Brew's Cafe- Episode 34 Gian Carlo Feleppa

Brew's Cafe

If you don't know what 20,000 vinyl LP's looks like, then you've never been in Gian Carlo Feleppa's basement slash recording studio slash office slash record depository. Add to that many hundreds, even thousands of reel to reel tapes, numerous and various machines to play them on, speakers to listen to them through, mixers, recorders and other various and sundry music recording mechanisms-- and we haven't even begin to discuss the instruments. I arrive and Giancarlo is on the porch of his house, strumming and picking and harmonizing on a sitar about as tall as he is, the base of which is fashioned from a dried pumpkin. Three drum kits are also on the porch. Inside, The Beatles (or was it Wings, I was too overwhelmed to recall) spin on the turntable. A tour ensues, not unlike a tour of a local museum, and if GC and his family didn't live there, and if it weren't an active rehearsal, recording, teaching and just noodling around space, maybe it could be. Then we sit down for a conversation that took us places I hadn't planned, but wasn't surprised when we got there. Gian Carlo is the epitome of a local treasure: unique, multi-talented, highly productive, and eager to share his enthusiasm with his young students, the concert-goers at Student Body show, or the random amateur podcaster, which I've been lucky enough to be all of at one point or another.