uh hello there welcome to another episode of pinball i mean punk rock pinball punk rock pinball punk rock pinball you might be watching this on the live from the rock room youtube channel and you might find yourself asking what the hell is this doing on there and i'm gonna say it's because I'm into punk rock and I'm into pinball. We both are. And this podcast takes place in my house, as did all of the rock room sessions that you've watched and loved. And for us, it just goes together. So that's why it's here. I'm into it. It's my channel. If you don't like it, I'm sorry. Not sorry. And we're going to have some rockers come in and play in front of some pinball machines here eventually. Probably not full band because that's just too much work right now. You're just not set up that way right now. I'm not set up that way right now. I don't have room for a whole band, but you can come in here. You can sing an acoustic song. I really would like to get Tiff from Rodeo Boys. Yeah. Like that. So get her in here. I don't know who else. If you want to come in here and sing in front of pinball machines, if you have some kind of following audience. Send me a message. But that's why we're on here. Because I'm not making a whole new channel. I've already got the Rock Room channel. Some of you probably like pinball. If you don't, you can just skip this and wait for the next music session. It's been a while, but there'll be more. Yeah. I've been busy. I've played like well over 100 punk rock shows in the last 14 months. So it's been a little busy. It's taken up a lot of time. It's a lot of time. Going on a rock tour, that's a lot of time. I'm kind of slowing down on that for now. But if you want to see me rock, you can see me at Riot Fest, if this is out before then. Playing at Riot Fest. I can't remember which day, but it's like at 1.30 again. Sunday. Sunday. Hopefully, you don't get rained out like a couple years ago. But that's where I'll be. And there'll be pinball there, I bet you. Well, backstage. I think they had stuff out. Did they have it in the public? I think. We were supposed to play two years ago, and it was too muddy for us to play, so our set got canceled. But we got there, and me and Stephanie played a bunch of pinball in the artist area, and then I got a haircut from, I think it's the bass player of a Gaslight Anthem, Fantastic Barber. I forget his name. It was a great haircut. Great haircut. Excellent haircut. He's got a barbershop up there somewhere out east. Yeah. Boston? Maybe. I wonder if he'll be back there this year. I don't know if the Gaslight Anthem is playing this year. If they are, I'll get another haircut from him. Excellent haircut. But what are we going to talk about today? Well, I think we should talk about we just got a package delivered from a place where we get a lot of parts. Yeah. And it's also an Illinois-based company. It is. Up in Huntley, Illinois, called Pinball Life. So do you want to talk first about where, if you've got pinball machines, where do you get parts and stuff for them? Or do you want to talk about if you might want to buy a machine where you should buy a pinball machine, which do you want to do first? Let's talk about like where you might want to get a pinball machine. Okay. So if you're getting one, if you're going to get a pinball machine tomorrow. Well, I'll tell you what, Mike. Yeah. I wish we would have heard this podcast when we were buying our Jaws. Jaws is going to come up in every podcast. This is the Jaws pinball podcast. I wish we would have known this because it was really, I don't know why it was so hard for us to find a dealer to buy a brand new pinball machine. It seems now like it shouldn't have been as hard as it was for us to find someone. I don't know. Just we were a little uneasy about buying such an expensive, making such an expensive purchase online without knowing the company. We really wanted to go and see it and kind of make sure it's a real business because that's a lot of money. It's a $7,000 pinball machine. It's a Jaws Pro, new in the box. So here we are living in central Illinois, and we actually drove a little over two hours to West Chicago in the Chicago suburbs to Great American Pinball. It was an awesome experience. Yes, yes. Mike at Great American Pinball is so nice, and he had a great showroom with tons of machines, and we were kind of debating, like, should we get a Godzilla? Everybody loves that one. What about Stranger Things? Yeah. I shot a hole-in-one into the... The demogorgon? Yeah. Into his mouth? Like, I didn't know it was that hard of a shot, and I wasn't even scanned in. Pretty hard shot to get in there. I got it, and it was fun. But we ended up getting the jaws. Thought we'd have them deliver it, even though we drove your pickup truck. But we ended up taking it home ourselves and doing it, which was a little intimidating the first time. But it was hard to find someone. And little did we know that just an hour south of us is one of the largest stern dealers in the country, Tilt Amusement. Yep. You can find them on Facebook, just Tilt Amusements. They have a page. But we didn't even know about them. Nope. We couldn't even find them. And this is the thing. My profession in life, it is not music, even though that's been my career for decades. But what I do for a living to make real money is I do search engine optimization. And I wish some of these guys would let me do search engine optimization for them. I'm sure Troy at Tilt Amusements is not listening to this. And he's got his reasons he doesn't want to be found. But, like, let me help people find you on the Internet. Because it is hard. and the great american pinball they do have some seo type content on their site which is why we found them because we were googling like googling hard we're googling hard like pinball dealers here pinball dealers there and then there are some scams out there so you want to find like a legit one so we'll give you a list of a few like legitimate pinball dealers that you can buy from with confidence you know if you're experienced in the hobby like you've probably bought some from people on pin side and you probably bought some used ones on marketplace and i do think there's a ton of value buying a used machine and and some of the dealers we talk about are going to have a good selection of used machines but i think a lot of you if you're first time buyer you might want to buy a new inbox as we did because we were scared like we heard they break a lot they can break a lot sometimes they don't but like you get a brand new like stern pro is probably going to be pretty solid you know for your first one before you dip your toes in the in the used market but so you're a brand new pinball buyer today stephanie like what's your go-to right now today you want to get a pinball machine i mean we've we've purchased from three different dealers, which we'll mention. But if I want to get one today, I'm calling Troy down at Tilt because we can drive down there and pick it up. Yeah, it's about an hour, 20 minutes. Not even. And I will say for Troy at Tilt Amusements, super honest guy, real friendly guy, easy to deal with. You've probably, if you go to pinball shows, you've probably seen him. He does all of the big shows. He kind of represents Stern in bringing and setting up all the machines. And he can ship you games. They have a website, but Tilt Amusement's Facebook. He's always got a post pin that has his latest used inventory and his latest new. And demos. He has a lot of demo games because he does a lot of the trade shows So we bought a number of those Our Beatles was a demo game john wick was a demo game zeppelin was new but i almost bought a demo there and troy is very honest if he if you see something on his used list that you're curious about he'll give you pretty straight up info on like what the condition is and he he can ship anywhere in the country yeah he has a uh he works with some guys who go through and kind of shop it out and make sure everything's working right, and he has a handle on the condition of all of the used stuff. And I would have to say that his prices are really fair. Yeah, Troy's used prices, he's really fair on his used prices. Like if you're buying a brand-new game, it's going to be the same price wherever you go. And most guys, I think Troy on the new games will give you free shipping oftentimes. Like a brand new inbox will be free shipping. Use when you have to pay. But Troy's used prices, like you're probably not even really going to have to haggle. His used prices are pretty spot on. He's like such an honest dude. I feel like he prices them fair. Yeah. Just, and I feel like he has like a reputation in the industry as just being like fair with his pricing. Yeah. So Troy, for us, like Troy, number one, largely due to proximity, but also because he's great to work with. We bought a bunch from him. I would buy one from Great American Pinball again. Oh, totally. I'd buy another if he had something like used that I wanted. I will say Great American Pinball, like his used pricing, not knocking them, but like Troy usually has a better deal on the used than Great American Pinball does. So my theory on this is I think Great American Pinball is like smack dab in the Chicago suburbs, bigger city. People like to wheel and deal. Like nobody is going to pay list. And so I think that is just part of his strategy is he knows he's going to have to do some haggling. And so, you know, I think he prices them that way. We've never bought a used game from him. I don't know. So this is – I'm just speculating. Yeah, and if you live up in the northwest suburbs, kind of northwest suburbs, you might want to just get it from Great American Pinball because you can go right over to a showroom and play it. And if you have a vehicle big enough, you can throw it in your vehicle and take it home. Like the new in-box ones or the used ones, he's got them there. You can just get it. So based on proximity, if you live up near West Chicago, like go to Great American Pinball. You want a new in-the-box. If you live anywhere else, Tilt Amusements is fantastic. And the other dealer we've bought from is Flip N Out Pinball. they have a bigger YouTube channel Flippin' Up Pinball and they've got the Straight Down the Middle Pinball podcast it's a great podcast Zach Many very entertaining like video show podcasts I bought three games from Zach yeah three or four two used and one new Avatar the Stern the older X-Men and the Avengers Infinity Quest all were great games you shipped them really well I've also got the Cactus Canyon upgrade kit on order from Flip N Out Pinball. Totally legitimate dealer. And so if you're outside of Illinois, like Tilt Amusements and Flip N Out Pinball is really like all you kind of need to know. They both have a pretty good selection of used. And really easy to deal with. Both very easy to deal with. Like they have email addresses and stuff. I just send them Facebook messages and they reply. so like Zach at Flip N Out Pinball wants to sell you a game and Troy at Tilt wants to sell you a game if you want to go if you're northwest suburbs probably just go to Great American Pinball throw it in your car yeah I would say western suburbs west Chicago western but west Chicago is kind of northwest I think it's it's up there by St. Charles it's right by Naperville it's not by Naperville I'm going to pull out Google Maps here people west Chicago is kind of by St. Charles I would call that west it's also north but it's not called northwest Chicago I guess it's west she's right it's called west Chicago it's called west Chicago I know but it is right by St. Charles but it is more west it's also right by Naperville it is north of Naperville I'm wrong Stephanie thinks sometimes I don't admit when I'm wrong I'm wrong she's right it's just way out west of Chicago ever so slightly north but south of Elgin and Schaumburg. If you want the greater Chicagoland geography lesson, it's west Chicago, straight west. If you're out there, go to Gap. Flip N Out Pinball is great. Tilt Amusements is great. I think there's one up towards Milwaukee, Kingpin. Yeah. If you're in the Milwaukee-ish area like Kingpin, I think they might have a showroom. I'm not sure. Do you know? I don't know. That's another legitimate one. But in terms of used, if you're going to Great American Pinball, haggle. Not on the news. Not on the news. You can't haggle on the news. But on a used. And if Mike at Great American Pinball is listening, I'm sorry, but your prices are higher than Troy and Zach on used stuff. It's real talk right there. I'm just shooting it straight. I'm just shooting it straight. So haggle a little bit with Mike at Great American Pinball. Zach and Troy on their use pretty much right on the spot with the prices. Everyone's entitled to make a buck. Everyone's entitled to make a buck, yes. Where would you check if you want to see, okay, you want to buy a used game? How are you going to figure out what you should pay for that game? Oh, my gosh, Mike, I'm so glad you asked this question. This is not even scripted. I am on this website, I think, every day. I check every night before I go to bed. I don't know why. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I go to pinside.com, which is this really cool website that lists all of the, I mean, it's just like a resource for anything you want to know about any pinball game. There's forums. There are, there's like a whole database of every game that's ever been made. A lot of them say of the older games, how many were produced and what the going range is for pricing on these older games. Like right now, well, the last few months I've been obsessed with trying to find a frontier. It's really hard to find. It's like I guess a lot of people really want to play it too, but I played it down at, what's the place? Atomic Pinball. They had a beautiful frontier, and I fell in love with this game, and I've been trying to find one close to us for sale. There's been one that's for sale up in Ontario for months, but we're not going to Canada. No. But it's a great resource, pinside.com. So that's where I go to see if it's like, is this, if a used game is being sold on Marketplace or somewhere else, it helps kind of gauge like, is this a valid price? Or is it totally out of whack? Because sometimes people have totally shopped out games or special playfields or special mods on it, and they're asking for some additional money for that. and that might be worth it to you or it might not be worth it to you. Yeah, like the pin side prices, their price range is, it's not like the Bible, but it gives you an idea if the price that the dealer is asking is in the ballpark of being fair. And a lot of it with these games is heavily depends on the condition of the machine and not necessarily how many plays are on it, but like does everything work? do all the mechs work does it have are all the flippers and the pop bumpers rebuilt if it's an older game does it have all new boards does it have like a new play field on an old game the price can vary tremendously there but if you deep into this hobby you know Pinside and you check it every day but if you more of a noob you like how do I even know what a good deal on a used one Go to pinside.com, type in the name of the machine. Once you start typing, the machine will probably pop up and you just click on it and it'll just give you an overview of the machine and prices. So we're recommending Tilt Amusements. We're recommending Flip N Out Pinball. we're recommending great american pinball especially on like a new game or haggle with them on on the used i'd say on the used just buy with confidence from troy or zach and for the record we're not sponsored by any of these people we're independent we're independent i mean it's july 5th as as of recording this we're not sponsored by any of these people maybe eventually but you never know. Maybe. So that's where you can get a machine. Now, let's say you've got a machine and you need some parts. Where are you going to get those? I'm going to Pinball Life. I love them. They've got everything. They're up in Huntley, Illinois. That's the northwest suburbs. That is the northwest suburbs. I came from Crystal Lake and Huntley's right there. Yeah, that's your neck of the woods. Yeah, that's northwest. And I don't know why I thought St. Charles was like right by there because I used to go there a bunch, but it's south of there, making it west. Yeah. So Pinball Life is pretty awesome. They've got, like, if you need parts, they've got mods. If you need little doodads, they pretty much have everything. I've gotten a bunch of the cups, the cup holders to go on almost all of our machines, all kinds of stuff you'll get lost. A little rubber feet to go on the leg leveler so you don't scuff your floor. Yeah, they got it all. Pinballs, flipper parts. And with every order, they put out these hilarious stickers where they just kind of like rip off a logo that you know. Like we just got one that's a Taco Bell logo, but it says Pinball Life. Or we have like a MasterCard sticker, but instead of MasterCard, it says Pinball Life. Yeah, they did Disney. They did cigarettes. Yeah, there's one that looks like a Marlboro pack or something. New Ports. We got the New Ports. It looks like New Ports and it says Pinball Life. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. We love them. Yeah, they're great. They ship really fast. Like, we just had an order delivered a subwoofer and some legs, and I ordered it on July 3rd in the morning. And today is July 5th, and it's here at my house. And yesterday was the 4th of July. So they ship fast, especially if you order in the morning. I feel like it gets out that day. If for some reason you need a part that they don't have, then my second choice would be the Marco Specialties, I think. Is that what it's called? Yep. I don't know their URL, but just type in Marco Pinball into Google and you'll get there. That might be it. I think it's Marco Specialties. That's the name of it, but it might be Marco Pinball. Marco Pinball. But Google will take you there. And they're good. They ship fast as well. They're not from Illinois. I can't remember where they're from. Out east. But also good. Sometimes they have something that one, if you need a weird part, like one might have it, the other might not. Maybe one of them is out of stock. Pinball Life and Marco. But that's where you're going to get your parts. We've covered where you're going to get your games. Now I think it's on to you choose. You choose. I get to ask Stephanie today. We just pose a question and we say, you choose. So since we're on like, especially it's like a first-time buyer kind of episode, which some pinball vets might think this is boring, but that's fine. But let's say you got some friends. Your friends, Georgian and Randy, are going to buy their first pinball machine. Or someone out there is listening and they want to get their first pinball machine. And it can't be Jaws. Because she's going to say Jaws. Jaws has to be mentioned in every episode. So if you're going to tell anybody which game should you get, she's going to say Jaws. So let's say if Jaws didn't exist and George and Randy, who are not pinball players. They're not pinball players. They like pinball. They've come here and they've played, but they're not like pinballers. What machine are you going to tell them to get? Like some noobs who want to just have a pinball machine in the house, what game should they get? You choose. You're not going to give me things to choose from? No, any game that's not Jaws. I thought you choose was like here's the list. Oh, I got to give you a list? No, you don't. The list is every pinball machine ever made. Okay. Well, you're right. Except Jaws. Because I did have you choose in the very first one about which ones would you keep. Well, there was a list there. But my list is all pinball machines known to man, known to humans, except Jaws. Except for Jaws. So for – all right. Well, this one is – I think a lot of people like this one, whether you're a pinballer or not. I think it's really fun. I think the music is really great. I didn't even we never saw the movie until after we started playing the pinball but I think the Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty fun that would be I would think about that one or maybe Stranger Things yeah those in between I feel like those have universal appeal yeah and they're both challenging as a new player pretty challenging and as you get better there's i feel like they're deep the code's deep enough to like keep you challenged for a really long time i really like the music in the guardians it's just fun the music in the guardians one's great and especially for my friend georgianne and randy like they're music people yeah i feel like they would really dig that i think they would have fun with that one that would be a really good one for them yeah Yeah. Guardians. That's a good one. And I think Stranger Things is a really accessible pinball machine. Because there's the main thing, the Demogorgon comes up and you smack it. So it's like real easy to know what to do. Yeah. But the rules and the code to the game is deep enough that even if you become very good, there's a lot to do in that game. It's cool. So if they like Stranger Things. They do. Then it's like, I think for beginners, Stranger Things is maybe a little better than Guardian. Guardian is kind of tough because the Outlanes. It is tough. It's got those John Borg. The Stranger Things is not easy either. No. And that does have the Groot. You stick it in, you hit the Groot's mouth. They both have a thing where it's like clearly easy to know what to do. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Either one of those. Did our dog just burp? Our dog just burped. I don't know if you can hear it, but he's sitting here on the table with his head on the table sitting on a chair. I like that. I wouldn't have even thought Guardians, but I think that's a really good one. Yeah. It's colorful. The music is just so fun. You can pick your character at the beginning. There's tons of characters to pick from. Yeah, it's cool. Good answer. Well, thanks. Thanks so much, Mike. All right, well, it's my turn to ask you a question. And we talk about this, I feel like, several times a week. Dream themes. So you get to direct a pinball manufacturer to make a dream theme for you. What is that theme? And tell us a little bit about who you think should make it or who should design it. Like just a little bit more than throwing out a theme. Okay. Well, last time I did Weezer's music pin. So I have another music pin, but I'll do something other than that this time. I'll go Fallout. Not Fallout Boy. No, not Fallout Boy. Fallout the game. It could be Fallout 3, Fallout 4, or just Fallout in general. I think it could be. And I don even know exactly what you would do with this because it so wide open Are you you talking like fallout the video game or fallout the hbo show it a amazon oh amazon i thinking the video game okay although people might prefer the show the show would probably sell better maybe both maybe both i mean if you could get the assets from the show probably the show i would prefer it based on the video game it's like just itching to be yeah I didn't think about it from the show but if you did one based on the TV show I'd probably sell more because you'd have those actors but you could probably do both I suppose the main kind of toy could be a deathclaw you know they're scary and then you'd fight a lot of raiders like in the games there's a lot of raiders so there could be different raider targets that you hit down you could almost do a lot of people, it's kind of polarizing how Cactus Canyon has bad guys that pop up. Yeah, I love them. And you smack them down. You could have those be raiders. People don't like those? I think some people don't like those. I like shoot the bad guys. Yeah, and like Evil Dead has those what do they call those little heads that pop up. So those raiders could pop up here and there and you could kill a certain number of raiders to get a raider multiball. You could basically just rip off cactus canyon where if you hit enough bad guys you get the showdown yeah and that's a multiball where those are just popping up randomly and you're smacking them down the artwork could be really cool yeah with the little guy the little guy and like the retro feel like the there could be like a vending machine like a nuka cola vending machine where you lock the balls and then like the nuka cola quantum multiball that's the best nuka cola is like the quantum okay glowing and that's your like multi balls and you could call quantum one you'd be the death claw yeah fall out yeah i want to see the artwork the artwork could be just so kick-ass and i don't even know who should do that who should make this one i feel like with a lot of these where it needs like a lot of stuff i'm just leaning towards spooky we don't even own a spooky machine. We will eventually. We don't own one. But I feel like as much stuff needs to be in here, it should be spooky probably. I think spooky could really crush a Fallout game. I mean, Fallout's kind of a creepy game. It's scary. If it was going to be a Stern, I'd probably want it to be an L1. Because just based on the code for Jaws and the code for Godzilla and the code for Iron Maiden is kind of like they all kind of take you on a journey. You know, Jaws and Godzilla, especially like kind of on this adventure. Yeah. And so I think it'd be tough between who would code it better between Stern and Spooky if you had like Elwin's team. I think Spooky would definitely put cooler mechs in there. like make it a wide body and like just pack a full of shit like stern's not going to do that stern probably make one that would shoot better like with more flow that's an l1 game it's going to probably shoot not knocking spooky but like there's not a spooky that shoots as good as jaws or godzilla like there just isn't but they would have more cool shit in it so maybe it's another one where you had one where jack danger was going to go work for spooky for a week and or a year and make your goonies and i'll have keith ellen and his code team go to work for spooky for a year and make fallout yeah like a sabbatical uh-huh yeah you know like their bands do like there's like super bands where you get like this singer from this band the drummer from that band like the The Traveling Wilburys? The Traveling Wilburys. We're going to make the pinball Traveling Wilburys. It's going to be Elwin and his coding team, and they're going to go with the spooky budgets on a wide body and pack full of crap. That's kind of awesome. Yeah. Would you buy a follow-up pinball machine, the listener? Would you buy? I would. It would actually be really cool. What if Spooky and Stern, as a company, did a crossover where Stern was making them, Making this spooky design. Like a collab? Like a collab. I think it would be wonderful for the future of pinball if – because Stern has this big factory. And you cannot argue like the quality, the durability of the modern Stern is better than spooky, period, up to this day. I know of a few evil deads out there, and they have issues. Like we're talking about you put a game on location and get it played constantly. Stern makes a more reliable pinball machine than Spooky or more reliable than anyone else. And I know there's some newer ones that this has a problem that has a problem. I think mainly because they get rushed. But then once they figure out the fix, it's good to go. I've got like six Sterns here that have had thousands of plays and never had the play field up. So let's get Stern having a third shift, cranking out spooky games. Let's just have that happen. Let's have that happen. You know, because spooky, they can put out a number of games, but think if they had the capability, like Stern can do as many in a day as spooky makes in a month. You know, let's get those spooky games out there. Let's get those spooky games out there. Let's make more of them. and then you'll have the collector guys saying, no, we need the FOMO to keep the price up. No, there should be 1,500 Evil Deads, not 888. There should be 1,500, and if your price goes down, so what? Because there's 1,500 people that want it. Go buy a classic car or something, and go buy a PSA 10 Babe Ruth card that they're never going to make again, and get over your FOMO bullshit with your pinball, and let's have Stern cranking out some spooky machines. Real talk. You know? Yeah. Let's get Stern Crank and some fucking Spookies out so they can sell 2,000 Evil Deads. Yeah. Let's get 2,000 of them out there. For the love of the pinball. And F your FOMO. Whoa. You people. Like, get to the LE then if you need to do FOMO. Yeah. Whatever. This is for, the games are to be played. It's for playing. It's for playing. Mm-hmm. Do you feel differently? Do you agree with Mike? Do you not agree with him? What do you think about the dream theme? Yeah. Are you buying Fallout pinball? I mean we are we are that's a pre-order that's another one pre-order before before I even see it just take my money give it to me take my money just like your Twin Peaks from the last episode yeah want to hear about that listen to the previous episode Twin Peaks pinball baby all right well make sure you're joining the Facebook group I mean you can also comment I guess if this is on YouTube this is on YouTube comment on the YouTube subscribe to the channel live from the rock room if you like punk rock music there's like 350 videos on this channel of bands ripping songs yeah some really good ones yeah where do you think they should start that's a whole different episode start with if you like kind of like alt country type stuff i really like the limbeck videos yeah those were good to go for some limbeck the biggest ones bad cop bad cop you can't go wrong there uh deep cuts some dopamines the dopamines ones are fun yeah go for some dopamines off with their heads ones are good just you know just go down the rabbit hole there's like 300 plus videos on this channel punk bands ripping it go find one some punkier than others yeah yeah limbeck not so much punk no more like rock yeah Great. Great session. That was in Milwaukee. Yeah. Find that one. Listen to it. Love it. All right. Well, we'll catch you guys next time. Keep flipping. Toodaloo.