Episode 133: What About PA with Daniel Ralston
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300 years of Pennsylvania history,
plus Korean Billboard history,
plus TikTok,
plus Colorado history.
This is a very historical episode
of Time
C
R
I
S
I
S.
With Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by
All of those great romances
They were a felt, probably
All my rightful chances
My picture clear
Everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow
One of us had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying
One of us is lying
Leave it on me, babe
Alright, Time Crisis back once again. What's up, Jake?
Not a whole lot. I'm just, uh,
opening up a Wikipedia page for Jolly Ranchers.
Unrelated to Time Crisis.
You were just at home opening up the Wikipedia page, like,
"Oh, sh*t, we're recording TC right now."
Yeah, I needed to get the backstory in Jolly Ranchers,
and I should say I was just on the
page for Eddie Van Halen.
Rest in peace, Eddie Van Halen.
I feel like we've never talked too much about Van Halen on this show.
I feel like we've joked about, like,
party bands in, like, SoCal.
And, like, "These guys are the best band coming out of Pasadena."
Guys, we talked about Van Halen in episode 89.
It was in the Top 5.
1984, "Jump" was the number one song.
So I think that was the only time.
Wait, how did you access? Look at that number crunch.
Yeah, how did you crunch that number?
You know what, I googled "Van Halen Jump Time Crisis"
because I remembered "Jump" somehow being on the show.
And thanks to our friends at the TCU Wiki,
it's all laid out for us.
Wow.
I know we've discussed it, at least in private conversation, Jake,
because we've talked about your uncle here and there,
who's a rock musician.
And he grew up in Pasadena, right?
And he knew David Lee Roth and the Van Halens
as just, like, some local kids playing in a garage band or something?
Yeah, the way he tells it, yeah, my Uncle Ted is a Pasadena-based rock musician.
He actually used to play gigs back in the '80s and '90s at the Old Town Pub,
which, of course, is sort of one of the home venues for Richard Pictures these days.
Or, you know, pre-COVID.
And referenced in a Mountain Bruce song.
"Dead night in Medina at the Old Town Pub."
Hell yeah. So, Ted, he's told me that, like,
and who knows how this, you know, like, what's real.
But yeah, he's like, "Yeah, I saw them play big house parties."
Like, you know, like, you can picture, like, the Richard Linklater movie.
With, like, the, like, nice tracking shot into, like, the sprawling house.
The parents are away.
And, like, there's dudes set up by the pool.
This, like, opulent, like, Pasadena house.
He said he saw them there. And, like, they would play.
I remember years ago, he was telling me, like, "Oh, yeah, I knew where they lived."
And, like, sometimes I'd walk by and, like, watch their practice.
Or, like, hear it, you know?
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the reason David Lee Roth got to be the singer
was 'cause he owned a PA.
I love that. I mean, that's pretty high-
The truth is, he's a wild man.
Obviously, we don't want to make it all about him.
You know, we lost Eddie Van Halen.
But it is funny that, like, I mean, David Lee Roth, it's even by the,
if you look at all, like, the '80s hair metal bands,
obviously, they started in the '70s.
I mean, he's like a true American original.
They would sing in this kind of crazy way that suits their music.
And he's just, like, this hilarious personality, wild man.
And then, of course, Eddie Van Halen is, like, truly, just on a technical level,
nobody sounds like him as a guitarist.
So it is just kind of funny that two dudes in the same town,
I'm not gonna say David Lee Roth is as good a singer as Eddie Van Halen is at guitar.
That'd be a bit much.
But I'm just saying it's, like, you know, sometimes you get bands
where there's, like, an Eddie Van Halen and then, like, a few schlubs.
And then eventually, maybe Eddie Van Halen, he moves to Hollywood and he links up.
He finds, like, the crazy singer.
But it's just funny that these dudes just kind of were in, like,
probably went to the same high school or something.
It works. I mean, I was listening to some today,
and I was thinking about that exactly, like, Van Halen,
like a very formally innovative guitar player and a virtuoso, obviously.
But also, Van Halen was a complete, fun, like, party rock band.
Yeah.
And it's interesting how he didn't, yeah, David Lee Roth,
he didn't find a singer that was, like, could sing, like,
like some '70s prog band, like, something like the dude from Sticks
or, like, even, like, a friend from Mercury or something,
like the singer in, like, Kansas.
Like, he found this, like, dude that was, like, barely made it.
Like, it works so well. It's so perfect for the sound.
But, like, it's shocking that it does work.
Right. And obviously, it didn't work on a personal level, infamously.
Right.
They became one of the best-selling American rock bands of all time
because they had such extreme flavors in the band.
But it also meant that that formation could not last forever.
And honestly, I can think of two bands that changed singers
and still did their thing, and it's Van Halen and Black Sabbath.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Van Halen legitimately spanned decades.
Like, right now, in the Sammy Hagar era, early '90s,
they made, like, a legitimate early '90s rock hit with a different singer,
like, well over a decade past their, like, full explosion
as this, like, pop metal thing.
That's a real career. It's amazing.
Were you ever, like, a deep Van Halen fan, Jake?
No. Not really my thing.
I mean, I enjoyed-- I liked some of the hits.
Like, I threw on the first record today
when I was driving around running errands.
And, like, yeah, "Running With the Devil," come on.
I know this is lame.
If you're, like, a Van Halen head and you're listening,
it's like you're a deadhead saying "Touch of Grey" is your favorite dead song.
"Jump" is my favorite Van Halen song.
I understand that that's lame, but that's just where I'm at with it.
No, "Jump's" a great song, and that song is very not guitar-centric.
Is there any guitar on it?
I think there's, like, an insane guitar solo on it.
I can picture in the video, like, Eddie plays the synth at some point, right?
Yeah, I think so.
Anyway, that's all to say that that was a band that--
they could do a lot of different things.
It wasn't just, like, every song was, like, "Eruption,"
you know, like, crazy shredder guitar.
They could also, like, do, like, a solid synth rock song.
And they spanned the decades.
♪ I get up ♪
♪ And nothing gets me down ♪
♪ You got it tough ♪
♪ I've seen the toughest around ♪
♪ And I know ♪
♪ Baby, just how you feel ♪
♪ You've got to roll with the punches ♪
♪ To get to what's real ♪
♪ I can't you see me standing here ♪
♪ I got my back against the wrecking machine ♪
♪ I eat the worst that you see ♪
♪ I can't you see what I mean ♪
♪ Might as well jump, jump ♪
♪ Might as well jump ♪
♪ Go ahead and jump, jump ♪
♪ Go ahead and jump ♪
♪ Oh, hey you, who said that? ♪
♪ Baby, how you been? ♪
♪ You say you don't know ♪
♪ You won't know until you hear ♪
Looking up some stuff about him today.
He said that he never learned how to read music.
But he started out playing piano.
And he would, like, go to classical music competitions or something
and kind of, like, just play by ear what he heard.
He's just on some other level.
I was reading that he won, like, multiple classical piano competitions
in Long Beach in, like, the 1960s.
But it didn't even occur to me that, yeah, he wasn't reading music.
That's wild.
Yeah, I guess he just had a hell of an ear.
Also, born in Amsterdam.
Didn't know that.
I mean, I knew that they were Dutch.
I was just like, "Your last name's Van Halen?"
I mean, hindsight's 20/20, but it's, like, just the perfect name for a band.
Oh, yeah.
Van Halen.
I wonder if David Lee Roth ever had a feeling about the Van Halen brothers,
similar to Ray A. Kroc and the McDonald's brothers,
as we've discussed many times in the McDonald's origin story film "The Founder."
There's a climactic scene where Ray Kroc,
he kind of has to own all the sh-- things he's done to the McDonald's brothers.
And part of his, like, reasoning for why he had to, like,
fight tooth and nail to build McDonald's empire the way he wanted to
was, like, "You guys don't know how good you had your last name.
McDonald's, perfect for a restaurant.
What about me, Ray Kroc?
What does that make you think of? Kroc is sh--."
And they're trying to make, like, some kind of statement about America
and privilege or perceived lack of privilege.
But anyway, I could picture, like, David Lee Roth is such a--
I guess he punched up his name enough.
If it was just David Roth, that's a tough name for, like,
an '80s rock god.
David Lee Roth is pretty good, but I can just imagine him being like,
"My last name's Roth.
What does that make you think of, like, Philip Roth?
Solid writer, not a rock star."
"And you guys--and you guys are the Van Halen brothers.
I mean, come on.
You want to know I'm the way I am?
'Cause I wasn't blessed with a name like that."
"It also makes me think of a Roth IRA."
"Right. When you hear my name, it makes you think of a retirement fund,
the least rock 'n' roll thing ever.
You guys sound freaking badass, Van Halen brothers."
I did see a lot of outpouring from friends of the show.
I saw CT and Baio both talking about how they tried to learn eruption
when they were children, like when they were learning to play music,
and how it made them better musicians.
And I saw, like, a friend of the show, Brian Kopelman,
weighing in--he's a huge Van Halen head--Steven Hyden.
A lot of friends of the show were really--
who were definitely Van Halen heads were going in.
I bet. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've heard Baio talk about eruption in the past.
I mean, can we throw on eruption?
That's just like a "diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly," right?
Like, it's just crazy finger tapping.
The first album opens with "Runnin' with the Devil,"
then it goes into this.
And then it goes into King's cover, "You Really Got Me."
[guitar playing]
He has such a specific guitar tone.
Yeah.
It's heavy and light at the same time.
It really cuts, but it's not super tame.
It's warm, but it cuts.
Yeah.
It's got body.
[guitar playing]
That just sounds like a synth to me.
That just sounds like a Moog, where you're like, taking one of those--
I think Biden should walk out to this song.
[laughs]
That'd be sick.
He should play it off his iPhone.
[guitar playing]
Oh, yeah, then he goes, like, full classical.
Yeah.
I can't even imagine trying to learn this.
Well, Jake, you're going to want to drop it about 50% slower.
Start there.
Little by little, work your way up.
You'll have it in about a week.
[guitar playing]
And then it goes into--
[vocalizing]
What an amazing, like, opening to a career.
I guess that's what you want from a debut album,
just, like, a statement of purpose.
Track one, "Runnin' With the Devil."
We're going to talk about the Devil, because we are a metal band.
But we're, like, we're runnin' with the Devil.
It's kind of fun.
You get, like, that right mix of, like, badass but fun.
And then it's, like, what else is this band about?
And it's, like, "Eruption," shows another side.
And then "Kings," "You Really Got Me,"
they did a [bleep]load of covers.
I can't think of a successful rock band who, like,
did more covers than them as singles.
And I know we've touched on this kind of thing before,
but, like, again, it's amazing that their first record came out in '78,
that "Kings" song was maybe, what, 12 years old, 13 years old?
Yeah.
It's so funny, like, how the sound of rock changed so much
in that 12-, 13-year span.
Because it really is, like--
It comes in heavy after "Eruption."
It's like-- [vocalizing]
Matt, throw that on.
[rock music]
That's a huge sound.
Right.
[rock music]
I mean, yeah, it makes the "Kings" version sound like it was, like,
on, like, an Edison cylinder.
[laughs] Totally.
I bet Daft Punk loves Van Halen.
Oh, interesting. Wait, what's your theory there?
They had a song that has an "Eruption"-type guitar solo.
[vocalizing]
And there's just something, like, so technical and clean about it
that seems like--
Right. I hear you.
[rock music]
Obviously, they saw the '80s coming.
Yeah.
All those little, like, false harmonics and stuff were so funny.
I was also thinking, like, listening to "Eruption,"
and, you know, thinking about them as, like, this major development
in, like, rock technology.
Rock/guacamole technology.
Like, hearing "Eruption" makes me think a little bit of, like,
a Hendrix solo, like "Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock.
You know, he has some similar, like, dive bombs.
Yeah. Or "Page." Yeah.
Yeah, or "Page."
And just those guys, their vibe is so, like,
kind of, like, earthy, comparatively.
It makes me think of, like, cars or something.
Maybe because of his European background.
Not that Holland's especially known for cars,
but just, like, that vibe of just, like, fine-tuning a technology
just to make it, like, fly, drop some weight from the chassis,
and just, like, create this, like, new sound.
It's like the supersonic version of those dudes.
Yeah.
And it's a matter of taste, but it's, like, you can picture him, like,
studying this and, like--
Yeah, I don't know. It just makes me think about it.
If you were, like, a rock fan in '78,
it probably felt a little bit like going to a car show
and, like, seeing some game-changing new thing
that could go, like, way faster than even some, like,
heritage American car and, like, made less noise, you know?
It's louder but more powerful.
Yeah. Louder, faster.
European engineering.
I was reading today that he got the--
You know that Led Zeppelin song "Heartbreaker"?
There's that part where it's just Jimmy Page soloing
with no accompaniment.
Kind of.
And, like, Page is doing a lot of, like, hammer-ons and pull-offs
on, like, a really loud electric guitar.
And then he just, like, took that vibe and just, like,
kind of what you said, like, streamlined it,
took it to the next level.
You know what? I'm going to make another bizarre connection
because I'm also, like, picturing him figuring out
all this guacamole technology in his garage in Pasadena.
And I'm just like, "You know what, man?
He's grown up in the shadow of the jet propulsion laboratory
in the great state of California."
It's almost like I see him and his, like, obsession
with, like, the technical side of music.
I'm like, "Jet propulsion laboratory,
Steve Jobs and Wozniak in the garage.
I'm going to throw Eddie Van Halen in as another
great Californian tech innovator of the 1970s."
I love it.
You know what I mean?
Oh, absolutely.
There's very few guitars that I think of that way.
Yeah, probably back then it was, like, an arms race.
Like, the guitar was still, like, the dominant instrument
of, like, popular music.
And, like, you probably had, like, a Randy Rhoads come out.
It's like every year there was, yeah, it was, like,
a very techie type of, like, competitive atmosphere.
And then I feel like after Randy Rhoads died,
like, Ozzy got this other dude who was, like,
even faster than Randy Rhoads.
Right, and a lot of those guys, like Satriani and Vi,
like, it ended up going down this dead end of just, like,
very cold, not very fun, but very accomplished music.
And it's cool that, like, I guess we touched on this before,
but, like, it's cool that he was able to do both,
of, like, have this very accomplished technical music,
but also have it be really fun and, like,
fun and dumb in a cool way.
Because there's a version of him without the songwriting
and without the band that coalesced around him and his brother,
where it's just kind of like your uncle being like,
"Man, I used to go see this band in Pasadena."
And actually, the guy still plays at Old Town Pub sometimes.
I swear he's the fastest, most technical guitar player I've ever seen.
Oh, totally.
They cover the kinks a lot, but he'll take these crazy solos.
Just, like, a really solid cover band.
He just could never figure it out what to do besides that.
But, yeah, his name's Eddie Van Halen.
Great guy. I'll bring him by the next Richard Pictures show.
I bet he'd love you guys.
I mean, he wasn't much of a deadhead, but I think he'd like you guys.
Eddie Van Halen just sitting there with a dead cover band.
Just like, "Whoa, chill, man."
God, I wonder if Jerry--
I mean, it begs the question.
It begs the question, did Jerry ever interface or listen to Van Halen?
Or vice versa.
I mean, you could imagine a Euro-California technician like Eddie Van Halen, maybe--
It's really lame when people refer to the dead as being sloppy.
Because, first of all, they're really not that sloppy.
There just aren't that many bands where you have access to that much of their live music.
Because, actually, you know what's interesting?
Jerry started as a technician, too.
Maybe similar to Eddie Van Halen, two California technicians,
when he played banjo, according to that book I keep referencing, Dark Star, the oral biography,
he kind of hit the ceiling of just being as technically accomplished of a picker as he could be.
Because bluegrass is incredibly technical music.
Obviously, there's a lot of soul and energy and vibe in bluegrass music,
but when you see a shredder bluegrass band, that is some Van Halen sh*t.
Bluegrass is up there with metal and classical music for just pure shredding.
And apparently, Jerry, he was known as the best picker in Northern California,
and part of him moving to guitar was a little bit to challenge himself just to learn something new.
So I believe this is Jerry talking to Fretz magazine in 1985,
and the question is, "Do you ever listen to people like Eddie Van Halen?"
And his response is, "Not seriously, no, because I can hear what's happening in there.
There isn't much there that interests me. It isn't played with enough deliberateness,
and it lacks a certain kind of rhythmic elegance that I like music to have,
that I like notes to have. There's a lot of notes and stuff, but the notes aren't saying much, you know?
They're a little like clusters. It's a certain kind of music which I understand on one level,
but it isn't attractive to me."
Fair. Well, I was saying before, it's lame when people say, "Oh, the jazz is sloppy, I'm not into that."
But I could imagine Eddie Van Halen saying that, and he's one of the few people on earth where
Eddie Van Halen was like, "I checked out Europe '72. Sloppy as hell. Doesn't interest me."
You'd have to be like, "All right, fair. You're Eddie Van Halen."
Yeah, and he'd be like, "It doesn't rock. I'm not interested in this Americana blend of country and psych."
It's not... he's not interested in that.
I think we also, of course, have to note, I'm sure many TC heads know this,
but Eddie Van Halen also played the guitar solo on "Beat It" off Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
The legend I've heard is it was the first take.
Crazy.
That could be, you know, apocryphal, but that's the story I've heard.
There's also so few examples of that. I mean, it goes to show that he really wasn't a class of his own,
but it's like, if you didn't know that, and even if you just kind of recall what that guitar solo sounds like in your head,
you're like, "Of course, who else could have played that? It's such a specific sound."
Can we throw that on? Just like, "Beat It" and rub forward to the solo?
That's shorter than I remember.
Yeah.
I hate to disagree with Jerry, but that solo really is a combination of clusters of notes, technical prowess,
but I would say that that solo actually says something.
It told a little story, the same way that Jerry would.
You know, it had personality, it had a narrative.
It wasn't just coming in with the crazy arpeggios.
He used them tastefully. He built a little story around them.
And there was a couple of long bends there.
Yeah, such a unique sound.
And I was just thinking, how many examples are there like that of a gigantic pop song
where they bring in a famous guitarist to add some personality?
His guitar has as much personality as Michael Jackson's voice does in Quincy's production, all this stuff.
Mine goes to—it's a totally different scenario, but Santana featuring Rob Thomas with "Smooth."
That's a big song where it's not just an iconic guitar hook, but you can kind of recall some of the soloing.
Sorry, I just was curious about that "Beat It" solo, and I just Googled—I did a little number crunching on my own.
Oh, nice.
Apparently, Michael Jackson had asked Pete Townshend to do it originally.
Whoa.
Who you don't think of as a soloist.
Brilliant songwriter. And, you know, very talented guitarist.
And then Townshend—he couldn't do it, but he recommended Van Halen.
Whoa.
Weird.
I'm on a CNN article that interviews Van Halen about the phone call from Quincy in the whole studio session.
It's pretty fascinating.
Jake, I just texted it to the group. I feel like you should take this.
All right.
Go from, like, CNN, when Quincy rang you up, you thought it was a crank call.
So, CNN—I like the interviewer is CNN.
CNN, when Quincy rang you up, you thought it was a crank call.
Eddie Van Halen, I went off on him.
I went, "What do you want? You effing so-and-so?"
And he says, "Is this Eddie?" And I said, "Yeah, what the hell do you want?"
"This is Quincy."
I'm thinking to myself, "I don't know any name Quincy."
He goes, "Quincy Jones, man."
I went, "Oh, sorry."
Laughed.
I said, "What can I do for you?"
And he said, "How would you like to come down and play on Michael Jackson's new record?"
And I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, ABC, 1, 2, 3, and me. How's that going to work?"
Oh, because he's thinking of the Jackson 5 stuff.
I mean, Off the Wall had been a huge album a couple years earlier, but all right.
But he was in his own world.
He was in the rock world, yeah.
Exactly.
I still wasn't 100% sure it was him.
I said, "I'll tell you what. I'll meet you at your studio tomorrow."
Lo and behold, when I get there, there's Quincy, there's Michael Jackson, and there's Engineers.
They're making records!
CNN.
Did Quincy give you any direction about what he wanted you to do?
Van Halen.
Michael left to go across the hall to do some children's speaking record.
I think it was ET or something.
Probably the ET record. I was just thinking that.
Okay.
So I asked Quincy, "What do you want me to do?"
And he goes, "Whatever you want to do."
And I go, "Be careful what you say."
"If you know anything about me, be careful what you say, man."
"Do anything you want. Don't be crazy."
I listen to the song and I immediately go, "Can I change some parts?"
I turn to the engineer and I go, "Okay, from the breakdown, chop into this part.
Go into this piece, pre-chorus to the chorus."
It took him maybe 10 minutes to put it together, and I proceeded to improvise two solos over it.
I was just finishing the second solo when Michael walked in.
And you know artists are kind of crazy people.
We're all a little bit strange.
I didn't know how he would react to what I was doing, so I warned him before he listened.
I said, "Look, I changed the middle section of your song."
That's actually kind of crazy.
He walks in and he's like, "Can we actually just shift the structure around?"
Just commandeering the whole studio.
I'm amazed that that only took 10 minutes in 1981, too.
Yeah, with tape.
No problem, Eddie.
So he continues, "Now in my mind, he's either going to have his bodyguards kick me out for butchering his song or he's going to like it."
He gave it a listen, and he turned to me and he said, "Wow, thank you so much for having the passion not to come in and blaze a solo, but to actually care about the song and
make it better."
Wow.
"He was a musical genius with his childlike innocence.
He was such a professional and such a sweetheart."
Wait, now he's talking about Nirvana? Hold on.
Is there an album since then that has shaken things up in the same way?
Oh, I don't know. CNN.
Some people cite Nirvana's "Nevermind" as one that has caused a musical shift.
Van Halen. But still not like that.
Not that it crossed over to such a mass audience. Nirvana was huge, but it didn't appeal to everyone.
Anyway, whatever. That's not that interesting.
Wait, now he's comparing Nirvana to Michael Jackson?
No, no, no. CNN went into this thing of how Thriller was this huge record and everyone loved it.
And then CNN was trying to fish a little bit and was like, "Well, what else do you think has changed music? What about Nirvana?"
And Van Halen is sort of like, "Yes."
"They're playing punk rock, man." To quote Uncle Ted.
Yeah, and you can imagine why just some punk rock might not be that appealing to Eddie Van Halen.
Yeah.
Well, R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen. Hell of a career.
Rest in power.
Right. We were talking on the thread. Seinfeld, you brought this up.
It seems like everybody says "rest in power" these days.
I feel like I've noticed this year that "Rest in Peace" is not cool. It's out. Now it's "Rest in Power."
My guess on the thread was, because you were saying, "Where does this come from?"
I mean, it really sounds like, I would have guessed it might have its roots in the Black Panther era of African-American activism.
Then we found some article that said it didn't go back that far, but still implied that it kind of came from Black activism.
And as a lot of words do, become appropriated by it. Such as the word "woke" also kind of came from a smaller niche.
And suddenly everybody talks about it. But yeah, "rest in power" really seems like a political thing.
Race aside, because I don't know exactly where it comes from, it does seem like way more, you know, it sounds like when Nelson Mandela dies.
"Rest in Power." I feel like the implication is like, somebody who was dedicated to a struggle for equal rights or something.
You know, the idea of just saying, "Rest in Peace, take it easy now." It's like, no, no.
Power feels more appropriate because you were looking for power for the people, you know?
You're struggling not over.
It feels kind of like, you're still giving them hell in the afterlife.
Like, your power sustains, you know, beyond the grave.
Especially when you consider the long history, obviously, of activists being murdered and killed by the powers that be.
It's important to recognize that just because somebody's dead doesn't mean the struggle's over.
It is strange that now people seem to use it for literally everybody who dies.
Although weirdly, I would say with Eddie Van Halen, it makes me think of power chords.
At least he came from the world of metal.
Very powerful tone.
At least his life was associated with power in a way.
Is power metal a thing? I'm gonna do a number crunch.
Power metal.
Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often with some phonic context.
Who are the big power metal bands?
I guess they're saying Queensryche and Fate's Warning were progressive metal bands.
And then they influenced bands like Manowar, Vicious Rumors, Virgin Steel, Riot, or Jagged Panzer.
Oh yeah. Love those bands.
Halloween, Running Wild.
Okay, but either way, power seems like an appropriate word to associate with Eddie Van Halen.
Speaking of metal, Peace sells.
But who's buying?
Wait, Jake, do you know what that is?
Uh, remind me.
It's an album from 1986 called Peace Sells. Dot, dot, dot.
But who's buying?
Is it a metal record?
It's an American heavy metal band.
Do I know the name of the band? Are they famous?
Yes.
I'm not a metal guy. It's not Slayer, because I know they did Rain and Blood in '86.
This band's first album came out in 1985, and it also had an ellipsis.
It was called Killing is My Business, dot, dot, dot.
And business is good.
Oh my god.
They're so focused on commerce.
It's not Queensryche, right?
No.
And then their third album is called So Far, Comma, So Good, dot, dot, dot.
So what?
Oh my god.
Their fourth album is called Rust in Peace, 1990.
Their fifth album, 1992, is called Countdown to Extinction.
Oh, Megadeth.
Yeah, Megadeth.
Megadeth.
Oh my god, those first two album titles are so brutal.
I don't know why that I've always--
You know what, I gotta go listen to this album.
I feel like there's a lot of things that seem very appealing to me about Megadeth.
One of the most psychotic band names.
What's the top played Megadeth song on Apple Music?
I can't even name one Megadeth song.
Can you?
No, but I can sing one.
I can sing one bass line because they always used to use this as a bumper on MTV.
And it went, "Bow, ba-dow, bow, bow, ba-dow, ba-dow, bow, ba-dow, bow, bow, ba-dow, ba-dow."
And I would hear that growing up because they would use it for MTV News.
"Bow, ba-dow, bow, bow, ba-dow, ba-dow."
And then finally I heard it and I was like, "Oh, it's a Megadeth song. Sick."
What's the top played Megadeth song on Apple Music?
"Killing is my business."
"Business is good."
"Terrible."
Oh my God.
What year is this?
That vocal texture is so buff.
This is from '92.
God, this sucks.
I'm not that mad at it.
It's awful.
I mean, it's kind of interesting.
Bands like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden were just miles beyond these guys.
I can hear a little bit of Alice in Chains in there, but Alice in Chains could write songs and sing.
Well, hold on. You're just basing that off one Megadeth song.
Okay, let's turn this into a Megadeth episode. Fans would love that.
Play the title track off Peace Sells, but who's buying?
Play track three, Peace Sells.
That's the one that I know.
I'm into this. Do you remember this? They always play this on MTV.
This kind of sounds like Primus.
This is so Beavis and Butthead.
Oh yeah, it's so Beavis and Butthead.
Vocals are so low in the mix.
What do you mean?
I like this.
I'd put this on the two Megadeth.
Hell yeah.
Peace Sells, but who's buying? I love that title.
Anyway, I hope there are no hardcore Van Halen fans who hate Megadeth.
I don't know if that's offensive to a Van Halen fan to get into Megadeth.
Or maybe there's some shared fandom.
Jake, before we started paying tribute to the absolute legend Eddie Van Halen,
you said that you had the Wikipedia cracked open for Jolly Ranchers.
That is true.
I don't know about you guys.
I feel like lately we've been referencing the thread a lot on this show.
We've been doing this show for a long time now.
It's okay to peel back the curtain a little bit.
We're going to have a friend of the show, Daniel Ralston, on.
I believe for the first time actually on air.
I think so, yeah.
He's going to be giving us a review of the new Hershey's/Yingling beer.
We don't have bottles ourselves. We'll be trying that subsequently.
But on the thread, I asked if we could hit up our--
now that we have a great contact at Hershey's,
I asked if they could hook us up with this new Hershey's beer.
And they said okay.
And then Matt, our producer, sent us a picture of a sneaker and said,
"And also they'd like to send you guys these.
These are the Kawhi Leonard Jolly Rancher New Balances.
As always, in 2020 a collab needs three participants.
Two is boring."
So we have the NBA star Kawhi Leonard, the sneaker company New Balance,
and Jolly Rancher.
And I don't know about you guys,
but before I could take in the breathtaking beauty of the sneaker,
my first thought was, "Wait, does Hershey's own Jolly Ranchers?"
I didn't know that.
And I feel like the Jolly Ranchers branding, you don't think--
right? Like, Hershey's just seems like a chocolate company.
You don't think about it being fruit-flavored lozenges.
It'd be like if Hershey's sold-- like, owned Skittles.
It'd be like, "What?"
Yeah, especially because--
What the f***?
[laughter]
Rare F-bomb from the South.
I'm sorry, but it would be upsetting.
I think especially because, like most people,
you know, most people want to keep their chocolate candy
separate from their fruity candy.
I can think of a few weird things.
I feel like growing up in my grandparents' house,
they always had, like, chocolate-covered orange peel kind of candy.
Gross.
And it's definitely not for everybody.
And I feel like that's a thing you hear a lot.
People say, "I don't like my chocolate and my fruit mixed up.
I'm disgusted by it."
Big time.
And I even-- is this-- Seinfeld, is this like a meme or something?
Or is this like a prank?
You take a big thing of Skittles and a big thing of M&M's
and you mix them up in a bowl?
I saw one tweet about that, weirdly enough, last week.
And I think the phrase was,
"My aunt mixed M&M's and Skittles and it's the most chaotic."
You know how people say chaotic now?
Like, "The most chaotic evil I've ever seen."
"The most chaotic evil I've ever seen."
Something like that.
I've never-- I haven't seen it replicated,
but maybe there was one single sort of mega tweet about that.
This is a thing. I think it goes back years.
Maybe it's also just for the average American child
of a certain age, perhaps.
I don't know if kids still eat candy.
But the idea of mixing up Skittles and M&M's
is just, like, so disturbing--
-Gross. ---to a red-blooded American kid.
Can I read you one sentence off this Wikipedia page
that I think is so indicative of, like,
kind of late capitalist situation?
-Sure. -There's a--
called "Acquisitions"
on the Jolly Rancher Wikipedia page.
And it's one sentence long, and it says,
"In 2002, Hershey closed the Wheat Ridge, Colorado plant
and moved the manufacturing of the candy to Mexico
to save costs."
Wow.
'Cause it was founded in Golden, Colorado in 1949.
-So from 1949 to 2002, -Whoa.
Jolly Ranchers were made in the USA
in Colorado.
Wait, is Golden, Colorado also where, like,
Coors is from or some beer company?
Coors is definitely from that region of the world.
I don't know if it's "Golden."
That's right. You're right. It is Coors.
Whoa, Golden, Colorado is like the Silicon Valley
of beer and candy.
That's two pretty big things
to be-- come out of one town.
Well, I also think that I'm--
if I'm recalling my research from years ago,
I want to say Wild Oats
came from Golden, Colorado.
Wild Oats was the, like, competitor to Whole Foods
for a good 20 years,
and then Whole Foods eventually bought them.
I'm gonna take this all the way.
That's correct.
Wow. Wait, so what is--
is Golden, Colorado just, like, a suburb of Denver?
Yes. I think it's, like--
it is adjacent to Denver,
but I think there's, like, a cool college there.
-Oh. -And I think it's, like,
-a little bit of, like-- -It's a former Gold Rush town.
It's a mountain town, right.
I think it's maintained some degree
of, like, hippie crunchiness.
Yeah, I mean, you hear so much about Boulger.
-Yes. -Yeah, it looks like
it is part of Greater Denver.
I've been to Denver many times, but it's always on tour,
so, like, I rarely get to
kind of explore Greater Denver.
It's a fascinating area.
It's also always amazed me how, um,
when, uh, Red Rocks,
which is in Morrison, Colorado,
and, you know, anybody's ever been to Red Rocks
or even seen pictures, it's, like,
one of the most, like,
breathtaking venues in America.
-Yeah. -You know, carved into this rock.
You're in, like, this, I think, a state park,
but it's, like, amazing. You're, like,
as far as the eye can see, it's, like, this kind of,
like, beautiful, rugged terrain,
and, you know, usually
when we play at Red Rocks, we, like, stay in Denver,
you know, like, jump in a van,
and we're, like, there in, like, 35 minutes.
-Mm-hmm. -And it's really wild
'cause, like, yeah, the Red Rocks,
whatever the beautiful outdoor
natural amphitheater of a lot
of cities might be hours outside.
Right. That's cool.
But clearly,
gold in Colorado is where it's at.
Jay, did you find anything else out about Jolly Ranchers?
When did they start making them?
1949.
Bill and Dorothy Harmsman
founded the company.
They wanted to give the impression
of it being a friendly Western company.
Okay.
And also, it's a rancher. -Yeah.
-That implies the West, right? -Yeah.
-Like, you know, if it had been founded in
1907 in Connecticut,
it might be called, like, the Happy Farmer.
But this was founded in a gold rush town
out in the Rockies.
So it was a Jolly Rancher.
I can give you a little breakdown of the chemistry, if you'd like.
Yeah, the technology.
Oh, yeah, please. Let's get into the tech.
Okay. Well, they're amorphous solids, meaning their
molecular arrangements have no specific pattern.
They are hard...
Of course.
...rigid, translucent, and have low molecular
mobility. Jolly Ranchers
are formed from highly concentrated sugar
solutions, greater than 95%
sugar, and have extremely high viscosity.
Their glassy appearance is a result
of the way they are processed.
During processing, the sugar syrup is
cooled so rapidly that no crystals
have time to form.
Jolly Ranchers hold their shape
and are kept in temperatures less than the glass transition
temperature. If the temperature is
greater than the glass transition temperature,
the hard and glassy-like structure of the
Jolly Rancher will break down and become soft
and rubbery. -Hmm.
-So, a little, you know, chemistry background there.
[laughter]
-Isn't Jolly Rancher
like a primary ingredient in drink?
-Oh, yeah. There is a thing where people would, like,
melt Jolly Ranchers and use it
to make alcohol.
-Well, I can tell you that, um,
something that, uh,
is very popular on TikTok
that my kids are very into
is a viral video where people
prank other people by boiling
the Jolly Ranchers down,
putting someone's phone inside of them
to make a giant Jolly Rancher
and then putting it into the freezer.
So, their phone is now
trapped in a giant Jolly Rancher.
-Does it ruin the phone?
-It ruins the phone.
[laughter]
-So, the prank is destroying people's phones?
-Yeah. It would be a sick
prank if it didn't ruin the phone
and you had to, like, eat.
-Hammer through or eat through this giant Jolly Rancher.
-Yeah, no. It would be sick if it -- maybe it doesn't
always ruin the phone. If you could see through
the translucent, amorphous,
molecular structure and you could see
that your phone was working and, in fact,
you see you're getting texted
and you're like, "Uh," and you want to bust
it and you're like, "Hold on a second.
If you grab a hammer or you throw this
against the, you know, the f---ing corner
of the table, you might break your phone."
And it's like, "Well, how do I get to this s---?"
And it's like, "Start licking." -That would be a sick
prank. -We got to figure out a way to do this
prank where it doesn't destroy the phone. -Well, I think
that there's a version where you just
put it inside a Ziploc.
-It's sort of the safer way to do it.
And I would imagine it keeps it working.
I don't think freezing a phone
hurts it. Does it? Obviously,
the heat, you know, can
turn it off, but... -They're like molten
Jolly Ranchers, what destroys the phone.
[laughter]
Cool prank. "Hey, Ezra, I stole your phone."
-"Start licking." [laughter]
-"I stole your phone and I put it
in my Vitamix, and
now I just sprinkled it in with these
eggs. I made you an omelette of
your phone." [laughter]
[laughter]
-The phone is destroyed. -It's broken now, you can't
use your phone anymore.
-The phone is destroyed.
♪ From the corner store ♪
♪ I'ma be like a watercone ♪
♪ Just drip it down to the floor ♪
♪ The way you do it for me, I can't lie ♪
♪ 'Bout to be your feelin' all night ♪
♪ Whatever I get, you're puttin' it on ♪
♪ So give me no leave, then momma do it all ♪
♪ F-F-Fia, wants to be ♪
♪ Your sugar girl mama, son ♪
♪ Sugar mama, mama, mama ♪
♪ I'm your sugar mama ♪
♪ F-F-Fia, wants to be ♪
♪ New and new, heavy on the wrist ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm a sugar mama, mama ♪
♪ I'm your sugar mama ♪
- Well, speaking of beverages,
it's time to get on the phone
with friend of the show, Daniel Ralston.
As you'll recall, he has the Hershey's Yingling beer
in his possession.
Also, it was his great call to do a country top five
on the last episode.
So let's get him on the horn and see what he has to say.
- Are we sure that he has the beer in his possession?
- Yes, I believe so.
Well, we're about to find out.
- And he posted like a stock photo of it.
- Okay, well, great.
Plenty to talk about.
- Now, let's go into the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Hello.
- Daniel.
- Hi.
- Welcome to the show.
Okay, right off the bat, first question.
Do you have the Hershey's beer in your possession?
- I have the Hershey's beer in my possession.
- Oh, okay.
- Beautiful.
- A few questions first,
because you're the one who put this on our radar.
So this came to you via your family
or did you already know about it?
- I saw something about it in my like random Google News feed
and they were advertising it as 300 years
of Pennsylvania history
because both Hershey's and Yangling have been around
for like 150 plus years.
And I called my parents and I said,
"Can you find this for me?
"I wanna try it."
And my dad was like, "I already saw it at Wegmans.
"It's being pushed very hard at the grocery store."
So he sent me some right away.
- You're from Pennsylvania, right?
- Yeah, I'm from Allentown.
- Growing up, did Hershey's and Yangling loom large for you?
- Yeah, I probably went to Hershey Park
like 30 times as a kid.
It's like an hour and a half from where I grew up.
I saw some of my first concerts there,
including Dave Matthews Band in 1994.
- 'Cause they have like an amphitheater at Hershey Park?
- They do.
Actually, it's one of the famous shows
that Radiohead opened for Alanis Morissette
was at Hershey Park.
- So you're telling me Tom York has been to Hershey PA.
- He's been to Hershey PA for sure.
- I wonder if Radiohead got the VIP factory tour.
- There's a song they play on the factory tour
that's pretty legendary.
I hope they worked it into one of their songs later.
- What are some of the lyrics?
It's like an original composition about Hershey's?
♪ Hershey's chocolate's a Hershey's chocolate world ♪
♪ Wherever you go, no matter how far ♪
♪ You're always near a Hershey bar ♪
- Okay, that's pretty good.
- Yeah.
- And have you ever tasted like a hot off the presses
Reese's peanut butter cup?
- No, I haven't.
One time I did the tour
and one of the big draws of the Hershey Park tour
is that they give you like a full-size candy bar
at the end.
This is probably the last time I went.
It was like in the mid nineties
and they gave me a desert storm bar,
which was the candy bar created
to withstand high temperatures.
- Oh, wait, I feel like this briefly came up
when we were researching that,
'cause you know, Reese's peanut butter cups
have different formulas in the summer and winter.
And I feel like this came up at some time in our research.
I don't think we really talked about it too much
on the show.
So this was during the Gulf War,
even the American summer formula wasn't enough
to withstand that real intense Iraqi heat.
- Exactly.
And I remember it came in like a tan wrapper,
you know, it had like a military look.
- Yeah.
Did it say like desert storm bar?
- That's what it was called, I'm pretty sure.
- When I typed in desert storm Hershey bar,
the first thing that comes up on Google
is one for sale on eBay.
They're asking for $24.95 plus $3.50 shipping.
It says condition used.
(laughs)
I'm like, that means.
And it ships from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
- Nice.
- Did it cross your mind as a kid when they gave you that?
Weren't you kind of like,
I really think this should be with a soldier
in Iraq right now.
Like, why did they have them back home?
- I was more concerned with the fact
that I wanted a new candy bar that had recently come out
that had M&Ms inside of a chocolate bar.
And I got the desert storm bar instead.
And I just remember being super disappointed
and putting it straight in the trash,
which might be the most disrespectful thing to the troops.
(laughs)
- You should have mailed it.
Whoa, oh my God.
Also looking on eBay.
I love that a significant element of time crisis now
is just listening to people look at eBay.
(laughs)
But I found, okay, so that was one for $35.
Here's one, it's in California.
So it'll get there faster.
This is a lot of 33 1991 Hershey's Desert Bar
Gulf War chocolates.
They're asking $585.
But if you use PayPal credit,
you can do $51 a month for 12 months.
- Do I only get a certain number for month two as I pay
or do I get them all at once?
- Oh, if the seller's smart,
they won't give you them all at once.
- Those are 29 year old candy bars.
Yeah, made to withstand the elements.
- Ooh, here's one that's in the actual box.
"Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm
both ended before Hershey was even done
producing the desert bars.
Only 144,000 bars even made it to the Middle East.
It sold the defunct MREs as novelty items
until the supplies ran out
and then discontinued the bar entirely."
- Whoa.
- Is there a 2003 Iraq War bar?
- Just bring them back with a new label.
- Right.
- Okay, now I'm remembering how somebody sent us an email.
Apologies to whoever sent us this email.
Seinfeld, maybe do a number crunch.
Who sent us the email about Hershey's
making bars for the military?
'Cause as I go deeper,
now I'm seeing World War II era Hershey's bars
that were branded as Hershey's Tropical Chocolate
that also they were probably sending to, you know,
like the Pacific Theater, maybe North Africa.
And these say tropical on...
So I guess there's a long history of Hershey's
changing their formula to send to the troops
fighting in hot places.
- Wait, so Daniel, have you tried the Hershey's Yingling?
- No, I was saving it for time crisis.
- Oh, you haven't taken a sip yet.
Let's move on from the military chocolate industrial complex.
- Wait, wait, wait, I do want to say,
I want to say, no, no, no.
Just because you asked, just because you asked,
Kevin Paschall is his name.
And I only feel urgently that I should say,
because this was just an incredible email.
It was just one of those like thousand word bangers
that gets into like this whole anthropological background.
It's worth reading maybe at some point, but not today.
Anyway.
- All right, shout out to Kevin.
Is there anything we missed?
- We're never going to get to it later.
This was a tough one.
(laughing)
- I mean, did you talk about
Army quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan?
- No, is this his idea?
- Yeah, he asked Hershey to develop a bar
that was four ounces, able to withstand high temperatures,
high caloric value, and taste better than a boiled potato.
- Oh my God, can't you already see like
the kind of late period Disney movie of this
where Tom Hanks plays like Mr. Hershey
and John Hamm or something plays,
wait, what's the quartermaster's name?
- Quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan.
- John Hamm is quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan.
And he like gets off like the military plane in Hershey, PA.
And he comes in and he's just like,
sir, do you love your country?
And Tom Hanks is like,
the only thing I love more than chocolate
is my country, sir.
And he's like, we're in dire need of chocolate
that won't melt.
It's kind of like a feel good PG Disney historical film.
I mean, what am I even thinking of?
I'm like taking this from something,
but it seems like when America was at war.
- Well, it's like every other Tom Hanks film.
- Right.
- You know, the story that's not told
is that the World War II bar
was sarcastically nicknamed Hitler's secret weapon
because the oat flour and the chocolate.
- Movie title.
- Made the bar so dense
that soldiers couldn't even bite into them.
And the lack of sugar also rendered the chocolate
almost too bitter to be edible.
And it caused constipation and made everybody feel awful.
- Oh no, that's why Disney didn't make the movie
is because the Hershey company almost lost the war
for the Allies.
- Yeah, that's not a movie.
That's a good like eight part podcast.
- Okay, it's either a podcast
or maybe it's like an HBO mini series,
like a Mildred Pierce, HBO period mini series.
It all takes place in Hershey, PA.
You know, and also Daniel, back me up,
a lot of German heritage in Pennsylvania, right?
- Yeah, I grew up in what some people would describe
as like Amish country, kind of.
There's a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch people
and Amish people around.
Definitely a huge German influence on like beer culture,
food culture and everything there.
- Right, hence the beer and all the good food.
So you could also imagine that there's like some weird
(beep) about like, there's a German immigrant guy
and he just got a job at the Hershey factory,
but he has like this heavy German accent.
He actually is like a good dude.
And he's just like,
"I want nothing more than to serve America.
America, I love you."
But then like everybody else was like,
"I don't know if we can trust you, man."
And then there really is actually a Nazi spy,
but it's like some other dude
and you probably like learn some heartwarming lesson
about don't judge a book by its cover
or something like that.
And that guy actually was putting the constipation
into the double agent chocolatier.
I mean, there probably was (beep)
there was sabotage happening at American factories.
Why wouldn't they have made it to Hershey beer?
- And then a title card at the end that just says,
"100 years later, a chocolate beer was developed
using the technology."
(laughing)
- The technology is still being used today.
♪ Colonel ♪
♪ Forbidden to stand up at the mountain ♪
♪ And wiped away the beads of sweat ♪
♪ That glistened on his brow ♪
♪ His tired feet were buried in the quagmire ♪
♪ And his bloodshot eyes saw all that lay between him ♪
♪ And fulfillment of his vow ♪
- Hershey's a crazy place,
but the town where the Yingling Brewery is,
which is called Pottsville, Pennsylvania,
is also a really crazy town.
It's in the middle of nowhere.
It's close to like Bloomsburg University,
which is where a lot of people at my high school
went to college.
But in the '70s, Muhammad Ali trained there
at a place called Deer Lake,
right in the middle of a random town in Pennsylvania.
- Wow. - Wow.
- That sounds kind of familiar,
maybe in like a documentary I watched or something.
- Right, the one where he fights George Foreman
in Zimbabwe or Zaire,
which country is it?
Rumble in the Jungle.
And there's a bunch of Ali training in rural Pennsylvania.
That's, yeah.
- Pennsylvania is a fascinating state.
- It's the kind of place where you can like
still buy a house for $12,000.
It's really like the middle of nowhere.
And the Yingling factory is the biggest employer in the town.
Yingling is like the beer that everybody I knew
got drunk on for the first time.
That's like the go-to Pennsylvania beer.
- Right, I wanted to talk about that
because I grew up in New Jersey.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania have a lot in common.
And I think the first time I ever got (beep) faced,
it might've been on Yingling.
Well, not (beep) faced,
maybe the first time I like drank a couple of beers.
I think it was Yingling.
And so I always thought of Yingling
as being like a major beer,
but I think, Jake, were you the one saying
they don't even sell it in California?
- I don't think they do.
Daniel, can you verify?
- Yeah, they don't sell it in California.
They sell it on the East Coast
and they're very provincial about it.
They keep it local.
I did see that they signed a deal
with I think a Coors distributor
that they're gonna start selling it in other places.
But if you wanna get in California,
you have to have somebody send it to you.
- But so you're in high school in Pennsylvania
and people are not buying Bud or Corona.
Everyone's just feeling a sense of local pride
and it's just like, Yingling, dude.
- Yeah, there's a little town near where I grew up
called, the town name is called Leather Corner Post.
- Wow.
- And there's a bar there
called the Leather Corner Post Hotel
that the last time I was there,
maybe like three or four years ago,
they still had Quarter Yinglings.
- Wow.
- So it's like a beer that's cheaper.
- Quarter Yinglings?
- Yeah.
- Wow.
- All the time.
So it's like, it's the cheapest beer
'cause they're getting it locally.
And yeah, it's definitely the go-to
more than Bud or anything else,
at least in Allentown.
- I love that.
I love that there's some local pride
and they've avoided it all being swallowed
into some sort of global culture.
They're sort of like the kids there
'cause kids are like averse to like local stuff that like.
- Yeah.
- You know, it's like interesting that they're like,
oh yeah, Yingling.
- It's good.
I'd say it's like 10% better than opening up a Budweiser.
Like it's a little bit better.
And then they make a black and tan that's really good too.
So that's why I'm sort of hopeful
that maybe the chocolate beer will be delicious.
- Crack it open.
- Yeah, let's find out.
- Is it cold?
- This is a porter.
- It is a chocolate porter made in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
So this is a real Pennsylvania about to taste
300 years of Pennsylvania history live on the internet radio.
He's drinking it folks.
- Bottoms up.
- Oh, that's very rough.
After all this buildup.
- No, it actually doesn't have that bad.
It has a pretty good aftertaste,
but it tastes like you took a sip of a Budweiser
and then ate a Tootsie Roll immediately afterwards.
- Is it like really sweet then?
- It's not sweet.
It just has sort of like a treacly chocolatey
kind of flavor hanging around.
- Right.
- But I gotta say, Tootsie Roll.
- Going back in for taste number two.
- Go back in.
I feel like Tootsie Roll is the worst form
of chocolate imaginable.
- I disagree.
- Really?
- I disagree.
Also, you know what's funny?
I was about to say like, does Hershey's make Tootsie Roll?
I looked it up.
No, Tootsie Roll is not a Hershey's product.
It's manufactured by Tootsie Roll Industries
based in Chicago, Illinois.
- How great a name is Tootsie Roll Industries?
- T-R-I.
- Daniel, is it getting any better with subsequent tastes?
- No.
It's definitely not something I would drink
more than one of.
I hate to report that it's not my favorite beer of all time,
but it's definitely not.
I'm washing it down with a Peroni right now.
- Damn, bad luck for PA.
Now, given that our election
and potentially the future of this country
might come down to Pennsylvania,
we need to try to turn this into like a bright spot.
- Well, I'm happy to hear that it's made it
onto the shelves of every Wegmans in Allentown already.
It seems like they're pushing it pretty hard
in my local area.
I wouldn't say this is exactly a winner,
but maybe there'll be like a Reese's Yingling down the road
that's like, that's a 2.0 of this,
but this is definitely not it.
- Maybe the fact that Pennsylvania
is taking such a massive L with the Hershey's Yingling,
then we gotta hope that in November,
PA will really come through for the country.
We've discussed on the show,
Jake is borderline ashamed
of how Connecticut punches below its weight,
but I would say that, you know, New Jersey is off derided,
but at least New Jersey has like
these famous cultural products
and it's like, you know, it's out there.
I would say that Pennsylvania,
especially once you get outside of like Philly,
everybody knows Philly cheese steaks and the sports teams,
but I do think Pennsylvania is a very interesting state
that like people don't really like get,
you know what I mean?
- I do for sure.
I actually thought what you said was right on.
I kind of associated the area I grew up with
as being almost Jersey too.
I grew up 20 minutes from Phillipsburg, New Jersey.
I went to punk shows in New Jersey basements
and backyards and stuff like that,
almost as much as I did Pennsylvania.
So there was always that kind of cross-pollination for me.
And yeah, I mean, I want to be clear.
I love both Yingling and Hershey's,
but it's funny to me that beer and chocolate
are like the two iconic things for Pennsylvania.
It is like rooted in like strange German culture.
There's a lot of very like conservative people around.
There's a famous phrase about Pennsylvania
that it's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
with Alabama in between,
because the center of Pennsylvania
has a lot of like hate groups
and things that are really, really rough
and don't reflect well on the state.
So it is like a little bit of an identity-less state,
I think sometimes.
- Maybe because it's so big.
I mean, I'm sure this has come up on the show before,
and I imagine you can relate to this.
And definitely Jake,
we may have even done one of these drives together
when we toured together in the Dirty Projectors days.
When you drive from like say New York City to Chicago,
there's something so buff about how wide Pennsylvania is.
In your head, you're just like,
all right, gonna rip through Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, and then Chicago.
And then there's just something about
when you hit Pennsylvania,
you realize that's like a solid six hour drive.
All the other states are like reasonably wide.
Pennsylvania is just so girthy,
just a big fat state.
- And that's our identity, the girthy state.
- The girthy state.
- I think you need to add a Hershey Park trip
into the middle of Pennsylvania from now on.
Maybe that's the thing. - You can break it up.
- Yeah, just 'cause driving through Pennsylvania,
it just feels endless.
Whether or not it's true that it's Alabama in the center,
it's a lot of country in the center.
Isn't Pennsylvania where there's that like old
like coal mining town that's on fire?
- Yes, Centralia.
- Did you ever go there?
That's like a classic like high school kid thing to do.
- I did, yeah, when I was like 21,
the girl I was dating at the time
made a documentary about it.
And I went up there and yeah, it's a 50,
you know, it's a town that's been on fire for 50 years.
There's an underground coal mine burning underground
that they know they'll never be able to put out
until it burns out.
- It's a ghost town essentially.
- Yeah, when I was there, there were about three houses left
and one of them had a chimney built up
through the middle of it,
just expounding steam out from the ground.
- Oh my God.
And you can just drive up there?
- Yeah.
- Oh, there's a guy still living there.
- The highways are all cracked from the pressure
and you can basically like drive on a highway
that just ends when it got so damaged,
they couldn't use it anymore.
And they paid everybody to leave town.
Another Pennsylvania town where you could probably
buy property for $10,000 or something.
It's like, yeah, it is like, it's basically a ghost town.
- That might be nice in the winter,
in a tough Pennsylvania winter, you go there,
it's probably kind of tropical, semi-tropical.
- I hope we're not reaching the sleep in caves
portion of our society, but yeah, it might be a good spot.
- So it's a thumbs down on the Hershey's Yangling,
but that's just one man's opinion.
Daniel, Jake and I will still go in
with totally open minds when we try it,
perhaps on the next show.
- Two weeks from now.
- Should we break it up that maybe Jake,
you try it on the next one,
and then the one after that, I try it,
then Nick and sign, but we keep this going for months.
- Let's practice out.
- Yeah, that seems great.
- We should invite Tim Heidecker back on the show
to try it on the next episode.
- Allentown man.
- Another Allentown guy.
- We actually went to rival high schools.
- Oh really?
- Yeah.
- What's your take on the Billy Joel song, "Allentown"?
- Well, I think, I know Jake knows,
and I don't know if the rest of you guys know,
but for the past couple of years,
I've been working as a bartender out in Malibu,
and people like to ask bartenders where they're from,
and when I say Allentown, I have had a conversation
about Billy Joel probably five days a week
for like two years, because it's the only thing
people know about Allentown.
- Does anybody ever not reference the Billy Joel song,
but you know that's the only thing they know?
They're just like, "Oh man, how's it been
since they shut all the factories down?"
(laughing)
Are your folks still living out in Allentown?
- Yeah, out on the Jersey Shore.
(laughing)
- Well, working out in Malibu,
I bet you get some interesting customers,
and probably occasionally some showbiz types.
So have you ever had somebody sit down and say like,
"Oh, I'm Billy's lawyer.
Let's FaceTime him right now."
- No, I've never had that happen.
The closest, I don't work there anymore,
so I can kind of talk about this stuff now, but.
- Oh, nice.
- One night, Rod Stewart came in with his wife,
and he actually sort of became a regular.
I got to know him a little bit.
- Legend.
- He once sang my name when he came into the bar,
which was pretty cool.
- Oh, sick.
- And his wife was with him, and she's a really sweet lady.
I really enjoyed spending time with her.
And she, I was going to see the Rolling Stones
the next night, and I had made a drink special
called the Tumbling Dice, and she took a picture
of the sign that I had made for it, and she was like,
"We're going up to Ronnie's for dinner tonight.
I'm going to send him this so I can show him
the drink you made for the Rolling Stones."
- Oh my God.
- That's pretty crazy.
- That's awesome.
- One of the things I liked about working there
is a lot of people who came wanted to talk about
like the musical history of Malibu.
They loved Neil Young, or they loved Bob Dylan.
You know, Dylans lived there for the past,
like, I don't know, 25, 30 years.
Yeah, it actually kind of took becoming a bartender
to figure out how to be like a better music writer,
because I actually found out what people really care about
with music, like people really are into the history
and the lore, and Malibu is like,
has a really fascinating history in general.
- Would you get people who like came from other parts
of the US or the world just to come check out Malibu?
- Definitely.
There's like a top five country song right now
that mentions Malibu.
There's like six rap songs that mention Malibu
that are popular right now.
It's like become such a cultural thing that like,
people do go there to stand in front of Nobu.
They go there to experience a little bit of like
the current music culture, and then also the old timers
who would come in would be like,
oh, that place across the street, Cafe Escobar,
Neil Young used to own that place back in the '70s.
That was the crazy horse.
So it does have like a cool history.
- Well, and you're working on a story
about Philip Kramer, right?
- Yeah.
I just found a couple of really amazing producers
to work on this project with.
I'm doing a story about this guy, Philip Taylor Kramer
from the band Iron Butterfly,
and he disappeared in Malibu in 1995.
- Ah.
- He was also a rocket scientist and a electrical engineer.
And a couple of weeks before he disappeared,
he claimed that he invented teleportation.
So it's a crazy story,
and I've been talking to all kinds of scientists
and his family, and yeah, I'm pretty excited about it.
We're gonna have it out pretty soon.
- Oh, sick.
That's amazing.
- Yeah, it's a wild one for sure.
- One random question, and I imagine at a high end bar
in Malibu, this might not have come up too often,
but are you familiar with Jolly Rancher-based
alcoholic drinks?
It's a thing, I believe, maybe not at a nice bar,
but is it like a high school kid thing
or vodka with Jolly Ranchers?
Did you know anything about this?
- The only thing I know that's called a Jolly Rancher
is it's often, I also worked at like kind of a more divy bar
in San Pedro for a while,
and like if people were ordering like a bunch of shots,
they would order a Jolly Rancher,
which would be like vodka, lime, simple syrup,
and some sort of red curacao or something like that,
and then you'd shake it up super cold
and take it as a shot,
but I don't know specifically like a Jolly Rancher cocktail.
- In the course of bartending,
you've never had to melt down a pot of Jolly Ranchers?
- No, but the bar I worked in,
I had drinks that had like 16 ingredients in them,
and I would have to melt sugar into glass sculptures
to put across the top of glasses and stuff like that.
- Oh my God.
- So I'm used to a little bit of that kind of stuff,
but the Jolly Rancher does not,
I don't know if there's a lot of Jolly Rancher
metal do crossover.
- You basically know how to make everything now?
- I do, yeah.
And I'm a level one certified sommelier too from that job,
which is kind of cool.
- Well, and we were all talking off mic,
we were talking with Daniel
about pursuing the Sweet Chili Heat idea.
- Yeah, dudes, I've got bottles sitting here.
Anytime you want to take it.
- All right, we got it.
- We were cooking that idea up and then COVID hit,
but we have a top tier bartender here.
- I do actually miss bartending a lot.
I hope that I get to do it again someday.
There's no bars open here now, unfortunately.
- Right, I mean, the social aspect of it,
it's like, obviously it's very meaningful
to a lot of people to just have a place to go.
- Yeah, I always had Mondays and Tuesdays off
'cause of my work schedule.
And I was always, I went to a karaoke thing
every Monday night for like two years
with one of my buddies.
So yeah, it's like, that's all gone.
We've tried to do a Zoom karaoke thing
and it's been depressing, so.
- God.
- This is about the kind of social interactions
I have for the most part is this kind of stuff.
I don't head out that much.
- Well, hopefully soon we'll be bringing back the bars.
- One quick question.
When Rod Stewart would sing your name,
would he sing it in the,
would he sing the Elton John song?
- That's exactly what happened.
He walked in one day and went,
♪ Daniel, my brother, you are older than me ♪
And then I remember the same day when he left,
he answered the lobby phone.
He just picked it up and went,
"Malibu and Rod Stewart speaking,"
and then hung up the phone.
(laughing)
- God, that rules.
- Yeah.
- That was Rod Stewart.
- Yeah, and actually I was gonna tell you guys,
one of the other cool ones was
I got to talk to Lior Cohen.
He came into the, he's like a musical,
he came into the bar one night at like nine o'clock
and he was the only person there for the last three hours.
And we just shot the (beep)
and he was telling me about working with Willie Nelson
and all this crazy stuff.
It was like, those were the nights where I was,
I felt so lucky to have that job.
- Yeah, that seems like best case scenario
is just like you and one person
make a drink every like 30 minutes, just talk.
- Yeah.
- Are there a lot of nights like that?
- Yeah, out there, there were.
- Well, hopefully we'll all be having a drink
in the not so distant future,
pounding some sweet chili heat.
- Oh yeah.
- Not a Hershey.
(laughing)
- Yeah, or a Dodger Stadium margarita.
- Right.
- You just had the worst yingling of your life.
- I did just have the worst yingling of my life.
- Like verse one is like, let's be clear.
I'm a Pennsylvania through and through.
I love my home state.
- And I love my home bro.
- Yeah, and I love my home bro, but.
- Yeah.
- Well, thanks so much, dude.
- Guys, thank you so much.
Yeah, you know I'm a big TC fan,
so thanks for having me on.
- Oh, we'll definitely be having you back.
Broke the seal now.
All right, have a good one, dude.
- Talk to you guys later.
- Bye.
- Peace.
- Bye.
♪ Well, we're living here in Allentown ♪
♪ And they're closing all the factories down ♪
♪ Out in Bethlehem, they're killing time ♪
♪ Filling out forms, spatting the line ♪
♪ Well, our fathers fought the Second World War ♪
♪ Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore ♪
♪ Then our mothers took the U.S.O. ♪
♪ Asked them to dance, dance with us, oh ♪
♪ And we're living here in Allentown ♪
♪ But the restlessness was handed down ♪
♪ And it's catching very hard to stand ♪
♪ And to stand ♪
- You're listening to Time Crisis.
- Thank you, Daniel.
And to the Hershey's Company, don't worry, Jake,
and I still will try our Hershey's Younglings
with open minds.
But we cannot be bought.
Just like Daniel, we will be honest
about what we think about it.
So stay tuned.
That'll be in the next seven episodes.
We'll be the unfolding saga of the Hershey's England Porter.
All right, Seinfeld, we got a little social media report
coming from you.
- Yeah, we received an email to our fan email address,
which is 8minutecapecod@gmail.com.
That's the numeral, not the word eight.
8minutecapecod@gmail.com.
From fan of the show, Camelia Munoz.
- Let's go to the Time Crisis mailbag.
- Hey, TC, I don't know if you've all
been made aware of it yet,
but "Campus" by Vampire Weekend has become a TikTok song
within a trend/challenge on the app.
Basically, people play the song
while showing clips of their college campuses as follows.
And then she's sent a link to an example
of what she's talking about.
Also, this particular one, where the girl taking the video
actually goes to Columbia.
- And even before we got this email, Seinfeld,
you were maybe sharing some tweets or something.
- It's one of those things
that I've received several DMs about.
- And first question is, is there a Seinfeld 2000 TikTok?
Do you have an account?
- There is, I think I have one thing on it.
Just 'cause when TikTok, and we're talking about
the start of this year, when it started to become a thing,
typically what I'll do is I'll just make sure
that I have Seinfeld 2000 on any platform
so someone else doesn't try to be an imposter.
And I did post one thing, didn't really do that hot.
Maybe I was too ahead of the game
and I was kind of turned off forever.
I was like, this is not going immediately viral.
And really, I don't have the energy
to maintain yet another account on another platform.
So I just kind of let it sit.
- Well, hold on a second.
Sounds like you've been a little bit spoiled
by Twitter and Instagram.
I mean, I remember when I first started
following you on Twitter, man, you'd be lucky
if you had 5,000 followers.
You know, like you got to put in the work, Seinfeld.
- It's a lot of maintenance.
It's a lot of upkeep.
You know, I stopped posting on Facebook for that reason.
'Cause it's just like, you know, it's okay.
It's okay, guys.
Just like, anyway, why are we talking about this?
Right, so I am on TikTok.
- Have you watched some of these?
- Yeah, I've watched a few of them.
- Generally speaking, is there like a joke or a dance
or people just like show around their campus?
- I would say there isn't really an explicit joke to it.
I would say there's a structure to it
that I guess once replicated, starts to feel like a joke,
as these memes, you know, typically are.
But it seems like once the refrain of the song starts,
people start to show their campus.
And in the best ones, there's something a little,
you know, a little unique to that.
- Weird happening?
- Weird happening.
Yeah, I see one where there's a bear
roaming around on campus.
- Uh-oh.
- I think that's kind of all there is to it, really.
- Well, it seems harmless.
I mean, I made a joke on the thread
when you said this was going viral,
and I said, "12 years of corrective PR down the drain."
Just because, obviously.
I think it's a great song, and I love anything
that gets people back into the early stuff.
The only thing though is that,
and I think within the song "Campus,"
there's some complexity,
because that originally started with a demo Rostam made,
and that's the, I think that might be
the only Vampire Weekend song
that lyrically didn't start with my words or ideas.
So I added a few things here and there to the song,
and I think we came together to give it something.
And the parts that I added, as I recall,
were like, I added the cruel professor part,
'cause I just wanted to make sure
that it had a little bit of,
I don't know what to say, not darkness,
but just a little bit of uneasiness.
And I wrote the line about the person
who spilled kefir on their keffiyeh,
because that was an era,
which definitely would not happen in 2020,
but where a lot of non-Palestinian,
left-leaning activist types
would wear the traditional Palestinian scarf.
I think sometimes it shows solidarity
with the Palestinian struggle,
but it also very quickly became
just this kind of fashion-y thing,
and kind of made me think of some of the empty posturing
that you occasionally encounter on a college campus.
So it was always important to me,
and I think to everybody in the band,
that because "Vampire Weekend" in the early days
came across so strongly
with our semi-satirical Ivy League preppy thing,
it was important that within the songs,
especially a song called "Campus,"
that there were a few elements,
and I think the way everybody plays on it,
giving it this kind of more jagged punk feel
than the way Rossin originally had it
mocked up with strings,
I think all that stuff kind of combined it
to fit a tone, you know,
similar to like the Oxford commas in these songs
that are a little bit about grappling with elitism.
So anyway, that's all to say that,
because in the early days,
people came so hard for us as being like,
are you guys just some like stuck-up rich kids,
and your music is literally just about showing off
that you went to an Ivy League school?
I gotta say, when you first told me about the challenge,
you know, it triggered some old trauma
where I'm just like,
"Ugh, is this literally just people
"showing off their campuses?"
And look, I'm sure there's all sorts of different schools,
but I would just hope that within the trend,
there is a little bit of a,
if it's truly in the Vampire Weekend spirit,
you know, I hope there's a little bit of satire,
but at the same time,
once you make music and you release a song,
it's in the hands of the world now.
- Ezra, how did it strike you that,
you know, I feel like there's so many record labels,
music marketing people, artists,
trying to force their way into the mainstream
through the TikTok platform
as a means of generating the next Old Town Road
or what have you,
and you've just sort of like organically
had some old material just sort of naturally become
part of the fabric of this platform.
- I think when we first talked about TikTok on the show,
I got a DM or two where somebody said
that Apunk once had a little moment on TikTok,
maybe, but it was kind of before TikTok was quite so huge,
so it couldn't have made the same impact as Campus.
But so like, you know, I'd heard about it,
but look, outside of my own personal fears
about people misinterpreting our first album,
which I'll probably have for the rest of my life,
I will say that any time anything bubbles up
with old music, I love it,
because it's like,
there's only so much you can do in the moment
to like promote your new music, right?
Like, you know, we put out an album last year,
and of course we went on tour,
made, you know, all the things that you do.
But after that, your catalog, you know,
kind of just sits there,
and every once in a while you get a call like,
oh, they want to use a song from Contra in a commercial,
and you're like, oh, interesting.
Or suddenly you'll get a nice note from somebody
who's just listened to like Modern Vampires
for the first time or something.
But anyway, because as a musician,
you've got to be so focused on like the present
and what comes next,
it's always nice to get these little reminders
that everything your band has ever done
is still reaching new people.
So in that sense, I love hearing stories like this.
- Hey, I'm so sorry.
I had to step out for one second.
So you might've mentioned this.
In the article I'm reading, @goblin_influencer,
in her campus video,
her caption says, "Love your school,
and it should be a place where you're happy,
but keep this in mind,
because some of these vids are missing the point.
#VampireWeekend."
- Ooh.
- And in her TikTok,
the text at the top says,
"This is a reminder that all of Vampire Weekend's music
is about feeling alienated from the elitist class
society culture while still wanting to be validated by it.
Ezra Koenig has mentioned that all of the members
went to Columbia on scholarships
and didn't fit with the traditional WASP mold.
Campus was literally written
by an Iranian-American gay guy about his experiences."
So whether or not all that's true,
there are people who are reclaiming your feelings
of this is not just to celebrate one thing.
So outside of the-
- Yeah, she didn't get all her facts straight.
(laughs)
Not everybody went to Columbia,
but I like the spirit of it.
Well, one thing I've always said is,
I might've been the only member of the band
who had any scholarship or student loans thing,
but everybody did come from different backgrounds
and I think didn't exactly,
I think the other part of it is true,
that not everybody fit the kind of WASP mold.
And I think it's important to recognize
the extent to which many, many people do feel,
I would imagine a school like Columbia,
if you really said, "What percentage of people here
feel like they 100% fit into the history
of these old Ivy League schools?"
It's a very low percentage.
Most people feel alienated in some way.
And I think that's why an album that on its face,
like our first album,
seemed so, was so easy to deride because,
and of course, obviously things went well.
People were into it when it came out,
but for a lot of people, they had questions.
They were like, "Is this just some rich kid (beep)?"
As I was saying before,
I'd like to think that the alienation part of it
and the questioning and the wondering how you fit in
and all those things,
I would like to think that part of the reason
that album has an enduring appeal to this day
is because most people,
whether they went to an Ivy League school,
even if they didn't go to college period,
those feelings are something
that almost every human being experiences,
those feelings of questioning, belonging, alienation.
And I'd like to think that that's why our audience
is not just like New York rich kids or Ivy League people,
which would be very distressing if it was.
So yeah, anyway, shout out to Goblin Influencer.
I like the spirit of what you're saying.
Yeah, I mean, it's,
whenever people point back to anything on the first album,
I think we've done enough with albums two through four
that we're definitely not in a position
where we'll always live in the shadow of that record.
Like, I'm not gonna name names, but some people,
it's very hard to beat your first record, famously, right?
But I think we've done enough
that we've had these distinct eras since then
that the fact that people still find something
to get into or share with music
that a lot of which was written when we were students,
a lot of which was made before we had any idea
that we could ever play a venue bigger
than the Mercury Lounge.
I love that, when people kind of get back into it.
♪ I wake up, my shoulders cold ♪
♪ I've got to leave here before I go ♪
♪ I pull my shirt on, walk out the door ♪
♪ Drag my feet along the floor ♪
♪ I pull my shirt on, walk out the door ♪
♪ Drag my feet along the floor ♪
♪ Then I see you, you're walking 'cross the campus ♪
♪ Old professors studying romances ♪
♪ How am I supposed to pretend ♪
♪ I never want to see you again ♪
♪ How am I supposed to pretend ♪
♪ I never want to see you again ♪
- Anyway, shout out to TikTok,
and I hope the next time that there is a TC-related song
that goes viral, as discussed on the show,
it should be "Mountain Breeze,"
because that one writes itself.
You and your friends, Sunday morning, you go for a hike,
and then, you know, whatever,
like, you guys get in the car or whatever,
then you start hiking,
and then right when the chorus hits,
it's you guys cracking a brew on the top of the mountain
with a beautiful vista behind you.
- Can I actually jump in here and make a call to action?
If anybody does make that TikTok,
tweet it at us @TimeCrisis2000,
we will automatically retweet.
Let's get this trending, guys.
Let's make this a real thing.
Let's bring Jake Longstreth to his natural habitat, TikTok.
- So far, there's six "Mountain Breeze" TikToks.
They're all for "Sweet Chili Heat."
- They're all for the song "Sweet Chili Heat"?
- Yeah, I think that, yeah,
the TC TikTok challenge should be to make--
- Yeah, wait, what's some of them?
What's happening in the "Sweet Chili Heat" ones?
- Honestly, it's just somebody shooting videos
of their "Vampire Weekend" posters,
some Bernie, Larry David merchandise.
They got their dog in it.
It's unfocused.
Here's another one. - That's cool.
- It's cool, I mean, no, it's got a vibe.
This is the TC challenge.
You throw on "Sweet Chili Heat"
and shoot your "Vampire Weekend" and Bernie posters.
- And then this guy is doing Kyle's,
he's mouthing first one of the evening,
and then he's taking a shot of sort of a hot sauce
as "Sweet Chili Heat" comes on,
and it seems hot for him.
It's a red-hot wing sauce.
I mean, that's interesting. - Damn.
See, the song "Mountain Breeze" requires people
to actually hike up a hill.
- Right. - This one shot a little,
yeah, this one shot a little more sort of artsy.
It has a filter on it.
It's in black and white and says,
"When that quarantine panic attack hits,"
and you're on him for a minute,
and then it just says, "First one of the evening,"
and the music comes on, you know, the guitar comes in,
and you just sort of slowly pan into his face.
It's just more vibey.
And then another one is just an artist's rendition
of Jake standing in front of one of his paintings.
You see him standing in front of it,
hanging a painting, and then the Pizza Hut comes in.
It sort of is, you know what it is?
It's a collage. - Oh, oh, no.
- It's a collage of your paintings.
- That guy may have, like, a "Mountain Breeze" cover.
I know what you're talking about.
He posted that on Instagram and tagged me.
He was a- - Oh, yeah,
that was really good. - A collage of an image
of me painting with the Pizza Hut and some tree paintings,
and he was like, "This is, like,
the 'Mountain Breeze' vinyl cover."
- So that is just sort of an animated version of that
to the beginning of "Sweet Chili Heat."
So that challenge hasn't taken a while.
- Also, "Sweet Chili Heat," you know what?
I've got a good one for when
"Worst Margarita in My Life" comes out,
because I've noticed this trend.
I see a lot of them on Instagram.
I mean, I kind of hate it.
I don't want to encourage it, but it's out there.
There's this trend of, like, couples pulling pranks
on each other on TikTok.
I guess couples pranking each other.
Seinfeld, you're our social media expert.
Back me up.
This has been going on for years,
is couples pranking each other on the internet.
- Yeah, and I think there's a degree of, like,
stagedness to some of them.
- That's the thing that I hate, is that it's like,
we're approaching, as we've discussed on this show
many times, just that we live in this weird spectacle.
So there's these couples, and all they do is make TikToks
where they do the newest prank, which is like,
oh, somebody gets out of the car,
get the, you know, your girlfriend gets in the car,
and you say something like, "Babe, you don't look good today."
And she's like, "Why would you say that?"
Or it's like, you get out of the car,
like, you're like, "Hold on, I gotta finish this phone call.
Yeah, I love her so much."
Like, whatever, it's these jokes about the relationship,
or sometimes they're like sweet pranks,
like where you say something really nice,
and they're not supposed to hear it or something.
But the thing that's so annoying about them
is that it's like, a lot of times there's couples
that just do these every single day,
and they probably don't stage it, is the funny thing.
Like, they're staged, of course,
but it's probably not even like, "Hey, should we do this?
Oh, yeah, let's go out to the car,
and I'm gonna do this, and you're gonna do that."
It's probably more just that the fabric of their lives
is so TikTok-oriented that they just kind of roll with it.
It's like, every time you get in the car,
your boyfriend says some dumb (beep) with you,
and as you respond to it,
you basically already know it's a TikTok.
If anything, it's probably harder,
rather than having to performatively
do the TikTok challenge,
you probably have to sometimes get out of that gear.
So probably you get into the car, and he's like,
"Where do you wanna eat today, babe?"
And you're just like, "Uh, I don't know."
And he's like, "Do you wanna go to Arby's?"
"I don't know."
And then he's kinda like, "No, no, I'm serious."
And you're like, "Oh, it's not a TikTok challenge?"
Like, probably you just live
in a permanent TikTok challenge.
But anyway, even though I think that's kind of
a disturbing new element to our society,
you know, you can't fight progress,
I think one could be, for a couple,
and this is actually a real prank, by the way,
it's not one of these dumb, like,
get in the car and say some weird (beep).
So this one is, your partner comes home
from a long day of work, and you say,
"Hey, I've been working hard all day,
"looking up margarita recipes,
"and I think I finally cracked it,
"and I think I know how to make the best margarita on earth."
Except then you put stale Mountain Dew in it.
And then you're like, "Hold on one second."
You bring it out to them, and then they sip it,
and then you gotta see how they react.
Are they gonna spit it out, and be like,
"This is disgusting, this tastes like flat Mountain Dew,
"mixed with tequila for a noxious brew."
Or are they gonna, you know, try to be nice,
and be like, "Oh, that's really good."
Anyway, then you got Worst Margarita in My Life
by Mountain Brews playing during it.
So when that drops, I really encourage people
to do that one.
All right, should we get into the top five?
- It's time for the top five, five, five, five, five, five,
five on iTunes.
- On this week's top five, we're gonna be comparing
the top Billboard hits of 2020
with the top Billboard hits of 2008.
Why 2008?
- Is that when Campus came out?
- Yeah, 2008 is the official release of Campus,
'cause our first album came out January 2008.
Although Campus and all those other songs,
they were floating around in the previous year.
But that's interesting, this'll really take me back,
'cause I feel like this is a year I remember well.
And the number five song is a song I remember well,
M.I.A., Paper Planes.
- Well, she had the top five hit.
- I'm kinda surprised.
I mean, this is a big hit.
It made it to number five, it's big.
- I thought of her as more of like,
kind of like a B-org kind of figure, where it's like--
- I think this was in the Pineapple Express trailer,
and that sort of like-- - That took it
to another level.
- Yeah.
- But you know what I mean?
I thought of her as like, elite indie,
but not actually having any mainstream.
- This was her big song.
- She's on the new Travis Scott single, "Franchise."
- Are you serious? - Oh, right.
- Yeah, she's verse three.
- Again, I've said it on a previous episode,
but "Franchise" is a great song title.
And honestly, it sounds like it could have been
a song title on the first "Vampire Weekend."
- That just gave me an idea, Jake,
for another TikTok challenge,
is that if you're a McDonald's franchisee,
and you own any McDonald's, you play the song "Franchise,"
and you show off clips of your McDonald's,
of your franchise.
- Hell yeah.
- Just throwing that out there.
♪ I own a franchise ♪
(laughing)
- Try to write an early "Vampire Weekend" song.
♪ I see you, you're walking in my franchise ♪
(laughing)
- I mean, it ties right in with the mansard roof, right?
- Yeah.
- Well, weren't we gonna do the "Vampire Weekend" meal?
- Oh, the "Vampire Weekend" meal at McDonald's?
Did we ever come up with it?
- Or it was the Mountain Brew.
I know Jake had a great Mountain Brews.
- We had the, yeah, that kind of went off on Twitter,
the Mountain Brews meal.
- That was great.
- Any burger you want with fries, no drink, plus six pack.
(laughing)
- In the car, right?
Six pack.
(laughing)
- The key is the no drink.
(laughing)
- Sir, you'd actually be saving a little bit of money
if you ordered the value meal,
and it comes with a drink.
As opposed to ordering the fries and the burger a la carte,
you're gonna actually pay a little more.
I don't care.
(laughing)
- You said it was a watery beer, or a light beer?
- I said it was a watery domestic,
which is a low-key pavement reference.
And I did see people on Twitter being like, "Mudolo!"
But I was like, it's a McDonald's meal,
it's gotta be American through and through.
- Oh no, I've missed this.
- It's gotta be.
- I've been on Twitter.
- Somebody made a poster.
Somebody made the Cactus Jake meal poster.
- Cactus Jake.
(laughing)
- What's the "Vampire Weekend" meal?
- I mean, definitely not gonna be able to top that.
This is perfect.
- I love this idea that when you order it
and they say, "Any burger you want,"
you go, "Well, which ones?"
I don't, it's up to you.
Well, I just ordered the, I ordered the Jake meal.
What is it, any one you want.
Well, I want you to make the decision for me.
Can't.
- If you get a really annoying customer
who's not willing to pick the burger,
the McDonald's employee, all McDonald's employees
nationwide will have Jake's cell phone.
Give him a quick buzz.
All right, Jake, just pick a burger.
The Time Crisis meal would definitely be
an off-season McRib.
- Oh, hell yeah.
- 'Cause you roll up when they don't have the McRib.
But if you order the Time Crisis meal,
they're legally obligated to go defrost a McRib for you.
Even when it's not the season.
Here's my idea for the "Vampire Weekend" meal.
It's the Travis Scott meal,
because obviously I wanna piggyback off of what he's doing.
And I think where he sits as a musician
and all these things he's bringing together,
I legitimately do find fascinating.
So I don't wanna start from scratch.
We need to be tied to his heat.
So it's the Travis Scott meal,
except instead of barbecue sauce for the fries,
you get ketchup.
And on the quarter pounder, there's no bacon.
(laughing)
And the beverage instead of being a Sprite is a Coke.
- So that's it.
It's the quarter pounder meal.
You've rebranded.
- And the soda is up to you.
- Yeah, and the soda's up to you.
We recommend Coke, but if you wanna get Sprite,
diet Coke, you know, that's all fine.
I was thinking about this more
because we were called Travis Scott.
He was like the inverted negative spectacle,
poor hazy and whatever.
It made me think,
have we ever talked about this on Time Crisis?
'Cause I always think about this and it always comes up.
I feel like we were just talking about it
in the studio the other day.
I guess it was a meme, whatever.
It was something being passed around on the internet
where somebody wrote,
I don't know if they're a gamer or what,
but they wrote a thing about Waluigi.
It's kind of like an internet classic
'cause they really broke it down
in this deeply philosophical way
where they're basically saying how
there's Mario and Luigi, right?
Mario's the hero
and Luigi is kind of his random ass sidekick.
He represents this kind of complimentary nobody,
but who exists to kind of provide a context for Mario.
And then you have Wario, who's the evil Mario,
the inverted Mario.
And we can understand that.
What's the opposite of a hero?
It's a villain.
But then there's also this character called Waluigi,
who's as Wario is to Mario, Waluigi is to Luigi.
And so somebody wrote this thing.
I always used to see it getting passed around
that was this kind of brilliant take
that Luigi already is this nobody man.
So Waluigi truly represents inverted negative space.
He's like the opposite of nothing.
He's like the double nothing man.
And they made a joke about how
he doesn't even get an elegant name like Wario.
They just stick the Wa on top of the Luigi.
Later people said that in Japanese,
Waluigi actually is kind of witty or something.
I don't know.
But anyway, this idea of in this meme or whatever,
it was like this, you know,
a kind of like brilliant philosophical treatise
about how Waluigi is like the opposite of nothing.
And you know, it struck a chord with people.
It's inverted negative space, whatever you want to call it.
It's like that deep chasm.
And I think a lot of us feel like Waluigi sometimes.
We already feel like we're not the main character.
And sometimes we even feel like the opposite
of the guy who's not the main character.
You know what I mean?
It's like a black hole of identity.
- Damn.
- And I kind of like the idea that the
Vampire Weekend meal is like the Waluigi
to the Travis Scott's Mario.
Vampire Weekend had a taco once
to raise money for the homeless at Home State Tacos.
- Oh yeah.
- In LA.
And it was a great taco.
They're really nice people who run Home State,
shout out to them.
And they do a kind of a program where,
I don't know if it's a monthly thing or what,
but they always team up with artists
and they design a taco.
You have to sign off on it though.
Somehow it came up recently and somebody's asking me,
do you like really R&D that taco?
I was like, nah.
I think we might've said,
let's make it vegetarian or vegan.
Even though I'm not vegan.
I was just kind of like,
we're gonna throw our name on something.
You know, maybe get a good vegan taco out there.
And then they came up with it and it tasted great.
And it's a program they do to raise money
for an organization that helps the homeless in LA.
So that's the only time we've done a food thing like that.
But I would like to do more.
I mean, I always felt more passionately
about Taco Bell than McDonald's.
Maybe Taco Bell would be down for a Vampire Weekend meal.
- Oh, for sure.
- Maybe you gotta start feeling it out.
Like if there's any people who work in the fast food
industry, especially on the marketing PR side,
and you're looking to compete with Travis Scott.
I mean, we could really make something special
because not only does Vampire Weekend have four albums
in stores now, we could use the musical side.
If we really kind of call in the power of time crisis,
we could be talking about this for months.
Anyway, that was MIA with Paper Planes.
Great song.
Moving on.
The number five song right now is 24K Golden,
Mood featuring Ian Dior.
Wait, I feel like we heard this before.
Oh yeah, guitar.
- Wait, who's the artist?
- 24K Golden.
His real name is Golden Landis Von Jones from SF.
♪ I'ma tell you what to do ♪
♪ But try to play it cool ♪
♪ Baby I ain't playing by your rules ♪
♪ Everything look better with a view ♪
♪ Why you always in the mood ♪
♪ Now I can brand new ♪
♪ I ain't trying to tell you what to do ♪
♪ But try to play it cool ♪
♪ Baby I ain't playing by your rules ♪
♪ Everything look better with a view ♪
♪ I can never get attached ♪
♪ When I start to feel unattached ♪
♪ Somehow I always end up feeling bad ♪
♪ Baby I am not your dad ♪
- Are you saying I'm not your dad?
I can never get attached when I start to feel unattached.
Somehow, always end up feeling bad.
Baby, I am not your dad.
No, it's not all you want from me.
I just want your company.
Girl, it's obvious elephant in the room.
And we're, what does that part mean?
I'm not your dad.
I guess just, I'm not your dad.
I'm not trying to like control you.
I'm not trying to give you a set of rules.
Somebody chime in here.
- Is she saying that your dad's too attached to you?
- No, no, no.
He's just like, what is it?
I'm not here to order you around.
I'm not here to like constrict you in your lifestyle.
Like we're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend
and you're like assuming I have this like
patriarchal relationship with you.
- I didn't impregnate your mother and give birth to you.
- Yeah, I mean, maybe there's also an age gap.
Maybe he's like, you know, in his mid late thirties
and he's dating someone that's, you know, 22.
- He's 60.
She's like.
- In his narrative, this 18 year old singer
in his mid thirties.
I like that.
- He's friendly with the dad.
- He bears an uncanny resemblance to the dad
that are often getting mixed up.
- It's funny too, because the hook is
why you always in a mood.
That actually sounds like something that a parent might say.
- So yeah, like you're in a mood to this.
- Oh, don't mind them.
They're just going through.
This is how they are now.
Okay.
What's the latest drama?
- Why you always in a mood?
- I'm always like, God, you're in a mood today.
- Aren't you in a mood?
- So this guy's acting an awful lot like her dad.
- Maybe he's just saying, I know I'm acting like your dad.
I just want to clarify.
I'm not your dad.
- I like my theory that he's like doing
like a Springsteen thing.
He's assuming the character.
- Right.
But I'm not your dad.
I might look like your dad, but I'm not your dad.
The number four song in 2008, Rihanna, Disturbia.
- Was this related to that movie?
- I've always wondered that.
It must be like inspired by it.
- Yeah.
I think they came out around the same time.
- What year is that movie?
- Wait, Disturbia was 2007.
Early Shia.
- So Chris Brown wrote this song.
Is this when they were a couple?
- Is this one of Rihanna's first big hits?
- Well, Umbrella was before this.
That was her first like massive hit, but yeah.
This is like when she was becoming
one of the biggest artists in the world.
- Yeah, I don't think she really crossed my desk
till like 2010.
- You don't remember when Umbrella dropped?
- Impossible.
- I probably heard the song, but I don't think I rec,
I don't think she as a pop star like entered my consciousness
until the song that was,
the one about falling in love in an office space.
♪ We fell in love in an office space ♪
- Jake.
(laughing)
- I guess this is like a thriller type song
using kind of like horror imagery.
I'm just curious how they use the word Disturbia.
- Inspired by the word Disturbia.
- When also Disturbia is by the way,
a portmanteau of disturbing and suburbia.
So like in any ways, the song related to like the concept
of like the dark side of suburbia.
Your mind is in Disturbia.
It's like the darkness is the light Disturbia.
Am I scaring you tonight?
Your mind is in Disturbia.
Ain't used to what you like.
Disturbia, Disturbia.
- I think they're just using the word as a way to say
like psychosis or some form of dementia.
I don't think they've stuck to the Shia LaBeouf
definition at all.
- It's a thief in the night to come and get.
Yeah, it's just like a kind of a spooky song.
The number four song right now,
Drake, "Laugh Now, Cry Later" featuring Lil' Jerk.
Since the first time this was on the show,
I actually watched the video.
That's him just horsing around at the Nike headquarters
in Beaverton, Oregon.
It's a good video.
It's fun.
And there's a lot of him just looking at the camera
and going, "Baby."
♪ Baby ♪
♪ We took a trip, now we on your block ♪
♪ And it's like a ghost town ♪
♪ Baby ♪
♪ Where did these (beep) be at ♪
♪ When they said they doing all this and all that ♪
♪ Tired of beefing you moms ♪
♪ You can't even pay me enough to react ♪
♪ Been waking up in the crib ♪
- This is a good song.
I recommend the video.
I watched it and it like,
now I find the song much more charming.
Like the very simple hook of just like saying baby
like three times in the last song going, "Baby."
When you see it in the video,
like really kind of comes together.
- I just want to go full circle.
Disturbia was recorded in Denver, Colorado in April, 2008.
- Really?
I wonder why Denver?
I wonder if they're on tour.
- I bet.
- And also the first song we listened to,
that guy's first name was Golden.
This is getting spooky, like Golden, Colorado.
The number two song--
- She said the song, sorry, I just wanted to,
it's not about a specific personal experience,
but rather the general feelings of mental anguish,
anxiety, and confusion.
- Yeah, Disturbia.
- No references to the film.
- Right.
- Anyway.
- Another kind of spooky song in 2008.
I guess 2008 was still kind of a spooky year
'cause that M.I.A. Paper Planes,
we didn't really talk about it,
but it's got that Clash Straight to Hell sample,
which is kind of like sad and weird and eerie,
Disturbia, spooky.
And then this song was very spooky.
Kanye West, Love Lockdown
of the seminal album, 808s and Heartbreak.
I remember when this came out,
just being like, this is cool.
- Did these songs come out post your recession,
market crash?
- I don't think so,
'cause I think the market crash turns like that.
Well, when did the market crash?
Right around now.
- That was late September.
I wanna say late September.
- So these songs are probably all pretty new.
♪ Never know, never, never know ♪
♪ Never know enough ♪
♪ 'Til it's over, love ♪
♪ 'Til we lose control ♪
♪ System overload ♪
♪ Screaming no, no, no, no, no ♪
♪ I'm not loving you ♪
- This song always made me think of
the theme from the X-Men cartoon.
- Lehman Brothers went bankrupt September 15th, 2008.
- Whoa, and this song came out three days later.
- That was weird at the time.
It was like, what's happening?
- Well, and especially because
his first three albums were just like hip hop,
with like soul samples and rapping.
And this song just like was kind of different,
vocally, beat-wise.
- I was talking about the financial crisis.
- What were you saying about the financial crisis?
- I was just saying like, at the time,
I was just reflecting on it.
I was just like, at the time,
I was sort of like, what the hell's happening?
- Oh, I thought you just meant as a Kanye fan
when "Love Lockdown" dropped.
- We hadn't seen the big short yet.
They were throwing around terms,
like we were joking about this last episode.
They were throwing around terms like
tranches and bundling these,
mortgages broken up into millions of pieces,
that whole concept.
But it was sort of just like, what?
- Yeah, Jim Cramer slamming buttons
and screaming at you through the TV.
- It was just like, it's such esoteric knowledge.
How this even happened. - It was just like,
what the hell is happening?
- I mean, I remember when Lehman Brothers went under,
there were like some disturbing images of like,
the office being kind of (beep) up and in disarray.
And you were just like, oh, (beep)
this is about to turn into something big.
And, you know, in classic American fashion,
they always know how to keep things at like that low boil.
- The cusp, right.
- The cusp, where disturbing things are happening,
everybody feels uneasy,
and you're waiting for it to fully boil over.
Maybe a little bit of water here or there happens,
but it's never like the full pot goes crazy
and the flame gets it and everything, you know?
Constantly at that low boil.
And I think Kanye really tapped into that
with "Love Lockdown."
- I mean, you're totally right.
I remember at the time,
I had been a fan of the first two records.
I was not down with 808s.
- Same.
- Oh, really? - I was like,
this sucks.
Like, I just.
- It took me a while.
It took me a while to come around to it.
- Same.
- Very acquired taste, yeah.
- Oh, really?
All three of you guys?
- I've never felt more wrong in hindsight.
- Wow, I'm feeling a lot of disturbia to know that
the whole TC crew was like that
because I was a big Kanye fan since the first album.
And when that came out, I was like,
I knew I bet on the right horse.
(laughing)
I remember when the third album came out,
you would still get people just being like,
oh, that guy's annoying.
He's so full of himself.
Why is he so much better than anybody else?
And I remember just being like, come on.
These albums are like great.
And when that, I really felt when that came out,
maybe because it reminded me of the X-Men theme song,
♪ Diddly-loo-loo-loo ♪
Which in a very oblique way,
it doesn't actually sound like it.
I really felt like, oh yeah, he is the chosen one.
But yeah, that was his big classic fourth album leap.
Like he was on some different (beep)
You know what?
I saw him on tour on that album was the glow in the dark tour
and Rihanna opened for him.
- Oh, wow.
- Maybe like Pharrell was there too.
Definitely Rihanna was there.
- I thought that was his third album.
- No, this is his fourth.
He had his trilogy of college, dropout,
late registration and graduation.
- Oh, that's right.
- And then there was the long rumored fourth album,
which would have continued the trajectory
that was called good-ass job.
Because after you graduate, then you get a good-ass job.
That's how Kanye said it.
But then he decided to cut it off as a trilogy
and not take us towards that good-ass job place.
And instead take us to the austere,
disturbed world of Veda Waites and Heartbreak,
which was very jarring.
But then that was a cool tour.
He was alone on stage on like this Martian terrain.
And he was like talking to a robot the whole time
on like some 2001 (beep)
And also I feel like when I saw that,
it really came together that I was like, oh yeah.
Like I really did have that feeling of like, oh yeah,
this guy's on some wild (beep)
Because Rihanna performed kind of like,
she's cool, super cool, but like a pretty normal pop show.
And then he came on, he's alone.
And he's like stumbling around on the Martian territory.
And then this thing comes down and it's like,
Mr. West, your spaceship has crash landed on Mars.
There's not enough.
And he's like, I gotta get back to Earth.
They're like, there's not enough fuel to get back.
He's like, what am I gonna do?
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
And like the songs would come in.
It was this bizarre one man show.
And I was like, this is some wild (beep)
Next song, number three right now
is Justin Bieber, "Holy" featuring Chance the Rapper.
Well, I watched the video for this recently.
I was just kind of like catching up on music videos.
♪ I hear a lot about sinners ♪
In the video for this, I don't quite remember it,
but I feel like Justin's got like a working man's job.
He's like working in like an oil field or something.
Like he's outside just like shoveling something maybe.
♪ 'Cause the way that the sky opens up when we touch it ♪
♪ It's making me say ♪
♪ That the way you hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me ♪
♪ Feels so holy ♪
- Oh yeah, this is a pretty good song.
It's like kind of a sweet gospel love song.
♪ Oh God ♪
♪ Run into the altar like a track star ♪
♪ Can't wait another second ♪
♪ 'Cause the way you hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me ♪
♪ Feels so holy ♪
♪ I don't do well with the drama ♪
♪ And no, I can't stand it ♪
- Wait, that reminds me of some,
♪ Da, na, na, na ♪
Like some 90s song.
♪ I don't believe in nirvana ♪
- I don't believe in nirvana.
- It's very John Lennon.
♪ I don't believe in nirvana ♪
♪ I'm a Foo Fighters fan ♪
♪ They're just playing punk rock ♪
(laughing)
- Is this one of his overtly Christian numbers?
- He's using Christian stuff as just like a metaphor here.
He's talking about marriage.
He's talking about being in love with somebody.
So he's, it's got the trappings of Christian stuff,
but I think it's just a regular love song.
♪ Da, da, na, na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Of unconditional ♪
Oh, that's what I'm thinking.
- Ah, yeah, yeah.
- Canadians are allowed to share melodies, right, Seinfeld?
- Yeah, it's part of our--
- It's one big family.
- Constitution, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I feel like Bieber needs to take a left turn.
- You want the 808s and heartbreak?
- Yeah, I want the metal machine music from Bieber.
The okay, yeah.
I know, I want something.
- Okay computer.
- Something, just show me something.
I don't know, just like some sort of left turn.
He's got all these resources at his disposal.
He can work with anyone he wants to.
- Machine Gun Kelly just made a pop punk album
right on Bieber, okay, a little punk rock.
- I feel like Katy Perry was really due
for a crazy left turn with this new album,
but she kind of stayed the course.
- She has a new album out?
- I think she had a new album come out, what,
a couple months ago or something.
- I feel like she has some roots in pop punk.
That could be cool.
Maybe there'll be all the pop stars that go pop punk next.
The number two song in 2008, "Pink", "So What".
- Ezra, what's the time signature
on this drum programming?
- I mean, it's four, four, which is typical,
but I guess you'd call that like,
it's like a kind of shuffle.
Like Gary Glittery.
- Do you know that song by Outkast, "The Whole World",
featuring Killer Mike?
- ♪ And the whole world ♪
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
It's got a similar shuffle.
- And her thing is a bit of a, I mean, it's circusy,
which is her thing, right?
She's a trapeze artist, isn't she?
- Well, yeah.
Whenever she performs in an award show,
there's always a trapeze.
- Yeah, I feel like in this era,
there's a lot of circus stuff.
Britney Spears had a album called "Circus" in the 2000s.
There were a lot of top hats,
a lot of burlesque, pussycat dolls.
- Eminem had a very circusy type of...
I worked with T-Pain on his "Circus" record.
- Oh yeah.
- I feel like there's also kind of a sailor vibe
to this somehow.
- Oh yeah, I feel that. - Kind of a shanty vibe.
- Circus is just land sailors.
There's like something in common.
Sailors are also up climbing poles
and swinging from things.
And also, I think, well, if you're into circus vibes,
you're also into like pirate vibes.
I think also like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies
were really big in this era.
And I bet for a lot of people who wanted to go full
Captain Jack Sparrow,
might've felt like a pirate. - Or landlocked.
- Yeah, they were landlocked.
So they're like, "I can't go full pirate.
How am I gonna pull this off?"
And then they're like, "Oh, I could go kind of circus."
It weirdly presses, you know,
hits a lot of the same notes.
- Are you saying that there's a kinship
between pirates and clowns
versus like the animosity between like
policemen and firemen?
- Policemen and firefighters owe deeply.
Yeah, I think they're natural allies.
They're almost like, I feel like this would be
some kind of like "Game of Thrones"
or "Lord of the Rings" type thing
where there's two groups who are kind of like
ancient allies and they don't call on each other very often.
But if they do, it's kind of understood
that there's like a sacred pact going back generations
that's like, my great-grandchildren,
let's say great-great-grandchildren,
we're all gone from the face of this earth.
It's whatever kind of hellscape, you know, 2150 US is.
But if my great-great-grandchildren
somehow tracked down Jake's great-great-grandchildren
and said like, I wanna do an internet radio show with you,
there would be that kind of like ancient obligation
where they might be like, whoa, what's this all about?
And then they might be like, oh yeah, I've heard about this.
I've heard that our ancestors, you know.
Anyway, so that always happens
in these kinds of like fantasy things.
If pirates ever needed to come to land,
I think the circus folk would be obligated
to give them a hot meal and a warm bed, you know?
So we're on the number two song of 2020 now, right?
Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion, "WAP."
So this song's still doing really big things.
♪ There's some whores in this house ♪
♪ There's some whores in this house ♪
♪ I said, certified free ♪
Seven days a week.
♪ Wet and gushy ♪
♪ Make that blow out game weak ♪
I mean, this kind of song just gets better and better
every time you hear it.
I've been seeing tweets sort of with time that have said,
well, this song isn't that dirty.
That doesn't seem true to me.
- I haven't heard it that many times
just 'cause I haven't, I've not been riding in Ubers
or Lyfts or anything.
- What an aggressive song to play in an Uber.
- Well, but it would be like classic.
- Right.
♪ I wanna ride, I do a keegoo ♪
♪ I'm kinda wild ♪
♪ Look at my mouth, look at my thighs ♪
♪ Sweater is wet, come take a dive ♪
- Ezra, how many times have you heard this song?
And in what context?
- I probably haven't heard the whole thing
in a long since we listened to it,
but I just, clips always popping up, you know?
- Yeah. - Often on Instagram.
♪ Cook, I don't clean ♪
♪ But let me tell you I got this ring ♪
♪ Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me ♪
♪ Catch 'em, I'll pay you later ♪
♪ Get inside of me ♪
♪ So don't worry, put it in the ground ♪
- I mean, what else is there to say about this song?
I love that it dropped in 2020.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause also, you know, I think there's sometimes
a feeling like there's a lot of talk about
in the Trump era, like about the protest music
was gonna come back and people wondering
how artists were gonna react.
This is this real ass (beep)
you know, maybe in 30 years,
I mean, Jake's children might be doing, you know,
TC Jr. and they'll be looking back and being like,
"Well, you gotta understand, picture this,
"you know, it's 2020, there's a worldwide pandemic,
"wet-ass (beep) number two on the charts,
"Trump just, you know, got out of the hospital,
"he had COVID and they're trying to draw
"all these connections."
And the truth is, you know, just the world is just chaos.
But you know, the world keeps turning.
People keep having sex.
People keep making songs about sex and, you know.
- That song would have come out
regardless of whether Hillary or Trump won.
- Yeah, probably.
- That's dealing with timeless human themes.
It's beyond politics.
- As long as the human race exists on this planet,
there's gonna be wet-ass (beep)
doesn't matter who's president.
- I really like, I like that it's wet-ass.
(laughing)
- Right.
- That's such a funny expression,
like, I'm trying to remember
if I've ever used the term wet-ass.
Like, oh man, this burrito is like,
it's like a wet-ass burrito.
(laughing)
- Right.
- Like a runny burrito or something.
- Well, I mean, it's very worst margarita in my life.
Like, just like, oh dude, I had the worst dinner last night.
They had this place, (beep)
margarita tastes like flat Mountain Dew.
Then they bring out this (beep)
wet-ass burrito that's just falling apart.
(laughing)
- I can totally see that.
That's gonna be on the next, next Mountain Brews EP
is wet-ass burrito.
But also, isn't that a thing that there's like,
there's places that specialize in wet burritos.
- It's called the Burrito Mojado.
I love a wet burrito,
what they put the ranchero sauce,
the enchilada sauce or whatever on the burrito.
But W-A-Z--
- You can actually just use the beat.
Yeah, like the flow is just like,
this burrito mojado.
(humming)
Take that ranchero, put it, yeah, all right.
Something to look forward to, wet-ass burrito.
The number one song on the Billboard charts in 2008.
Ah, yes.
All these songs, I spent a lot of time in fans
and traveling this era.
I remember these songs very well on the radio.
T.I., "Whatever You Like."
- Hey Jim, you know the old sugar daddy.
They be tricking, they tell them girls.
♪ See you can have whatever you like ♪
- It's funny because, so this came out in 2008,
leading up to the big election that year.
And there's a part where it sounded like
he was saying Joe Biden.
And Joe Biden was--
- Sure.
- The vice presidential candidate with Obama.
So I remember just like constantly this song being like,
oh, it sounds like he's saying Joe Biden.
I want Joe Biden.
- I need Joe Biden.
- Yeah.
T.I. had just so many great singles in the 2000s.
From "Rubber Band Man" to this one.
He was just on fire.
- "Paper Trail" with the,
it had the Rihanna collaboration on it too.
- Yeah, that had the,
♪ Yeah, yeah, hee ♪
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Live your life.
- And I remember, you know,
what was so great about this is, you know,
it was used as this sort of like,
it's such a beautiful song, you know,
and it's such a, you know,
such a, almost a romantic song.
But the first line of the song is,
you know how everybody lies to their girl and says this.
So none of the, it's an insincere song.
I mean, it's such a clever song.
- Oh, oh, right.
- T.I. is like something special.
And this idea that he made a like a love song
and it was critical, you know, at this time.
But then if you, the first line is,
hey, you know how the sugar daddies say this to girls?
- Yeah.
- It's really clever.
It's like-
- You can take it on two levels.
- Yeah, it's sort of like, I remember,
I think a lot about how you said that thing
as a way to go about the Lil Wayne song,
where he's like, I stay on,
or stay up all night like,
or stay on all night like porch lights.
- Oh yeah.
- It's like, oh, such a clever,
like they just have like such a full command
of their image and the songs that they'll be like,
I'm gonna make a love song.
But I also know that I'm gonna add this thing
at the beginning of a love song
that undermines the whole love song.
- Kind of undermines the whole thing.
Also, I'd be remiss not to note that there,
when he's talking about all the great things
that you can have, champagne on ice, whatever,
he also says late night sex, so wet and so tight.
So, you know, people have been talking about,
he didn't say wet ass,
but he's talking about wet sex, implying.
- This is gonna be tough for the Apple radio broadcast.
(laughing)
- Oh yeah, there's gonna be a lot of beeps,
but just anybody's listening at home.
I don't think we curse that much in this show.
So just assume that almost every time there's a beep,
we're talking about something related
to the Cardi B song called wet ass.
- For parents that are driving around with their children,
listening to TC, this is--
- It's a family show.
- It's a tougher segment right now.
- The number one song on the Billboard charts right now,
BTS, okay, this is a history making.
BTS--
- Good for Doug.
Good for Doug.
- Became the first Korean band slash band from Idaho
to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Here's their song Dynamite.
And also this is their first single
to be released completely in English.
♪ 'Cause I'm home, home, home ♪
♪ Ain't no stars tonight ♪
- Oh yeah, I watched the video for this too.
It's fun.
♪ It's at the night light ♪
♪ Shoes on, get up in the morn' ♪
♪ Cup of milk, let's rock and roll ♪
♪ King Kong, kick the drum ♪
♪ Rollin' on like I'm Rolling Stone ♪
♪ Sing song when I'm walkin' home ♪
♪ Jump up to the top of the throne ♪
♪ Ding dong, call me on my phone ♪
- Ding dong.
- It's funny, this song reminds me of 2008.
Like maybe because there was also
that other big Dynamite song back then.
♪ We gonna light it up like it's dynamite ♪
- Oh yeah.
♪ I'm dynamite, you know I go hard ♪
♪ Hot as Alaska ♪
♪ It's at the night light ♪
- Yeah, it's like a Bruno Mars kind of feel.
- Yeah.
- Do you think that the BTS organization
is aware of Guilty's Filth?
- It's maybe like one of the dudes is.
- How many people do you think
have made the BTS joke to Doug Marsh to his face?
- It's funny because somebody tagged us
in a meme where somebody just put a picture of BTS,
the Korean band, and wrote "Built to Spill"
with a picture of the band from Idaho.
So I think the sad truth is probably that it's possible
that nobody in the BTS organization
knows who Built to Spill is,
but you damn well know that everybody in Built to Spill
knows who BTS is.
- Oh, absolutely.
- And might weigh heavily on them.
- Does BTS stand for something?
- That's a great question.
And it's amazing that it took us this long to come to it.
Seinfeld, let's get a number crunch.
Does BTS stand for anything?
- Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now.
Let's get a number crunch.
Brought to you by Seinfeld 2000.
- BTS is short for the Bangtan Boys.
- What's Bangtan?
Is that a place? - That's a good question too.
- Oh, there's seven guys in this band.
- Let's find out.
- Oh, yeah.
- Or in Korean, I'm not gonna try to say this actually,
but there's another phrase that, let's see, Bangtan.
It seems like it's a word that's specific to,
I can't find any other context for this word.
- Okay, but something about Bangtan Boys
and Bangtan might be a place.
Bangtan is a Korean word to describe
kind of people who are very big fans of 90s indie rock.
- Yeah.
- So weirdly, there is a built-to-spell connection,
but it's not what you think.
- Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, I've looked it up again.
Okay, the literal translation of BTS,
the Korean, like the full word of Korean BTS
means Bulletproof Boy Scouts.
- That's sick.
That sounds like a punk band.
- Yeah, it's kind of,
or a little bit Ghostface Killah somehow.
- Right, that could be like Ghostface Killah,
like epic song from 2007.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, congratulations to BTS
on being the first Korean band in history
to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
It's a good song.
Well, that about does it for this week's TC.
We'll see you in two weeks,
and hopefully by then we'll have some
Hershey's Yinglings in our possession.
Many thanks to Daniel Ralston,
our Pennsylvania correspondent,
our Pennsylvania/Malibu correspondent.
Great having you on the program.
We'll see everybody in two weeks, peace.
- [Announcer] "Time Crisis" with Ezra Koenig.
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