Episode 175: TC: Unfiltered
Links
Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
So much to talk about in this funny old world of ours, and yet there's only three topics that really matter
this weekend.
And that's pizza,
water,
and Kate Bush.
This is a very special Holy Trinity episode of
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Let's begin.
chances. You were a friend, warming me, on my ride through chances. My picture clear. Everything seems so easy. And so I delved to the floor. One of us had to go. Now it's
different. I want you to know.
One of us is crying. One of us is lying. We've been only there.
Time Crisis back again. What's up? Another typical low energy start. We always get there.
We don't come out the gate with a lot of heat. But that's how you know we're real. Yep. Cold
engine. You're along for the ride with us. Yeah, you can go ahead. Skip 45 minutes in.
Probably a good idea. This is how Time Crisis starts. It's a little bit of housekeeping.
I was talking with a friend who had listened to our fully loaded baked potato episode.
And I guess we didn't talk about on the show that Wendy's used to have baked potatoes.
That was like a go to thing at Wendy's. True. Do they still have it on the menu? I don't
know. I haven't been to Wendy's in like 10 years. It seems so funny and old fashioned.
Like a Wendy's baked potato that almost, you know, it's like when you hear stories about
Dunkin Donuts being like a sit down restaurant or like McDonald's having like steak and mashed
potatoes and like 1955. Do you guys remember this Seinfeld and Nick that Wendy's had fully
loaded baked potatoes? I've had it like so that was like a classic thing. Yeah, but I
had it like three years ago. I feel like for a certain. Yeah, I feel for a certain Wendy's
customer. The baked potato has been sort of a mainstay. It'll be kind of sad if they ever
get rid of it and then they're just the same as McDonald's and Burger King. Just slightly
different burgers. I think the chili and the baked potato are two things that distinguish
Wendy's from the rest. Is Gen Z eating baked potatoes? Look, I didn't even bring this up
last time, but we eat baked potatoes fairly regularly in our house. Really? Yeah. Are
they fully loaded? No, I think that there's like semi loaded. I think that we'll do maybe
a little bit of never. I think we'll do some sour cream, butter, maybe chives. But I think
you go bacon and you're taking this sort of hearty, healthy dish and you're sort of tipping
it into. Yeah. So but that being said is, you know, I got a question. I did bite my
tongue and when when everyone said, oh, who does this anymore? We do it. You're living
a very traditional lifestyle with your family. You're off the grid. No electricity. Your
son has zero screen time and you're regularly eating baked potatoes. He's going to go out
into a cruel into a cruel world. Everyone making fun of his baked potato. I got a question.
Is a baked potato a side dish or is it? I guess I can kind of remember back in the day
it would be an option as a side, but a fully loaded baked potato. Is that kind of like
an entree? Is that a main course? How are you doing it at your house, Nick? We're doing
in our house. It will be we're having a baked potato for dinner. I mean, that would be the
dinner maybe with some veggies on the side. So it's your main course. Yeah. I mean, certainly
there's there's an option that, you know, when you go to a restaurant, you'd get a baked
potato, I think, as a side. But that seems crazy. I mean, it's so hearty, especially
if you're going to get it fully loaded. But you're still talking about a giant potato.
Well, I guess that's also a question when you know it's baked potato night. It's Monday,
Wednesday or Friday at your house and you're going potato shopping that day. You have to
go for like a pretty big one like a two hander. Yeah, it's a big potato and it is delicious.
You know, it's salt. You honestly it would be kind of in our house again, semi loaded.
But I think traditionally you'd get you'd bake the potato, ghee butter and some sea
salt. And I think that that with some veggies is a is a great meal. Is that a rare example
of baked potato as a main? Because I can't think of any other potato entrees. I feel
like it's always that's the exception. It's otherwise. I think if you add mashed potatoes
as your main, that seems psycho. French fries as your main. That's a fully loaded mashed
potatoes. What have you got? Some kind of fully loaded fries like well, well, Seinfeld
the Canadian could poutine be a main? Oh God. Yeah. If it's fully loaded with meat and all
that stuff. That's like your whole day. Like you eat that for lunch and it's just I think
you're good for until the next morning. So yeah, I'm going to introduce baked potato
night in my household. We're bringing back baked potato night.
My baby woke me up this morning. She said get down that labour exchange. And if you don't
come home with a job, sir, you'll get no dinner today. You gotta secure me a weekly worthy
wage. You'll get no more empty cooking. You'll get no more apple pie. You just get those
plain hot potatoes to satisfy your appetite.
Jake, when I say that we do this, you don't like this at all. Like you wouldn't want a
baked potato with a little bit of butter and salt. You don't think that that would be tasty?
No, I think it'd be. I think it could be good. I think I would need to do like put some hot
sauce on there or something. I don't think it would really. Yeah. I know what you're
saying. I don't want to load it up. So it's too caloric. I wouldn't want to dump a bunch
of like cheddar cheese and bacon on it. I mean, I would, I would want to do that, but
I wouldn't do it. So I think I would do like hit it with some hot sauce with some butter
and salt. Sounds good. If you have like a nice salad or like a, I don't know, like a
Russell sprout or something with like a roasted Brussels sprout with it. Roast those while
you're doing the potato. I mean, I'm on board, dude. I'm into this TC baked potato night.
Plus an ice cold beer. Oh yeah. Dude. Glass of red wine. Maybe. I don't know. We're just,
this is getting classy. My next birthday, I'm going to do a baked potato party. I'm
going to hire a baked potato truck. Everybody comes to truck. I'll find the best baked potato
truck here, dude. Of like the, maybe we started this book artisanal, uh, food truck scene.
Am I correct? That in, in a late season, eastbound and down the Danny McBride show, there was
a joke on that show about fixings. Did they open it? Was it baked potatoes? They opened
a baked potato kiosk in the mall. Damn dude. I do not remember. Yeah. Kenny and Steve,
I think have a heart to heart where they get into the fee. If the Xans, uh, right. There's
a Mac and cheese truck that parks near my house. Sort of. I'm all, I've never hit it.
I'm just sort of like Mac and cheese truck. What? Honestly, if I saw a baked potato truck,
I'd be like much more interested. Just a real simple baked potato. We can also have some
fun with it. I like Nick's vibe of like the minimalist baked potato. You know, like there's,
there's famously a sign at some kind of slightly more traditional uptight sushi restaurants
in LA famously at sushi park. There's a sign outside that says before you even walk in
no California rolls, which I think kind of signals a type of traditionalism, a type of
seriousness. And I think our baked potato truck could have a very minimalist design
and could have a sign that says do not ask for fully loaded. And basically you have like
two options. Number one is the ghee and sea salt baked potato. And number two is like,
I don't know. You can add chives. Yeah. One or two chives, the minimalist baked potato
truck. So in eastbounded down Kenny powers, uh, he has a restaurant idea called TNT and
he's explained it's like a Hooters style restaurant, but with potatoes and he's explaining it to
Steve and then it gets into the fix. And so they have this sort of back and forth. There
is a baked potato truck in New York, like a food truck called the potato house. And
uh, yeah, I think I mean it mainly is sold on, on how fully loaded you can get it. So
I think we're in new territory. I think there's a whole, there's definitely still a hole in
the market for just a straight up, very clean, classic, minimalist baked potato. I can't
wait for that New York times profile. Just a kind of elegant photograph of us standing
together. It says, meet the man who brought, who brought the baked potato to Gen Z. Is
this like, um, great internet radio pivot into food trucks with their minimalist baked
potato? I mean, that's it. Definitely. That sounds real. Yeah. In an era of keto diets
and you know, general abstention from carbs, these boys have turned it around. So you know
how there's like a savory crepe and then there's sweet crepes like are sweet baked potatoes,
something we could maybe, you know, experiment with introduce. I'm talking jam, marble AIDS.
All right. I mean, I have two thoughts. One is like if we did kind of like the trashy
version that has just like 47 variations. Yeah. A hundred percent. It would just be
like beef on, it'd just be like number 39, the big boy. This one's loaded with whipped
cream, fruit loops, Captain crunch, Hershey's chocolate syrup, and a whole banana. The potato
split up at this like acai bowls, except the basis batch mashed potatoes. We've scooped
out the baked potato. So it's just sort of the skin and it's stuffed with ice cream.
There's something rich and potent about the image of the potato. It feels very now it
feels very 2022. It feels like what Gen Z is looking for. It feels like what a coalition
of Gen X and millennial men could definitely get some type of New York times style feature
about. I think this has legs. I think we have to like feel out a few things, but I think
there's something cool and kind of like, it's old, but it's new. And the one thing I'll
say is being here in Southern California, it's not exactly a hot weather dish, but I
could see us rolling up to say a Boston, a Minneapolis, a Toronto, a Montreal, and we're
posting up and we're just kind of like, it's lunchtime. It's cold. Come have this hot ass
baked potato. Something I like about that.
Did I ever tell you guys, I must've told this story a long time ago, but we're in episode
600. So we can repeat. There's a famous place I believe is on route three in New Jersey.
You always drive past called Pauly pizza. It's like this little shack on the highway,
Pauly pizza. I don't know if it's still there. It's the type of place. If you lived in Jersey,
you drive past it a million times. I'd never been there, but I remember my friend telling
me about going there and people would always say that it was owned by the mob. But as you
can imagine, just like in any place, people love kind of like organized crime stories
and especially in a place like New Jersey that famously has like the Sopranos and stuff
and or just the whole New York area, even going back to the Godfather and stuff. People
love to say stuff like that. Like, Oh, you know that that garbage truck was owned, that
picks up stuff. The garbage is owned by the mob. People always just said stuff like that.
You never really knew if it was true. And our people would always say that Pauly pizza
was owned by the mob. Like, you know, what did I know? But then I did remember sometime
after that a friend of mine going and I was like, Oh, so what's the story with that place?
What's the vibe? And he said, well, it's just weird. We went in, they seemed a little bit
annoyed when I asked if they had pepperoni and they said, we only got plain pizza. And
I just always thought about that. Like maybe it was some kind of front, but just like rolling
to a pizza place and they're just like angry that you'd asked for the most basic.
No toppings.
He claimed that the day he walked in, they said, we got plain. What do you want? And
they're like, all right, I'll slice the plain. Yeah. He claimed that only had plain pizza
in there. I guess at a pizza place, it doesn't cost that much to, you know, buy some mushrooms
or something. I just wonder if there is something cool and elegant and minimalist about a place
that really only does one or two items.
I feel like there's a thing of like when you're at like a fancy pizza restaurant and like
if I'm at like a fancy pizza restaurant with like my brother, he'll want to only get like
the margarita and his theory is like, I will like, I want to test it. I want to see what
their baseline is. Right. Like when someone like suggests getting a cheese pizza, it drives
me up a wall. I'm like, well, interesting. I don't care what their baseline is. Cheese
pizza is so boring. You got to get some olives on there. Give me something. What's your go-to
pizza? I like a sausage, olive sausage. I like a salty pizza, like a pep olive. Yeah.
Onion. Just something. I mean, but Dave's always very like, we got to get the margarita
and was like, why? And it's like, I feel like there's this thing of like, if it's a good
pizza place, the margarita, AKA the plane is going to like be amazing.
I mean, that's a very interesting point and I can see both sides of it. I mean, you know,
similar to like an art and music, there is a school of thought that says, take out all
the extraneous elements. And if, you know, people definitely say this about music.
It's overproduced.
If it sounds good, picking up an acoustic guitar and just singing it, you got a song
right there because you're not hiding behind wacky arrangements or interesting production.
I kind of understand that idea that there's an essence to everything when you strip everything
away and you can truly judge the distilled version and that's where you see the truth
of it. So, I kind of see what Dave's saying.
I remember arguing with a buddy of mine, Jason Anderson, when we were in college and in 1997,
OK Computer came out and I was like, dude, this is a step up from the Benz. I really
think it is. This album is incredible. And he was like, honestly, dude, don't agree,
man. The Benz, you can like play those songs on an acoustic guitar. They hold up the songs.
They're classic songs. A lot of the stuff on OK, you can't really play on the guitar.
It's not like a classic true song. I was like, dude, you're bringing like such a narrow reading
of this record and of like that's such an insanely restrictive criteria. And he was
like, dude, that's just the way it is. And we never, you know, and like we never got
past it. That was the end of our friendship.
Anyway, I'm about to order a plain cheese pizza. You want in? And you're just like,
I'm taking a walk, man.
Dude, I can't deal, man. Throw in some green olives and some feta. Give me, you know, give
me some chopped red onions. Give me something, dude.
There's two types of people in this world. Plain cheese pizza, the Benz types and OK
computer sausage and olive types, let alone kid.
Yeah, there you get into like fennel. You know, they're like when they just drop like
a handful of arugula like on top of the pizza once it's out of the oven. That's some kid
age. What about a white pizza?
Oh, oh, no. Good or no. I in theory good, but in practice it rarely works out. I was
big on white pizza in the mid to late 90s in New Jersey.
Like is it just like Alfredo sauce? What is the white?
No, it's not Alfredo sauce. I think it's it's regatta.
Wait, oh, it's just ricotta.
Yeah, ricotta, mozzarella. And you could put something green on it. You could have a spin
it. A white spinach pie.
You know, like a pesto would go really well on that.
Oh, totally. I've done that. I've made like a pesto ricotta pizza before.
I think you really are touching on something kind of deep, deeper than pizza is like, I
think it's the same with coffee.
There's also people who would be like, I want to drink a black coffee and somebody else
be like, no, but I like I like the way the little bit of sugar and, you know, a little
bit of almond milk and they'll be like, no, no, no. All you're doing is masking the essence
and you're covering up for a bad product. And I guess it's kind of Dave's argument with
the plain pizza and Jason Anderson's argument with OK Computer. He's like, sorry, you strip
away all those cool sounds on OK Computer. What are you left with? Just a bunch of garbage.
Green plastic watering can. For a fake Chinese rubber plant. And a fake plastic gun.
She bought from a rubber man. And a town full of rubber bands. To get rid of itself.
So when you and your brother go to dinner.
We don't do it. Yeah, no more. We can't go to a pizza restaurant together. Is that true?
You wouldn't order two separate pizzas or you just you just know. I'm kidding. I mean,
you guys should go to Pizza Hut and get personal pens. If it was just me and Dave going to
a pizza restaurant and the pies were such that like we only really needed to get one.
I would try to convince the restaurant to go half, you know, half and half like I could
put stuff on my half. No, but a high end restaurant's not going to do that. They're going to laugh
you out of there. You could do that at your local. Yeah, regular spot. You can't go to
a high end place and say whatever. All the names are in Italian and stuff and say they
don't do how to get half quattro formaggio and half half positano Bianco.
Get the **** out of here. This came up the other day. Hannah and I went to a fancyish
pizza place in Pasadena and I tried to do the half move. Oh, it literally happened to
me. This literally happened like four days ago and the server was like, can't do halves.
And I had this in my head. I had a full Larry David moment of like, you don't do halves.
Why don't you do halves? What's so hard about it? Yeah, what's the what's the problem? Can
I talk to the chef? So we you know, we compromised. We ended up doing a sausage sausage onion.
I love this loyalty to sausage as a topic. I need something. A plain pizza. I'm just
like, I can't do it. You really don't like a margarita. I don't like it. Yeah, I do like
a black coffee, but I don't like a margarita. That's for the next mountain breeze. The worst
margarita of my life. That's about being forced to eat a plain margarita pizza. Hang on a
second. That's a fancy pizza place. There's some stuff. There's tomato sauce. There's
like leaves and there's basil often. There's flavor. There's like one wilted leaf of basil
on the slice of margarita. And then there's like the sauce, the dried sauce. And then
there's one like dollop of mozz. Yeah, it's sort of just like half the slice doesn't even
have cheese on it. So then you just have to kind of just like roll it into like a taco
and just kind of like down the whole thing in two bites. Would you prefer to not eat
pizza than to eat a margarita pizza? Um, I mean, maybe yeah. What I prefer not to eat
dinner. Then I would have a margarita. No, not if you're starving. But if there was some
options and you're with a group of people, I would get, yeah, we get like a pasta or
something, you know, a sub I would get. Yeah, I'll get like a East Coast meatball grinder.
I could totally see that group of people being like, well, there's some allergies and stuff.
Let's just get two plain pies. And Jake's just like, I'll get a meatball grinder then.
Okay. Yeah, I'm not down. I got a question about pizza. This is a real knock around episode
so far. I have to ask you guys, or does this surprise you about Jake? Who seems to me as
such a back to basics, simple man, you know, like a Modelo black coffee. No, but that's
a very interesting point because yeah, a simple man is often described as being meat and potatoes.
What you're talking about, there's a difference between a simple man and the simplicity favored
by the kind of highbrow elite, which is kind of a type of minimalist simplicity. So there
is something that makes sense about being like a sausage guy. It's simple and straightforward.
It's not minimalist. Yeah, dude, pizza is like a populist food form. I don't like it
when it minimalism is not populist. Yeah, I don't like it. I'm a regular guy. I don't
need much. I want to go home. I don't want to have anything on the walls. I want to have
mid-century Scandinavian furniture. I want white everything. I'm a regular guy. Okay.
I'm a regular guy. I'll watch an Ingmar Bergman film. Okay. I don't like a high broke style.
Minimalism is not minimalist necessarily. And I think it drives me insane when there's
just like super fancy hamburgers and pizza. I'm just like, come on. This has come up before
where people have been like, "Oh, you're from Connecticut. You must think of like New Haven
pizza is the best." And I'm like, "It's good. It's fine." Pizza, you're going to find great
pizza in every state, in every city. Let's not overthink this. You put a sausage on a
pie. I would be remiss if I didn't say I tried
a Chicago deep dish pizza for the first time just a couple of weeks ago.
Were you in Chicago? No, no. I was here in Los Angeles.
Red Baron? I can't remember the... No, it wasn't there.
It was- No, I'm kidding. That's a frozen pizza.
Oh, no. It was a Garfield Eats frozen deep dish pizza.
Where were you? It was in Echo Park. It's like the one spot.
There's a deep dish place in Echo Park? Yeah. It's like famously deep. Anyway, long
story short, I was not feeling it. It was like a stew.
You have like one piece. A really deep dish, good deep dish can be
good. And as we've discussed a long time ago on this show, deep dish is not even necessarily
the favorite pizza of Chicago. Remember when we had Nihilist Arby's on and he explained
how if you go to your classic regular Chicago bar, they're going to have actually a very
tasty thin slice. Which used to be free.
Which used to be free. He was saying like back decades ago, you go
to a bar and there would just be like a free kind of thin crust just hanging out.
Right. All right. One last thing about pizza, because this was on my mind a few weeks ago.
I was at a children's party. I was helping my child eat some pizza. They were serving
kind of like big, pretty big adult slices. And I was like, "Oh, check this out. Fold
it and then it's kind of easier to eat." And then across the party, I was very happy that
there was another Jersey dad, guy who grew up in Jersey there from across the party.
So I'll be doing, he said, "All right, Jersey." And I was like, "What?" And he was like, "Folding
the slice is a Jersey thing." And I was like, "Get out of here. Really?" And he's like,
"I don't know. I never seen anybody doing it from anywhere else." And I was like, "Really?"
I was like, "You grew up folding your slice." He's like, "Yeah, it's a Jersey thing."
BS. Anyway. Yeah. I take real umbrage with that.
It's not a Jersey thing. That's universal.
I think it's like an eating pizza thing. Right? I've never not folded my pizza.
Yeah. That's really going out on a limb. All right. Well, Jake, you can't say anything
because you're from greater New Jersey. You're from the greater New Jersey area.
I guess DC is with tri-state adjacent. Maybe people in the Midwest and California don't
do that.
Yeah. See, I don't know. This doesn't get to the bottom of it because Jake is actually
from the New Jersey area. And then Nick, you're from DC, which is kind of like, you're actually
from the city, the District of Columbia, which is kind of almost like a liminal space in
that you have people from all over the world coming through.
But also, by the way, that being said, the guy was right. He shouted from across a crowded
room, "Jersey," and he was right.
I mean, I was happy to think of it as being a Jersey thing. That suddenly took a kind
of mundane moment and framed it as the transmission of ancestral knowledge from father to son.
You cross the Hudson River, they're not folding.
It definitely seems like a New York thing, too. So maybe it's just back to it's a tri-state
thing. And then, Nick, you grew up down in DC. You got people from literally all over
the world there. So you got people from Sweden, India, Philippines, New Jersey, all coming
through. So you don't know which cultural traditions came from where growing up in a
place like that.
You're right. I could have learned it from someone from New Jersey.
Senator Bob Menendez. Yeah, you had Chris Christie probably coming through to go hang
out with the powers that be. Okay, Seinfeld, let's just get a quick number crunch. Folding
your pizza, where does that come from?
Well, Seinfeld looks at this. I'm just going to throw out to Jake, as someone with a young
child, you're about to find yourself at a lot of children's birthday parties where there's
going to be a lot of plain pizza.
Oh, sure. Well, I mean, that's not, you know, that's...
You're at a kid's party. I'm not going to like make a stink about...
No, no, I'm not saying you're going to make a stink about it. I'm saying you're about
to find yourself eating a lot of margarita pizza.
Yep. You know, if I'm at a three-year-old's birthday party, I'm going to...
Where are the olives?
I'm going to lower my standards.
Roger, I just failed to see why you can't have a sausage and olive for the grownups.
I mean, for every kid, there's going to be at least one adult. The math is not that hard.
For every one plain, you get a sausage and olive. It's basic party etiquette.
I mean, this past... Speaking of kids, this past weekend, our daughter Lizzie had her
first pizza and her first ice cream cone.
Whoa. I mean, did her face just light up?
Yeah, the ice cream she was confused with. And then like when it kind of clicked, she
was just like, "Oh, damn." Like soft serve chocolate.
Oh, man.
Get out of here.
Did she say this changes everything?
In her own way, yeah.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah.
By like, you can bring like a fancy bottle of wine to a restaurant, like your own wine.
Yeah.
So could you not just bring like, carry around some nice sausages for when the occasion warrants
that...
Ask him to cut it up and throw it on the pizza.
That's what I'm saying.
Can you throw this in the microwave?
Oh, you could bring that to a children's party. Sure.
That's what I'm saying. You could have like a bolster.
I see.
Where the cheese go? Where the mother's little cheese go at?
Aw yeah, baby. I want some. Where the cheese go? Where the cheese go at?
Just get your ass over here. You know what I'm sayin'? I'm sleepy.
I been havin' these dreams. I been havin' these bad mother's little dreams.
I'm dreamin' about the cheeses.
Yeah, come on. I'm sorry I'm being a little irritable.
I just don't hungry for the... Where the mother's little cheese at?
I need some cheese at this.
According to Time Out New York, folding pizza dates all the way back to Italy,
and then in America it seems to have originated in New York.
Okay, thoroughly researched piece by Time Out.
Totally something you can easily back check.
Now, if you thought that folding your pizza may have originated in France,
and then entered America via North Dakota, you'd be sorely mistaken.
It's actually more of an Italy via New York thing.
Wait, did you guys see that show "Devs" during the pandemic?
Oh yeah, I watched "Devs."
And there was Nick Offerman and the other tech dudes were watching
"Significant Advance in Human History,"
and they were watching a fuzzy version of Jesus Christ being crucified.
And then a fuzzy version of Marilyn Monroe having sex with Arthur Miller.
Imagine Nick Offerman being like,
"This is the first time someone folded a slice of pizza."
"1502, Naples."
"And this is the first time someone did it in the U.S. 1957, Newark, New Jersey."
Wow, confirmed.
You know what, maybe it's also like a percentage thing,
where of course there's going to be somebody folding it everywhere.
Is it possible that in New Jersey or the New York area,
it's like 7 out of 10 people fold their slice,
and if you went to Boston it'd be more like 3 out of 10?
You think that's possible?
No, I think it's just a function of the thickness of the slice and the width of the slice.
And then I think it becomes very intuitive.
If it's a wide, thin slice, you're going to fold.
Because otherwise, there's no structural integrity.
You fold because the slice can kind of stand out on its own.
Otherwise, it's just going to flop down.
An Italian pizza is very thin.
It's much thinner than its American counterpart.
Right.
I remember I went to Italy when I was 12,
and there was a very, very paper-thin pizza that arrived,
and it had a hard-boiled egg just rolling around on top of it in the box.
I'll never forget that.
What are you supposed to do with that?
You eat the hard-boiled egg first?
It was a white, unsliced, hard-boiled egg.
I'll never forget the image of that box opening up
and just that hard-boiled egg just sort of rolling around.
Do you guys eat it?
Maybe you go bite for bite?
I probably didn't eat it.
Yeah, I don't know.
Bite for bite.
Just a cold, hard-boiled egg.
Real dry, real mealy.
Or is it sort of like when you get a hard-boiled egg in a Korean bibimbap dish
and you're supposed to maybe break it up and move it around?
Probably.
Do you think that this idea was that you're supposed to cut it?
There was no explanation given.
There were no instructions.
I could have asked.
I think I was just repulsed by the whole thing.
Did you or your family just throw it away and then eat the pizza?
Well, it was my uncle who lives in Italy,
and I think he was very matter-of-fact.
Like, yeah, that's the standard starter kit pizza thing here.
But it was a long time ago.
This is either the worst episode of Time Crisis or the best.
[laughter]
I mean, we've definitely achieved the show rules status here.
Matt's going to cut this thing down to three minutes.
We also haven't--by the way, we didn't even get to the thing we said--
we didn't even get to the thing we said we were going to start with.
Let's get to it.
Hold on, but it's one last thing, one last pizza thing.
Another 10 minutes on pizza. Don't worry.
It's just like after we finish this episode,
it's going to talk to our significant others.
How was the show?
Good.
Talked about pizza.
Like, has something happened recently with pizza?
No, we just talked about pizza, toppings, how you like to eat it.
Kids' parties, folding it.
Just the most basic stuff about pizza.
Okay, the one thing we haven't talked about on this show,
which kind of was a major Time Crisis-y event this year,
is that they brought back the Mexican pizza at Taco Bell.
I don't think we've talked about this at all.
And one of the ways they announced it--
Can you double-check this?
Because as I say, it doesn't sound true.
But I'm pretty sure one of the ways they announced it
was by letting Doja Cat do the honors during her Coachella set.
What the hell?
Do the honors.
And I think--I assume she was the headliner because she's huge--
that in the middle of her Coachella set,
Coachella's become such a major media event.
Think about when Beyonce headlined Coachella three, four years ago.
It was this major moment, millions of people watching at home.
She even released an album and a movie about it.
So it's like there was a while where headlining Coachella
felt like this kind of major artistic platform.
And when I heard that Doja Cat announced
the return of the Mexican pizza during her set,
I was just like, "That rules. I love this."
This is like fully Andy Warhol sh*t.
Okay, so Seinfeld, first of all, is this true?
Do I have it slightly wrong?
You nailed it.
On April 17th, Doja took the main stage at Coachella
before the weekend at Swedish House Mafia's headlining set,
which Jake, you were there for that, right?
Okay, so not quite headlining, but still a major second from the top.
It's pretty big.
Right. So during her performance, she announced that on May 19th,
Taco Bell will bring back its Mexican pizza,
a fan-favorite item that was discontinued 2020.
The singer dropped the news while singing a snippet
of an unreleased new song.
She said, "I brought back the Mexican pizza, by the way," to the crowd.
But I have to say there's some more context on this.
Doja, you know she's an internet troll.
She's been tweeting at what you call--
Taco Bell.
Thank you.
To bring back the Mexican pizza since September 3rd, 2020.
And there's been this-- and again, it's complicated,
but I know there's been some TikTok stuff.
This has been one of her things.
I don't know if this was organic, if she just thought it would be funny,
and then the marketing geniuses at Taco Bell said,
"This is lightning in a bottle,"
or if this was a long-run, slow build
to this Coachella moment, like this was a two-year contract.
Wow, I'd be so curious.
Right, because I could really picture either.
Yeah, Doja Cat seems funny.
She could be kind of just creating her own memes,
and you could just picture her just hanging out being like,
"How come they don't have the Mexican pizza anymore?"
And then just tweeting at Taco Bell.
And then you could picture all the people working at Taco Bell social media
like, "Holy s***, Doja Cat just tweeted at us.
They're having an emergency meeting.
How do we respond? What do we do with this?"
Somebody makes a presentation at corporate saying, "Let's bring it back."
And maybe it was organic in that sense,
but also in this fake news era, it's hard to trust anybody.
Don't know what's real.
And you could kind of also picture somebody at Taco Bell saying,
"Let's have some fun bringing back the Mexican pizza.
Let's turn it into a bit of a meme.
How do we do that?"
And somebody would say, "Let's get a celebrity or somebody
to kind of organically seed this."
And somebody's like, "All right, who's big?"
And somebody's like, "BTS."
And they're like, "Nah, it should be a solo artist."
And somebody's like, "The Weeknd."
"Eh, he's a little too serious."
All right, somebody more fun.
Maybe like a Katy Perry.
She already has some obligations.
Okay, somebody newer.
Doja Cat. Everybody looks at each other like,
"F***ing Doja Cat. This is a brilliant idea.
We're going to bring back the Mexican pizza with Doja Cat.
Let's kick her a cool $10 million a year
for the next few years.
Does a little tweeting.
Maybe it culminates at Coachella."
I really don't know. Both are very plausible.
Katy Perry's wrapped up.
She's doing a promo for Arby's curly fries at Coachella.
Also, didn't Doja Cat do a Pepsi commercial
for Super Bowl Pepsi commercial?
Doesn't Pepsi own Taco Bell?
Oh, that's the same company. Yum Brands.
I think that's been spot off at this point.
I don't think they're under the same corporate roof.
I think we have audio though of the Doja Cat
Mexican pizza unveiling. I'd love to hear it.
I brought back the Mexican pizza, by the way.
Over the guitar solo.
It's like mid-song.
Play that one more time.
I brought back the Mexican pizza.
Oh, that rules.
I brought back the Mexican pizza, by the way.
Sounds like Rage Against the Machine.
It kind of sounds like Faith No More.
Oh my God, I love the idea of your second version of this.
Where this is this highly discussed,
generated, Wieden-Kennedy meeting
with the Taco Bell people.
"Let's get Doja Cat. Everybody's really excited."
"It's going to cost $20 million."
And then they watch this and they go,
"I brought back the Mexican pizza!"
And that's it.
And they don't know it's going to go big.
And those who are like,
"I can't believe what we just wasted our f***ing money on."
This is the worst.
You know, if you heard that, you'd be mortified.
If you're paying for it, it needs to be
discreet banter between songs.
Yeah, but you know what's hilarious?
You could totally picture an actual corporate contract
where the lawyers are going back and forth
and it's just like, the client will
talk about the Mexican pizza
during their Coachella set.
The client will not do it
over any type of loud music,
guitar solo or not.
There will be silence in between songs.
Like, they might actually get into that stuff.
You didn't fulfill the contract, Doja.
You just yelled it over a guitar solo.
You were supposed to solemnly step to the mic
between two songs and say,
"Hey, Coachella.
Just want to let you know I brought back the Mexican pizza.
Make some f***ing noise."
But I guess it worked anyway.
And just to clarify,
the Mexican pizza did come back
and Taco Bell's are now overrun
with people trying to get their hands on a Mexican pizza?
Not only did it come back, but
you know, Dolly Parton got involved in this too, right?
Okay, interesting.
What's her role in this?
Like many across the nation,
Dolly Parton has been awaiting the return of
Taco Bell's Mexican pizza.
She did a video where she ate the pizza on Instagram.
She said, "I've been longing for this moment for so long.
It's finally here."
And then she opens a mini pizza box,
takes it in, and then she said,
"Oh, that looks almost too good to eat, but I'm gonna."
So, I mean, this Mexican pizza,
it's cross-generational.
It's, you know...
Was anybody else involved?
Did somebody talk about...
They actually did some market research and said,
"The best type of spokesperson for the Mexican pizza
will be a female pop star."
And the guys in corporate are just kind of like,
"Alright, so, you know, somebody young."
It's like, "Well, that's what's interesting.
We think we should tag team this.
It's gotta be a female pop star,
but we want somebody from the older generation,
somebody from the younger."
Okay.
So, we're thinking Doja Cat and Dolly Parton.
Alright, great one-two punch.
That about covers your bases.
Pretty much.
And I guess it worked.
Okay, Taco Bell is owned by Yum! Brands.
Oh, it is? Okay.
Going down a rabbit hole here.
It's possible Doja Cat has some sort of
overall deal with Yum! Brands.
Where she does a little bit of pizza,
a little bit of Pepsi.
In '97, Tricon Global Restaurants bought Taco Bell,
and then they rebranded in 2002 to become Yum!
Part of the reason I was interested in this is,
I talked to somebody a month or two ago
to a Dua Lipa concert,
and they told me that during the concert
there was some sort of commercial.
The way they explained it,
I'm only half remembering it,
but it was not necessarily that Dua Lipa
went to the mic and said,
"Hey everybody, as you know,
when I'm not singing or dancing,
I like to stay in shape."
It wasn't that kind of thing.
But I think maybe the way they described it,
because it's a big pop show
and there's many costume changes,
there might have been a moment
when she walked off stage
and then something came on the video screen
for a beverage or something like that.
So that was interesting to hear about.
Then I heard about the Doja Cat thing,
and I was like, "Oh, is this a fun new thing happening?"
Advertising during concerts,
which obviously would be very TC.
A fun new thing.
I'd love to get in on that.
I mean, I don't hate it because
I like the old-fashioned,
now word from our sponsors type thing.
I feel like I could pull that off on stage,
just kind of like end a song
and just be like,
start cooking up a fun little groove
and just be like,
"Are you looking for an iced tea
that's going to give you some bang for your buck?
Don't forget about 99 Cent Arizona Iced Tea."
I think you could do that in a kind of fun way.
But have you guys heard about this?
Is this kind of a growing trend?
Well, yeah.
When I was at the Pavement show two weeks ago,
it was weird.
Steve Malthemus did very little banter,
but he did a whole thing about Panera Bread.
And that how he had like,
on a day off, he had like,
it was very organic.
He had just like,
they were at like a weird, you know, stop
and they had to get gas
and he like,
ended up in a Panera Bread
and ended up having like a really creative,
really productive writing session
on his laptop in a Panera Bread.
And I thought it was weird
and he kept saying Panera Bread.
Panera.
And now, hearing you talk about this,
I'm wondering if...
It's a trend.
Pavement's on the payroll, I mean.
Stephen Malthemus also recited
the MattDamonCrypto.com commercial,
line for line.
Got all the middle-aged indie fans
really f***ing psyched about making history
with their crypto investments.
It's just the perfect time too.
I mean, crypto's doing great.
Well, by the dip.
Well, I think, you know,
Ezra, when we were at the Pearl Jam show too,
wasn't there like,
Eddie Vedder was going kind of off
about Red Lobster at one point?
Eddie really chilled out a lot since the 90s.
He used to just go on and on about that stuff.
But yeah.
Somehow I ended up on a page
of discontinued Taco Bell menu items.
Yeah?
I'm just going to read some of these.
The Bell Burger.
Whoa.
The Bell Beefer.
The Bell Burger?
That was a straight up a hamburger at Taco Bell?
Beefy Crunch Burrito,
Beefy Melt Burrito,
Seafood Salad.
Ooh.
Volcano Taco.
I had the Volcano Taco.
I went out of my way to get a Volcano.
That wasn't that long ago.
Was it shaped like a volcano?
What makes it a volcano?
These don't have discreet Wikipedia pages, Seinfeld,
so I can't help you just on the fly here.
I can tell you.
I remember it.
It was basically a regular degular Taco Bell hard taco
with the ground beef,
the little stringy yellow cheese,
the kind of unpleasant lettuce,
all that sh*t.
Except the taco was red and a little spicy.
That's what made it a Volcano Taco.
And so you can imagine
the Taco Bell Burger
was more of a sloppy Joe.
Okay.
More of a grinder.
But that would make sense.
It's using their taco meat.
Here's something that sounds absolutely insane.
Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuff Burrito.
Do you guys remember the grilled stuff?
That sounds really good.
I begged to differ.
That sounds great.
Stuffed spelled S-T-U-F-T.
Yes.
S-T-U-F-T.
I definitely had some grilled stuff burritos like 20 years ago.
They weren't bad, right?
They were real saucy.
Chipotle Chicken Loaded Griller.
Wait, fully loaded?
God, the names.
Chipotle Chicken doesn't specify loaded or fully or semi,
just loaded griller.
The double decker taco was a good one.
Oh, yeah.
Cool Ranch and Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos.
Ooh, that sounds good.
Power Menu Burrito.
Power Menu.
And the Double XL Grilled Stuff Burrito.
Power Menu, is that for power brokers,
like the C-suite business types on the go?
Yeah.
Is it like the Arch Deluxe?
It's for a power lunch.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sad to see the seven layers not available anymore.
That was my go-to, the seven-layer burrito,
kind of like, you know, the sort of like veggie burrito.
Yeah, seven layer was classic.
That was a classic.
That's real like '90s, early '90s.
I would say early '2s too, like touring,
like hitting like a Taco Bell in like Napa, Idaho,
getting that like seven layer for like $1.99.
The seven layer was the Gen X go-to,
and I remember Primus, they had a hit song in the '90s.
Primus, one of the weirdest bands of all time
that was ever kind of like mainstream.
Yeah. I mean, how the hell, man?
Primus was truly on some wild sh*t.
Primus has platinum albums.
Can we listen to some Primus?
Well, the song I'm thinking of is,
why known as Big Brown Beaver.
Uh-huh.
I kind of remember there being a line in it
where Les Claypool goes,
"Something smells like seven layers,
that beaver eats Taco Bell."
There definitely, of course, that he picked seven layers,
because that was kind of like the funny menu item
to talk about in the '90s.
Also, if you're like a poor vegetarian indie rocker,
not that Les was at that point,
but he was hip to the scene.
He was hip to the Bay Area punk, Gilman Street-based scene.
Right.
Dudes were hitting the seven layer.
Matt, throw that on.
I just want to throw out that
here's like a really interesting little Taco Bell tidbit
that Glenn Bell, the founder of Taco Bell,
invented the crunchy hard taco.
Like when you're making taco Tuesdays for your kid,
that sort of--
Like the old El Paso hard shell?
Yeah, he invented that.
Huh.
I mean, this definitely doesn't seem traditional.
You just fry it and it hardens.
It's like a chip.
It is, but it's just like,
that seems like a fairly important staple of the home.
Jake, are you a Primus fan?
No, man, they were always too--
I had the Sailing on the Caesar Cheese record.
I had that and I had Pork Soda,
which is one of the great album titles.
That was it.
Smelled like seven layers.
That beaver eats Taco Bell.
It's insane this band was so big.
It's a great story.
It's a real win for the weirdos.
Yeah, only in the early '90s, man.
'Cause Primus is like somewhere in between
Rage Against the Machine,
Fish,
Ween,
Cake,
Zappa,
Yeah.
And just like some kind of, yeah, comedy.
They did the South Park theme.
Famously, yeah.
It's perfect for like 13-year-old boys
in like 1993.
Matt and Trey said about the South Park song,
"Best $2,000 I ever spent."
Wow.
The cultural impact of that theme song
for $2,000 is wild.
Now, what was Primus' biggest song?
Was it "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver"?
I feel like it was, yeah.
Can we throw on "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver"?
Fire up, man!
Where's the biggest intersection of the Venn diagram?
Is it Primus and Ween?
You think like Tool fans like Primus?
I mean, this does kind of rule.
This rules.
I don't think there's actually a lot of crossover
between Primus and Ween fans.
I think maybe it is a Tool fan
on a fun day wants to listen to Primus.
I think it's like a Zappa thing.
Yeah.
♪ Jerry was a race car driver ♪
♪ He drove so goddamn fast ♪
♪ Never did win no checkers, blacks ♪
♪ But he never did come in last ♪
♪ Jerry was a race car driver ♪
♪ He'd say, "El's on fire" ♪
Primus and Ween played together
at the 25th anniversary of South Park at Red Rocks.
That's amazing.
♪
This is a platinum album.
It's not just like weird.
It's also like...
They would get into like very almost like atonal stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Like the chord progressions are crazy.
It's way less accessible than Fish or Ween.
Yeah.
I'm so sorry.
Or Tool.
So sorry to interrupt.
They didn't play together.
They're going to play on August 9th
at Red Rocks, Ween and Primus.
For the 25th anniversary of South Park?
Of South Park.
That's tight.
Wow.
I mean, that's a gig.
Someone from TC needs to go get a scene report.
Yeah.
Yeah, some Denver listener of TC,
please go to that show.
Then call in.
♪
I just wonder how many other like weirdo bands
in the 90s saw Primus going platinum
and they're just like,
"God, we can't even sell 500 records."
Right.
You know what I mean?
After Primus, there's like a real steep drop off.
Yeah.
♪
There was a narrative about Les Claypool
being this like virtuoso bass player.
And he is, you know?
Like he could just be banging this out on stage and singing.
It's a good band name.
Yeah, great.
That helps.
♪
I mean, I guess this is kind of on that like Faith No More,
Infectious Grooves, like RHCP.
I don't know about Infectious, but yeah.
Oh, no, no.
There's a band called Infectious Grooves
that was kind of like a funky offshoot of Suicidal Tendencies.
Okay.
That was like metal funk.
Okay.
Jake, what do you know about El Sobrante, California,
where they come from?
That's the Bay Area, right?
Yeah, it's Contra Costa County.
I've heard of it.
I don't think I-- I've probably driven through it.
That's where the band was based.
Their album names?
1990, Frizzle Fry.
'91, the aforementioned Sailing the Seas of Cheese.
'93, Pork Soda.
Very evocative name.
'95, Tales from the Punch Bowl.
I think I had Tales from the Punch Bowl.
♪ Southbound peccaderm ♪
Then '97, the Brown album.
Well, actually, that's very on point for Ween.
Right.
Ween have that live album, Painting the Town Brown,
and then within the Ween kind of fan mythology,
it's like brown sound.
Like, oh, man, that's the most brown sh*t ever.
Meaning that it has-- when something's very brown,
it has the essence of Ween.
It's skanky.
It's just-- yeah, it's just nasty.
Then later on in life, Les Claypool play in some other big band.
He had a super group with Trey Anastasio and Stuart Copeland
called Oysterhead.
Oh, my god.
Do you remember that?
That must have been some terrible music.
Oh, come on.
Come on.
Can we get some Oysterhead on?
♪ ♪
So what year is this?
2001.
Oh, wow, so a while ago.
♪ ♪
So it's a trio?
It's Stuart Copeland, Les Claypool, and Trey.
I believe so.
♪ ♪
Les having some fun with the pedals.
♪ ♪
♪ Come on, kiddies, gather 'round ♪
♪ There's a new sensation hitting town ♪
♪ It's moving slow, low to the ground ♪
♪ It'll pick you up when you're feeling down ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us all ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us now ♪
Oysterhead reunited in early 2020.
[laughs]
Right before the pandemic.
♪ ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us now ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us now ♪
♪ When all else has been done and said ♪
♪ Along comes Mr. Oysterhead ♪
♪ When all else has been done and said ♪
♪ You best look out for Mr. Oysterhead ♪
♪ ♪
So they're like, back in the day,
musicians had things to say.
♪ ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us now ♪
♪ He's an inspiration, he's an inspiration ♪
♪ He's an inspiration to us all ♪
To us all.
Alright, that's enough Oysterhead.
Just beautiful music, guys.
[laughs]
Beautiful music.
It's fun.
Oysterhead was meant to be a one-off band
to play at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.
They made an entire set of songs for one show.
Tickets were scalped for over $2,000
and Francis Ford Coppola and Matt Groening were in the crowd.
Thank you, Matt.
Wow.
Deep.
You think Les Claypool and Coppola have hung out?
[laughs]
I mean, I feel like if Francis Ford is rolling up to the show,
there's no way he's not going to stop backstage for a second
and pay his respects.
One of his kids is a huge Primus head.
Francis took Sophia to a Primus show in Oakland in '91.
[laughs]
And he got hooked.
And he's in.
Sophia's moved on.
She's like, "I'm more into the tasteful, restrained songwriting
of my husband's band, Phoenix.
I've kind of moved past Primus."
But Francis was just like, "No, dude.
Primus is where it's at.
I'm staying true."
He could also just straight up be friends with Stuart Coppola
from just some wild '80s [bleep]
or maybe he's a Phish fan
because you could see somebody like Francis Ford Coppola
kind of came up in the '60s and '70s
and then sees Phish still out there just playing live music,
guitar-based, I don't know.
I think Primus is the connection.
That's my theory.
Interesting.
[laughs]
So maybe Primus and Phish have more crossover
than Primus and Ween.
Yeah, I mean, Ween just--
I think that Ween keeps all those bands at a distance a little bit.
Ween's on their own trip.
Well, I mean, we previously talked about Ween
kind of taking some shots at Phish
and then Phish kind of letting it roll off their back
and still dropping a 20-minute "Roses Are Free"
taking the high road.
Yeah.
But such a fascinating sensibility
that all these bands--
they're all very different, and yet it's kind of like a balance,
which I appreciate, of kind of humor and serious musicianship.
I guess that kind of lives on in these Twitch streamers
who are kind of writing songs on the fly,
these kind of incredible Berklee School of Music types
who also are kind of riffing and telling jokes.
I don't really know that music.
I see it every once in a while.
Yeah, what were you saying, Seinfeld?
Oh, just that the day after the show airs tomorrow,
the 12th, is Les Claypool Day in Cincinnati.
That was set up by Mayor John Cranley,
who you know well, as a--
Oh, that's the guy who gave Vampire Weekend the key to the city?
That's right.
Really? It's that same guy?
It's the same guy.
Wow.
So he's ahead.
Shout-out to John Cranley.
Yeah, we got to get Cranley on the hotline.
Not a bad idea.
I just hope John Cranley's never hauled before
some sort of like the Ohio State Legislature
to just be like, "Why the f--k did you spend $300,000
to make Les Claypool Day in Cincinnati?
The man's from El Sobrante, California."
Damn.
All right, Primus.
So we didn't get to any of the emails, so what should we do?
All right, here's a cool email to the TC crew.
Let's go to the time crisis mailbag.
"Hey there.
Your recent talk about Snapple being a New York beverage
reminded me of the beverage's significance
in the '90s sitcom Seinfeld.
Maybe it's not really as significant as, say,
what cereal is to the show's lexicon,
but I do somewhat associate Snapple with Jerry's apartment.
Another thing about Jerry's apartment
that really sticks out in my mind
is his storing of plastic water bottles in his fridge
for regular consumption.
I can think of many instances someone walks into his apartment,
heads for the fridge, and takes out a crisp bottle
of Poland Springs and cracks it open.
I always found this very strange.
I grew up and live in Toronto, Canada,
and I only ever drank the city's tap water.
Since Jake and Ezra grew up in the Tri-State area,
I'm curious if in the '90s there was a stigma
around drinking tap water,
specifically in New York, the NYC area.
Did your parents keep bottled water in the fridge
for consumption?
Was NYC tap water considered dirty in the '90s?
Was Jerry's fridge being stocked with bottled water
just due to the nature of L.A. film studio sets?
Carefree and lucid?
Gnome."
That is a great point,
because Seinfeld was majority filmed on an L.A. soundstage,
so not in New York.
But you know what?
I think this gets to a deeper question,
which I do think about sometimes,
is when did people get so, like,
harshed out with tap water?
I know it's different in different places,
but famously, people always say
that the New York tap water is great.
And even when I remember being in New Jersey,
I was under the assumption that the tap water was good.
So, yeah, 100% when I was a kid,
if I wanted a glass of water,
I would drink it out of the kitchen sink.
At some point, I have a memory of my family
upgrading to a new fridge that had the water thing in the fridge.
It felt like kind of a big deal at the time.
And then I would drink water out of that.
But that would still be tap water.
Yeah, maybe there's some type of filter in there.
But, yeah, clearly something changed.
And I think starting in the late '90s,
suddenly everybody had Brita filters.
And this 100% has crossed my mind before
as somebody who's been in a lot of gnarly
or busted environments in my life.
Certainly being in college,
being in some funky studio somewhere,
being backstage, we've all been in a position
where you're kind of at some dirtbag's apartment.
You want some water, and they pull out
just this disgusting Brita pitcher.
Looks like maybe a dog chewed on it.
It's clearly filthy.
And you know you're supposed to replace that filter every few months.
And clearly the filter hasn't been replaced in years.
I mean, this might have been more of an early 2000s phenomenon.
But I remember just kind of like at some point
being in kind of just like disgusting places,
just some gnarly dude's disgusting apartment,
dishes piled high in the sink,
"Oh, you want some water?"
and pulling out the disgusting-looking Brita.
And at the time having this feeling of like,
"Oh, okay, great, it's filtered in the Brita."
But then just like, "Wait, what is going on?
How did I get this in my head that this piece of plastic
is somehow providing like a fresher water experience
than just like the solid tap water I grew up drinking?"
And I don't know the answer.
It's possible that even the nasty Brita was cleaner water.
But I'm starting to wonder,
is this like one of those things you read about
when like Nestle goes into some country
and convinces healthy breastfeeding women
to use their formula for no good reason?
You know what I mean?
'Cause like there is kind of a before and after in my mind
where I was just drinking from the tap all the time.
And then at some point,
even like weird nasty people
would only drink out of a funky Brita.
- And then this is even,
well, this, like the email raises the question
that's one step further,
which is individualized bottles of water.
- Yes.
- I remember when that really,
yeah, maybe like 20 years ago,
became like almost like a default
where like you'd go to people's houses
and they'd have like a case of like water,
like individualized, like eight ounce bottles of water.
Or like I used to do grocery delivery.
- That's a real Costco.
- And I was just like, "What is going on?"
I always drank tap water and I still do.
I don't use a Brita and I don't buy bottled water.
- Okay, and even in Los Angeles,
which is not famous for great tap water.
- I think the water's fine.
It tastes good to me.
- It's fine.
- I fill up my big 40 ounce water bottle
in the sink every morning at our house.
- No Brita, no nothing.
- No.
- So it does seem like there was some sort of like push
from the bottled water companies
to make tap water seem unclean.
By the year 2000,
tap water was engaged in a war with bottled water.
Beverage companies were playing on consumer fears
of contamination and illness from tap sources.
One of the key players in this war was Brita Filters,
which further alleges that toilet and tap water
came from the same source.
Come on Brita.
(laughing)
- Whoa.
- Yeah.
- I guess, did we talk about this ever on the show?
Like, I mean, yeah, what a moment.
And I guess the problem is, tap water has no real advocate.
It's an open goal.
- It's old school.
It's an old school public resource.
- Who's gonna defend the tap water?
Bernie Sanders?
- Yeah.
I remember in 2008, I did an experiment.
I went on a five day camping trip
out in the desert with my brother.
And we were, it wasn't like backpacking.
So we would like, we drove down to Anza Borrego.
We stayed there for a night.
We drove over to Joshua Tree.
We were there.
We drove over to Death Valley.
We were there.
And I was like, okay, picture this is like 1970.
Like 1971.
And we're doing this same trip.
And like in 1971, I don't think you could like drive
into any random gas station and just buy bottled water.
I don't think that was like a thing that was stocked.
And so I was like, well, what did people do?
They would bring like a gallon jug or water bottles
and like fill up at hotels or gas stations.
So I was like, this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm not gonna buy any water on this trip.
And this is 2008.
And I remember going into an AM PM in the most like desolate,
like weird desert intersection.
And it was like 105 degrees.
And like you walk in and you get, you like,
like the doors part as you walk into the AM PM.
And there's like that blast of AC, right?
And you go and there's like the whole,
there's the wall of just like the refrigerated beverages,
Gatorade, Powerade.
Then like three doors full of like different options
for bottled water.
And I was like, Hey, do you guys,
I remember going to the cashier and be like, Hey,
do you guys have like a tap or something?
I can fill up my gallon jug with.
And the guy was like, no.
And then I was like, okay.
Then I went outside and I went around to the back of the AM PM
and I found a hose spigot.
And I took like two empty gallon jugs
and just filled up the water bottles
with like the like weird AM PM hose spigot water,
which was fine.
Didn't taste great.
And out there in the desert,
like it might be kind of like full of weird minerals
or something, but I was just like,
this is insane that you can't just like go to a place,
especially in the desert and just get water for free
or like fill it up with containers that you have with you
in your car.
- Wow. I love this, Jake.
This could be like a great documentary
because people always do this stuff.
It's getting a little bit played out where somebody is like,
we tried to live off the grid for a year.
We decided to reduce our carbon footprint for a year.
How about just straight up?
I'm just like a regular dude
and I'm just trying to just drink tap water for a year.
- And you're on the road,
like let's say you're a truck driver
and like you're stopping into like the Flying J travel plaza
in Gillette, Wyoming.
- There's always the bathroom.
If you had been in that position in the AM PM,
would you have filled it up in the sink in the bathroom?
- Well, but it was hard to get the gallon jug
into the sink.
You could fill up like a smaller amount.
- What about the toilet?
'Cause the water comes from the same source.
- I wouldn't want to fill up.
According to Britta,
you might as well just dunk it in the toilet.
- Just scoop it up.
- That's truly next level.
There's like a, sir, there's a man in there
filling gallon jugs of water out of the toilet.
- Honestly, that's like the third act,
starting the third act of the movie.
(laughing)
Is Jake and Apollo.
- I'm about to do it, man.
I'm about to do it.
- So thirsty.
- There's nothing more refreshing than having a clear,
crisp, clean glass of water on a warm summer's day.
- That cool, refreshing drink.
- Try it with your friends.
♪ New World War to make the tide rise high ♪
♪ Come inland and make your house go by ♪
♪ Fools done upset the old man river ♪
♪ Made him carry slave ships and fed him dead ♪
♪ Now his belly full and he about to flood something ♪
♪ So I'm throwing rope that ain't tied to nothing ♪
♪ Tell your crew use the H2 and wise 'em out ♪
♪ Since the New World War to and every drop counts ♪
♪ You can laugh and take it as a joke if you wanna ♪
♪ But it don't rain a full week some summers ♪
♪ And it's about to get real wild in the half ♪
♪ You be buying every yard you can take off me, oh bap ♪
♪ Hedges acting wild, sipping warm, pumping dank ♪
♪ Competing with the next man for higher playing rank ♪
♪ So now I ain't got time, try to be Big Hank ♪
♪ I need a 20 year water tank ♪
♪ 'Cause while these knuckleheads is out here ♪
♪ Sweating their guts ♪
♪ Sun is sitting in the treetops ♪
♪ Burning the woods and it's a flame from the blaze ♪
♪ Get higher and higher ♪
♪ They say don't drink the water ♪
♪ We need it for the fire ♪
♪ New York is drinking it ♪
♪ The oil of California is drinking it ♪
♪ Way up north and down south is drinking it ♪
♪ Used to have minerals and sinking it ♪
♪ Now they say it got lead and stinking it ♪
♪ New World War ♪
- If I still am doing a long drive,
I will fill up multiple water bottles at the house.
'Cause I just, I hate being in that situation
of like, you're like two hours into a drive.
You're like, "Damn, I'm thirsty.
"I've just been drinking coffee all morning.
"I need to drink water."
And then like going in and just buying
that like liter of like Poland Springs or whatever.
- Yeah.
- And then it just, you drink it
and then like that bottle's just rattling around
in your car for another month and you,
and then it just goes into the recycling bin.
It just feels bad.
I just, buying a bottle of water feels terrible.
So when Noam sent this email.
- It's not cool, but one thing that's interesting to me.
- It's not cool, man.
- It's not cool, man.
One thing that's interesting to me
is that clearly something changed in the nineties
and maybe Jerry was a little bit ahead of the curve.
He's very, Jerry also famously bit of like
a germaphobe neat freak.
So you could picture like a Jerry Seinfeld guy.
Suddenly there's bottle Walker on the market
and Jerry Seinfeld being like,
"I've been waiting my whole life for this.
"Oh God, finally, straight from the factory."
- Totally.
- And he probably even liked it
that now his guests don't have to touch his glasses.
That might be appealing to kind of like
a germaphobe neat freak.
But one thing that's interesting to me is that
since 2008, certainly since the nineties,
the personal water bottle has exploded.
So way more people are,
share your concern about not wasting plastic bottles.
So many kids are always walking around with their bottles.
I can't remember, there's an Adam Sandler bit
from like a special he did a few years ago
where the whole joke was like,
"I get my kids in the car.
"Their mom says, 'Don't forget the water bottles.'
"And my kids say, 'Daddy, daddy, where's my water bottle?'"
And I think, "What the hell?
"When I was a kid, I didn't drink water for three days.
"No one cared."
Basically he's doing like an Adam Sandler bit about-
- I mean, it's true though.
- Yeah, I guess that's, well,
so suddenly everybody's hydration conscious.
Everybody is also don't waste plastic bottles conscious.
And yet I think the domino that has not fallen
is that all these people walking around
with their metal thermoses or their Camelbacks,
their Nalteans, all that stuff.
Still, if you told them,
"Yeah, go around to the back of the AM/PM
"and fill her up with the spigot back there,"
would not do it.
And is that because they've been brainwashed
by this nefarious Britta campaign?
Is it because there's a grain of truth?
I don't know.
I mean, I wonder if Jake,
if you have a more robust immune system
because you've just been raw dog and water
for the past 20 years.
In fact, you never got COVID, did you?
- I haven't gotten COVID.
- Okay, well guys-
- Not that I know of.
It's very possible I got it.
- I just concluded a study and from my,
based on my findings,
100% of the people in the study
who've been raw dog and water for the past 20 years
have not gotten COVID.
I think that's pretty interesting.
- Well, there you go.
- Wow.
I'm on the website for science,
the respected medical journal,
which I just read.
It's actually my homepage.
- And the respected concept.
- That's right.
Yeah, that's true.
Oh, very empirical.
And apparently from '82 to 2015,
somewhere between 9 million and 45 million Americans
got drinking water from a source
that was in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act
that was brought to life by the Flint, Michigan crisis.
They started looking into it.
- Well, that, yeah, clearly out of control.
- Right.
Bottom line being that in rural and lower income areas,
your water is less safe to drink from the tap
because they just don't have the proper filtration system.
So maybe in a Joshua tree, it's rural for sure.
So maybe the water is less safe out there.
But it seems like Brita and the powerful bottled water lobbies,
the Nestle's and whoever,
probably seized on some of that vulnerability
and then used that to turn the tide
and turn us into a British nation.
- Well, yeah, I think that, look, there's a truth.
- We know that the Flint, Michigan stuff is true, yes.
- And in general, I mean,
they're used to the fluoride in the water,
but I do think that big bottled water
certainly like leveraged it.
There is also a taste issue.
I mean, I think that depending on where you go,
you use that hotel tap, you use that AM/PM tap.
It doesn't necessarily taste good.
And I think that that's not something you want from your,
you really don't want taste from your water.
- The water in Joshua tree tastes really bad.
- And Jake, also as an experienced camper,
this is real that you can't willy nilly
go fill up your Nalgene in every Creek and river you come to.
You're very likely to get Giardia.
Is that true?
- My understanding of it is that if the Creek
or river has like a nice current to it, you're fine.
If I wouldn't fill up a water bottle
in like a really still pond or like a part in the river
where the waters run deep.
They run deep.
I've definitely in the Sierra Nevada
when I'm back packing trips I've done,
I've definitely filled up water bottles
in a healthily burbling Brook and been fine.
I've never gotten Giardia.
- Maybe you throw in like iodine pills or something.
- No, I don't.
- You're talking about raw water.
- It's raw water, it's snow melt.
But yeah, if it was like,
if there was like an area that had been sort of backed up
and there was like a big pool
of like pretty still standing water,
I wouldn't drink out of that.
- Have you ever just like knelt at a Creek
and just sip the water on all fours?
- Yes, I have.
- New study just dropped.
People who've gotten on all fours
and lapped up Creek water have a 0% chance of getting COVID.
- Jake, just on all fours at the LA river.
You're just driving.
- I haven't done LA river.
- I mean, Jake Longstreth, American painter,
TikToker, naturalist, maverick.
- Wow.
I would love to get to the bottom of this
because Sanfo, you said it's very interesting.
Like, of course we know that there's this kind
of crime against humanity happening in a place
like Flint, Michigan,
where just this large population of people
being ignored by the government,
having something went totally wrong
with their infrastructure there.
And there's bad water.
And you think about how much we rely on water for everything.
But then the question is,
is that like, you know, reporting some horrific crime,
you know, in a city of 10 million people
and making everybody like super paranoid,
even though the vast majority of people should be cautious,
but go about their lives in a healthy way.
And is it ratcheting up the anxiety?
I really don't know.
I mean, the numbers you're talking about,
nine to 45 million, that's a lot of Americans.
It's still, if it's 9 million,
you are talking about less than 10%.
And obviously that would really depend on where you are.
So I guess, 'cause I get the impression
around a lot of people that I know
that they don't look at it like,
whenever I go to a new place,
I like to double check that I'm not in some sort of like red zone
where there's something horrible happening to the water.
In fact, it's almost more like wherever I am,
I don't drink tap water.
That's what happened to many people.
I don't know if these are more like,
if these are more like upper middle class types
who want to buy the Fiji water to begin with.
I don't know, but there's, but clearly something,
the anti-tap water machine won big, I think.
- So Jake, if you come over to my house,
there's, you have the sink, the regular tap water,
and right next is a little filtered water tap.
- Sure.
- Are you just going for the tap water?
- Oh, when you have the choice.
- No, I mean, I'll do the filtered.
If someone's like, oh, that's the filter tap.
I'm like, okay, I'll do that.
- When Jake does that,
he gets his first cold in four years later that week.
- I was recently in a hotel in Denver.
I think I drank a little bit of tap water
'cause there was no more like bottled water in the room.
There was a tiny bit of anxiety like put into me.
That's like, oh, you don't know what you're dealing with.
So let me get a number crunch.
How's Denver tap water?
- Yeah, I'll crunch that.
But I also have to speculate that Colorado,
what was natural mountains.
- Beautiful mountains.
- Yeah, snow melt exactly.
Feels like a more pure.
- Yeah, should be.
You'd think it'd be great.
- While he number crunches,
Jake, you walk into my house,
it's 102 degrees outside.
Hot all to the end of the day.
You're so thirsty.
You pass by a sink.
It's just regular tap water.
And I go, well, if you want the filtered,
it's in the other room.
It's just a couple steps away.
But are you like,
I'm just gonna drink out of the tap water.
- Yeah, I'll do tap.
Just throw some ice cubes in there.
- By the way, that's a whole other thing.
Drinking filtered water,
but your ice cubes.
- Are tap.
I think that happens more often
than people want to admit.
- That is true.
This is the original hygiene theater, folks.
Disgusting, just busted ass, old Brita.
- And the irony, obviously, being in,
and there's a lot of people online
that would agree with this,
that I found is that the irony being
is that that Brita is significantly worse
for you than the tap water.
- Because of the plastic?
- Well, if you haven't cleaned the filter,
there's mold.
There's just so many other things
that you don't even get out of the tap
that the irony being you're much better off.
- Unintended consequences.
Right.
I also wonder,
is it possible that everybody
putting their water through these plastic filters
increased some other kind of rates of disease
or problems?
Can't win.
- Listen, you're in luck, Ezra.
The snow melt is a big component
of Denver's drinking water.
They've got pristine water
sourced from 100% surface water
that comes from river streams and reservoirs,
high quality mountain snow.
2018, their water was tested by the EPA
and it had a very low PFAS content.
Now PFAS is per and polyfluoroacryl substances.
- PF Changs.
- Right, PF Changs water.
- A concentration of PF Changs ingredients.
- So the group of chemicals, PFAS,
which is used to make carpet, clothing,
furniture, and cookware,
those were found at very, very low levels
in that Denver.
- The dreaded microplastics, folks.
- Sure.
- Oh, God.
- Of which we all have microplastics
coursing through our veins right now.
- Good Lord.
Well, I'm happy to report
that so far this episode has been about pizza and water.
- The basics.
- Just the basics.
- I was having this while, you know,
we were talking about it,
just thinking of that image of Jake in a pizza place
eating that sausage and olive
and just downing it with just a big,
one of those big plastic red cups of tap water.
- Water out of the Coca-Cola fountain machine.
- I've noticed in the recent years
that there's restaurants where they say,
"Oh, can I get you some water?
We have still sparkling or filtered tap."
That's become a thing,
because we got still and sparkling
if you want to buy the fancy bottle,
but we also have filtered tap.
But I love the idea of Jake going like,
"How about just regular tap?"
- Just straight tap.
- Jesus Christ.
- Unfiltered tap.
- How about regular tap?
- I don't care if you have to go to the bathroom
to fill it up.
- Yeah, you got a spigot?
Where's your spigot?
- We could do filtered tap, sir.
All right, here's 20 bucks.
Go around the back of the AM/PM across the street.
(laughing)
- There's a spigot over by that dumpster.
(laughing)
I'm fine with hose water
if you get anybody out back watering.
- I mean, I feel like as a kid,
I was taking down a decent amount of hose water.
- Oh, definitely.
- It's a rite of passage.
- Let's get a water scientist on the next episode
to really dig into this.
(soft music)
♪ It's coming on Christmas ♪
♪ They're cutting down trees ♪
♪ They're putting up reindeer ♪
♪ And singing songs of joy and peace ♪
♪ Oh, I wish I had a river ♪
♪ I could skate away on ♪
♪ But it don't snow here ♪
♪ This day's pretty green ♪
♪ I'm gonna make a lot of money ♪
♪ Then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene ♪
♪ I wish I had a river ♪
♪ I could skate away on ♪
♪ I wish I had a river so long ♪
♪ I would teach my feet to fly ♪
♪ Oh, I wish I had a river ♪
♪ I could skate away on ♪
- Well, Jake, you and I have both been back
in the music game a little bit.
- That's right.
- Now, was that the first Mountain Brews show ever
the other day?
- Yes.
- Wow.
- First Mountain Brews show ever.
- You guys sounded great.
It was a great vibe.
- Thank you.
I'm glad you made it.
- Oh yeah, I was psyched.
Now, interesting, first Mountain Brews show,
it was kind of at a backyard barbecue.
- Yep, Memorial Day weekend.
- A lot of kids running around.
- Yeah, I think half the audience was children
under the age of five.
(laughing)
- Checking out their first Brews show.
- Yeah.
- And actually, the sound was really good.
I told you after the show, I was really impressed
by the little PA you had.
Did you bring that or that was like a--
- No, that was a friend of the show, Alex.
Alex Gordelis, that was his house.
And his Neil Young cover band played and then--
- Cinnamon Boys.
- And then he had this little PA that he said was
generally meant for corporate conferences.
(laughing)
- But it really sounded good 'cause like, I don't know,
my memories are kind of like playing backyard shows
in the 90s, a lot of feedback,
just hard to get the levels right.
It's like a very solid, good sounding PA.
- Love to hear it.
I remember asking the audience after multiple songs,
how's the mix?
- It was a good mix.
- And then we got our next show,
Busy Summer for Mountain Brews,
and then we got our next show with Taper's Choice.
- Oh, I've heard about this show.
- June 18th in LA at the Spoke Bicycle Cafe
in Frogtown.
- Are you gonna switch up the set list for that show?
Because it was a tight set list.
Interestingly, there's no Worst Margarita on the set list.
- Kind of slow.
- Yeah.
- We don't have enough time.
I think we're doing more or less the same set list.
Probably a different sequence.
- You know what song really sounded great was Spring Wind.
- Oh, really?
That sounded good to you?
- I thought it sounded really good.
- Okay, cool.
I thought that was really shaky.
I'm glad to hear that.
- No, I enjoyed it.
I mean, it was just a cool moment in the set,
getting a little reggae.
(laughing)
- Well, the next show we're gonna have
Tim Ramsey on keyboards.
We're gonna have a seven piece version of Mountain Brews.
We're gonna have two keyboards.
We'll have Casey Johansson singing on most of the songs
with us too.
'Cause she sings like in Raised in a Place,
♪ So far away from here ♪
And she sings on Spring Wind.
- I love the live intro to Raised in a Place.
Each member of the band goes around,
says their name and where they were raised.
(laughing)
- That was impromptu.
- That was impromptu?
Really?
- Oh yeah.
- And then at the end, I think Jake,
you said like, I'm Jake from Connecticut.
I was raised in Connecticut.
And then you say like,
we were all raised in a place or something.
(laughing)
- Then just kick right in.
- I wanna work out some like,
kinda dumb ass like Springsteen thing of just like,
you know, we used to go down to the pumpkin patch
every fall for the fall harvest.
(laughing)
And when you went down there,
and there was nothing but a big parking lot
(laughing)
with a Blockbuster video on one side
and a Starbucks on the other.
Just like, like right in the middle of the song.
Do some like overly long Raised in a Place monologue.
♪ One day I went back to my local Taco Bell ♪
♪ They looked at me dead in the eye and said ♪
♪ I'm sorry son, the Mexican pizza's gone ♪
♪ It's not on the menu anymore ♪
♪ You know the manager said it was up to me ♪
(laughing)
♪ They'd still have the seven layer but ♪
♪ It came down from on high ♪
Anyway, I was just saying, you know,
the last show I played was Richard Pictures
at Hollywood Bowl opening for Vampire,
October of 2019.
- That was the last show you did, period.
- That was the last show I played,
a live rock show that I played.
And then, yeah, the Mountain Brew show
at Alex's house was the first show I played
emerging out of the pandemic.
- Whoa.
- We got some Richard Pictures on the books
for this fall at the Old Town Pub in Pasadena.
Hopefully do a Mountain Brew's record release show
'cause we're gonna put out some vinyl in the fall.
- Oh yeah, that's exciting.
- So things are cooking
in a very low key back burner way.
Hobby rock sort of way.
- Any new Mountain Brew's music to look forward to?
- Yeah, we were playing a new one called I'm Over It.
We played that at the show.
I haven't recorded.
I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I gotta find the time.
But yeah, we'd love to record.
Maybe later in the year we will.
What's going on with you?
- Well, been working on Vampire,
as always, slowly but surely.
- Great.
- With some significant breaks.
- We're in there.
It's really getting there.
Some very strong material.
- LP5.
- We're doing some little shows here and there.
I mean, our last big show was last year,
our one show of 2021, that SF Festival, Outside Lands.
- Yeah.
- We done a couple private gigs,
helping us get back in.
And then, you know, coming up,
we got a bunch of fun new festivals.
And back to, well, I guess when this airs,
in Indianapolis this weekend, last night.
- A festival.
- Yeah, a new festival.
- Wow.
- And then, you know, there's like a bunch this summer.
This summer, we basically have five shows.
Indianapolis, Cleveland, Gonzales, Texas.
- Tight locations.
- Japan, Korea.
- Whoa.
- That's the Vampire Weekend 22 tour.
Wouldn't have it any other way.
So anyway, we got that going on.
But one thing that I kind of forgot about,
'cause I played a very small role in this new
Liam Gallagher album.
And actually, I don't know if I've heard
like the fully mixed and mastered song.
- Insane.
- But basically, a buddy of mine, Andrew Wyatt,
great musician, he's got the band Mike Snow,
and he's also a very accomplished producer and songwriter.
We were just like catching up, and he was like working on,
he's worked a lot with Liam.
And I guess at this point, Liam's dropped a few solo albums.
And he was working on his new one.
He was like, "Yeah, you know, we're just like,
"a bunch of different people are working on it.
"If you have any song ideas, let me know."
And it's never been something I've been like passionate about,
like trying to write songs with or for other people.
There have been a handful of times in my life, you know,
like that Beyonce song, like a demo I worked on
just kind of ends up somewhere.
That's cool when it happens.
But like generally speaking, I just feel like,
I don't know, I'm just always kind of like thinking about,
it's enough work just to think about like Vampire Weekend stuff.
I don't know if on command, I can just like sit down
and write a song for somebody else.
But you know, every once in a while an idea comes.
So I just sat at the piano, and of course, like, you know,
Oasis rules, and he's such a legend.
So I was like, "Do I have any ideas?"
And at first I was like, "No."
And then I sat down at the piano, and I started writing this
kind of like climbing chord progression.
And I wrote this kind of like song with a significant
kind of Cold War aesthetic.
And this was like a few years ago, so it has absolutely
nothing to do with the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
But I'd also recently learned this phrase,
that was a Cold War era phrase, "Moscow rules,"
which is a series of rules that like undercover agents
working in the East Block during the Cold War would adhere to.
So I'm like, "You want to pull up the actual Moscow rules?"
It's basically on something like, "You can't trust anyone.
Always assume the opposition is watching," that kind of stuff.
And I was struck by that phrase, "Moscow rules."
So I was like, "Oh, that's kind of like an interesting metaphor
for a song."
Anyway, I end up working on it, working on it with Liam,
becomes like a real song.
It's a track on his album, which came out recently.
My buddy Andrew told me it went to number one in the UK,
first UK number one I've ever been a part of.
Vampire Weekend clocked in at number two,
I believe, on our last album.
Never got the top slot.
But yeah, it was fun working on it.
I played some instruments.
I randomly played some saxophone.
Vocals?
No vocals. I'm not a feature.
I'm a co-producer and co-writer on this song.
Can I just read you the Moscow rules real fast?
Oh, the actual Moscow rules? Yeah, please.
Yeah.
"Assume nothing. Never go against your gut.
Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
Do not look back. You are never completely alone.
Go with the flow. Blend in.
Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
Lull them into a sense of complacency.
Do not harass the opposition.
Pick the time and place for action.
Keep your options open."
That's just solid advice in any moment in time.
"Never go against your gut" is a good one.
Yeah.
Anyway, let's throw it on.
I want to play this for you guys.
Liam Gallagher, Moscow Rules.
[MUSIC - LIAM GALLAGHER, "MOSCOW RULES"]
"Home again, but in your dreams you creep back to the wire.
Tell the truth or something close.
They'll just call you a liar."
Did you write these lyrics?
"Oh, when it's done."
Yeah, a lot of them.
"You can't even retire.
Back on the run.
Back in the line of fire.
Turn the page and burn the book.
The day we said goodbye.
I walked alone and looked ahead, avoided all the eyes.
But when it's dead, it doesn't even die.
Nothing's new.
Nothing's cool.
Here again, baby, we're both fools.
False me, false you.
It's the same.
Moscow Rules, lonely man.
I think you're never alone.
Even if I'm the empty seat across the table, staring back."
Wow, I really hear your hand on this.
Yeah.
Like the melodic intervals.
"But I can't see the moon.
Paralyzed by memories of ruined afternoons.
Get out of bed and come sing us a tune.
Nothing's new.
Nothing's cool.
Here again, baby, we're both fools.
False me, false you.
It's the same.
Moscow Rules, lonely man.
I think you're never alone.
Even if I'm the empty seat across the table, staring back."
Interesting.
This was kind of like the David Axelrod '60s film score break.
I think that's Liam added that snare.
Yeah, the drumming is cool in this song.
It's not because it's Liam, but this is like much more Beatles-y than Vampire would ever get.
Hmm.
Yeah, that's true.
"Moscow Rules, lonely man.
I think you're never alone.
Even if I'm the empty seat across the table, staring back."
That piano melody I thought was very Cold War.
That has real Revolver energy to me.
I could see that.
And it's also a little bit like-- the verse is kind of kinksy, I thought.
Like a little bit English folk music.
"I'm overcovered, and when it's dead, it doesn't even die."
Yeah, I love his voice.
And he had a lot of cool ideas, and it was fun co-writing it with him and Andrew.
But there's a few of the lines that I wrote, I just had a feeling would sound cool with
him singing it on the chorus.
It's such a classic rock thing to go, "Follows me, follows you.
It's the same, Moscow Rules."
And I knew that he would kill this part.
"Lonely man, I think you're never alone."
I just love that line, and I couldn't wait to hear him sing.
"Lonely man, I think you're never alone."
Wow.
And he's also just such a cool dude.
He really is exactly what you'd want him to be.
How much time did you spend together?
You know, a couple hours here, a couple hours there.
Not like a ton, but enough to just chat and hang out.
He's just so naturally funny and kind of charming.
Like exactly what you see in an interview.
I guess it's true of his brother too.
They both just have this way with words.
I guess it's a very English thing.
You know when you just meet somebody, everything they say, they just got a way with words.
Even just making small talk, and I don't know if this is something he says all the time,
but still, I was just so charmed and struck by him.
I just thought he was so funny and cool.
At one point, we were in a studio in London.
Obviously you're from Manchester, but you live in London.
I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I live in London."
I was like, "How long have you been down here?"
And he was like, "Oh, man, you know, long time."
Sorry, I'm going to do a really bad accent, but I can't do it in an American accent.
And he just starts talking about, "Move down here to London."
"God, all the buildings, so f*cking bright.
Why I had to wear my sunglasses just to nip down to the grocery store?"
Or whatever, just like these little things like that.
Just like the buildings are so white, I had to put on my f*cking sunglasses.
Just like all these funny little things.
Every story he told was just so funny.
Anyway, that was pretty tight.
The other week, it was my first travel in a very long time since pre-COVID.
And I was flying in the flight attendant, who, story for another time,
called himself the Keith Richards of flight attendants.
[laughter]
He really loved this guy.
I mean, he really made this flight just so entertaining.
But he was telling me, we were flying from London,
and it's sort of a regular route of his, and he spends a lot of time there.
I don't know, it's not even that long ago, maybe six years ago or so.
He was in sort of a local pub outside of London.
And he was just having a pint, and he was talking to some dude
who started chatting him up about the weather and just some bullsh*t.
And him just being really funny and charming.
And then he was like, "I gotta get up and go," and he gets up to leave.
"Oh sh*t, I'm needed somewhere."
He says to the bartender, the Keith Richards of flight attendants, goes,
"Man, that guy looks so much like Liam Gallagher."
And the bartender goes, "It is."
And he turns around, and he just gets right into a Bentley
outside this place and takes off.
Oh, hell yeah.
And so he's just hanging out at a really neighborhood place,
having himself a pint, talking to strangers.
-And this is-- -Love that.
I know, it's very much every story you hear about him.
Just absolutely the character you want him to be.
I love that.
You know, I also have this memory, when we were--
because we were talking about all the references for the songs
and what he thought was cool, and I was referencing the kinks a little bit.
And I was like, I think maybe I asked him,
"Have you ever crossed paths with those guys?"
He's like, "Yeah, all the f*cking time."
And there's this funny parallel, because there's these two famous
English bands with brothers who famously fight.
He just said something funny, he's like--
And you could tell he's a huge fan, but it's something about being at the pub.
And he's like, "I always see Ray Davies, he always asks me, 'How's my brother?'"
And I say, "How's your f*cking brother?"
And I was just like, you could totally picture it.
Like, for whatever reason, it's like, I don't know,
the American music scene, maybe because it's a big country,
it's not down to earth enough, but I could totally picture this.
A London pub, Ray Davies in there drinking by himself,
Liam walks in for a thing,
I have this funny exchange, "How's your brother?"
"How's your f*cking brother?"
It actually feels real.
Him pulling up in the Bentley hat.
I guess, like, yeah, who in the US would do that?
It just wouldn't be quite the same.
Like, it's just so English.
I think one issue that maybe is bigger than anything,
in terms of how people act, is just,
America doesn't have pubs.
We don't have quite that combination of,
we have dive bars, we have noisy sports bars,
we don't have that slight, it's like,
because a pub could have a touch of dive bar,
but also a touch of cozy living room.
It's like a unique...
Family restaurant.
Yeah, it's like a family restaurant meets a living room,
meets a dive bar.
America really could use some pubs.
They really could, man.
Introducing the TC Pub.
Yeah.
The first TC Pub is opening in Cleveland,
summer '22.
Yeah, it sort of hits different to say,
"Yeah, I saw Steve Malcomus
at this, like, f*cking dive bar in the valley."
You'd be like, "Damn, is he okay?
What happened to him?"
Yeah.
Oh, God.
Yeah, not quite the same.
I mean, I'm sure there's an English person listening,
being like, "You got it totally wrong."
But of course, we're looking at it from a different perspective,
and it always struck me as being so...
I always like pubs when I'm in the UK
just because they're quiet and cozy.
They got carpet.
I don't know.
Yeah, and they have a carpet.
Basically, America just needs more car...
Is that what it's all about, actually?
Carpeted bars.
Carpeted bars.
The new album from Guided by Voices.
Okay, well, anyway,
shout-out to Liam Gallagher.
Very happy to be part of your album.
Sounds good, bud.
Yeah, that was a fun song to work on.
All right, you ready for the top five?
Yes, sir.
Too bad.
Oh.
In lieu of the top five, we're going to do the top one
because something very interesting has happened.
Kate Bush, very recently,
was number one in the iTunes store.
And some people say the iTunes store doesn't matter that much.
They want to know about streaming.
Well, guess what?
She's crushing it on streaming.
And some people only think it's official
if you're talking about Billboard.
Well, guess what?
She's in the Billboard top ten.
So I think this deserves its own segment.
For anybody who's been living under a rock,
the reason Kate Bush is back
is because her classic '80s song,
"Runnin' Up That Hill,"
was in the new season of Stranger Things,
and it's really taken off,
and it's kind of literally becoming a hit song again.
Amazing.
We haven't talked about Kate Bush that much on the show.
Jake, I'm curious.
What's your relationship with Kate Bush like?
I'm a fan.
I don't know it in a deep sense.
I know that record.
Hounds of Love?
Hounds of Love.
I was going to say, is it Cloudbusting?
No, Hounds of Love.
Cloudbusting is the song on that album.
Yeah, and I know the one before that, too.
It's been-- I'm a little rusty, I've got to say,
but in my life, I've spent a lot of time with her music,
but it's been years.
Well, her first big hit ever in the UK
was "Wuthering Heights."
That was a number one.
That's what I'm thinking of.
A debut number one single, and that's--
Yes.
I'm sure like many people, that got me into Kate Bush.
Like many Americans, I had never heard that song casually.
I guess in the UK, it's a classic.
That was like a number one hit when she was maybe like 16 or something.
What?
And her story is cool.
She was like semi-discovered by David Gilmour from Pink Floyd.
Oh, I didn't know any of this. Wow.
Worth noting that she produced--
after a certain point, she produced all her own stuff,
including "Running Up That Hill."
So when you think about it that way, Kate Bush is also--
Woo, woo, woo.
--a very influential and sick producer,
in addition to being a great singer and songwriter.
But I knew very little about Kate Bush
until I think I was like 16 or 17,
and I was just getting--
I was just like obsessed with music,
and I'd always be psyched to get my hands on like
an English music magazine,
just because the way they wrote about music
was a little bit different.
You know, a picture like the late--
Yeah.
--like '99, 2000, somebody handed me a copy of Q.
I was really fascinated by it.
Anyway, at some point, there was some list of songs,
and of course there's a ton of crossover
with what American critics at the time
considered classic music in the UK.
It was some list, and it said something about Kate Bush, "Wuthering Heights,"
and I'd read the book "Wuthering Heights" and enjoyed it,
and I was like, "What is this [bleep]?"
"Kate Bush sounds familiar."
"What-- there's a song called 'Wuthering Heights'?"
And they're like, "Oh, this was the number one single?"
It all sounded so weird and exotic.
And I think on--
maybe on some like early Soul Seek or something,
I like downloaded "Wuthering Heights,"
and I was like, "This [bleep] is crazy."
It really is.
I still love that song.
Wait, should we listen to that real fast?
Yeah, yeah, we could do a little Kate Bush rundown.
I haven't heard that song in so long.
I'm very excited to hear it.
[piano music]
So what year is this, by the way?
I think like '78.
Did I get a number crunch, Seinfeld?
'77.
Wow, right as punk is blowing up.
[piano music]
But I think-- yeah, it's so funny, this music.
It's like-- it's a little bit like easy listening
or like kind of like musical theater.
Wait, wait, wait, I gotta clarify.
March '77 is when it was written,
came out in '78, January.
Ah, okay.
You are correct.
It could be really bad.
Yes.
But it's really good.
♪ Tell me I was going to lose the guy ♪
♪ To leave me high and die ♪
♪ Walking through, walking through, walking through the high street ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Kiss me, I can't see, I can't hold my-- ♪
This song is also so weird.
I could picture like a young punk rocker
listening to like The Clash and Suzy and the Banshees
and Sex Pistols hearing this and being like, "Ah, man."
I mean, the melodies are just so strong.
The key changes so much.
♪ Oh, it gets dark ♪
♪ It gets cold feet ♪
♪ On the other side of you ♪
♪ I find the light ♪
♪ Close to you and empty ♪
Well, I remember like in the '90s,
I was really into Bjork for a while.
And part of it was that she seemed like she
emerged fully formed from like another planet.
I was just like, "What is this music?"
And then I heard Kate Bush and I was like,
"Oh, it makes a little more sense though."
Yeah, there's definitely some crossover.
I wonder if Bjork listened to Kate Bush,
but like, yeah, that kind of the drama.
I'm sure.
And the sophisticated, like harmonic language.
All which is to say, not to take away from Bjork,
but just Bjork seemed a little less alien.
Right.
When I heard Kate Bush.
Whereas Kate Bush, maybe seems a little alien.
It's hard to think of what came.
Joni Mitchell, McGregor sisters.
I guess David Bowie.
Yeah, Bowie.
In 2021, Bjork told Far Out Magazine,
her favorite 11 albums of all time.
And Kate Bush's "The Dreaming" is on there.
Boom. All right. Good call, Jake.
♪ Whoever you are, it's me ♪
One thing I love so deeply about this song
is the guitar solo on the outro.
Yes, at the end.
It truly is one of my favorite guitar solos of all time.
It's beautiful.
♪ In the end, I'll win the world ♪
♪ Deep in the core, it's me ♪
♪ I can't be a fool no more ♪
♪ I'll win the world ♪
♪ In the end, I'll win the world ♪
♪ Deep in the core, it's me ♪
♪ I can't be a fool no more ♪
♪ I'll win the world ♪
Here it comes.
♪
Shout out to Ian Barnstone.
♪
He was on the Alan Parsons Project.
Oh.
♪
So quiet.
Yeah.
Oh, man, he played in the Bay City Rollers.
Oh.
He played in that band Pilot,
who had that hit single "Magic."
Do you believe in magic?
♪ Ooh, it's magic ♪
Oh, "Ooh, it's magic."
Yeah.
This is my favorite part.
Right as it fades out.
♪
[laughs]
You know, I love it, man.
Like, an extended outro like that.
Tasty.
You know what would have been tight?
A Jerry Garcia band, like, 1980 cover of this.
Oh, my God.
I don't know if Jerry can handle that vocally.
No, he couldn't handle it vocally,
but just over that simple--
It'd be so rough.
♪ Heathcliff ♪
[laughs]
Jerry Garcia band, live at Keene College, 1980,
with Wuthering Heights.
[laughs]
But the solo would be sick.
♪ Bam ♪
Yeah.
♪ Dany, but Dany ♪
♪ Dany, Dany ♪
But it'd have that really clean,
that really clean, sparse Jerry tone.
None of this fuzz that that guy was doing.
Oh, yeah.
It would just be this--
♪ Beedle-dee, badda-beenum ♪
Yeah, it would basically be like the Ruben Charese version.
Amazing.
Just a beautiful song.
I remember hearing that for the first time,
just being like, "Oh, incredible."
But at the time, I didn't know anybody really who was--
like, Kate Bush was not a popular reference.
No.
And to be fair, that was a very quiet period,
so she wasn't really in the cultural consciousness.
She kind of dipped, which also I love.
Anybody who dips, I really respect that.
Yeah.
I guess from '78 to '91,
she was releasing a lot of music,
and then things really slowed down.
But then I think one of my friends
bought "Hounds of Love" at a yard sale,
and we all got super in.
There's another song, I think from the second or third album,
that me and all my friends really got into,
including Wes from Rara Riot, who went on to cover it.
Have you ever heard the song called "Suspended" in GAFA?
No.
No, is that not on "Hounds of Love"?
I only know "Hounds of Love."
Because between the "Wuthering Heights" there
and "Hounds of Love," I think there's like two or three albums.
Well, no, there's two.
Okay, there's "The Kick Inside,"
which is the first one with "Wuthering Heights."
There's "Lionheart."
There's "Never Forever,"
and then there's "The Dreaming."
So "Hounds of Love" is her fifth record.
Deep.
You're throwing "Suspended" in GAFA.
"Hounds of Love" ultimately topped the charts in the UK,
knocking "Madonna's Like a Virgin" from the number one.
That's amazing.
Kate Bush and Madonna, toe to toe.
Meanwhile in the US,
I think she was only just starting to be known on that album.
Oh yeah, me and my friends love this song.
This is on the JMA.
♪ So unless we can prove that we're doing it ♪
♪ We can't have it all ♪
♪ I've done it all ♪
♪ We can't have it all ♪
♪ I've done it all ♪
♪ Send me my feet, I'll feed you blood ♪
♪ It all goes so wrong ♪
♪ I don't know why I'm crying ♪
♪ I'm not suspended in GAFA ♪
♪ Until I'm ready for you ♪
♪ Until I'm ready for you ♪
It's a little Beatles-y, a little like circus music.
Truly some weird sh*t.
One thing I love about it is,
it's always like,
"What the f*ck does 'Suspended' and 'GAFA' mean?"
Then like finally read somewhere
that GAFA is what some people in the UK call "GAFFER TAPE."
Uh-huh.
It's a song about gaffer tape in a sense.
Like she's saying, "I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in gaffer tape?"
Which is just so weird. I love that.
Yeah. Is that black gaffer tape?
Yeah.
I mean, her stuff,
it like verges on the musical theater circus energy,
but it never goes into that like dorky aesthetic
that that stuff frequently can.
She really rides the line.
Oh yeah.
And in the videos,
there's some like real wild over-the-top dancing.
So like, did she...
She must have like toured the US in the 80s.
Like when like Kate Bush like played LA in like '85
on the Hounds of Love tour.
Where was she playing?
I'd love to know that.
Seinfeld, did Kate Bush ever tour the US?
She must have.
So Kate Bush only toured once in 1979.
What?
Apparently. Let me see if I can...
She tried killing it in the UK,
touring the UK and Europe and like releasing so much music,
it probably didn't make sense to go like...
Can you imagine if like Kate Bush played at like...
She'd play at the Hollywood Bowl now.
If she came to LA now.
She could probably do three nights at the...
Well, now she could probably do four nights at the Hollywood Bowl.
She also did a residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2014.
22 dates.
Is that in New York?
That was in London.
Uh-oh.
For her first time live since touring in '79.
Wait, what?
So she just didn't tour in the 80s.
Beatles style.
Yeah, she only toured 28 dates in Europe in 1979.
The only time she's performed in the US was for Saturday Night Live.
What?
In '79?
Yeah, '78 was her...
SNL performance?
Eric Idle was the host.
Oh, very English episode.
Yeah, I guess she was posted up.
Just like making these albums.
Probably making videos, probably doing some promotional appearances, but...
Wow.
♪ Until I'm ready for you ♪
♪ Until I'm ready for you ♪
It was interesting.
I remember kind of towards the end of college, it was unclear what caused it.
It wasn't like this, like a Stranger Things type thing.
But just suddenly every kind of cool, interesting person I knew was talking about Kate Bush.
I kind of even remember when YouTube was new, being in college and just somebody being like,
"Yo, check this out," and they threw on a Kate Bush video.
And I was like, "Oh, okay, interesting choice."
There was just this turning point.
And then, I don't know, she had a later single called "This Woman's Work" and Maxwell covered it.
So I guess some people knew that.
But anyway, many people believe that Kate Bush kind of reached her high point with the album The Hounds of Love
and then running up that hill.
So I kind of get the impression that running up that hill was a big hit in the UK.
I bet in the US, it was probably on some college radio station, late night alternative type s***.
Because she just wasn't a pop star here.
She didn't have this precedent.
People weren't like, "Oh yeah, remember she had those big hits in the late 70s."
It reached number 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
And I bet that until now, that's probably the highest she ever got in the US.
This was her first... So the return of this song was her first top 10 in New Zealand, Canada, and the US.
Amazing.
To me, this is such a point of reference.
This reminds me of when Vampire Weekend first came out.
I don't know, there were so many bands that were doing this kind of dark 80s...
Like synth? Yeah.
[singing]
It's a great groove.
I think I heard this because I had an iPod.
And my friend Steve would put on a ton of music on my iPod.
And I didn't know what it was.
And I just threw on the Hounds of Love.
I just would scroll to a random name.
And I remember listening to this and driving and just being like, "This is amazing."
Like to first listen, just being like, "I'm in."
Yeah.
That groove.
That groove and that just iconic...
[imitates synth]
Weird synth line.
[singing]
[imitates synth]
[singing]
Well, it's so weird too.
You're talking about indie rock from 15 years ago.
This place that we're in with aesthetics, this doesn't sound old.
Yeah. It only marginally.
It has a little bit of a tape sound.
But other than that, yeah, aesthetically.
[singing]
It's just hard to picture.
I mean, yeah, I don't want to be a hater.
Are there big hits, not counting this song, in this era that are just quite this weird and poetic?
I'll make some Smith stuff.
I don't know.
No, but I mean in our era, big pop songs.
Stuff we'd hear in the top five, like Morgan Wallen.
Where's Morgan Wallen's running up that hill?
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there's something.
Of course, there's always people.
I'm just saying it's quite a unique moment when this would be number one in the UK.
Yeah, I mean, I could hear this right next to later period Weekend.
Yeah, Weekend probably likes Kate Bush.
Well, it's so funny because we've heard a lot of '80s influenced Harry Styles and Weekend on the top five the last year or two.
And then it's funny that this was on Stranger Things and kind of punches through the noise.
And it's sort of like, let's just get back to the original.
Right, cut out the middle, man.
I mean, and the dope thing about Kate Bush is like, I guess you could say that this is true of many of the greatest of all time figures.
She makes something close enough to pop music that she had many hits in her day.
But she's thinking about and reading stuff as esoteric and weird as any like weirdo noise artist.
You know what I mean?
That's what you want. Like those truly are like the goats, the Kate Bushes, the David Bowies, like even like the Kanye's or something.
People who like are they have this knack for kind of songwriting and pop form.
And yet they arguably are as weird, if not weirder than anybody you would meet in any kind of like underground scene.
You know, they're that idiosyncratic. Like it's the best combination.
All the best people have some version of that.
Well, we could talk about Kate Bush forever.
I just want to end on one more Kate Bush song because I didn't know this song until actually pretty recently.
And this is some cool like later Kate Bush.
Well, not later because this is the last album before her hiatus.
And there is cool stuff on like the 2000s era stuff.
But this is the last album of her kind of like original run from 78 to 93.
This album is called The Red Shoes.
Can you throw on the song You're the One?
Because it's just like a different side of Kate Bush.
This is her doing kind of like a Prince thing.
My friend played this for me last year.
Wow, 93.
Yeah.
It's alright too. It's just everything I do.
We did together.
And there's a little piece of you.
And whatever.
I got everything I need.
I got petrol in the car.
I got some money with me.
There's just one problem.
I love this.
She's not doing like the mystical thing.
It's kind of like a regular breakup song.
You're the only one I want.
You're the only one I want.
You're the only one I want.
A song like this could come out today and it would be sick.
Oh, totally.
Imagine this is like a new Frank Ocean song.
So sick.
I'm going to stay with my friend.
Alright, well that's it for Time Crisis.
Go listen to some Kate Bush.
See you guys in two weeks. Peace.
He's not you.
He can't do what you do.
He can't make me laugh and cry at the same time.
Let's change things.
Let's danger it up.
We're crazy enough.
I just come taking...
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
View on TCU Wiki | Download Episode | Download CSV | Download Transcript