for three songs. A few minutes ago, we got into a bit of a negotiation, which actually isn't the first time we've negotiated on things, but you are negotiating up from a song to some album so what what are the three musical things that you would take on this long trip that we're sending you?

  
  

  Barry McGeough 36:57

  So on the trip to Mars, certainly three, three songs would probably drive me crazy. So I love that I was definitely negotiating on the album sighs So I'm going to take a couple of things. I've taken a couple of moments to think about it. One is one of the very first pieces of classical music that I was introduced to Matt's Benjamin Britten's serenade for tenor horn and strings. It's not a song. So now neither it's a piece. It's in three acts. And there's this soaring, amazing ARIA around a singer who's sort of pouring his heart out and they the French horn that they use is an open french horn. It has no valves. And so he only gets these sort of arcing, noises of almost space and time through the armature of his lips. It's, it's, it's really inspiring and really quite intense. So I'd probably pick the serenade for tenor horn and strings.

  
  

  Steve Statler 37:57

  Okay, so you one one song, but a very long one. So that's what's number two.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 38:06

  So it was an album, I have to say, you know, because I like these ideas that start at the beginning and end to the end. And one of the most amazing albums that came out during the punk rock times was the clashes Sandinista and that's a three album epic and but it has its it's almost like it has already is in and of itself, and you kind of have to listen to it from beginning to end. You can't pull out a piece. But if it was a song, I would probably pick the clashes train in vain, because that is that song brings me to a very happy place.

  
  

  Steve Statler 38:42

  Okay, well, should I ask why? Oh, is that this left off camera.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 38:50

  So okay, so probably reminds me of, I love the clash. And it's a it's a it's a very happy bouncy song. That reminds you of a really good time. And it reminds me of really good time in my life. But the song has to do with a with a very horrible breakup. So it's kind of funny. It's I don't know how they got such a happy song out of it. Yeah. So it's kind of one of those songs that gives you hope in the face of darkness. Let's say

  
  

  Steve Statler 39:17

  yeah, I have to say I never really got into the crash in a big way. I'm superficial group of rock the Kasbah. I love rock the Kasbah. It's amazing and great song. But anyway, so let's go on. So is there a third one? You've there is a third song.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 39:35

  And this one I'm pulling out of the out of the virtual space. And so I don't know if you've seen the Fred Armisen and Bill Hader mockumentary called documentary now.

  
  

  Steve Statler 39:48

  Actually, I haven't. I love their work, but I haven't seen it.

  
  

  Barry McGeough 39:52

  They're amazing. And so they one of them was a two part mockumentary on a 70s band called blue jeans. committee. And they were a bunch of guys from Chicago who were in the sausage making industry who took off on the tangent of making surf, do it music, but like Doobie Brothers Steely Dan kind of thing. And they do a song Steve, and it's called Catalina breeze. And you should look it up. I will. It is. If it was the 70s. And if it was a song that came out, it would have been your favorite song. You would have worn a whole groove in the grooves of that record, because it's so catchy. The minute I hear that, it gets stuck in my head forever, and I can't let it go. Yeah, it could be one of the best pop songs ever made by a non band.

  
  

  Steve Statler 40:46

  And it's not really a pop song. It is a song but it was it was conjured up after the fact. Yes, Fred Armisen is so talented. And I kind of don't like watching him because it just makes me feel like underachieving. But one of these amazing things he did was because he's a drummer, right? And he did this whole set. For just for drummers, he had to be a drummer to get in and he was playing all these drums in different he had like, five different drum sets, drum sets through the ages he would play. It's an it's an amazing thing. And of course, Portlandia which having I lived in Portland for 10 years, and I just can't get enough of that show. Yeah. Anyway. Oh, thanks for that. That's very good.