Episode 163: With Tom Scharpling and Despot
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again. On this, our final episode of 2021, we're joined by two illustrious
guests. We've got Deathspot coming in to talk about his new HBO show, Chillin' Island. We'll
also be joined by broadcasting legend, Tom Sharpling. We'll be discussing The Beatles,
Humble Pie, and so much more. This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Ezra Koenig.
Time Crisis, back again. What's up, everybody? Hello?
Jake.
Jake's been having some technical difficulties. Jake, are you there?
I'm here. I'm here. I'm just, it took me a second to gather my wits, but now I have full
control of my wits.
Wits gathered.
Yeah. Let's do the final show of the year.
This is the final show of 2021. I'm no longer in an undisclosed location across the ocean.
I'm in New Jersey. I think this is the first time I've ever recorded from New Jersey, so
this is a milestone for me. I'm in my parents' basement where I, you know, I definitely made
some art back in the day, in my younger years.
Were you just like, "Hey, mom and dad, I got to go do my internet radio show down in the
basement."
That's right.
I'm unavailable for the next two and a half to three.
Don't come to the basement. I said, "Sorry, nobody can do the laundry." I'm literally using
the dryer as my desk. This was the quietest place in the house. And I'm glad that I'm
New Jersey because later in the show, one of our guests is a New Jersey legend, Tom
Sharpling. And I got some Jersey specific questions to talk about with him.
Oh, great.
I'll wait till he's on to get into it. But I recently did a New Jersey hotdog tour with
some of my Jersey boys. And I can't wait to share that with you guys. But before that,
we're also going to have a friend of the show, Despot, on to talk about his new TV show,
Chilling Island. So this is kind of a star-studded ep.
Well, I just want to warn the listeners that we are going to be doing some more Beatles
talk.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like it was divisive.
Yeah. So Seinfeld, you said we had a fan who was not feeling the Beatles ep?
This was something tweeted at us. Somebody named Galzo, who's based in Israel, tweeted
the latest Time Crisis episode, specifically the whole Beatles segment, was such a big
L for the show, especially after so many consecutive killer episodes. Thank you, Galzo.
The Beatles are boring and don't belong in the #TCU. He continues, the whole episode
was like hearing two of your friends talk about Game of Thrones when you haven't seen
it. I thought the top five was going to save me, but...
Because unfortunately for the last top five, we did a Beatles top five. Okay, well, before
we even analyze that Twitter storm, I guess I'll say I could imagine if you tune into
an episode of Time Crisis and you didn't like what we were talking about, I can totally
imagine you're just holding out for that sweet top five because you're thinking no matter
what dumb shit these guys are talking about, by the time we get to the top five, I'm probably
going to hear some solo Robin Gibb material. I'm probably going to hear a new BTS song,
things of that nature. It's going to be a lot of different types of music. I'm going
to hear some high level commentary. I'm going to have some laughs, you know, maybe a few
things to actually think about. But when we got to it, it was more of the same. So I think
that is a good lesson for us.
So guess what?
Well, the lesson is not to switch it up more. The lesson is just to offer a warning that
there will be a lot of Beatles on this episode, although not even that much. But yeah, I find
it very interesting that this person thought that we had a series of W's in the previous
episodes, but that the Beatles was what threw them off. And you know what? It did get me
thinking. It is interesting and I don't knock this person, but the Beatles are random in
a sense. I think we've had this discussion, Jake, before. Like you would think for a show
where we talk about the Grateful Dead so much, we already would have kind of alienated everybody
who doesn't have like a taste for going deep on bands from the 60s. You know what I mean?
Like you would have thought anybody who's just like, Jesus Christ, these guys won't
shut up about old hippie music. You really thought that that person would have gotten
off the train about 400 episodes ago. But it is funny that the Beatles, I mean, the
Dead are divisive in their own way, but the Beatles, even though they're the biggest,
most influential band of all time, they naturally have their enemies and their haters. And I
think we talked about this, Jake, that growing up on classic rock radio, the Beatles were
never actually an easy fit. Do you think that's true? Like I didn't hear a ton of them on
Q104.3, my local station.
Yeah, I was listening to WPLR out of New Haven a lot growing up. I don't remember the Beatles
being on there at all.
Not at all.
Did they ever like come together or here comes the sun?
Occasionally.
They're definitely not classic rock in the way that the Stones are classic rock or even
like the 70s kinks songs or, you know.
And I think part of the issue is just that the Beatles did not exist in the 70s.
Exactly.
They were done in 69. And, you know, when I think of what's like my classic rock radio,
my number one classic rock radio song I heard all the time and I loved was Boston More Than
a Feeling, an archetypal 70s rock record. And if they were going to play some 60s stuff,
it tended to be from bands who were like blossomed into the 70s, like a Led Zeppelin or something.
Like I probably heard Black Dog more than I ever heard a Beatles song.
Oh, absolutely.
It's not that there aren't Beatles songs that could fit, like a come together makes total
sense. But I do think there's something about the Beatles. It's like they're too specific.
They're huge, but they're also almost too specific just to casually throw in. And, you
know, they stand apart, I guess is what I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic
rock radio where they just be banging out the Beatles, but the Beatles are a bridge
act. You'd almost be more likely to hear them on like an oldies station, which I'm sure
don't exist anymore. But growing up in the New York area, there was WCBS with cousin
Brucie that actually played oldies, like stuff from the 50s and early 60s. So, you know,
there they might throw in a I Want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves You. I don't think they
have any stations like that anymore.
I woke up this morning and the sun was gone. Turned on some music to start my day. And
I lost myself in the Beatles song. I closed my eyes and I slipped away.
I woke up this morning and the sun was gone. Turned on some music to start my day. And
I lost myself in the Beatles song. I closed my eyes and I slipped away.
I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic rock radio where they just be banging
on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic rock radio where they just
be banging on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic rock radio
where they just be banging on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic
rock radio where they just be banging on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe somebody else listen
to classic rock radio where they just be banging on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe somebody else
listen to classic rock radio where they just be banging on the keys. I'm saying. Maybe
somebody else listen to classic rock radio where they just be banging on the keys. I'm
saying. Maybe somebody else listen to classic rock radio where they just be banging on
a show about the Beatles is like listening to your friends talk about Game of Thrones
when you haven't watched it. That struck me as a bit strange because yes, if you haven't
watched the show Game of Thrones, and people are talking about, you know, the plot of Game
of Thrones, you might be like, "What? Who's Jon Snow? What are you guys even talking about?"
But with the Beatles, even if you don't like the Beatles, you're more or less aware of
the plot. Yeah. Four guys from Liverpool started a band in the early '60s. They are right there
for the major social and musical changes of the '60s, and they break up. One of them is
John Lennon, murdered in cold blood in 1980. Other one's Paul McCartney. He had wings and
still out there. Ringo was the drummer. George Harris. I mean, you know, it's like everybody
knows that. So you're not totally in the dark. I've never heard that music before.
Not familiar. Heard of them. Heard of them. Never actually checked them out.
I like how he said that the Beatles aren't part of the TCU, which, I mean, essentially
is all we've been talking about. Whenever we talk about the Beatles, it's in yesterday,
and the idea that they don't actually exist.
Maybe he has a point. We have talked about the film yesterday, probably more than we've
talked about the Beatles. And I've never seen Yesterday. Yesterday's the kind of movie where
all you know is the plot. It's the opposite of Game of Thrones. You've never seen Yesterday,
and you're like, "That's the movie where the Beatles didn't exist, and the guy remembers
this." Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen it in my mind's eye.
I told you guys that it was on TV. I was like, because I still have linear cable. I was flipping
around and it was on.
Wait, what was on? Oh, Yesterday.
Yesterday. Yeah.
I don't know why that was so hard for me to understand. I was thinking like, the Beatles?
Like, it was Get Back On TV?
I forgot it was Danny Boyle who directed it, who's a great director. The marketing for
that film made it seem a little bit like, I think, pokey than it really is or something.
But I think the movie did well.
Yeah.
It's a hit and it's become a cultural touchstone. I think I said this on the show before, but
basically the great metaphorical film of the not so recent past was Inception. Suddenly
everything was, "Oh, that's many Inception layers deep." It was a way to understand culture.
And then Yesterday took over, and now Yesterday is a useful thought experiment for talking
about culture. What if? What if the Beatles didn't exist? What if Guided by Voices didn't
exist?
GPV. Let's make that movie.
Wait, because you were talking about going into pitch the Robert Pollard biopic. Just
imagine that Jake scores a high level meeting with Lionsgate. Jake's sitting down with all
the heads of Lionsgate and they're like, "All right, Jake, we like your work, man. There's
always something cool about a visual artist making the transition to a director. What
do you got for us?" And you're like-
Look at Julian Schnabel. Yeah.
Yeah. You could be the next Julian Schnabel. All right, guys, here's what I got. Bob Pollard
biopic. It's like, "Who the fuck is that?" And they're like, "Get out of here." And you're
like, walking toward the door. "All right, I have one more idea." "All right, what is
it?" "Yesterday for Guided by Voices."
(laughs)
They're just like, "Wait, what?" "All right, you didn't like the Pollard biopic. I get it.
It seemed kind of niche, but it's yesterday for Guided by Voices."
Think about all of those issues of Magnet Magazine from the '90s. They'd have to put
a different band on the cover.
I actually thought you were going to pitch a sort of the more like Kaufman, Borgesian
version where he goes in to pitch this. They're very excited that Jake's going to make this
transition to directing. And he says, "I want to pitch this Bob Pollard biopic." And they're
like, "Who's that?" And you're like, "Well, I understand he's maybe not as popular as
the Beatles, but he's in this band Guided by Voices. I think it's really interesting."
They're like, "No, who's that?"
Oh, that's good.
And they look it up online.
And then the assistant has a big iPad and they look it up. And they're like, "I just
Googled Bob Pollard." And there's a lawyer. There's a gym teacher in Ohio named Bob Pollard.
There's a dentist in La Cunada, but no. And you're like, "Look up Guided by Voices." And
they're just like, "It doesn't exist."
And then Jake finds out.
(laughs)
Here's my pitch that the Guided by Voices movie, because let's say you do find a GBV
head who works for New Line Cinema or Disney Plus. Jake's at Disney Plus and this guy's
like, "Yeah, you know, Jake, I know people think with us, it's all about Mandalorian
and the Disney IP and Pixar and that stuff. But actually a lot of people are sleeping
on some of the really interesting stuff we're doing outside of our best known content. Actually,
I love Guided by Voices and I'd love an original idea." And you say, "Okay, how about yesterday
for Guided by Voices?" And they're like, "That's a great idea, but it just seemed too similar
to yesterday." But here's my pitch for how it's different. First of all, the movie's
called Game of Pricks.
Great.
And in it, there's like 20 dudes all over America who remember Guided by Voices. And
some of them are pricks. There's like a cool Jake type guy. He's like our way in. And suddenly
all these dudes, they kind of realize what happened. And because it's so easy to like
search Twitter, they kind of all know that each other knows. And then it's off to the
races who can remember the most Guided by Voices songs, who can get signed the fastest,
who can build a career out of it. And eventually it kind of devolves into like a courtroom
drama because you have 20 different dudes suing each other, saying that they wrote various
Guided by Voices. And so in that sense, it's bore hazy and has to do with copyright and
authorship. But anyway, Game of Pricks, 20 dudes remember Guided by Voices. Two of them
are friends. It's kind of like squid games where you look at like, what would somebody
do? What would somebody do for money? For a small amount of money, what would somebody
do? And you have, there's a husband and wife team in Portland. They both remember Guided
by Voices.
People just start murdering each other, not for the money, but for the street credit,
for writing, uh, you know, Kicker of Bells. I like the way this is going. So he starts
off, he starts off pitching like, honestly, the yesterday thing we're getting so much
of and he's like, Oh, okay, well what if it's squid games? But it's the only no Guided by
Voices. It's squid games meets yesterday meets Guided by Voices. The only thing I care about
is the Guided by Voices part. We can kind of, we can put that into any sort of framework.
There's 300 people globally who remember Guided by Voices. They all receive a mysterious invitation
and get picked up in a van. Suddenly they're on this weird Island and there's this masked
character who's making them compete against each other for who gets to start a new Guided
by Voices band. You're going to find out towards the end of the first season that the guy in
the mask is Bob Pollard.
Well, no, but they compete by answering trivia questions about the most arcane and obscure
GBV songs and trivia. I mean, if you get it wrong, you do die.
That would be very, very squid games. It's just like all these just like scraggly 40
something dudes roll up and everybody's like, uh, this is pretty sick. And like, there's
like cool Guided by Voices memorabilia all over. And then they, it's like, all right,
all right guys, first round trivia. Two guys walk up to the podium and somebody just like
track 13 on the same place the fly got smashed. And the guy's like, um, gets it wrong. And
it's like dramatic pause. And then just like my machine comes out of the ceiling. And he's
like, Whoa, no, we didn't realize. Oh man.
I asked the people last night, maybe, maybe, maybe you'd be free to the trees while they're
growing. And maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe you'll see. Maybe, baby, maybe, baby. Climb to the
top of the ladder. And maybe, baby, maybe, baby, you'll know. Stay with the clouds when
they scatter. And maybe, baby, maybe, baby, maybe, baby, maybe, baby, you will see.
I also like the idea of the Tom Berenger biopic where they, but it costs a fortune because
they have to de-age him like Irishman style. We need this scene of Bob during the no hitter
for Wright state university in 1978 when he's 21 or whatever. So, but Berenger has to play
Pollard. So then we have to de-age him. We can cast him rando. Yeah. Can I throw a pitch out
there? And it's, I'm going to warn you. It's like not even half baked. It's like 25% fake.
Okay. Love it. Okay. So this is a TV series version of this. It's a, it's a procedural
show called Law and Order GBV. And somehow, somehow Jake is a part of some sort of like
police style body where he has to go to a different songwriter team who believed that they
hold the rights to, uh, to recreate the GBV songs. Uh, and he does an investigation. He does
an autopsy and sort of like legitimizes or doesn't. But again, this is all I've got so far. Um,
I just really liked the title more than anything. I love the title. Law and Order GBV.
Maybe that actually stars Bob Pollard. Oh, so it's like Bob and Jake. Yeah. It takes place in Ohio.
I think we should definitely get Jake a meeting with Dick Wolf and just straight up say, look,
I don't have a lot here. When a hard boiled LA painter is sent to Ohio
and tagged up with a veteran local cop iced tea.
I actually think we could probably do a whole show. If we ever started like the TC family of
podcasts and we get into that like psycho where it's like, we literally record a different one
of our podcasts every day. And it's just like a random one is to be like yesterday's every week.
The guys get together and talk about if the movie yesterday was about a different band
and they pitch slight variations on it. And we just like start going through just like
started out with big names, cold play. You know, sometimes we have special guests on
this week. We've got Olivia Rodrigo coming on yesterday's to talk about, um, what would she do
if she woke up and my chemical romance never existed. We do that every Tuesday anyways. But
my point is that yesterday fits so well into the TC universe. It's almost a, uh, cornerstone.
And yet when you talk about the actual Beatles, it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea,
but anyway, more Beatles talk coming up soon. I just want to put one cap on this
idea. Just the most to really just like pull, really pull out for Hayes style is that this,
what you just described takes place in a world where the only movie to exist is yesterday.
Whoa. Do you see what it's like? So all of the references, everything we make is our only,
it's a, it's a universe where our only reference point for content is yesterday. So anything we
make is, well, what if this didn't exist? What if this didn't exist? So it's really sort of the
snake eating its tail. I like that. - You know, the way that people would say that,
you know, Western literature, you know, what are the roots of it? The Bible, the Iliad,
things like that. Those kind of shaped our understanding of how a story is told. And in
this universe, one of the foundational document is the movie yesterday. Even in school, when you're
like teaching a little kid, like, how do you write a story? You say, well, you start once upon a time
there was probably say some bullshit about a castle, a forest, you know, something like that.
Every school child, they would start a story by saying once upon a time, a guy woke up and
X didn't exist. That is their understanding of what it means to tell a story in the yesterday
universe. Every piece of media follows from yesterday. What if the Beatles were just a
yesterday tribute band? - What if you woke up and Arby's never existed?
- (laughs)
- You could take it outside the realm of cultural products. What if you woke up and they had never
invented steel? - Whoa.
- Just go Jared diving down it. - We get so specific too. Like,
just imagine you're just like a real, like real average Joe. You woke up, you're in the middle of
like the COVID-19 pandemic. It's December 21 and you see COVID's raging. You're like, damn,
deaths are up. Nothing's changed. And you turn on CNN and they're saying, you know, it's a real
shame. Nobody's been able to develop a vaccine. All our traditional vaccines for COVID don't work.
Nobody's been able to figure it out. Unfortunately, modern science was just not up to the task.
You're just a regular person. You vaguely are aware that they did make a vaccine in the world
you just woke up from. It's your job to try to recreate it with what limited data you have.
You're just like, I know it had something to do with mRNA. I believe there was aspect of the spike
protein. And you just have to like go down to the NIH and find a doctor and just really do your
best to try to explain what you remember about it. - And they're like, yeah, spike protein. Yep. Copy.
What about it? - Okay. Well, it's not a
traditional effect. It's mRNA. - Yeah.
- Maybe that's it. It's a short movie. They're just like, wait, and what do you do with it? Well,
okay. Just make an mRNA vaccine and just make sure it fits the spike protein.
That's what I'm just trying to tell you, man. I really think it could work.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Hand over hand, over hand, over fist.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Huff and puff, you ain't blowing down.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Hand over hand, over hand, over fist.
This little piggy got a house made of bricks. Huff and puff, you ain't blowing down.
Running on fumes, walking on coals. Pockets on road game, holes out of control.
Green means go, red means go. I'm colorblind, mother, I don't know.
Beat a beat in the block, I'm bleeding and squeezing the juice out.
Deezer screaming, let's stop. I'm fleeting the scene with the too loud.
Money talking, you showing off, then that money talk too loud.
Slap a gag order on the wall, then cut Benjamin's tongue out.
Them dead presidents run mad, won't be no more discussion.
Go so hard in the paint, I'm f***ing and busting.
In the bucket and run amok on you, b****** and b******.
Cuss up in public, my mama, they wanna f***. Not for nothing, you nothing.
Stopping slime, y'all a snot rocket. Got a lot of products stocked in the dockers.
That's hot pockets. Fresh out the car wash, still got a dirty trunk.
Out for that gold plaque, like some old dirty front.
This little piggy got a house made of brick. Hand over hand over hand over this.
This little piggy got a house made of brick. Puff and puff, you ain't blowing down.
Little piggy got a house made of brick. Hand over hand over hand over this.
This little piggy got a house made of brick. Puff and puff, you ain't blowing down.
All right, well, now we're gonna get a friend of the show,
Despot on because we got a lot of questions for him.
Got to talk about his brand new HBO show, Chilling Island.
But also the first thing I want to ask is just, does he like the Beatles?
Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
Are you there, Alec?
Yeah. Oh, my mic is off. Hold on.
Welcome back to the show, Alec. Is it true that you have COVID?
Yeah. I don't know if I wanted to talk about this. Is it weird? Are people gonna?
No, we don't have to. Do you not want to talk about it?
No, I want to talk about it. I think it's fine.
Will you think people will be mad that you have COVID?
It's like a scarlet letter, you know?
We got to de-stigmatize COVID. We got to do it.
You're right. I'm here to fight the good fight. Yeah, have COVID, I guess.
This is groundbreaking because we've talked so much about COVID
over the past couple of years, but I think this is the first time we had
a COVID positive person on the show.
A live COVID positive guest. You're watching...
So how are you feeling?
Please take me over live. I have like a slight sore throat and that's it.
And how many days have you known you've had it?
My exposure was on Saturday. It is now Wednesday.
Oh, so it's kind of...
I mean, it is now Sunday, of course.
Yeah, so you've had it over a week.
Over a week.
Do you know if you got Omicron or which variant?
I don't think they specify. They just tell you you have COVID.
So how do they have all these statistics where they're saying like,
"Oh, there's this many Omicron cases and stuff,"
when most people aren't even taking specific tests?
I mean, maybe the guy who gets the, you know, whoever collects all these specimens
at the end of the day, he's the guy who's like, "Okay, this one's..."
Also, isn't it Omicron? I don't know, man. How are you supposed to say it?
It's Omicron.
It's Omicron.
Omicron.
It is? Omi?
It's not Omni.
No, Omni. Not Omni, but Omni, I think.
It's Omni. Yeah, Omni. Omni?
That's funny. I was talking to some people about it and they were just like,
"Well, you know, it's a Greek letter. It's not that rare."
And I said, "Yeah, but how come you never hear about like a fraternity called like Omicron?"
Right.
And then I just looked up fraternities and like, "There are some. There are some Omicron."
Fraternities.
There's gotta be. They use all the letters.
Yeah, there's plenty.
You mostly hear like Alpha, Zeta, Kappa, Beta.
I just think for certain ones, they say the English version. So they might say O
or they might say I instead of whatever.
Right.
All right. So before we talk about Shillin Island,
I actually don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious. Do you like the Beatles?
I think I do like the Beatles. I think it might be corny to like the Beatles,
but I'll say that like when I was really young, I used to go through my dad's records and stuff.
And that's how I first heard like a lot of stuff that was not rap music,
because I didn't really care about anything that wasn't rap music.
And then, you know, there are some rap songs that have sampled the Beatles.
Not a lot, but there's some. Probably because it's very expensive to sample the Beatles.
But I remember like I put on the White album. That was like the first one I ever listened to.
And it looked cool. And I was like, this is cool. It's like weird music that's not rap.
I like it. And then I started to really like the White album when I was like, I don't know,
14. And I probably thought it was really cool that I liked it.
And I could tell people like I like the Beatles, man. They're from a long time ago.
I like the White album, too. That's that might be my favorite.
If I ask you, what are your favorite Beatles songs? Or do things come to mind?
It's a difficult question. Answer is sort of things come to mind,
but I don't know if I would believe my answer. Well, what came to mind? First thought, best
thought. Glass Onion. That's a good song. Yeah, that's a real White album. That is a good Rocky
Raccoon. I like that one. That's a good song, too. You really are a White album guy.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't know what's like a good Beatles song. Help.
Help is a good Beatles song. Yeah, the Beatles are cool. What's wrong with the Beatles?
I don't know. Most people like the Beatles. I mean, yeah,
they're like too big. So they just bring up strong feelings in people.
I think from my dad's like from digging through my dad's and stuff I like the most was the Beatles
and Steely Dan, which is also kind of born into life. But I liked I liked them. I do a lot. And
there was heavy Steely Dan sampling there. And they are sold to, you know, you know,
Steely Dan many times and Lord Tariq and Peter Gunn's. Right. Of course. And Peter Gunn's.
Was it Peter Gunn's or was it Lord Tariq? One of them was my very good friend's cousin.
Really? Yeah. So I felt a connection to Lord Tariq and Peter Gunn.
I first heard the Beatles as a sample on a rap song. So when I first heard it and I went back
to my parents record collection. Do you remember the goats? Not your typical American?
No. The goats?
Come together. The goats. Oh, really?
Yeah. The original name was Incognigro. Oh, I know that.
And then they changed their name to the goats. I didn't even know they became.
Wow. And they sampled come together.
And they sampled come together. I mean, this is like, I think, more Wild West.
Also, Organized Confusion sampled come together. I think come together. I think I sampled a bunch.
Very sampleable.
That's a great song. Very good song. Good alternate versions of it. I think I may have
said this on the program before, but two summers ago when Vampire Weekend was touring Europe and
we played Roskilde Festival in Denmark, Wu-Tang played after us. So we went to go watch them.
And there's a part of the set where they played this kind of like soul version of come together.
They just kind of let it cook and they just like hands in there. And then when it got to the chorus,
RZA was just like, come together. And they're like, all the hands were in there. And so it was
like, they were kind of just playing a song, but it was kind of like a cover of come together.
It got all the Danish people really going. There's on Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys album,
there's a Sgt. Pepper sample.
It's possible I've never listened to Paul's Boutique in its entirety.
Well, but you have listened to the White Album in its entirety.
Front to back hundreds of times.
The White Album is 30 songs.
It's two records.
Wait, is it more than 30? Wait, Seinfeld, let me get a number crunch. How many songs are on
the White Album? Now, let's get a number crunch. Brought to you by Seinfeld 2000.
We want to prices right? This is everybody want to guess?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 30. I'm going to stick with 30.
All right. 30 sounds like a lot. I'm going to go ahead.
Wait, you're probably right that it's around number.
Well, not necessarily.
I'm gonna go 24.
All right, I'm just going to cut you off. Ezra did get it. It is 30.
And that's a **** load because like many double albums.
Some of those are really like skits though, right? Some of them are fairly soft.
There are some really short songs like, "Why don't we do it in the road?"
Pretty good song.
That's a one minute song.
Yeah, I mean, White Album is...
Piggies.
Piggies is short, but it's a song. Just a great album front to back.
Are you thinking about Revolution 9?
Yeah, that's a short song.
Let's say not.
Someone said that too.
That one's kind of long.
Really? Revolution 9 is long? I feel like it's short, but maybe I'm wrong.
That was an interesting aspect of the book I just read,
You Never Give Me Your Money, that talks about a lot of like the
relationships and the tension within the Beatles starting at the end.
Is that Paul was the first Beatle to be doing kind of like avant-garde
sound collage experiments, like significantly before John.
And when John starts dating Yoko and he's getting more into like conceptual art and stuff,
he started getting more into that kind of like weirdo stuff.
And apparently, Paul had, as early as like '66, played John some like weird tape loops
he'd been doing. And John was a little bit like, "Yeah, that sucks. Good luck with that.
That's corny." And apparently, one day, Paul comes into the studio in the White Album era.
And now John is like kind of expanding his mind, getting into like some vibe-ier stuff.
And he's like, "Oh, check out this song I was just cooking up and it's Revolution 9."
And apparently, Paul was so indignant that he was like,
"F*** you." And Paul's the only one who didn't work on that song.
Those guys fought a lot, huh?
Yeah. And I guess...
They like famously talked s*** about it and they even made diss tracks, right?
Yeah. In the 70s. Yeah. John went hard on Paul with "How Do You Sleep."
Yeah. "How Do You Sleep" is a good song. I like that one.
And it's pretty wild that back then they... Because on the one hand, nowadays, people like
pop off so often. You got people saying all sorts of like crazy stuff on social media and things
like that. And you kind of think, "Well, yeah, back in the day, people at least had a little
more dignity and they wouldn't just like spout nonsense into the world." But then actually,
yeah, you go back and you realize all those guys, once the band broke up, they'd just constantly
be doing interviews and they'd just be like, "John, what do you think of Paul's album?"
And you'd be like, "Sucks. George's was better, but honestly, even that one's not that good."
That would happen. And then just even like years later, just like, "Ringo, you hear Paul's new
album?" And you'd just be like, "It's really a shame. He's not doing his best. He fell off."
Constantly. Every interview those guys would do, they'd invite them to comment on each other's
stuff. On "How Do You Sleep," he specifically says, "The only song you had was yesterday."
That's sick. No, and it's even deeper because he goes, "The only thing you done was yesterday.
And since you're gone, it's just another day." And "Another Day" was his first solo hit.
Right. He really sh*t on it. What about "Hey Jude," man?
I guess it's all payback for "Hey Jude," because that basically was a song about... And it probably,
maybe it came from a nice place, but my understanding is that "Hey Jude" is about
John's son, right? Yeah. It's about him being a s*ck dad.
There's interviews where John does say something about, "Yeah, I wasn't a great dad to him.
Probably wishes Paul was his dad. I don't know."
Damn.
I mean, I guess that's what's funny when a band truly has three world-class songwriters,
which is rare. There's many bands where everybody writes the songs together,
but when a band straight up is like, "John can write great songs. Paul can write great songs.
George can write great songs." Then you're really getting a lot of perspectives together.
And an album is just truly a mix of your songs, your songs, your songs. And it is funny just to
be like, your band's biggest hit is your old friend writing a song about comforting your son
because you're a bad dad. And it's like, you just got to go strum a guitar for that on TV.
All right. That's heavy. That's heavy. That's heavy.
Yeah. That's humiliating. Yeah.
So yeah, he had to get his shots back at Paul.
Yeah, for sure.
So Sergeant Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Anyway, the new Beatles is chilling island.
Yeah. You know what's funny?
Three guys, no drummer.
Yeah. I had an idea for when I had that club Santos, me, I think it was me and maybe Matt
Sweeney and Andrew WK had an idea that we were going to book a show at the club because I know
all these people and I know these different types of musicians or whatever. And we were like, let's
get all of them together. I think it was Matt Sweeney's idea. And he was like, "We'll book a
show and we'll say it's the new Beatles. That's the name of the band, the new Beatles."
It's everyone you could think of. It's like 10 rappers. It's like you and you know, whatever,
a bunch of indie rock guys.
On stage.
Well, all billed as part of the band. And the idea is they'll all actually show up and they'll be
plugging in their gear on stage for hours. They'll just be having trouble. Feedback is going, people
are just standing there waiting. And then eventually the show's over. That's it. And that's
the new Beatles.
I love that.
Never got to do it.
That sounds some Yoko ****. Very conceptual.
Right. Yeah. Performance art.
That's really funny. And you could totally picture it just like,
"Oh ****, that amp's too big. The crew guys have to bring it off."
Yeah. Bring a new one on, plug that in.
And just little by little, the stage is like 175 people crammed together.
Yeah. And nothing's working. Everyone's fighting.
And then it ends with just like a really terrible, noisy rendition of "Hey Jude."
40 people rapping the lyrics. 12 drummers.
It's actually Julian Lennon singing "Hey Jude."
I'm Jude.
So Chillin' Island is kind of like the original internet radio show. I won't front and pretend
that that time crisis was there at the beginning. Before Apple Radio even existed, you guys were
not a podcast, a true internet radio show.
We were an internet radio show on East Village Radio.
And it was always you, Dap, and Lex?
Just me and Dap. And then eventually Lex.
And it's always been kind of the same format, which was you guys would talk and then in
between you would play rap music.
Yeah. And we have guests and we talk to them about stuff.
Yeah.
And so how did that transition into a TV show on HBO? And what's the show about?
Well, I had never thought of making a TV show, but it seemed like Dap and Lex really
wanted to. And they had these ideas for like, these like mostly sketch comedy type show
ideas. And I really hate sketch comedy shows for the most part, because I hate comedians
and I hate all that sh*t.
So I'm a good friend though, and I participated. I'll be like, yeah, you want to do a
sketch where I'm like a dorky white rapper or whatever?
OK, let's do it.
Yo, do you remember? That was me.
Yeah, yeah, I do remember.
We made that. That was what we made for Vice.
I think I've seen the pilot when Nick was at Vice Network.
Vice, yeah.
There was a Chillin' Island pilot that was kind of like a mixture of sketches and
conversation, as I recall.
Well, I think the pilot with Nick was that was maybe the one that we did with that guy
Robbie, right? Where we did Lex learn how to drive.
I did a stand up comedy set, whatever.
Wait, actually, that's what I was just thinking about that, because I remember seeing this
pilot. So nobody's seen this, right? This never aired.
No, never aired.
Right. So I remember seeing the old Chillin' Island pilot and there was a part that was
yeah, it was it was like half reality TV, half sketch comedy.
But as I recall, that segment was basically like everybody's trying something they never
did before. And they're like, Deadspot's trying stand up comedy.
And you actually went and did stand up comedy at a real club.
And I just kind of remember you were just kind of like making fun of the audience.
You like this sh*t sucks, f*ck you.
Is that right?
That's right.
Yeah, freestyle comedy set.
And honestly, I got some laughs and I thought it was pretty good.
But then in the edit, they wanted to make it like awkward and they added the silences
and stuff. I was a little pissed off because I think, yes, I did sh*t on them.
And there were portions of my stand up comedy set where everyone was just looking at me like
this guy is an assh*le.
There was someone who developed it, you know, that was that was working with me.
So, you know, we all obviously I know Alec, I know the guys.
It was very different than this thing that's going on now.
And they really sort of controlled the development.
And I remember watching it and there were very funny things in it.
I mean, it was pretty straightforward.
They would set up and do the podcast and then they would break up the them doing the podcast
sort of like with sketches or whatever.
So it was pretty simple.
But I do remember we were in a car riding back from somewhere and I said to Alec,
I was like, do you even like doing this?
And you're like, no.
Yeah.
Do you think it's good?
He's like, I think it's corny.
And I was like, well, then why are we doing it?
I don't know.
I was trying to make these guys happy.
And I remember it wasn't bad, but I could definitely see having seen a little bit of
the new series that this feels more like you and it feels more like the spirit.
Well, that's the hard thing.
Like we've talked about we ever do a time crisis TV show.
We never came up with a good idea.
We have some good feature film ideas, but to actually capture the spirit of an internet
radio show is no easy thing.
And I think you did with the new show.
So anyway, you left the sketch comedy and the stand up in the past.
What is the new show?
So I mean, I was talking to Sebo and Josh who do a lot of productions and they were
like loosely involved when we came to Nick at Vice also.
I remember I was trying to make them part of it.
It didn't really happen.
And then I don't know.
I think I just was like, I like fishing with John a lot and I want to make a show that's
like fishing with John, but I don't want to make fishing with John.
I think, you know, we could change this thing and that thing and make it a little different.
And that's what we did.
I mean, it's not fishing, but sometimes it is fishing.
And for people who don't know, Fishing with John is like a legendary cult show.
It was on the early days of Bravo, right?
Yeah.
And then it went to IFC or something.
IFC. When Bravo was like an arts channel before the Andy Cohen era and they got John Lurie
kind of like legendary artist, musician, dude, making these weird ass trips with Willem Dafoe
and Tom Waits and stuff like that.
But there's only six episodes of it.
There's only six episodes of Chilling Island.
They brought it back, right?
There was painting with John.
Yes, painting with John now.
But yeah, not the same, but yeah, not the same, but also a vibey show.
Yeah, it's a good show.
Similar to Fishing with John, you go on kind of expeditions, not sometimes involving fishing,
but more like just going into nature.
Yeah, I think an important thing, I think it's, you know, I've managed to not have much of a
music career by virtue of being really lazy.
I think it's good in a way that I stayed in the zone where I'm just like a guy who's around
because that's what John Lurie was kind of.
I mean, you know, John Lurie had a music career too, and his music is cool.
But it's like, you know, when I tell most people about John Lurie, they're like, "Who's that?"
And I like that we're just like these guys who are whoever, and we're walking around with,
you know, somebody who people know and want to hear from.
And then there's a narrator, which is like an important element of Fishing with John.
And that's it. Yeah, it's a wilderness adventure show where three guys walk around with somebody.
And you're mostly walk around with rappers, not exclusively.
Not exclusively, but almost exclusively.
But almost exclusively. So some guests on the first season are Young Thug, Lil Yachty,
Gunna, Killer Mike, Ski Mask the Slump God. In my notes, it says Lil Becca.
It's not Becca, Lil Tecca.
Coiler Ray.
Coiler Ray and also Rosalia. I'm proud to say that I'm in one episode.
I'm not the guest. Lil Tecca is the guest. I'm kind of like a pop-up.
Yeah, you're the cameo.
Is Steven Wright the narrator?
Yes.
Steven Wright, legendary actor and comedian.
Also a legendary disembodied voice because he's the radio guy on Rest of Our Dogs.
Oh, whoa.
Yeah.
I actually didn't know that.
Yeah. He says the behemoth, which is like my favorite sh*t.
He's trying to say behemoth and he says the behemoth.
Is it on the US, all the places that you went?
Well, one of the rules of the show is I never want to specifically say where we are because
I think Chilin Island is supposed to be a made-up place.
Okay. I've been telling people where our episode was shot. Should I stop that?
No, I mean, you can independently, but I don't want to say it on the show.
Okay. The episode that we did, well, I won't get too specific, but
it was interesting because I had to wake up early and go get on a boat.
So I just like took a car by myself, got on a boat.
Then some of Lil Tecca's team got on the boat.
I remember there was some Dunkin' Donuts, which I appreciated on the boat.
We take care of our people.
Take real good care.
And then we shot for a while and it was pretty wild because it was like quite a setup because
to actually, I never really thought about it, but to like shoot a TV episode on a boat
requires like five boats because you got the boat that the guys are on.
Then you get a couple of wide shots.
Those guys need a boat.
You need the director on a boat to kind of zoom around and watch stuff.
It's crazy.
That was one of the more confusing and messy ones.
I think we did okay.
So conceptually, it all takes place on Chilin Island.
Yeah, which is a place in your mind.
In your heart.
In your heart.
In your soul.
If you believe in souls.
What's the difference between HBO and HBO Max these days?
I don't know.
When people say, "Where's your show?"
I mean, it's an HBO original and it's on HBO Max.
It does air every Friday on HBO.
Oh, so it's an HBO show.
Yeah, it airs Fridays 10, 30 to 11, starting December 17th, right after How To's John Wilson.
Well, I would say that the company would like to eradicate
the difference between HBO and HBO Max.
Yeah, it is confusing.
And I guess HBO Max feels like B-team if you say it.
We're not B-team, man.
We're on TV.
It sounds like you're part of the premium premiere offering that HBO has up there with
all the great succession, the new Sex and the City reboot.
I put you in that class.
Thank you.
I would also put myself in that class.
No, I mean, look, it matters.
Okay, I was telling people it's on HBO Max.
I'm going to say, "You know what?
It's on HBO."
And if they say, "Where can I stream it?"
I'll say, "Well, I believe most HBO content streams on HBO Max,
the much larger, less discerning platform."
But I would recommend watching it on TV after How To with John Wilson.
At 10.30 Eastern time, yeah.
You can watch it on your TV the same way you watch The Sopranos, The Wire,
Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arliss.
Arliss.
Real Sex.
Was Real Sex on HBO?
You bet it was.
Wow, that's amazing that it's going to be on HBO.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
A lot of people, the reaction, I feel like, you know, people are like, "Wow, that's crazy."
And that makes me feel like, they're like, "Oh, you're like dumb f***ing show."
"It's on HBO, that's nuts. How'd you do that?"
And it's a really real thing, but I understand, I guess.
What's the most random streaming platform?
Paramount Plus.
We thought...
Peacock.
Paramount.
Peacock, yeah.
Peacock.
Remember Crackle?
East Village streaming platform.
There should be one.
This is their moment.
Do you remember Brick?
What's Brick?
That's a streaming platform?
Brick was the Brooklyn one.
I don't know if you'd call it a streaming platform.
No, Brick, that exists.
That's the name of the channel, but you're right.
They just show stuff on...
Well, they made that great show, the show about the show.
And the tone of the show, I mean, this is very artistic.
It's very vibey, quiet, eerie.
Yeah, it's a thoughtful show.
It's scored by Evan Mass, Evacs, formerly of Rattatat.
Oh, legend.
A legend.
He did a really good job.
This is the first time he's written a specific score for a thing like that.
Wow.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it's supposed to...
As I said in another interview, I think the goal is...
Obviously, we're not asking...
I mean, our radio show has always been...
We don't ask you, "When's your next album coming out?
Who are you working with?
How'd you think of your rap name?
When did you start rapping?"
Whatever those...
We don't ever ask any of those questions.
And it's kind of always a loud, annoying conversation that the three of us are having.
And it's like, "You're here, and if you're gonna jump in, you better do it.
Otherwise, you're just gonna be the guy sitting there left out."
Oh, yeah, I've been on "Chillin' Out" a couple times.
Yeah, it's like that, right?
Yeah, you gotta come prepared.
So, yeah, I think that it kind of...
Like I said in the "Rolling Stone" interview, I think we're just humanizing these people a little.
Instead of being like, "Hey, you know, a larger-than-life person who I can't talk to about regular sh*t.
Have you ever sh*t in your pants?"
You know, like, whatever.
Yeah, I was glad I got to participate a little bit, because I got to talk to Lil Tecca.
I forget exactly how the conversation goes.
Also, it's definitely edited a little bit for maximum awkwardness, but it's funny because
my section with...
Well, I know there's a whole thing, but one part we're all sitting on the boat, and
Tecca had no idea about Vampire Weekend, who I was.
But at some point, we were talking about video games, and I said that we were on "Just Dance 2"
because that was a major moment for us, and he was actually really impressed by that.
He said, "Really?"
He was like, "I'll probably dance to your song."
Yeah, and then he was like, "What song was it?"
And then I kind of sang in the beginning of "A-Punk," and he's like, "Never heard that."
And I'm like, "Nananana," and he's like, "Never heard that in my life."
But I remember after we were shooting, we talked a little bit, and he was actually a
really nice guy, and he came over and he said, he said again, he was like, "That's really cool
you had a song in 'Just Dance 2,'" even though he didn't remember what it was.
He was like, "That's really cool you did that."
And I was like, "Well, thanks, man."
Yeah, man, big crossover moment for both of you.
Oh, absolutely.
And he's great.
Anybody who doesn't know Lil Tecca, he has one massive song called "Ransom."
Yeah, it's a good song.
And he was also really cool.
I mean, you guys were there all day, but shooting on boats isn't easy, and he was really seasick.
Yeah, he got f***ed up.
He was f***ed up, but he really did his best.
He held it down.
He did.
He was a trooper for sure.
Thank you, Lil Tecca.
Absolutely.
I got black, I got white, what you want?
Hop outside a ghost and hop up in a Phantom
I know I'm 'bout to blow up, whoa, whoa, wait, don't
They tryna take my floor, I take their ass for ransom
I know that I'm gone, they see me blowin' up, now they say they want some
I got two twin blocks, turn you into a dancer
I see two twin opps, leave 'em on a banner
And I got two thick thots, wanna link the gang
I got red, I got blue, what you want?
The s***, I love Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton
She know I got the Fendi Prada when I hit a lawn
I needed me a Dior, I didn't need me the one
I started from the bottom, you can see the way I stomp
I want all the diamonds, I want the s***, the way I taunt
The opps, they tryna lawn me 'cause they hate the place I'm from
But them s*** don't know me, they just know the place I'm from
I got lots of shawty tryna pull up to my place
But you ain't want me last yet, so just get up on my face
They all up in my inbox, so I know they wanna taste
I know they want my downfall, and the s***, I do this
Yeah, I can't wait to see all the episodes.
I feel like this is very much in the TCU.
Anybody listening to Time Crisis needs to watch Chilling Island.
And watch it live on HBO.
[laughs]
Yeah, we need those Nielsen ratings.
You gotta watch it fresh.
Yeah, no, and truly, the guest list is crazy.
My favorite line in the trailer is when,
I forget if it's Alec, but someone says to young Thug,
who's, they're out, looks like in the desert,
and he's wearing like a real, like,
he's wearing a whole outfit, and you say, "Aren't you hot?"
Yeah, that was me.
And he says, "Yeah."
[laughs]
Yeah, he's wearing head-to-toe leather.
It's crazy.
We're in the desert.
Yeah.
He looked very cool, though, and he made that himself.
Spider Worldwide made that leather suit.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, well, that's another thing that people gotta keep their eye out for,
is that Chilling Island, it could almost start a type of dressing.
I mean, it kind of exists, but it's like,
because you guys are doing all this outdoorsy stuff,
like, the clothes are sick, because everybody's wearing kind of like,
cool, weird, I mean, obviously, we're doing like fishing stuff,
so people wearing like crazy synthetic,
those overalls that like fishermen wear.
Yeah.
I feel like Chilling Island fashion is gonna be a thing.
I hope so.
I love clothes.
Now you actually, the fact that you're a real outdoorsman,
'cause you know sometimes people are hard on people who wear high-tech stuff,
and all they do is just hang out in New York.
Yeah.
Just the same way people get mad at people who have Rolex Submariners,
called desk divers.
That's right.
I believe we've talked about this on the show before,
you don't wanna get caught being a desk diver, but now that...
People who wear Grateful Dead merch, because they saw it in a rap video.
That's the classic just poser.
Right.
There's definitely some dude somewhere who's wearing,
paid $400 for a vintage Grateful Dead shirt he saw in a video,
and has a Rolex Submariner,
and he's never enjoyed the music of the Grateful Dead, nor has he dived.
Yeah, it's the classic, you see someone wearing the band shirt,
and you say, "What's your favorite song by that band?" or whatever.
You know, the classic mansplaining,
like a guy comes up to a girl in the bar, and she's wearing a Poison shirt,
and he's like, "What's your favorite Poison album?"
This could be more like, "I'm wearing some type of tech vest and some climbing..."
Or like some crazy hiking boots, that's a thing.
Yeah, right, and they're like, "What's your favorite trail to hike?"
And I'll just be like, "Sh*t, I live in Brooklyn."
Right.
You're wearing some Arctic, your Arctic fishing stuff.
Right.
Where's your favorite place to go ice fishing?
Normally, I would be stumped if you asked me that in eighth grade,
when I was probably wearing an Arctic fishing jacket.
But now I can just say Trillin Island.
It's a blanket answer to that question every time.
Okay, everybody, but listen up.
If you love HBO or the Beatles, check out Trillin Island,
presented by Beatles fan, Tess Fodt.
That's right.
Especially if you like the White Album.
Mario, thanks for coming through.
Wait, and wait, just to be specific, when's the first time it airs?
Friday, December 17th.
So it actually first aired a couple days ago.
A couple days ago on Friday.
Okay, so if any...
If you missed it, you're allowed to stream it now,
but you got to catch the next episode.
Next Friday.
This coming Friday, December 24th.
Fourth?
December 24th.
Wait, it's Christmas Eve.
Oh, that's great.
So everybody, if you're...
If you're home with your family and you can watch...
Gather the family round and watch episode two of Trillin Island.
It's a little yachty in a magical place.
Okay, I know what I'm doing Christmas Eve.
That's right.
All right, well, we'll see you soon.
All right.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
All right, talk soon.
Oh, I feel bad.
You know what?
I forgot you had COVID.
See that?
In the course of this conversation.
That's how strong I am.
Do you feel the same as when we started talking?
A couple of times I felt a little frog in my throat,
but for the most part, I'm good.
Look at that.
All right, stay strong.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
Gotta keep it real.
Bye.
See ya.
Yesterday
Anyway you made it was just fine
So you turned your days into night time
Didn't you know
You can't make it without ever even trying
And stop things on your mind
All right, well, our next guest is radio legend, among other things, Tom Sharpling.
He's best known to a lot of people for his legendary show, The Best Show,
which was originally on WFMU in New Jersey.
The program was a three-hour comedy music call-in and talk radio program that aired Tuesday nights.
Jon Wurster of Super Chunk featured on nearly every episode, basically almost like a co-host.
And he recently, this year, he dropped his memoir, which I recently read.
Great book.
He's also known as a TV writer.
He's worked on shows like Monk, What We Do in the Shadows, Kevin Go F*** Himself.
All around great guy.
New Jersey legend.
I know, Jake, you've been a fan for years.
Yeah, I love The Best Show.
The Sharpling and Wurster calls are some of my favorite comedy, just straight up.
I highly recommend people check out the Sharpling and Wurster phone calls.
They released like five or six albums that are on Apple Music.
And you can dive real deep if you're into that.
There literally are some legendary ones.
I mean, Danny Phipps from Glass Houses.
He's the drummer in a Billy Joel cover band.
I mean, they were doing the show on FMU.
And then it's a call-in show.
There's guys from Jersey calling in.
And then Wurster would call in as a character.
And there'd be an hour-long phone call about this fictional Billy Joel cover band called Glass Houses.
And they've gone through five or six different Billy Joels.
I mean, it's like, honestly, it's some of my favorite.
It's a very patient, slowly comedic narratives that are--
Anyway, I'm a big fan.
And also, after they stopped doing the show on FMU, they took it to the internet.
So I think it's fair to say--
And he does it-- Tom does the show live on the internet.
It's not-- we say we're an internet radio show,
but we're kind of an internet radio show podcast hybrid.
Because we aren't out there on the tightrope doing it live.
That's a true internet radio show.
Yeah, so he does it live every Tuesday night.
All right, well, let's get him on the horn.
Tom Sharpling.
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
Hey, how's it going?
Hey, what's up, Tom?
Hey, how are you?
Good, how's it going?
I'm just looking at your shirt here.
Yeah.
What's the fifth--
Oh, that's my-- you are the first person who noticed that immediately.
My friend Phil Morrison made this shirt.
And the whole thing is, what if I was in Led Zeppelin?
He came up with the jaunty little bow tie as his so-so symbol.
So--
Oh, that's a great concept.
It's pretty--
For the listeners at home, it's the Led Zeppelin four symbols plus one extra one.
Now identified as a jaunty little bow tie.
Yes, how it should have always been.
If Led Zeppelin had my friend Phil in the band.
[LAUGHTER]
What kind of run are we talking about for those shirts?
They're like three--
Oh, that's a--
I think we're talking under 20, I'll say.
Okay.
If you guys are talking about the most expensive rock t-shirt,
I would put this one up there and say--
One day it will be.
Yeah.
I'm at my parents' house in New Jersey, your ancestral homeland as well.
Yes.
And I've been going through a lot of old stuff and really debating which t-shirts to throw away,
which stuff should I keep just out of nostalgia or historical stuff.
And there's just so many random one-off t-shirts that--
I found one that my cousin made when we went to summer camp together in middle school.
That was for our ironic badminton team called the Killer Cousins.
And sometimes I think about, all right, I held onto that one
out of nostalgia, but I just think about some of these super random shirts that I own.
And I just imagine just handing them off to Goodwill.
And as I see you wearing this shirt, I'm just picturing like--
And I'm not saying that you would get rid of the shirt anytime soon,
but I'm just picturing the kid going thrifting somewhere and pulls it out, zero context.
And he's like, "Wait, is this a Led Zeppelin shirt?"
Somebody's like, "No, there's that extra one."
And just having no idea what it means, impossible to decipher.
Yeah. And it's one of those things, it's like fighting hieroglyphics or something.
And you're just like, "Someday we can figure out what this meant if we just keep digging."
Maybe it might not be us, but the next generation might figure it out.
But they never will, unless they know Phil.
Yeah, Phil directed the movie "Junebug,"
the Amy Adams, who they launched her career.
- Ah. - Tight.
- Yeah. So the shirt has bona fides. - So if you catch Amy Adams wearing a Led
Zeppelin shirt, double check. Double check that.
- These circles. - Look for the fifth circle.
- Yes. - Well, Tom, I wanted to--
I was waiting till you were on because I wanted to tell the rest of the guys about
how I went on a-- had a little hot dog day with some of my old friends when I was in Jersey.
And I wonder-- I'm so curious about, do these places mean anything to you? Because
I can't tell if these are regionally famous. Because even-- I know some people who are like,
"Oh, that's an internationally known spot." And then I know other people from Jersey,
and they've never heard of it. Have you ever been to Rutz Hut?
Yes, I've been to Rutz Hut.
Do you consider that an important place, a special place?
It didn't have the significance that it has had to others. I know people who-- Rutz Hut is
everything to them. For me, the Jersey hot dog was always defined by Jimmy Buffs.
That's the other place we went.
Jimmy Buffs was always the place that my father grew up in Newark. So Jimmy Buffs was a mainstay
of Newark. And we would go there, and the hot dogs there are basically-- there's a hot dog
surrounded by about a pound and a half of potatoes and onions. It's pretty awesome.
And then I think about it, it made perfect sense to me. And then when I hear people from Chicago
talk about their weird hot dogs and weird pizza, and I'm just like, "That sounds ridiculous." And
then I'm like, "Well, I guess I had my own strange hot dog in New Jersey as a child."
Yeah, Jimmy Buffs is truly strange in that you can't really take a bite of it
until you've eaten, like you said, about a pound of potatoes. So it's almost like a falafel or
something in that it's this huge piece of bread full. It's like a pocket full of stuff.
Yes. Probably my first experience with any sort of pocket as a delivery service for meat--
Was Jimmy Buffs.
Would you be Jimmy Buffs? Yeah, because the pita pocket was around the corner for me,
but Jimmy Buffs was-- they were riding that wave early.
There's also something about it because these things are called Italian hot dogs. I mean,
I guess it was Italian-Americans invented them, so that's it. But it's also--
it just doesn't feel that Italian.
No, there's nothing even remotely Italian about that, except that I think it's--
If anything, it's Irish.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like pita bread and that great Italian tradition of pita pockets.
It's a very unique place. And my favorite thing about Jimmy Buffs is when you go in,
they have kind of like a catchphrase on the refrigerator with the drinks,
which is in quotation says, "Jimmy Buffs, you never sausage a thing."
And I was thinking about it a lot, like, all right, you never sausage a thing. It's a play
on you never saw a thing. But then I was thinking more, what does that mean,
you never saw a thing in this context? Is it supposed to be like
implying kind of like a mafia connection? Like you witnessed a crime and then some guy like
gave you a hundred bucks and said, you never saw a thing, get the f*** out of here?
Do you have any idea?
I don't know if they're flirting with mob threats with the name, but I think it just
probably sounds like something that grandpa came up with and thought it was funny. And
then they put it on a sign and they didn't think you'd be looking at it in 2021.
Right.
Also Ezra, wouldn't it be, you never saw such a thing?
Ah, you never saw such a thing. Okay. That makes more sense.
That's very different than you never saw a thing.
Yeah. You never saw a thing.
Yeah. Such, such, it carries so much weight.
Cause you never saw such a thing as like your grandmother, like you never saw such a thing.
It was an amazing wedding. You never saw such a thing. They had beautiful
bouquets of flowers on every table. You never saw such a thing.
They have a pound of potatoes over the hot dog. You never saw such a thing.
You never saw such a thing.
Also, is the guy's name Jimmy Buff?
I'm sure it's Bufalino or something like that. It's like, okay. It's clearly the Italian
shortening to a fun little single syllable nickname.
Unbelievable name.
Cause look, nobody's buff at Jimmy Buff. It's not definitely on a,
it's definitely on a fitness thing. Those hot dogs are coated in oil. You also are taking in
probably two pints of, of just grease. If you eat one of those things, it's the greasiest food I've
ever had in my life.
And Rutz Hut also is, they're the hot dogs are called rippers cause they drop them into boiling
oil and they kind of explode. And if you talk to some people, they would tell you that New Jersey
is like a Mecca for hot dogs. They will, we got Rutz Hut, Jimmy Buffs, Hot Dog Johnnies.
There's all these places. And yet to everybody who's not from New Jersey on this call,
do you associate New Jersey with hot dogs at all?
I don't.
I always associated New Jersey with pizza still. Like it's just a being some sort of tri-state
thing. Not even tri-state. I'm not going to talk about Connecticut pizza. Sorry.
There's the New Haven pizza that some people like with the clams. No, but New Jersey's
kind of better known. Well, I think, you know what my theory is? I think that New Jersey's
stature has really grown in the past 20, 25 years, not only because of the Sopranos and this and
that, but also because in the kind of Guy Fieri era where it became kind of cool to be really
into like local stuff. The truth is a lot of the old family owned cool, weird stuff in the city
closed down because real estate's crazy. So you kind of do have to go to Jersey to find like
a funky old place like Jimmy Buffs. You know what I mean?
So I think suddenly Jersey's a little bit more on the map for like these
kind of food network, kind of foodie road trip types.
Yeah. That makes sense where you kind of can go to a place and it's a 45 minute drive for
your adventure. It's not, you're not going four and a half hours out into nowhere to go try out
a hot dog. There was also a place called, do you remember a place called Galloping Hill?
Does that sound familiar to you?
Is that a hot dog place?
It was in Union. Yes. It was like a place on what they called like the five corners in Union.
There was a five road intersection. I remember those, that was my favorite place ultimately
because they had the, literally the relish was as green as anything I've ever seen in my life
where it was almost glowing.
Some toxic New Jersey sludge.
Yes. It might've been that. Yes.
It is a good point that it's, yeah, New Jersey is close enough to the city that say you were
a tourist visiting from Germany and I guarantee this stuff happens now that you're like,
"Oh, we're going back to, I've been to New York twice in my life. I'm going for a third time
now. I'd like to see some, something else." Then you start Googling stuff and like next thing you
know, you're in Union, New Jersey at Galloping Hills. I bet that happens.
Yeah. We could send people down bad roads with this and just act like authorities and say like,
"Oh, you got to check out this place." And then they're like, "It was terrible. Why were they
recommending that?"
Pick the most random (beep) deli.
Yeah. Exactly.
You got to get the turkey and cheese sub.
Yeah. You go, "Oh my God, it's legendary." And then they get, and the guy at the place is just
kind of like, "Okay, sure. I'll make you a turkey with cheese." Like, it's not what we're known for,
I guess, but.
(laughs)
Wait, Tom, have you ever been to the TikTok diner?
Oh yeah. Yeah. What town is TikTok in again?
I mean, it's on route three. What town is it in?
Oh, but it's on route three. We're in New Jersey talk.
Yeah.
Towns come second to roads in New Jersey.
(laughs)
Maybe it's in Clifton.
Is that the one that I think Vince Carter, when he was on the nets,
ate at the TikTok diner all the time?
It was kind of a celebrity hotspot and that would make a lot of sense. And the reason I bring it up
is, and I may have told the story before, but I always think about it when I drive past it.
And we were talking recently about how the Rolling Stones were recently on tour and Mick Jagger.
Where was he? In Charlotte, North Carolina. He like went out and kind of like took a picture
of himself at like some dive bar. Kind of just to say he did. Like clearly he's into this.
Mick likes to really like work a crowd and he understands that the show's only part of it.
He likes to go out in the town and let people know like, "Oh, Mick Jagger went to this
bar before the show." In New Jersey, apparently he went, this is two years ago,
the Stones were on tour. He's probably playing at MetLife. And he went to the TikTok diner.
And then on stage, I guess to kind of like get the crowd into it, he really did his homework
because he said, "Now, you know, earlier today I went to the TikTok diner." And people were like
cheering. And then he goes, "And I had eggs, Taylor ham." And people were like, "Woohoo!"
Taylor ham, wow.
Taylor ham. And then he said, "And a sloppy Joe to go. Woo!" And it's just like, it's so specific
and weird.
Yeah, that's so strange. It's just like he's doing his Altamont speech, but
talking about Taylor ham. It's like, "Paypal, paypal."
Some good Root 3 memories.
Well, Tom, when we were talking about you on a recent episode, and I was kind of poorly telling
the story that opens your great memoir, which is called It Never Ends, a memoir with nice memories.
And the way you open the book is with the story about you meeting Patti Smith and talking about
Humble Pie. And if you wouldn't mind kind of retelling it, because we did ask you to pick
your top five favorite Humble Pie songs. So could you set it up by telling us the story?
Sure. Well, it was in San Francisco and I was there with John Worcester, my comedy partner,
and we were doing a thing for the San Francisco Sketch Fest. And we're staying at this hotel and
we kept seeing Patti Smith over and over in the hotel, just like see her going through the lobby.
And it just kept growing and growing this like compulsion to just say something to her. And when
it, when I saw her on the fourth time, it was like, "Ah, screw it. I'm doing it." And so I just
go into the elevator. She goes into the elevator. I go into the elevator, doors close. And now I'm
like, here's my moment. And I didn't want to come at her with some thing of just saying like, "I
like horses. It's a good album," or whatever. Like, I'm going to say something like, "Was it
fun when you played CBGBs?" Or like, I was just like, I wanted to make my one question count.
This cab driver in Memphis had told me he was talking about rock music. And then he was,
I just asked him, "What was the best band you ever saw?" Because he was like, "I saw everybody."
And he was like, "Humble Pie. That was the best live band that I ever saw in my life. I'm telling
you, they were the sh*t." So then I asked Patti Smith, I was just like, "So did you ever see
Humble Pie back in the day?" And like, just also back in the day is a phrase I don't ever use.
I never used it until that moment.
Was there any setup before that? You say, "Hey, Patti, my name is Tom Sharpling. We
might know a few people in common. I do a radio show."
No, I did Bridget with a thing because she was playing the Fillmore. I said, "How are the shows
going?" And she mentioned, she said, "Oh, the shows have been great. I'm a little tired,
but the shows are great." So there was a little preamble to this. I just didn't blurt that. I'm
not that awful at communication. So she just looked so confused. And I was just like, "Oh no,
I think I'm spooking her or something. It's a harmless question." And I'm pretty sure she got
off on a floor that wasn't her floor. And then probably was in that hotel stairwell trying to
get back to her floor. And then maybe it was one of those ones that no access to the floor. And
then you have like the doors locked and then she has to go back down to the ground floor. It's
like, oh no, but that was my Patti Smith story. So Humble Pie, I'm now associated with this band
at a, it's much more than I should be, but I do like Humble Pie a lot.
So you have a cab driver in Memphis telling you that Humble Pie ripped. Did you have any reason
to think that Humble Pie would have maybe been one of those kind of just like meat and potatoes rock
bands that weirdly almost intersected with early punk? Because there's a few bands like that where
they were just kind of cool and tough. So even like AC/DC or something, they're not a punk band,
but they kind of, it wouldn't be crazy to ask somebody associated with punk, like,
"Hey, you ever catch early AC/DC?" And they might be like, "Oh yeah, you know what? I love those
guys." Is there something like that with Humble Pie that made you draw that connection?
My love of Humble Pie comes primarily from my love of Steve Marriott, who was the front man
for Humble Pie, but was also, before that he was the front man for the Small Faces. So he was the
driving force of that band. And he was the first one of those British guys to have that huge voice.
The Robert Plant, big, booming voice, the voice that Roger Daltrey assumed at a point that didn't
start with, but then found it later in his career. And he was a really great guitar player too. And
the Small Faces are one of my favorite bands. And he got to be such a handful in the Small Faces
that they were like, when Ronnie Lane and the other guys are just like, "All right, we're starting a
new band now. And we got to get a lead singer who's not going to screw us around like Steve
Marriott did. Somebody who's not going to be too big for their britches." And then they went and
got Rod Stewart, who was more huge than Steve Marriott ever was. But it's a funny thing that
they couldn't, they always ended up with these top-notch front men. But then Humble Pie, he
started Humble Pie and then he had a young, it's Peter Frampton's first thing of note also. He was
Steve Marriott's sidekick in Humble Pie. But they were so heavy and so rockin' and they really did
predate a lot of hard rock started with Humble Pie, actually, I think.
- Right. So they were just a cool band that you think anybody who likes rock and roll
whatever their more micro allegiance to genres might appreciate. Because like, for instance,
by the late 70s, a Patti Smith would have thought Peter Frampton was totally uncool.
- Oh, yeah.
- So you never would have said to her, if for instance, you had a cab driver who said,
"You know, you've probably heard Frampton comes alive, but if you actually were at the shows,
it was electric. This guy's an amazing performer." Even if that guy had said that to you,
you probably never would have said to Patti Smith, "Hey, do you ever actually catch Frampton
in the 70s?" Or would you have? - Yeah. No, I would not have gone down that road.
Because the other thing is, it's just like, Humble Pie didn't have, they were not tainted by
the stink of that stuff when they originally came around in like '71 in the US. They were
kind of just like a cool British heavy blues band. - That makes total sense. Like if you met
Joey Ramone, and you said like, "You like the Kinks?" He'd probably be like, "Oh, yeah,
Kinks are a great band. Actually, I caught them at the Fillmore East in '69. They're a great band."
Yeah. Because they're kind of like the slight forebears. - That's exactly what it is. Yeah.
They were not, "Everybody's got to start somewhere." And you kind of earn your bad reputation.
- But so, do you think Patti Smith, and of course, it's possible that she did get off on her correct
floor and maybe she was really charmed by the question. She just felt like, "Oh, I don't know."
Those might be two very different things. Her getting off on the correct floor and being
charmed by the question. I know the answer to one of them, and the other one is up for discussion.
At the show that night, she actually dropped a Humble Pie cover.
If you check the set list. - Yeah, I gotta go to setlist.fm.
Well, we'll never know. Now, I'm actually legitimately curious if Patti Smith,
if when you even said that, she immediately thought, "Oh, yeah. Okay. Humble Pie,
30 days in the hole. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I know them. I don't feel like talking about them
right now, but of course I know them." Or if maybe at the time she was more just like, "Wait, what?"
- She might've just probably been like, "I want to go take a nap before the show,
and I don't want to think about stuff like this."
- Maybe. But maybe she just didn't know. I wonder if she even knows-
- She said they were before her time, which they were definitely not before her time.
They were around and she was seeing shows- - But that's even funnier if you're just like,
"Actually..." - Yeah. I start doing the "actually" to her.
That would be the greatest thing. - You actually went back down to the
lobby and waited until she left for the show. - Actually...
- With all due respect, maybe in her mind, she also... You know what I think? Obviously,
we're going really deep on this story, but I think it's possible that what you did was you
asked her a question, an actually thoughtful question about her influence. And you're
picturing her... Well, all right, you're a normal person. She's from New Jersey, right?
She was in the New York, New Jersey area. You're basically asking her, "When you were coming up,
did you ever see this band?" But maybe when she's so used to answering questions from
professional music journalists, that when you ask her a question, and it's not about New York
from 1975 on, her first thought was like, "Humble Pie, they're before my time."
- Yeah. - As an artist,
because you didn't ask her a question... You didn't ask her about CBGBs like you said,
the basic question. You asked her a question as a human being. And you just said, "Ma'am,
you're absolutely right. Humble Pie was before your time in terms of being a relevant artist,
but they're not before your time as a human being and a music listener." And that's all I meant by
that. - Exactly. That's how I should have kept going with it until I should have followed her
down the hall, still bringing this up as she calls security. But if you're in an elevator,
a fan comes in and they say to you, "Did you ever see The Rapture back in the day?"
Would you be thrown by that? - No, that's a totally reasonable
question. I'd say, I guess if they specifically... Yeah, if they said, "Had you ever seen them?" I'd
say, "Actually, I don't know if I ever saw them." But I'd be like, "Yeah, I might have."
I guess if they said, "You ever hang out backstage?" Yeah, if somebody came over to me and
said, "You ever hang out backstage with the Moldy Peaches?" I might say, "You know, that was slightly
before my time." And they would say, "Really? You're not that much younger than Adam Green?"
And I would say, "Well, I'm a little bit younger and therefore..." And he was really young when
Moldy Peaches started, so your timeframe's a little off. But if you're asking me what
might have caught a show, it's possible. Yeah, it's reasonable.
I mean, Tom, you were in San Francisco for a comedy festival. What if you get in the elevator,
there's a nervous Best Show fan in the elevator and they're just like,
"Did you ever see Mother Love Bone back in the day?"
I would say, "No, what do you think? You think I was going to see shows like that?
No." I would have said, "Absolutely not." And I would have gone through the little panel at
the ceiling of the elevator if they would have asked me about Mother Love Bone. That's when I
just climb out and take my chances in the guts of the elevator.
Yeah, Mother Love Bone's deep and kind of regional. I wonder if you think Mother Love Bone...
How about Soundgarden? I'm asking you straight up. Did you ever see Soundgarden back in the day?
No, I never cared for Soundgarden.
Because they're the SST. I could see them...
Yeah, it came very close. Sure.
Yeah, it came very close.
It could have happened. It didn't, but it could have.
After Nirvana, were there any MTV major label alternative rock bands that you liked?
I liked Weezer. I thought they had good hits. I remember when that second album,
that was just such a spectacular flame out. And then it was kind of exciting to watch
the public be wrong on something and to see an actual market correction on it
while they still had a chance to stay a band and kind of go where they were supposed to go the
whole time. I thought that was kind of thrilling.
Yeah.
It's also so amazing too that... Because I remember hearing Pinkerton when it came out and
instantly liking it made total sense to me. I liked Weezer. This sounds like Weezer. This is
cool. I even remember I first heard El Scorcho on K-Rock on the radio and I was like, "Oh, cool.
New Weezer song. Solid." And then later, much later I read, "Oh, it's so dramatic and Rivers
was so hurt by the response and it was seen as such a failure." I assume that by today's standards,
it wasn't even that much of a failure. I'm sure it sold less than the Blue album, but today if
an album came out and in the first week sold way less than the first one, people would still
probably be talking about it. It would still have a shot. Maybe then this just, I don't know,
there's so much money in music.
Yeah. And I think back then those record sales just, they set the pace for everything else,
whether you were a success or a failure. You had no control over so many aspects of your career.
Like the label said whether you were doing well or not and you kind of couldn't say it's like,
"Well, no, we're happy being a band and maybe it didn't do what it should have done,
but we're going to keep being a band." And then they're just like, "Well, no, you
lost a lot of money for us now." And those things seem to cast such a huge shadow over
the future of bands when something didn't go well back then. Whereas now you could just
regroup and I mean, you look at like Spoon and the way they eaten it on the major label thing,
but then they just kind of said, "No, we're just going to re-contextualize, we're going to
redefine who we are." And then they find their own footing and then they succeed on their own terms.
Right. And also in the nineties, there was so much delight in talking about gross tabloid
celebrities and people who were just like, "Oh my God, we're going to joke about Cato Kaelin
for a few months." And like, "Man, that's like the D-list celebrity." Whereas today,
that type of person that people used to delight in making fun of so much would probably be able
to stretch that out to a solid 25 year career. They'd be big on social media. Just
that an old nineties idea where people used to look back at kind of ephemera from the trash
culture or from previous decades and be like, "Yikes, that came and went." Just nothing quite
comes and goes in the same way. - Like high and low is not nearly
what it was at a point. And so much stuff where you have just celebrities do the voiceover jobs
that they never would have done in a million years, 20, 30 years ago.
- Yeah, and 'cause back then people would have been like, "Oh my God, I just saw that actor
from Melrose Place on a commercial, yikes." - And then now George Clooney does Nespresso
commercials and everybody's just like, "Oh, it's fun. He likes Nespresso."
- He actually wouldn't be the George Clooney we know and love if he didn't do that.
- Yeah, and actually you're right. It does build into their identity now in a positive way. The
whole concept that it used to be where celebrities would go to Japan to do these commercials that
thankfully would never be seen in the States. It was like this secret shame that you'd go do
some cash grab, but it would never come home to haunt you. That's such a thing of the past.
- Just one hipster dude who worked in advertising had a VHS copy of it that he dubbed three times
that a handful of people mailed to each other. - It's Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's doing a
commercial for some soda in Japan. - Probably Rivers Cuomo at the time,
having one successful album, he probably was jittery and he probably had some feeling of like,
"Wow, is Weezer like flock of seagulls? Is Weezer like dead or alive?" Just these like kind of early
MTV forgotten bands who even now we look back and be like, "Oh, that was a good single, good for
them." But maybe at the time was so frightening. Well, just before we move on, Tom, because I do
appreciate you making a list of your top five Humble Pie songs. I got to say though, looking at
it and knowing your legendary sense of humor, as I read, I know I'm vaguely familiar with Humble
Pie and I know that the song, your number two song, "30 Days in the Hole," I know that's a real
song. But as I read through them, I can't help but wonder if it's a best show-esque bit and some of
these are not real names. And I'm curious as we go through them, Jake, do you think these are all,
because number one, "I Don't Need No Doctor," that sounds like a real song, "30 Days in the Hole,"
I know that. Number three, "You're So Good for Me," okay. But then number four, "The Sad Bag of
Shaky Jake," that's when I started to wonder. - I had the same thought. - Number five, "Take
Me Back," Tom's shaking his head. - These are all legit Humble Pie songs. - I mean, we got to check
out "The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake." - Yeah, Matt, can we throw on "The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake,"
Tom Sharpling's number four greatest Humble Pie song?
- Hell yeah. - Funky.
So these are all English, guys? - Yeah. - Alright, well, hold on, let's throw on Tom's number one
song, though. "I Don't Need No Doctor." - Now, this song is from their most successful album
in America, I believe, was this live album. And this is a song basically "Invent's Kiss."
- A way different vibe. - Yeah, this is hard rock. - What year is this? - '71. - Really? Wow. - Yeah.
- Okay, yeah, ahead of its time. - Wait, you're with Shaky Jake? - '70. - So they went from the band to Kiss overnight?
- They kind of bounced all over the place. That Shaky Jake is from this very acoustic album of theirs.
- Now I'm actually thinking, I actually wonder if Joey Ramone ever commented on Humble Pie.
Because that, it just feels like something you would see in like a Joey Ramone interview,
just like, "What band did you like in the early '70s?" Like, "You know, we really like Humble Pie.
I don't need no doctor. That's a big influence. That was a really cool, I mean, those guys rock."
- All right, Humble Pie. I feel like another band, I feel like James Gang is also like, I'm always
surprised like that random people think James Gang was cool. You'll find random punk rockers who are
just like, "Oh yeah, James Gang, they're hot." - Oh my god, that Joe Walsh at that point, you watch
the video of him doing Look Away on like German TV back then is one of the, they were just like a
straight up, they were a heavy duty power trio. And Joe Walsh has like that creepy mustache,
like that blonde mustache, which is such a, if you're like, have blonde hair and you grow that
mustache, man, if you can pull it off, you can do anything. - Amazing. And Joe Walsh,
although James Gang's so associated with the Midwest, Joe Walsh did go to Montclair High
School in New Jersey. - Isn't it crazy when you think about the inordinate amount of
New Jersey musicians. - Oh, it's punches way above its weight. - It's insane. - Whitney Houston,
right down the street from me. I mean, it's even funny, I always forget about this, but like
Tom Cruise went to my high school, Glen Ridge High School. And these places are, you know,
you know how Jersey is, these things are so clustered together. It's such a small area.
- Yeah. And people find the other people to do the thing and they can kind of hone their chops
in New Jersey and then they leave when they're ready. It's kind of perfect. - Yeah. And there's
great hot dogs. - Great hot dogs, yes. - Hot dog scene. - They take a hot dog for the road,
they load up the station wagon with their guitars, get one hot dog for the road, then go to the big
city. - If we ever have Bruce Springsteen on the show, actually, I'd love just to be like,
do you think Bruce Springsteen knows what Jimmy Buffs is? - Oh yeah, yes, I do. Absolutely. For
the amount of cultural mining he's done, I think he knows all of them. I just think he's so into
New Jersey that I just can't believe he wouldn't know. A guy I used to, the guy who owned the music
store I used to work at would go to the gym every morning down in like the Red Bank area. And then
Bruce Springsteen just started coming into the gym and just would like hang out with the other
guys at the gym. Would be like in the locker room, just like, "Hey guys, how's it going?
What's going on?" He was so aggressively normal outside of the trainer he had, who was probably
a bodyguard also. Beyond that, he was just like, he works very hard to be like a regular guy in his
day-to-day life. So, I picture him, he knows Rutz-Hutt. - And he likes to ride a motorcycle.
And Rutz-Hutt is actually like a motorcyclist meet, it's a place they meet up. - Yeah,
now I picture him pulling in his bike, pulling that Rutz-Hutt parking lot. - Yeah, he could
keep his helmet on if he didn't want to be bothered. - Yeah, he just walks up with his
helmet on and orders a hot dog, flips up the visor, sticks hot dog in his mouth, closes the visor.
I saw you do a Springsteen cover. I saw you do "I'm Going Down". - Oh yeah, great song. Yeah,
one of my favorites. "We sit in the car outside your house." I guess I don't know that much about
motorcycle culture, but if you're not in a gang and you're just like a guy with a motorcycle,
and you love being out there on the road, and you got a family and you can't be just like
doing cross country all the time, you do actually, I think that's what happens if you're just like a
middle-aged motorcyclist, you have to just pick a random place that's like 45 minutes away. And
actually, these places are the exact place where Patty's just like, "It's 8 p.m., can't we just
like watch a movie or something?" He's like, "I don't know, I don't want to get out there on the
bike." She's like, "Where are you going to go?" And he's like, "I think I'll drive up to Rutz-Hutt."
She's like, "Bruce, that's 39 minutes away." And he's just like, "All right, so I'll be back in
hour 45." You know the hot dogs don't keep Bruce. You know, on your motorcycle,
they just are cold when they come back. He just comes back with two cold hot dogs.
Two cold rippers. Just some nasty cold rippers. All right, we should get into our Beatles.
It's time for the Top 5 on iTunes.
Some of our, at least one listener, and we try to make every listener happy, felt like we've
been talking too much about the Beatles. So luckily, I think that Humble Pie content,
that good early hard rock content will balance it out. But just as a note to end on, we each
picked our top three Beatles songs. I kind of went against the assignment a little bit. You're
supposed to pick ones that were a little bit off the beaten path, but this seems like a good way to
end the show. So we each picked three. Jake, you're up first. These are your top three Beatles songs,
not counting the big hits.
Yeah, quote unquote, quote unquote.
Break it down for us.
Yeah, the idea was quote unquote deep cuts, right? So not the songs you've heard on
oldies or serious a million times.
Your first choice, which is actually the title of the book I just read,
is called You Never Give Me Your Money.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, this one sort of like condenses what would become the big medley
that comes after it, you know? I mean, this song has like four songs already in it.
Owen McCartney said he wrote this about the manager, Alan Klein. So this really
was like a spicy time for the Beatles. A lot of talk about the business.
So you think he's singing this to Alan?
I guess he said that.
His funny papers. Alan's like, here's your contract or whatever.
And he and John were at risk of losing control of their publishing company,
Northern Songs. That's a whole plot line in this book about the Beatles business is that
McCartney and Lennon in like '69 and '70 were frantically trying to buy up shares to reestablish
a majority of their own publishing company because it had been so parceled out. It really
was like succession. There were like these late night phone calls with various business interests
where Lennon and McCartney were trying to get over to 51%.
Well, that sounds like the very beginning of the seven years of burning creativity,
followed by 40 years of board meetings. That sounds like the transitional year.
Where do you think the medley starts? Can I just ask, where's the medley start?
Well, I think it starts with "Because," which is the song after this, right?
Well, "Because" comes before "You Never Give Me Your Money."
Oh, does it?
Because it's "Here Comes the Sun," then "Because," then "You Never Give Me Your Money," right?
Because "Sun King" comes after this.
Oh, that's what, yeah, I'm thinking "Sun King." I'm sorry.
But I really think this is the beginning of the medley.
I think it starts with "Because."
Right. Because it's, yeah.
Is this the first album of the 70s? Because it's the production.
It is pretty sick.
Think of the shift in production.
Yeah, it came out '69. It has some prominent synthesizers on it.
I'm like, even like on "Here Comes the Sun," kind of proggy.
Yeah, you're right. Is it "You Never Give Me Your Money" and then into "Sun King."
So you think it starts with "Because"?
In my mind, that's always when it started.
Yeah.
When it just like it shifted from a hit into this extended thing that goes on for 20 minutes.
McCartney's kind of at his best when he gets proggy, you know, like Uncle Albert and "On the
Run." Like, you know, people rag on McCartney for being kind of like sentimental or kind of
old fashioned. But sometimes when he puts a bunch of his ideas together, they really like blossom
in a very cool way.
And Ezra, you were talking about "Ram" in the past. "Ram" got the worst reviews.
John Landau literally said it's the worst album associated with any Beatle thing ever.
It was like the low point of the 70s. Like, he got hammered for that record.
It's only like over the last bunch of years that it's gotten elevated. But critics slammed it.
It's so weird. And "Ram," I think "Ram" is better than the first album.
I do too, yeah.
Like "Ram" is obviously cooler.
I like it more than "Man on the Run" too.
I think "Ram" is my favorite Paul McCartney solo album.
Straight up.
They were hard on Paul because he was kind of seen as being the one who ended the Beatles.
But the truth is, in the first few years, in terms of the success of the Beatles,
George was head and shoulders the most successful.
And then I think like even Ringo might have been number two. One thing's for sure,
John was at the bottom. His record sold the worst. And even though his first two records are amazing.
Stone Cold Plastics.
Maybe it's just expectations, right?
Yeah. People were... Yeah. I think blood is in the water then.
Jake, your next one. I would have chosen this one if you hadn't.
Oh, really? That's cool.
This is like low-fi Beatles.
Real quiet, vibey. And just like the epitome of cool, vibey, white album.
Drums are so loud.
This part is so quiet. I even remember when I had it on a CD.
It was like mastered way more quiet than any other song on the album.
This is almost like...
The drums coming so loud.
The mixing is wild.
Are those flutes? Or is that like a weird melotron or what?
I think it's a keyboard.
Man, all the remastering did so much of a favor for Ringo and kind of showing what he brought to things.
Absolutely. I've been so into Ringo lately with all the Beatles talk. He has such a light touch. He's so kind of jazzy and tasteful.
Yeah. I mean, Worcester said that there's like a drum fill he does on one song. I can't remember which one. Maybe Ticket To The Beat.
Or something where he's just like, I literally don't understand that fill. Like, I don't know what he's doing.
This is like when George is like, "I'm going to do this."
This is like when George is really coming online. Like, Tom, I was telling Jake before, I've rewatched Yellow Submarine a few times this week with my son, which is...
And I realized like, actually, I love this movie too. It's such a fun, cool movie. That has some very random stuff that they wrote for it, like, "Hey Bulldog" and some
like deep cut Beatles.
But one song that I always liked, which I think has kind of slept on is George's Only A Northern Song. It's a really kind of vibey psychedelic song.
The only thing that I'll say looking back on it is that you could tell that in these years, this is a great vocal performance. Only A Northern Song, not his best work.
You can tell that in this era, like '68 into '69, he's starting to explore his voice more, different ways he can be a singer.
Like he never knocked it out of the park in the early days. And Lennon and McCartney were just such excellent singers off from the bat.
And you can see that by Abbey Road, George is like out there as a great singer. And then obviously by the time he's making his own solo work, he's like fully stepped into it.
And it's like, it is kind of interesting. You're like watching somebody who maybe didn't consider themselves a lead singer, like find their voice in real time.
It's so easy to forget how young he was in all of that. And like whenever he's trying to like triangulate against Paul, like him and John against Paul and whatever things
he's playing, he's like a 25 year old.
It's like, of course that's what a 25 year old's going to do.
Yeah, right.
It's like, he's mad at the older guys. And that's the way I think all things must pass.
It's so funny because it's just like half of it, it's half the spiritual album and half this, you asked, never took me seriously.
And I'm going to drop a thousand pound masterpiece on all your heads and show you who's running things now.
It's like very like petty and spiritual at the same time.
Uptight hippie.
Right.
Yeah.
Our favorite uptight.
Oh man, you don't want to mess with the uptight hippie.
All right, Jake, and your third Beatles song you picked is "Girl".
I wanted to do one George, one Paul, one John.
This kind of, as we were talking about that sort of mid-period Beatles, like where they're transitioning from the early rock and roll stuff to the more sophisticated
sort of self-conscious stuff.
Yeah.
I almost see this as like a precursor to the "Happiness is a Warm Gun" because they're doing this sort of like doo-wop girl thing, but there's this like touch of irony to
it.
It's a very bitter.
This is like an early genre experiment.
And like the melody in the verse is just one of my favorite Lennon melodies.
Although the funny thing about this song is that it's also a very McCartney type song in that it's a little bit like old fashioned and like you could totally picture
McCartney saying this.
Oh yeah.
Now this is one of the closest ones to a Paul song that just seems like John didn't have those muscles, like the music hall muscles.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Music hall.
Exactly.
Yeah, actually, that's a funny thought is like, this is one of the closest to a Paul songs by John.
What's the closest John song by Paul?
As I say this, I know it's not right because it's such a Paul song, but there is a way in which "Hey Jude" is very...
"Hey Jude" reminds me a bit of like "Imagine" and that thing of like John piano songs.
But of course it's very Paul.
So that's not, maybe that's not the best example.
Maybe why don't we do it in the road?
Because it's like so, like Paul's never that goofy in a certain way that John at that point, especially in '69 was taking everything so silly.
It's funny that you say that, Tom, because I remember growing up, I had one other friend who was into the Beatles.
And I think we had a long debate that back then you couldn't look it up.
We just could not tell who sang "Why Don't We Do It In The Road."
It wasn't easy.
Like that song would just come on and be like, yeah, he had this kind of like grit in his voice.
That's a little more John-esque, but okay.
And these are Tom's top three deeper cut Beatles.
And I did the same thing you did, Jake.
I went one George, one Paul, one John.
Oh, I should have done that.
Maybe I did.
I don't remember.
Okay.
So your first choice is "I'm Down."
This is the B-side to "Help."
You tell lies thinking I can't see.
You can't cry 'cause you're laughing at me.
I'm down.
I'm really down.
I'm down.
Down on the ground.
I'm down.
I'm really down.
How can you laugh when you know I'm down?
How can you laugh when you know I'm down?
Man buys ring, woman throws it away.
Same old thing happen every day.
I'm down.
I'm really down.
I'm down.
Down on the ground.
I'm down.
Man, I think if you'd asked me without me looking at my notes, who wrote this song,
I'd probably say like, that's probably one of those covers they did in the early days.
Yeah.
But it's, and it's just like, when you think about that "Help" single that like, you know,
John's going for it on "Help" and then like, like Paul matches, Paul like,
jumps past them on that, like, cause he's just doing his, his little Richard and his
thing.
And I just love that version of Paul that gets kind of like, forgotten about sometimes
when you think of him as the guy at the piano writing, you know, lighter songs.
You're totally right.
Paul could have been, if Paul leaned into it, he could have been like,
seen as like a hard dude.
Yeah.
When he like, really goes for it.
Your next one, "Your Blues", another white album banger.
Are you a big white album guy, Tom?
Oh yeah.
That's my favorite Beatles album.
Yeah, me too.
It's a white album.
Something for any mindset on it.
And also just sounds so good.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's just like, like, like you were saying, like with "Long, Long, Long" is kind of like a
lo-fi thing.
And this is just them playing in like a closet in the studio, basically.
Is this where John gets, and I was trying to think this through, correct me if I'm wrong.
This is where like the John sound of like, "Instant Karma" and "Cold Turkey".
This is the first sign of that.
That's a good call.
Well, yeah, here with the slapback on his vocals.
Very, very "Instant Karma".
Yeah.
And it's just like, that's my favorite John sound is this just reverbed.
I just love the immediacy of what he did when he decided to, like he embraces immediacy
at a point where George is basically has Phil, like is doing this, you know, wall of sound,
basically with Phil Spector.
John's just doing this simple, clean, basic stuff with Phil Spector.
He was just such a contrarian that like he probably could never fully be down with like
hippie stuff, even though he helped create it.
That, cause you read these quotes from him in this era and certainly by basically the
rest of his life from this era on, he'd always just say, "I like rock and roll, man.
I dig it."
I like rock and roll.
I mean, when you think about Paul McCartney beefing with the Rolling Stones in 2021 and
being kind of like their blues cover band, I think we had a lot more versatility.
It's not hard to think the Beatles probably thinking that they could have done what they're
more like blues oriented peers did, cause they were pretty good at it.
Yeah.
You know, they probably felt a little bit like, "Oh yeah, we could have done
Honky Tonk Woman, but you know, you couldn't do A Day in the Life."
And even this is like, it's a blues song that also is clearly commenting on being a
blues song by calling it your blues.
It's like, he's not just pretending he's a blues man.
He's, he knows he's a little bit of a tourist here.
He's too self-conscious and satirical to fully commit Jagger style.
Yeah.
Oh, nice.
You pick your next choice.
It's All Too Much.
This is also a yellow submarine.
I was watching, this is the last song in Yellow Submarine and I was watching it last night.
I was like, "Damn, the guitar sounds sick on this."
Yeah.
And that organ sound.
Yeah.
I mean, this is like the blueprint for so much stuff, this song.
This is like predicting the future.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's all too much.
So apparently this is about George's experimentation with LSD.
Yeah.
That's All Too Much, man.
Because this, here's something crazy to think about.
They recorded this song basically the week Sgt Pepper came out.
Like they're still working in the studio.
Like if you had Sgt Pepper up your sleeve and you know, just like,
"Hey, next week we've got this record coming out."
Wouldn't you just maybe like take a day to just bask in all of that?
And then they're just like pushing.
I love that.
Yeah.
They truly never stop.
What was the first one of these records that broke the cycle of somebody putting stuff out under,
you know, where you had to have something out every year at least?
Who's the first band that really broke that pattern?
You know, people always talk about John taking 75 to 80 off.
Maybe he was a bit of a pioneer in that regard.
It's pretty much three years between Born to Run and Darkness is like almost three years.
I think it's like a hair under three years.
But that was because of like contractual stuff.
Like he didn't want to take that break.
Yeah.
But still, that was a guy who had that kind of gap between releases.
Zeppelin took two years, but then they came back with Double Album.
Yeah.
It says in the notes that the Grateful Dead have covered this song.
I listened to it.
It's not good.
What year?
'95.
Okay.
Ooh, right at the end.
I would have loved to heard them do this song in like '69.
Sure.
Not Peak.
Not Peak.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
It's being very kind.
'95, not Peak.
I think Vince Wellnick might have sung it.
[Laughter]
And also this song is, it's all about the production.
Like it's a good song, but it's like,
you can't just sit down and strum this on an acoustic, for instance.
You need like that drone-y guitars, the organ.
All right.
Mine were kind of random.
I feel like I didn't do as good a job as you guys, but it's so hard to pick.
Agonizing.
I didn't pick this because I think it's actually my top three Beatles song.
I just kind of wanted to talk about it.
And it's Helter Skelter, because I just had a few thoughts.
This is also so ahead of its time, like for '68.
Oh, yeah.
Just like, even the guitar sound and just how heavy it is.
It's like, they almost could have been Zeppelin.
I guess they were probably, you know, Hendrix came out a year earlier.
So maybe they're going for that.
But this really was kind of like an archetypal hard rock song too.
The high background vocals.
This sounds like Aerosmith.
Straight up.
The main thing that I thought, thinking about it, was just kind of like,
this is a tone that Paul didn't return to that often.
Like we were talking about that when Paul would occasionally show,
no, he could do like the kind of hard, wild **** too.
But I was just thinking about how this is like Paul doing this hard song.
And obviously in the post-Charles Manson world,
it's colored even more as being like a dark, heavy song.
But then I was just thinking about the fact, like,
the phrase Helter Skelter was probably such a grandma phrase in the 60s.
You know, like Helter Skelter, it's like,
probably the way that a grandma would describe like a messy room.
Yeah.
Imagine if this song was called Topsy Turvy.
Yeah.
And that's when I kind of realized like, oh yeah, Paul,
he'll always have that kind of cheeky dance hall kind of sweetness about his songwriting.
Like it seemed, the song seems kind of unusually scary, but it really is.
Yeah. It'd be more Paul if he just went, "Topsy Turvy, da-na-na-na-na, Topsy Turvy."
The next song I picked, I'm sure you guys have heard this.
Beatlesheads, I feel like always come across this and love it.
So we were talking earlier about "Because,"
and this is the version that was on one of the Beatles anthologies.
That's just the acapella.
And I feel like there's always, I don't know,
there's almost like a small cult around this version
because it is just so beautiful hearing their voices.
And actually I prefer this to the album version.
Sorry, where is this from?
It was officially released on one of the Beatles anthologies in the 90s.
Which, you know, anthologies, there was some cool stuff on them.
Some of it was like a little useless, like just an alternate take of something.
Yeah, yeah.
But then there's something like this that really stood out where you're like,
"Whoa, this is kind of like haunting."
Yeah.
And also, you know, to remember that partially why the Beatles is so special,
you obviously have three, four great musicians,
at least three excellent songwriters, beloved songwriters.
But there's something unique about when they really sang together.
It was so special.
Whoever wrote the song, like this is a John song,
but it's like the harmonies, you know?
Did you ever see the Vegas show?
The Cirque du Soleil?
Oh, no.
The Love?
Yeah.
Was it cool?
It's the greatest.
I saw it twice.
This plays a part in it.
Because it's just a giant mashup.
They got all the masters and they just mash everything and everything's layered on top.
And it's like, it's pretty amazing.
Wow.
♪ Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry ♪
♪ Because the sky is blue ♪
So my last one that I chose, this is where I totally went off the reservation,
but I do have a justification.
So for my last one, I chose Eleanor Rigby.
Not a deep cut, Ezra.
♪ Ah, look at the color of the rain ♪
That's why, you know, you don't have to count it.
But, you know, I guess I've just been thinking about and watching Yellow Submarine,
which this is in, I was just kind of thinking more about Paul.
Because it's like, like everybody, I always thought like,
oh, John's like a more interesting songwriter.
But I think this is some of the hardest Paul writing ever.
Like, this song is just cool and weird.
And when you really think about it, like this dark, weird, kind of like Baroque song,
just vocals and strings.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know, this song just always sounds like fresh to me.
It's very timeless.
It's like, I got to give him a lot of props for just like dropping this.
66.
And just the fact that this was a single is so weird when you really think about it.
Like when you listen to like, you know, Taxman or something,
you're like, all right, 66, cool.
Swing in London.
And then you listen to like this and you're just like,
and also I guess this is a song where Paul's kind of like interest in the past
actually takes on like a really deep, weird feeling.
Cause like, you know, and actually I love all the Beatles, so I'm not a hater,
but you know, you see the criticism of Paul.
We're like, oh, when I'm 64, your mother should know Penny Lane.
It's almost like people want to say he's like a less witty Ray Davies or something.
Like he doesn't have the dark edge.
And then you hear a song like this and you're like, no,
this is like a haunting song about the past.
These weird old English names that whatever he saw in a gravestone
and just like really kind of there imagining.
Yeah.
It's like Paul puts himself out there in a way that is like,
so would be so easy for everybody else in the band to make fun of him for like,
with these, these big swings that could be interpreted as being super corny
or, or just like just a bad thought.
And he put himself out there for these weird,
these kinds of weird moments that would push the envelope of what the band was.
Yeah, totally.
And I think ultimately that's such an important part of the Beatles
is the same reason why there are these people who just like, can't get down with them.
Cause they're just like octopus's guard and yellow submarine get the out of here.
But it's like, it is dope when you think about in the context of this band
that could have gone in so many directions and they would do like a helter-skelter your blues.
And then they would do like a Peggy's on the same record or a Rocky raccoon.
Like, yeah, I love that.
Anyway, shout out to Paul McCartney, Eleanor Rigby.
Thank you so much, Tom Sharpling.
Thanks for coming through.
Thank you.
This is so much fun.
There's a highlight of my year.
Check out the best show.
Check out the memoir.
Also thank you to our other guest,
Death Spot, check out Chilling Island on HBO.
Everybody have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We'll see you in 2022.
Peace.
Crisis.
With Ezra Koenig.
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