Episode 145: Talking Dead Heads
Links
Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
There's a lot of things we thought we might talk about today,
but we didn't get to them,
because we went deep.
On Oasis,
The Black Crows,
Falco,
and the end of history,
this is a very special Time Crisis.
And a little Grateful Dead and Talking Heads too.
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by,
all of those great romances.
They were a palpably,
all my rightful chances.
My picture clear,
everything seemed so easy.
And so I dealt to the blow,
when a bus had to go.
Now it's different, I want you to know.
One of us is crying,
one of us is lying.
Even only they.
Time Crisis, back again.
Nick just commented I look pretty Euro,
on the FaceTime.
Tracksuit and Estella, it's just a different...
Ironically, I was trying to be all American,
because I wanted to wear a light jacket,
so I grabbed one of the sportier things I have.
You know, like a classical American person.
And it just so happens I have this,
Venetia FC track jacket,
that was gifted to me,
by somebody involved in the club.
And then I wanted to drink a beer,
like an all American,
just happened that the only beer we had in the fridge,
were some Estella Artois.
I think you look like, what I imagine,
Noel Gallagher's best friend/handler,
to appear like.
Full tracksuit at all times.
Is Noel sober now?
Are the Gallagher brothers sober?
I don't think so.
I always get confused, Noel is the older brother.
He's the songwriter.
Oh yeah, I love him.
Liam is sober.
Yeah, I thought, okay.
If one of them is sober, I would imagine the other isn't.
Have we ever gone deep on Oasis?
No, we never have.
That's really not the plan for this episode, but.
You know, it's funny,
I don't think I talked about it on the show, but,
last year, somewhere in the middle of COVID,
I got really into watching,
like, really long,
Noel Gallagher interviews.
And, you know, I always liked Oasis.
I met Noel once, partied with him.
Do tell, partied with him.
Well, whatever, it was just like,
it was like at a hotel or something, people were drinking.
Just chatted with him a bit.
I thought he was a very nice and charming guy.
Yeah, I've always liked Oasis, and, you know,
like, on Time Crisis,
obviously I've made it my mission to try to,
you know, never s*** talk fellow musicians.
You never know what's going on with somebody else.
You know, try not to be too cruel,
even if you don't like their music,
or you got an issue with them.
I think you said once that s*** talk does not age well.
And I've thought about that a lot since.
That's a lesson that stuck with me.
Oh, really?
I wonder if I'm right.
Well, and also, the first thing that I think of
when I hear that again,
is also, like, even outside of, like,
the good bands talking s*** about each other,
even if you pick, like, an objectively cool person,
and then pick an objectively uncool person,
and, you know, people might take issue
that there's no such thing as objectively cool.
But let's say a classically cool person
is a classically uncool person,
even that doesn't age well.
Wait, do you mean that the classically uncool person
is s*** talking?
No, no, I mean the classically cool.
I mean where the person might be right.
Lou Reed is s*** talking on, like,
the guys in, like, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
Or, like, Rush.
[laughs]
I mean, yeah, yeah, for instance.
That just cracks me up, just like...
Yeah, you could totally...
Well, Lou Reed also is such a...
He was an iconic, like, s*** talking,
angry guy, alienating figure to a lot of people.
But yeah, of course Lou Reed is cooler than Rush.
But for instance, yeah, if you, like,
with all this distance...
Who had more hits?
Rush?
Well, yeah.
Who sold more records?
Definitely Rush.
Who could shred harder?
[laughs]
Rush.
Who was filling arenas 30 years
after a local Ohio radio station
first broke their single "Working Man"?
It's Rush!
Like, picture even, like,
peak cool Lou Reed just being like,
"Man, I heard this Rush album.
I mean, Neil Peart, man, his lyrics are trash.
Stick to the drums."
Whatever he might say,
it wouldn't age well.
It's just not cool.
You know what I mean?
Like, especially looking back and be like,
they all had something to offer.
Yeah.
Well, I have to say,
that was one thing that kind of turned me off
on Oasis when I was younger.
When they had their big hits in the '90s,
I liked their hits.
"Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger."
I was like, "These are good songs."
And then the fact that they were so aggro
about crapping on every other band.
Yeah.
I was like, "You know what?
I think that's coming from a place of insecurity, guys."
Like, listen, you like the Beatles.
I like the Beatles.
We all like the Beatles.
You guys are doing, like, a Beatles thing.
Like, a kind of late Beatles thing.
Great.
But the fact that they were so aggro
about that and other bands
and them just being like,
"If we had existed in the '60s,
we would have been just as big as the Beatles."
Probably true.
But just sort of like a moot point.
It would have been pretty confusing.
A dumb hypothetical.
I was always just like, "Guys,
you're obviously insecure
that you don't have an original vision."
And it's showing.
Well, totally.
And that's what I was getting to,
is that I had the exact same feeling as you
because I don't like s***talkers.
I've always been on record.
I try to avoid it in my life, you know?
Like, give people the benefit of the doubt, you know?
Like, be nice whenever possible.
And there was something about the
always just seeing these headlines
of Noel Gallagher talking s***
about just about everybody.
And I think he often crossed the line.
But as I went deeper on some of these interviews,
I was watching, like, an unedited, like,
interview in Japan in, like,
I don't know when this was, like, 2001.
Like, 53 minutes uncut.
And just kind of, like, feeling like
I was starting to get to know the guy a little better.
I really started to develop a sense,
and I don't think this is a very original thought,
but I really started to get a sense
that he's not arrogant.
Like, it's kind of just like some wrestling s***.
He's, like, this funny Manchester dude.
He's taking the s***.
And if anything,
I think he could credibly make a case.
'Cause some people talk s***
just because they're terrible,
mean-spirited, petty people
with a chip on their shoulder
and want to take other people down.
Of course that exists.
I think Noel Gallagher could credibly make the case
that he's trying to just, like,
stir s*** up for the good of the community.
Kind of.
Like, I started to get this vibe
watching all these long interviews
that it's a dude who is a music nerd,
knows his, like, music history inside and out,
worships the greats,
the Smiths, the Beatles, whoever,
and deeply wants or wanted--
he probably gave up by now--
he deeply wanted rock music to be more interesting
and full of, like, the big characters
that he was familiar with from his youth.
I'm willing to believe that when he would s***
on, like, Radiohead or Sonic Youth,
which are, like, two--
it's just so funny, like,
just being like, "What is this s***?"
"Come on, guys."
He's droning.
That he really was coming from a place of almost, like--
I bet he deep down--
I don't know if he respected Sonic Youth,
but I think he--
I'm sure he respected Radiohead
because, you know, he's a songwriter.
There's no way that he doesn't respect
the great Radiohead songs.
He wanted them to be more like him.
He, like, wants them to talk more s*** and stuff.
Like, I truly believe that he thought
that'd be for the good of everybody
if things were a little more fun,
a little more WWE vibe.
I love this generous read.
It's a great read.
Yeah, I'm sure I could be dissuaded from it,
but, like, I just really got this feeling
that he wasn't as arrogant as he seemed
'cause he would really, like,
take the s*** out of Oasis and himself.
Like, there's one--
I feel like I saved it on my phone.
Let me see if I have it.
I was taking, like, little videos of, like, the TV.
While Ezra finds this,
I was making that joke, obviously.
They famously hate each other,
him and his brother.
And when I said that Liam was sober,
I made that joke that, obviously,
Noel must be a drinker.
The first article that comes up in the Daily Mail
is that Noel Gallagher admits
that he has ignored instructions not to panic buy
as he stockpiles alcohol for coronavirus.
So not only is he not sober--
He literally started drinking more
when his brother got sober.
He started drinking more
when he found out his brother was sober.
Oh, wait, I--
Despite drinking.
Amazing.
Very healthy, despite drinking.
I'm gonna play this into the mic.
See, but then, like,
it's the thing that I don't understand.
You know, like,
when, uh, when radio went,
put the little bit of sexy Sadie in "Karma Police,"
um, everybody says that, you know, he's a genius.
And when I put a little bit of Dave Prudence
in "Who Feels Love,"
it's called pastiche, you know what I mean?
It's so--
People just don't [bleep] like me anymore.
I've done some--
And I can't quite work out what it is,
but there you go.
Did you hear what he was saying?
Yeah, he said when he--
when radio had put a little bit of what in "Karma Police"?
A little bit of sexy Sadie.
-Oh, okay. -Which they did.
And he did a little--
-Yeah, he said-- -Right.
Whatever he says, he says, "They're geniuses."
I put a little bit of Dave Prudence
in some Oasis song, I don't know.
It's pastiche.
He does also have that funny--
which is so classically English,
like, the very intelligent working-class guy
who, like, plays up both sides
when he wants to be, like,
"Oh, me? Yeah, I'm just a regular-ass guy."
But then he also, like,
he knows [bleep] as well as anybody,
and he, like, drops it in a bit.
And then at the end, he goes,
"Yeah, I don't know why.
They just don't [bleep] like me."
It's a little Trump, too.
Oh, yeah.
We don't have to take it political,
but, you know, obviously,
Trump looms large as, like, a type of person.
He does sometimes have that funny vibe
of just being like,
"I don't know. They just don't [bleep] like me."
You kind of get this impression that he's not actually--
and this is where he differs from Trump--
that he actually has a sense of humor
about people not liking him.
-Oh, absolutely. -Listen to this clip.
[video playing]
-There's something funny-- -I love him.
Yeah, I started to love him with those quotes,
just, like, picturing him doing an interview in Japan,
like, early 2000s.
He's, like, in his mid-30s,
and he's just, like, feeling kind of frustrated
and just going like, "I'm a man.
I'm not a boy no more."
Just that line, like, the way it rolls off the tongue is great.
And then just, like, again, not exactly arrogant,
just being like, "I was great.
Might be great again. Who knows?
I'm good at what I do. Let's leave it."
Just, like, thinking out loud, just being kind of like--
Like, he knows that their first two albums
are, like, stone-cold classics.
Three and four get into some weirder territory.
And he's just, like, kind of there being like,
"Yeah, I don't know."
There was just something about it that actually felt very honest.
It didn't feel-- It made me realize
that there's this other dimension to the sh---talking.
And I found it kind of charming.
Because if the same person who's out there just sh---talking,
stirring stuff up, never breaks,
and is always just like, "We're the greatest band ever.
Heathen chemistry is better than Sergeant Peppers,"
or, you know, whatever, like, deep into their career.
But he's actually not like that.
He takes the sh-- out of himself a bit.
Yeah, I think my first response to them
was, like, when I was, like, 18,
in, like, the mid-'90s, and I didn't have--
I don't know, yeah, the long view
or the nuanced sort of understanding.
So I just took them very seriously
and literally what they were saying.
It's definitely, like, struck me over the years
as, like, more and more funny
and less and less serious.
♪ How many special people change? ♪
♪ How many lives are living strange? ♪
♪ Where were you while we were getting high? ♪
♪ Slowly walking down the hall ♪
♪ Faster than a cannonball ♪
♪ Where were you while we were getting high? ♪
♪ Someday you will find me ♪
♪ Caught beneath the landslide ♪
♪ In a champagne supernova in the sky ♪
♪ Someday you will find me ♪
♪ Caught beneath the landslide ♪
♪ In a champagne supernova ♪
♪ A champagne supernova in the sky ♪
I think I was reading an interview with that band,
Teenage Fan Club. You know that band?
Oh, yeah, the Scottish power pop band.
Yeah, and they were, like, recording
at some... maybe, like, you know,
like, one of the big studios in London or something.
And then, next door was Oasis,
and they were just like, "Oh, my God, what is this gonna be like?"
And then Oasis popped out, and they were just, like,
the hugest Teenage Fan Club fans.
And then you're sort of like, "Oh, I can kind of see that.
I can kind of..." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or they were just being nice to their face.
But it seemed like it was... from the interview,
it seemed, like, very genuine.
Oh, yeah, I could totally believe that.
Just being deep. Yeah.
Deep in a Teenage Fan Club and, like...
Deep into Stone Roses.
Oh, definitely.
He just didn't like the arty stuff.
He loved the Beatles. He, like... maybe he likes the middle ground.
I also like that, um...
if anybody's ever seen that
really good documentary that came out
a few years ago about them,
Noel, before they started the band,
he also just worked on the road crew
for Inspiral Carpets,
who was, like, a Manchester band
that kind of, like, was
big-ish in the late '80s, early '90s.
Oh, wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, they were kind of, like, part of the same
wave as, like,
Happy Mondays and stuff. But there's also
just something about it where I was just, like...
I guess also the fact that he worked
on another band's crew for a while
also just, like, endeared me to him.
I was just kind of like, "All right."
He, like... maybe he feels like, "You know what? I worked my way up."
Like, when you said "road crew"
initially, I thought you meant, like, he worked on a literal, like,
road crew doing, like, construction.
[laughs] Yeah, I mean...
Which also would not have surprised me.
I would have never even thought of that.
Man, I have a visceral memory of
hearing "Don't Look Back in Anger" for the first time
when it was a single
in, like, '95 or '96 or whatever.
So, at that point, I would have been
18 or 19, and I didn't know, like,
all the Beatles' solo albums at that point.
I remember thinking,
"Oh, is this, like, a George Harrison
solo cut that I've never heard?"
Yeah. It's a great song,
and it's so triumphant.
And the recording was, like...
I feel like I was pretty tapped in at that point on, like,
the subtle nuances and, like, recording.
Uh-huh. Or maybe not so subtle
recording, sort of production techniques,
you know, across the decades.
And I literally thought it was, like, a lost song
from the '70s. I could see that.
That song in particular.
Yeah, it had, like, a good attention to detail.
And also, it is funny, too,
that it's, like, you know, in the UK,
Oasis...
You know, in the US, people...
the average person knows, like,
two, maybe three Oasis songs.
There's a few hits that loom large.
Yeah. Whereas in the UK, they have, like,
like, 15
all-time smash classics.
And obviously, their story...
Everybody knows the ins and outs of their story
and the brothers and after the band.
And they're also part of, like,
the Oasis versus Blur
and Britpop and the history of Manchester.
There's just, like, so much context
for Oasis being, like,
the band of the '90s. And I feel like
I have kind of a similar memory
of, like, hearing that song on, like,
the radio in the '90s
and just also having this sense of just, like,
"Wait, where is this from?"
Oasis was, like, randomly really big
in America for essentially
one album. It did feel
like just, like, this weird
breakthrough from the UK. Like,
zero context and then, like,
kind of went back to just being a British band again.
Matt sent this great
interview with Tom DeLonge from
Blink-182 giving this anecdote
about Liam Gallagher coming up
to him after a show where they
were on the same bill. And he says,
"You're the best I've seen in America."
And I go, "You
like us?" And he goes, "I didn't say that,
but you're the best I've seen in America."
And then he slammed the door.
That's Liam Gallagher? Oh my god.
Yeah, Liam. I didn't say that.
They're the best. They're the best. I didn't say that.
That's so funny. And also, back
to, like, the sh*t-talking concept, like,
of course, it's always kinder not
to. I get the impression,
and again, I could be wrong, of, like,
those dudes, that it's, like,
the type of dudes who would
f*ck the talk, abandon the press,
just to keep things interesting, and then
actually be, like, really nice behind the scenes
because people are people, and,
you know? They actually have some
generosity of spirit
versus the opposite, which, you know,
is maybe more like the Hollywood,
like, weird American version
of just, like, the type of person
who would, like, maybe say something really
nice publicly, but
then be, like, incapable of, like,
connecting on a human level
because they are just
too, like, they don't have generosity
of spirit. So, obviously, those are
two extremes you don't really
need to do either, but
I think Oasis is a little more
the other one. And you gotta
give it up for Oasis. Just, like,
very durable hits.
I would be happy to hear
"Don't Look Back in Anger" on the radio.
"Champagne Supernova."
"Wonderwall."
"Champagne Supernova."
"In the sky."
It is pretty amazing that they were just, like,
I mean, it's such a different era, but
just in the 90s, they were just
printing money. Just the
biggest band in England.
Famously, the label boss
gave Noel,
like, a Rolls Royce for his
birthday. You know, just on some,
almost on some, like, 70s sh*t.
Might as well be, like, Led Zeppelin era.
♪ Slip inside the eye of your mind ♪
♪ Don't you know you might find ♪
♪ A better place to play ♪
♪ You said that you've never been ♪
♪ But all the things that you've seen ♪
♪ Slowly fade away ♪
♪ So I start a revolution from my pain ♪
♪ 'Cause you said the brains I had ♪
♪ Went to my head ♪
♪ Step outside, summertime's in bloom ♪
♪ I stand up beside the fireplace ♪
♪ Take that look from off your face ♪
♪ You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out ♪
♪ So Sally, come wait ♪
♪ She knows it's too late ♪
♪ As we're walking on by ♪
♪ Her soul slides away ♪
♪ But don't look back in anger ♪
♪ I heard you say ♪
I wonder if the Oasis boys like the Black Crows.
Traditionalist, hard rockin' band.
They're going more for, like, an Exile on Main Street
kind of thing.
Two brothers.
Less, uh, yeah, two brothers.
Less, uh, you know, Beatles, kinks
kind of songwriting and more like,
yeah, Allman Brothers and Stones and stuff.
I wonder if they like them.
There was a 2001 tour called
The Tour of Brotherly Love
that was Oasis and the Black Crows.
That was Oasis and the Black Crows?
Oh, my God.
Well, I nailed that.
Well, I was just trying to think of, like,
American bands that were semi-active
in the '90s, at least,
that Oasis would have maybe been down with.
On the one hand, they're so different,
but you make a good point.
It's also brothers that hate each other.
Yeah, it's brothers that hate each other,
and it's basically just recreating
Beatles and Stones.
Totally.
Although I will say, this other article says,
"Even Oasis couldn't believe
how much the Black Crows fought."
Oh, my God.
And actually, this reminds me--
From that tour.
Dude, this reminds me of an older episode.
I think we were, like, talking about--
I think this was on TC,
where, like, one of the dudes in Black Girls
was playing OK Computer
on, like, the Black Crows tour bus.
Yes.
One of the Robinson brothers was just like,
"Turn that s*** off!
This s*** is trash!"
So it's just like--
It was Chris.
Black Crows and Oasis,
they both hated Radiohead.
That'd be a tight TC interview.
Let's see if we get Noel Gallagher on one day.
That'd be pretty sick, actually.
Or Chris Robinson.
And one interesting thing about Chris Robinson
is Big Deadhead.
'Cause a friend of mine sent me
a link to Relics TV
on Phil Lesh's birthday
a couple weeks ago.
Yeah.
Did you do anything to celebrate
Phil's birthday, Jake?
I didn't.
I missed it this year.
I guess you're kind of busy.
Got a lot going on.
But the--
I had a lot on my plate.
You missed your daughter's
first Phil Lesh's birthday?
Dude.
[laughter]
No pictures?
Celebrating the birthdays of--
Celebrating the birthdays of musicians
you don't know is incredibly sad.
[laughter]
It's her first Phil Lesh's birthday.
But on Phil's birthday,
Relics was just kind of--
I think Phil turned 80-something,
so they were gonna play
80-something songs from--
I guess like Phil--
Either songs--
I guess he was in it all,
like various configurations
of Phil and Friends.
And anyway, I watched it for
like maybe half an hour.
There was a lot of Chris Robinson.
Very in the mix.
Just kind of wailing
on some dead tunes.
Was Phil playing with Chris Robinson?
Yeah, they played together.
Oh.
Wait, just real quick.
We gotta--
Can we get a--
Our research team--
Has Noel Gallagher ever talked
about the Grateful Dead?
I'm gonna assume yes.
But see, here's the thing.
I feel like he would probably say
some spicy shit about like--
Actually, I kind of shudder to think
what he might have said in 1995.
Peak Oasis and Jerry died.
You could imagine him doing
like an interview that August
and somebody's like,
"Man, you know, like iconic
"American rocker, Jerry Garcia,
"recently passed away."
I could imagine him saying
some fucked up shit.
But--
Oh, yeah.
I also would imagine that if you
like invited him around your flat,
busted out a couple brews,
and played him some choice cuts,
he'd probably be interested to hear.
Noel, have you heard
"Must Have Been the Roses?"
I mean, that is just
a gorgeous ballad.
All right, mate, play it.
Let's hear it. Let's hear it.
Listen to those harmonies, bro.
Anything coming up?
Noel on the Grateful Dead?
Not on my end.
No.
Okay.
Nothing's-- No, but there was a moment,
a performance where Florence Welch,
Noel Gallagher, and Phil Lesch,
and Bill Kretzmann all performed
"Boobs Spelled Backwards is Boob"
for breast cancer awareness.
So they shared the same stage.
What?
Deep.
Wait, what year was that?
2015.
It's called "Boobs"?
It's called--
It's "Boobs" plural?
"Boob Spelled Backwards is Boob."
Okay, right.
'Cause that's actually true.
Oh, it's a new ode.
It's a new ode.
So it happened to have been penned--
Okay, here we go.
Penned by auspicious 8-year-old
Archer Nelson in direct--
This is insane.
In direct response to the diagnosis
of his mother with breast cancer,
a tender little diddy,
"Boobs Spelled Backwards is Boob,"
pulls assuredly at the heartstrings.
The teardrop acts as a love letter
and encouragement.
So an 8-year-old who had found out
his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer
writes this song,
and then Florence Welch, Noel Gallagher,
and Phil Esch and Bill Grudson
perform it on stage.
It is sweet, but it definitely means
that the hatred can't be that deep.
Phil Esch has no idea who Noel was.
It looks like Liam has a Grateful Dead
reference on his song "Greedy Soul."
What does he say?
"Greedy Soul, she's got a spinning head,
like seeing Grateful Dead."
Okay.
Man, I can't believe there's not
like some deeper...
All those guys do is talk.
We gotta get Noel on the show now.
He would love to just spend an hour
just like talking about bands.
Yeah.
Honestly, that would be a great interview.
We just make a list of like every band
we can think of to want to get his take on.
Mm-hmm.
It's like guided by voices, go.
I just feel like there'd be so many surprises.
He would just be like...
Yeah.
"Night, Alien Lanes changed my life."
I really actually wonder what he thinks of GBV.
I always thought there was a GBV oasis.
A Venn diagram with the Beatles right in the middle.
Oh, yeah.
There's definitely some shared DNA.
Yeah, I feel like he'd be kind of into it.
I could also see him not knowing that band
because he was a huge rock star
by the time GBV broke.
I might be off here because now I'm painting
this picture of him as being like this gruff dude
who behind closed doors is actually a very sweet guy
who doesn't take himself seriously.
There's probably somebody listening who is like,
"You're so deeply wrong."
But I'm picturing him having deep generosity of spirit.
And I'm also picturing him being like a music nerd.
I'm kind of picturing him on tour, mid-90s,
hitting the Amoeba in Berkeley,
just walking out with armfuls of all the latest
Matador releases, just checking in on everything,
just going deep and being like, "All right, all right.
Yeah, yeah."
That really says that his public persona was a character.
I do think he was legitimately very arrogant.
And arrogance leads to a disinterest in others' music.
Or it would just be like, "Oh, Matador?
That's all arty stuff."
Yeah, like, "No, what do you think of Pavement?
No, what do you think of Nirvana?
Dinosaur Jr."
It'd be interesting.
Hate Pavement, deeply respect GBV,
like some early Dinosaur Jr.
I guess he's also a nationalist.
You got to keep that in mind, too.
Loves Stone Temple Pilots.
Maybe.
That's true. He's a nationalist.
He's a nationalist.
The British flags and all that shit.
I could also just picture him just being deeply uninterested
in American rock.
Maybe because Americans weren't interested enough
in Stone Roses and in spiral carpets.
So he has to kind of repay the favor.
This is fun, speculating on the Noel Gallagher interview
on the land.
If we don't get him, we're going to create a Noel Gallagher AI,
and we're going to do a two-hour special.
We're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
developing a Noel Gallagher AI,
and then we're going to ask it about all sorts of just, like,
random shit.
Just like, "Noel, the Lemonheads, go."
I got a list here of some Noel Burns on various bands.
Do you want to hear a couple?
Sure.
We'd love it.
Okay, we got Noel on Radiohead.
I reckon if Tom York [expletive] it into a light bulb
and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle,
it'd probably get 9 out of 10 in [expletive] Mojo.
He's not wrong.
And also, that's not even necessarily a Radiohead diss.
That's just, like, cultural commentary.
Yes.
Yeah.
Arctic Monkeys.
Do you want to hear about Jack White?
What do you have to say about him?
Yes, please, please.
Jack White, he looks like Zorro on Donuts.
I remember that one.
What's Donuts?
Is that a drug?
He was body shaming him.
That's not cool.
Oh, okay.
What's so odious about being fat?
Okay, Jim Morrison would not approve.
Wait, he said something about Arctic Monkeys?
I would rather drink petrol straight from the nozzle at a garage
than listen to an interview with Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys.
That's via--
I guess it's not about the music, is my--
That one kind of works for my hypothesis.
Because I would imagine if you're Noel Gallagher
and you see Arctic Monkeys come out
and you are a hardcore rock nationalist,
you would have to have some sense of pride
that there's another big northern UK rock band coming out.
You would have to imagine he likes the music.
But I almost, when I hear that quote, again with zero context,
I'm picturing him being like, "Mate, the music's all right,
but your interview game is lacking."
Maybe he's almost just disappointed.
Just like, "Alex, we have a great tradition of UK rock dude interviews.
I need you to think more holistically, man.
I need you to come out and say more spicy sh*t."
You know what would roll if Noel came out
and just did a rock-based stand-up special?
Or one of those Eminem songs where he disses 50 people
in the span of an entire song?
Just like, taking it to the...
Here's what he said.
So this is Noel on the worst band he's ever heard.
"Do you ever look at the sky and think, 'I'm glad I'm alive?'
After I heard Sum 41, I thought,
'I'm actually alive to hear the sh*ttiest band of all time.'"
Which is quite something when you think about it.
(imitates guitar riff)
Harsh.
(imitates guitar riff)
But kind of deep, too.
It is just like, honestly, putting it that way
is like, 10 times more interesting
than just being like, "That band sucks. I hate them."
Well, it's also weird that his brother--
Wait, was it Blink-182 that his brother said
was the best he'd seen in America?
Yes.
So, I mean, to me-- Maybe I'm crazier,
but Blink-182 and Sum 41, that's a similar universe.
Sure.
But you know what? They're brothers.
Doesn't mean they have the same taste.
No, in fact, they go out of their way not to.
They don't get the pop punk.
What else you got, Seinfeld?
Well, not so much.
We got Billy Joe Armstrong.
He said-- Oh, this is Liam, though.
This is Liam. Do you want to hear what Liam had to say?
Okay, sure.
"F*ck right off. I'm not having him.
I just don't like his head."
What, he likes Blink and he doesn't like Green Day?
"He doesn't like his head."
(laughs)
It's not about the music.
There's something about-- I can't fully explain it,
but there's-- Maybe because in the UK,
it's a smaller country, there's this really dedicated rock press
for a long time.
I do think there's this-- It's almost like a tradition
of bands, and there's a way that sometimes
UK rock stars from that era talk about stuff
in this really straightforward way,
where it's almost just like-- I don't know how to put it.
It's almost more like sports or something,
where they're just like, "All right, you got some moves,
but you can't hit threes for sh*t."
They have this funny-- It makes me think of reading
The Bassist from Blur's book.
That came out right when Vampire Weekend first toured the UK,
and I think one of us bought it at-- Who knows?
Literally could have been a rest stop,
and everybody ended up reading it.
His name is Alex James.
The Bassist from Blur.
Seems like an interesting guy. Good-looking.
And I just remember in the book--
Because he wasn't the primary songwriter by any stretch.
There's obviously a Damon Albarn,
and then you have Graham,
who also wrote some great songs,
or Coffee and TV, a very strong single.
And his vibe talking about the band,
he would just always talk about the superficial elements,
but in this funny way.
And I just remember there's at least a few times
in the book that he talks about haircuts,
and he was just talking--
He's talking about his own haircut,
and he's talking about--
This line that always stood out to me,
he's talking about also-ran-type
failed musicians from his generation.
He just said, "Yeah, you know, there's this type of dude.
They're pretty good at music,
but they could just never get their hair right."
And it was just this funny thing
for a '90s guy in a band to say.
Just like, "Yeah, you gotta feel for these guys.
They just never get their hair right."
It reminds me of this Liam Gallagher,
just like, "F*** off. I don't like your head."
It's almost like there's some sort of cultural understanding
in that era of British bands
that being in a band is kind of bulls***.
Almost there's an acceptance
that it's some funny mix of modeling
meets just corporate marketing
meets a bit of art.
I don't know why. I just can't think of
quite an American equivalent.
Or in America, maybe we'd associate that type of talk
more with other genres.
But in the UK, it's understood.
"Yeah, rock and roll, baby. Just another form of pop music.
Get your f***ing haircut right."
It sounds like they have sort of an '80s
hair metal band attitude.
But their look is obviously much different.
Whereas in the '90s, in that era in America,
the bands that were big were like,
at least in terms of their image,
were anti-corporate and anti-image.
They couldn't admit it.
Obviously, Kurt was very image-concerned.
I've talked before about you look at his notebooks.
He was a student of rock history.
He knew you had to get the logo right.
You had to get all that s*** on deck.
He cared.
But yet, you could never picture Kurt Cobain
in an interview where he'd just like...
You imagine somebody being like,
"So, Kurt, you guys really exploded out of the scene.
But there's a lot of hard-rocking Seattle-based bands
with roots in punk rock.
What is it about you guys?"
And just be like, "Okay, well, first of all,
a lot of these dudes just can't get their f***ing hair right.
I'm sorry. Say what you will.
But me, Chris, and Dave,
our hair f***ing looks correct."
Even if he felt that...
I mean, Chris has got that burly goatee.
I mean, come on.
It kind of just worked.
And it just worked.
♪ I'm not like them ♪
♪ Back in D-town ♪
♪ The sun has gone ♪
♪ I had a light ♪
♪ The day is done ♪
♪ I'm having fun ♪
♪ I think I'm done ♪
♪ Baby just have me ♪
♪ Think I'm just happy ♪
♪ Think I'm just happy ♪
♪ Think I'm just happy ♪
- Two bands I wonder what Noel thinks.
Smashing Pumpkins and the Chili Peppers.
- Whoa. - Huge bands.
- Yeah. - He probably doesn't
like the Chili's, but it's like Pumpkins like.
- He's toured with Smashing Pumpkins.
- Really? - I'm just like, wow.
Okay, wow. - High Flying Birds.
Not long ago, a couple of years ago.
- Oh wait, open for Pumpkins?
That had to be a little.
- Unless this is Noel's solo.
- No, I know, but still opening for Pumpkins must've.
- But remember this dude used to work
in Spiral Carpets crew.
- Wait a second though, during the same tour,
Noel Gallagher takes a swipe
at Smashing Pumpkins' Darcy Retsky.
What's going on here?
- Wait, what year is this?
- 2019.
- I didn't think Darcy was on that tour.
I actually saw that tour.
- Wait, what?
- I missed Noel.
I saw the Pumpkins at the forum.
I went with my brother.
But we came in late, we missed the opening.
- I missed Noel?
Damn.
- I guess I missed Noel.
Missed the first like 40 minutes of the show.
- He also managed to take a swipe at Billy Corgan.
I guess right while they were on tour,
he told Rolling Stone we were in the studio together
one time in LA.
This is back in the day.
I don't remember a great deal about it,
apart from I think Billy had just bought a new Ferrari
and he was very proud.
He continues, "I remember smoking a cigarette,
"looking at this Ferrari, thinking,
"I'm not into cars, it's just a (beep) car."
You know what I mean?
- Yes, I feel you.
- Oh my God.
Dude, Noel Gallagher and Billy Corgan
hanging out in the 90s is rough stuff.
- And just Billy being like,
"Noel, you wanna see my new Ferrari?"
And him just like walking out and just be like,
"What do you want me to (beep) say?
"It's a car, man."
- Oh my God.
I'm just a working class bloke from Manchester, man.
I don't care about your car, dude.
- And regarding the--
- I don't give a (beep)
- Oh my God.
- And regarding the chili peppers,
Liam rips them for, calls them undignified.
Things are undignified.
- Oh my God.
- Undignified.
- For playing stadium shows, but again--
- Great word.
- And I love this.
For these reunion tours playing or whatever,
these playing these giant shows, he calls them undignified.
And his brother's response is he goes on tour with them.
- Wow.
- So Noel then went on tour.
- With the chili peppers?
- With the chilies?
- Oh, so he's on tour with everybody.
- So he's on tour with chilies?
- But--
- Chili's pumpkins?
- I think he's just, yeah.
If Liam says he doesn't like somebody or vice versa,
maybe it actually, I imagine actually it's vice versa.
I imagine Noel said, "I'll open for you."
And then Liam was like, "They're undignified."
- Well, okay.
- Everything for them does seem to come down
actually more to his hatred for his brother
than actually any band.
- I like the idea of Liam doubling down
on his love of American punk.
So Liam's gonna tour with the Joyce Manor.
And then Noel's gonna keep touring
with these classic rock acts
or like classic rock rip off acts.
Dude, Noel's gonna tour with Dead & Co.
- Oh yeah.
- Is this a grift?
Like one of them says something about--
- Liam rips Dead & Co a new one.
John Mayer has no tone touch or lyricism.
Noel responds, "He's actually come a really long way.
He's definitely tapping into some Prime Jerry,
chromaticism."
They really do keep things interesting.
- I mean, we just spent an hour talking about Oasis.
- Wasn't planning on it, so.
- Not on the docket at all.
- Not on the docket at all.
I was great.
I might be great again.
Who knows?
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ She's divine ♪
♪ She's up to no good ♪
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ She's divine ♪
♪ She's up to no good ♪
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ She told me to fly ♪
♪ She told me how to fly ♪
♪ The one I love ♪
♪ She told me to fly ♪
♪ She brings me up and I can fly ♪
- The last thing I'll say about this is,
I think I have told the story on the program before,
but we were, I think, playing right before them
in 2009 at a festival in Paris,
and I didn't see this happen.
I remember hearing some commotion
in the much larger dressing area next to ours,
and I think some of the other guys in the band
saw what turned out to be $50,000 guitar
fly into the air and crash back to the ground.
And this became famously known later
that this was the fight that ended Oasis,
that involved Liam destroying Noel's $50,000 guitar,
and they didn't go on.
So I remember we played, maybe somebody else played,
then, but everybody's lined up, ready for Oasis to play.
And then I remember just hearing somebody go on
and tell the audience in French,
Oasis will not be performing tonight,
and just hearing 50,000 people, like, whoa.
And then I remember, it was this weird vibe,
and me and CT walked out,
and we're kinda just checking out what the vibe was,
and we were walking along the rail,
and we chatted with a few people.
And I do remember seeing random people just in tears.
They'd been waiting so long to see Oasis.
They probably didn't even know that the band was breaking up.
I remember at the time being like, really?
Who cares?
And then I thought-- - Dude, yeah.
- But then I realized, oh, damn, this is like,
these are some French Oasis super fans,
been waiting forever, and now they don't get to see them.
Yeah, that is pretty harsh.
But anyway, outside of all that,
because Noel, in these long interviews,
he reveals this side of his personality
that seems so kinda just like funny,
aloof, and not self-serious,
it's always made me wonder
if the hatred between the brothers
is some type of like kayfabe,
you know, wrestling-style rivalry.
And yet, based on everything I've ever heard,
it's not, at all. (laughs)
Because obviously, these two dudes,
they're leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table
by not having Oasis exist for a decade.
I don't know any details or something,
and I've met people who know some of them,
and it's definitely real.
And yet, I still sometimes get this vibe
where I'm just like,
even the way they talk (beep) about each other
in the press seems kinda playful,
there's something confusing about it to me.
But clearly, it's not a bit.
- I bet it'll happen, though.
Like Coachella in like eight years,
or two years, or whatever.
Something will bring them back together.
- I don't think so.
- Never?
- I mean, I think that they really, really hate each other.
I mean, I'm not in a band,
but I know that, and we've heard,
there's obviously like deep-seated things of ego, right?
Of like publishing, of who's writing,
who's performing, all these things we know,
and those are very real.
And those seem surmountable.
Like money tends, and the economics,
surmount that with every one of these reunions.
But you put the brother/family stuff in there,
and it feels so heightened that it just does,
it feels like, yeah, it became like a funny thing
for everyone, but they do genuinely seem to hate each other.
And I do think it's like, it's beyond ego,
and it's beyond the money,
and it feels like it's so personal,
and I think that's what makes it feel so enjoyable also.
But yeah, I don't know.
Are the Black Crows getting together?
I've heard him talk about it.
- Black Crows were about to do a reunion tour.
- Oh yeah.
- They were starting to advertise it, I think pre-COVID.
So I don't know if it ever happened.
- I remember that.
- And I remember specifically
that in the promotional materials, they made it clear,
there will be no jamming.
- Wait, really?
- Yeah, yeah, I remember in the,
there was like articles that were just like,
only the hits, no jamming.
And I wonder if it's because like,
Chris had been out there, you know, jamming with Phil,
and doing his Chris Robinson brotherhood,
and getting like real crunchy and funky,
and that like the old school Black Crows fans were just like,
I'm only buying a ticket if both Robinsons are on stage,
and I can be assured that there will be no jamming.
That'd be funny, like a class action lawsuit
against the Black Crows,
because they like vamped a little too long on one song.
And there's like a jamming.
- That version of Remedy was nine minutes and 30 seconds.
- Or it's just like,
it's like that version of Remedy clocked in at 5.50.
And there's like a judge somewhere who just has to be like,
I don't think that that counts as jamming.
And just like a lawyer just desperately trying to like prove,
compared to the studio version, that was a jam.
You have expert witness.
- Matt did just send me that last week,
Noel tweeted something to the effect of that show
you were talking about Ezra,
that he wished that he would have played that.
It would have quote, been a mad gig,
which has sparked reunion speculation.
The one where he never ended up playing and they broke up.
- Oh, that one.
Would have been a mad gig.
- Which has sparked it.
Now I will say, I still have money on
that it will never happen because as you know,
you don't just reunite, you have to practice,
you have to rehearse.
You have to jam and it won't make it past that.
- Wouldn't it be cool if they did like a tour called like
the don't look back in anger tour.
And they did like, what was that Metallica documentary
where they had like a therapist.
- Some kind of, I had the same thoughts, Seinfeld.
- Right, and it's like a real British,
like a British psychologist is like,
oh, like put it, like, I'm not gonna do the accent,
but like, you know, like a nice,
that would be like an interstitial.
- Right, right.
- Yeah, like do a whole, that'd be huge.
- If you could get the two brothers to sit down
with like some celebrity psychologist
for like a five part series.
- Oprah. - With Oprah.
- It would draw more viewers than the Meghan Markle interview
at least in the UK.
- Oh, absolutely.
- Wait, by the way, I meant to say this earlier,
speaking of English TV, Nick, who's a TV producer,
among other things, has a show on the BBC right now.
- Oh yeah.
- Can we talk about this, Nick?
- It's a wild show.
- It's made a big impression on me.
I think about it all the time.
- So do I, dude.
- Also because-
- What's up with this show?
- It's called "This is My House"
and the theme song to it is the amazing Flo Rida song,
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
And you guys use it over and over again in the show
and all the different parts,
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
I've had it stuck in my head.
- This is my house.
- What?
Oh yeah.
- And it keeps- - This is my house.
- It's my house, come on.
- Yeah, the sting, this is my house, come on.
- This is my house, come on.
So I think about that song all the time.
Every time I step into my house,
I softly say to myself, "Welcome to my house."
I go to somebody else's house,
I think, "Welcome to their house."
Just truly an amazing song.
Just throw that song on for a second,
then we'll hear about the show.
- I mean, it's an amazing song.
It kind of changed the whole tenor of the idea
when someone mentioned me, I was talking to him about this,
and he goes, "Are you using the Flo Rida song
"as the theme song?"
(laughing)
♪ Open up the champagne, pop ♪
♪ It's my house, come on, turn it up ♪
- Yeah, come on.
♪ Give a knock on the door and the night begins ♪
- Give a knock on the door and the night begins.
♪ 'Cause we've done this before, so you come on in ♪
♪ Make yourself at my home, tell me where you've been ♪
♪ Pour yourself something cold, baby, cheers to this ♪
♪ Sometimes you gotta stay in ♪
♪ And you know where I live ♪
- You know where I live.
♪ Yeah, you know what we is ♪
♪ Sometimes you gotta stay in, in ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
♪ Baby, take control now ♪
♪ We can't even slow down ♪
♪ We don't have to go around ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
♪ Play that music too loud ♪
♪ Show me what you do now ♪
♪ We don't have to go around ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
♪ Morning comes and you know that you wanna stay ♪
♪ Close the blinds, let's pretend that the time has changed ♪
♪ Keep our clothes on the floor, open up champagne ♪
- More champagne.
It's the middle of the morning, just.
- Second bottle.
♪ Sometimes you gotta stay in ♪
♪ And you know where I live ♪
- You know where I live, you're at the house now.
♪ Sometimes you gotta stay in, in ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
♪ Baby, take control now ♪
- It might be one of my favorite songs.
- That'd be sick if like,
this song starts creeping back up the charts in the UK
'cause of your show.
I'm calling it now, Christmas 2021.
Christmas number one in the UK,
my house, Flo Rida.
♪ We don't have to go around ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
- My house, come on.
♪ Bring the friends ♪
♪ Welcome to my house ♪
- So let's talk about the show a little bit.
So as I understand it,
the premise is that five contestants enter a house
and you have 10 minutes to figure out
if it's Flo Rida's house.
- Yes, no.
- And the whole time you're blasting the song
"Welcome to my house" at an uncomfortable volume.
- They can't even hear each other talk.
- So they're just like running around.
- It's like a torture.
- And all the gold records and the platinum records
are covered up so you can't see.
You're just like, you just like have to look at the,
open the fridge and you're like,
"Flo Rida drink vitamin water, uh, uh."
Anyway, so yeah, explain the actual premise of the show
'cause it's great.
- The premise of the show is it's a game show.
It's really stupid and it was sort of a joke
when we started talking about it.
My friend Richard Bacon and I, and he's British,
and the idea is that four people
all claim to be the same person
and claim that it's their house.
So there's, let's say it's you.
There's four people saying they're Ezra Koenig
and we shoot them in their house
and they all live in, for 24 hours,
live in a house and walk around the house
talking about their house.
But only one of them is really the owner of the house
and the other three are actors
all pretending to be that person
and making up their own stories about stuff.
- And somebody's guiding them through the house
and meanwhile a panel of celebrities
are watching this go down.
And just to give people an example
of like how does this look in practice.
So you have four different people saying,
"Yeah, welcome to my house, this is my house."
And then the host might walk over to a piece of furniture,
like a couch and say, "Any funny stories about this couch?"
And then one person say, "Yeah, as a matter of fact,
"my husband didn't want me to buy it, whatever."
And then somebody else is looking at them being like,
"Oh my, ugh, you're just making this up.
"Here's the story with this couch.
"We actually inherited it from my mother-in-law."
And somebody's like, "Ugh, oh my God,
"it's so weird hearing you lie about my couch.
"Here's the story with the couch.
"Actually, I've had it for years before we got together."
It's like a series of things like that
and the people get very competitive with each other,
kind of just looking at each other being like,
"Ugh, why are you saying that about my husband?
"It's so weird."
And some people are better actors than others
and one person obviously is the real person,
but they're all kind of one-upping each other to be like,
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.
"This is my house and the reason that we have that painting
"is, you know, that kind of (beep)."
- The truth is that when you start getting very specific
about your stuff and sometimes the crazier the story sounds
and the more passionate you are about it,
the more it seems like you're lying.
- Right. - And so, yeah,
they sort of argue over things like their couch
or the clothes in their closet.
They usually bring out their girlfriend or boyfriend
or their spouse or partner and that person sits there
while they all recount their wedding story to him or her.
- Right. - And it's,
I mean, it's psychotic.
I mean, the show is really, like when you talk about,
yeah, you'll get five minutes of hearing people
talk about their couch, it's really stupid
and they get in real fights.
- Yeah. - And then a group
of celebrities watch it and they have to try to deduce
who the owner of the house is. - Whose house is.
- And like I said, it was sort of a joke
and then it became real and then someone suggested
this Flo Rida song and so then we've got the Flo Rida song
so we're like, "We gotta use this at every moment."
So it is like also in the sort of, yeah,
kind of like insane nature of the show,
Flo Rida's voice just keeps popping in and going,
"That's my house."
I mean, it's really, it's insane.
- Like back from commercial, "Welcome to my house."
- Yeah, and then there's an elimination
so then about two thirds of the way in,
the real owner of the house tells the producer
who they think might be their biggest competition
and that person's removed so you have three left
and then those three go to meet the celebrities
where the celebrities get to ask them questions
and they have to pick if it's the owner of the house.
And so like the dumb premise is there's never been
an easier game show to win, you just have to tell the truth.
But nothing feels believable.
There's an end of times element to it.
I mean, I'm interested in what you guys
would have to say about it and to the, you know,
Matt Seinfeld, I'll send you some copies
'cause unless you have a VPN, it's on Wednesday nights
like at nine and yeah, on BBC One.
- Are the people improvising their lies about the house
or do they have prep time?
Do they come up with their stories in advance?
- They have like 24 hours before where they've been,
they've walked through the house 'cause yeah,
if you were to like open a drawer
and like not know where like the cutlery is or something,
like then it would be too obvious.
So people get to like, it's basically three people
sabotaging someone in their truth, you know?
- And they get a heads up about to start making up
little stories in their head
so that they're not totally on the spot.
- Right, and you know, and as you guys know,
I just need to say it for anyone, you know, listening.
Like this is also not,
what I don't normally make shows on like this.
I'd like to make more,
but it is about the silliest and stupidest thing
that I've ever made.
- It has like the tone, it's very unique,
but it's familiar in terms of like British reality show,
game show vibes.
- Yeah.
- Like if you're looking for some of Nick's
adult swim background, well, you could probably,
in a really deep way, you could probably make a connection.
And also to be 9 p.m. on Wednesday on BBC One
or Channel One or whatever, the BBC, whatever in the UK,
that's like the equivalent of like some must see TV,
right, in the US.
- Yeah.
- That's like an American Idol type slot, right?
- Yeah, they moved it up.
It was actually commissioned for BBC Two,
which I think of the lower, not lower,
but the more you go down,
I don't know the British system that well,
but they sort of, that's the cooler sort of smaller one.
I think BBC Two may be where the office started
and then sort of graduates.
- Right.
- They saw this and they moved it to BBC One.
- Is this like a big hit in the UK?
- It appears to me that it is.
You know, I'm not there and I can't watch it,
but everyone seems very, very happy about it.
And it's always like one of the number one trending topic.
Like it's also like young.
I mean, it feels weird.
I think there is a sort of, it's right now,
like people want something that may not test them
and just is sort of enjoyable,
but also has some sort of very smart undercurrent.
Like I do think that it's just bizarre enough.
And I think, and it is smart enough
that you could like write why it's not stupid.
- Do you think you've tapped into the zeitgeist in some way?
Like we've spent a year all homebound, you know,
getting acquainted with our houses,
the various ins and outs,
getting, developing a stronger relationship.
Now here comes, this is my house.
And it sort of becomes a fulfillment of-
- I mean, yeah, I definitely think
that this idea was before then,
but that it has benefited from quarantine
for a lot of reasons.
And one of them definitely is that.
I think that people are at home.
They're used to being really at home,
but they're also not out at their friends' houses
or their family's houses as much.
And like, they're looking at this
and they're able to like actually sort of
have that sort of enjoyment, I think.
And I don't know, I saw some review today
that was like, they got quarantine TV right.
'Cause I do think that so many people
tried to make things like quote, in quarantine.
And they were just like,
"We're gonna do whole shows with people on Zooms
"and FaceTime."
And you're like, you can actually do something
that's not like that,
that captures a lot of the feelings that we may be having
and some of the ambitions that we may have,
but is not just being like,
"Oh yeah, we're doing a whole show with people on Zoom."
- Yeah, 'cause you spend your day on Zoom calls.
You don't wanna like chill out on another Zoom call.
- It sends a positive message to people.
Actually, it makes you also wonder why
My House by Flo Rida wasn't a quarantine anthem
from the start.
A kind of celebration of just, you know,
whether you rent, buy, have a room in somebody else's house,
living in somebody's basement,
that's still your space, it's still your house.
You can't really appreciate your house
until you have three imposters walking around
saying it's theirs.
And then suddenly, you know,
you start getting a little territorial.
You know what, I didn't like this place that much,
but you know what, this is my house.
Welcome to my house. - It's my house.
You know, it's funny you said this thing.
I've listened to this Flo Rida song
a thousand times at this point.
And maybe it's 'cause I'm listening to it
through the lens of the show.
But it's funny when you're like,
oh, it's about having a girl over.
And obviously now I'm really listening to the lyrics,
I'm like, yeah.
But I definitely was,
even if you have someone over to your house
for, you know, late night relations,
the idea that it's about the pride of your house,
I always sort of was like,
oh, it's about a guy having a party.
Or you can almost say like,
this is a song written about when he bought his new house,
he's having a housewarming party.
Like there's a weird thing,
it's like if you have someone over to your house
and you're like, hey, welcome to my house.
This is, you know, there's one song
and you might wanna throw this on.
'Cause I found the pride of the house like so,
you're right, it's so lovely.
And you're like, yeah, I should,
no matter where I live, it's my house.
It's my stuff, I should take pride in it.
There was a moment where we didn't think
we could get the song and we got pretty nervous
because I was like, I had put so much stake on this song,
like the comedy of the show.
We found one other song,
which is Diana Ross's song, "My House."
When I was looking for songs about my house,
I don't know if you know,
but this is another one, which is,
it doesn't have the energy to be the theme,
but tonally and the lyrics made me laugh so hard.
If you wanna put it on.
- I'm not familiar with this Diana Ross song.
- I wasn't familiar with it either,
but it's got a really cool, it's a very cool vibe.
- Very vibey.
♪ It's my house and I live here ♪
♪ It's my house and I live here ♪
♪ There's a welcome mat at the door ♪
♪ And if you come on in, you're gonna get much more ♪
♪ There's my chair, I put it there ♪
♪ Everything you see is with love and care ♪
♪ It's my house and I live here ♪
♪ I wanna tell ya, it's my house and I live here ♪
- I love this idea of having pride.
It would've been great.
And I think we'll probably use it
maybe as like a closing theme if we haven't already.
But like, they were just saying that the energy
of the Flo Rida song,
but I love this feeling of having pride in your stuff.
That's my chair and I put it there.
- Did you ever consider "Our House" by Madness?
- Yeah, I feel like that's sort of been used a lot.
But I, you know, I have a whole playlist of just songs
about people's homes. - And also that's our house.
- Yeah, and it's our house and this is my house.
You know.
But there is--
- I love "Our House."
- Oh yeah, Matt just said burning down the house.
That's when they cancel us.
- Well, and maybe this is a good transition.
We don't have to go too deep.
We've really been flying by the seat of our pants
on this episode.
I didn't think we were gonna be doing
an Oasis Flo Rida episode.
Although in the back of my head,
I did wanna talk about the show.
But listening to those lyrics made me think
about talking heads.
Because there's actually something very like,
I was thinking about David Byrne's lyrics today
because we found a picture,
it was posted by the Grateful Dead fan,
Jamban, the Instagram account, lot.com.
And they found a picture I'd never seen before
of David Byrne and Bob Weir wearing headphones,
sitting next to each other in 1986.
And actually I had a funny comment from Jack Wagner
of Yeah But Still Pod,
who said like, "This is the first podcast."
And if you look at it,
it totally looks like they're doing,
you see like two dudes with headphones next to each other,
just like podcast vibe.
But this is 1986,
so they were probably just doing a radio interview.
But basically it turned out David Byrne
watched a Grateful Dead show in Berkeley
at the Greek Theater in 1986.
And he was there,
it's unclear exactly what he was doing there,
but clearly he had some sort of chat with Bob Weir.
And there's like a journalist there who asked about
if the talking heads could be the Grateful Dead of the 80s,
which maybe was something people were saying in 1986.
Talking heads, you know, kind of legendary live band.
Maybe there was some feeling,
could the talking heads, such a different band,
but could they maybe be handed the torch?
And this journalist, David Ganz asked Bob Weir,
"What do you think about that?
Could talking heads be the Grateful Dead of the 80s?"
And Weir's response was, "God help them."
But anyway, the reason I started thinking
of talking heads just now
is I started going through the talking heads discography
and I asked the rest of the TC crew to do the same
to see what connections we could find.
Like what's the most deadish head song?
What's the most heads-ish dead song?
Dead heads, that'd be the name for the cover band
that only does Grateful Dead and talking head song.
But listening to David Byrne's lyrics,
he did invent the style, which is like the,
I don't know how to describe it.
I associate it a lot with like cool, weird,
downtown New York, early punk rock, new wave,
but that vibe of just kind of being like,
let me just describe some regular (beep)
this kind of like eerie 70s vibe
of just kind of like describing modern life
with very little commentary,
which in and of itself has its own commentary.
- More songs about buildings and food.
- Yeah, exactly.
More songs about buildings and food.
And you could totally picture like
on one of the first three talking heads records,
like a song that's like, "It's my house and I live here.
That chair, I put it there."
You know what I mean?
It really has like a college art rock vibe.
That chair, I put it there.
You know what I mean?
And obviously talking heads do have,
"This is not my beautiful house."
That could have been another option for the show.
But there's something about that type of lyric,
just like if not talking heads,
maybe somebody else from that era,
like Richard Hell or television or something,
just like, "It's my house and I live here."
I even just like picture like picking up some like
punk single that had like the lyrics on it
and you don't even know what the band is.
And you're like, "What is this, 1978?"
And you just like read the lyrics on the back.
"It's my house and I live here.
That chair, I put it there.
It's my house and I live here."
You know what I mean?
It just sounds like weird punk rock.
It could also be like some LA hardcore,
like some weird Black Flag song.
"It's my house and I live here.
It's my house and I live here.
That chair, I put it there.
That chair, I put it there."
So maybe Diana, that sounds like some late '70s.
Maybe Diana was feeling that kind of,
there's something in the air.
She's feeling that punk rock spirit.
But anyway, that was my awkward transition
from Diana Ross to talking heads.
- Not awkward.
- Thank you, I appreciate that, Jake.
- Masterful.
- Thank you.
Thinking about this moment when, you know,
David Byrne's watching "Bob Weir"
and we were already texting about it on the TC Text thread.
Just like pulling up the set list at the Greek Theater.
Jack Straw opener, box of rain closer.
I think I told you guys that I was playing it
in my household.
And there's a little bit of like,
"What are you listening to?"
It's not the strongest box of rain performance.
- A little bit of domestic tension.
- A little bit of domestic tension,
busting out that-
- Music choice.
- That 622-86 box of rain.
I had to explain, "Babe, this is a great song."
- I'm working.
- Hey, I'm working.
- I'm prepping for the show.
- This is a great song.
It's one of Jake's all-time faves.
Is that fair to say, Jake,
box of rain's one of your favorite dead songs?
- Yeah, I'd put that top 10.
- It's just not, you know,
it's not like a classic live song.
- I would never like seek out a live version of box of rain.
But still, a great song nonetheless.
That's when you-
- Beautiful song.
- You want to start with the studio recording, for sure.
- Yeah.
- But anyway, we're just kind of picturing David Byrne,
like taking in the show.
Our big question, you know, looking at like,
this is what's in like set one.
Jack Straw, Must Have Been the Roses.
Beautiful song, especially when Jake sings it.
Cassidy, Roe, Jimmy Roe, New Minglewood Blues,
Big Railroad Blues.
- Good set list.
- Mama Tried, Big River, Stagger Lee,
Hell in a Bucket, Might As Well, Samson and Delilah,
Ship of Fools, Man, Smart Woman,
- That's a very strong set with a few exceptions.
- Drum space, Out of Space, Truckin',
Going Down the Road, Feeling Bad, Stella Blue,
Turn on Your Love Light.
I mean, you probably know that's a cover.
US Blues, Box of Rain.
We're just kind of wondering like,
how tapped in would David Byrne have been?
'Cause you could totally picture him just being like,
knowing about the Grateful Dead,
maybe being kind of fascinated by like the cultural element,
but like maybe not knowing 99% of these songs.
- So he was born in '52.
In '72, he's 20.
Hard to know what his scene,
so he's 25 or 24 when he started talking heads,
or probably earlier, but like,
yeah, hard to know.
Like we were texting, like maybe he had an older brother
that was kind of a hippie that was like in on the dead.
'Cause like you gotta figure early '70s,
David Byrne's into like, go full circle here, Lou Reed.
- You would think.
- Can I just call out the TomTom Club
opened for Grateful Dead in 1988,
for whatever that's worth?
- Well, yeah, and then it's--
- Tight.
- No, that's a good call, 'cause it seems like
Chris Franz, the drummer of Talking Heads,
who started TomTom Club with Tina Weymouth, his wife,
they had a whole connection where they opened for the dead,
and then they would hang out a lot with Bob.
They hung out when they played the garden,
and seemed like they were like checking in on each other.
He said Bob would came down to see TomTom Club
when they did a five night run at CBGB's.
So maybe there is some kind of like deep interplay happening
between the two bands,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that Byrne
was that tapped in.
And yeah, you could also picture Byrne
having very little context for them,
and this is just like the first time he's taking it all in,
it's like 1986 in Berkeley.
But he sat down and did an interview with Bob,
where we gotta see if we can find the audio of that
somewhere, but it made me think a bunch about like,
the connections between the bands.
'Cause obviously, maybe the loosest connection
is that they're both kind of like two legendary live bands,
and in very different ways, you know,
Grateful Dead, Improvisatory, Jerry Garcia's solos,
Talking Heads, just like the kind of like perfection
of Remain in Light, which by the way,
I'm not trying to be a hater, but it has a lot of overdubs.
You know, they wanted it to be perfect.
When you watch the movie-- - Like Europe 72.
- Well yeah, and like Europe 72, that's true.
So the talking, the Grateful Dead could relate.
In their early days, they strive for a type of perfection.
I think they probably loosened up a bit.
- And I think the early Dick Picks releases in the 90s,
the Dead were very like uptight and controlling
about like which songs made it on those releases.
And they loosened up over time,
but like the early Dick Picks collections
were not just like straight up shows.
- Right.
- They were sort of like greatest hits compilations
from like, you know, two shows, three shows.
- That's actually interesting.
I guess I vaguely knew that, but it's funny
because you picture the culture of Deadheads trading tapes
and having access in their network of tape traders
to just about every show.
So you feel like, of course, that's part of the culture,
but that doesn't mean that the band was in on it.
And you could imagine somebody's like,
"Guys, you should start doing more official live releases.
"You have so much great stuff in the archives
"and people trade this (beep) all the time."
And, you know, maybe them listening back to a show
and just being like, "Oh God, you're telling me
"that there's like a dorm room full of like stoners
"at like Andover jamming this?
"Jesus Christ, can somebody sneak in there
"and like delete all the tapes?"
Like, no.
They didn't realize how deeply people were like interacting
with the recorded live material
or they didn't wanna think about it.
And then suddenly they're like,
"All right, let's make this official."
And it's like, "Oof, that was an off night or something."
- For sure.
- Okay, so I was thinking a little bit about
what Grateful Dead and Talking Head songs
have the most in common.
And it was a little random.
Jake, did you come up with your own pairings?
Did you have any thoughts on it?
Okay, so maybe I'll start.
This is like a weird one that came to mind.
And this is also why I was thinking about
that Diana Ross song and that specific
kind of slice of David Byrne type lyrics
that's just like describing modern life
with like very little commentary.
And this song has a weird touch of like Grateful Dead to me.
And it's the last song on More Buildings and Food
and it's called "The Big Country."
Are you familiar with this one?
- Maybe if I hear it.
I'm not like a huge Talking Heads head, so.
- You know, I was kind of wondering.
I guess I just assumed you were
just 'cause they're like classic alternative band.
But yeah, you don't talk about them a lot.
- I have like a very like academic appreciation.
I don't like connect on a deep, well,
kind of emotional level, but some of their songs I do.
Heaven, you know, "This Must Be the Place."
Yeah, obviously. - Oh yeah, beautiful song.
Slide guitar.
- Yeah.
Oh yeah, this one.
So what year is this?
- '78.
- Real steady beat.
♪ I see the shapes ♪
♪ I remember thumb maps ♪
♪ I see the shoreline ♪
♪ I see the white caps ♪
♪ A baseball dot ♪
♪ Nice weather down there ♪
♪ I see the school ♪
♪ And the houses where the kids are ♪
♪ Places to park ♪
- Places to park.
Very classic Byrne type lyric.
♪ Places to park ♪
♪ Restaurants and bars ♪
♪ Restaurants and bars ♪
- He's like looking down on America from a plane.
And in a very vague sense,
this is kind of like psychedelic Americana.
Like he's coming at it from his own angle,
but the idea of just kind of like being in a plane
and looking at America.
- Well, do you know that late Grateful...
- Yeah, which one?
- I was gonna say,
there's that late Grateful Dead song, "Standing on the Moon."
- Is that like on the last album?
- Yeah, it's on "Built to Last."
Anyway, the perspective is like
Jerry and Robert Hunter are standing on the moon
and they're looking at the earth as it's rotating.
And they're singing about
all the different continents and stuff.
- Well, okay, deep.
Anybody could write a song about being in a plane
and looking at any type of landscape,
but I do like that David Byrne,
he's saying all stuff that's very international
that you could find anywhere,
places to park, schools, whatever.
But he also says,
I like when he goes, "Baseball diamonds."
Just the idea of like this like tripped out,
like looking down in a plane,
just like looking at how all the parts
of the world work together.
It is kind of psychedelic, just like,
look at that man, schools, baseball diamonds,
it's all part of a bigger thing.
But the vibe of it with the slide guitar made me think,
and I was trying to think like,
what song do I connect it to?
And that's a great point,
lyrically, "Standing on the Moon."
But for whatever reason,
this is the last track on "More Buildings and Food."
And it made me think of the last track
on the first Jerry Garcia's solo album,
which is the iconic, "The Wheel."
Kind of disregard the intro.
- I forgot about this intro.
- Yeah, kind of random.
- We've thought about doing this one.
- Oh, there's never been one?
- We've never done this one, no.
- Yeah, but here.
- Yeah.
♪ I feel alive ♪
- Ooh, that reverb-y pedal steal.
- Yeah.
Like suddenly I can just hear this in a talking head's light.
- Yeah, like the beat is not as driving, but.
- Yeah.
♪ I see a baseball line ♪
♪ The wheel is turning and you can't slow down ♪
♪ You can't let go and you can't hold on ♪
♪ You can't go back and you can't stand still ♪
♪ If the thunder don't get you ♪
♪ Then the lightning will ♪
- And there's something about David Byrne's childlike
kind of take on the world
that kind of intersects,
or it's complimentary to the Robert Hunter
philosophical worldview.
- Well, the Dead have all those road trip songs too.
- Right.
- They're about driving.
- Mm.
- Jack Straw or truckin'.
- Right, crisscrossing the country.
- About passing through a landscape and observing it.
And then the Byrne, the punk version is you're on a plane.
- Right.
♪ Gotta get back where you belong ♪
♪ A little bit harder, just a little bit more ♪
♪ A little bit harder, then you don't need more ♪
♪ The wheel is turning and you can't slow down ♪
♪ You can't let go and you can't hold on ♪
♪ You can't go back and you can't stand still ♪
♪ If the thunder don't get you ♪
♪ Then the lightning will ♪
♪ Small wheel turn, but I find God ♪
♪ Big wheel turn, but I praise God ♪
- David Byrne might talk about the grace of God
is not impossible,
but it's also just like talking about the small wheel
and the big wheel.
Could like weirdly be like some strange
downtown New York punk David Byrne type lyrics.
Small wheel, turning quickly.
Big wheel, moving slowly.
And I think there's also like a weird place
where like early country informs both like
Grateful Dead type psychedelic (beep)
and punk rock, like the minimalism,
the haunting vibe of like early country.
Did you have any songs that came to mind, Jake?
I got some other ideas too,
but I wanna hear what you got to say.
- Okay, well, in terms of a talking head song
that made me think of the dead a little bit,
it's funny that Byrne was at that show in '86
'cause I chose a song off their True Stories album,
which was from '86.
The song City of Dreams.
If you could bring that up, Matt.
That's the last song on that record.
And it's sort of like, yeah,
I don't think of the Talking Heads
as doing a lot of like acoustic Americana stuff,
but I do feel like late period dead in the '80s
and also kind of late period Talking Heads,
they kind of met in a similar aesthetic production.
- I was saying that.
- Yeah.
- That's the era they came together.
- Exactly.
Again, very driving beat here.
Not very dead, the beat.
But the chord progression is like late Garcia Hunter.
- Oh yeah, totally.
Maybe the dead.
(imitating guitar)
♪ Here where you are standing ♪
♪ Dinosaurs did the dance ♪
♪ The Indians told the story ♪
♪ Now it has come to pass ♪
- I can picture Jerry singing this.
- Definitely.
♪ The Indians had a legend ♪
♪ The Spaniards lived for gold ♪
- The Spaniards lived for gold?
That's so Robert Hunter.
- Yeah, it's about like deep, deep history
and like our civilization is on the foundations
of others.
♪ We live in the city of dreams ♪
♪ We drive on this highway of fire ♪
♪ Should we awake and find it gone ♪
♪ We remember this our favorite time ♪
- Yeah.
- Yeah, like if like Bruce Hornsby was in the band
in this time with the dead, like just.
And like late 80s Jerry who'd put that weird
like midi filter on his guitar.
♪ From Germany and Europe ♪
♪ To Southern USA ♪
- Honestly, Jerry would have really brought this to life.
They should have just had him come through.
This song could use a little more ornamentation.
- Yeah.
Do you like this record?
The True Stories record?
Do you know it?
- I went back on Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman's podcast
that we did.
They asked me to come back to talk about this album
because they shifted from REM to Talking Heads
and they were kind of like,
oh, would you do the show?
And do you like Talking Heads?
I said, yeah, yeah, I love Talking Heads.
And they were like, okay,
well the only album left is True Stories.
And I was like, all right, it's kind of deep.
Could be fun to revisit it.
- Yeah.
- That and the one after Naked.
- The one from '88.
- Yeah, those are both like the,
probably the most poorly regarded Talking Heads albums.
But one thing to their credit,
they always had solid songs on every record.
So that record that True Stories,
that City of Dreams is from,
it had like a pretty big hit, Wild Wild Life.
- Yeah.
- Which is just like, you know, a solid, fun song.
- There's a song on there called Dream Operator 2,
which was one of my favorite Talking Heads songs.
I feel like a couple of their most beautiful songs
are on this record.
- Yeah.
- It's a little more straightforward or something.
- Yes, I think.
- But again, that's where the dead and the heads
were starting to maybe meet in a common place.
And I wonder what,
if that was maybe an intuition that Burn had
that took him to that show at Berklee in '86.
- Interesting.
- Maybe he started hearing dead a little bit
and he's like, "Ooh, maybe I have something in common
"with these guys."
Maybe he always loved them, we don't know.
Gotta get them on the show.
- Yeah.
- Noel Gallagher, first hour, David Burn, second hour.
- Be funny if we just keep this going for a few episodes,
speculating on what bands Noel Gallagher would get
and then finally we get the big news,
like, "Guys, Noel's in."
Be like, "You know what?
"We kinda did it."
- Thanks, but no thanks, Noel.
Like, we kinda covered,
we hypothetically asked you about every band
we could think of.
So we're good, man.
But keep on rocking, dude.
- The fantasy was, it's more fun.
I actually met David Burn once
because my brother worked with him.
- Oh, right, yeah.
- They recorded a song together
and they played some music together,
but then I did like a solo art painting exhibition
in New York in 2013.
And my brother was still living there
and he told David Burn to go to my opening.
- Sick.
- And I was like, "Oh, cool, that'd be sick."
And then I was there, it was kind of early in the opening,
no one was really there yet, including my brother.
And I saw David Burn roll up on his bicycle.
And it was in this tiny little gallery on the Lower East Side
and David Burn rolled in.
And it was like me and the gallerist
and two other people.
And I admit, David Burn maybe in passing
for 10 seconds once with my brother a year ago.
So he didn't remember me, but he was just going.
And the gallerist was looking at me like,
"Why is David Burn, why did he just walk into here?
This is my little gallery."
And I just went up to David Burn and I was like,
"Hey, I'm Jake, I'm Dave's brother.
Thanks for coming, man, nice to meet you."
He's like, "These paintings look good."
- Oh, that's cool. - He stood there.
It was just classic, awkward early art opening.
There's no, a very stilted social situation.
And then he was there for a few minutes
and then he bounced.
- It was all good.
♪ I see a Chili's surrounded by mountains ♪
♪ I see a Toys R Us ♪
♪ Long out of business ♪
- There's a song on that Last Talking Heads song, "Naked."
- On the last album?
- It's called "Nothing But Flowers."
- Right.
- I listened to that today.
- That's like the kind of African one?
- Yes, it's very like Graceland vibe.
And the last few verses he references Pizza Hut, 7-Eleven,
and one other big chain.
And he's like, in the song, it's like,
those chains have been abandoned
and there's flowers growing over
where the Pizza Hut once was.
And I was like, "Damn, that's from '88?
That's tight."
- A nature's healing moment.
- Exactly.
- The last thing that I'll say about
the Heads and Dead connection is like,
I'm sure some people will be listening
and they want us to draw a comparison
between some of the funky interlocking work.
I'm more interested in, same as you,
in like these kind of like songwriting, the simple sides.
But of course you can find some other connections.
Like I was thinking like, you know, "Help on the Way."
That could in a universe be like,
if it was like faster,
(sings)
like a little bit headsy.
And then I was just kind of clicking through
"Remain in Light"
and I was listening to "Cross-Eyed and Painless."
You wanna throw that on for a second?
- Couldn't you see like the lyrics to "Ripple"
being like a "Talking Heads" song?
- Oh yeah.
"Ripple, instill water."
- Instill water.
- But there's just like something about the "Dan and Phoenix."
I could almost picture that on like some guitar
and it'd be like, "Dan and Phoenix."
♪ Hospital ♪
♪ Changing my shape ♪
♪ I feel like an accident ♪
- You know, like one thing they both have in common,
I guess, is like,
is a type of like minimalism really.
Even when there's a lot of parts,
it's like things come in and out,
they interlock a little bit.
There's space.
Like, you know, "The Grateful Dead,"
outside of maybe some of like the really heavy late 60s
hard psych (beep)
there's always like space.
And even when it's like cooking,
(imitates cooking)
things move and leave room for each other.
- I was thinking about a "Dead" song
that reminded me of the "Talking Heads."
- Oh yeah, what'd you come up with?
- Kind of ties into what you were just saying of like,
I was thinking about like the light reggae influence
that both bands had.
And I thought of "Fire on the Mountain."
- Interesting, that crossed my mind too.
Throw on "Fire on the Mountain."
- We might have to throw that on.
♪ Long distance runner ♪
Okay, I can't do it with the impression.
- No, this totally reminds me
of like more songs about buildings and food.
♪ Long distance runner ♪
♪ What you standing there for ♪
- Also, that's such a weird opening to a song.
- Oh, totally. - That totally, David Byrne.
- Long distance runner, what are you standing there for?
(laughs)
- I'm just picturing like David Byrne being at some party
or like some restaurant in New York.
And then like this song comes on.
- Yeah.
- It catches his ear and he's like,
"Wait a second, like, what is this?"
- This is assuming he doesn't like the dead.
We're working from that assumption.
- Yeah.
- Maybe he's like a head from the get-go.
But I like the thought of him not liking it
or thinking he doesn't like it.
And then he starts hearing it
and it starts catching his ear and he's like,
"Oh, wait, this is like."
- No, this is a great call.
And yeah, 'cause it's musically and lyrically.
♪ Fire on the mountain ♪
♪ Fire ♪
♪ Fire on the mountain ♪
- It's a funny chorus just repeating the words
fire on the mountain four times.
- Yeah.
- Wait, you know what else?
I actually realized this when I was like
just kind of jamming by myself is that,
like this chord progression is such like
a classic dead progression because it's like,
I guess it's like one to flat seven.
- I think it's just like A and B.
(piano music)
♪ But you're here alone ♪
♪ There's no one to ♪
- Can you hear me playing piano?
Yeah, well, you're right.
It's B to A.
- I think it's, yeah, it's just two chords.
- But it's B mixolydian because the A is the flat seven.
So it makes you wanna use the mixolydian.
- I don't know what that stuff is, but.
Like we play this for Richard Pictures
and I'll just like vamp on the bar chords for B and A.
(piano music)
- Oh yeah, that riff.
- But also, I guess I'm just saying like the,
it's a classic dead mode.
It's a jammy mode, mixolydian.
So when you go from B to A and it is kind of the same as,
watch out.
♪ Dun-dun-dun-dun ♪
♪ You might get what you're after ♪
♪ Hmm, cool baby ♪
♪ Hmm, it's strange but not a stranger ♪
♪ 365 degrees ♪
- Honestly, burning down the house, fire on the mountain.
- Burning down, yeah.
- But anyway, it's the same chord progression
as burning down the house.
So maybe you're right that David Byrne was at a party
somewhere and he heard it and he's like, what is this?
And somebody's like, oh dude,
it's the new Grateful Dead record.
It's off Shakedown Street.
And he was just like, oh, weird.
And then he started thinking, he's like,
fire on the mountain, that's kind of rural.
Maybe we should speed it up a little bit
and make it something about burning down the house.
It's not a mountain on fire, it's a house on fire.
And then that's how Burn Down the House was written.
- I'm more interested in suburban and exurban landscapes.
- Yeah, when I picture fire on the mountain,
it's just out in the middle of nowhere.
I'm interested in how the modern human condition interacts
with the forces of nature around it.
Fire on the mountain's a very abstract image to me.
It doesn't speak to me.
Burning down the house. - It's almost primordial.
(laughing)
- That's not gonna fly with the Heads fans.
♪ Burning down, dun dun, dun dun ♪
You know, I thought about it because
the Vampire Weekend song, Sunflower,
has that same classic mixolydian chord progression.
♪ Ba-na-na, da-na-na ♪
- What are the chords on that?
- For the verse is just down a whole step, E flat to D flat.
♪ Dun dun, da-na-na, da-na-na ♪
♪ Da-na-na, da-na-na ♪
I remember thinking, and you know,
the version we did live a lot on the Father of the Bride tour
was basically our kind of like Black Sabbath version
'cause it seemed too easy to go into
just a full-on Dead Jam.
We could've gotten a full fire on the mountain vibe.
- Sure. - But we were like,
eh, let's try to do something a little more unexpected.
So we did this hard rock.
♪ Down, down, down, down, down ♪
- Yeah, it gets heavy.
- But there's times I was kind of jamming on it.
I was like, oh, one day we could do
a full Talking Heads version.
It like kind of, ♪ Da-na-na, da-na-na ♪
♪ Da-na-na, da-na-na ♪
♪ La-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ Bam, bam, bam, ba-bam, bam ♪
♪ Bam, ba-ka-ba-ka, ba-ba-ba-ba ♪
You know, you could go full Stop Making Sense vibe.
Just do like the funk version.
♪ Ding, ding, ding, ba-ba-ba-ba-bam ♪
♪ Bam, whee, vroom ♪
You know, like, get some weird sense.
- You guys are playing that in E flat and D flat?
- Yes.
(laughing)
- But what difference does it make on guitar?
- I mean, for me it would,
but I'm not a very good guitar player.
A good guitar player wouldn't make any difference.
But I'm just used to like working on like the third,
the fifth, the seventh frets, like, you know.
And like doing everything up a half step
or down a half step from that would just,
I would mess up like crazy.
I would say Brian is a shredder.
- Well, yeah, and also obviously--
- It's just a funny key.
- Yeah, it is a funny key.
I think about that sometimes 'cause it's like,
I'm sure we got there just by trying to see like
what felt like the best for singing.
And it's like, why it could have gone up a half step,
down a half step, but I'm not like ripping solos or anything.
So I'm just playing like--
- You're working with pros, man.
Like, oh, solo in D flat?
No problem.
I'd be like, oh, dude, are you serious?
Can we just do this song in D?
- Although you might be surprised, Jake,
'cause I think like, that's the thing about guitar.
The shapes are the exact same.
- I get it.
It just, up above the seventh fret, I would just get,
I would lose the plot.
- Yeah, it's nice when some of your little boxes
and shapes line up with the frets
and the circles on the guitar.
I feel that way too.
I know what you mean.
I know what you mean.
- No, I'm not, yeah, I'm not like a burner,
like shredder the way Brian is
or the dudes that I play with are.
Like, if I'm gonna solo, it has to be in like E or G or D
or A, it has to be.
I can't solo in like G flat.
It's not gonna happen.
- Yeah, but it just in terms of playing chords,
I feel like the flats--
- Oh, sure, the chords, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- No, okay, I'm with you.
(laughing)
All right, well, should we get into the top five?
- Absolutely.
- It's time for the top five on iTunes.
- We gotta get Jake home, family man.
- There's a baby crying.
- There's a baby crying.
- There's a baby crying.
- There's a baby crying.
Daddy's on the internet radio.
I don't know what voice that was.
That was like a little Brandon Flowers or--
- More like killers.
- Yeah, there's a little killers meets a--
- Oh, wait, can I just give a shout out to the killers?
I have been loving the hot sauce.
I've used two of the bottles.
I'm down to the two hottest bottles that they gave us
'cause they gave us four. - Oh, damn.
- And I'm a little worried.
'Cause I gotta--
- Maybe you're, are you ready for it now?
- I gotta figure out the dosing.
(laughing)
Exactly.
But I tore through the first two bottles on eggs
and like pizza crust and whatever, just like loving it.
- Shout out to the killers and their hot sauce.
- Nick, it was hot, but it was flavorful.
And I'm worried about the last two becoming a little too hot
and not flavorful enough, but we'll see.
I'll report back.
- All right, be careful.
All right, so we're gonna burn through--
- 1986.
- 1986.
Why are we doing 1986?
- It's the year-- - Very obvious.
- That David Byrne attended a Grateful Dead show.
This is like maybe the most in the weeds,
quote, reason for doing a top five.
(laughing)
It's the year that David Byrne attended a dead show
at the University of California at Berkeley.
It was live broadcast on KPFA,
which I love, during a 14-hour dead-a-thon
as a fundraiser for the station.
- And please, if anybody can help us,
if you can find, not the audio of the show,
that's easily accessible on archive,
but the interview that Byrne and Bob Weir
seem to have done together.
Maybe anybody has access to the KFPA archives,
that'd be great to check out.
Okay, 1986, the number five song, "In Excess, What You Need."
- I still feel like I know very, very little about "In Excess."
- Yeah, I haven't gone deep on this band.
I mean-- - I know the "Need You Tonight,"
the really big one.
- Yeah, and there's that great ballad, too.
♪ Don't ask me ♪
♪ Hey, kickstart ♪
♪ Anybody's troubles in life ♪
♪ Don't you know it's not easy ♪
♪ When you gotta walk on the line ♪
♪ That's why ♪
♪ You need ♪
♪ Ooh, that's why ♪
♪ Because what you need, I think you want to need it ♪
- So, "In Excess," they're always kind of funky.
- I'm definitely hearing the Peter Gabriel connection.
- Yep.
- Some Robert Palmer.
Yeah, I'm not-- - Mm-hmm.
- It's interesting to think about,
what context did they emerge out of?
Were they coming out of broadly speaking punk?
Or were they just really into Huey Lewis?
- Or Prince.
- Oh, sure.
- Like '60s Motown.
- Definitely seem like an influence on the 1975.
At least the funky parts.
I mean, or maybe the 1975, just like--
- Sure.
- We're interested in '80s pop, period.
So this sounds like a big hit.
- Yeah, I mean, I think so.
Not a huge fan of this band, I gotta say, but.
- Okay, you know what?
We'll need to do a deep dive on "In Excess."
I'm really just not catching the vibe, kind of.
And they always seem cool.
There's a ballad that they had called "Never Tear Us Apart,"
which is incredible.
Very minimal.
- All right, we'll go deep.
Okay, let's move on to the number four song.
Gonna keep this moving.
♪ 'Cause there's a baby crying at home ♪
♪ And daddy's on the internet radio ♪
- You doing Bruce here?
- I'm doing some mix of Brandon Flowers and Bruce.
Oh yeah, now I'll go full Bruce.
♪ 'Cause there's a baby crying at home ♪
♪ And daddy's on the internet radio ♪
♪ Gotta wrap up the top five ♪
♪ And mama's growing a little impatient ♪
♪ Mama's just a little impatient ♪
♪ They did 45 minutes on Oasis ♪
- That's really good.
♪ And mama's just a little impatient ♪
♪ And did a 45 minutes on Oasis ♪
♪ He's on the internet radio ♪
- Speaking of Heartland Rock,
the number four song this week in 1986,
Jake's Fave, John Mellencamp.
- Oh, hell yeah.
- Do I know this song?
Do you know this song?
R-O-C-K in the USA, "A Salute to '60s Rock."
- Oh, I know this.
Terrible.
♪ R-O-C-K in the USA ♪
Wait, is the parentheses,
it says "A Salute to '60s Rock?"
- Yes.
- That rules.
I wanna have a Mountain Bruce song
where the parentheses is "A Salute to '60s Rock."
(laughing)
♪ Come from the cities ♪
♪ And they come from the smaller towns ♪
- Oh, small towns?
Cool, okay.
♪ Beat up cars with guitars ♪
♪ And drummers go ♪
♪ Crack, boom, bam ♪
♪ R-O-C-K in the USA ♪
♪ R-O-C-K in the USA ♪
♪ R-O-C-K in the USA ♪
♪ Rockin' in the USA ♪
- Rockin' in the USA.
♪ Say goodbye to the family ♪
♪ Say goodbye to the friends ♪
- Also, like, you know,
"Born in the USA" was such a huge album
that in 1986, it still must've loomed so large
that just like, this like gritty, intense song
about like, going to Vietnam, born in the USA,
and then just like, this song comes out in its wake.
- Very weak.
I mean, dude, even like, Brian Adams' song, "Summer of '69,"
which I think was probably like '84,
like, that's a nostalgic sort of like,
throwback to like, '60s rock
and like, being a kid and playing in a band.
That song is like, a beautiful John Lennon ballad
compared to this song.
- I mean, look, even Mellencamp has much better songs,
Jack and Diane.
- Absolutely.
Have you noticed on the internet,
the "Suckin' on a Chili Dog" meme?
- More meme, yeah.
I've seen more and more "Suckin' on a Chili Dog" memes,
and I've also seen, well, you were telling us
that you've been getting tagged
in all sorts of Forklift certification memes
since the last episode.
- Yeah.
Also, that weird "Grateful Dead Olive Garden" T-shirt.
- That one's been around for a minute.
- Which is truly like a time crisis algorithm.
The Olive Garden, "Grateful Dead"
"Steal Your Face" logo, like, mashed together.
It's like, I should like it, but I don't.
- It's like a bridge too far.
- It's just too on the nose.
It's too weird. - I'd almost rather
like a "Steal Your Face" Forklift certification combo.
That'd be better.
But it is--
- Somehow that will materialize next week,
I guarantee you. - Definitely.
And also, Seinfeld looked up the Google Trends
for Forklift certification memes.
It seems like they really peaked within the past year.
So I wonder if it has something to do with COVID.
Obviously, they've existed for a while,
but it does feel like Forklift certification memes
are kind of stronger than ever.
- Yeah, I think it's a TikTok thing.
I think TikTok had some sort of Forklift certified moment.
I'm trying to like track down,
but it's a little hard to put your finger on.
- F-O-R-K-L-I-F-T.
All right, that doesn't roll off the tongue.
I just wanted to see if there was like
a real simple Forklift song.
♪ Forklift meme in the USA ♪
- Yeah, it doesn't roll off the tongue.
- All right, well, let's work on it
because honestly, Jake,
we should get a Mountain Brews Forklift song.
That would probably actually be your TikTok breakthrough.
- Fully agree.
- "Night Shift" by Bob Marley--
- And I need-- - Is the number one song
on TikTok, specifically the part
where he talks about a forklift.
- I desperately need that TikTok breakthrough.
I'm a 44-year-old man, I need that.
- There was a few people
who did the Mountain Brews challenge on TikTok,
I seem to recall from our thread.
- Yeah, there were a few people
that like were at Trailheads, like cracking brews.
Love to see it.
Delighted me.
- Okay, this is a tight song.
"The Bangles" Manic Monday, written by Prince.
- I didn't know it was written by Prince, interesting.
- Prince wrote major, major hits for other artists.
- Yeah, he could write those like kinda,
like kinda twee pop songs if he wanted to.
- '86 is a weird year, though.
- Also, like, there's so far,
there is a lot of like throwback vibes.
♪ Tina by a crystal blue Italian stream ♪
- Actually, when you think about it,
it's the exact same melody.
♪ Forgive me when I wrote this ♪
♪ I've seen you in a falling pat ♪
- Oh, totally.
♪ These are the days ♪
♪ When you wish your bed was already made ♪
♪ It's just another manic Monday ♪
♪ Wish you had a Sunday ♪
- Is this the same?
- Do you think that there's--
- Yeah.
- Oh, going.
- When did Prince drop his '60s album
with "Raspberry Beret" and the kinda like,
what year did that come out?
Is that around the world in a day?
- I think before this.
- I think it's '84, '82, hold on.
Oh, '85.
- Okay, so he was in his '60s zone, mentally.
- I was just wondering if--
- '60s bubblegum.
- Yeah.
- The beginning of a second term president,
like a year into it.
Is that just in general,
just sort of like a forgettable year?
- Wait, what?
- Is that just a weird off year for everybody?
- That's a good question.
- Is that just a year or two in?
- I don't know if, no.
- It's not exciting.
- I don't think president, you say president.
- Right, we're a year or two in, like Reagan's--
- This is like the middle of Reagan's second term.
- Yeah.
- Is that just like a boring time or a--
- I don't think if Walter Mondale
had won the '84 presidential election
that music would have been different, I'm sorry.
This still would have come out.
- I mean, I feel like maybe the Adam Curtis take
would be like, you know, deep into Reagan's second term,
the counterculture was dead as a doornail,
and there's nothing to do but pick over the carcass
of old culture.
The future had been canceled.
There's nothing to believe in.
- People have been saying that for 40 years.
There was a tweet I sent to my brother today.
It's from this guy, Dean Kisic, he's an art critic.
- Dude.
- He wrote--
- I read an essay by that guy
and actually bookmarked something to bring to TC.
Wow. - Oh, wow.
- Great minds.
- Let me read this real fast.
- What was it?
- Maybe we have him on the show.
- Yeah.
- He wrote today a tweet,
we're trapped in the world Frederick Jameson foretold,
the world in which stylistic innovation
is no longer possible.
All that is left is to imitate dead styles,
Oasis, to speak through the masks
and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum.
- Heavy.
- I mean, this is sort of like, you know--
- Well, it's like some end of history.
- Like this is classic TC.
Yeah, and like there was crazy cultural innovation
in the 20th century and then at some point,
it starts eating itself and like--
- Right.
And it's no coincidence--
- Like the first--
- That that corresponds with the internet
casting this whole new way that people interact
with each other and perceive the past and information.
- Yes.
- That obviously is a huge part of it.
- Well, then my brother wrote back, he goes,
pessimistic, he discounts that a constantly changing world
imbues the same styles with different meanings
at different times.
Who is Dean Kisic?
Which I think is a great call on my brother's part.
It's sort of like--
- And I bet they might not actually be disagreeing
with each other in that sense.
- Right.
- This is the Dean Kisic quote.
It's funny, we don't really know who this dude is,
but I was just on some website and I clicked on an article
that he wrote and this part stood out to me
as being very TC.
There's just too much of everything.
There are too many different Oreos.
65 flavors in eight years is too many.
Too many hot chicken wing Oreos, waffle and syrup Oreos,
jelly donut Oreos, supreme Oreos.
There's too much content that appears different
but is the same.
Too many identities are available to us.
Too many manias, too many hysterias.
Examine nearly any aspect of society
and you can see it's gone too far.
The reason so many flavors of Oreos are invented,
according to the cookie's brand director,
is that this overabundance of choice
reminds us of and drives us back to the original.
It reminds us of how much we like the old Oreo,
the platonic ideal of the Oreos of childhood.
The Proustian Oreo with a glass of cold milk.
When there's too much of everything, however,
at some point the original is lost.
The memory is lost and all that remains
are faded, flat, hollowed out derivatives.
So pretty complimentary, I think.
- Why didn't you send that to the thread?
- I think I just forgot.
- Get this guy on the show.
- It's very Adam Curtis, too.
- It intersects a lot, too, with Mark Fisher,
the writer, the K-punk dude a lot of people like digging.
And I think everybody, even if people
have a different point of view, Dave or Dean Kisic,
Mark Fisher, the Oreos creative brand director,
it's like people might have a different interpretation,
but there definitely seems to be a unanimous feeling
that we're in some sort of exhausted, weird moment.
And that has something to do with being
at the end of history, the internet,
too much of everything, the past being picked over infinitely.
Like it's all pointing towards, whatever your take is,
there's something, a feeling coming together.
- Yeah, it's funny with like, if you're talking
about music, like the rock and roll form
is like, what, 70 years old?
All of the major ideas were explored in the first 20 years,
from the mid-50s to like, let's say 25 years,
mid-50s to like the early 80s.
And then since then, the last 40--
- That roughly covers it.
And then hip hop-- - Roughly 40 something,
of course, I'm talking about rock, though, but yes.
- No, and then-- - But hip hop's already--
- And then hip hop had its 30 years.
If you want to be generous with both, you could say 35,
and then hip hop's had its 35 years, and we'll see.
But I think one thing that a lot of these cultural critics
don't really take into account when they talk about
the exhausted art forms of the past
and how they're picked over infinitely,
is that yes, it's very difficult to make interesting music
in the rock form in the modern day,
but there are these kind of meta art forms,
in a Borghesean fashion, I'm not ashamed to say,
such as internet radio,
that radically recontextualizes the past.
And maybe people who are feeling a little bit bummed out
about where music's at, they should dig a little deeper
into the exciting world of internet radio,
because then you get people will be talking
about the Grateful Dead and talking heads,
and use that as a jumping off point
to talk, no, actually, I don't,
do we actually use that as a jumping off point
to talk about something else?
I'm done with this bit, actually.
But there's a little something to it.
- I just kept thinking of my old coworker
crushing that Chipotle burrito going,
it's rocks played out, dog.
- Well, the truth is--
- And that was 10 years ago.
- That was 10 years ago, but think about how often
we reference that great story that you told us,
because-- - Great story.
- In that moment, your coworker crushing the burrito
and saying rocks played out,
he thought that he was bringing this pessimistic energy
and just being like, damn, man, it's sad, but it's over.
Little did he know that by saying that,
he was opening up a whole new universe of art.
He was the artist in that moment.
What your coworker did by crushing that burrito
and saying rocks played out, dog,
in a strange way is the equivalent
of Chuck Berry picking up a guitar for the first time.
It opened up a whole new universe of possibilities
of aesthetic fault lines, I don't know.
- Yeah, if you're working with the same chord progressions,
I just, I don't, I remember in the '90s,
it was like rocks dead, like electronic is the future,
but it's still the same chord progressions,
so it's sort of like, it was window dressing
at the end of the day, so it's sort of like--
- And then also, you know, you could get in
some deep, crazy fusion, but it's like,
how different do you really want the chord progressions
to be?
- You don't, you don't want them to be that different.
The one thing I've never really heard anyone say
is that however you, like you said,
it's window dressing for an emotion.
No one's ever like, fiction's played out, dog.
- People, I think people say that sometimes.
- Yeah, I do think people have said, yeah,
and then they move here and there,
but no one's giving up on the entire idea
of fictionalized writing and imagination.
Like, they're just saying this is a vehicle
for telling a story or an emotion,
and maybe some of the limits of rock allow for that.
I mean, I do think when we talk about hip hop
or rap specifically, it's because it's so born out
of like, using technology, it allows itself
to like, kind of constantly morph.
You know, it's like, oh, we can sample,
or oh, we have a midi, like it's born out of an ability
to kind of keep redefining itself,
but rock would just like, hey, yeah,
we can like, tell a story or an emotion.
That should be kind of evergreen if done well, like writing.
And I do think, yeah, you hear people go,
I'm not reading, I'm reading more nonfiction now.
But no one literally is like,
people should stop making up stories.
- I think people should stop making up stories.
(laughing)
There's enough already.
- Okay, well, if you, yes, if you take that stance, then--
- We're really getting deep now,
but also, one thing for sure is that,
and I've seen people make this point before.
I'm not taking issue with any one quote in particular,
but when people get really intense or dismissive
about the fact that art forms are not innovating
at the rate that they once did,
they are also betraying their own allegiance in a meta way
to a 20th century model of how art is supposed to progress.
You know what I mean?
So it's like-- - Yes, I do.
- So the dude who's crushing the burrito,
who, yeah, I recently was just referring to him
as being a type of visionary hero of sorts,
but I'm gonna take the alternate view now.
When he says rock's played out,
he's being a very much a 20th century kinda hater
who expects things to click along at a certain rate.
He expects a new guitar tone ASAP.
He expects some new vibe, you know?
And the question that I would ask,
why is it so odious to be played out, dog?
Which a lot of people don't know.
That's what Jake said back to him.
As the dude crushed the burrito,
we've never, for the first time ever,
we're revealing the rest of the conversation.
Jake turned to him. (laughs)
The guy said, "Rock's played out, dog."
And Jake turned to him and said,
"Sir, I must ask, what is so odious about being played out?"
I said to him, I said, "Sir, we're both visual artists.
"We're both painters.
"Talk about played out, sir.
"There's been millenia, literally millennia of painting."
- It's a little bit Jim Morrison.
- Oh, very much.
Shall I lay down my paintbrushes?
'Cause what you described as so odious,
this feeling of being played out,
for me, when I feel played out, I feel powerful.
I feel like a bear.
I feel like late period Jim Morrison,
comfortable in my own skin.
I mean, yeah, you're right about people
becoming beholden to the 20th century model
because the decades after World War II
were a unique time in history
where there were vastly new material conditions
in which new art could arise out of,
which we're still basically in.
In the '50s and '60s after World War II,
there was this massively affluent consumer society
of cars and parking lots and supermarkets and radio and TV.
- Baseball diamonds. - And that's when rock and roll started.
Baseball diamonds.
And we're still kind of in that world.
We have the internet now,
but we're still in that world of shopping centers
and cars and TV and mass media,
which was the groundwork that rock and roll came out of.
So I think unless there's absolute,
it has to be fully cataclysmic societal destruction
and then rebirth to actually get truly new forms of art.
That's what I think.
I don't wanna live through that.
So I'm fine with just people recapitulating
and re-digesting rock and roll from 50 years ago.
- I think you might be talking about the singularity.
- Maybe I am.
- Like the singularity happens
and then all sorts of new genres.
- I think we have to live
in a completely different material world
for truly new forms to come out of.
It's not gonna just happen.
- Do you want a new form?
- Well, no, that's what I'm saying.
The cost of a new form is a full cataclysmic destruction
of society and then a rebuilding.
I don't want that.
- You don't, okay.
- I don't care about new forms of art enough.
- This is gonna be the plot of our Avengers movie
is that an evil warlord who is so distraught
that rock is played out recognizes
that the only way for a new vibe in rock to happen
will be a cataclysmic destruction of society.
So he goes and gets all the Thanos rings
and the only person who can stop him is Jake.
Jake assembles the rest of the crisis crew
to be like, it's not worth it, man.
You can just go listen to old Grateful Dead shows.
Who gives a (beep)
Dude, it's not worth it.
- It's not worth the human misery to create new art forms.
It's just like, let's just start Grateful Dead cover bands.
- It's a cataclysmic destruction of society.
- Well, think about the world pre-World War II
and post-World War II.
Pre-World War II is like the depression.
It's like, after World War II,
it's like gleaming supermarkets and like mad men.
I mean, at least I wasn't alive then, obviously,
but that's my like narrativized vision
of those different eras. - No, and as people
have pointed out, the post-war prosperity
of the United States was something never before seen
in human society and perhaps will never be seen again.
Even when people describe the rise of China and all that,
the specific weird elements that went into the end
of the war, the raw materials that were found
in this country, the mix of immigrants and stuff,
just like the US pulled ahead in such a crazy way
in that era that it's possible that no country
on earth will ever quite have that type
of like unbelievable journey.
- Stew.
- Stew ever again.
- Yeah.
The way I see it is that Seinfeld's searching the internet
and he sort of writes the text thread and says,
guys, I found a new chord.
I think that we can change music.
And he's sort of, you know, he's (beep) around
and he sort of grows in power.
And that's when Jake has to come in and say,
like, you can't do it.
That's the Thanos thing.
And we could change music, but it would ultimately be--
- I haven't seen it, but I think you might've, Nick,
maybe with your son, this is the plot
of "Trolls 2" world tour, correct?
(laughing)
- It's so deeply embedded.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that I sort of on my own came up
with the plot of "Trolls 2."
- But this is "Trolls 2" for adults.
- But I think ultimately everyone has to get together.
There's no one in there that has Jake's point of view,
which I really like, which is you could,
which is that sort of eventually you can use that power,
but at what cost?
- Yeah.
And the last thing I'll say that's always worth
keeping in mind is as much as the Grateful Dead
represent the spirit of the '60s,
and we can look through their discography
and see all these innovative things they did,
and that we can say that album sounds like '68,
that (beep) sounds like '78, '86, whatever.
At the end of the day, the young Jerry Garcia,
Robert Hunter, these people in Northern California,
they were born during World War II.
They grew up in the '50s prosperity era,
and part of the culture that they were in,
the folk music revival, the pre-hippie whatever,
was a little bit about looking around at modern America
with all the bells and whistles and being like,
"I don't know about all this."
It was a little bit about digging into the past.
Like in the Jerry Garcia, some time in the early days,
took a lot of acid, he had this real (beep) up experience
where he was in Northern California,
and he really had this deep feeling of horror
when he realized that he was on Native American land,
and he thought about all the bloodshed that had happened,
something that I'm sure is very easy to ignore
growing up in '50s America.
And he had this weird feeling of the darkness
that modern America was built on.
So it's worth considering that this dude,
they were taking acid not to build the future
in the sense of technological progress,
they're exploring their minds,
and then spending hours and hours every day
learning how to shred bluegrass banjo music.
You know what I mean?
So it's like the idea that you can't dig deeply
into the past as a way of understanding life
and centering yourself, and that you need to be committed
to what's fresh and new and not played out,
it's also a bit of a misunderstanding, I think.
Like, and I guess bluegrass probably seemed kind of cool
in their circles, but just again,
visualize this guy from Northern California
spending hours and hours every day
just learning the technical aspects
of this old music, bluegrass,
literally digging into the past
in the prime period of exciting new music.
There's some kind of lesson there.
- Oh, absolutely, yeah, fully agree.
I mean, if you're obsessed with the future,
you'll be a futurist.
- Yeah. - And you know,
that was like a movement of painters in Italy in the '20s,
and you see that stuff, it's very dated, not alive.
It's like the Jetsons or something.
It's just like, okay, yeah, the future, cool.
- The Italian futurists did not produce the Europe '72.
- No, they did not.
- And they're from Europe, so that's just sad.
(laughing)
They're actually Europeans.
All right, hold on, we gotta get down to--
- Where are we on this top five?
- Okay, okay. - I was just writing that.
- The number two song. - We got two more.
- All right, check this out.
The number two song, "Prince and the Revolution," "Kiss."
Wow, Prince is just killing it.
Real in--
♪ Just another manic Monday ♪
♪ Don't have to be ♪
- I mean, this is just an all-time classic.
Excellent song.
Rest in peace, Prince.
This is probably far and away the best song on the top five.
And the number one song,
Falco, "Rock Me Amadeus."
The only German language song
to ever top the Billboard Hot 100.
♪ Rock me, rock me, rock me ♪
♪ Amadeus do it, do it, do it, do it ♪
- What is, I don't know if I know this.
- I guess it was off the back of the movie "Amadeus,"
and like in the video, he's dressed up like Mozart.
Falco, the artist, said the inspiration behind the song was,
"If Mozart were alive today,
"he wouldn't be making classical music.
"He'd be an international pop star.
"And I felt it was time to write a song about him."
- Oh, okay.
Cool.
Why was this a hit?
This is terrible.
- Basically a German rap song.
- This is rough.
- This is truly rough stuff.
- Well, you know, speaking of German bands,
Ezra, I think I texted you a few weeks ago
or a month ago or something about--
- About the podcast?
- About the podcast about the Scorpions,
"Wind of Change" song, which is a whole can of worms.
Sorry, I'm having trouble focusing 'cause this music.
Damn.
- I think maybe it's like the video
probably got a lot of MTV play.
It was probably funny.
People were, the movie "Amadeus,"
which I recall being a good movie,
like it was a big movie around then.
What year did--
- I watched it during the pandemic.
It's good.
'84, I think.
- Solid film. - Yes, '84.
- Okay, yes, and this is '86.
- I almost feel like,
is there like a German producer connection
with Milli Vanilli?
- Yeah, they were German.
- Oh, they were, okay.
Something about that guy's flow
was reminding me of Milli Vanilli,
who had much better songs, by the way.
- Oh, absolutely.
The English translation of "Amadeus,"
the rap part, it's pretty interesting.
He's really like telling the full story,
like painting a picture.
- Oh, he's talking about the real Mozart?
- Yeah, and there's a whole story about it,
about his debts, and it's very biographical.
- Okay, so I can understand why in Germany
that'd be very fascinating.
So this is almost like the original "Hamilton,"
rapping about an 18th century figure.
- Pretty much.
- Whoa, straight up, "Rock Me Amadeus"
is the original "Hamilton."
You heard it here first.
All right, daddy's been on the internet radio way too long.
Baby crying at home.
♪ Baby crying at home ♪
- Or almost like a suicide song.
♪ Daddy's on the internet radio ♪
♪ Baby keeps crying at home ♪
♪ Daddy's on the internet radio ♪
- All right.
♪ Oh, I gotta get home ♪
- That's enough internet radio for today.
We'll see you in two weeks. - For daddy.
- That's enough internet radio for daddy.
See you in two weeks.
Peace.
- "Time Crisis" with Ezra Koenig.
(farting)
View on TCU Wiki | Download Episode | Download CSV | Download Transcript