Episode 100: Episode 100
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Transcript
Transcript
Well, we finally made it. Episode 100. And it happens to coincide with Vampire Weekend's
biggest show ever at Madison Square Garden. Jake and I chop it up about live music, our
history at MSG, plus we'll take you there in real time. This is a cross-continental
LA, New York, very special. Time Crisis with Ezra King. B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Sport One.
They passed me by, all of those great romances. You were a friend to a man, me, all my rightful
chances. My picture clear, everything seemed so easy. And so I dealt you the blow, when
a bus had to go. Now it's different, I want you to know. One of us is crying, one of us
is lying. Leave it only there. Time Crisis back once again. Man, this is a crazy episode.
Not only is this episode 100, can you believe that? No, it's wild. Well, you know, Jake,
you haven't been on every episode. How many episodes has Jake been on? Like 91? Yeah.
More? 95? Get a number crunch. Well, how many episodes did you do in New York back in the
summer of 2015? I feel like only like three or four. So when do I make my first appearance?
I was zigzagging in those early days. Bi-coastal. Yeah, bi-coastal elite. Time Crisis Wiki says,
Jake, you started on episode three. See, that makes sense to me. Like I did a couple and
then I was like in LA. I think I've missed a few. Oh yeah, you missed eight and nine.
I was in China. And 11. Yeah, it was a little patchy. So is it possible Jake's done like
96, 95? Bulk of the series. 95. All right, well, we can still celebrate episode 100 together.
Yeah. You'll always be the new guy to me. That's just like a classic like band thing.
Like the Eagles or like, no, the Stones. Oh yeah. Ron Wood joining in like 1971 or something.
Yeah. Sometimes it's half a joke. And then I think sometimes it like, it's kind of real.
I could totally picture the Stones on like Voodoo Lounge tour in the nineties just being
like, you know what, dude, that's not how we do stuff. He's like, I've been in the band
20 years, man. Come on. Mick's just kind of like, come on, dude. Too soon. You weren't
there at Altamont, man. Yeah. You don't know what we've been through. So it's been a journey.
100 Eps and you're playing MSG. Yeah. So this is both the hundredth episode and the Madison
Square Garden show, which I'm not going to make. Unfortunately. This is a real time crisis,
right? This is a semi banked up in that we're pre-taping our conversation right now in LA,
but then we'll be getting some colorful interviews and textures and sounds from the garden show.
So what you're getting is kind of like a very postmodern collage of a mid August to mid
September LA, New York kind of thing. So yeah, Madison Square Garden, September 6th. What
day of the week is that? Friday. Nice dude. Friday night. Friday night in New York city.
Still be dressed to kill. You know, it's wild. I found out that our Madison Square Garden show is
40 years to the day of a dead show at the garden. Sick. Of course they were doing a run a few nights,
but the Grateful Ted did perform September 6th, 1979 at the garden. I listened to a little bit
of the show. How was it? It was, um, I'm not a big enough dead head where I can like parse out the
different years in terms of the live recordings. Like I don't have a take on 79 real dead heads do,
but I'm sure in like really broad strokes, you can have some sense of early seventies late. Well,
even just by the songs. Oh yeah. Broad strokes. I get it. Yeah. But like people are like deep in
where they can be like 80 versus 79. I remember when I was checking out the show, I forget what
song I was listening to. I was like pretty fast, really fast eyes. Let's check out a brown eyed.
Oh, I wouldn't say this is fast. This is like spirited. This feels good. Way better than too
slow. Keep that ambient room tone pretty high. Yeah.
Yeah. It's good to remember. Like sometimes when I watch crowd videos from other people's shows,
cause like sometimes you're playing like a quiet song and you look out and you see many,
many people just like eyes focused on the band, taking it in. But still, anytime you play a quiet
song, you can hear some chatter. You're going to see some movement. And the more I watched like
other bands stuff, like you just got to accept like that's how it is for everybody. Sure. Anytime
you're playing in a venue bigger than like a small theater. Yeah. Somebody's going to have
to go get a drink. Some people checked out. It's about the vibe. I don't know why you're
going to just like jawbone through all of brown eyed women. You're talking about this drama at
work that happened. And I guess 1979 people didn't have cell phones. Probably some deadheads hadn't
seen each other in like a few months. Last time I saw you was Rochester. Man, I haven't seen you.
Last April. That brown eyed sounded good. Yeah, that sounded great actually.
China. Yeah.
This feels kind of slow. I wonder if I was listening to a different show. Yeah. None of
this sounds too fast to me. Crowd is so loud. I can barely hear the band.
Also, who's just like cheering mid song like,
like when they start, I guess the song technically just started.
Pretty tight. Let's check out this Terrapin. So I just love like 1979 New York. Yeah. Just
like picture just like punk rock, like porno theaters in Times Square, early hip hop.
The dead rolling through multiple nightstand. Just like outside. Just like funky ass 1979
New York. Like he has somebody blessed and rappers delight off like a giant boombox.
Bob, we're like leaving the bus hearing a little bit of the
rappers delight coming out of a boombox. That's a bit of a different sound. Oh man.
How many shows have you seen at MSG? Good question. Who have you seen? I know you've
seen Billy Joel. I saw Billy Joel there. Okay. I can probably go backwards. Cause like growing up,
I never really saw one. Like I definitely didn't go to anything there as a kid. So the first time
I'm pretty sure I went to Madison square garden was when I was like 16 or 17. I saw radio head
there. Sick. What tour? The amnesiac tour. Wow. Which really was kind of like the tour for kid
a and amnesiac. Cause they came out like saying a year or a year apart, but it was a good show.
Played all the hits paranoid Android, right? Everything in its right place. Probably a
pyramid song. I have not heard amnesiac in probably like 15 years. Throw that on. Were
you into that? Yeah. I liked him. I actually liked him kneejack more than kid a contrarian.
Well, I don't know. They both have great songs. I think today is like one of the most overrated
records in retrospect. The first song is tight. It really falls off like bar.
Like, come on. That's actually, that's filler. I feel like we had this conversation before
I had this conversation with somebody. It definitely sounds like a Jake conversation
where there was something about like when these albums came out on the last episode,
we were talking about like that. I was at this age when I'm like the strokes and white stripes
came out that I was kind of like very good. Yeah. Like I was, I was like already just becoming,
we talked about this recently. Yeah. Very recently when those bands came out. Yeah. I could like see
the references and I love them and respected them, but I was just like lost some of that childlike
innocence. Also at the same time, it was like radio had coming out where I was felt like I was
like a full like music nerd consumer, like reading the press and being like, Oh yeah. Radio has
re-influenced by can. And then I'd like go by can Tago Mago at borders. That's tight. I definitely
doing your homework. Oh yeah. And then I'd like, listen to that and I'd be like, okay, I see what
they're saying. And then I just like got into can that way, which again is cool, but it's like,
it's a little bit less passionate than just the, being like 13 and just hearing a song just be
like, Whoa. And this was like the time I felt closest to radio head in my life with these
albums. I was really excited for them to come out. Cause you loved okay. Computer. Yes. And
the bends loved them both. Yeah. The great highly anticipated records. And I convinced myself that
I loved kid a, when it came out, cause I was so excited about it coming out. Well, cause there
were a lot of people who actually had the opposite thing where the kid came out, or at least this is
how the story goes. And people are like, Whoa, this doesn't sound like the radio head progressive
rock band that I like. It took some of the fans a minute to realize, Oh, this is a good album.
I feel like we were expecting that they would come out with the like different crazy record,
like a deliberately artistically looking forward record. You knew they were going to do something.
Yeah. Cause they like stepped it up hard because the bands is basically like a classic rock record.
Yeah. Great record, but yeah, full classic rock. I love the bands. And then okay. Computer is like
much more abstract, weird. When you were a kid, you weren't one of those people who was like,
scandalized by like some glitchy instrumental do this. Yeah. And I was like really into it
for months, years. And then I just now looking back, I'm like, that's not, that's not that good.
I love the controversial. Well, the thing I was going to say, and this is a conversation I could
picture having with you where we were talking about, and you're talking about that song,
national anthem. And I'm pretty sure I was like, you know, cause I know all like the nerd facts
about it. Cause I'd read about it a lot at that time. And I was like, Oh, did you know that they
actually wrote that riff when they were in middle school? And I feel like you were like, yeah,
sounds like it. That makes sense. It does suck. Throwing track two of kid egg. Is that song is
just like, what is this? Is this just going to be like, like a really half-assed version of one of
those like podcasts with people go through an entire album. We'll do half the record.
The year was 2000, a new millennium radio head had just
I'm so familiar with like the really boring. I love it. But the story of radio head can get a
little borderline, like Marvel cinematic universe fandom, right? After the game changing success
of okay. Computer, everybody wanted to know what they do next, what they released,
change the world forever, like for a new millennium, for a new millennium.
I don't know if I watch one too many YouTube videos about this. It actually makes that,
which is an amazing song sound bad to me. So that was yeah. Undeniably great song track two.
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. A lemon. So this I've probably not heard in like 10 years
track two. Track. This is sick. Track two is cool. Cause I remember just being like, what is this?
I mean, eventually I got to that point. Like I said, initially I was like, this is so sick.
Yeah. This is like high art. I need to like absorb this and like,
understand it. Which is a good impulse to have.
This sounds pretty good. But I was like, yeah, okay. Cool.
This still sounds tasteful though 20 years later. I'm kind of into it right now.
I mean, I haven't heard in 10 years, so that's like, that's kind of fresh.
See that? Well, that's so interesting that they like took a riff. They wrote in middle school.
Like maybe they were like, like, like maybe they were like, we're like getting too far up our own
arses here and we need to like pull back from the super, super limp biscuit.
Now we're just picturing Tom York rapping about middle school over this.
If they turn this song into kind of like, you know, like the first few Kanye albums,
there's always like this kind of like attempt to kind of tell the story of Kanye,
like from his childhood or his early years. If last call. Yeah. If this was like Radiohead,
just kind of like telling the story of like, you know what? We dropped three albums in the nines,
but don't get it twisted. Like this is how we came up. Oxford, England, rock scene.
Yo, picture this eighth grade. We've been doing this since eighth grade, man.
Yeah, this is weak. I'm not mad at it. If everything is right place,
undeniable classic. Yeah. It's like the two rock songs are kind of like,
they're good. They're just obviously less game changing. And then Idiotech is pretty undeniably
cool. Oh, yeah. Is this the one that's like has the same lyrics as Life in the Fast Lane?
Everything all of the time. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, that kind of sounds like a late Tom York lyric. I can totally picture that.
Life in the fast lane. Everything all of the time.
What are the other lyrics to Life in the Fast Lane? I don't know. I'm trying to think. It's
hard to hear with the music. She was a stone cold woman and she was terminally pretty.
He was a hot headed man. He was brutally handsome and she was terminally pretty.
She held him up and he held her for ransom in the heart of the cold, cold city.
So far so good. It works. Had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude.
Said he was ruthless, said he was crude. They had one thing in common. They were good in bed.
She said faster, faster than light.
OK. Yeah. I can't picture Tom York saying they had one thing in common. They were good in bed.
OK, but yet to me, that's a little more in common with Hotel California than
with the average person. Yeah, Kittay is their Hotel California, but Amnesiac, man,
that's their Boys of Summer. I know what you mean. In some weird way,
maybe like pound for pound Amnesiac or like on average, Amnesiac is more interesting.
I don't know if it has a standout song like Everything in Its Right Place.
Remind me what the...
This is track one, which is cool, but I can't step to Everything in Its Right Place.
This song is cool. Yeah. I was like, this album is like more playful in a weird way.
Pyramid song, huge.
I guess my favorite Radiohead record after OK Computer is probably In Rainbows.
That's the one I'll go back to more. Oh, yeah. I know people love In Rainbows.
I was a little checked out by then.
Jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me.
I moved for the stars and asked your car. And all the fingers I used to see.
I was like, the last song, this is definitely not like anybody's top 10 Radiohead song, but
it's just this kind of like sad, jazzy song.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like they like almost never play this song live.
Wait, what's the like Chet Bakery one on the new Vampire?
Oh, My Mistake.
Right.
It's just My Mistake. Yeah. Paladin.
I'm in trouble with my old friend. She is paper and the wind opens.
She is putting on a smile. Living in a glass house.
Once again. Packed like frozen fin, battery in. Think of all the stars in my eyes.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal high says.
Of course, I'd like to sit around the chair. Of course, I'd like to stand and cheer my friend.
Of course, I'd like to sit around the chair. This song was listening.
Let me see. What else have I seen there? It's like straight up garden concerts.
I know I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers there once.
What year?
This would be like, I feel like '06, '07. I think it was the era when I was like a teacher.
So I feel like my friends like, oh, my brother has tickets. You want to come? And I was like, okay.
Remember I went and I like Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was like, this is tight. They're fun to watch
perform. But I remember I was so brutally tired because I was just like, I was a working stiff
man. So just probably. Taking the train from like Bed-Stuy. Yeah, yeah. Probably jumping on the
train from Bed-Stuy to get to the garden. Probably woke up at like 6 a.m., four and a half hours of
sleep all week vibe. Slamming like a hot dog outside the arena. Yeah. And then I just remember
kind of like sitting there and being like, and the seats were really far away. Terrible seats.
So I just remember kind of just being like, oh, tight, Chili Peppers. And then I just remember
kind of like just drifting in and out. Just no energy for me. So that was a very memorable show
for me. Absolutely not the fault of the Chili Peppers. Under the bridge downtown. I probably
perked up for that. Then, yeah, I saw Billy Joel there. I remember you were texting me, I think,
from the Billy Joel show. Oh, yeah. It was tight. Set list. It was a great show. I've seen Kanye
there twice. Okay. Great shows. Yeezus tour and Pablo. So more recent. Yeah. Both were very exciting,
unique stage setups. Yeah. Straight up at the garden. I don't know. What about you?
I think I've seen two shows there. The Foo Fighters. Okay. And Phoenix. Oh, wait. Did Dirty
Projectors open for Phoenix? Yes. And the Foo Fighters? They did not open for Foo Fighters.
Yeah. That would have been tight. Foo Fighters, I went with Michael Azarad. Oh, yeah. Because he's
known Grow Forever. He hit me up when I was living there. Yeah. Like 2010 or 11. He's like,
"Dude, I got all access passes to Foo's tonight at the garden." I was like, "Okay, man." You know
what his connection was? Was Bob Mould was doing an opening DJ set. And so the connection for him
was not to Grow. And so then we're wandering in and I was like, "When did you see Grow last?" And
he's like, "94." And I was like, "Whoa, dude." So then we walked into the backstage area. Yeah.
And Grow was just like, "Michael Azarad." Well, well, well. "Been a long time." That kind of
thing. So he was just spending some 80s hardcore? I don't remember the DJ set per se.
That's another one of those bands when I was kind of in this curious spending every dime I could
possibly get my hands on music. Yeah. I was very much like, I'm sure I read that in Rolling Stone
or something like, "Who's to do Zen Arcade? A very important record." I was like, "I want to learn
about this." So then you'd buy it. Yeah, buy it on CD. Yeah. That's how you learned about it.
I don't remember I got too deep into it, but I was like, "This is cool." Yeah. I've tried with
the Dew. It was never like the Dew. Never quite poppy enough for me, but maybe it'll sound great
right now. What year is this? '85 or something? '84.
We should try to get Grohl on sometime. Sure. One thing to keep in mind about Dave Grohl,
who's famously known as the nicest guy in rock, and I think I only met him once,
and I was just like, "Yeah, this is a legitimate nice dude. He's cool. He's super into music. He's
very supportive of other musicians and stuff. Just a chill dude." But I think because he was
in Nirvana, and because the Foo Fighters got so big, one of the biggest rock bands in the world,
but he had his roots in Nirvana and before that in hardcore punk. Yeah.
I think there's this whole generation of embittered punk dudes who are just like,
"Oh, Dave Grohl, man." Yeah, sure. One time I was having to come across on YouTube
something of the dude from the Melvins telling the story. God. It's the dude from the Melvins
doing an acoustic performance, and he makes a joke about Dave Grohl, and he's like, "You know what?
I'll tell you a story about Dave Grohl, man." Basically, the whole story boils down, and it's
unclear if he's actually trying to throw Dave Grohl under the bus, or it's a story about just
his own neuroses. But he tells the story that, as I recall, I might be missing something.
Basically, it boils down to Dave Grohl running into him somewhere, maybe not responding to a text
at some point, but then running into him again and inviting him to a baseball game or something.
Then just out of pure spite, the dude from the Melvins is like, "Then I just didn't go." It's
like, "Fuck him." He no-showed on Grohl. Grohl's just hanging out at the box office at Shea Stadium.
Maybe I got to pull this up for a second. Who's the leak on the Melvins? Is it Buzz or whatever?
Yeah. Okay. Well, here's an article about it. We're going to need to pull up the whole video.
He said Chris Novoselic was playing on a Melvins album, and they were going to get Grohl too,
and then Grohl was just a no-show. It was his idea. I didn't appreciate that. I'm a lot of
things, but one thing I'm not doing is sitting next to the phone in curlers waiting for Dave
Grohl to call me. Curlers.
And then I'm pretty sure that in the video, it was something about Dave Grohl maybe trying to
make amends and invite him to a concert. Maybe he's like-
Baseball game would be so random.
Yeah. Maybe it wasn't a baseball game. Maybe it was a Rolling Stones concert or something,
and he's just like, "You know what, man? Fuck you. I'm not going." So I can't tell if he's
telling that story to make the point of like... Because obviously it's not cool to not show up
when you said you were going to show up. I don't think any of us could defend that. I don't know
if that's the type of thing that needs to be aired out on Main Street. I do think there's certain
things when you take them into the public sphere, even if Dave Grohl owed you a phone call, taking
that down onto Main Street, that arguably is the worst thing to do. So I couldn't tell if he was
telling the story to be like, "And that's why Dave Grohl's a piece of shit." Or if the story was
like, "You know what, man? I'm a complicated, angry guy. I have my roots in punk rock. What
do you expect?" I'm also a child. Anyway. So Dave Grohl is basically like the Tom Hanks of rock,
but then I feel like if you go a little beneath the surface, you probably got a whole gang of
old school punk rockers like, "Oh yeah. I remember in DC, I saw him at the whatever,
minor threat gig. He always thought that he was cock of the walk."
He's brown nosing Ian.
Yeah. I bet there's some of that stuff, but I got to say, I don't know about the dude from
Melvin's, but Dave Grohl, he invited Pat Smear to become a member. A true OG punk rocker. He's got
Bob Mould DJing at the Garden. Flew him out from Minneapolis.
Who knows the backstory there. Maybe Mould's sort of like, "Oh man, it's a good gig. I'm
getting paid a lot. This guy's trying to leech off my credibility." Or they're old school friends.
I don't know.
At the Garden in 2010, who knows? Human relations are complicated. Bob Mould gets the call and he's
like, "Oh man, it's Grohl. He's blown me off twice in a row for coffee." Well, it's not a bad check
to go DJ and I love to DJ, so I guess I'll do it, but I'll forgive, but I won't forget, man.
You blew me off twice for coffee, Grohl.
And somehow that resulted in me with pretty good seats.
Right.
Watching a three hours long Foo Fighters show.
So you watched the whole show? How familiar were you with the music?
I mean, I know the hits. "There goes my..." I think he did a Hero acoustic solo.
Okay.
It was like a catwalk that sort of went out into the stadium and he did that one solo.
I'll always love one of their first singles. "Big need to talk about it."
Yeah. I wish they did more stuff like that. A little more jangly.
I could see them getting back into it.
It got real hard. They got into really hard rock.
They got into borderline metal.
Well, it's just like, "You're losing me here."
I respect it though.
Okay, cool.
You don't respect...
I mean, I guess I don't really know what even that means. I don't like it. I guess...
Do I respect it? I don't know.
You know the difference between liking and respecting something?
What exactly do you respect?
Okay, who's the...
Like zero down on that for me.
You know, one of the founding fathers, there's a famous quote about free speech.
It's a side note. Let me get a number crunch on this. Which founding father said,
"Sir, I may not agree with what you have to say,
but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it."
Well, I'm not talking about whether the Foo Fighters have a right to make really hard rock.
Wait, which founding father was it?
This is America. I mean, they can...
Hey, Azerad, who's your friend? This is Jake.
What would you think of the show, man?
Well, Mr. Grohl, I'm a free speech absolutist.
I do not agree with your decision over the last three albums to move
in more of a hard rock metal direction.
However, I will fight to the death to defend your right to do so.
All right, cool, man. Thanks for coming.
What's the real quote, Seinfeld?
It's Patrick Henry.
Oh, Patrick Henry.
Who said it, "I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
It's also been attributed to Voltaire
and originated from someone named Evelyn Beatrice Hall.
Oh, that's who really said it.
Apparently.
But I like, I disapprove.
Well, Dave, I disapprove of your hard rock direction.
I would prefer some of the janglier early materials such as Big Me.
However, that said, I will fight to the death
to defend your right to move in a more hard rock direction.
Security.
[laughing]
♪ I know that's true ♪
♪ Well I talked about it ♪
♪ Carried on, reasons only knew ♪
♪ But it's you ♪
♪ I fell into ♪
♪ Well I talked about it ♪
♪ Carried on, reasons only knew ♪
♪ When I talk about it ♪
♪ Aries or treasons all renewed ♪
♪ Beg me to talk about it ♪
♪ I could stand to prove ♪
♪ If we can get around it ♪
♪ I know that's true ♪
♪ Well I talked about it ♪
♪ Put it on, never was it true ♪
♪ But it's you ♪
♪ I fell into ♪
♪ Well I talked about it ♪
♪ Put it on, never was it true ♪
♪ But it's you ♪
♪ I fell into ♪
♪ I fell into ♪
♪ I fell into ♪
I'm just saying that if you're like a rock star,
a rock band, like a real rock band,
where you really stick to the palette of guitar,
bass, and drums, which, you know,
for instance, Vampire Weekend's not.
- Radiohead didn't.
- Neither is Radiohead.
I actually think, in some ways,
you gotta give it up to people who do,
because it's actually kinda easy to be like,
you know, maybe I'll open this album
with just a vocals and keyboard song.
You just did something different
just by not picking up your guitar.
So if you're a band who sticks to that palette,
I think at a certain point,
what you can't do is just keep going down the middle.
I think either you go real jangly,
or you go harder and harder.
Either way, that's a matter of taste,
but I do respect choosing a direction and moving in it.
And I think for every Jake that they lost along the way,
they probably picked up--
- A Steve and a Tyler.
(laughing)
Not Steve and Tyler.
- Not Steve, but a Steve and a Tyler.
- A Brad and a Kyle.
Have you guys noticed that Kyle has become like,
kinda like this joke meme name
for just like a random white dude?
- No.
- I gotta say, it's a good choice for that type of joke.
- Sure.
I think it was like a,
I thought like a Chad was a classic one.
- And a Chad in the kind of incel universe
means like a good looking guy who gets girls.
- Okay, so that's been co-opted.
- A Kyle, so yeah, Chad is like heavy,
because that's like,
comes from the darker part of the internet.
- Right, I forgot about that.
- But Kyle is almost more just like Instagram humor,
not like 4chan humor, just kinda like,
"What's up Kyle?"
I think like a lot of the jokes are about,
oh, Kyle's the guy who punches a hole
in the drywall in the basement.
Kyle drinks monster energy, things like that.
- And Karen is the female equivalent.
It's like Karen wants to speak to the manager.
- Oh, yeah, like maybe Karen is Kyle's mom.
- Sure.
- Probably not like white,
probably not girlfriend, but mom.
- Yeah.
- Did you grow up with any Kyles?
- I didn't grow up with any Kyles,
although a good friend of mine now is named Kyle Field.
- When I think of Kyles that I actually know,
Kyle Field is like the polar opposite of a Kyle.
- Oh, totally.
- And not that I actually know him,
but the first Kyle that came to mind
is Kyle McLaughlin from Twin Peaks.
- Yeah.
- He's like a fascinating, cool-ass dude.
- Yeah.
- And when you think of his name,
you picture the '80s being like,
this young actor working with David Lynch,
this is Kyle McLaughlin.
- Yeah.
- Like, ooh, elegant.
Kyle, what's up Kyle?
- And then you have Kyle Field, like surfer, poet,
songwriter.
- Yeah.
You know what guys?
- Not a bro.
- We're canceling the Kyle meme.
- Kyle Mooney.
- Oh, and then you got Kyle Mooney.
- I think you need to go with a more common name.
- It wouldn't be funny though,
just to be like, this is Steve.
I would almost go with Kevin above Kyle.
- Sure.
- 'Sup Kevin?
- Kev.
- Kevin, why you punch the drywall?
I don't know, Kyle.
- Dude, how about Todd?
- Todd used to be like the old one.
- Todd's tight.
- By the way, first of all, we got nothing but love
to all the Kyles and Kevins and Tods listening.
I mean, you know, Jake.
- Yeah, you don't choose your name.
- Well, you kind of chose your name.
This is a time crisis reminder that Jake's real name is John.
- That's true.
- Jonathan Longstreet.
- No, no, no.
- Or is this John?
- John, J-O-H-N.
It's not, 'cause Jonathan's are J-O-N's.
- Oh, right.
But you've been, explain to me again,
you've been Jake since time immemorial, basically.
- Yeah, I mean, my dad's name is John, so I'm a junior.
- Right.
- And then my grandmother,
my mom's mom started calling me Jake for unclear reasons.
I think she was just sort of like,
really, like another John?
- Let's mix it up.
- And I think she, like, the story was
that she was like talking to some of her like golfing buddies.
- Your grandma?
She's a golfer?
- She was.
Pasadena.
- Whoa.
- And someone was like, what about Jake?
And it just kind of stuck.
- Whoa.
How'd your mom feel about that?
- I think she was cool with it.
- They had a good relationship.
- But it is kind of a funny situation.
- That sounds like out of a movie,
like mother-in-law interference, just like.
- Overbearing.
You're naming him John?
What about Jake?
- What was your grandma's name?
- Jan, Janet.
- Not having a great game, huh, Jan?
- I got something on my mind.
- What is it?
She's like, my (beep) grandson's name is John.
- Yeah, what's the problem?
- Like your son?
Wait, and also like.
- No, no.
- Like your husband?
How many Johns were there?
- Jan was my mom's mom.
- Oh, okay.
- Jan was my dad's mother-in-law.
- Okay, so maybe your mom had even said to her like,
is it weird that the name, it's a thing?
And then your grandma walked away with it.
It's like, I gotta figure this (beep) out for my daughter.
- Right.
- She just had her first kid.
Without putting a lot of thought into it,
they just named him after the dad.
Now he got two Johns.
- Right.
- Like I gotta come up with a name
that's not a million miles away from John,
just to differentiate.
- Right, and then my mom was like,
maybe back-channeling it.
Like, yeah, yeah, let's do that.
I'm not like 100% behind this name.
- Right.
- And then like my dad initially was kind of eye-rolling,
like, oh, Jake, okay.
And then it just stuck.
- Right.
John Jake Pullman Longstreth, American painter
and radio personality.
- Jesus Christ.
♪ It's a strong choice, my friend ♪
♪ For you to show up with a head to lend ♪
♪ And it's good to see you're in town ♪
♪ I hadn't heard that you were around ♪
♪ And look at you rolling on through ♪
♪ Showing up here with a case of brew ♪
♪ Would you help me unload my van ♪
♪ I've been busting my ass doing the best I can ♪
♪ Don't know how to feel ♪
♪ If my gratefulness is taking over ♪
♪ It's a hell of a deal ♪
♪ Like a horseshoe or a four-leaf clover ♪
- Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
- This your rule.
- Wait, how did we get into that?
Oh, we were just talking about like Kyles and stuff.
Yeah, so, you know, in another world,
I could have been a Jake.
Maybe eventually it'll just be an Ezra.
But so yeah, anyway, nothing but love.
But I do kind of remember,
there's something about the internet too
that I gotta say.
There's a depressing side to it.
That's a kind of unique observation of mine.
It's not all fun and games on the internet.
I'm starting to realize, damn, dude.
Yeah, there's a million terrible things about the internet.
But one thing that kind of bums me out,
it's like a little bit part of the reason why
I don't quite as actively participate in social media,
but I was maybe becoming this type of person.
There's just like a thing where
you just see jokes get played out like instantly.
And then you can get two in your head about like,
people just making kind of like lame jokes
and you're making lame jokes.
And it's all just like,
it kind of feels like, oh, everybody's riffing on a meme,
but it's also everybody's just like
kind of repeating the same thing,
which has very serious political implications.
But also there's just something about like,
like even Karen, can I talk to the manager?
I remember when I first saw that,
this idea of the talk to the manager haircut,
I was like, wow, what an incisive, funny way
to identify a type of privileged,
angry, entitled person, blah, blah.
And then just suddenly like,
people were saying it too much to the point
that it was kind of like, honestly, just, it's not funny.
Just like make a more straightforward statement
about what you're trying to say.
It's like when people just like repetition
on top of repetition.
- I feel like another classic one is,
Sir, this is an Arby's.
- Right.
- Which the first time I saw that,
I was like, that's hilarious.
And then I saw it like 30 times,
and I was like, I'm gonna do it the next day.
- Yeah, like imagine for like 11 months,
when you're 14, you and like your knucklehead friends
were like sitting at an Arby's,
and you guys like cooked up a situation.
You like see some weirdo guy walking,
you're like, what's that dude's deal?
He's just like sitting there,
like Beavis and Butt-In-Style just like,
huh, what's that guy's deal?
And you're like, he's probably blah,
and you like cook up a story.
And then somehow it culminates with a bunch
of like knucklehead 14 year olds being like,
oh, sir, this is an Arby's.
And then like, you know,
like, you know,
I'm gonna do it the next month.
That'd be like a great thing to,
and there's just some--
- With your crew of friends.
- And also it's nobody's fault.
It's just that the internet is a crew
of billions of friends, at least hundreds of millions.
So it's like--
- Of dear friends.
- Of dear friends.
So it's almost like you just watch it
get sucked away so quickly.
- Yeah.
- And so there's even something about like,
yeah, I can almost remember like being
in middle school or something.
And I feel like we had some jokes about like,
hey, Todd, maybe it's a good thing.
And then like,
I don't know,
I don't know.
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So Jake, I got to say I'm very disappointed that you're not
actually going to be at the Garden show.
I'm bummed, man.
But you will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl show.
A few short weeks later.
The three biggest vampire shows in North America this year were Chicago,
in terms of tickets sold.
Oh, cool.
Were Chicago, the Garden, and the Bowl.
And the Bowl.
You were at two out of three.
Two out of three, ain't bad.
Playing two out of three.
You played two out of three.
Pumped on that.
So you can't come to the Garden.
You're busy.
I got a show opening up mid-September in LA.
So that's like the final push there.
You know, Jake, I guess maybe because we do the show together sometimes,
I think of you as a radio personality and American painter.
But at the end of the day, Wikipedia said it best.
You're an American painter first.
It's true.
You got to do your day job.
I got to do mine.
So you can't come with us, but we're going to head to New York now.
And we'll see what kind of knuckleheads we can scare up out there in the Big Apple.
Have a great show, man.
All right, thanks, dude.
[laughter]
And he thinks I'm the negative one.
New York, New York.
Okay, so, yeah, Seinfeld 2000 here.
We're in New York City.
Jake's in LA, you know, doing his painting exhibition.
We're here with Nick Weinfeld.
What's up, Nick?
Hey, what's going on, Jason?
How you doing?
How was your flight?
It was great.
I got in last night.
How about you?
I actually got in at like 7, 7:30 a.m.
I took the red eye, so it's like it feels like it's like 3--
it felt like it was 4 a.m. for me because of the LA connection.
You sound jacked up.
Yeah, well, I had a Red Bull and a Krispy Kreme donut.
So we're out here at Madison Square Garden.
It's quite an overcast, raining day.
And, yeah, Ezra's backstage right now getting ready for the show.
And you won't believe who the hell we just ran into.
It's Winter.
Hey, everybody.
I am so excited to be here.
I cannot wait for the Vampire Weekend concert tonight.
It's great to get a chance to see them twice in such a short amount of time.
You saw them--
I saw them in Cleveland, but Madison Square Garden is special.
It's just one of those iconic venues.
The only other show that I've ever seen here is U2,
and it's kind of appropriate because U2 has been one of the most important bands
in the last few decades, and Vampire Weekend is being called
the most important rock band in the world right now.
And because they're willing to evolve, I think they have the potential
to go the distance and be one of the most important bands ever.
Would you say that Ezra is the new Bono?
I would say Ezra has as much to say as Bono.
And, you know, he's still young, but, you know, more life experience.
I think Ezra is definitely going to give Bono a run for his money.
You heard it here first.
Vampire Weekend, the new U2, Ezra Koenig, the new Bono.
How long have you been in town, Winter?
I just drove in from my job in Rochester, and I am beyond thrilled to be here.
How many Starbucks have you been to today?
Today I have been to two Starbucks, but I have not tasted a drop of their coffee today.
Wait. Hold on. You just go to Starbucks and you don't drink the coffee?
No, I go to Starbucks and I steal the Wi-Fi and steal the--
No, actually I bought two of the New York cards that one of my followers wanted me to connect to them.
I get people emailing me all the time asking me about cards or mugs since I'm traveling all over the world.
The cards are really easy to get.
The mugs can be logistically difficult because I travel with a backpack,
so it's not like I can bring back ten mugs for people.
And shipping them around the world can be a challenge, too.
Those mugs are rare, right?
Those embossed ones that have the sort of like texture.
Those are the ones you're talking about?
I'm talking about any mugs.
Generally speaking, Starbucks mugs are highly collectible,
and if you're in the Philippines, it's not the easiest thing in the world to get a mug from Hungary, for example.
I mean, so there's all sorts of forums online where people go and trade these and send them to each other.
And I don't mind helping people out when I can,
but about one mug is all I can bring back from a trip, really, realistically.
What are the cards?
The Starbucks cards, you know, the gift cards.
You saw them at the register, I'm sure, when you paid.
But besides the normal ones for holidays and whatnot,
Starbucks puts out ones for the major cities.
New York, Philadelphia, D.C. all have them, and they get different ones every year or two.
So these are highly collectible, and again, if you're in the Philippines,
it's not easy to get your hands on a New York card.
So my fan from London wanted me to get him some of these.
So, yeah, Winter, you had an incredible milestone with your Starbucking,
and we're going to get into that a little bit later.
But right now, today, it's all about Vampire Weekend.
We're about to head backstage.
Honestly, we're out here. It's early. It's like 5.45.
You know, people are trickling in.
We don't know what the hell to expect, but it's going to be one heck of a ride with the new U2.
So we're going to go in, we're going to talk to some people,
and, you know, 100 years of Time Crisis just going strong,
and hoping for another--100 episodes--sorry, 100 episodes of Time Crisis going strong.
And so we're going to head in.
And it's about another hour before Despot goes on.
Let's head inside, see if we find any TC ads.
I've already seen an original 8-Minute Cape Cod shirt.
Let's see who else we run into that knows anything about the show.
All right, 100 episodes.
It's going to take a little time
While you're waiting like a factory line
I'll ride across the park
Backseat on the 79
Wasted days you've come to pass
So go, I know you would not stay
It wasn't true, but anyway
Pollination, yeah, no cap
Okay, so we're here backstage in the food court sort of areas with Abby.
You're a Vampire Weekend fan and a TC head, is that right?
Definitely, yeah.
You know, Colin from Time Crisis and I spotted you because you have the Vampire Weekend,
Sweet Martha's collaboration shirt that I actually worked on.
How did you get this shirt? It's a very rare shirt.
It is a rare shirt.
I was at the show in Minneapolis in June, and we got there early and I got the shirt.
Was there like a fight--was it an aggressive situation to get that shirt?
Or you were just very early and you managed to get it?
Or were people fighting over it or anything like that?
Actually, my size ran out with the person in front of me.
So I ended up having to get a different size, but it ended up working out fine.
I love it. It's one of my favorite T-shirts nonetheless.
One of these shirts went on eBay and I think it went for something like--what was it?
$800 or something? I might be exaggerating, but it was--I guess what I'm asking is how much would you sell this shirt for?
It's priceless. I wouldn't sell it for anything.
You are a TC head. You've been listening to the show since the start of the summer, you were saying?
Yeah, so I started at the beginning of the summer with episode one, and I just finished episode 70.
So I'm not totally caught up with all of them, but--
What was an episode--I know it's probably like a--it's like binge-watching a show or something.
Do you remember anything that was talked about on episode 70? I don't.
Episode 70 was all about Alanis Morissette.
Oh.
It was Alanis Morissette, yeah. She was on the show talking about everything.
Was this your introduction to Alanis Morissette? Just curious, or had you known about her and listened to her music before that?
I mean, I'd heard the hits, but I wouldn't say that I'm a fan of her.
But it definitely piqued my interest. Gonna check her out more now.
So this is episode 100. So my question for you, you're on 70.
Are you gonna skip ahead to the one that you're in, or are you gonna sort of let it marinate and work your way through?
I think I'm gonna let it marinate. I tried to skip ahead to the one where Father of the Bride was released.
But then it was just weird. I felt like I was missing out on jokes and stuff.
So I think I'm just gonna wait.
Do you wanna just give a shout-out to Time Crisis and congratulate them on 100 years of Time Crisis?
Yeah. Way to go, Time Crisis. You made it.
It's been a long road. 100 years of Time Crisis. One episode per year.
Great work to the whole team.
Abby, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to me.
And I appreciate you coming through and being on Time Crisis and enjoy the show.
Thank you so much for talking to me and spotting my Sweet Martha shirt.
I should mention that Sweet Martha was actually my elementary school art teacher.
What?
Yeah. I gotta shout-out Highland Catholic in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Did she bring cookies to the classroom, or was this pre-cookie?
So every once in a while there were cookies, I remember, in elementary school.
And I think they were her cookies, but all of our crayons and stuff were in the buckets.
The Sweet Martha's buckets. They were the containers that all of our crayons and stuff were in for elementary school.
That is so deep. Alright. Well, thank you. Thanks again.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Hand over hand over hand over fist.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Huff and puff if you ain't flowing down.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Hand over hand over hand over fist.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Huff and puff if you ain't flowing down.
Running on fumes, walking on coals, pockets on road games, walls out of control.
Green means go, red means go. I'm colorblind, mother- I don't know.
Beat a beat in the block, I'm bleeding and squeezing the juice out.
Deeds are screaming to stop, I'm fleeting the scene with the too loud.
Money talking, you showing off, then that money talk too loud.
Slap a gag order on a warden 'cause Benjamin's tongue out.
Let their presidents run now, won't be no more discussion. Go so hard in the pain I've been holding.
Blood and assault in the bucket and run amok. All you poets and bits and cluts up in public.
My karma ain't one to f*** with. Not for nothing, you nothing.
Stop it slime, y'all a snot rocket. Got a lot of products stocked in the dockets, that's hot pockets.
Fresh out the car wash, still got a dirty trunk. Out for that gold plaque like some old dirty front.
This little piggy got a house made of brick. Hand over hand over hand over this.
This little piggy got a house made of brick. Puffin' pump, yeah, she ain't blowin' down, she look down.
So we are post-Despot and I'm with Mordecai Rubinstein, friend of the show, fashion icon.
And what'd you think of our friend Despot?
I was hoping that's what you were going to say. When you said, "What do you think of?"
And I was going to say, "Despot's outfit on stage, killer." That shirt was so nice and big and blousey on him.
I'm sure it's polo because he loves polo, but I am curious, like the print.
Because when you see shows like I do from the stands, you can't get to see the clothes.
It really kills me. But I love how big and blousey it was on him.
It's polo, it was kind of like a postcard sort of motif, a travel shirt, sort of, not a Hawaiian, but an all-over print.
Very summery, perfect for the dog days of summer. People think it's fall. F*** that, it's still summer.
Let's live, okay? Don't rush the seasons.
Have you seen what Ezra's wearing on stage?
No. I saw a couple selfies, but I don't think they were stage outfits.
And I thought I'd be backstage with a photo pass, but instead I'm here with the general people.
But that's fine too, because I wouldn't have made it to the radio otherwise.
What would you advise Ezra to wear on stage at his homecoming Madison Square Garden show?
It's a big deal.
You know, I hope they made him a jersey like they made, um...
I believe they make jerseys for the guests that perform, but I could be wrong.
I hope they made him a Knicks jersey, extra, extra long, so it's like below his knees, with a wide, wide chino.
You know, I call it unnecessary frumpiness. Like, it's still big and baggy, but it's not getting in the way of any performing.
Because as much as I want him to flow, maybe that's an issue.
Absolutely.
If he's not feeling a jersey, maybe he didn't work out this week, he doesn't feel comfortable with the biceps or something.
Yeah, so let's say they made him a jersey. So what would you say?
I would say, um... I'm all about what not to wear.
You like no tie-dye, no frog, no swirly. No, the artwork is also good.
Though you're wearing tie-dye.
No, yeah. I'm the king of don't wear what I'm wearing.
I'd like to see him in comfortable clothes, but not too comfortable.
I don't want to see him in an Oxford button-down.
I kind of want to see him in a t-shirt, Birkenstocks, and chinos that are really, really lived in.
And when I say lived in, I mean dad style.
Not dad style like Esquire, GQ, and these magazines talk about.
True dad style, which is picking the shit up off the floor and putting it on when your wife says, "Go diaper her."
You know? Or him in his situation.
You know, we're both new tatties, and I'm really learning about dad style.
It's not what I thought it was, all tucked in and neat.
But I'd like to see him in some khakis with some room, some frumpiness.
Maybe even two pleats, you know, and not like little wimpy fashion pleats, but like the vintage polo and your pant.
So while we're here, I want to ask you a couple questions.
We've been banking the apps because Ezra's been on tour.
And so when he's not around, we bank the apps.
And so we basically--there's been a lot of catching up news-wise on issues that our audience, the TC heads, really love.
So I'll ask you, do you know about the Popeye's chicken sandwich craze?
You know, only from 1997. They played it in the shower yesterday.
How they were all pissed off that it's not around anymore.
And someone said, "Well, they should do it like uptown. Sell it in the barbershop. Sell fakes and stuff."
And then before that, I read about it. I read about it.
I saw it on stories. Is it like maybe Diplo had it delivered to Coachella or the other festival in the desert, Burning Man?
Is it true? Is it real? Did they do it?
I mean, and someone found an In-N-Out burger in like King's Highway on the street, you know, or like Queens.
So what was the question? Do I believe it?
You answered the question.
I'm hungry. I want chicken.
All right. So Anjali Kijo is about to go on, Mr. Moore. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me. Good Shabbos.
This is Mordecai Shlomo Rubenstein signing out.
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack.
And you may find yourself in another part of the world.
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
Letting the days go by.
Letting the days go by.
Into the blue again.
Once in a lifetime.
And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house."
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife."
Letting the days go by.
Into the blue again.
Once in a lifetime.
So Seinfeld 2000 is back here in the food court of the MSG with the obscure burger restaurants and teriyaki restaurants
that don't exist outside of the Madison Square Garden universe.
And oh my god, we have just run into TC Royalty here.
The man, the legend himself.
An OG TC person.
Original Crisis crew.
Poor crew.
Cousin Asher.
What's up everybody?
Asher, how you doing man?
I'm good, I'm good. Just chilling.
Happy to be here.
Happy to be on TC back on the East Coast.
It's been a minute.
Hell yeah, we've come full circle.
Can you believe that we've done 100 years of Time Crisis?
I can't believe it.
I feel like we just began.
100 years is an incredible milestone and I'm excited about the next 100.
Yeah, I mean, hopefully it'll be three, four hundred years going.
So Asher, you've got more context on this stuff than anybody.
We've been banking the Eps over the summer.
Oh yeah, I love the bank debts.
Not as good as the fresh ones, but they're, you know, it's like that sushi you get at Whole Foods.
They're not cooking it right there, they're not cutting it up, but it's not bad.
It's not bad. You're still going to eat it.
So while we were banking those Eps, there were a lot of TC-centric stories that kind of came down the pipeline
that we weren't able to address, so I was hoping I could hit you with a few headlines.
I love it. Let's go.
Cool. So first of all, have you been following the Popeyes chicken sandwich craze?
Yeah, actually I work across from a Popeyes and I tried to go and get one
because it's kind of a low-key Popeyes. It's on Canal Street in Chinatown.
It's a little less on the radar, and so I thought I'd be able to get a sandwich there, and no dice.
They did not have the sandwich.
So working near Canal Street, is bootleg culture still going strong out there?
What culture?
Bootleg culture still going?
You know, it's a different thing now because they've kind of taken it away from the actual stores
and you can't really have it on the street, so what they do is they've evolved and it's literally a catalog.
And so they stand on the street with a catalog and then you look through the catalog and pick the one you want
and then they go and find it for you and come back.
So yeah, it's all still there, but if anything, it's more efficient. They've evolved.
So sophisticated now.
And it disrupted the bootlegging system.
I don't know if you saw this, but Ed Sheeran has launched his own line of Heinz ketchup.
Heinz and Ed Sheeran have finally—
Is that true? That's true.
You know, nobody's believing any of these.
You know, you never know with it. It could be a meme. It could be true and a meme.
No, no, no. He's done commercials for it. He's done social media posts.
Is there a pun? What is the—
Yeah. Ed Chup.
Ed Chup?
Yeah. It doesn't really roll off the tongue.
Yeah, I'm searching for the clever nugget there, but maybe there is none. That is the clever nugget.
It says here that he's a self-proclaimed Heinz superfan, and he even has a tattoo of the Heinz ketchup logo.
Seems like an odd tattoo.
I'm a graphic designer, and I can appreciate being a fan of the logo, because it's a classic logo.
I've actually got a Heinz baked bean can, like the British one, that I put my pens in and stuff.
So I appreciate—I respect you, Ed, on that level.
As far as being a fan of the condiment brand itself, that I can't really understand,
because A, it's almost a monopoly. They're not really competing with many people.
And then B, it's like, is there a signature taste that you're really attaching yourself to there?
I'm not really sure what's so exciting about them as a brand.
But logo I can respect, so I'm down with that.
What is his ketchup?
It's just ketchup.
He remakes ketchup?
I think it's just ketchup. I don't think it's a new flavor.
From what I understand, it's just a collab.
He's reskinned the ketchup.
It's like there was a new bottle design, actually.
Okay, I guess. I guess it's just like a drop.
Just like capsule collection for 2019 summer, fall, and then you're out.
And then it's just a memory.
Yeah, and then the hypebeasts have to search for it for the rest of time.
And the resale market on that ketchup is just out of control.
I mean, Heinz, they know what they're doing. They've been around a long time.
Well, Asher, I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to—
It's a pleasure, Seinfeld.
I really—I've got to say, I'm not just a part of the Crisis crew.
I'm a big fan. I've been listening and getting choked up.
A hundred years. It's a big deal.
I mean, I cannot believe we started this a hundred years ago.
I mean, I wasn't even part of it, but you were. You're more core than I am.
I need to pass the torch to you, Seinfeld.
I'm backstage here with Despot.
Despot and Winter just had a moment for the first time here,
just ahead of them going starbucking tomorrow.
Despot, how are you doing?
I'm okay.
Was this your first time playing MSG?
Nah, it's like my fifth or sixth. I can't really remember.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
Okay. So what was the first time?
The first time was it was a Billy Joel, Elton John, Double Bill.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And I was like the, you know, support.
You were in between or the first?
In between, yeah.
Okay, cool.
We had Elton first, me, Billy.
Got it.
I call them just Elton and Billy.
Right. Yeah, you're on that level with them.
And so it's kind of a Despot sandwich with the two.
Yeah, you could say that.
Two legends.
Despot, so how are you doing today?
Do you want to just -- hey, what's up?
Do you do this often?
Yeah, I do.
Interview people?
I do this a lot.
Okay. You're good at it.
Thank you very much.
So 100 years of Time Crisis, how does it feel?
100 years?
Or the 100th -- sorry, 100th episode of Time Crisis.
Is this the 100th episode?
This is the 100th episode of Time Crisis.
And you obviously, you're a core -- you're one of the founding fathers of Time Crisis.
Yeah, I invented Time Crisis.
Pretty much.
It's like my child, you know, and I'm proud of it.
Yeah.
Because I've watched it grow and become like -- like try to get away from me.
Like it moved out kind of.
Right.
But that's cool.
Like I feel like we're still in touch.
And now it's come full circle backstage at MSG for the 100th year.
Here we are back in New York where Time Crisis was invented and belongs.
And might return one day.
You never know.
If we do 200 years, it might come back.
Yeah.
So, Despauw, we've been banking some episodes over the summer.
I don't know if you've been listening.
Of course.
Yeah.
Right?
And so what happens when you bank an episode is that we miss out on some of the fresher stories that tend to come down the pipeline.
Right.
Because you have to pretend that --
You're right.
-- that's happening right now or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So it gets a little weird.
But we were hoping that we could kind of catch up on a couple of headlines that have kind of come through.
Okay.
Have you been following this Jeremy Renner app situation?
Not really.
I would love for someone to explain it to me.
I know you could buy stars or something.
Yes, that's right.
You could buy --
What do the stars do?
They just give you, like, more -- like, I think if you get a lot of them, Jeremy, like, you can DM Jeremy.
I don't know.
I actually don't know.
So it's like a pay to play thing.
I think it is.
Like you want to be friends with Jeremy Renner, you got to buy X amount of stars.
Yeah.
And then you can show people that he -- what does he do?
He texts you?
I think he, like, yeah, I think he just sends you, like, affirmations, like, positive affirmations.
Like if you get 1,000 stars, he'll, like, come to your birthday party.
That sounds expensive.
Yeah.
How much is a star?
It's like $50.
That's a lot.
I think.
So are you sad about it getting shut down?
I didn't know it was getting shut down.
Oh, yeah.
So what happened was that there was a flaw in the app.
And so people were trying to --
That was the flaw, that Jeremy Renner is not worth $50,000 to come to your birthday party.
Okay.
Jeremy, if you're listening, we're, like, this is a respectful --
I have to, like, really come clean.
I don't know who Jeremy Renner is.
Oh, Jeremy Renner.
So you know the Avengers.
I know about this app, but --
Okay.
The Avengers?
Oh, I've never watched an Avengers thing.
Are you familiar with --
I know the comic books.
Okay.
Do you know the bow and arrow, the Hawkeye?
Yeah, Hawkeye.
So Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye.
Oh, sick.
So he's kind of the best Avenger.
Yeah, maybe.
I don't even remember who the rest of the Avengers are, but --
It's like Hulk, you know.
Hulk is pretty good.
Hulk is good.
He doesn't have the bow and arrow, though.
Yeah, but he's really strong.
He's strong, and the anger gets him, turns him green.
There's Robert Downey Jr.
Who's who?
Tony Stark.
Oh, Iron Man.
Yeah, Iron Man.
Yeah, why did I go through the actor first and then the real --
I don't know.
The famous Avenger, Robert Downey Jr.
Yeah, he plays himself.
He sure does.
And the fans just started calling him Iron Man because of how strong he is.
I like that.
Yeah, and Scarlet -- oh, now I'm doing Black Widow.
Scarlet -- I'm just naming the actors.
Well, because we started talking about Jeremy Renner.
Yeah, yeah, it's okay.
I don't think it's that weird that you did it that way.
I'm getting very self-conscious about it.
That's all right.
I'm intimidated.
Yeah, me too.
Moving on, what about --
So the Jeremy Renner app is an app where you sign up for the app
and then you pay money to try to become better friends with Jeremy Renner.
Yeah, you know, I'm going to be honest with you.
I don't really know exactly what the stars were for.
I think they were -- oh, wait a second.
So it was a gathering place for fans to connect with the actor I'm reading.
And what happened -- yeah, just to put a pin in that whole conversation,
what happened was that people found a way to impersonate Jeremy Renner.
So someone could go on and be like, "I'm Jeremy Renner.
Like, f--- you guys," or whatever.
I don't know.
[laughter]
I don't think that's what he was saying.
Here's a picture of my d---.
[laughter]
I think that's what -- the real Jeremy Renner caught wind of it
and was like, "Well, no, there's only one.
Let's shut it down."
Right.
And he kind of called out the tech company that made the app and went away.
Right.
They're not protecting him.
No, no, no, they were just -- yeah.
But there's good news, though.
Jeremy has actually relaunched --
What's the app called?
I think it's called the Jeremy Renner app.
I'm going to do a number crunch on the flight.
Yeah, that's sick.
Maybe I could do an app like that now that I play the show at Madison Square Garden.
There's probably at least 100 people who want to be my friend.
Absolutely, yeah.
You could do -- instead of stars, you could do, like, bricks.
Bricks, nice.
Okay, I want a cut of whatever happens with the --
I want a cut of every Time Crisis episode.
Okay.
The app was called Jeremy Renner Official.
I like that better.
Right, yeah.
I like the official, yeah.
It's powerful.
All right, maybe just one more here.
I think this is kind of, like, on brand for you.
I'd love to get your take on this.
Hasbro now owns Death Row.
Oh, yeah.
I read something about that.
Yeah.
So it's kind of one of those things where they bought the company that owns Death Row.
Right, what company is that?
Entertainment One, E1 Entertainment.
Of course, yeah, E1, yeah.
They probably own, what, like 100 different things?
They own Madison Square Garden.
I mean, that would be great.
You know.
Okay.
So, yeah, so Mr. Potato Head and Tupac are finally part of the same clique.
They're on the same label.
Yeah, yeah.
So any thoughts on that whole situation?
What do you want to see Hasbro doing with the Death Row brand?
What do you see?
Because I feel like people have tried to bring it back in the past.
Who did?
Because it was owned by, like, an independent company for a minute, and then it got acquired.
I'm going to say I honestly don't know that much about Death Row.
As a person who grew up in New York, I always hated all that stuff.
I think maybe if I was on Death Row or associated with Death Row, I don't want to say anything bad about Death Row.
Right.
We respect Death Row.
Sure.
Death Row, thank you for all the years of entertainment.
But I think it's, like, insulting, kind of, to have a toy company.
Like, I feel like it's mean of the toy company to be like, "I'm a toy company, and now I own your, like, scary rap record label."
Right.
Because then it's like...
Do you think they'd do, like, a Mr. Potato Head with Tupac?
I hope so.
Like Mr. Tupac Head?
It'd be like the front tie bandana that you could just push onto his potato head.
Yeah, you could click on the bandana.
Yeah.
And then the tattoos could be, like, its own, like...
Yeah, those would go, like, right under the mouth, I guess.
Because where are you going to put them?
He doesn't really have a body.
That's right.
A torso.
That's right.
It would just be the...
They'd be face tattoos.
It would be, like, 6'9" or something.
But then you can't really do that.
No.
That's even more disgraceful than being a toy company that bought Death Row, is to now put face tats on Mr. Potato Pac posthumously.
And we're getting very far away from the original Pac IP at this point.
I think so.
Yeah, this is like going back to the Avengers.
You know, you can't change Tony Stark's mask.
You can't.
It gets very complicated.
They probably do stuff like that, though.
Yeah, they do.
Yeah.
All right, well, that's about it.
I know you got...
We're backstage, so...
And there are a lot of people who want to meet you and hang out.
So I feel like I'm wasting your time a little bit.
I could cash in on that, maybe.
Right.
And, you know, you probably want to get building on that app that we came up with together,
Equal 50/50 Partnership.
I wouldn't say 50/50.
It's my name.
30/70.
We'll figure it out.
Okay, we'll figure something out.
Would you be able to give a shout-out to, like, Time Crisis, 100 years of Time Crisis, like, still going strong?
Yeah.
Congratulations, Time Crisis, my beautiful child, for making it to 100 years of age.
Yeah.
You have surpassed me, even, and I'm very proud of you.
And I think you could probably live for another 100 years, if not more.
I hope so.
And I'm excited to watch you grow.
Thank you, Desmond.
Thank you, Seinfeld.
Something's happening in the country, and the government's to blame.
We got married in a gold rush, and the rush has never felt the same.
Shared a moment in a cafe, shared a kiss in pouring rain.
We got married in a gold rush, and the sight of gold will always bring me pain.
I don't want to hear the rumors, please don't say it loud.
I just want to go out tonight and make my baby proud.
Boy, who's your baby?
You don't know by now.
There's two seats on the midnight train, the gold won't wear us down.
Ariel, how you doing, man?
I'm good, Mr. Seinfeld.
What does it mean to see this band that you've been producing
play at Madison Square Garden, the iconic venue here in New York?
I'm happy for them.
They've got their New York jerseys.
It seems like a very happy time for New Yorkers,
a band that came from New York, came back,
and just top of the mountain kind of situation.
Boom, sold out.
Sold out.
The energy.
I mean, it's very exciting.
Friends and family, Death Spot.
Right?
Angelique?
Unbelievable.
It's really--yeah, it's amazing.
It really is amazing.
And on top of that, this show coincides with time crisis going for 100 years.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah.
Sometimes it all just comes together.
Yeah.
Well, Ariel, you know, one thing we've been sort of--
so we've been banking these apps over the summer.
I'm familiar with the process.
The banked apps.
I think you--were you--
I'm pretty sure I banked some apps with you guys.
That was your first banked app.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
And also, wasn't the Father of the Bride breakdown--that was a banked app?
That was the first banked app.
That was first banked.
Okay, so you've been in the bank.
I've lived in the bank before.
We're laughing straight to the bank on time crisis.
So we've missed out on a few hot stories over the summer,
and I've just been asking for people's takes on them.
Can I ask you about one of these?
You know, I've been coming on time crisis for so long, you got deported?
That's right.
I was extradited.
You lived in Japan.
That's right.
You came back.
We're now in New York.
Oh, my God.
We didn't know if there would ever be another Vampire Weekend album.
Then we made a Vampire Weekend album.
That's right.
Then it went number one.
Now we're at MSG.
Right.
You're back in the country.
Where's it all going?
Time is flying by.
We've been through a lot together.
Yeah.
Hit me with the not-so-current events.
So you're familiar with the Tim Hortons?
I know what Tim Hortons is.
I was surprised to see that in Penn Station, which is right here,
kind of what, adjacent, I guess, to MSG, under MSG?
You know, I always thought that MSG was on top of Penn.
I guess it is on top of Penn Station.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought it was connected.
I've been to MSG once where I took the train to Penn Station,
got out to go see R. Kelly in the theater, and it's just a real maze.
I don't know where anything is.
Yes.
I mean, from the street, it seemed fairly obvious where Madison Square Garden was,
but I remember being kind of confused about that.
Anyway.
Yeah, no, you know what, I agree.
This is actually my first time here, and to meet up with the Crisis crew,
they were just like, "Oh, yeah, meet at MSG," and it took me like 25 minutes.
I was like, where?
It was like I was in circles.
I was not playing with that.
I saw the lobby call, and I jumped in that van because I knew.
You know what it was like?
It was like that Seinfeld episode in the parking garage where they keep going
around in rounded circles not knowing where they parked their car.
If I can force that analogy in here.
Well done.
Thank you.
Well played.
Well, I can actually segue because while I was like lost in Penn Station.
Tim Hortons.
Okay.
And it was, you know what, I got a picture of it actually, which you can't see.
I don't know what the scandal is, though.
I know what Tim Hortons is.
So I saw a Pizza Hut/Nathan's/Tim Hortons in Penn Station.
That's crazy.
That's a freakish combination, right?
Frankenstein's brings me back.
I mean, sorry.
Wow.
Nathan's brings me back.
Frankenstein brings me back, too.
To the first days of time crisis.
I've been mixing.
So there's no real scandal.
It's just that Shawn Mendes has done a big partnership with Tim Hortons.
Get out of here.
Oh, yeah.
His face is on the cups.
He's in the ads.
Wow.
He's Instagramming about it.
There's a tagline, "Home is where the heart is."
I mean, this is a major partnership.
Ceramic versions of the Shawn Mendes cup going for as much as $150 on the eBay.
I did not know anything about that.
That's very interesting.
If you're Shawn Mendes adjacent at all on Instagram and you're swiping around,
you might see a promoted Shawn Mendes, very wholesome, drinking a coffee and playing hockey.
I haven't seen it.
You know Shawn Mendes was at Webster Hall.
I remember that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
We should have talked to him back then.
I don't know.
Was the Tim Hortons thing already happening?
This is like, I want to say about a month.
We're about a month out now into the Tim Hortons thing.
Maybe he bought Tim Hortons.
I mean, he's got that money now.
I think it's possible.
Bought in tickets.
Why else?
I mean, how much could they have possibly?
I mean, Tim Hortons is the Dunkin' Donuts of Canada.
Right, okay.
They do have that Mendes money too.
Right.
But he could be a stakeholder.
These celebrity endorsements, you know, they're much more of a partnership than they used to be.
So I don't know.
That's interesting.
I guess what I'm saying is does a Shawn Mendes/Tim Hortons partnership make Tim Hortons any more appealing to you?
Would you go, "Ah, yeah, I'd try that.
I want that cup with Shawn Mendes on it."
It makes me want to dig a little deeper.
Right.
Can I make a hard turn?
Yeah, hit me.
Are you the type of producer who, like, nothing ever feels finished?
You know how Kanye was, like, editing Pablo, like, after it came out?
I do feel that way.
I thought that was interesting.
That was an interesting concept that you could just keep tweaking it.
Right.
Since it was never going to be anywhere physically.
As a consumer, it made me a little nervous because every time I was like, "Am I committing to this the way this sounds?
Am I going to get some new verses?
What's going on here?"
It made me a little anxious because it was new behavior.
It was new listening behavior for me.
I know.
And as interesting as things have gotten, I'll just say that, yeah, these things do seem, like, slightly unhealthy.
The idea that it could never--it never has to be done, you know?
My question from that is then, now that we've had, like, a summer of Father of the Bride, do you listen back and go,
"Ah, I wish I'd made that drum sound a little quieter," or, "I wish I'd put a little--"
I would definitely feel that way if I listened to it.
It'll take me a couple years before I can listen to it.
Oh, you walk away.
I walk away.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
That's probably healthy, right?
I turn my back every now and then, you know?
I was listening to "Sympathy" at Soundcheck.
I was like, "I have some thoughts about how it sounds. Let me reference the record."
And, yeah, I felt good about it.
I mean, yeah, I'm always going to hear things for sure.
Yeah, yeah. Right on.
Yeah.
All right.
And I would keep changing it if it could go on forever.
Very rarely do you feel like, "That's it. It's done."
I remember in the "Tribe Called Quest" documentary--did you see that?
I did.
I remember you talk about the label having to, like, wrestle the album out of Q-Tip's hands
because he would just never want to stop.
I don't remember that detail.
It's so unremarkable to me because it's, like, just, like, obvious.
Like, yeah, like, it requires, like, a hard deadline sort of nuclear situation to finish something.
So I relate.
All right.
That's it. You got me?
We got to get out of here because our boy's about to hit the stage.
That's right.
"Vampire Weekend" is going to go back on.
We'll check in a bit later.
I know how I loved you then.
I think I love you still.
But this prophecy of ours has come back drastic to kill.
Three stones on a mountain, three small holes in a field.
You've given me the big dream, but you can't make it real.
A wicked world, just think what could have been.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
All I do is lose, but baby, all I want's to win.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
A hundred years or more, it feels like such a dream.
An endless conversation since 1917.
Now the battery's too hot, it's burning up in its tray.
Young marriages are melting and dying where they lay.
A wicked world, just think what could have been.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
All I do is lose, but baby, all I want's to win.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
Our tongues will fall so still, our teeth will all decay.
A minute feels much longer with nothing left to say.
So let them win the battle, but don't let them restart.
That genocidal feeling that beats in every heart.
A wicked world, just think what could have been.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
All I do is lose, but baby, all I want's to win.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
So the house lights have just come up, it was, uh, the show's over. How was that for you?
It was spectacular. The Crisis crew was out in full effect.
It was fantastic.
The biggest show in Vampire Weekend's history, you know?
I've seen them everywhere across New York and seeing them in the world's most famous arena, it's like graduation, it's incredible.
The Crisis crew, baby.
Baby, I know pain is as natural as the rain.
I just thought it didn't rain in California.
Baby, I know love isn't what I thought it was.
'Cause I've never known a love like this before.
I thought it was really great. We were in Boston on Tuesday, and we had seats for that one.
So it was totally different being on the floor this time.
And it was just so long, and they played every song I wanted to hear, and I'm just, like, shaking, so.
It'll be longer.
This time, when every man draws a line down in the sand.
We're surviving, we're still living, all stronger.
I just want to say thank you to Time Crisis and Ezra for being, like, my favorite musician ever, and just, like, bringing joy to my life for, like, ten years.
Good job on 100 first years, Ezzy.
We love you, Ezzy.
Through this life, and all its suffering.
Oh Christ, am I good for nothing?
Baby, I know pain is always waiting at the gate.
I just thought we'd lock the gate when we left in the morning.
And I was told that walk is how we landed on these shores.
I just thought the drums of war beat louder warnings.
My name's Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, can you describe in detail the hat that you're wearing, please?
All right, so I'm wearing a hat that is incredibly representative of the Time Crisis community, and also its core values.
That's right, all 11 of them, I see.
Yeah, it looks--okay, so we've got goldfish, we've got Diet Coke.
I mean, this is the most exceptional hat I've ever seen.
This show rules.
Sweet--oh, my God.
Oh, wow, sweet, spicy chili.
Reppin' Ezra's--
Borgesian.
This belongs in a museum, honestly.
What is going on here?
Wow, what is the opposite of buff?
That's what this hat is right now.
Congratulations.
I think you win.
This is the bucket hat of the night.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I know death probably hasn't happened yet.
'Cause I don't remember living life before this.
And, darling, our disease is the same one as the trees.
Unaware that they've been living in a forest.
Well, I just told my friend Isabel here that my wedding day is gonna be some serious competition
because this is the best night of my life.
[laughs]
You've been cheating on, cheating on me.
I've been cheating on, cheating on you.
You've been cheating on me.
But I've been cheating through this time.
You've been cheating on me.
I've been cheating on, cheating on you.
And, darling, so have I.
You've been cheating on me.
I've been cheating through.
Oh, crap.
Ezra, I love you so much.
You're the most important man in my life right now.
Thank you for everything you do.
I've been cheating through this life.
So we are at the Starbucks in Times Square.
It is the day after the MSG show.
I'm standing with Ariel, Despot, and Winter.
And we're gonna go--
Starbucks.
What?
We're going to a different Starbucks.
Why? Is this because Winter prefers a different Starbucks?
This doesn't have a bathroom.
We want to go Starbucking.
You're celebrating your 15,000th visit to a Starbucks.
Is this 15,001?
No, no.
A couple of reasons.
After I hit my 15,000th store, I hit 44 more in Peru.
And then I took a red-eye flight from Lima to Houston
without any sleep, got into a rental car,
and drove 1,800 miles so that I could hit as many other Starbucks
on the way back to Rochester.
So I'm up to, like, 15,047, not counting three in Queens
and Brooklyn that I'm gonna hit tomorrow.
Okay.
And this wouldn't be 15,001 anyway because I've already been here,
and I can only count a store once, obviously.
So for Despot here, who's never Starbucked, this could be his first.
What are your rules, Despot?
What is your Starbucking rule, personally?
Uh...
Well, I mean, I have been to at least 10 Starbucks in my life.
Did you follow a procedure?
No, most of the time I didn't get anything.
I think you have to have some kind of process
if you want to call it Starbucking.
I feel like most times I've ever been in a Starbucks,
it was to use the bathroom and leave.
So maybe my rule is I got to use the bathroom.
Maybe that's your rule.
You're gonna have a problem with some of the Starbucks
in New York City, though.
They don't all have bathrooms.
So you just pee on the floor.
I mean, and you explain that you have a thing you're doing,
and you have to do it.
That it's an art project.
Yeah.
You can see it as an art project.
Despot, if I get you a coffee, will you have some coffee?
I'll have a sip of it, yeah.
All right, all right, let's do it.
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
This show rules!
Now we got our first obstacle here.
The lines.
So I got to 60 Starbucks in Peru in 4 days and 6 hours.
If not for the lines, I probably would have hit 70.
So is this, like, would you call this a long line or an average line?
You know what, for New York City, this is probably an average line.
Okay, so not so bad.
It's not so bad.
If this were in Dubuque, Iowa, this would be a crazy line.
Okay.
So what kind of coffee are you getting?
Okay, so for me, it's not a rule.
But for practical purposes, I will ask them for a sample of the drip coffee,
which is that coffee that you see with the sign right there.
In the afternoons, it's typically only Pike Place Roast.
As it is right now.
Yeah, in the morning, they'll have a lighter roast, which is typically Veranda.
And they'll also have a dark roast, which they rotate across different things.
Sometimes they're promoting special coffees.
Like, you see right now, they've got a Chiapas out there.
They might be promoting that, and you might actually see that being brewed in the morning.
I don't know. I wasn't here in the morning.
But basically, because it's the cheapest, easiest thing, that's what I'm asking for a sample of.
Okay.
If I'm just straight up buying a coffee because for whatever reason I don't want to ask for a sample,
it could be a cappuccino, could be a latte, could be a macchiato.
Typically nothing fancier than that.
Starbucks' biggest moneymaker is the frappuccino, which is just like calories out the wazoo.
If you're a gym-goer or health-conscious guy, you would never have one of those.
It's candy.
I try to stay away from those. Yeah, it's essentially candy.
If you remember the episode where Ezra and Jake were talking about the egg white foam cloud macchiato.
You remember that episode?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was crazy. That was like pure candy.
I had like a couple sips of that.
I was like, "Oh, my God. I need to go run up three miles just to burn this off."
Okay. So we're going to do some health-conscious coffee.
If you have just regular coffee and you don't put any sugar in it,
that's about health-conscious as you get if you're not worried about caffeine.
Okay.
Some people are.
Right.
Okay. So what would you order for me if you had free reign?
Honestly, for a person who doesn't drink coffee, you need to start with just a regular drip coffee, no sugar.
Just taste it, see how you like it, and work up from there.
No sugar, no milk.
Yeah, it depends. Do you have a sweet tooth?
I don't know.
I have a crazy sweet tooth.
I never met a sugary beverage or a sugary pastry that I didn't like.
Okay.
I'm not going to be diesel like you, but I'm comfortable in my own skin.
You could eat all types of crazy sweets and still just got to sweat that out.
Yeah. Well, honestly, if I cut out all the sugar, I wouldn't have this gut here, but what are you going to do?
We don't all have the same level of self-discipline.
The narcissism of small differences.
Despot is about to have his first taste of Starbucks coffee.
You probably want to take the lid off.
Yeah. I was going to do it through the little hole.
No, you can't. That's not pure.
You got to sip it like that.
You think this is like really hot? Is it going to--
Starbucks coffee is notoriously hot, so just take a little sip first to see if it's too hot for you.
There was a lawsuit from like 15 years ago.
Oh, someone spilled it on their crack, right?
Yeah, I think a grandma or something like that, or she might have been McDonald's,
but there was a Starbucks lawsuit over the temperature of the coffee.
Yeah, I mean, it's as gross as I remember coffee being.
Actually, no, no, Despot, I'm going to say this quietly.
It's probably grosser than you remember because it is Starbucks, and they are not, in my opinion, a coffee company.
They are a customer service company that happens to sell coffee, and that's the distinction that a lot of people do not realize.
And your high regard for them is for the customer service.
Absolutely. Most places you will go, Starbucks partners are impeccably trained in customer service.
Why do people drink coffee? It's insane. It's just so bad.
I'm a computer programmer, and I survive on coffee.
I was a computer programmer for a time.
Oh, nice.
That's what I went to college for.
All right. What did you program in? Did you ever do C++? Nice.
I did Perl, C++, JavaScript.
Beautiful.
I did ActionScript because I was doing it in the moment when people did that. Nobody does that.
I never even heard of ActionScript.
It's like the flash programming language.
Wow. Wow.
Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
All right, guys. This has been a truly memorable experience, certainly for me.
I hope for both of you guys.
We are going to go check back in with Jake and Ezra and sort of wrap up this Vampire Weekend 100 years of time crisis special weekend.
It really has been a weekend. So thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Hey, it's been great talking to Despot. It's been great Starbucks-ing with Despot.
Likewise.
Let's do it again.
Yes.
Do you feel like a chain store?
Practically floored.
One of many zeros kicked around four.
Your ears are full but you're empty.
Holding out your heart to people who never really care how you are.
You give me confidence in me, easily.
I see so much I'm going blind and I blame it virtually.
The social reality is hard enough for me.
Take me away from this big bad world and the creeps are mad at me.
It's a week, it's not over yet.
Now, let's go to the time crisis hotline.
[Phone ringing]
Hey, Jake.
By the way, if you guys forgot, Jake couldn't make it out to the MSG show, but we will see him at the Hollywood Bowl.
We're going to talk via the phone right now.
Where are you?
I'm backstage at Town Hall.
Right. So you guys are playing there tonight?
It's a Minnesota public radio show.
I actually have a few more questions about it.
Obviously, we're here in Manhattan.
I was just talking to the kind of stage manager dude wearing a Minnesota public radio polo shirt.
And he was like, "All right, man. Here's how it's going to go. No cursing, blah, blah."
And I was kind of like, "Wait, people just like commuting from Minnesota to the city?"
But anyway, it's called Live From Here, and I think it's in the vein of like Prairie Home Companion.
The host is this guy, Chris Thile, who's like a virtuoso mandolinist.
He's kind of regarded as the best mandolin player in the world, and he's incredible.
And they do a mix of music, performance, and conversation.
So it's like there's some other musicians on the bill, like Jake Gyllenhaal is on the bill.
I don't know if he's getting interviewed or doing a dramatic reading or something.
So it's been like a bit of a whirlwind, but everybody was like, "Just pick some Vampire Weekend songs.
The live band is like unbelievable shredders. You come in for 40 minutes, run it with them, make some notes, and that's that."
So it's like we're doing like a kind of slightly more Americana Harmony Hall and Sunflower, where he's playing it on mandolin.
And it's a cool kind of variety show, I guess.
So is it only you from Vampire who's appearing?
Yeah, it's just me sitting. It's basically me sitting in with their house band.
Oh, wow. Sick.
Yeah, so then it's like, you know, I just heard them. They're like running some downstairs.
They're like running a Graham Parsons song, and I'm just like, yeah, it's going to be interesting because I've heard about the show, but I've never taken all in.
I guess it's live on the radio, and then I'm sure you can listen to it later.
This is the official kind of continuation of Prairie Home, I think, right?
Oh, it is the official? Okay. Yeah, Matt's nodding.
I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
Okay, yeah, because I kept being like, oh, it sounds like Prairie Home Companion.
Okay, this is Prairie Home Companion 2019. Live from here.
Very cool.
None of that specific regional Prairie **** anymore. Just live from here.
The generalized here.
Right. This sounds cool. It sounds like almost like a kind of like Garcia Grissom, Folded in a Way style version.
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I was thinking too, like, you know, so you know how like Married in a Gold Rush on the record, you know, it's like a country song,
but then the drums have like kind of like this African flavor. And you know, it's like it's a whole genre mix.
And then we were playing it here. I was like, let's just go like full Americana, you know, because they have like a Chris on mandolin.
They have like a shredder violinist. And so they did it just like real rootsy. And I was just loving it.
Wow. I'm just like to hear that. Also, speaking of like cool multi hyphenate, like radio host slash virtuoso mandolin player.
He's an American mandolinist and radio personality.
It's funny. It's like anytime he comes up with music people. I mean, I've seen him play and I'm like, oh, yeah, he's really, really good.
But then people are like, there are three great mandolinists of the past hundred years.
Jerry Douglas, this other dude who had a different flat picking technique.
And then you have Chris Thiele, who's a master of both. It's like we talk about like Kung Fu or something.
It's like there was a Shaolin master in a Wu-Tang master and nobody ever thought somebody could master both.
And then this young gun came out. And yes, if he like really looms large and even even just playing with him for a second, I was like, oh, damn, this dude is serious.
Well, dude, I guess a congratulations is in order. MSG, dog. How was it?
You know what? It was really good. The funny thing is, is like often when it's like the big show, whatever that might be, you know, like big slot at a huge festival,
headlining something, the big major market event. I'm always like walking off stage being kind of like bewildered and like, was that good?
I don't know. Yeah. Like I just do always feel like kind of alienated in like the really big cities.
Even in New York's funny because the hometown show. But that also brings like stress because I'm like walking on stage being like, oh, my God, did I not give enough
pluses to, you know, that person I've known for 20 years on the guest list?
Wow. Again, as I've said before, I love touring the Midwest. It's like when we're like in the Midwest, I just feel in my element like here to perform.
Don't really have any family out there or anything. I'm just like I'm here to perform, to connect, always have like great crowds.
And New York is like a famously disloyal town in the music industry. I was talking to some big wig like touring dude, the kind of people who are like all they do is like look
at ticket numbers and just be like, that's up, that's down.
That market's hot. That venue's cooling off. And we're talking about like New York. And I was like, yeah, you know, New York's like our hometown.
So it's always, you know, it feels high stress. And he was like, yeah. And you know what? It is high stress because New York is a very disloyal market.
And I was like, but it's like the biggest city in the country. He's like, even so, I'll bring an act over, you know, one tour.
They're doing you're huge in New York. They come back. They're doing the same kind of numbers in Texas. And New York fell off a cliff. Not a loyal town.
And I was like, well, hopefully there's a little more loyalty, like when you're from there. But it was funny, like the way this dude was talking.
So there's a part of me that was kind of like, and honestly, our last big New York show was 2013 at Barclays. And I didn't walk off stage feeling great.
I was like, this venue didn't feel right for us. It felt like maybe we're just not a band that belongs in arenas. Was that good? I had all those questions.
And this time, I think it's partially because we did the 360 seating. I got to send you some pictures. I was talking about that before, how it's like by doing 360, you open
up another 6,000 tickets, which can be hard to sell because people can be like, I don't know if I want to sit behind the stage.
But actually, I think those seats were actually sick. And anyway, the garden is just a great spot. It weirdly feels like cozy, even though it's huge.
That's awesome, dude. I was gonna text you yesterday, just like kind of like, hey, man, break a leg. And I was like, you know what, I don't want to get in this grill. And
there's a million things going on. Don't want to burden the man with, you know, some sort of obligatory reply.
I'm about to go on stage. Hold on, guys. What the f*** is Jake doing?
Yeah, yeah, like you're about to go on stage and I'm just like, hey, man.
No, but you know, situations like that, you send a good spirit, a kind thought, send it into the universe. We felt it, you know.
That's tight, man.
Yeah, but considering that there's so much like stress about being in New York, you know, like Vanferrick and guest list in New York is absurd.
Oh my God.
Somebody told me a funny story about what, 38 special. But I forget where they're from, like Jacksonville or Gainesville. They're from, you know, a city in Florida.
And it's like whatever town it was, they're like when 38 special, you know, plays their hometown guest list, 3000 people.
Just like everybody they ever knew, just like, oh, gee, 38 special fans. It's not quite 3000 people, but it's like, it's just a lot, you know, and it's like family and
cousins and really old friends and stuff.
So do you have any idea how big the guest list was numerically?
Well, I kept being told that there were 19,000 people in the building, which makes it the biggest fanfare we can show ever. But I know we sold closer to 18,000 tickets or
maybe even slightly less.
So because at the garden you have the artist guest list, then you have just like the venue itself. The garden gives people tickets and the promoter and stuff.
So easily when you consider all the kind of comps and guest lists and then probably like weird special stuff, like the after party was in the Delta Lounge, which looks
like an airport. That was hilarious.
What was the curfew situation?
Mellower than I thought. I thought it was a hard 11 curfew, but then we found out, no, like it's cool if you play up to like 1120 ish.
And we went on like 10 minutes late because, you know, sometimes at those big venues, they're just like, they have it in real time.
So they're just like only 60% of the audience is seated. If you give another 10 minutes, you know, like that kind of thing.
So the curfew was mellower than I thought because, and I'm glad because we had time to take three requests in the encore, which just barely put this show into our most
songs ever for a regular show.
Chicago's 31 songs. This is 32.
Wait, so you were taking requests just like whoever was in the front shouting out songs?
We take requests basically every show now just as a way to switch it up.
So, yeah, it's mostly from the front. We got some from the side. There were these people up front who requested Obvious Bicycle.
And at first I was like, oh, man, all right, is that going to be kind of like a slow letdown?
Like, do we need to build the energy up? But I was like, all right.
And then we did it and did our thing where we like going to Son of a Preacher Man.
And actually, that was like a really strong moment in the show. So shout out to the people who requested Obvious Bicycle.
Wait, so can you play every song in the catalog at the drop of a hat?
Almost every song. We've had a couple of times where people requested the song Hudson.
Do you know that song? It's on Modern Vampires.
Oh, yeah.
Like the kind of minor key.
Second to last track, I think. Yeah.
Outside of that, just about every song.
Most requested song so far in the store, Ottoman from the Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist soundtrack.
That was requested last night.
Dude, I don't know if I even know that song.
It's a good song. There's a rap version. Kid Cudi sampled it from like a mix tape.
It opens with a guitar riff that goes...
Okay, yeah, I think I kind of remember that from live shows. Not an album track.
No, yeah, definitely a deep cut. Also, I wrote that guitar riff when I was a sophomore in high school.
That's my national anthem bass line from Radiohead.
Wow, you'll do that, man. I feel like that's come up before on the show where you like had this riff around for 15 years.
I still have one or two high school riffs or middle school riffs that I always keep trying to turn into a song.
You know, maybe one day.
That's wild.
There's still some leftovers.
Did you see any of those Jake Longstreet Wikipedia page shirts?
I didn't see any in the crowd, but actually, multiple times during the show, like right, exact, like stage right,
there's a dude in the front row side stage wearing a Richard Pictures shirt.
Oh, that's sick.
Basically, every Vampire Weekend show, I at least see one Richard Pictures shirt or that like the Ezra and Jake Longsleeve.
Oh, right. The Ben and Jerry's one?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
The crew of like the two women up front who requested Obvious Bicycle, they both had these like homemade hats.
And one of them said, is this still sunflower, which is kind of like a fish reference.
The other one had a like a bucket hat that said, bring the buff on it.
I stumbled across that from the Freezer Insta account.
Oh, yeah. Everybody got a follow from the Freezer. Somebody.
Yeah. That site is.
It's bananas.
Crazy.
It's basically they and I it's great.
I was actually like always wanted there to be something like this.
I'm glad somebody started it.
Yeah.
They're compiling all of the Time Crisis Vampire Weekend and Richard Pictures merch official and especially unofficial.
Like one off.
A lot of homemade stuff.
Hand painted.
Yeah.
Yeah. But the Jake Wikipedia shirt is classic.
That's truly one of my my faves.
I know. I feel like I need to get a copy of that shirt, but I don't think I can wear it, but I need it for posterity.
Oh, my God.
Just you roll in a coffee bean in that shirt.
He's like, who's Jake Longstreth?
Who's wait, who's John Jake Pullman Longstreth?
And you're like, it's me, bro.
Anyway, if whoever made that shirt, if you're listening, at least send Jake one.
Hey, put it on a mannequin in your living room.
All right.
They're saying we got to jump off because we got to I think all of the guests share one dressing room here.
It's real show.
All right.
I like this.
It's a real old school show biz, like cabaret kind of vibe.
That's cool.
I'm psyched to hear this set you're going to do.
Have fun.
The last show on the leg.
I'll see you back in L.A. soon, bud.
All right.
Thanks, dude.
I'll see you at 100.
All right.
I'll see you for 101.
All right.
Peace.
All right.
Peace.
Thanks for listening, guys.
We'll see you next week.
And I'm really starting to get excited about episode 1000.
So let's keep that energy going.
Time Crisis with Ezra Kainan.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Time Crisis.
This is the Time Crisis.
Sweet Chili Heat.
World premiere.
Brought to you by Doritos.
Sweet Chili Heat.
I'm a vibe guy.
But in my neighborhood.
Old Town Road was a hit that was infinite.
Jeff Epstein made me sick.
It's still pretty neat talking all rock beefs in the summer.
In the summer.
I like TC heads wear a bootleg merch.
So go and do your own research.
Meet back here for another TC summer.
2019, man, I'll never forget.
Ezra and Jake banked a lot of Eps.
They had a correspondent by the name of Max.
And Amazon didn't pay a nickel of tax.
The 1975 were kind of nasty.
But Dan from Imagination Dragons kept it classy.
The father of the bright door hit the road with a spinning big blue and a Croaker manto.
Old Town Road was a hit that was infinite.
Jeff Epstein made me sick.
It's still pretty neat talking all rock beefs in the summer.
In the summer.
I like TC heads and their bootleg merch.
Now go and do your own research.
And meet back here for another TC summer.
The show rules.
Time Crisis with Ezra King.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.
Sports. One.
(music fades)
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