B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles

Music
0:00:00
Good morning and welcome.

Bijon
0:00:08
You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Beef and Niles. Hot coffee, cool chatting, chilling on the corner of Lifestyle Lab and Music Street on

Niles
0:00:19
91.5 KUNV Jazz and More.

Chipmunk Voice
0:00:23
Do we want to talk about your new crib? Or you want to wait till after you're actually in there? Dude, I'm, I'm, no, I'll be in there next week. Right, so it's done. Yeah. It's closing, it's closing on... So those who don't know, I just bought a new house and it's closing next week. Oh man.

Chipmunk Voice
0:00:38
It's closing on the 6th or 7th. Oh man. Casa Thomas. I know.

Bijon
0:00:43
I'm excited. You know, I spent many an evening on your couch, your classic couch.

Niles
0:00:51
Yeah.

Bijon
0:00:52
In the days of yore.

Niles
0:00:53
Yeah.

Bijon
0:00:54
When you were in that other state, which I'll go, I mentioned, you dig. I know. No, but now, I mean, well now it's, you know, it's a nice, nice size house.

Niles
0:01:04
So now you'll be able to have your own private, full on spare bedroom and bathroom and all that kind of good stuff

Bijon
0:01:16
you know. So exciting. So excited for you man. Thank you, bro. Yeah. That's what it's all about. Pride of home ownership. Well you know it's fun. I already told you I'm getting you. You know you already already told you what your housewarming gift is gonna be. Yeah. I've got some other ideas. Yeah. An espresso machine. Yeah. I need the espresso machine. Yeah, you're gonna need that baby. Especially when you're going to be on those projects you've been telling me about you're going to be doing.

Niles
0:01:41
Well, the funny thing is...

Bijon
0:01:42
You need a shot to get the day started.

Niles
0:01:47
What's funny is that the house is already dialed in. I mean, it's a beautiful home. But you know me, I have certain design styles that I have to... You know me. And I'm a DIYer. A lot of people don't know that about me.

Niles
0:01:58
It's funny, there's two things people don't know about me because they just see me as the artist, the poet or whatever. One is me being an athlete, played football all through high school, was on the football team. People flip out when they hear that, first of all. And then secondly, when I was young,

Niles
0:02:13
I think our age, our demographic, when we were kids, our dads taught us a lot of stuff. I mean, literally, if I needed to build a home, I could build a home, literally. So I mean, I was taught. Yeah, we've talked about that.

Bijon
0:02:25
Yeah. I mean, I know drywall, man. You know, you want me to do some drywall, right? Hey, man, I don't mess with electricity. I mean, either. That's the one thing. Drywall, plumbing, you know, roofing.

Bijon
0:02:37
Yep. Yeah.

Niles
0:02:38
All that flooring.

Niles
0:02:40
I think it's important. It's very important. You know, I hear I hear some girlfriends of mine will say something about their husband or significant other like he didn't even know how to open up a you know a can like what? What are you talking about? Can't fix a door. No. Yeah exactly that's Yeah, so I'm it'll be a lot of home do you wait wait what you said something before you said you're particular about design

Bijon
0:03:04
I've never knew It's funny, you know if you don't know, Niles is borderline minimalist. Like this brother, like you know, you

Niles
0:03:29
know how you're supposed to have like a go bag like in the event of an emergency? Niles could literally take his whole life with him in like five minutes if he had to. It's literally that. I'm not begrudging, I'm just saying. Well

Niles
0:03:55
what's funny is that's real. You know my boxes, U-Haul boxes, and all the rest is just the furniture.

Bijon
0:03:45
With some of it you're not even keeping, right? Or no, you've already got rid of the furniture

Niles
0:03:51
and you're not keeping, right? Yeah, all the furniture I've been purchasing over the last year has been for the house, specific for the house. Right, right, right. But, you know, yeah, man, I don't dig that. Here's my thought and theory on this. Here's the deal. If you're moving house and whatever's in your storage, whether it's your garage or some storage unit or something, if you're moving that to the new place and it's going yet in another storage or garage, you got no business lugging that around. Get rid of it. That's my whole thing.

Niles
0:04:24
I mean, I know I'm an extremist. I mean, dude, I don't even have I don't even have my high school yearbooks, man Cuz it was it was sitting in boxes years ago that I wasn't into so it's like I just that's how hardcore I am I don't even you know, I mean, I don't it's a wasted my high school yearbooks were a waste of space. You're out of here I threw him away, but that's how hardcore I Don't I don't like it.

Bijon
0:04:49
Hey, it's awesome, man.

Niles
0:04:51
It's a metaphor though, isn't it? I mean, I got enough.

Bijon
0:04:53
I laugh out of jealousy.

Niles
0:04:56
All right, all right.

Bijon
0:04:58
I'm not, I'm just like, we did get rid of a lot of stuff when we moved across country back to Boston. But then I picked, then I, you know, moving into my grandparents' old house. Yeah.

Bijon
0:05:10
I've got my great grandparents' stuff in here. My, see, unfortunately, my grandfather, amazing man, master welder, actually welded ships like battleships. He was a master welder. Working in the Quincy shipyards and stuff. And so like all the wrought iron that's around the house, the fences and stuff like that, he welded all that, made all that. That stuff is still standing to this day. That's real craftsmanship. Yeah, that's right. Exactly.

Bijon
0:05:39
So he taught me how to weld, arc welding and stuff like that. Yeah. And but anyway, but as a result, though, he thought he could fix everything. So a lot of stuff. There's a lot of projects that were never like fixed that are in my 12 square foot basement that need to just go away.

Niles
0:05:57
Well, in your house, I mean, it's been a minute, but I've been to your house, it was a hundred and something years old, right?

Bijon
0:06:05
A hundred and twenty years old, yeah.

Niles
0:06:07
Yeah, you got ghosts in that house, Bill. That freaks me out, man. And you know me, I'm extremely sensitive to that world because I've experienced it. So going to your house, and I know it's friendly, so to speak, but yeah, no, I ain't ready for

Niles
0:06:21
that yet.

Niles
0:06:22
I ain't ready for that yet.

Niles
0:06:25
Can't be doing no Casper the Friendly Ghost, man.

Bijon
0:06:30
It ain't cool. Well, really exciting times. Yeah, man. We're about to go into the final quarter, the last third of the year. Going into fall, right? Fall, yeah.

Bijon
0:06:41
Out here on the East Coast, you know, leaves are turning, you know, leaf peeping is starting.

Niles
0:06:46
We got the pumpkins coming in. Nice. And you know what that means for you and I, too, especially for me, but I know you as well.

Bijon
0:06:51
Fashion. Oh yeah. We get to switch gears, man. Yeah. The jackets come out. I can switch back to my cashmere jacket. Yep. Cashmere sport coats, scarves. Yep. Cool hats. You know, long-sleeve shirts. Yeah. Yeah. It's fashion fall. Fashion fall with Beej & Ile. Let's fall into fashion.

Bijon
0:07:16
Fall into fashion. So yeah, we'll definitely, we'll talk about that probably in the next episode for sure. But one of the other exciting things that we have on the books, I mean, I think it's important for people to, especially as artists, write your goals down, what you want to do moving forward. Obviously, Miles and I have been working a lot together for decades now.

Bijon
0:07:39
But we always are, I don't want to say reinventing ourselves, but we're always spending time to not only reflect, but look ahead to what we want to do and some of the things we want to complete. One of those things we realized as we completed our recent EPs individually in the studio with our Las Vegas crew is that we have yet to do a collaborative album together, where we've sat down and written the tunes together.

Bijon
0:08:05
Usually it's been I'll write my tunes, he'll write his tunes. And, you know, even in conversations we'll refer to, well, you know, my music is this and my music, you know, your music is it, you know, it kind of dawned on us it's like, why don't we how come we haven't collaborated together and actually written an album together since we would add to each other's individual works. Why haven't we so we're really looking forward to that

Niles
0:08:30
It's actually very exciting. Well, the cool thing is when you and I stumbled on this idea, you know, Larry Aberman Who's been playing with us?

Bijon
0:08:37
Yeah

Niles
0:08:38
He also brought it up and that kind of helped maybe plant the seed even more so and you know him saying to me one Day that he's like man You guys should just collaborate and write songs together and then you you know Which is what you and I were already kind of talking about anyway And then it just yeah, we've never done that how exciting it would be to do that Discussing the direction and and what we want to tap into musically sonically. That's very exciting

Niles
0:09:02
and if we can record it at Le Fabrique in the south of France, then that's what we got to do

Bijon
0:09:08
There's gonna be a lot of cool things associated with that experience that will allow our listeners to be involved with some amazing recording experiences

Niles
0:09:17
Performance experiences. Well, they will have our band, you know, we've got we've got Brian tree triola on piano. We'll have of course VIP, which should make VIP schmell based course

Bijon
0:09:29
Larry Aberman Larry Aberman, yep

Niles
0:09:33
We've got skits Sam skits limos. We've got Tom the Face Lour. Yeah, you've got the cats.

Bijon
0:09:43
So along the lines of, you know, as artists we have different influences of artists. I mean, I'm a huge fan of the funk era of music, instrumental R&B, before it became Kirk Whalum and Ronnie Laws, Hubert Laws, George Duke. Well, those artists and songs definitely also had a bite

Niles
0:10:06
to them, more just, uh. You know what I mean? And it's definitely on the edge of fusion jazz too.

Bijon
0:10:12
I mean, where it fused kind of the funk with a lot of the jazz sensibility on the seventies, eighties, Miles Davis, even. Yeah, it started. Freddie Hubbard and his ECM records have had a lot of those types of funk attributes to it. So one of my favorites that I've always wanted to do live and I've written a few arrangements is a tune entitled Always There, played by Ronnie Laws, a saxophonist.

Bijon
0:10:41
Amazing groove, timeless. Yeah, so why don't we all take a break here and listen to Always There by Ronnie Laws. You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Beej and Niles on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More.

Music
0:11:01
so so so Oh, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

Niles
0:13:26
Welcome back. You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Beej and Niles here on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and More. That was the great Ronnie Laws with Always There. Thanks for bringing that back, brother. I haven't heard that in a very long time. Go ahead, Bish. Where were you? Welcome.

Bijon
0:15:24
Welcome, Ashley, to B-Side Morning. Oh, yeah. Why don't you introduce Ashley? You know what

Niles
0:15:29
I'll introduce you to. You introduce Ashley. So we told our listeners early part of the show that we have a special guest today. So we'd like to welcome, should we call you just Ashley Palmer? Is it Ashley Brown hyphen Palmer? What is it?

Ashley
0:15:44
Legally, my name is Ashley Palmer. I left it Brown Palmer on Facebook because you know, when you change your name, and then people kind of don't even realize who you are. They

Niles
0:15:56
knew you as Ashley Brown. But I just left it. But Ashley is, Ashley's a dancer and she came out here to Vegas a year ago, right? Just a year ago? Yeah, exactly a year ago. So she's a newbie. Well, welcome to Las Vegas. I met Ashley though at, you know, I started, you know, in our last show we talked a little bit about my workouts at Orange Theory. And so, and you know me dude, in terms of what you don't know about me, Ashley, is that once you get to know me, I'm fine.

Niles
0:16:26
But normally, I'm just extremely shy, timid cat. So going into Orange Theory for the first time was a huge feat for me, because I don't walk into places alone like that. You know what I mean? Took a lot for me to do that.

Niles
0:16:41
And I will say, Bij, when I walked in, Ashley was there and just really, just, I felt at home immediately. It was crazy the way she made me feel. And she's just being her, but what she doesn't know yet is that,

Niles
0:16:53
that same morning, once I fill out all my documents and insurance waivers or whatever they have you sign. You're life away. Yeah, they, you know, to the crowd of, I don't know, maybe it was 15, 20 people in that class that day, maybe somewhere in there, 15 maybe.

Niles
0:17:08
She goes, everybody now welcome Niles. Niles is new here. I mean, yelling it out. I'm like, oh my God, you didn't just do this. But anyway, that's how I met Ashley. She's an amazing coach.

Niles
0:17:20
And that's why I've been getting all ripped up. So, honey, show ready, getting show ready.

Bijon
0:17:28
But if I can if I can quickly inject, I just want to say I have never heard Niles be so excited about going to work. I understand when he started working out in RSV, he's just like, man, I gotta get up for my class, man. You know, okay, so I you know, he was like, I gotta, you know, I can't be staying up late. I'm, you know, I'm going to be late. Nah, man, I gotta get to class by, what is it, 6 a.m. class you take or something like that? 5.30, something like that? 6.15. 6.15, alright. So, really, you have been a huge

Bijon
0:17:58
inspiration to him and it's exciting to see him excited and just knowing him as I have for a long period of time. Just the energy level, positivity. And, you know, those are some of the byproducts of just, you know, working out. But enough of us talking. I want to hear about you. I want to hear about what what you know, first of all, we'll obviously get to the

Bijon
0:18:19
benefits of of of a thing like Orange Theory. Yeah, we can start at that. Working out fitness. But, how did you, A, happen to want to be involved with an Orange Theory situation? And what is your background that kind of led you to that and wanting to help others get to their best?

Bijon
0:18:38
You could be each guy, you could.

Ashley
0:18:39
Yes, that was a very loaded question.

Ashley
0:18:44
So, while I was working at Disney, a friend of mine who also worked at Disney started to be a sales associate at an Orange Theory that was opening up right by Disney.

Bijon
0:18:58
Celebrating the location. The mouse brings people together.

Ashley
0:19:02
I know. Wild, it is literally a small world. They were not kidding.

Niles
0:19:07
But you were an entertainer at Disney, right? You were dancing or what were you doing?

Ashley
0:19:11
Yeah, so I was dancing at the time, doing the Castle show. You know, so he's trying to do sales, but he also, you know, reached out to us and invited me and some other people in the cast to come and take our first class.

Ashley
0:19:25
You know, it's free, that whole setup. And so I'm always interested, because I love fitness, I love working out, and as a dancer, it's always been integrated into my daily routine. And I have always wanted to find some type of group fitness but I

Ashley
0:19:41
Love going to the gym and there wasn't anything that was giving me that kind of workout in a group class setup So when I went to take the class and that's exactly what it is It's literally like going to the gym But you have a coach leading you and the workouts plan and you know the music's going so for a dancer. This is like what we want We're always the people telling us like how to train what to do for how long music going you know

Ashley
0:20:09
And that's what inspires us, so I fell in love in that first class and signed up that day I left Disney as an employee and became a third-party employee, so that's how I started working there I just thought it was a good egg like I love working out there And when you're working there you get to work out for free. But it's

Niles
0:20:28
interesting that your perspective, the reason I bought into Orange Theory is because unlike what you were just mentioning, what I love about it is that it does not feel like a gym to me because I hate gyms. There's something about them that I just, I can't, I hate them. Yeah. And so Orange Theory I don't feel, so for those that are listening that may not be in the gyms as well. To me, I don't get that feeling from Orange Theory,

Niles
0:20:52
even though it's very much a workout center. I don't feel like I'm in a gym. I don't know why, but it just doesn't have that same aura, that same vibe to it, I guess. Maybe it's because you guys, you're a coach, and you have someone's literally,

Niles
0:21:05
it's like having a personal trainer in this class the whole time. And it's just amazing.

Niles
0:21:10
So if you don't-

Bijon
0:21:11
It's a group-driven class, if I'm understanding it. And I've gone online and checked it out. It seems very cool. So if you're not self-driven and be able to create a program for yourself, this is an excellent thing to do.

Bijon
0:21:25
I mean, I grew up playing football and basketball. And I did a lot of training and stuff like that. So it's a little easier for me to put together a little training program for myself. But I do like the coach-driven aspect of an orange theory, which keeps you in check.

Niles
0:21:44
There are two other things I'll mention with this, and then I'd like to talk to Ashley about her dancing. For me, one, I'm not into the personal trainer situation, because then it's like a hairstylist and you start getting into it's just you know I mean then then they're not really working out anymore it's like a weird it just becomes I don't know it's like you

Ashley
0:22:07
gotta spill the tea and tell your secrets and yeah it just becomes a

Niles
0:22:12
workout and I and I get it if some people like that it's fine I'm not it's

Bijon
0:22:16
just not for me right so tell us about your dancing and and I mean is there a particular style you do or you verse in all different styles tell us about what your goals are here in Vegas, dancing-wise.

Ashley
0:22:29
Yeah, so I trained in all styles. I grew up doing ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop. So I feel like I'm well-versed in all types. My main, I guess, main focus of dance

Niles
0:22:45
would be jazz. Okay. So yeah, when you came out here, so you decided to come out to Vegas for what? To just kind of kick start or find a new place in dance in terms of this scene out here?

Ashley
0:22:59
Yeah, so my husband and I moved back to Oklahoma, that's where we're both from. We moved to the back.

Bijon
0:23:04
Oklahoma, where the wind blows from and I'm the flame.

Niles
0:23:08
Sorry.

Ashley
0:23:09
That's usually where everyone's from, because they don't know anymore.

Bijon
0:23:12
That's true.

Bijon
0:23:14
I played that musical several times.

Bijon
0:23:15
Anyway, go ahead. So we moved back to Oklahoma and I thought I was done with dancing. I was a little burnt out. And after being home for a year still pursuing fitness, we both decided we weren't done with

Niles
0:23:19
entertainment and Las Vegas was one of the first places we had considered moving to when

Ashley
0:23:20
we first got married. So we were like, well, maybe now's the time. All of our stuff was still in storage, packed away, so we just decided to give you a little bit of a tour of the house. And we were like, well, we're going to have a little bit of a party. So we went to the clubhouse, and we had a little bit of a party.

Ashley
0:23:26
And we were like, well, we're going to have a little bit of a party.

Ashley
0:23:27
And we were like, well, we're going to have a little bit of a party. And we were like, well, we're going to have a little bit of a party. And we were like, well, maybe now's the time. All our stuff was still in storage, packed away, so we just decided to get a new home and move out here.

Bijon
0:23:44
That's cool.

Niles
0:23:45
Nice.

Ashley
0:23:46
That time of thinking about moving out here, though, a friend of mine, she lives here, and she does Cirque du Soleil's Beatles Love Show, and she kept saying, yes, you guys need to come out here, there's so much work, you'll find new things to do. And I was submitting for Michael Jackson 1 but doing well with the submission

Ashley
0:24:06
so we decided to move out here to Vegas and honestly I just want to dance in general. I wouldn't say I have specific goals. I'm just trying to navigate through the entertainment world here and see what is out here, see what the offerings are like, what the shows are like.

Niles
0:24:25
See that's a cool way of approaching it actually. But we're gonna have to take a quick music break here and come right back with Ashley Palmer. One of my favorite artists as many of you know is Sade. So this is Sade's Fear off the Promise album here on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and More.

Music
0:24:46
Blue is the color of the red sky Will he, will he come home tonight? Blue is the color that she feels in her smile I can't hide my fear anymore Azules de color, te rompo su miedo Volverá, volverá a mí esta noche

Music
0:25:55
foreign me Oh is Blue is the color that she feels inside But I don't, I can't hide my fear anymore

Music
0:26:51
And so they sell color, their own for Sierra Welcome back. You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Bijan Niles on 91.5 KUNV, Jazz and More.

Bijon
0:27:15
Well, Ashley, we want to thank you for joining us and giving some insight into kind of the dance world and fitness.

Niles
0:28:26
So Ashley, where can people find you if they want to look into your dance career as well?

Ashley
0:28:32
Yeah, if you want to follow my Vegas Dance Journey on Instagram, I'm at AJPalmer319.

Bijon
0:28:41
Thanks again, and we'll look forward to seeing you and seeing you in your other job, your other profession, can't wait.

Ashley
0:28:50
Thank you guys, I'm excited as well, definitely keep you posted on the journey.

Bijon
0:28:58
You've been listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Bij and Niles, chillin' on the You've been listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Bij and Niles, chillin' on the corner of Lifestyle App and Music Street on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and More.